Power

Power. It has the ability to ignite change and unite people but in the wrong hands, power corrupts, creates death, distorts the truth and brings sorrow. Throughout history, power has been used to create empires but also to raze them. There is always a struggle for power, no matter who, what, when or where. Those who have no power want it, and those who have power want more. “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” Said Edmund Burke, and he is not wrong. People with large amounts of power, such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, abused their power, killing millions and starting a war across nations. 

Holocaust. When you see this word, you often think of the Jewish holocaust during the Second World War. But this was not the only mass killing during WWII. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the USSR, ordered the mass killing of 111,000 Polish ‘spies’ by the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs/ НКВД) according to Nikolai Yezhov. These Polacks were only 1.6% of the USSR, but this attack had huge consequences. In a few months, the USSR was lacking in food and workers. This lead to the mass starvation of over 6 million Ukrainians.

The NKVD raided houses and took any form of grain or other foods that they could find. All this food went to Moscow. Ukrainians were forbidden from travelling to Russia or Germany, so many turned to drastic measures. Cannibalism became common but it was still a taboo. School children would drop dead in class. Wives prostituted themselves for grain. Ukraine was so quiet, ‘if we heard a crow, we were alarmed by our own happy reactions.’ (Maria Łouinska, 1932) In the spring of 1933, people died at a rate of 10,000 per day and yet Stalin did nothing. His abuse of power had brought death and famine to his union, but he was blind to the atrocities.

Secrets. We all have them, but some are bigger than others. During the Second World War, secrets were a huge part of what empires rose and what empires fell. Ever heard of ‘loose lips, sink ships’? This was an American-English idiom that meant ‘don’t have unguarded conversation.’ People became masters of secrets. One of these masters of hiding the truth was the Japanese army in Nanking. When Japanese General Matsui Iwane (松井 石根) came to visit the Chinese city of Nanking (南京市), the Japanese soldiers cleaned the streets of the thousands of dead bodies of innocent Chinese. The amount of bodies piled up by the Yangtze River caused it to go red from the blood that poured into it. Yet Matsui did not see any of this, and he believed that the citizens of Nanking had peacefully surrendered to the Japanese. This was further from the truth. The Japanese army killed over 4 million men and raped over 3 million girls and women. The people of Nanking were told to surrender by the Chinese government, which they did, but the Japanese ignored them and took over. They lit houses ablaze and tortured people until they die

This ability to conceal can be compared with Joseph Stalin’s Kiev clean-up. When the French prime minister, Édouard Daladier, announced that he was going to Kiev in Ukraine, Stalin ordered a mass clean up. People were to remove the dead from the view of the main street. Shops were restocked for appearance, but if a Ukrainian dared to eat anything from the store, they were shot. Fancy cars were driven down from Moscow and men wore new suits. Daladier was kept away from German and Polish diplomats during his stay, as they knew what was going on behind the scenes. Daladier returned to France saying that the USSR had ‘honoured the socialist spirit and Ukrainian nation pride.’ He did not realise that he’d been tricked by Stalin and his men. This meant that the USSR was able to continue in their crimes against humanity.

Gain. When you gain something, it’s often through hard work or doing a good deed. Sadly, it’s not always like this. In the 1940s, Russia was starving but Ukraine wasn’t as much. So Stalin ordered the NKVD to raid houses and farms for all forms of food. Within 8 months, Russia had enough food for at least 4 years. Ukraine, on the other hand, had fallen into famine. People dropped dead in the streets and other prostituted themselves for grain. Stalin had gained power and food but at the cost of 14 million people.

Japan was determined to take over the East, starting with Korea (Chōsen) and Qingdao. Slowly they progressed, removing the USSR from Manchuria (Manchukuo) and then taking over Inner Mongolia, parts of China, Thailand (Siam), Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam (French Indo-China), Malaysia (Malaya), Singapore (which was also part of Malaya), Indonesia (Dutch East Indies) and the Philippines. To gain land and power, the Japanese killed off anyone who opposed them. The people of Nanking were just a small amount of the almost 10 million people killed by the Japanese. They killed all these people just for power. The only way that they could be stopped was by the dropping of the American atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Although power can be used to make a change for the better or ignite hope in the hearts of the weary, it’s much more likely to create problems. Without power, people are more submissive and will listen to those with power. But give these people power and they will rise above others and become egotistical and abusive towards others. More people use power for bad rather than good.

Power can be used to unite people and make a change. But only in the hands of a few. When in the wrong hands, power corrupts, causes widespread death, conceals the truth and brings sorrow. As shown throughout history, especially during WW2, power almost always goes to your head. As William Pitt said ‘Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.’ Men like Stalin and Hitler were given unlimited power and they committed mass murder and other crimes. Power truly corrupts all.