communism, fascism, democracy, 1917 1939

Communism, Fascism, Democracy,

1917-1939

Russian Revolution❖1917. ❖Since reign of Peter the Great (1689-1725), some Russians were determined to become more “Western,” while others favoured Slavic culture.

❖Strong pressures for change. ❖After defeat in 1856 in Crimean War, Czar Alexander II (1855-1881) undertook series of reforms, including emancipating serfs in 1861. ❖He was assassinated in 1881.

Russian Revolution

❖Russia still moved towards industrialization. ❖Military defeat by Japan in 1905, led to revolution that forced Nicholas II (1894-1917) to introduce Russia’s first constitution. ❖Duma (parliament) was ineffective and failed to limit the czar’s power.

Russian Revolution

❖Russia entered WWI poorly prepared. ❖Troop mobilization was very slow, food shortages were constant, soldiers were poorly supplied. ❖By the end of 1915, over 2 million Russian troops had been killed!!!

Russian Revolution

❖People who supported the regime begam to question its handling of the war. ❖Early 1917, many troops abandoned the front and went home. ❖March 1917, rioting broke out in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and spread to factories and military. ❖Troops would not fire on rioters.

Russian Revolution

❖Duma, supported by public opinion, asked the czar to abdicate. ❖Power was placed in the hands of a Provisional Government. ❖Soviets (workers’ councils), involved in 1905 revolution, reappeared.

Russian Revolution

❖Petrograd Soviet attracted soldiers and called itself the Soviet Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. ❖Provisional Government attempted to rule until Constituent Assembly could draw new constitution. ❖Also set out to win the war and reorganize Russia as a democratic state.

Russian Revolution

❖Lenin read about March Revolution and abdication of czar in Swiss newspaper and returned to Russia. ❖When he arrived in Petrograd, he laid down a program (the April Theses), stating that the war should be stopped immediately and the Bolsheviks should support the Soviet as the true form of revolutionary government, not the Duma.

Russian Revolution

❖He demanded “nationalization of all lands in the country” and control of the land by the local Soviets. ❖Many were shocked at Lenin’s plans to do away with the “bourgeois revolution” or (the Provisional Government). ❖Marx had previously deemed this a necessary stage in the communist revolution, but Lenin revised this ideology to deal with Russia’s problems.

Russian Revolution

❖Thus, the new ideology imposed on Russia should be called “Bolshevism,” or “Leninism,” rather than “Marxism.” ❖The Bolsheviks began gaining seats in elections with the Soviets. ❖By November, they had a majority in Petrograd and Moscow Soviets.

Russian Revolution

❖By 1917, situation was deteriorating at the front and at home. ❖Lenin and the Bolsheviks were the only significant group that had consistently opposed the war. ❖Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), independent Marxist, joined Lenin. ❖Leading intellectual, trusted by poor.

Russian Revolution

❖November 6, Bolsheviks overthrew Provisional Government, with help of military and Petrograd Soviet. ❖Bolsheviks carried out successful coup d’état!!! ❖Freedom of press was restricted, Constituent Assembly was closed, secret police, CHEKA, established.

Russian Revolution

❖Lenin was determined to end Russia’s participation in the war and sent Trotsky to negotiate with Germans. ❖March 15, 1918, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Russia and Germany. ❖Disastrous for Russia (surrendered 26% of territories, 75% coal mines, and richest grain area, Ukraine).

Russian Revolution

❖Lenin moved government to old capital of Moscow. ❖Bolsheviks, known as the “Reds,” because of the colour of their flag, had to fight civil was against the “Whites,” who wanted an assembly elected by universal voting. ❖Trotsky organized the “Red Army.”

Russian Revolution

❖Bolsheviks also had to fight troops from foreign countries, including Britain, Japan, Canada, and United States, who had been sent to crush new regime. ❖Main opponents of Bolsheviks were defeated by 1920.

Russian Revolution

Communist International (Comintern)

❖Marx had always seen revolution as an international process which Lenin and Trotsky agreed with. ❖Lenin and Trotsky created the Comintern in 1919. ❖Communism advocated state ownership of land and property and sought the destruction of non-communist governments on behalf of the working people of the world.

Communist International (Comintern)

❖Lenin and Trotsky invited socialist parties to join them. ❖But, these parties had to change their name to communist and accept “21 Conditions” set out by Lenin. ❖Most European socialists refused.

Stalin and Soviet Union❖Lenin’s death (stroke or neurosyphilis) left Trotsky and Josef Stalin (1879-1953) as chief contenders for power. ❖Trotsky favoured open elections to the party leadership, loosening bureaucracy, and “permanent revolution,” with Russia as heart of world communist revolutions.

❖Stalin insisted on the development of industrialization in Russia and establishment of powerful communist state, before pursuing an aggressive foreign policy. ❖Stalin won because of his cunning and ability to organize coalitions against Trotsky.

Stalin and Soviet Union

❖Trotsky was thrown out of Communist Party in 1927 and exiled from Russia 2 years later. ❖1940, Stalin sent an agent to assassinate Trotsky at his home in Mexico.


❖1924, Russia officially became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. ❖Stalin inaugurated the USSR’s First Five-Year Plan in 1928, in an attempt to rapidly develop heavy industry. ❖High human cost – few consumer goods were produces and people were forced into labour. ❖Second Five-Year Plan from 1932 to 1937.


❖Iron and steel production expanded fourfold, while coal production rose by 3 ½. ❖No country had ever industrialized so quickly. ❖Stalin ordered farms be collectivized, beginning in 1929. ❖Ownership in the hands of the state.


❖Stalin also wished to control farm production and millions of people who were engaged in it. ❖Policy was directed mainly against peasants known as kulaks. ❖They had land of their own, were well off, and produced enough surplus food to sell on open market.


❖Stalin wanted to take land from people who had acquired it when serfdom ended in 1861, and force all peasants to work for the state as part of collective communes. ❖Many peasants resisted collectivization. ❖When agents of the state came to expropriate lands, peasants fought them and slaughtered own cattle rather than turn them over to state authorities.


❖People were relocated, many sent to forced labour camps in Siberia. ❖Millions of people were killed or died (5 to 10 million!) in guerilla war between peasants and government. ❖By 1934, over 70 percent of the farms in Russia were collectivized. ❖Kulaks had been eliminated as a class.


❖Soviet Union was run by a single party led by Stalin. ❖New elite emerged in Soviet Union – the managers; people who controlled and organized the party and the state. ❖Communist Party made policy parallel to the government. ❖1932, Stalin began a purge of the Communist Party.


❖Eliminate all possible rivals and secure power. ❖1934, “Reign of Terror,” when Stalin intensified his purge. ❖By 1938, large number of “old Bolsheviks,” had been executed. ❖Purge also created fear in people.


❖“Trials” were conducted in which loyal men “confessed” to betraying the revolution. ❖Affected millions!!! ❖Many were executed, large numbers were sent to prison or forced labour camps. ❖Soviet Union became police state.


❖Russia was Stalin’s main interest, not world revolution. ❖Asked Russian peasants and workers to produce for the homeland, not to prove the value of the communist system.


❖Propaganda machine of the state turned out material that supported Stalin’s policies and portrayed him as a figure larger than life, a hero on a par with Marx, Lenin, and the great czars. ❖This had little to do with Marxism. ❖Forcing people to work for the state was opposite of what early revolutionaries hoped to achieve.


❖Perpetual terror was not a Marxist ideal. ❖Elitism was not equality. ❖Totalitarian society was not the decline of the state. ❖Stalin’s communism, like Lenin’s Bolshevism, must be understood in its own terms. ❖His brand of communism is often called “Stalinism.”


❖While Russia was embroiled in revolution, World War I ended. ❖Social conflict affected Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Italy - new political movement called Fascism emerged as a response in Italy. ❖Italy’s participation in World War I produced severe social and economic strains.

Fascism: A New Phenomenon

Fascism❖1919, country seemed on the verge of revolution, but divided Italian parliament was unable to respond. ❖Middle and upper class Italians looked for ways to defend their interests – found in Fascism.

❖Fascist movement was started by Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), former journalist. ❖Mussolini was a socialist until he was expelled from the party for supporting Italian intervention in World War I.

Fascism

❖Served in the army until 1917. ❖Mussolini sought to create a new political force that combined social radicalism with extreme nationalism. ❖Initial Fascist program was anticlerical, antimonarchist, and called for redistribution of land.

Fascism

❖Elections of November 1919, the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Groups) received only 5 000 votes. ❖Growth and success of socialist agricultural unions in northern Italy terrified landowners.

Fascism

❖Uniform squads, fascio, composed primarily of veterans and students, undertook campaigns of violence against local socialists. ❖Authorities did nothing. ❖First 6 months of 1921, 102 deaths. ❖By 1921, the fascio, had 250,000 members!!

Fascism

❖Prime minister, Giovanni Giolitti, put together a National Bloc, including Fascists. ❖Bloc did not win number of votes Giolitti had expected. ❖Did permit 35 Fascists, including Mussolini, to enter parliament.

Fascism

❖By 1922, the king offered Mussolini the position of prime minister after he threatened to march on Rome if his party was not given 5 cabinet positions. ❖Mussolini and Fascists had come to power legally.

Fascism

❖Fascists used open intimidation and violence. ❖Hundreds of people were killed and many opposition candidates withdrew. ❖63% of voters supported Fascists. ❖November 1925, laws were enacted that put Fascists in control.

Fascism

❖December 1925, Mussolini became head of government and was given authority to take executive actions without being responsible to government. ❖December 1928, Fascist Party took full control of the state.

Fascism

❖Fascism cultivated the growing cult of Il Duce, the leader. ❖Mussolini’s name was stencilled on walls and his picture appeared in all public buildings. ❖School textbooks compared him with the greatest figures in Italian history.

Fascism

❖Some traditional institutions remained in place and outside Fascist control: ❖King Victor Emmanuel III continued on his throne in Italy. ❖Mussolini made peace with the Roman Catholic Church, enemy of the Italian state since unification.

Fascism

❖Lateran Agreements, signed by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI in 1929, recognized “the full ownership and exclusive and absolute dominion…of the Holy See over the Vatican,” an independent territory in the heart of Rome.

Fascism

❖All differences between Italy and the Vatican were settled. ❖Church recognized the existence of the Italian state. ❖Mussolini set out to reorganize the state. ❖Established “corporate state,” created a series of corporations to regulate the economy.

Fascism

❖Each labour group had its corporation and each individual took part in the economic life of Italy by being a member of a corporation. ❖These corporations would bargain collectively with the government the final say in any settlement.

Fascism

❖“Lockouts and strikes are abolished.” ❖Mussolini’s economic goal was self-sufficiency, but it was impossible in a country with limited natural resources. ❖The state sponsored works of art that praised power, war, and heroism. ❖Architecture was grand and monumental – attempt to recall ancient Rome.

Fascism

❖Fascism sought to mobilize women as wives and mothers on behalf of the state. ❖Regime attacked birth control and abortion and encouraged large families. ❖Mussolini did not think in racial and anti-Semitic terms initially. ❖Changed in 1938 when a “Manifesto of Fascist Racism” was published.

Fascism

❖Followed by laws banning intermarriage, barring Jewish students and teachers from schools and universities, removing books authored by Jews from curriculum, and revoking citizenship of foreign-born Jews.

Fascism

Germany: Weimar Republic❖February 1919, leaders of newly elected constituent assembly met and signed the Treaty of Versailles. ❖Drew up a new constitution that established liberal and democratic republic. ❖Chancellor = prime minister.

❖President was elected as head of state. ❖Church and state were separated and freedom of speech, assembly, association, and property rights were guaranteed.

Germany: Weimar Republic

❖During 1920s, governments in Weimar Republic were formed by coalitions of various parties that were committed to the constitution. ❖Most important were the Social Democratic Party, the heir of revisionist socialists, Catholic Centre Party, and Democratic Party.


❖Weimar Republic was always in danger because powerful groups never accepted Germany’s defeat, claiming leaders of the Republic were responsible for a “stab in the back.” ❖1923, because of economic problems, Germany claimed it could not meet its reparation payments.


❖Inflation was destroying the value of German currency and middle class saw its savings disappear. ❖People became disillusioned with Weimar Republic.


❖Reparation payments were reduced in 1924, foreign capital entered the country, border problems with France were settled by 1925 and Germany was admitted into the League of Nations in 1926. ❖Stock market crash in October 1929 triggered devastating depression.


❖As unemployment soared, radical parties enjoyed new opportunities. ❖Group called the National Socialists, Nazis, took full advantage of the opportunity.


Rise of Nazism❖Hitler, son of a customs officer. ❖Born and reared in Austria. ❖Childhood marked by failure and deep frustration. ❖Went to Vienna to study art but was refused admission to the Academy of Fine Arts.

❖Unable to hold a regular job, he was a vagabond, hating Vienna and its intellectuals for rejecting him. ❖Became an ultra-German nationalist and looked upon Slavs and other nationalities in the Austro-Hungarians Empire as inferior.

Rise of Nazism

❖Became leader of right-wing press and acquired contempt for liberal and leftist views. ❖Became a virulent anti-Semite. ❖Jews of Vienna had long been citizens of the empire and were important in intellectual and economic life.

Rise of Nazism

❖In Hitler’s view, Jews were not Germans but a race apart to be hated and feared. ❖First World War gave Hitler something to do. ❖He enlisted in the army, rose in rank to corporal, fought on western front, and was decorated for valour.

Rise of Nazism

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Hitler

❖After the war, he went to Munich, harbouring deep resentment over Germany’s defeat and hatred for Weimar Republic. ❖1919, joined a tiny group called German Workers’ Party, that changed to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Rise of Nazism

❖Hitler discovered that he had extraordinary powers to arouse an audience and became the leader of the Nazis. ❖Nazis adopted a semi-military organization. ❖Wore uniforms, saluted, paraded, and physically attacked their opponents, particularly communists.

Rise of Nazism

❖The SA (storm troopers) was organized in 1921. ❖Nazis hated those who signed Treaty of Versailles and proclaimed that Germany had not been defeated but betrayed at home, particularly by Jews and communists.

Rise of Nazism

❖1923, Hitler and Ludendorff, hero of First World War, sought to overthrow the government. ❖November 8, meeting in a Munich beer hall, Hitler stood up, fired a shot in the air and proclaimed his coup d'état.

Rise of Nazism

❖Beer Hall Putsch ended quickly when the army dispersed a march of the SA led by Ludendorff and Hitler. ❖Hitler’s arrest and trial provided him with vast publicity and he became a prominent figure.

Rise of Nazism

❖He claimed to be acting to protect Germany from the communists and defended national interests. ❖Given a 5-year sentence and released in less than a year. ❖Hitler used his time in jail to dictate Mein Kampf, that became Nazi bible.

Rise of Nazism

❖“No more than Nature desires the mating of the weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow…The result of all racial crossing is…[the] lowering of the level of the higher race.

Mein Kampf

❖“The mightuest counterpart to the Aryan [race] is represented by the Jews… The Jew today is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany… The purpose of propaganda is…to convince the masses. But the masses are slow moving…and only after the simplest ideas are repeated thousands of times will the masses finally remember them…

Mein Kampf

❖“We National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth. And this action is the only one which, before God and our German posterity, would make any sacrifice of blood seem justified.”

Mein Kampf

❖Hitler reorganized party once released from prison in 1925. ❖Hitler established SS, personal elite bodyguard. ❖Determined to destroy Weimar Republic. ❖Depression of 1929 gave Hitler his opportunity.

Rise of Nazism

❖Army believed Hitler was its best chance to establish firm conservative rule. ❖Nationalist Party and Reichstag (German parliament), joined coalition with Nazis. ❖January 30, 1933, Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Rise of Nazism

❖February, Reichstag building was set on fire. ❖Nazis blamed communists and persuaded President Hindenburg to suspend civil liberties. ❖It permitted “restrictions on personal freedom, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, and on the rights of association.”

Rise of Nazism

❖March, Hitler unleashed SA to suppress opponents and intimidate electorate. ❖Reichstag passed Enabling Act which suspended constitution and gave Hitler dictatorial powers. ❖Weimar Republic was dead. ❖Hitler called new regime the Third Reich. ❖May, right to strike was abolished.

Rise of Nazism

❖July, law proclaimed “the only political party existing in Germany is the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” ❖Hitler purged his own party, known as “The Night of the Long Knives” – members were arrested and murdered by the SS and the Gestapo (secret police). ❖Hindenburg died a few weeks later and Hitler combined offices of chancellor and president, calling himself der Fuhrer.

Rise of Nazism

❖Members of armed forces took an oath of personal allegiance to Hitler, not to the state. ❖Persecution of Jews began immediately. ❖Intimidation and violence were officially encouraged with Nuremberg Laws of 1935.

Rise of Nazism

❖Deprived Jews of German citizenship and forbade Jews to intermarry. ❖Nazis expelled Jews from civil service, professions and jobs, and all cultural life. ❖End of 1938, all Jewish businesses had been forced to close. ❖Gypsies were also persecuted.

Rise of Nazism

❖Opponents of Nazi state were terrorized or went into exile, including Freud and Einstein. ❖To most Germans, Hitler was revered. ❖People now had security and strong collective identity. ❖Hitler instituted public works program and German rearmament.

Rise of Nazism

❖Expanded the economy and nearly every German had a job by 1938. ❖Nazi Germany was a welfare state. ❖Loans, child benefits, free day care, vacations were available to “pure” couples. ❖Regime introduced compulsory sterilization of mentally ill, criminals, and juvenile offenders.

Rise of Nazism

❖More than 200 000 had been sterilized by 1937. ❖By 1939, government had killed over 70 000 patients with mental disabilities. ❖Hitler and Nazis despised Christianity. ❖Religion was seen as meek, preaching universal love. ❖And Jewish origins of Christianity disturbed Nazis.

Rise of Nazism

❖Nazis desired complete control of education, attacked Church schools. ❖Pope Pius XI did not break with Nazis or speak out against racist methods – very controversial. ❖Nazism took the swastika as its emblem. ❖Books contrary to those of the regime were burned.

Rise of Nazism

❖Nazi took control of the press, radio, and cinema in order to spread their propaganda. ❖Millions of youths joined the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). ❖By 1939, Germany became a totalitarian state – self-sacrificing, devoted to the collective good, united in a single will. ❖Aryan nation was on the move.

Rise of Nazism

communism, fascism, democracy, 1917 1939

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