Stalin and Adolf Dictators

Throughout history of Europe there were political and economics changes due to dictators. During the 1930's two dictators rose to power, Stalin of Russia and Hitler of Germany. As a result, of the rise of these totalitarian regimes the citizens had suffered greatly.

Stalin and his communist regime rose to power by being made general secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), a post that he subsequently built up into the most powerful in the country. It has been claimed that he initially attempted to decline accepting the post, but was refused. Stalin gained plenty of political power because of his popularity within the Bolshevik party. This took the dying Lenin by surprise, and in his last writings he famously called for the removal of the "rude" Stalin. However, this document was voted on as to its adoption by the Party in a Congress - and a unanimous vote to reject the document was taken by all members of the Congress as Lenin was at this time deemed very ill. Stalin, as head of the Politburo, consolidated near-absolute power in the 1930s with a Great Purge of the party, justified as an attempt to expel 'opportunists' and 'counter-revolutionary infiltrators'.

Hitler and the Nazi regime rose to power by his ability to convey a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated German Empire by the Western Allies. In 1932, Hitler intended to run against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the presidential elections. Though Hitler had left Austria in 1913, he still had not acquired German citizenship could not run for office. In February, the state government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Hitler to some minor administrative post and also gave him citizenship on 25 February 1932. This allowed Hitler to run against President Paul von Hindenburg in the next election. Adolf Hitler's persecution of Jews began as soon as the Nazis came to power in 1933. Anti-Semitism had always been part of his party platform. Beginning in April 1933, Jewish businesses in Germany were boycotted and vandalized. Jews were driven from their jobs in government and universities. Alleged opponents of the government and male homosexuals were among the first to be sent toconcentration camps.

In Europe the two dictators tried to improve their country's economy but only succeed in purges and genocides