Revisionist historians claim that Hitler and Stalin were “modernist” dictatorships. They then revert back to the traditional views on totalitarianism. It is not possible to object to comparing Hitler/Stalin and their atrocities. There are many ways to compare totalitarianism. Hitler and Stalin made claims to the entire society, repressing it and attempting indoctrination. The term totalitarianism does not describe a particular theory, but is rather a description. Stalinism, like Hitlerism, is a totalitarian system. This implies that both regimes have more in common than differences.
Kershaw argues in his book that Stalinism & Hitlerism have more differences than similarities. The aim is to show that Nazism undermined the traditional power structures founded on order. Kershaw compares Hitler with Stalin in order to do so. Stalin rose in power as part of the system that ruled and through his secretariat. Hitler was an unpredictable character. He wasn’t a product. Hitler was not a typical totalitarian leader. He was indecisive. He often delayed important decisions. His top cabinet officials had difficulty getting a chance to speak with him in order to reach a conclusion. Hitler’s distance was more than just a style difference, it was also a fundamental difference between the two regimes. Stalin was a dictator who was interventionist. He wished to monopolize decisions and do away with the party state system.
Hitler was the exact opposite. Hitler’s commands were scattered. After two years he stopped meeting with the cabinet and did many things to promote dualism between party and state. Stalin wanted to disrupt the government so that it would be removed, Hitler didn’t have any plan, and Hitler’s leadership was a mess. In Hitlerism, power was not determined by position but by loyalty. Hitler had more power because he wasn’t a dictator in a system. Stalin’s sweeping purges were justified. Stalin was a threat to himself and so he purged the people closest to him. Stalin’s purges were viewed by Hitler as irrational, because Stalin had no internal threats. Hitler’s government was founded on the faith of loyal supporters. Stalin did not believe in loyalty. Stalin’s position within the communists was different to Hitler’s. Communism survived without Stalin. Nazism would not have survived without Hitler. There has been a Fuhrer’s party since the middle of the 1920s. The only way for a party member to move up the ranks was to adhere to Hitler’s ideology. There were therefore no threats to Nazism.
Stalin’s regime was not only radical but also barbaric. However, it had a clear set of goals that guided its decisions. Stalin’s government was free of nationalism, and could even survive the reign of Stalin. Nazism wasn’t like that. The radicalization of barbarism, destruction and extremism was too strong to slow down without a fundamentally different “system”. The Nazi government’s decline was not due solely to dualism of party and state but also because the predatory party culture that fostered a competition of competing agencies of rule. Hitler’s leadership, while important to the Nazi Party, created an environment of competing and overlapping agencies of rule. Hitler was so indispensible to Nazism’s survival that a succession plan for Hitler never existed. The Nazi leadership is incapable of producing a successor. Hitler’s regime was radicalized to the point that it became impossible for a group to reproduce itself.
The Nazis went to war not by accident. Their dynamism, self-destructiveness and destructive nature would have existed even if they had won the war. Kershaw argues that Hitler and Stalin had fundamentally different regimes despite their superficial similarity. Kershaw argues that the differences between Hitler and Stalin went beyond their personalities. The two parties are compared by the fact that Nazism had a charismatic leader, while Soviet communism did not. Hitler’s charismatic power is evident. His regime has all the characteristics of a charismatic rule. Stalin’s rule is not comparable. Stalin’s cult developed slowly and was late. In the main, it was not influenced by Stalin. It is not possible to replace bureaucracy with personal domination in the modern nation. In the Third Reich, charismatic authority overrode bureaucracy.
A government that was only legitimated because of its charismatic claims and visions of national redemption undermined traditional institutions. The Nazis did this through racial purification and racial Empire. Hitler did not “will” the party to become a system-less entity. The chaos was a reflection of Hitler’s leadership style and his aloofness. Hitler had no interest in the daily functions of government and only cared about protecting his own image. Not only is it important to undermine rational government structures. It was clear that the radicalization and structural disorder of Nazi Germany were linked. The Fuhrer’s rise to autonomy was a key development. In theory and in practice, power was unrestrained by 1938. Hitler’s actions and their developments pushed him to adopt a high-risk strategy that was his second nature.
The race policy was also reoriented by 38. The Reichstristallnacht, which Hitler had approved, was responsible for the coordination of the “Jewish Question”. Central to the program was the expulsion of Jews from their homeland and territorial expansion. As the policy became more practical, it began to shift away from utopian “vision”. A radicalization of Hitler’s party would not be the right way to view it. He was the lynchpin of radicalization, but not necessary.
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