Essay plan Mao and Hitler. Compare and contrast the rise to power of two rulers of single party states.

Paragraph 2: Mao possessed political knowledge, experience and leadership, while Hitler had no proper understanding of the political, thus was very opportunistic and lucky.

• Mao: Myth of the Long March – gain popularity and respect, while appealing to the mandate of heaven. PLA’s guerrilla tactics – defeated the KMT and proved Mao as a strategic leader.
• Hitler: Declining support for the Nazi Party – middle classes afraid of its extreme violence (July 1932 Nazi’s had 230 seats, November 1932 Nazi’s had 196 seats).
• Interpretation: Ron Rosenbaum argues that Hitler’s rise to power was strongly based on a series of fortunate events, which turned Germans in his favour.

Paragraph 3: Hitler and Mao possessed strong ideologies, which were even more effective through the fact both faced weak oppositions; the Weimar Republic and the KMT.

• Weimar Republic: Proportional representation – coalition governments were unstable and weak along with their policies. Article 48 – made the democratic system weak and useless as it provided absolute power to the president in case of crisis, crisis was a very vague term.
• KMT: War with Japan – weakened the KMT and exposed their unwillingness to protect China from foreigners, allowing CCP to expand its ideology through northern China (100 million communists by early 1940). Economic problems – KMT region faced massive inflations, which deteriorated the population.
• Interpretations: Jonathan Spence poses that it was only between 1946 and 1949 that the KMT truly came apart and became a weak opposition for the CCP.

Paragraph 4: Hitler gained political power democratically, while Mao became leader of China after fighting two Chinese Civil Wars.

• Mao: Defeat of the KMT – Won Second Chinese civil war in 1949 and became the leader of China. Sino-Japanese War – By winning such war in 1937 Mao gain even more popularity and support.
• Hitler: Gaining seats in the Reichstag – through propaganda and scheming Hitler was able to increase from 32 seats in May 1924 to 288 in March 1933. Enabling Act – Hitler used a legal process, article 48, in order to consolidate his powers as Fuhrer.
• Interpretations: Gary King argues that Hitler’s rise to power was completely legal and democratic just because the Weimar constitution was useless.