Both Hitler and Stalin were dictators and infallible leaders of their countries. As for Hitler, absolute power was achieved by merging Presidency and Chancellorship and inheriting the position of Commander-in-Chief after Hindenburg’s death in 1934. Hitler became the Führer and Reichskazler. The abolition of all other parties, the Reichstag and state parliaments, and finally the suspension of the Weimar Constitution helped vest all power in Hitler. Totalitarianism contains purges and reign of terror. On June 30, 1934, he launched the “Night of the Long Knives” to eliminate the populist wing of the SA whom the German army disgusted. At least 100 SA men like Rohm and leading Catholics were slaughtered. He then promised conscription and full-scale rearmament. The Reichswehr vowed him absolute obedience. Like Hitler, the first threat to Stalin came from within the party itself. Stalin consolidated his own dictatorial power by removing old Bolsheviks. About 8 million people were arrested, tried and sentenced to concentration camps or executed. Since the most experienced men were removed, the economic progress was slowed down. The use of “yes-men” in the bureaucracy also led to government inefficiency.
Needless to say, the Communist Party and Nazis were the only existing parties in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany respectively. Both had strict party discipline and claimed to be the elite. The Nazis and the CPSU members shared only 4% and 1.57% of the German and Soviet populations respectively. The regimes were organized in a hierarchy, headed by an all-powerful leader. Both Stalin and Hitler were the personification of the State, and both were the final interpreters of the official doctrines. Their ideologies claimed to explain and integrate all aspects of human existence. Both persecuted and humiliated many intellectuals who dared to question their infallibility.
In a totalitarian state there is usually a group of people suffering from political persecution and taken as scapegoats for all misfortune. In Germany Jews suffered the most. Anti-Semitism was codified by the Nuremberg Law of 1933. The Law to Restore the Professional Bureaucracy expelled all Jews from public offices. There saw official boycott of Jewish shops. Jewish property was looted. Millions of Jews were sent to concentration camps and shot to purify the Aryan race. David Thomson says, “Ballyhoo and brutality were made the foundations of the State”. In the Soviet Union, Stalin aimed at total liquidation of the class of kulaks. According to Marxism, kulaks were an exploiting feudal class and had to be eliminated. Besides, Stalin’s programme of farm collectivization aroused strong opposition from all kulaks. He simply replied with ruthless suppression. About 200,000 kulaks were killed, exiled or sent to forced labour camps. This nearly led to a civil war in 1929-31. Anti-Semitism also occurred.
In a totalitarian state a variety of fringe benefits are provided if people are absolutely obedient to the State. In the Soviet Union under the 1936 Constitution old age pension, sickness allowance and labour codes for workers were stated. There were also state health services and expansion of education. Russians were given compulsory free education; universities and technical institutes were widely established. In Nazi Germany subsidized holidays, cheap theatre, rent control and so on were provided. On the other hand, personal freedom was suffocated. In Germany there was no judicial independence. Appeals were impossible except to the Führer. All German boys over 14 had to join the Hitler Youth while all girls the League of German Maidens. Textbooks were re-written to fit in the Nazi theories. All students learnt, “The Führer is always right!” Independent labour unions were banned; all workers had to join and obey the Labour Front. Freedoms of speech, religion and press were disallowed. The Gestapo would find out and eliminate any “enemy of the State”. Likewise, in the Soviet Union, contrary to the Constitution various freedoms were absent. Extensive social control and restrictions on people’s basic human rights were imposed. Like Hitler, Stalin imposed indoctrination through education and mass media. All people learnt, “Stalin is always right!” and that Stalin was the “Father of the Nation”. The KGB used to keep an eye on the people’s daily life and activities. Both used powers of interrogation, making use of physical and psychological pressure to make people submissive. It was the Reign of Terror.
Totalitarianism contains ideas of planned economy aimed at self-sufficiency. In Nazi Germany State Capitalism was adopted by means of Four-Year Plans. Control of all economic activities was transferred to the State to attain autarky, prepare the whole nation and mobilize the economy for war. There saw strict control of foreign exchange, allocation of raw materials, planned investment and highly disciplined regulations of labour, wages, farming, prices and profit, etc. Industrialists were allowed to keep their own properties but were told what, how and how many to produce. Production was at Nazi disposal. Hitler got rid of unemployment with public works, expulsion of all non-Aryan employees and a massive rearmament programme. Yet Alan Bullock argues that economic prosperity and full employment could not last unless Germany expanded. In the Soviet Union the Five-Year Plans were carried out to achieve speedy industrialization and full employment. Unlike Nazi Germany, private property was discouraged here. By State Socialism major resources were nationalized. Durable goods and heavy industries were emphasized while consumer goods were sacrificed. By 1941 industrial production was 9 times bigger than that in 1913. Collectivization of farms was also conducted in full swing to increase agricultural production and liberate peasants from soil. As a result, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were able to escape the ill-effects of the Great Depression and provided people with full employment.
Nationalism is an element of totalitarianism. In Germany it was manifested by the racist and expansionist Nazi foreign policy. Other than repudiating the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler claimed that Germans were the master race entitled to seek any “living space” everywhere. Hitler carried out conscription, built up strong armaments, withdrew from both the Geneva Disarmament Conference and League of Nations, annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, and finally invaded Poland. All were to satisfy the popular nostalgic hankering of the return of German greatness. By contrast, Stalin’s foreign policy during the 1930s seemed to be pacifist. Before 1945 Stalin made no direct territorial annexation for Russia. He joined the League of Nations and disbanded the Comintern. By “Socialism in One Country” he promised not to support proletarian revolutions overseas. In fact, he just wanted to fish in troubled water over the hostility between Nazi Germany and the western democratic countries. In 1939 he signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, intending to get back the three Baltic States. Facing the imminent Nazi threat, moreover, Stalin gave up the Marxist idea of internationalism but stirred up enthusiasm of Russian nationalism at home. Hence, both aimed at territorial expansion.
To conclude, both Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Nazi Germany during the 1930s could be considered totalitarian states to a very large extent.
