Topic #3 ~ Origins and
development of authoritarian and
single party states
 Major Themes
 Origins and nature of authoritarian and single party
states

Conditions that produced authoritarian and single party states,
emergence of leaders: aims, ideology, support; totalitarianism
 Establishment of authoritarian and single party states

Methods: force, legal; left and right wing ideology
 Domestic Policies and impact
 Structure and organization of government and administration
 Political, economic, social, religious policies
 Role of education, women, arts, media
Material for detailed study
 America: Cuba – Castro
 Europe: Hitler –
 Left Wing: Communism
~ Stalin & Castro
Germany, USSR – Stalin
Mussolini – Italy
 Right Wing: Fascism
~ Hitler & Mussolini
RISE
OF
STALIN
Characteristics of Authoritarian States
 Do not rise from mass movements or revolution
 Arise when conservative regime imposes undemocratic
measures
 They can arise following military coups
 Authoritarian regimes are firmly committed to
maintaining traditional structure and values
Leninism
 Organized Marx’s ideas for
political organization
 Need for small leading
group of revolutionaries
 Created tension b/w Lenin
& Trotsky (fellow
revolutionary)


Trotsky said that small
group could lead to dictator
Both though revolutionary
stages could happen quickly
Marxism-Leninism
 Term created by Stalin—used after death of Lenin
(1924)
 Considered “official” ideology
 “Socialism in one country”
 Political purges
 Used to promote the single-party state
Stalinism
 Dictatorial type of rule
 Reject socialist democracy:
 Rejected: government is in
the hands of the people
 Rejected: Immediate recall of
elected representatives
 National interests over the
interests of world revolution
Totalitarian Dictatorships
 Dictator imposes their will on:
 Party
 State
 Society
QUOTE: “Stalin’s police state is not an approximation to,
or something like, or in some respects comparable with
Hitler’s. It is the same thing, only more ruthless, more
cold-blooded…and more dangerous to democracy and
civilized morals”
The Russian Civil War
 1918, Lenin is the target of a
failed assassination
 The Lenin led government
launches the “Red Terror”
and has over 300,000
suspected sympathizers
executed
 The Russian Civil War will be
waged between the White
Army who seek a return to
Tsarist rule and the Red Army
that is protecting communist
rule and hoping to spread as
well
 The White Army will inflect brutality on its own people with mass
torture and executions
 Lenin will attempt to spread communism in Europe but will be easily
repulsed by Poland
 The U.S., France, Britain and Japan will provide assistance to the White
Army because they fear communism in Russia
 Russia does annex Georgia and Armenia
Political & Economic Problems
1921 -1924
What happened to Russia?
 Civil War broke after
the October Revolution
(This is when the
Provisional Gov’t is
overthrown)
 Bolsheviks (the Red
Army) vs. The Whites
 The Bolsheviks won in
1921
 Major policy
disruptions that caused
problems
War Communism
 All industry was nationalized and strict centralized







management was introduced.
State monopoly on foreign trade was introduced.
Discipline for workers was strict, and strikers could be shot
Obligatory labor duty imposed onto "non-working classes."
Prodrazvyorstka – taking agricultural surpluses from
peasants to redistribute.
Food and most commodities were rationed and distributed
in urban centers in a centralized way.
Private enterprise became illegal.
Military-style control of railroads.
How do we summarize “war
communism”?
 Ability to for the Bolsheviks to take total control
 Historian Richard Pipes argued:
 Bolsheviks used excuse of war communism to
eliminate private property, commodity production
and market exchange.
 The leaders expected an immediate and large scale
increase in economic output
New Economic Policy ~ Lenin
 Adopted in 1921
 Allowed small, privately owned firms and traders to
operate
 Established an alliance with peasants
 Allowed them to sell surplus to private markets
 State kept control of major industry and foreign trade
Effect of the NEP
 Left feared a restoration of capitalism
 Right argued that it was essential
 Though they overlooked fight between kulaks and
nepmen


Kulak—rich peasant
Nepmen—traders who gained money under NEP
Leon Trotsky vs. Joseph Stalin
 After Lenin’s death in 1924 there was a power struggle
within Russia of who would take over
 Trotsky was the man most feared by the other senior
members.
 Trotsky refused to compete for leadership. He was
absent at Lenin’s funeral saying that Stalin had told
him the wrong date (hummmm). In reality he seems
to have lacked the political will to fight.
 This left the door open for…….Stalin
Leon Trotsky
 Trotsky was exiled to Turkey.
 Stalin played the other members of the politburo off
against each other until they lost their government
posts.
The Rise of Joseph Stalin
 Joseph Stalin was born into a
poor class family,
 He was fascinated with
stories dealing with
overcoming insurmountable
odds
 He is a harsh man, he does
not attend his mothers
funeral and he does not
attempt to retrieve his son
from a prisoner of war camp
in 1917
The Rise of Joseph Stalin
 Stalin rises through the
ranks of politics through
ruthlessness and cunning
 He played his opponents
against one another and he
used his poor background
to appeal to the people
 During the Russian
Revolution he will serve as
a commissar
 He achieves complete
power by arresting or
executing his supporters
who put him in power
The Rise of Joseph Stalin
 He will put the country on
a crash course of
collectivization in which
the Russian state would
feed itself
 The Agriculture sector will
be moved to working in
heavy industry, this will
cause low food production
and starvation
 14 million are believed to
have been killed because of
this program
The Rise of Joseph Stalin
 He achieves complete
power by purging the ranks
of his supporters who put
him in power
 Grand trials will be held in
the public, this instills fear
and at the same time
loyalty
 In 1929 he becomes the
Secretary General of the
Communist Party
The Rise of Joseph Stalin
 “Russian Motherhood”
under the regime was
glorified as it sought to
increase its population
 To increase female
participation in the
state, women were
given the right to vote
in 1920
Stalin’s Rise To Power Key Dates
 1922 - Appointed General Secretary of the
Communist Party
1924 - Death of Lenin
1927 - Introduces the Five Year Plan and
collectivization
1929 - Emerging leader of the USSR
What circumstances aided Stalin in his
successful rise to power?
 Even though Trotsky was most likely to succeed Lenin
and take on the lead as Party Leader, yet he was very
much unpopular by the public and lost mass support
when he did not show up for Lenin's funeral
(which was set up by Stalin!!!) The people
interpreted his non presence as a sign of great
disrespect to Lenin, and thereby Trotsky was on his
way to become less and less popular.

What methods did Stalin employ to overcome his rivals in the
Stalin portrayed himself
as Lenin's
follower in Soviet
leadership
struggle?
propaganda in an effort to justify his efforts to take power Lenin was widely revered by the Russian working class and
class-conscious workers world wide, particularly those in the
communist parties of Europe.
 His theory of Socialism in One Country rather than
Permanent Revolution was in stark contrast to the principled
socialist stand of Lenin and his internationalist outlook.
 Stalin played one side against the other to take power: First, he
allied with Zinoviev and Kamenev to cover up Lenin’s Will
and to get Trotsky dismissed (1925). Trotsky went into exile
(1928). Then, he advocated ‘Socialism in one country’ (he said
that the USSR should first become strong, then try to bring
world revolution) and allied with the Rightists to get Zinoviev
and Kamenev dismissed (1927). Stalin put his supporters into the
Politburo. Finally, he argued that the NEP was uncommunist,
and got Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky dismissed (1929).
What was the nature of Stalin's
ideology?
 "Socialism in one country"
 The USSR followed the left-wing ideology of communism,
although this was adapted by Stalin according to what they
perceived to be the needs of the state. According to
Marxsim, the proleteriat were meant to rule, but in the
Soviet Union this can hardly be said to have been the
true when the Communist Party had so much control.
The reason for the dictatorship of the party was due to
Russia's backwardness and that the dictatorship of
the proletariat could not take place until people had
been educated to have correct values.
What were Stalin's aims
 Stalin wanted to strengthen Russia by modernization and
industrialization, in order for her to compete with the big powers!
 5 Year Plans – Series of economic plans to modernize and industrialize
Russia
 Collectives - this involved the creation of collective farms in which
peasants worked cooperatively on the same land with the same
equipment. This was intended to improve the efficiency of agriculture
and eliminate the "kulak" class of landowners, which was deemed
hostile to the Soviet regime, while improving the position of poor
peasants. The disruption and repression associated with
collectivization was a primary cause of the famine of 1932, which
resulted in millions of deaths.
Rise
of
Mussolini
Immediate Post-WW I Italy
 Fascism was a product of a general feeling of
anxiety and fear among the middle class:
 Fears regarding the survival of capitalism.
 Economic depression.
 The rise of a militant left.
 A feeling of national shame and humiliation at Italy’s
poor treatment by the other Entente leaders after
World War I [especially at Versailles].
Immediate Post-WW I Italy
 In 1920 the Italian
Socialist Party organized
militant strikes in Turin.
 Fear if economic chaos
spreading…
 “Black Shirts” violently
attacked the Socialists.
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
 Originally a Marxist
 By 1909, convinced that
a national rather than an
international revolution
was needed.
 Edited the Italian
Socialist Party
newspaper: Avanti!
[Forward!].
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
 The war was a turning point
for Italy.
 Returning combat soldiers
would form a new elite
 New elite would transform
Italian politics and society
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
 The war was a turning point
for Italy.
 Returning combat soldiers
would form a new elite
 New elite would transform
Italian politics and society
Mussolini Comes to Power
 1921 election  Fascists
included in the political
coalition bloc of P. M. Giovanni
Giolitti’s government [they win
35 seats].
 October, 1922  Mussolini
threatened a coup d’etat.
 “March on Rome”  25,000 Black
Shirts staged demonstrations
throughout the capital.
Mussolini Forms a Government
 King Victor Emmanuel III
refused to sign a law giving the
Italian military the ability to
stop the Fascists.
 Invited Mussolini to join a
coalition government
 1925  Mussolini seized
dictatorial powers during a
political crisis
The Fascists Consolidate Power
(1925-1931)
 Independent political parties & trade unions were
abolished.
 Freedom of the press was curbed.
 Special courts created to persecute any political
opposition.
 National police force created [with a secret police
component].
State “Corporatism”
 1926  The National Council of Corporations
created.
 Guilds of employers and employees established to manage
the 22 sectors of the economy.
 Supported by small capitalists, low-level bureaucrats, and
the middle class
 The goal  harmonize the interests of workers,
managers and the state by abolishing class warfare.
 The reality  This system stalled technological progress
and destroyed workers’ rights.
The Fascist Family
The Fascists encouraged the development of large families.
Education
 “Let us salute the flag in
the Roman fashion; hail to
Italy; hail to Mussolini.”
 Textbooks emphasized:
 The glorious pat of the
ancient Romans.
 The limitations imposed
upon the present
inhabitants by geography
and the West.
 The imperial destiny that
awaited Italy’s future
development.
Emphasis on Physical Fitness
Anti-Semitism
 50,000 Jews lived in Italy in the 1930s.
 Mussolini did NOT implement an extermination
program in Italy.
 75% of Italian Jews survived World War II.
 8,000 died in German extermination camps.
 1938 anti-Semitic laws passed

Manifesto degli Scienziati Razzisti [The Manifesto of the
Racist Scientists].



Excluded foreign Jews [most of them were sent to German
death camps].
Forbade all Jews from teaching.
Excluded Jews from serving in the government or in the military.
Mussolini Was Hitler’s Role Model
Rise
Of
Hitler
Hostile Peace
 On June 28, 1919: Treaty of Versailles ratified:
 War Guilt Clause
 No self-determination for many Germans
 Anschluss
 Rhineland occupied by the French
 Demilitarization
 Reparations
Weakness of the Government
 Proportional Representation
 Vote for parties NOT people
 Reichstag (like Congress/Parliament)
 President elected every 7 years, they choose the
chancellor
Weakness of the Government
Spartacus League (KDP)
•German Communist Party
•Extreme left wing socialist movement
•Tried to overthrow the government
through violent revolution
•Refused to work with SPD (Social
Democratic Party)
Conservative Elite
Not as hostile, but openly disliked the
government
Many veterans, judges, senior civil
servants
Nationalists
Had Freikorps: Conducted political
murders in the name of nationalism
SOURCE A:
“In the eyes of the right, the Republic was associated with the
surrender, a shameful and deliberate act of treachery, and the peace
treaty a further act of betrayal. The fact that the new republican
institutions were democratic added to the hostility. It was openly
said that loyalty to the fatherland required disloyalty to the
republic”
(Bullock Hitler, A Study in Tyranny)
Hitler Joins Politics
 National Socialist German
Worker's Party (NSDAP)
 Disorganized party
 Did not recognize the Weimar
Republic


Nationalist
Freikorps joined
 Anti- Semitism
 Hitler became the chairman of the
party in 1921
The Munich Putsch (The Beer Hall
Putsch)
 Hated the Weimar Republic
 November 8, 1923: Hitler held rally
at a Munich Beer Hall and
proclaimed “revolution!”
 Led 2,000 armed "brown-shirts"
(SA) to take over the Bavarian
government. (Lost)


Won national attention
Ruhr crisis and the great inflation
were at their height.
Prison Sentence
 Tried for Treason (gets 5 yrs. in prison)
 Wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in prison
 Outline his hatred of Jews and Communists
 Gave a history of the Nazi Party
Government Intervention
 Hitler decided to seize power constitutionally rather
than by force of arms.
 Golden Era for the Weimar Republic
 First Nazi election led to only 12 seats (2.6%) of the vote
 Hitler spoke to mass audiences


Wanted German people to resist the rule of Jews/Communists
Talked of creating a new empirerule the world for 1,000
years.
Nazis Gain Power
 In 1930Nazis vote went from 3% to 18%
 In 1932Hitler ran for President and won 30% of the vote
(Nazis held 107 seats)
 Hitler lost the presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg
 Hitler offered Vice-Chancellor (rejects it)
 Franz von Papen named chancellor—has major problems
 Kurt von Schleicher replaced von Papen
 Convinced of Nazi decline von Schleicher and von Papen
tried to harness their energy
Nazis Gain Power
 Hitler, Hindenberg and von Papen formed a coalition
 “Backstairs Intrigue”
 Hitler called for new election



Massive propaganda campaign
Reichstage Fire Blamed the Communist Party for starting
the fire…Hindenberg issued a decree for the “Protection of the
People”….took away peoples civil liberties & with Communist
party gone set the table for the Nazis
Nazis won 43.9% of the total vote
The Reichstag Fire, February 1933
 Reichstag building partially
destroyed by fire.
 Hitler convinced Hindenburg
to take strong action, and the
president suspended freedom
of speech and the press and
other civil liberties.
The Enabling Acts (1933)
 On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling
Act, which gave dictatorial authority to Hitler's cabinet
for four years.
Three Phases of Creating an
Authoritarian State
 Phase I (1933-1934): Hitler consolidated his authority through
the destruction of all other political parties
 Phase II (1935-1937): militarization and conversion of all
Germans to enthusiastic support of National Socialism.
 Phase III (1935-1939): rapid, diplomatic and military actions
to gain support while getting rid of opposition elements.
The Nuremberg Laws (1935)
 These laws defined a Jew as any person with at least
one Jewish grandparent.
 The Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of their rights as
citizens, and Jews were barred from marrying nonJews.
Kristallnacht (1938)
 Nazis organized a campaign of mob violence known as
the Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)
 destruction of synagogues and Jewish-owned
businesses.
 Jews were forced to wear a yellow star of David
 German Jewish community was compelled to pay for
damages.
Treaty of Versailles
Total Control
of State by a
Dictator
Black Tuesday
1929
- stock market crashes
Great Depression
during
1930s
Increasing influence of new
political parties that emphasize
state control
-For example: Communism,
Nazism, Fascism
HITLER
BECAME
CHANCELLOR
OATH OF
LOYALTY
TO
HITLER
THE
REICHSTAG
FIRE
THE
ENABLING
ACT
DEATH OF
PRESIDENT
HINDENBURG
THE NIGHT
OF THE
LONG
KNIVES
How did Hitler consolidate his
power?
 Nazi Military State
 Gestapo (secret police)
 SS (Defense Corps) Black Shirts, elite guard unit formed
out of SA
 SA – Stormtroopers, “Brown Shirts”
Nationalism, Rallies, Book Burnings, Propaganda, Youth
Movement
Hitler’s Storm Troopers
 SA – Sturmabteilung –
Brown Shirts – Original
Parliamentary wing of the
Nazi Party –
 Used to maintain control @
speeches, parties &
intimidating Jewish citizens
 Led to problems w/ the
military.
 Rumors of a military coup;
SA became disposable
Propaganda
 Propaganda was skillfully used
by the NSDAP in the years
leading up to and during Adolf
Hitler's leadership of Germany
(1933–1945). National Socialist
propaganda provided a crucial
instrument for acquiring and
maintaining power, and for the
implementation of their
policies, including the pursuit
of total war and the
extermination of millions of
people in the Holocaust.
Propaganda
 Hitler believed masses





could be won over easily
Censorship (Party
controlled 2/3 of private
newspapers)
Radio
Slogan (“Heil Hitler”)
Movies
Decorations on buildings
Anti – Bolshevik Poster
Consolidation Complete in 1938
 1934-Night of the Long Knives – Political purge between June
30th & July 2nd 1934 where Nazi regime carried out a series of
political murders
 Slowly began to transition the military into a Nazi force
 1935: Restoration of conscription—peacetime army of 500,000
 Military didn’t like the SS


suppose to be a domestic police force
Technically part of the “war time army”
 Some didn’t like the expansionist policies (Lebensraum) of
the pace of rearmament
War minister von Blomberg and Commander in Chief von Fritsch
both were dismissed
 Hitler became war minister.

Rise
of
Castro
Importance of CUBA
 90 miles off of the coast of Florida
 1901 Platt Amendment – 1934 stated US had right to
oversee Cuban economy, veto any international
agreements & intervene in Cuba’s domestic policies
 1934 – 1959 Military Dictator General Fulgencio Batista
~ supported by US ~ allowed increasing US control of
Cuban economy & political developments
 US retained important naval base at Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
 Unhappy with Batista’s regime and Cuba being little
more then a US satellite
 Castro was son of wealthy plantation owner
 Stood for congress in 1952
 Led attack on the army’s Moncada Barracks in 1953 =
failure (July 26th Movement)
 Imprisoned / released in 1955 / exile in Mexico
 December 1956 – leads small force of revolutionaries and
lands in Cuba – US places embargo not shipping
weapons to both sides – Guerrilla War ensued - Batista
flees Cuba for Dominican Republic
Castro’s revolution
 Fidel Castro looked for US aid initially
 US looks at Castro as similar to Arbenz in Guatemala with




his plans for land, health, and welfare reform
1959 CIA using Cuban exiles and hatching plans to disrupt
the Cuban economy and destabilize Castro’s gov’t
Cuba nationalized almost all US-owned companies = US
suspends Cuba sugar imports and US placed an embargo
on virtually all trade
Cuba signed a trade agreement in 1960 with SU which gave
Cuba credit for $100 million credit to purchase equipment
while SU promises to purchase 2 million tons of sugar a
year for next 4 years
Castro also signs trade agreement with communist China
Castro & Bay of Pigs invasion
 By 1960 Castro had nationalized the economy and came to
rely on Cuban Communist Party to provide administration
for reform programmers
 Castro established trade relations with every communist
state including SU, China, N. Korea and N. Vietnam
 CIA convinced Eisenhower to approve training of an
invasion force of right-wing Cuban exiles to overthrow
Castro
 April 15th, 1961 Kennedy authorized Cuban exiles with CIA
pilots to carry out air raids to knock out Cuban air force
Castro’s response
 Next day Castro announced Cuba intended to follow
‘socialist’ road in order to complete revolution
 SU sending large aid packages, including weapons
 April 17th 1961 – 1400 Cuban exiles land invasion at the
Bay of Pigs
 Attempted invasion was quickly defeated = US
humiliated
Why does Cuban missile Crisis
happen
 Kennedy remained determined to overthrow Castro
 Attempted assassination, planes to bomb or napalm
sugar and tobacco fields, CIA agents sabotaging oil
refineries, and sank Cuban merchant ships
 Castro fearing another invasion asks Khrushchev for
protection…May 1962 Soviet weapons on the rise
Cuban Missile Crisis
 Oct. 14th 1962 US U-2 spy plane returned with images
of missile sites under construction & Soviet missiles
had arrived
 ‘The Thirteen Days’ – closest US and SU come to war
 Kennedy Two Responses
 US would mount a naval blockade of Cuba then US
troops would invade island
 Khrushchev issued a reply that Soviet ships would not
respect blockade
 October 28th Khrushchev pulls missiles out of Cuba and
18 SU ships turn around and go home
Compromises
 Khrushchev sends personal letter to Kennedy
 Letter offered:
 Oct. 26th Withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba on
condition US lifted its blockade of Cuba and promised not to
invade island
 Oct 27th Khrushchev sends 2nd letter – asks US to remove
missiles from Turkey
 Oct. 27th Kennedy responds to the first letter – US would
remove blockade if SU missiles withdrawn from
Cuba…Kennedy agreed US missiles would be removed from
Turkey (would not go public)

If this doesn’t happen US invades Cuba the next day
Cuban Revolution & Cold War
 As early as 1963 US continued trying to assassinate




Castro
Castro hoped that Cuban Revolution would inspire
other countries in Central & Latin America and
Caribbean to revolt
US = feared this
Castro felt USSR used Cuba in its Global Contest and
differences between the two would follow
1968 Castro would publicly support the Warsaw Pact &
invasion of Czechoslovakia