Session 3: The Rise of Dictatorships

Session 3: The Rise of Dictatorships

Materials

(None)

Instructional Activities

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  Economic crises
  
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  Problems associated with the Treaty of Versailles
  
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  Rise of Lenin and later Stalin in the U.S.S.R.
  
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  Quick rise of economic and political power in Japan
  

2. Discuss the U.S.S.R. under Stalin, including the following:

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  Five-year plans: Goals were set for heavy industry (e.g., steel industry) to produce quotas that were to be met in five years. Medals and other awards were handed out as incentives to meet such goals.
  
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  Collectivization: Peasants were forced to give up their individual farms and become workers for the state on what were called collective farms.
  
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  Great Purge: Those who disagreed with Stalin were either sent to gulags (soviet prisons) or simply disappeared when the secret police came knocking on their doors in the night. Many of these people were convicted, with little or no evidence, of treason against the state.
  
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  police state: A secret police organization was established to monitor everyone and everything in the U.S.S.R.
  

• Loss of civil liberties and civil rights

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  Creation of a totalitarian state
  
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  Revolt by farmers and the elimination of several million of them
  
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  Fast creation of an industrial state
  

4. Discuss Germany under Hitler, including the following:

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  The failure of previous governments to address the country’s economic problems (inflation and depression), thus allowing Hitler’s rise to power
  
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  The anti-Semitism of the Nazis
  
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  The meaning of Nazism (National Socialism): A dictatorship that allows private ownership
  
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  Hitler’s takeover of many European countries based on the claim that he needed to make a homeland for his Third Reich
  

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  The rise of fascism
  
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  Ambition to restore the glory of Rome
  
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  Invasion of Ethiopia
  

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  The rise of militarism (Japan became a highly-armed military state.)
  
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  Industrialization of Japan, leading to a drive for raw materials. Japan’s need for raw materials, especially oil, brought Japan into conflict with America.
  
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  The invasion of Korea, Manchuria, and the rest of China to procure raw materials and conquer old enemies
  

• The roles of Hirohito and Tojo (Hirohito was thought of as a divine emperor. When the military general Tojo took power, he kept the emperor because of this perceived divinity. Japan consequently also became a totalitarian state.)