Thi Trinh

Period 3
April 10, 2014

Compare and Contrast Essay: Totalitarianism

Starting as a twentieth- century phenomenon from 1917 to 1933, totalitarianism
governments began to start taking over European countries after the upheavals of World War I
and the Great Depression. From the aftermath of these events, the rise of new sorts of brutal
dictatorship began to rise, known as the totalitarian state. Totalitarianism is the theory of
governments in which a single party or leader controls the economic, social, and cultural lives of
its people. Among the line of totalitarianism, there are two types of its government, fascism and
communism. Fascism is a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power,
forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and
emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.. Communism is a system of social
organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state
dominated by a single and self-perpetuating political party. Totalitarianism, led by many great,
aggressive leaders known as dictators, destroyed the peace established after World War I.
Eventually, the rise of this all led to the spark of a new and even deadlier, global war. As an
inference from this fact, countries were eventually overruled, such as Russia, taken over by
Joseph Stalin, a communist dictator, Italy, taken over by Benito Mussolini, a fascist dictator, and
then Adolf Hitler, a fascist that killed over a million Jews and many other varieties of innocent
souls, taking over Germany.
Among the relationships between the different governments of totalitarianism,
communism and totalitarianism are connected based on their beliefs that the whole of the people

should be a part of the state, assumed aseverything in the state, nothing outside the state,
nothing against the state. It is a belief where there should be no social structures of any sort, no
nations, no family, not even a state, that everyone should be part of the international proletariat.
For example, there was Stalin who was not a communist, because he was also a nationalist, as
were almost all the other communist leaders. Besides Stalin taking over Russia, there was also
Vladimir Lenin, before Stalin taking over his position, who was the first communist leader to
create the beginning of the totalitarian system of control to maintain power; his programs
resulted in the civil war, starvation, famine, and the death of millions of Russians. With
communism by itself, the role of a communist condemns socialism by supporting private
property, having special uniforms and salutes, each class being in a society that maintains and
function place, not following a predesignated ideology, appealing to middle class industrialists,
and using history and religion to support nationalists. In contrast to communism to
totalitarianism, there is also fascism,.
Fascism, as stated previously, is a political system where the nation or the race of the
nation are more favored than the individuals. In a fascist nations, individual freedoms are not
very common when compared to an overall goal of protecting the country. Compared to fascism,
totalitarianism is the presence of a total ruling or dictatorship. With the two together, the
relationship are not exactly mutually exclusive, because a fascist state is often ruled by a
totalitarian leader; however, the totalitarian state doesnt exactly have to be a fascist. An example
to define what fascism is is Mussolinis fascist party that controlled Italy. When Benito Mussolini
finally took control of Italy in the year or 1919, he created organizations to trumpet nationalism
and communism, as he would promise the country a better future. By doing so, Mussolini would
build up his band of Black Shirts to go around the streets of the nation and fight with the

opposite opponents of other totalitarianism governments. By the end of it all, Mussolini

successfully took over the government and army within a few years; he outlawed political
parties, took over the press, created a secret police, organised youth groups to indoctrinate the
young, and suppressed strikes; fascism too, was also a part of the role that the German Nazis
took as a part of the totalitarian government.
Based on all the other types of governments of totalitarianism, the two that are most
common is fascism and communism. The two ideology are similar, because both sides have
government controls of the whole nations activity, no individual rights, glorifies military and
war, uses secret police, has a one party dictator, takes total control of the press, doesnt use union
or strikes, uses youth groups, mass rallies and parades to advertise their support, attempts to
control history and religion to support the ideas of the state, and has devotion to their own nation.
Compared to the similar things that they have in common, fascist parties are also different to
communist, because they seek classless society, international revolution, to eliminate religion,
allows no private ownership of land or property, and controls all aspects of the economy. Some
of the fascist parties from the historical events of our country are the Nazis in Germany. The
German Nazis, like Mussolini, favored fascism, because of hatred towards the rest of the
totalitarianism governments. As for example, Adolf Hitler, who led the Nazis followed the role
of fascism, as he bitterly opposed socialism , communism, or any other ism that promoted
class interests or workers rights above German ethnic solidarity.
The totalitarianism government system that I mostly agree with between the three is
communism. Communism supports private ownership of land or property, seeks to a classless
society, and eliminates religion. Besides my reason for preferring communism out of the other
three, I disagree on the system of having to be completely controlled. If I were to live in this type

of system though, life would be as if Stalin and Lenin were still alive and taking over Russia.
With the type of system that a communist supports, life would be fairly strict as I would have to
go through the process of following every strict aspect of life that the leader I follow demands of.
In this type of totalitarianism system, life would be without the fair and equal freedom that I have
right now.