GeoJournal 52: 339–344, 2000.

© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

339

Dictators and their capital cities: Moscow and Berlin in the 1930s

Herman van der Wusten

Department of Human Geography, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Tel: 020-5254866;
Fax: 020-5254051; e-mail: hvanderwusten@fmg.uva.nl)

Received and accepted 3 October 2001

Key words: Berlin, capital cities, iconography, Moscow

Abstract
Stalin and Hitler planned major changes in the townscapes of their capital cities. These plans were part of their effort to
install highly mobilized despotic regimes that needed a wide-ranging set of symbols to focus allegiance and to impress
awe. These plans remained to some extent paper exercises but part of it left significant traces in the contemporary cities,
particularly in Moscow. The intended changes showed similarities in their megalomania expressed in plans for a gigantic
dome surrounded by a huge public square in the core of the city. There were also differences as regards the type of
symbols used due to both dictotors’ different roles within their regimes, the degree of didactic intent due to the nature
of the commanding ideologies and the level of modernization of both countries, and the diverging versions of antimodernist
building style (which they shared with many others elsewhere at the time).

Introduction
Capital cities are special places. As a rule they house the
central organs of state power, but this is not always the
case. They are the capital cities because they represent and
symbolize state power and national unity. They are not nec-
essarily the only places that embody this function, but their
role in this respect is at least significant.
Capital cities are therefore major sources for the study
of state and national iconographies (Olsen (1986) is the
inspiration for this kind of work; see also Preston and
Simpson-Housley (eds) 1994). They may as a whole signify
the central state idea and national unity (e.g., Haussmannian
Paris). Their function as icons may also be attached to dif-
ferent more specific parts of such cities (e.g., the imperial
administrative center in New Delhi imbued with even wider
than national pretence), and individual elements of their
built environments may function as such (e.g., Budapest’s
Parliament Building). In real life there will be mixtures of
elements with iconic significance that may also differ among
population groups (e.g., the relative importance of the left
and the right bank of the Seine in the Paris case).
As a matter of fact it is tempting to look at the build-
ings housing the most important political and administrative
functions (Vale, 1992), and those thought to refer to the na-
tion (e.g., a university, museum or theatre), the main public
squares and boulevards and the ornaments they contain, and
their location within the capital city as a whole as prime
candidates to consider for this topic (Wagenaar and Van der
Wusten, 1996). In addition there will possibly be all sorts of
other elements of the capital city’s material substance (e.g.,
its location vis à vis the rest of the national territory and the
outside world, the other functions established in the city, its
size) that may be important in this regard.
In this paper we study the efforts to stress the symbolic
significance of two 20th century capital cities: Stalin’s and
Hitlers. These two individuals have been portrayed as rare
specimens of a thankfully small group of ruthless politicians
that got their chance to impose for a while the realization
of their impossible, unsavoury dreams (Bullock, 1991). One
may dispute the notion that they are in a class of their own.
What about Mussolini, what about Mao, not to speak of the
despots who have terrorized the populations of a multitude
of small countries? And between the two of them, are they
sufficiently comparable, that is: similar on at least some
relevant dimensions? We indeed claim that they are very
good examples of a small class of despots, that there is even
ground to look at them as a self-sufficiently interesting set
of cases, and that consequently they are similar on at least
some relevant dimensions. In addition they are also differ-
ent on aspects that are important to our object of study. If
we want to indicate more precisely why the two cases of
Hitler’s abominable Reich and Stalin’s utopian nightmare
are comparable for the problem at hand, we should first of all
stress the halftruth of the labels used so far. Although these
are deeply personalized regimes they are far too large and
differentiated to merely call them after their leading figures.
They have been modern despotic regimes led by small
cliques headed by single figures supported by elaborate
bureaucracies and involving their populations to an unprece-
dented degree. All this implies that the symbolic expression
of state power and national unity has been of unusual im-
portance to these regimes and that they also have been in a
position to at least prepare serious and detailed plans to ex-
340
press such notions (Mosse, 1975; Drescher a.o. (eds), 1982).
Together with Mussolini, who to some extent showed them
the way, Hitler and Stalin are the most important inventors of
modern mass-involving dictatorships backed up in their dif-
ferent ways by parties and security organs of unprecendented
size and an iron grip on the means of mass-communication.
They have reigned during largely overlapping periods in
a specific region of the world, the continental part of Eu-
rope. This means that their choice of symbols to express the
notions of state power and national unity have largely been
guided by a similar set of options dictated by the aesthetic
preferences and the building capacity of the age.
All this demonstrates important similarities that provide
a basis for meaningful comparisons. An important question
in all such comparisons will be if final similarities in the
symbolic expression of state power and national unity are in
the last analysis the result of similar conditions or of diffu-
sion (Edelman, 1964). This classical dilemma will exercise
us in the last section of this paper.
On the face of it there are also important differences
in conditions between nazi Germany and communist USSR
in Stalin’s time that may also have affected the symbolic
expression of basic features of these regimes. National
socialism and communism are different ideologies, the in-
stitutional make up of their respective regimes was different,
and – partly related – the societies over which they reigned
differed significantly in degree of modernization and cul-
tural homogeneity. Last but not least, the capital cities in
which these two regimes tried to embody their national and
state symbols were very different: Moscow again selected
as capital city after a couple of centuries of relative political
neglect, Berlin taken over from earlier regimes as a thriving
– and for the recent royal and imperial past certainly – highly
symbolic environment full of references to state power of
different states (Antonowa and Merkert, 1995).
In the remainder of this paper we will explore the efforts
of the Hitler and Stalin dictatorships to redesign their capital
cities particularly with an eye to the enhancement of their
symbolic significance as seen by their instigators. To this
end we will shortly indicate the most important features of
the plans made in the 1930s concerning Berlin and Moscow.
These plans can be interpreted as efforts to emphasize the
iconic significance of the two capital cities. This is not a
mere whim of a later researcher looking for traces of an ar-
gument hardly brought forward by contemporaries. Not only
did the two dictators take a strong personal interest in the
preparation of these plans, they quite clearly expressed their
intention to make their capital cities, and particularly the new
elements that they intended to add, into major landmarks of
their reign and important expressions of what they stood for.
It is then important to look at these plans for the sym-
bols they used, and how these can be interpreted. We are
interested in the process of the crafting of the symbols them-
selves, but also in the way the designers apparently thought
they should be read. If they indeed were so read is a vexed
question. The most important reason in this case is that most
of these plans were not realized. The war destroyed nearly
everything the Hitler dictatorship had intended to achieve.
The plans of Stalin’s dictatorship were executed to a larger
degree, but in this case as well the war had a devastating
effect on central features of the plan. More generally the
question of the reception of intended icons, how they are re-
interpreted by the public after realization, is important but
difficult to study.
For the interpretation of these plans – the shape they
took, the references they made – we look in three directions.
First of all, the new icons were to be erected in existing
cities. Berlin, Moscow and their respective histories con-
ditioned the new plans to a considerable extent. Secondly,
these regimes pretended to be the all-encompassing embod-
iments of state and nation. Therefore, their intended icons
refered to an unusual degree to the regimes themselves and
to the self-images they wanted to project. Thirdly, the actual
builders, architects and designers were caught up in the de-
sign repertoires of their age. Even if they wanted to achieve
something new, it would be new with respect to the existing
aesthetic options. In this case, the direct involvement of the
dictators and their intimates helped impose artistic codes that
to a large degree reflected their personal tastes.
The making of the plans for the restructuring of Berlin
and Moscow in the 1930s, their shape and their referents,
provide us on account of the extreme nature of the regimes
that initiated them, with a rare example of imposed political
iconographies. In the last section we will consider the ques-
tion to what extent our interpretative efforts can account for
the similarities and differences between these examples and
speculate about the wider problem how useful they would be
in less exemplary cases.
What were the plans?
When Hitler came to power in early 1933 he had a clear
set of a esthetic preferences, and a pretty well thought out
plan on what to achieve in Berlin. Hitler admired Vienna’s
late l9th century embellishments around the Ringstrasse and
the Champs Elysées plus Arc de Triomphe. That is what he
wanted for Berlin, only bigger.
The core element of the plan Speer (1969) crafted for
him under his guidance was a redesign of the major ele-
ments of state power: an extended Reichskanzlei (where his
executive power was sitting) plus an enormous domed hall
where he would meet with the people and that would be in
the vicinity of some of the major symbolic elements of the
two former regimes the Brandenburger Tor and the Reich-
stag (the parliament building), which it would dwarf. The
dome would either have a swastika or an eagle plus globe
on top, this was a point about which Hitler never came to
a clear decision. Reichskanzlei and Dome were connected
by a Champs Elysées like thoroughfare that would put its
example in its place: it was 1.5 times as broad and had 2.5
times its length. The thoroughfare would be at a right angle
with the traditional main axis: Unter den Linden-Tiergarten
thus symbolizing the new era and the sharp break with the
past.
The strong classicist influence of the plan as a whole
and of the design of the buildings was further underlined

by the other main government buildings that appeared in the
Regierungsviertel along Friedrichstrasse in the early years
of the nazi regime: Göring’s Luftwaffeministerium and the
new Reichsbank (in the competition for this project famous
modern architects Gropius and Mies van der Rohe had taken
part, but their plans had been rejected in favour of a classicist
façade).
Hitler was clearly committed to these classic references,
strongly conditioned by the re-reading of the neo-classicist
movement of the 19th century, that made up his esthetic
preferences. They also show up in his choice of the most
classic part of Munich to establish the headquarters of the
party/movement (the area around Königsplatz) and the style
of the buildings that were added there (Lauterbach, 1995).
The core elements in Hitlers approach for Berlin are the
huge scale, the reference to the all-encompassing nature of
the regime in the Dome and its intimate connection with
Hitler’s personal power, the vicinity of the traditional cen-
tre that should be overwhelmed and transformed by the new
elements, the classicist design and building repertoire, the
absence of personal references to Hitler and the uncertainty
concerning the emblem on top of the dome.
In the pre–war part of Hitler’s term other changes were
made in Berlins plan and significant new buildings were
added, but they were less intimately connected with the core
concerns of the regime. Major additions to the road network
were made as part of the system of motor roads that was con-
structed in these years and the installations for the Olympic
Stadium and the radiotower (Rundfunkturm) were important
additions to the stock of public landmarks. From the outside
they were even often seen as highly symbolic manifestations
of the nazi regime. This was not always the case. With re-
spect to the motor roads it has been clearly established that
they were largely planned before the nazis came to power
and that the regime had perhaps only a hand in accelerating
their actual construction, hardly in the way they were shaped
(apart from titles already mentioned useful sources for the
building efforts of the nazi regime are Schneider (1979) and
Balfour (1990)).
After the Soviet government had moved the capital back
to Moscow in the early years of the regime, it was clear that
the city should function as the symbol of the new Soviet
state. Discussion in the highest organs of state and party
started in the 1920s but more serious plans were only made
in the 1930s. It is important to stress that such plans were
always the direct responsibility of the central authorities of
party and state. They were deemed far too important to be
left in the hand of local bosses. The major planning efforts
for a renewed Moscow were undertaken after Stalin had won
the leadership struggle in the party and had begun to use
the full powers of state and party according to his personal
preferences only.
It is unclear what Stalin’s personal a esthetic preferences
were, if he had any. In the early 1930s the regime sought
to impose a unified a esthetic doctrine of ‘socialist realism’
on all artistic expressions that was directly derived from its
central ideological tenets but it was in many cases absolutely
unclear what these meant. In any case there was a sharp
341
reversal of fortune for all those working in the sector of
building and architecture in the early 1930s when those fol-
lowing the modernist, constructivist creed lost out to more
traditional currents stressing classicist formulas and decora-
tive elements originating from the art deco movement that
should clearly express the regime itself and the utopia it em-
bodied. While le Corbusier still built in Moscow in the late
1920s and Lenin’s tomb was, despite its antiquated function,
designed in a modernist fashion, the official style from the
1930s to Stalins death did not provide any room for such
aesthetic preferences. At the same time, though, several of
Stalin’s personal datchas were designed by an architect who
considered himself a follower of Frank Lloyd Wright and at
least in some of the exteriors showed it. It has been suggested
that Stalin did not want to suggest an opulent lifestyle (in
fact he lived quite modestly) whereas the achievements of
the first socialist state could not be stressed too often.
There are a few major symbolic items in the Moscow
plans. The most important was the Palace of the Soviets
right in the middle of the center that was discussed from
the early 1930s to the late 1940s but never realized. Initially
another spot was selected, but Stalin wanted it instead of the
main Orthodox Cathedral that had been built in the 1880s.
The Cathedral was destroyed and has recently been rebuilt
in record time (another highly symbolic political act). Later
on eight skyscrapers à la Soviet were planned in a wide
circle around the intended Palace. Most of these were even-
tually realized in the first 10 years after the second world
war. In the general extension plan of 1935 it is also sug-
gested that the realization of the Palace of the Soviets will
be accompanied by the realization of a huge surrounding
square and a major monumental southwestern axis. Noth-
ing of this has been realized. In the plan a number of radial
boulevards have been proposed, widening existing ones, and
aligned with classicist residential housing and office build-
ings. These have been executed. The first metro lines as signs
of modernization per se but by way of the design of the sta-
tions also as icons of the new Soviet society also contributed
to Moscow’s role as a symbolic capital. The Agricultural
Exhibition initially made on a small scale before the war
and greatly extended after the war is a theme park demon-
strating the rich diversity that the Soviet state encompasses
in folk tradition and agricultural opuleuce (the propaganda
element in this effort is in fact mind-boggling; just after the
disastrous collectivization of the agricultural sector, the re-
sult was nonetheless highly popular). Finally there was the
plan to build a huge ministry for heavy industry just opposite
the Kremlin at Red Square instead of the Gum department
store. This plan was not implemented (the gist of Stalinist
architecture is captured in Noever (1994)).
Size was also a major element in the symbolism that was
crafted for the new Soviet capital. Stalin’s Palace is quite
comparable to Hitler’s dome. It is well known that Hitler
followed Stalin’s efforts in this regard and was annoyed that
his colleague might end up with the largest building on earth
instead of him. Stalin required his Palace in any case to end
larger than the Empire State Building even if only a meter.
342
Stalin’s efforts to stress the symbolic significance of
Moscow were more wideranging than Hitler’s efforts with
respect to Berlin. Both concentrated on the traditional inner
cities and resisted efforts to build a new centre elsewhere.
Whereas Hitler adjoined his plans to the existing symbolic
equipment of the German capital, Stalin occasionally set out
to destroy major symbols of the old order. On the other hand
the plans to oppose the Kreml with a gigantic new ministry
of heavy industry recaptures the spirit of Hitlers dome next
to the Reichstag and the Brandenburger Tor.
Contrary to Hitler’s dome to be crowned with abstract
symbolism, Stalin’s Palace was crowned with a statue. In the
first instance it was to be a worker, but in following versions
of the project this was replaced by an immense Lenin. In
later planning stages the Palace (the use of the name is in it-
self meaningful with its reference to the earlier order) looked
increasingly like the mere socle of the statue. The function
of its spacious inner area became increasingly hazy. Whereas
Hitler was thought to play a central role in the events held in
and around the dome, in the Soviet case one saw military like
formations of demonstrators marching towards the palace,
but their activities inside and those of the general secretary
were absolutely unclear.
Whereas the new boulevards in Stalin’s capital were a
bleak version of Haussmannian Paris, the ornaments in the
metro and the whole idea of the agricultural theme park
underlined the importance for the regime to communicate
its central messages through highly symbolic, easily under-
standable signs to a mass public. In fact it is difficult to see
any clear esthetic repertoire in the efforts to renew Moscow.
Despite all efforts to plan with iron fist from one general set
of principles the feared and rejected eclecticism was readily
apparent.
After the idea of the Soviet Palace had been comple-
mented with or replaced by the plan for the eight skyscrap-
ers, the most imposing one right in the middle of the original
monumental southwest axis turned out to be the university.
This gigantic building on top of the Lenin mountains over-
looking central Moscow has perhaps more than any other
become the symbolic landmark of all buildings erected by
Stalin’s regime. It is interesting that a university got this po-
sition, as universities in l9th century European capitals were
among the core elements of capital city symbols. It is even
more significant that the hard core of Moscow’s symbolism
during Soviet times is in the end not represented by any of
Stalin’s constructions at all, but by the traditional Kreml, the
seat of czarist power before Peter removed it to Petersburg.
Stalin and Hitler’s building ambitions directly clashed in
1937 at the Paris World Exhibition. Boris Iofan and Albert
Speer, the two most valued architects of the two regimes
rivalled with each other in classicist monumentality as a
worker and a female farmer (copied, plagiarized or em-
bellished from an example from antiquity) encountered a
giant eagle (the eagle was made a bit higher on purpose) on
top of two bombastic pavillions. Both designs were highly
regarded by professionals and onlookers. It means that this
language of forms was not merely the aberration of two
deviant regimes but that they recaptured far more widely
shared aesthetic notions used to imprint different types of
authority at the time. Good examples are London Univer-
sity, the Commonwealth representations and BBC’s Bush
House in London and several US government departments
surrounding Washington’s Mall.
Settings, regimes, esthetics
Hitler and Stalin projected a considerable part of their ef-
forts to symbolize their political constructions in the inner
parts of their capital cities. These were two old urban places
that nonetheless showed a very different history. Berlin had,
since the reign of the Hohenzollerns over Prussia, been
the uninterrupted focal point of important different polit-
ical regimes. Berlin had in the second half of the l9th
century become one of the major modern metropoles of Eu-
rope, a rapidly growing concentration of economic, cultural
and political activity with sudden shifts in its political for-
tunes: capital of the kingdom of Prussia, the second empire,
Weimar Republic. It had for a long time been at the edge
of modern developments in science, technology and arts.
Moscow was the former capital of Russia since the early
18th century. The old political center, the Kremlin was still
there, but it was mainly used for religious purposes. Moscow
had remained the spiritual center of the Orthodox Church
with its main cathedral just off the Kremlin along the river
since the 1880s. The modernization of Russia since the late
l9th century also showed up in Moscow in new buildings in
the European styles of the times: classicist, art deco, and
also in a wildly dispersed pattern of industrial activities that
only avoided the best-off sections of town to the West and
the Northeast. Some spots there had originally been used by
the former czars and the sections had then been occupied by
the higher strata who did not care for polluting installations
in their midst.
When Hitler and Stalin came to power in the early 1930s
their capital cities were in a quite different shape. Berlin
was a thriving, thoroughly modern city, though temporarily
struck by the great depression that hit all western economies.
Moscow was still primarily a traditional, pre-industrial city
with a uneven veneer of modern developments. Berlin had
all the features of a capital city including all the symbolic
capital that came from the references to historical triumphs.
Moscow had a legacy of political authority that had long
been abandoned and a still standing central function as the
spiritual capital of an Orthodox church, that was supposed
to be at the scrapheap of history.
The differences between the capital cities may account
for some of the differences in the plans to impose a set
of symbolically charged elements that should refer to the
regimes as embodiments of statepower and national unity.
The most important is that Stalins plans were more exten-
sive.
In order to develop Moscow into an icon of communist
utopia it had to be developed wholesale, given what it was.
This was proposed in the 1935 and 1951 extension plans.
They were only partly implemented. The aims were simply
too large. But in the context of this gigantic restructuration

that as a whole would remodel Moscow into a symbol of
communist achievement, there were a number of elements
that more in particular would refer to the realization of the
communist dream or the iron laws of history.
Once Hitler had won his political victory and follow-
ing ‘the path of legality’ had instituted his dictatorship, he
wanted to show that all the preceding stages of German
national development were only bleak episodes compared
to the epochal times that were to come now. The plans for
Berlin were on the one hand just a technical continuation, a
further modernization of what was already a modern city. On
the other hand the symbolic significance was only on those
elements where Hitler’s personal authority had to be shown
as contrasted with the preceding regimes.
It should be added at this point that Stalin was perhaps
more intent to make Moscow the penultimate symbol of the
USSR than Hitler was intent to do the same with respect to
Berlin. Although Berlins urban restructuring had his full at-
tention, he also kept to the important symbolic roles of Linz,
of Munich, and of Hamburg. This perhaps reflected his per-
sonal background as well as Germany’s less monocephalous
urban structure compared to that of the Soviet Union.
Hitler and Stalin instituted two of the most murderous
regimes of modern times, singular dictatorships that in con-
trast to earlier examples were in constant contact with their
populations. The controlling apparatus that was developed in
the two cases was quite comparable. The megalomania that
was an important ingredient in their most central efforts to
impose a built symbol of their power, showed their need to
make an impression on the population at large. The basic el-
ement they prefered, an enormous dome in a central location
surrounded by a huge square, embodied a shared ideal of
subjected masses that should be impressed and – why not –
uplifted by these signs of regime power in which they could
somehow share.
The two regimes also showed significant differences that
are reflected in these efforts to craft built and sculptured
symbols. Hitler’s role in the functioning of the Nazi regime
was distinctly different from Stalins role in the communist
authority. There was a cult of Hitler. He himself symbolized
the regime. In the official propaganda there was no effort
to underplay his role, on the contrary. He himself would
play a central role in the functioning of the dome. His image
was not used in its design. In Stalin’s country this was quite
different. The leadership cult only very slowly took shape.
For a long time after Stalin had effectively won the internal
power struggle, his reign was still presented as one of the
party. Only the former and deceased Lenin could after his
death freely be presented as a regime icon. But there was
apparently a great need for a personification of the regime.
On the top of the Palace the working class hero was replaced
by Lenin. The dictator himself was not thought to perform
a special role in the functioning of the dome. On an official
building Stalin only shows up in 1939 at the design for the
USSR world exhibition in New York where his face and that
of Lenin mark the two sides of the entrance.
Another difference between these two symbolic produc-
tions is the didactic emphasis in the Soviet case compared to
343
the more abstract emphasis in the case of the Germans that
tried to make an impression by sheer size and unadorned
monumentality. This may have to be explained by the nature
of the two ideological systems as well as by the social con-
texts in which they had to operate. The communist utopia
was more closely connected to the paraphernalia of science
than was the case with the nazis (see also the important
position of the University). The communists argued from
a more elaborate, more formalized set of convictions, that
however misguided pretended to provide a total world view.
Consequently, their propaganda efforts had a more didactic
appearance (even in the case of the Agricultural Exhibi-
tion), whereas the nazis more clearly targeted the primary
senses (particularly the one that inspires awe). On the other
hand, the Hitler regime operated in a largely modern con-
text among a highly educated populace that could not be
swung by the crude, emphatic arguments of communist pro-
paganda, whereas the first communist state was constructed
in a country that knew still high proportions of illiterate
people and was so far only lightly touched by the forces of
modernization.
Finally, the two regimes came to life in an aesthetic cli-
mate as regards the built environment where the forces of
modernism and constructivism mustered against all preced-
ing esthetic codes. Particularly in the young Soviet regime
the outcome of this competition was not a foregone conclu-
sion. In the 1920s the modernist party had quite some clout,
but it all stopped in the early 1930s. Boris Iofan, educated
with the futurists in Rome, and returned to the Soviet Union
in 1924, became the major architect-designer of the 1930s
as far as the highly symbolic artworks were concerned on
a repertoire of classicist quotations and art deco ornaments
bended to traditional Russian forms. Albert Speer, Hitler’s
young protégé first in the field of architecture and design and
later occupied with different parts of the nazi war machine,
engaged in a monumental, cool, unadorned style, meant to
impress at first sight. This was accepted as the official Nazi
building style and no modernist experiments were allowed.
The modernists in the first instance also tried to get building
commissions but failed.
These aesthetic codes, not quite alike but similar in their
opposition to modernism, were in fact not very different
from those used for a large part of the official buildings in
other countries. The difference was that in the other coun-
tries the competition between the supporters of modernism
and constructivism on the one hand and the more traditional
builders continued so that a more varied output was realized.
The question remains what in this classicist inspired style
was so attractive to all power holders in this era, and why
this style lost its natural predominance after the war.
Conclusion
The two most murderous European dictatorships of the 20th
century made large efforts to install symbolic elements in
their capital cities that should embody the most emblematic
traits of their reign as they wanted to project them. They
344
largely failed because their reigns were too short, but Stalin’s
regime left definite traces in the urban landscape of Moscow.
These dictatorships shared the effort to use part of their
inner cities to symbolize their regimes as embodiments of
state power and national unity. Both engaged in mega-
lomanic projects that partly reflected their quite modern
relationships to the populations they incorporated in their
regimes by a combination of positive inducements and ter-
ror. These projects were designed on the basis of traditional
aesthetic repertoires, whose evocative possibilities and pro-
pagandistic impact were stretched to the utmost. These
repertoires themselves were hardly different from those pre-
vailing in official circles elsewhere. The difference was that
the dictatorships did not allow any deviating aesthetic code
to be implemented in contrast with more democratic coun-
tries where a larger diversity of styles was consequently
realized.
These efforts also differed in significant aspects. They
had to be installed in quite different cities. They were in-
stalled by regimes that, though both dictatorial and using
comparable instruments of power differed in their ideo-
logical belief systems and in the way ultimate power was
perceived and actually vested in a person and in the general
secretary of a party. The two regimes operated in different
societies, one modern and one modernizing, which made a
difference on how to communicate with the masses. At the
same time the symbolic efforts in the modern country were
more clearly targeted to the primary senses whereas in the
modernizing one they were in addition didactic in nature.
This was also connected with the different nature of the two
regimes.
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