The Rise of Dictators

Build up to World War II: Part I

Versailles Treaty• What do you remember about the terms of

the Versailles Treaty?

• Discontent– Germany: Reparations payments and the war

guilt clause– Italy and Japan: fought for the Allies and

expected more land for their involvement

Totalitarianism• A theory of government in which a single

party or leader controls the economic, social, and cultural lives of its people

• What would this look like in a society?

• How did this happen post-WWI? – “Desperate times call for desperate

measures”

Characteristics of a Totalitarian State• Single-party dictatorship exerting control over all

aspects of life• Strong, charismatic leader often at the head of

the government• State control of the economy• Use of police, spies, and terror to enforce the will

of the state• Government control of the media and use of

propaganda• Strict censorship to suppress dissenting opinions

Stalin in the Soviet Union• Took power after Lenin’s

death in 1924

• Focused on industrial power and state-run collective farms

• Responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people

• Used fear and massive propaganda

Mussolini in Italy• Leader of the Fascist Party

– Encouraged nationalism and promised to make Italy great again

– Black Shirts- Mussolini’s followers

• When he took power, Mussolini:– outlawed political parties– took over the press– created secret police– suppressed strikes

Hitler in Germany• After WWI- the Weimar Republic served as a weak

government with a tenuous democracy• National Socialist German Workers’ Party = Nazis• Hitler

– Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”)– Anti-Semitic (prejudiced against the Jewish people)– Became chancellor in 1933, then consolidated power– Ended the Depression in Germany with rearmament

and massive public-works projects

Japan

• Military leaders took advantage of the Depression to reassert their traditional roles in society

• Continued as a constitutional monarchy with Emperor at the helm

• Military aggression– 1931- attacked Manchuria

(northeastern China)– 1937- moved against China,

controlling major railroad links and coastal areas

Problems with the League of Nations

• America did not join, which weakened the League

• No standing army and no power to enforce its decisions

• As a result, couldn’t stand up to dictators when they turned to aggression

Germany Aggression

• Rearmament- defiance of the Treaty of Versailles

• Lebensraum- expanded living space for the German people

• 1936- moved German troops into the Rhineland

• 1938- invaded Austria, who was given little choice but to accept the Anschluss (union)

Italian Aggression

• 1935- Italy invaded Ethiopia, an independent country in East Africa– Ethiopia appealed to the League of Nations

for support– The League did almost nothing– Ethiopia fell to Italy

Appeasement

• Why did the world not react to these obvious acts of aggression?

• Appeasement: granting concessions to a potential enemy in hope that it will maintain peace

• Why?

– WWI had been so destructive

– Soviet Union posed a greater threat than Germany

– Isolationism

Munich Pact

• Sudetenland- area of western Czechoslovakia that was largely populated by ethnic Germans

• Britain and France met with Hitler and had him promise to stop aggression

• “Peace in our times”