What is totalitarianism, and how did fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism gain and hold power?
Explain the rise of totalitarian regimes between the wars: how fascism in Italy, Nazism in Germany, and Stalinism in the Soviet Union used crisis, propaganda, repression, and state control to gain and hold power (Framework Key Idea 10.7).
A Framework-level answer on the rise of totalitarianism for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: what totalitarianism is, and how Mussolini's fascism, Hitler's Nazism, and Stalin's communism used crisis, propaganda, terror, and total state control to seize and keep power, with worked exam questions.
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What this topic is asking
Framework Key Idea 10.7 covers the rise of totalitarianism between the world wars. It asks you to explain what totalitarianism is and how three regimes, fascist Italy under Mussolini, Nazi Germany under Hitler, and the Soviet Union under Stalin, used crisis, propaganda, repression, and total state control to seize and hold power. This connects the enduring issues of power, human rights, and the impact of ideas, and it sets up the causes of World War II.
What totalitarianism is
The shared features the exam wants you to recognize are: a single leader or one-party state; propaganda glorifying the leader and the cause; censorship of all other views; terror enforced by a secret police; and state control of the economy, education, and even youth groups.
Fascism in Italy
Nazism in Germany
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party built a totalitarian state in Germany in the 1930s. Nazism was a form of fascism with a core of extreme racism and antisemitism (hatred of Jews). Hitler rose to power by exploiting German resentment of the Treaty of Versailles and the despair of the Great Depression, promising jobs, national revival, and a scapegoat. Once in power he ended democracy, used propaganda (directed by Goebbels) and the secret police (the Gestapo) to control the population, persecuted Jews and other groups, and rebuilt the military for conquest. Nazi Germany is the central case of how crisis and hatred produced a murderous dictatorship.
Stalinism in the Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin built a communist totalitarian state. He used five-year plans to industrialize rapidly under state control, forced the collectivization of agriculture (combining farms under state control, which caused mass famine, including in Ukraine), and eliminated rivals and "enemies" through brutal purges, show trials, executions, and a vast system of labor camps (the Gulag). Stalin shows that totalitarianism existed on the communist left as well as the fascist right.
Try this
Q1. Name the leaders of fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union between the wars. [Recall]
- Cue. Benito Mussolini (Italy), Adolf Hitler (Germany), and Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union).
Q2. Explain how propaganda and terror helped totalitarian regimes stay in power. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Propaganda controlled what people believed and glorified the leader while silencing other views; terror and a secret police frightened people out of resisting, so together they prevented organized opposition.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of NYSED exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Regents GHG II (stimulus, 2024)1 marksA poster glorifies a single all-powerful leader, controls the press, and demands total obedience to the state. This is best identified as a feature of (1) democracy; (2) a totalitarian regime; (3) the Enlightenment; (4) free-market capitalism.Show worked answer →
A stimulus-based multiple-choice item assessing political systems (Practice A).
The correct answer is (2). A totalitarian regime is marked by a single all-powerful leader or party, control of the press and information, propaganda, and demands for total obedience to the state, exactly what the poster shows.
Why the others are wrong: (1) democracy protects free press and elections; (3) the Enlightenment championed reason and rights; (4) capitalism is an economic system, not this political model.
Markers reward identifying the features of totalitarian rule.
Regents GHG II (CRQ, 2023)2 marksDocument 1 describes the Nazi use of propaganda, a secret police, and one-party rule. Based on this document and your knowledge of social studies, identify one method totalitarian regimes used to control their people and explain how it helped them stay in power.Show worked answer →
A 2-point CRQ identify-and-explain question (Practices A and F).
Identify (1 point): one method was propaganda (controlling information and glorifying the leader). Other acceptable methods: terror and a secret police (such as the Gestapo or the Soviet secret police), one-party rule, censorship, and control of the economy and education.
Explain (1 point): propaganda shaped what people believed and silenced criticism by flooding society with the regime's message and glorifying the leader, while terror and a secret police frightened people out of resisting; together these kept the regime in power by preventing organized opposition.
Markers reward a named method of control plus a clear explanation of how it preserved power.
Related dot points
- Explain the causes and global effects of the Great Depression: how the economic collapse of the 1930s spread through an interconnected world economy and created conditions for political extremism (Framework Key Idea 10.7).
A Framework-level answer on the Great Depression for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: the causes of the 1930s collapse, how it spread through an interconnected world economy, its effects of mass unemployment and hardship, and how it created conditions for totalitarianism, with worked exam questions.
- Explain the causes of World War II: the unresolved tensions of World War I, the Great Depression, the aggression of Germany, Italy, and Japan, the failure of appeasement, and the weakness of the League of Nations (Framework Key Idea 10.8).
A Framework-level answer on the causes of World War II for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: the unresolved tensions of World War I, the Great Depression, fascist and Japanese aggression, the failure of appeasement and the League of Nations, with worked exam questions.
- Explain the causes and outcome of the Russian Revolution: how war, hardship, and inequality led to the fall of the tsar and the Bolshevik seizure of power, creating the world's first communist state (Framework Key Ideas 10.6 and 10.7).
A Framework-level answer on the Russian Revolution for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: the causes (war, hardship, inequality, weak tsar), the 1917 revolutions, Lenin and the Bolsheviks, and the creation of the first communist state, with worked exam questions.
- Explain the course and global scale of World War II and the Holocaust: the major fronts and turning points, the war's unprecedented destruction, and the systematic Nazi genocide of Jews and other targeted groups (Framework Key Idea 10.8).
A Framework-level answer on World War II and the Holocaust for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: the global scale and major turning points of the war, its enormous human cost, the atomic bombs, and the systematic Nazi genocide of six million Jews and other groups, with worked exam questions.
- Explain genocide as an enduring issue and the postwar response: the Nuremberg Trials, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and later genocides (Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, the Balkans) (Framework Key Ideas 10.8 and 10.10).
A Framework-level answer on genocide and human rights for the NY Global History and Geography II Regents: what genocide is, the postwar response (Nuremberg Trials, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), and later genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Balkans, with worked exam questions.
Sources & how we know this
- New York State K-12 Social Studies Framework (Grades 9 to 12) — New York State Education Department (2016)
- Global History and Geography II Framework — New York State Education Department (2025)