What is Totalitarianism?
Totalitarianism is a form of government where the government has complete, direct control over its citizens and economy. Totalitarian governments exist when dictators or monarchs with access to absolute control or who gain absolute control, use the full power of it on its citizens. Totalitarian governments exist very little today, but used to be the main form of government whenever a bad monarch was in power. Totalitarian Governments and Leaders -Soviet Union -Nazi Germany -Fascist Italy -Hirohito Reign of Tokyo -North Korea -Russian Empire under Autocratic Rule -Czar Alexander II -Czar Alexander III -Czar Nicholas II -Stalin -Lenin -Mao Zedong -The Pope -Kim Jong Un -Adolf Hitler -Benito Mussolini -Hideki Tojo Importance to the Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution had already had totalitarianism before the Soviet Union was established. The Russian Empire was under autocratic rule under many of the Tsars on the dawn of the Russian Revolution. The autocratic rule labeled people against the government, non-Russian Orthodox, and speakers of other languages as dangerous. It also had huge censorship of even regular letters. The secret police kept watch of everyone, and there was a feudalistic government that forced the proletariat to have low wages. When the Soviets took power, people didn't do work when they all got the same income, so they started forcing people to work. The communist secret police made sure everyone did their job. Under Stalin simply showing up late to work resulted in three years in prison. All of those against the governments were sent to concentration camps called gulags which forced people to work and get food or work less and starve to death. Stalin also enforced a great purge to get rid of defectors and dissidents to the system. Also there was great censorship of the press in the history of the Soviet Union in General. Only Bolshevik news was allowed. |