The Dictators Essay -- History, Politics, War

The twentieth century, unlike any other before it, saw dramatic changes in many different areas such as science, technology, politics, religion, and society. One of the most important and definitely the most obvious change is the increasing deadliness of war. Granted, people have died in wars from the very beginning, but in the twentieth century wars began to generate much higher body counts both among the contending armies and among civilian populations, the latter being the most drastic change in number of casualties. Similarly, in the twentieth century, two opposing dictatorships arose. Although both had many similarities, they represented the culmination of two different political ideologies that had flourished in Europe since the mid-nineteenth century. It all stems back to World War I, which produced a disillusioned public that increasingly sought to change their circumstances in life but attempted to do so outside of the established system. The two regimes are simply th e two exact extremes that were produced in this reaction. National Socialism represents an ultra-conservatism that goes way beyond the boundaries of conservatism as known today, whereas Communism represents ultra-liberalism. Because these two were so ideologically extreme on the right and left ends of the political spectrum respectively, in fact, the wrapped all the way around, so to speak, so that they were not actually that far from each other ideologically after all. So, the question is: if the ideology of the two regimes was so different, why then were there so many similarities? What really tied them together was the rejection of the same prevalent doctrine: liberalism (Overy 639). Both preached against the bourgeoisie and praised the common ... ...ent a similar occurrence in the future. It is important to look at these as archetypal examples of repression born from paranoia and ideologies twisted into bizarre shadows of their former intent. Although they are the two most studied and famous, there are other regimes throughout global history that can be approached in much the same way. For example, in terms of ideology, an historian could approach communist China or, in terms of genocide, one could approach the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia using the knowledge gleaned from the study of National Socialism and Communism. Similarly, it may be possible to use that same knowledge to foresee when a country might be headed towards such a regime and to attempt to prevent it from doing so. That way, the legacy of these regimes is not one of terror and bloodshed but instead one of helping to prevent more bloodshed.