CH. 14 S. 2 - TOTALITARIANISM

A. A GOVERNMENT OF TOTAL CONTROL

TOTALITARIANISM – A gov’t that takes total, centralized control over every aspect of public and private life.

- Mass communication technology made it possible

- Secret police crush opposition, use fear as a tool to force obedience

- Indoctrination – instruction in the government’s policies to mold peoples’ minds

- Control of education – nursery school thru college – essential to the process of indoctrination

- Reinforced in youth groups, strongly enforced in schools

Propaganda and Censorship

- Propaganda that supports the dictator’s policies is essential

- Mass media is key to effective propaganda – all publications, broadcasts, art, film, music subject censorship by the gov’t

- False information is so prevalent it becomes accepted by citizens

- Violators are jailed or killed – including journalists, teachers, politicians

Religious/Ethnic Persecution –

- “enemies of the state” – minority religious/ethnic groups serve as scapegoats when things go wrong

- These groups are brutalized by the gov’t

The State > The Individual

B. Stalin Builds a Totalitarian State

- Police State – Stalin planted spies, tapped phones, read mail

- Secret police arrested and executed millions

The Great Purge, 1937 :

- Stalin then targeted other communist leaders

- Tortured officials were given show trials at which they would agree to plead guilty to crimes against the state in exchange for gov’t promises to leave their families unharmed – they were then executed

- Ended w/ Stalin in absolute control of USSR

- Those not executed were sent to Gulags – prison camps

Show Trials

Gulags

C. Stalin Seizes control of the Economy

- Stalin set up a command economy – a system where the gov’t made all economic decisions, controlled all means of production

- 5-Year Plans – set up to improve Industry

- Set quotas – numerical goals – for Steel, coal, electricity, & other industrial needs

- Consumer goods were scarce, made life harder

- 5-Year Plans – greatly increased industrial output, made USSR powerful

- An Agricultural Revolution

- small, private farms were confiscated and turned into large gov’t-owned farms called collective farms

- Peasants resisted – saw it as a loss of freedom

- Peasants destroyed crops, livestock in protest

- 5-10 million peasants killed as a result of collective farming

- Stalin forced peasants onto collectives – executed many