Both Hitler and Stalin’s regimes were powerful because of their control over their country, through propaganda, secret police and labor or prison camps, and maintained power despite any internal struggles, neither totalitarian state falling to a coup or civil war, demonstrating how powerful a dictatorship can be. Through the effective use of these three things, Hitler and Stalin were able influence citizens’ beliefs with their propaganda, instill fear in them with their police forces, and finally punish them with forced labor in prison camps, creating a powerful totalitarian state.
