Dictatorship Essay Research Paper Throughout the history

Dictatorship Essay, Research Paper

Throughout the history of the human being, there have been many different views on which way one should be ordered or governed. And still to this very day, the answer to this question varies immensely throughout most countries and cultures around the world. Over the last couple of centuries, we have seen many countries revolt or express ways to change from their previous form of government because the people are always trying to achieve the ideal government. Presently, the governing shift around the world has gone away from empires and monarchy, and shifted to several different forms of dictatorship and democracy. Each of these governing solutions has their benefits, but while humanity is heading for the year 2000 and beyond, democracy is a more acceptable political system in the world for the present day, and for the future.

Dictatorship

Dictatorship is a form of government in which the authority of the final decision making is put broadly on the shoulders of one individual. In ancient times, a dictator was someone who usually was appointed just for the cause of crises and emergency. This is sometimes still the case, where modern dictators have came into power during times of emergency. Sometimes the dictator will gain power by coup d etat, a means of a forceful overthrow of the existing government, or by legal means. The dictator usually is in control of one or several main bases of power, such as a political power or organization, the police, or the army. And in many instances, the dictator will try to take control of all the main bases of power.

When one man, the ruler of the state, has complete control in which all the societal operations and resources are monopolized by the state, this is called totalitarianism. These types of governments consist of distinct types of ideology and organization. Totalitarian ideologies are such that they reject that their society is full of corruption and immorality. These ideas are persuaded through propaganda campaigns, and the demand that the state has on the people to conform. Youth, professional, cultural, and sporting organizations are all controlled by the dictator and his party or organization. In addition to this, all information and ideas are carefully censored and effectively organized through the complete control of television, radio, the press, and education at every level.

There are basically two types of totalitarianism; left and right. Right totalitarian movements, such as the Nazi party in Germany and the Fascists in Italy, drew their support from the middle to upper classes who were seeking to maintain their status quo and advance their social status. Left totalitarianism, such as that of the former USSR and the communism in China under Mao Zedong, relied instead on eliminating class structure. Right totalitarianism also supported and enforced the private ownership of industrial wealth, whereas, the left side used the collective ownership of such capital. One of the most important actions implemented in totalitarianism is the role of terror and violence. Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini used this technique successfully and maybe over excessively in trying to stay in power.

Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini is an example of a recent dictator who used totalitarianism in the twentieth century. Born on July 29, 1883, Mussolini became the founder of Italian fascism and premier (1922-1943) of Italy, ruling as a dictator from 1925-1943. As a child, Mussolini grew up with little or no discipline from his father, an anticlerical, socialist blacksmith. He matured sharing many of his father s beliefs and ideas, also adding to them his readings from Blanqui, Nietzsche, and Sorel. Before becoming the editor or the Milan Socialist party newspaper, Avanti! in 1912, Mussolini was a school teacher and a journalist. Expelled from the Socialist Party for his stance on Italy s involvement in WWI, he founded his own newspaper in Milan, II popolo d Italia, which eventually became his gateway for his Fascist movement.

With many of Mussolini s friends he made while he served in the army until he was wounded in 1917, he and other war veterans founded in Milan a revolutionary, nationalistic organization called the Fasci di Combattimento(1919), which was named after the ancient Roman symbol of power, the fasces. This Fascist movement led by Mussolini developed into a powerful and extreme radicalism of the right . This powerful movement gained the support of many middle to upper class Italians, which included many landowners in the lower Po valley, industrialists, and army officers. Mussolini also created his own fascist militia, known as the black shirts. Mussolini thought of his black shirts as a legitimate political weapon, which carried on a civil war against the Socialists, Communists, and Liberals. This militia slaughtered thousands of Socialists and Communists. The black shirts frequently subjected their random victims to public humiliation, injury, terrible torturing, and fatal doses of castor oil, a powerful and deadly laxative. The black shirts most trademark method of violence though, is beating their victim until death with manganellis, large heavy wooden clubs. Mussolini s militia became very powerful, and after three years of severe terror and violence, the black shirts took over numerous city governments all ov