Hitler In Germany And Mao In The People's Republic Of China
No country would ask for suppression and control as a natural system of government, and yet many governments have implemented this system after gaining power legally. Stalin in Russia, Mussolini in Italy, and (the two regimes used as examples in this essay) Hitler in Germany and Mao in the People’s Republic of China, exercised huge amounts of suppression and terror to drive their populations into submission. However, the role of terror, I would argue, is only useful in removing opposition to a regime – clearing the way for them to take power. They can only gain power through force, or popular support, and my exemplars use a combination of the two factors. The influence of popular support, however, is significant in mobilising a whole population
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This idea works well with both of these examples. Hitler’s oratory skills were genuinely impressive to many, given his passion and the popular nature of many ideas he discussed, such as reversing the German humiliation of the Versailles Treaty. Chairman Mao created a personality cult about himself to create an air of infallibility. This worked especially on the youth of China, often members of the notorious Red Guard, who carried the Little Red Book of Mao’s quotes around to use as their Bible, and who would protect the system he formed to the point of violent action. The charisma of a leader as a frontman and representative of a regime helps gain popular support, and I would argue that the role of popular support is more effective than use of force or terror in pushing a totalitarian regime into power, a principle of “mass mobilisation” outlined by Mao in his core ideology of Mao Zedong …show more content…
This again applies in the case of Nazi Germany and the rise of Chairman Mao in China. In a military sense, for instance, Germany was crippled by the Treaty of Versailles, with their army reduced to a humiliating 100,000 soldiers with no conscription permitted. Part of Hitler’s appeal was his aims to regain Germany’s former military status as a great power, by defying the terms of the Treaty and reintroducing conscription in 1936. Economically, much of China was pushed back to a juvenile system of bartering after the financial catastrophe that was the GMD government. For instance, prices increased by 1000% between February and May 1947. Even something as seemingly superficial as a territorial division could weaken a nation to the point that the face of such a regime would seem attractive. Hitler’s longstanding aims of gaining lebensraum for Germany, and retaking territories lost at Versailles, appealed to the anger of many German people at the weakness of those who signed the Versailles Treaty. Such pledges also restored to the German people the potential for them to grow in power and influence. This had never seemed possible under the Weimar Government, which worked almost exclusively through diplomacy in the form of Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann. The signing of Treaties such as Rapallo and Locarno, though actually useful to German foreign policy,
This idea works well with both of these examples. Hitler’s oratory skills were genuinely impressive to many, given his passion and the popular nature of many ideas he discussed, such as reversing the German humiliation of the Versailles Treaty. Chairman Mao created a personality cult about himself to create an air of infallibility. This worked especially on the youth of China, often members of the notorious Red Guard, who carried the Little Red Book of Mao’s quotes around to use as their Bible, and who would protect the system he formed to the point of violent action. The charisma of a leader as a frontman and representative of a regime helps gain popular support, and I would argue that the role of popular support is more effective than use of force or terror in pushing a totalitarian regime into power, a principle of “mass mobilisation” outlined by Mao in his core ideology of Mao Zedong …show more content…
This again applies in the case of Nazi Germany and the rise of Chairman Mao in China. In a military sense, for instance, Germany was crippled by the Treaty of Versailles, with their army reduced to a humiliating 100,000 soldiers with no conscription permitted. Part of Hitler’s appeal was his aims to regain Germany’s former military status as a great power, by defying the terms of the Treaty and reintroducing conscription in 1936. Economically, much of China was pushed back to a juvenile system of bartering after the financial catastrophe that was the GMD government. For instance, prices increased by 1000% between February and May 1947. Even something as seemingly superficial as a territorial division could weaken a nation to the point that the face of such a regime would seem attractive. Hitler’s longstanding aims of gaining lebensraum for Germany, and retaking territories lost at Versailles, appealed to the anger of many German people at the weakness of those who signed the Versailles Treaty. Such pledges also restored to the German people the potential for them to grow in power and influence. This had never seemed possible under the Weimar Government, which worked almost exclusively through diplomacy in the form of Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann. The signing of Treaties such as Rapallo and Locarno, though actually useful to German foreign policy,