Stalinism vs. Nazism

The world situation changed markedly after the first world war. The inter war years saw many uprisings, social unrest, the most devastating economic crises till date
and also the rise to power of two of the most ruthless leaders the world has known. These were Joseph Stalin in Russia and Adolf Hitler in Germany. The two have been
compared on many occasions and the scholars have often rated the two as being similar in their methods towards achieving their goals. Some scholars though have found
that their basic ideologies and so the methods did differ quite a bit. In the final analysis it generally seems that Hitler was much more barbaric and ruthless, more
absorbed into power as compared to Stalin.
Stalin came into unquestionable power after the death of the founder of Bolshevik movement, Lenin. Lenin till then had been considered a heartless ruler, and one who
committed many atrocities against the rich peasants and land owners of Russia, to favour the proletariat. The world hadn't yet seen Stalin make use of his power. Once
he took power, he realised that Russia due to internal rebellions and also being an agriculture dominated country had lagged behind its Western counterparts. He
mentioned that the country was fifty to sixty years behind the Western developed nations and should strive towards covering that gap within a decade. He didn't just
say it but actually started working towards large scale industrialisation, used harsh measures against the workers (who were once supposed to rule) to make them give
their best and followed the policy of 'gulags'. Gulags were camps where a large number of workers were made to work under drastic conditions and the sole purpose was
to get the most our of a person, even if the person lost his life in the process. Many rich peasants of the past, 'kulaks', were put into these camps and what did
follow was a marked increase in the Russian growth rate. This continued even beyond the World War II years, making the Soviet Union a fierce competitor of the USA.
Hence, Stalin policy of torture was to take his own country on the path of development and his methods though were atrocious, leading into mass killings, more loss of
lives in the world war and wide spread unrest, which didn't materialise as there were many supporters as well of this new form of communism, 'Stalinism'.
Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, migrated from Austria to Germany and saw the country mauled in the First World War and then further humiliated by the Treaty of
Versailles. He saw an opportunity of realising his thirst for power and also took an oath of making the Allied powers pay for the apparent injustice done to Germany
through the treaty. Even before the First War, Germany was the only imperialist power which could not proclaim foreign territories and after the war, it was completely
ousted from the system. The economic depression of 1929, further instability in the society gave an ideal platform for Hitler to come into power. In 1934, he gained
complete control and his Nazi party became supreme with ideology of 'lebensraum' (that is they wanted to increase their territory to the maximum) and treating people
other than Aryans as 'untermanschen' (sub-humans). This led to large scale killings of the Jews and also the unhealthy Germans themselves. Hitler embarked on a journey
of unprecedented growth of industry and military power which he tried to use to the utmost during the Second World War, He sent the 'infidels' and people of other
nation into gas chambers just because they were of no military use. There was not even an intent to use the abilities of these people in anyway and millions lost
their lives due to this non rational policy of Nazis.
It can easily be seen that the basic ideals of both these leaders were very different and though they both committed atrocities even on their own nationals but again
the causes and reasons were different. They were both dictatorial and though both countries flourished industrially under them (Russia for greater period after the
World War, Germany's progress was back tracked after the war ended), but both will be remembered for the bloodiest chapters their respective countries and the whole
world has possibly seen.