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European History – Totalitarianism Questions?

Just looking for an educated answer on the few questions below, thanks.

Both Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany were totalitarian states. A totalitarian state controls thru coercion and allowing no political opposition. Each state had elections, and often 99 percent turned out to vote for nominees of the Communist Party, and Hitler’s Fascist Party.

If you didn’t vote, you’d be considered disloyal.
Both dictators built up their countries by investing most heavily in military equipment, and weapons.
They put unemployed workers (from World Depression of 1930’s) to work, and the people loved their leader for that.

Prisons filled up in these countries as opposition leaders were either arrested or exiled.

What is weird is that Hitler and the Fascist hated Communist Russia, the Soviet Union. Hitler used that hatred of communism to build up his support, he had to have a “bogeyman” to blame problems on.

He seized more power, by telling everyone that their were enemies/terrorists trying to take over, and destroy Germany. Jews also became victims of such hate.

In the Soviet Union, all wealth and businesses were controlled by the state, and key economic decisions were made by the Supreme Soviet (like our President’s Cabinet).

In Germany, they outwardly allowed “the people” to control wealth, but that didn’t matter much, since about 90% of the wealth belonged to about 5 percent of the rich businessmen, almost like the USA today.

Outwardly, Germany’s CEO’s were left in control of business operations, and key economic decisions, but in fact NO ONE could go against Hitler’s wishes, so that’s what made Germany’s economy much more like Communism, even though Facist and Communist were supposedly opposites, or different.

Often Communism is on the Far Left, and Fascism is on the Far Right, yet both used common tactics to control everything.
Communisms chief goal was equality of the masses, whereby Nazism was supreme control of everything by the “master race”, pure blooded Ayrians.

In order to keep power, contant wars or fear of outsiders was promoted by both Germany and the Soviets. Expansion and finding more “living room” was essential for their continued existence and to gain more world domination. History was re-written to justify their existence, and propoganda gave the people only the viewpoint that the government wanted the people to know.

What is interesting, that to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan, we supported the Soviet Union. We had to make a deal with the devil, so it seemed, and the “enemy of my enemy” because our friend during World War Two.

Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Truman made deals with Stalin for cooperation after the defeat of the Axis powers.

Unfortunately, the “peace” in 1945 failed, because the democracies never trusted the Soviets, and Stalin’s actions after victory, led to the Cold War, which lasted until the breakup of the Soviet Union due to failure of Communism.

And, in my opinion, it collapsed not because of the huge USA investment in our own military, but perhaps because the Soviets no longer could convince the Russian people that the USA was really as much a threat to them, as was their own system of totalitrian rule.

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