There are hundreds of fictional novels written in twentieth century centering around the idea of a government taking over promising an utopianesque world for those that comply. However, we quickly see that in this utopian world nobody is free to do what he or she likes and the world that they live in is really a dystopian one. This does not just happen in fictional stories, but has occurred several times in real life during the last eighty years alone. In real life these governments are not considered dystopian, but rather totalitarian. There are three prominent  governments that have occurred during the twentieth century; Stalin’s Soviet Union in Russia, Sung’s personal cult in North Korea, and Zedong’s New Communist Party in China.
      Totalitarian governments tend to develop in political states that are weak and usually follow a commotion that creates “social unrest and political chaos,” which allows charismatic leaders (like those above) to take over and create fascist or communist governments. These governments promise the desperate citizens that they will bring the nation “stability and wealth,” which the citizens crave. As these governments attempt to create utopian worlds, it is necessary for them to use a high level of terror tactics because it is hard to create a perfect world with imperfect humans (Triggers).
Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union In Russia
      The Soviet Union was allowed to develop because Russia was experiencing various difficulties caused by the First World War and their Civil War. Impoverishment, low moral, and political unrest grew more and more with each day. Stalin came to power officially in 1924 when Lenin died and combined the power within the party. He turned Russia into a totalitarian state with him as a dictator. Stalin set up a Five Year Plan to industrialize the nation and he did manage to turn Russia into a superpower. However, the impossibility of the quotas that Stalin set made false records common and the quality of the goods were less then acceptable (Union).
      Stalin maneuvered his way to the top of the Communist Party by having those in his way condemned and then executed. In order to accomplish his goal of “socialism in one country” and to keep his claim on the position of leader, he started “collectivization and industrialization” in the Soviet Union. Around twenty-five million farmers had to leave their farms and were made to work on state farms. Collectivization had no real positives, over 14.5 million people died and the production was overall reduced by almost twenty-five percent. In the 1930s Stalin launched an aggressive campaign to rid the Communist Party of his original supporters and military leaders. This is known as the Great Purge and within three years, 1936-1939, over 1.2 million were arrested and at least half were killed. Stalin and his system of government lived on in Soviet society, even after his death in 1953, and he was a key factor in the Korean War by encouraging “Kim Il Sung to attack South Korea in June 1950” (Joseph Stalin).
Kim Il Sung’s Personal Cult in North Korea
      There have been different opinions about whether Stalin controlled Sung’s actions or if he just supported Sung’s actions. Either way Sung, in order to increase his power, would influence and contrive the people and events, which made him a man in charge. Sung came into power during a time when North Korea was looking for somebody strong to take over and maintain the country’s independence. In the 1940s approximately 700,000 Japanese were living in Korea and the Koreans were being treated like second-class citizens in their own country. After the end of World War II, North Korea formed a merger between the two groups, the Communist Party of North Korea and the New Democratic Party of Korea called the Korean Worker’s Party or the KWP. The KWP began to start a number of different reforms. These reforms included eight hour work days, equality for the sexes, suppression of religion and redistribution of the land to the people (Kim Il Sung).
      Shortly after the Korean War happened and hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, Sung insured the loyalty of the North Koreans by telling the citizens that “The Korean people achieved the heroic victory in the three years fighting against the armed invaders, the Imperialist Yankees, to defend the freedom and independence of the Motherland. The North American imperialist aggressors suffered an humiliating defeat in their military adventure when they tried to convert our Motherland into their colony and make Korean people become slaves for them.” Sung follows Stalin’s example and enacts a purge of the KWP and continues them into the late 1950s. Sung also establishes many laws and sentenced between 150,000-200,000 people to political prison. Many of the prisoners have life sentences, several for so-called crimes or “reading a foreign newspaper, singing a South Korean pop song or ‘insulting the authority’ of the North Korean Leadership,” which could mean just about anything depending on what the government needs it to mean. During Sung’s reign over half a million “North Koreans needlessly starved to death due to the economic legacy of Kim’s regime” (Kim Il Sung). Mao Zedong’s New Communist Party in China  
         Mao Zedong, also Tse-Tung, took control of China in 1950 at the age of fifty-seven. As he was developing his political interest, he came to believe that for China to have a successful revolution it would be up to the peasantry not the urbanites. In 1921, Zedong joined the Chinese Communist Party or the CCP and became the party’s general secretary. In 1934, Zedong is installed as the commander of the CCP bringing more than just leadership skills to the position, but also military knowledge to the job. In 1940, there was “conflict between the Guomindang and the CCP,” so Zedong started to build support for the complete communist takeover of China and really began to influence the communist system by having his teaching be at the center of the CCP doctrine, “Mao Tse-Tung Thought.” In 1942, the “rectification” campaign was launched in order to keep their “ideological purity.” This was the start of Zedong’s “personality cult” that was prominent all though China in the years to come (Mao Tse-Tung).
      On October 1, 1949, Zedong officially and ceremoniously named China the People’s Republic of China. In 1957, Zedong decided to break completely away from Russian influence and formed an “independent course.” This trip also allowed the world to hear his “controversial declaration” about how nuclear war does not necessitate fear:
If the worse came to the worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain, while imperialism would be razed to the ground, and the whole world would become socialist: in a number of years there would be 2.7 billion people again and definitely more (Mao Tse-Tung).
Right after this he launched his “Great Leap Forward” which was supposed to accelerate the economy in all aspects. However, even though the economy did increase, somewhere between fourteen and fifteen million people died do to starvation and “tens of thousands” were killed during his “cultural revolution” while ruining millions of other lives in the process (Mao Tse-Tung).
       The reasons for choosing each of these examples are different. The Soviet Union really reminds me of scenes from 1984 where the people didn't have much, the proles really seem to reflect the peoples of Russia. Stalin tried to create an powerful government increasing industrialization, but millions died from hardship and famine. Kim Il Sung, as a leader really reminds me of Big Brother in 1984 because even though he is dead and has been for almost 14 years, people still refer to him as the "Great Leader" and he is designated in the constitution as the country's "Eternal President". He went from a Marxist ideology establishing a personal cult. Mao Zedong, took control of the New Communist Party in the 1950's and the party assumed control over all media in the country and used it to promote the image of Mao and the Party. This can be seen in both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. In 1984 they used the media for 2 minutes of hate and promoting the supposed love of Big Brother. In Fahrenheit 451, the media really controls all aspects of almost everyone's lives. With the family and seashells, where there is a constant flow of chatter. One of the major things that all these leaders have in common with these books is that they withhold information from their people and falsify the information that they get if need be in order for the leader to look true.

"Communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the fruits of his labour. The only thing it deprives him of is the ability to enslave others by means of such appropriations."-Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto