After Lenin's death, Stalin seized power in the Soviet Union and transformed it into a totalitarian state where the government exercised total control over public and private life. Totalitarian regimes like Stalin's used police terror and indoctrination to maintain control, repressing dissent and standardizing thought. More recent dictators in the 20th century, such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Saddam Hussein, employed similar totalitarian tactics to consolidate authority over their populations and economies. While there are few outright totalitarian governments today, authoritarian regimes still exist that strive to regulate all aspects of society.

1. Totalitarism
Marion Cruz, Marielle
Velten

2. Main Idea
POWER AND
AUTHORITY After Lenin
died, Stalin seized power
and transformed the
Soviet Union into
totalitarian state

3. Why it matters now?
More recent dictators
have used Stalin’s
tactics for seizing total
control over individuals
and the state.

4. Terms
Totalitarianism- a political system where the government recognizes no limits to it’s
authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life whether
feasible.
Great Purge-known for “The Great Terror” as well. It was a campaign or a repression
in the Soviet Union in 1936-1938. 830 million people killed.
Command economy - When the government chooses what goods should be
produced, how much it will be produced and the price the product should have.
Five-Year Plan- Soviet Union government plan for the economic development, for
five years.
Collective Farm- Little farms owned by the government.

5. Who?
Adolf Hitler (Germany) 1933-1945
Benito Mussolini (Italy) 1925-1943
Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union) 1929-
1953
Kim Il Sung (North Korea) 1948-1994
Saddam Hussein (Iraq) 1979-2003

6. What?
Totalitarianism describes a government that takes total, centralized, state control over
every aspect of public and private life. The government takes control of everyone’s
actions, income, etc…
It didn’t only control the people, but the economy as well, the market for example stated
what should be sold, how expensive should it be, and how many should they sell.
For this to happen the government used two important tools, police terror and
indoctrination.
Police terror- The government believed that violence and terror would make people
obey.
Indoctrination- The main idea was to make people think in a specific way. The
government controlled education.

7. Where?
Soviet Union / Russia

8. When?
20TH CENTURY

9. Why?
Stalin wanted to be among
the most powerful
economically and politically
countries.
He wanted to be known as
the god of that time and the
main figure.

10. How?
Mass communication helped the totalitarian
government to implement and support with
efficiency their rules and policies. Surveillance
technology helped as well to keep track of
people’s activities. Violence was a big factor in
totalitarianism at the time, police terror made
people agree with the terms of the government,
the people who disagreed with the government
where violently punished.

11. Religion
Stalin made people believe
he was God, and he based a
religion on him.

12. Education
Kids were being
taught
communism.

13. Totalitarianism today
• “There are many authoritarian
regimes in the world, but there are
very few actual totalitarian
governments. In 2000, one monitoring
agency identified five totalitarian
regimes—Afghanistan, Cuba, North
Korea, Laos, and Vietnam.”

14. Bibliography
https://www.sps186.org/downloads/basic/588627/ch30_2.pdf
Google