Extracts from this document...

Introduction

On dictatorship. Having been commissioned by Mr Alderson to make some sort of attempt to give the magazine a somewhat left wing feel, I've decided to write about a topic to which the majority of readers know something about and can thus relate to it. But then I decided against it... Living in 21st century Western Europe, in relative harmony and peace, with guarantees of freedom of speech, worship and body art, and more or less free from fear of big brother, one is perhaps understandably distant from the issue of dictatorship. When the average self-acclaimed intellectual is put to question on the issue, they will typically throw up clich�s advocating democracy, slating totalitarianism and somewhat mention human rights if they are really liberal. It has always intrigued me that Stalin always gets brought up first in these deliberations as opposed to Hitler. Westerners view Stalin as a larger than life demon. He is the legend, which the children of the west in the cold war era used to scare their younger siblings into compliance. Yet Stalin failed, in nearly every aspect, to match his Fascist counterpart. Where the 5-year plan fell short in the USSR the economic reforms in Germany succeeded. Where Hitler was a genius orator, Stalin was an inarticulate public speaker with a heavy Georgian accent. ...read more.

Middle

To understand the mentality of such a tyrant would be like trying to see the world from the point of view of a schizophrenic. Power for power's sake, with an ambition to play God and in the frenzy of dominance with all human feeling and reasoning fled, such a man is dangerous to accommodate in the world. Modern equivalent to these whims of warped minds would be the millennium dome and/or the star-wars missile defence system. Dictators have often used the pretext of a political belief system to come to power. The fascists used the oppression of the treaty of Versailles, the Bolsheviks used the oppression of the bourgeoisie and the French bourgeoisie used the oppression of the aristocracy to each reach their goals. The oppressed almost always end up being the oppressors. A favourite theme which is used by the oppressed desperately striving to be the oppressor is "freedom." Bolshevism freed the peasants and workers from the tyrannical grip of the Tsarist Russia. Nazism freed the German people from the unjustness of the treaty of Versailles. Indeed the people have been freed. Masses of the oppressed have been freed into gulags, collective farms, and NHS hospitals. Therefore it can be safely said that there is never freedom under dictatorship. ...read more.

Conclusion

The invisible hand is still very much present. Its unyielding stranglehold upon its willing victims is pushing capitalism towards cancerous corruption. This global dictatorship has outlived and outclassed the likes of the Third Reich and the USSR. Today, this ancient tyranny has taken on a new guise. It hides behind the convenient practice of democracy. Indeed governments do change, but this dictatorship remains eternal. Its labour gulags are equipped with the latest PentiumIII's; the inmates have mobile phones, and its propaganda machine injects poison into the minds of people with a newborn subtlety and sophistication. We are all keen and eager slaves of this regime. Like fools we do not feel its oppression, yet each and every one of us have been enslaved from birth to death. Like programmed robots we rise and do as our taskmaster bids; and like philistines we stubbornly sweat and toil to drive its giant machinery, yet we feel fulfilled from our fruitless labour. Each morning we rise up and salute our shapeless Fuhrer with religious zealousness. In a successful capitalist social order we need no tyrant, for we are our own oppressors. We have no need for a secret police, as money guarantees our obedience. And we may never break free of its tyrannical grip, as there is no opposition. Our worldwide dictatorship looks promising. ...read more.

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our AS and A Level Modern European History, 1789-1945 section.