Answer :
Final answer:
Hitler and Stalin both wielded totalitarian control and engaged in expansion and atrocities. Their uneasy Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 was based on mutual fear and strategic need. Despite distinct ideologies, their regimes became similar in their oppressive and devastating impacts.
Explanation:
Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were leaders who rose to absolute power in Germany and the Soviet Union, respectively, and shared a host of characteristics that have often led to comparisons. Both leaders engaged in aggressive expansion and mass atrocities, although their ideological goals differed significantly.
Hitler and Stalin brokered the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, underpinned by mutual fear and the desire to avoid a two-front war. Hitler, fearful of communism, and Stalin, wary of Hitler's fascist aggression, saw the pact as necessary to achieve their respective aims. However, while Hitler aimed for the supremacy of a master race, Stalin sought universal equality, leading to policies and actions that converged in their repressive and lethal nature.
Central to their rule was totalitarianism. Theorists have pointed out that both Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union exhibited characteristics like single-party rule, widespread use of terror, and control over means of communication and the economy. Stalin, unlike Hitler, managed a society already simplified by revolution, whereas Hitler had to navigate existing social and economic powers, revealing differences in their rule.
