This topic examines everyday life under two contrasting totalitarian systems in twentieth-century Europe: fascist regimes such as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, and Stalin's communist Soviet Union. In the Junior Cycle exam, you are asked to describe how these dictatorships controlled ordinary people, compare their domestic policies, and evaluate propaganda sources.
Life in Nazi Germany
After the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act in March 1933, the Nazi Party established a one-party dictatorship in Germany.
- Youth movements: from 1936 all 'Aryan' boys and girls were expected to join the Hitler Youth or the League of German Maidens; membership became compulsory in 1939.
- Education: school textbooks were rewritten to teach Nazi racial ideas, and biology promoted 'Aryan' supremacy.
- Women: the regime encouraged women to leave paid work and focus on children, kitchen, and church (Kinder, Küche, Kirche).
- Workers: independent trade unions and strikes were banned, and all workers were enrolled in the German Labour Front.
- Terror: the Gestapo (secret police) monitored citizens, while the SS ran concentration camps for opponents.
- Persecution: the 1935 Nuremberg Laws took away German Jews' citizenship, and in November 1938 Jewish homes, shops and synagogues were attacked during Kristallnacht.
Italy option: if you study Fascist Italy instead, the OVRA secret police hunted opponents; the Corporate State banned free trade unions and strikes; the Balilla youth movement trained boys as soldiers; and the Battle for Grain pushed farmers to grow more wheat.
Life in the Communist Soviet Union
Under Joseph Stalin, the Soviet state took control of all farming and industry to turn the USSR into a modern industrial power quickly, fearing attack if it stayed backward.
- Collectivisation: the state took peasants' land to create large collective farms, and deported wealthier peasants, called kulaks.
- Famine: the state took peasants' grain by force, causing mass starvation, including the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–33.
- Five-Year Plans: targets set every five years for heavy industry such as coal, steel and electricity; workers who missed their targets were punished.
- The Purges (Great Terror): from 1936 to 1938 the secret police (NKVD) arrested millions as 'enemies of the people'; leading Communists and generals were condemned in staged public show trials.
- The Gulag: millions of prisoners were sent to forced-labour camps in Siberia to build railways, mines and canals.
- Social changes: women were encouraged into factory work and university study, while the state promoted atheism and closed churches.
Comparing Fascism and Communism
Both systems relied on one-party rule, terror and censorship, but their core principles and social goals were very different.
| Feature | Fascism (e.g. Nazi Germany) | Communism (Soviet Union) |
|---|---|---|
| Aim | Extreme nationalism and racial supremacy | A classless society and a workers' revolution worldwide |
| Property | Private business kept under state direction | All private property abolished; state owns everything |
| Social class | Kept traditional social classes and private wealth | Aimed to eliminate all social and economic classes |
| Women | Encouraged to leave paid work and stay at home as mothers | Encouraged into factory work and university |
| Religion | Controlled the churches or made agreements with them | Promoted atheism and closed churches |
Key terms
- Fascism
- A system where an all-powerful leader and one party rule the nation, using extreme nationalism, force and propaganda, and banning opposition.
- Communism
- A system where the state owns all land, factories and businesses, aiming for a classless society with no private wealth.
- Totalitarianism
- A political system where the state holds complete control over every aspect of public and private life.
- Propaganda
- Information, images or slogans spread by a government to persuade people to support it, often one-sided or untrue.
- Gestapo
- The secret state police of Nazi Germany that spied on citizens and eliminated opponents without trial.
- Nuremberg Laws
- The 1935 anti-Semitic laws that stripped German Jews of citizenship and banned marriage with non-Jews.
- Collectivisation
- Stalin's policy of forcing individual peasant farms into large state-controlled collective farms.
- Gulag
- The network of government forced-labour camps across the Soviet Union where millions of prisoners were sent.
Check yourself
What 1933 German law allowed Hitler to pass laws without the Reichstag?
The Enabling Act.
What phrase summarised the official Nazi policy regarding the ideal role of women?
Kinder, Küche, Kirche (Children, Kitchen, Church).
What was the name of the Soviet secret police force during Stalin's Purges?
The NKVD.
How did the economic policies of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union differ regarding private property?
Nazi Germany kept private business under state control, whereas the Soviet Union abolished all private property.
Give one way fascist and communist governments were similar and one way they differed.
Both banned opposition parties and used secret police; fascism preserved private business while communism abolished private property.