Totalitarian and the Soviet Union
By:Shuya Xie
HST112
1.Introduction
Totalitarianism first appeared after the First World War and countries like Italy, Germany and Soviet Union were the typical examples of totalitarian in that period (Stalin, p. 103; Nazilaws, p. 118; Mussolini, p.114)[ Stalin, Collectivization and the Liquidation of the Kulaks, (1929)
Nazilaws, Laws Establishing the Hitler Dictatorship, (1933)
Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism”, (1932)]. In order to be better informed of totalitarianism, it is essential to do research in Stalin’s dictatorship in Soviet Union. According to Giovanni Amendola, totalitarianism can be defined as the administration mode of a certain government that spares no efforts to have control over each aspect of people’s life. More specifically, totalitarianism refers to a specific governmental system where citizens and their life are under the supervision of the government. Meanwhile, citizens’ life is also monitored and no privacy can exist among the citizens (Arendt, p. 5)[ Arendt, Hannah. The origins of totalitarianism.Vol.244. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, (1973).]. The government guides the public ideologically and exerts influence on the life of people.
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As a defeated country, Russia suffered a lot at the expense of ground, natural resources and its train system. When Lenin was dead, Stalin succeeded him and became the new leader of the state. As soon as Stalin came to power, he began to make a five-year economic plan for the sake of realizing Lenin’s dream of turning Soviet Union into an industrialized country. Meanwhile, he also took some measures within the party. He obliterated the party and got rid of the rivals. As an active advocate of totalitarianism, he deployed some typical approaches in the process. These approaches include terror reign, dissemination and persecuting actions. The paper is going to delve into these approaches (Stalin, p. 103)[ Stalin,
Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1914, Joseph Stalin took up his position as leader of the Soviet Union. After rising to power, Stalin made drastic changes to Russia that was still torn from war at the time. With his power, Stalin aimed to bring Russia to the top of the world. In the end, while he pushed the Soviet Union’s economy to new heights, his methods were cruel and had negative impacts. After the war, Stalin was determined to turn Russia into a great industrial power.
Joseph Stalin became dictator of the Soviet Union in 1928 (“Joseph Stalin – Powerful Communist Ruler”) after the death of Russia’s former ruler Vladimir Lenin (“Joseph Stalin”). In the late 1920’s he created a sequence of five year plans which were created to alter the Soviet Union from a peasant society into a country that was industrially advanced (“Joseph Stalin.”) after he realised Russia was far behind in comparison to the west (“Joseph Stalin.”). The idea was for the government to control the economy in which they forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, the idea in which the government controlled farming.
He thought up two plans, known as the first and second five year plans, to catch Russia up to the rest of the world in ten years. To do this, Russia’s economy would turn into a command economy. Each industry had a target goal to reach and all government money was invested into industry, energy, and transportation. This had both positive and negative consequences. The production of consumer goods decreased but amazing progress was made.
The Primary objective of all leaders should be to control citizens. A society that allows authority to be challenged will never succeed. This source depicts an authoritarian or totalitarian view of what a governing body should look like. The author suggests that the primary objective of government should be the “control of the citizens”, and therefore that the individuals should entirely obey said government.
This is an example of how he removed freedom of speech. The men were not allowed to speak or act poorly towards Stalin. He also ran a totalitarianism government. Totalitarianism is a strict form of government with no means of privacy. People had to be careful of what they said and did because they never knew if they were being watched.
Question: Evaluate the rule of Stalin in the Soviet Union, taking into consideration the changes made and the methods used. Russia’s turbulent start in the 20th century was characterized by their involvement in the first world war, being the critical factor in the Bolsheviks seize for power in the October Revolution in 1917. Vladimir Lenin rose into power and lead Russia toward a communist nation with extreme centralization and doctrinaire socialism but the Kronstadt Rebellion of March 1921 forced Vladimir Lenin to begin the New Economic Party in order to stay in power. The policy allowed private ownership and management of agriculture, trade, and small businesses. However, upon Lenin’s death in 1924, rose Joseph Stalin as the leader of
Vaclav Havel wrote his essay “The power of the powerless” as a description and critique of the totalitarian communist government and its system. He states that Communism is different to the other types of dictatorship as it is alike a “secularized religion” rather than the usual dictatorship, which do not have any social of historical background and come to power just by the military power. He also described how the individuals are responsible for getting under the autocratic regime due to their agreement to live in a society of consumers, where the supplier is the government, expecting everyone to go with the strict order of life. In case those individuals decide to participate in that and “live within a lie”, they are bounded with the communism.
Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.
Throughout history governments have evolved in their laws and ruling tactics. It has also changed the way literature has been portrayed to the readers. This essay is based on Totalitarian government. Totalitarianism is a form of government that whereabouts the fact that the ruler and government is an absolute control over the state. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Benito Mussolini are some of the dictators that had total control over the people and state.
Hannah Arendt one of the most influential scholars who defines Nazism as totalitarianism and describes totalitarianism as a novel form of government and domination (Arendt, 1953 : 303). Arendt explains how totalitarianism operates to transform the society into a total domination as follows, Wherever it rose to power, it developed entirely new political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political traditions of the country... totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system, not by one-party dictatorships, but by a mass movement, shifted the center of power from the army to the police, and established a foreign policy openly directed towards world domination (Arendt, 1953 : 303). Thus, according to Arendt, totalitarianism is “a chaotic, non-utilitarian, manically dynamic movement of destruction” (Canovan, 1999 : 26).
Herbert Marcuse was known to have focused on how technology was used for cultural and social control in what he believed to be our increasingly irrational society. Marcuse considered it irrational because of its destructive nature and its inability to meet the growing number of its people 's basic needs. In many ways, it is not inherently irrational, but the actions of the elites and the oppressive structures in and of themselves may appear to be irrational. It is suggested that as traditional forms of authority, the monarchy, for example, were overthrown and a democratic regime formed and it was believed that individuality began to emerge.
After World War I had ended in November 11, 1918 with the victory of the Allies, the people of many nations were in distraught. They had sought the leader they hoped would bring back their nations glory and prosperity. Some even hoped for even better than before the World War. Through all this chaos and distraught even more had been produced as few stepped up to lead the people of the nations. These few people had held all the power through a totalitarian government which centralizes all the government’s power to one person known as a dictator.
What is it like to live under the control of totalitarian government? The state will control every aspect of the individual’s life, meaning that people will not have any individual freedom and will be controlled by the authority of the government. Totalitarian governments do not accept any self-led activities, either those performed by individual or group of people. Totalitarian regimes often maintain their authorities through secret police, spread of propaganda through medias and prohibits open criticism against the government. Both mental and physical threats are simultaneously performed in order to maintain the control over the society through fear.
Totalitarianism in 1984 and the Real World The concept of a totalitarian society is a major theme throughout the novel 1984. This theme of totalitarianism can also be applied to the world today. The definition of totalitarianism, a concept used by some political scientists, is a state which holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible. Totalitarianism can be related between the novel 1984 and current events in the real world. George Orwell incorporated the theme of totalitarianism into his novel 1984 to display the ever changing world around him during the time it was written.
Multiple sources will be used from print media to internet sources to give a thorough look into what ‘Totalitarianism’ and ‘liberal democracies’ are. Conceptual Orientation: • Democratic: Government by the people,