Totalitarianism: Bitter Winds; A Memoir of my Years in China’s Gulag by Harry Wu
...u, Wu speaks of his trials and path to reform while in a reform camp. Wu was labeled a rightist and threat to the government. He lost all privacy and privileges granted to citizens. "As a rightist, I remained under formal, continual surveillance” (Wu 35). While trying to reform the prisoners at camps most were treated in inhumane ways and were forced with falsely admitting loyalty to the party in attempt to save their own lives. If anything, reform camps and brought hate, revulsion and fear of the rising party by the prisoners. Another leader who tried to rule his nation with a totalitarian government was Adolph Hitler. Hitler and the Nazi party wanted political control over society, in the form of racial, social, and cultural purity. (Totalitarianism) By persecuting the impure minority groups, Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and political opponents, Hitler was creating his perfect society, of which he had complete control over. Hitler used his power to suspend most human rights and intimidate voters before upcoming elections to secure continuation of his power. Hitler did not want to reform the impure people of society as Chairman Mao did; he wanted to rid the world of them believing there was not hope for reform. Hitler’s totalitarian views and pursue of a perfect society killed over six million people. Joseph Stalin, ruler of the U.S.S.R. from 1929 to 1953, was another ruler who killed many people in search of complete control. As secretary general of the Communist Party Stalin wanted to rid the nation of all potential rivals of the Party. He pushed the Soviet Union forward by collectivization and industrialization; collectivization killed as many as 14.5 million people and forced 25 million farmers into state farms, reducing the agricultural output by 25 percent. (Joseph Stalin) In the 1930’s Stalin’s “Great Purge” a...