Research Into Totalitarian Governments

[Vaz]

Hey helpful folks

So, in my current WIP there is a dominant government that rules over the remaining human society.
They are led by a sole dictator who has a very strict set of rules and demands loyalty, he willingly executes anyone who doesn't fit his "ideal" and basically free will is a thing of the past.

So to finish, I was just wondering if anyone on here had any ideas as to what articles or periods of history I could research. To help me flesh out the politics of my WIP and how the current dictator could have risen so quickly to a point of power.

Cheers folks, happy Saturday

Elliott

 

[goldhawk]

Stalin springs to mind.

 

[mosaix]

So does Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party.

 

[Cli-Fi]

You don't even have to look to history. Check out North Korea. Kim Jung Un regularly purges disloyal family members.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Zimbabwe
Chairman Mao
Albania 1950s to 1990
East Germany

Before 20th C it's more complicated.
There was one nasty piece of work in China that tried to burn all the books in ancient times.

Also there have been some benevolent Totalitarian regimes.
An absolute Ruler isn't quite the same thing, e.g. Elizabeth the First was sort of a Totalitarian regime. See Walsingham who was first European Secret Police Chief.
Read also "A man for All seasons"

Henry VII (first Tudor) was really a despot and rewrote history (with help of others) to make Richard III look evil and a depost. In reality there is little evidence of Richard eliminating potential competitors, but Henry went on an orgy of elimination of anyone remotely a threat.

The Tudors were not as nice as the they claimed they were!

 

[Hex]

I'd suggest Stalin and Hitler as well. Stalin's a special favourite. You could read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, for the point of view of a disillusioned older Bolshevik, and I guess there's Animal Farm, too, if you like animals rather than people. There's a great film, Burnt by the Sun too.

There's lots of history written about the period and I am lamentably out of date, but I think the 1930s and the purge of the Kulaks would be of interest, and then the Great Purge 1936-38. The thing holding the 20th C dictators back was that you can't actually completely control a population -- the leaders may have had totalitarian ambitions but they couldn't stop people disobeying them.

Even dictators have supporters and there are people who think they are great -- under Stalin there was a healthy and well-off middle class, which supported many of his policies because the system worked for them. We concentrate on what was wrong because (a) a lot was wrong, and (b) we regard him as a bad guy, but there are still many people in the ex-USSR who remember him as a hero.

You can't build a totalitarian state on terror alone -- you need to offer people something they want and something to believe in.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Darkness at Noon

It's very good.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
The First Circle (I've only read the original version, there is an updated version)​

Shirer

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich​

Orwell

Animal Farm
1984 (not really about the future at all!)​

 

[Vaz]

Hey thanks for all the great thoughtful responses guys!

I will check out Hitler and Stalin and chairman Mao, damn I wish you knew who that guy was who burnt the books that would make really good research

Great idea Hex, about offering the populace something they want/need.

As my story is post apocalyptic sci-fi and the population live in a Vault, maybe my government could have some kind of lottery like in Orwells 1984. where the winner is allowed to leave the vault but instead they don't really get to leave...maybe that could work??

cheers guys

 

[Venusian Broon]

+1 for Ray's suggestion of 1984 - Orwell took many elements of Nazism and Stalinism to construct his 'boot stamping on a human face - forever'. It's pretty watertight in its crushing defeat of the spirit of man.

Hitler isn't quite what you have described, but it's instructive how a charismatic leader came to dominant a nation. I have Ian Kershaw's Hitler books - Hubris and Nemesis. They are very detailed, reasonably scholarly and very long so it might not instil you with energy reading them. Plenty of Hitler TV that is pretty good - The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, The Nazis: A warning from History usually gets shown on UK WAR...and last of the Summer Wine, I mean UKTV's Yesterday.

Some of the far Eastern Communist movements Post-War might give you ideas - Again Ray has mentioned Chairman Mao and China, but there is also the recent terrible history of Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge. Unfortunately I don't really have good sources for you to instantly go, but there is bound to be plenty of histories about both revolutions.

Other 20th Century dictators that come to mind - Benito Mussolini and Italy. Forget the jokes about the Italian Army (Many 8th Army veterans would take pains to point out the heroism and bravery of the Italian soldier), Mussolini was about the only person in history with the power to almost dismantle the mafia.

Also the rise of the Japanese military from the 1930s to 1945 as defacto rulers of their country could possibly be instructive, although complicated by the relationship with the Emperor.

 

[mosaix]

Here's a very minor, but so powerful, thing that the Nazis did. They asked the children at school what their parents were saying about Hitler and the Nazis.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I wish you knew who that guy was who burnt the books

It had slipped my mind, I'm sure it was

Qin Shi Huang
Mao took lessons from him?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19922863

Also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars

The burning of books and burying of scholars (traditional Chinese: 焚書坑儒; simplified Chinese: 焚书坑儒; pinyin: fén shū kēng rú) refers to the supposed burning of texts in 213 BC and burial alive of 460 Confucian scholars in 210 BC by the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty of ancient China. The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The official philosophy of government ("legalism") survived.

Recent scholars doubt the details of these events in the Records of the Grand Historian—an original source of information for the period—since the author, Sima Qian, was an official of the Han dynasty, which succeeded the Qin dynasty, and could be expected to show it in an unfavourable light. While it is clear that the First Emperor gathered and destroyed many works which he regarded as subversive, two copies of each were to be preserved in imperial libraries, which were destroyed in the fighting following the fall of the dynasty. It is also now believed that many scholars were killed, but that they were not Confucians and were not "buried alive." In any case, the incidents and the phrase "burning of books and burying of scholars" became enduring legends in the Confucian legacy

People often think the approx 213BC to 1912 Chinese Governments were Feudal. They were not, at least not in European sense. Also Heredity power was tempered by advancement by merit and success. Actually the children might descend a rank in each generation unless they proved worthy. A common peasant could in theory become a lord or even Emperor.
The Emperor was "holy" a god, but the idea of merit extended in extreme even to emperor. If you deposed one by any means, unlike England in Middle Ages you didn't have to prove right of succession. Success proved your divine right to rule!

The Mandarins (1912 to 1948) was a short lived system. Since Mao's death, China is in some ways becoming more like pre-1912. A mix of Totalitarian "The Party", Meritocracy and Capitalist/Commercial success.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

They asked the children at school what their parents were saying

Oh, that wasn't just Nazis. That's in despot 101.

 

[Tulius Hostilius]

As my story is post apocalyptic sci-fi and the population live in a Vault, maybe my government could have some kind of lottery like in Orwells 1984. where the winner is allowed to leave the vault but instead they don't really get to leave...maybe that could work??
cheers guys

That reminds me the movie “The Island” (2005?), or even an Philip K. Dick book that I read many years ago, but don’t recall the title, but the humans lived underground because a nuclear war.

Anyway when I begun to read your first post Stalin came immediately to my mind, as it was already suggested. Pol Pot was already stated.

Interesting is also one of the statements of Hex,

“Even dictators have supporters and there are people who think they are great”

And generally is the middle and middle high class. That was also true in Iraq, Lybia, and Syria. So you can also drink from these sources.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

“Even dictators have supporters and there are people who think they are great”

Some maybe were "great" for a given narrow definition of Great.
Charlemagne
Elizabeth I
Qin Shi Huang

Some called great or admired ...
Caesar Augustus
Julius Caesar
Alexander the Great
Some of the Pharaohs
Napoleon

 

[Mad Alice]

"Even Dictators Have Supporters"
The movie "Tea With Mussolini" comes to mind.

I thoroughly recommend "A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich" mind shattering. Some graphic violence in it though, including rape.

And speaking of Orwell, mustn't forget "Animal Farm".

 

[Ray McCarthy]

The movie "Tea With Mussolini" comes to mind.

A fun supposedly based on fact Movie, that actually was mostly made up stuff. In real lfe the protagonists vanished and no-one knows exactly what became of them. I enjoyed it, but was disappointed that it's 90% fiction

The Scarlet and the Black
Rather more accurate WWII Italy film 1983 based on 1967 book. Still much fiction of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_and_the_Black

Somewhat more factual
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsignor_Hugh_O'Flaherty

 

[Toby Frost]

I'd go along with Orwell. His understanding of the psychology of dictatorship is remarkable. There were readers in the Eastern Bloc who couldn't believe that he actually lived in England. His essays expand the ideas in 1984 and are worth a look. Also interesting is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (a novel) and Brave New World Revisited, which is effectively a manual of how to run such a country. Some of the technology in it has dated, though.

A further point. There's a pop culture view of dictatorships, specifically Hitler's, which is wrong in a number of respects. Firstly, dictatorships are not necessarily particularly efficient, because they are usually subject to the whims of a delusional lunatic (after starting a war with the world's biggest empire, why not invade Russia too?). Hitler listened to the wrong people, failed to use women effectively as workers, and wasted time and energy on genocide that could have been used to bolster his armies. Secondly, they are often massively corrupt. Oceania in 1984 has a huge black market. Thirdly, being from a dictatorship doesn't automatically turn your soldiers into unstoppable fighting machines. Early victories won from aggression and militarism may actually make the dictatorship overconfident, as per Stalingrad and Kohima. Fanaticism won't stop you freezing or starving.

It's likely that your vault dwellers will be fed some sort of myth to stop them rebelling: probably that they must work hard to defeat their decadent enemies on the surface. One way, they will emerge and reclaim the world, and live in paradise (this will never happen, of course). If there has been a nuclear war, there could be an interesting fascist element, with the vault dwellers being the "pure" people and the topsiders corrupt mutants. The lottery could be a useful way of keeping the population down or removing subversive elements before they rebel. Something similar happened in the computer game Fallout Vegas.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

and wasted time and energy on genocide that could have been used to bolster his armies.

"The War Against the Jews 1933-1945" is enlightening.

Stalin was annoyed because he'd planned to attack Hitler first, but a year later. The Russians basically did a scorched earth retreat and decided not to try and help any of the encircled troops (which was often older equipment). The siege of Stalingrad etc gave the Russians time to bring resources from the East. If Hitler had ignored a lot of Russian troops and concentrated on Moscow he might have won. Similarly in UK if Hitler had kept attacking airbases instead of switching to cities he would have one.
If The USA hadn't entered WWII all of Western Europe might be speaking Russian today, not German. Hitler attacked Russia for three reasons, two bad and one "good".
1) Kill more Jews and Slavs.
2) Living Space (Lebensraum)
3) Attack before Russians ready to attack them. The longer the delay the greater the likelihood of Germans loosing.

So yes, Hitler eventually became totally delusional. But attacking Russia wasn't as mad as it might seem.

Dictatorships, to succeed have to offer several things:
1) Law and Order (though of course this doesn't apply to opposition or dissidents).
2) An improvement over what was before (Germany Autobanns etc, Cuba universal free health care)
3) Plenty of people must feel that they are benefiting.

To aid this:
4) Suppress people the majority dislike.
5) Foment Xenophobia
6) Control Media. (Hitler encouraged the wireless makers to not just make the deluxe sets but a People's set, so cheap that everyone could have a radio. It was not designed deliberately to only receive German Propaganda broadcasts, it was just cheap and simple. At night time it could easily get French, Swiss, Austrian and UK broadcasts.) Hence control of books, art, newspapers etc (Hitler promoted Electronic TV from 1936 and even in Occupied France.)
7) Cultural groups under party control (The Hitler Youth and many other State controlled groups).
8) Centralised Control of large Corporations (Germany 1930s: Siemens, A.G. Farben etc)
9) High profile building programs.

 

[Dave]

That reminds me the movie “The Island” (2005?), or even an Philip K. Dick book that I read many years ago, but don’t recall the title, but the humans lived underground because a nuclear war.

The Days of Perky Pat - short story. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - novel

Also, what everyone else said.

Also, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (very similar themes to 1984 but written between 1918 and 1921.)

Plenty of Hitler TV that is pretty good - The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, The Nazis: A warning from History usually gets shown on UK WAR...and last of the Summer Wine, I mean UKTV's Yesterday.

We call that the Hitler Channel as it rarely shows anything else.

 

[Toby Frost]

A friend of mine once observed that Channel 5 should combine its interests in sharks, strippers and Nazis by showing a documentary entitled "Das Booty".