Question

Compare and Contrast what daily life would have been like between Mussonlini's Italy, Hitlers Germany, and Imperial Japan?

Answer 1

Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan were all extreme nationalists. They all worshiped their leader and would die to protect their country. Extreme propaganda about the outside world was pushed by each one of these regimes through books, newspapers and the radio. Enemies against the state was wounded up and killed or used for slave labour.

Answer 2

The common thread between all of these was that the state was held above everything, and the person heading that state was considered the highest authority. Anyone who opposed the state was imprisoned, punished publicly, or simply assassinated outright.

Perhaps the biggest difference was in how each of the three pursued the same policies.

Mussolini's Fascist Italy was no bed of roses with its own secret police and black shirted paramilitary that enforced its rule. While Mussolini promoted vast public works projects and attempted to buffer Italy against economic disaster, he was also ruthless against anyone that opposed his policies. For example, under Mussolini, the Sicilian Mafia was nearly exterminated because of the idea that they could hold power separately from the rest of Italy. He had many of them rounded up, imprisoned, and often killed.

On the other end, Hitler also espoused a strong Germany, initiated many public works projects, put people back to work, and did many of the same things that Mussolini did.

He turned Germany into a one-party state ruled by the Nazis, outlawed trade unions, and quietly oppressed his own people using the Gestapo and the SS. But his regime was also much more brutal in its crackdowns and its perceived enemies, such as the Jews. Italy didn't have concentration camps, but Germany most certainly did. Along with the superiority of the state, the Third Reich promoted racial superiority in its schools, dehumanized anyone that was considered different, and legalized hate against the Jews with the Nuremburg Laws.

Living in the Soviet Union under Stalin was something to worry about for everyone regardless of religion or race. He achieved his position by outmaneuvering his opponents or simply making them "disappear" outright. But he was particularly brutal to everyone that he thought was an enemy. The Soviet Union under Stalin was a crushingly ruthless dictatorship with the NKVD watching over everyone. Gulags were stuffed with political enemies who were worked to death. Simply speaking out against Stalin, or being perceived as anything less than a true communist comrade, and you could end up working as slave labor on one of Stalin's public works projects.

In Stalin's Soviet Union, the individual didn't matter as much as the achievements of the state for your fellow workers. Stalin ordered the deaths of millions with his purges and had even partially crippled his own military by executing countless officers (including generals) that were seen as disloyal. One way you could look at this is that Hitler and Mussolini would lean towards simply dismissing officials that they saw as ineffective or who didn't toe the party line. Stalin would often just have them killed.