Transcript RISE OF DICTATORS

RISE OF DICTATORS
Benito Mussolini
• Became the dictator of Italy
– Becomes known as Il Duce or “the leader”
• In 1919 he founded the National Fascist Party
– Fascism = an authoritarian form of gov’t that places
the good of the nation above all else, including
individual rights
– Push extreme nationalism and love for the state
– Envisioned an aggressive state ruled by a strong allpowerful leader, tended to glorify violence
• In 1922 Fascists became a major force in the Italian
parliament
– Mussolini organized his followers, called the Brown
Shirts, and led the March on Rome
– The King of Italy made Mussolini prime minister
• Mussolini than started to consolidate power by
terrorizing opposition and shooting their leaders
• He soon gained control of the press and outlawed
all other political parties
• Mussolini did make an agreement with the Catholic
Church, called the Lateran Pact
– Established Vatican City as an independent state and
in return the pope officially recognized Italy
• Mussolini wanted to build a glorious Italian empire just
like in Roman times
Joseph Stalin
• Became the dictator of the Soviet Union
– Used other leading members of the Communist
party to outmaneuver the frontrunner after Lenin
died
– Once he achieved this goal, he then either exiled or
killed the people he used
– Turns himself into a living god of Communism
• Introduced Five-Year Plans
– Each factory and mine had production goals set by
the state
– Led to increases in industrial output, but not for
consumer goods
• Collectivization = combine private farms into larger,
mechanized state-run farms
– Peasants, who received land under Lenin, lost their
lands and then are forced to work on these collective
farms
– Peasants who protested were either executed by
Stalin’s police forces or sent to the system of labor
camps in Siberia called the Gulag
– People in the Ukraine resisted and Stalin allowed
millions to starve to death in retaliation
• Stalin killed millions of people he thought were or could
plot against him
– In the late 1930s he wiped out most of the military
officer corps
– In 1936 he launched a series of show trials, in which
people were tortured until they confessed to what
Stalin wanted them to say
• He used this to wipe out the Old Bolsheviks,
people who had been in the party prior to 1917
• Ten million people were arrested, several million
were immediately executed, others sent to the
Gulag
– Also tried to wipe out the middle class
• Stalin ruled with an iron fist and ruthlessly removed all
opposition, real or imaginary
Adolf Hitler
• Became the dictator of Germany
– Born in Austria, failed artist, fought for Germany in
WWI
• After the war he joined the National Socialist
Party, or Nazi for short
– Tries to seize power in the Beer Hall Putsch
– Fails and Hitler goes to jail, where he writes Mein
Kampf or “my struggle”
– It outlines his major political ideas and goals
• Decided to reinvent the Nazis as a political party
and use the existing political structure
– Creates the S.A., the Nazi army, which went around
intimidating opponents and causing violence
– Hitler promised to fix the economic problems and to
overturn the Treaty of Versailles and bring glory back
to Germany since Germans were the master race
– By 1933 the Nazi party gained the majority of seats in
the German parliament and Hitler was named
Chancellor
• Once in power, Hitler passed a series of acts that gave
him almost total authority
– Banned all political parties except the Nazis and
trade unions as well
– Hitler now had to appease the only threat left, the
German army
• The army didn’t like the power of the S.A.
• 1934 the “Night of the Long Knives” = Hitler has
the leaders of the S.A. murdered
• Following this attack, the German army pledges
their complete loyalty to Hitler
• Hitler becomes a totalitarian ruler, taking the title of
Fuhrer
– He was glorified as a great ruler and used
propaganda to control the German people
– Created Nazi youth organizations brainwash young
Germans
– Began to rebuild the German army and economy
– Also put his anti-Semitic beliefs into action, which led
to the Holocaust and millions dying
Hideki Tojo
• Became the dictator of Japan
• Many Japanese lost faith in their gov’t during the Great
Depression and turned to the military for leadership
– The military began to promote the fighting spirit of
Japanese troops
– Put military personnel in public schools, children
began to learn aspects of warfare
• 1930s Japanese soldiers and military leaders carried out
a series of assassinations of gov’t officials
– The gov’t grew more dominated by the military
Francisco Franco
• Became the dictator of Spain
• In the 1930s the Spanish Civil War broke out
– One side was the Nationalists, a fascist-like group, led
by General Franco
– They fought against the Republicans, who were
trying to save the democracy
– Italy and Germany helped out Franco by testing their
new weapons on towns that did not support him
– France and Great Britain refused to help the
democracy, so it ended up getting help from the
Soviet Union
• Franco wins and sets up a dictatorship in Spain