HIS 230 Test Two

Léon Blum

(1872-1950) a French politician who identified with the moderate left and was three times Prime Minister of France. He provided several economic reforms and declared neutrality in the Spanish Civil War. He denounced the appeasement of Germany and remained a staunch opponent of Vichy France.

Leon Trotsky

(1879-1940) a Marxist revolutionary and theorist, a Soviet politician who engineered the transfer of all political power to the Soviets with the October Revolution of 1917, and the founding leader of the Red Army. Trotsky initially supported the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Communist Party. After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s, Trotsky was removed from power and expelled from the Communist Party. Trotsky's ideas formed the basis of Trotskyism, a major school of Marxist thought that opposes the theories of Stalinism.

General Emilio Mola

(1887-1937) a Spanish nationalist commander during the Spanish Civil War. He was a veteran of the African wars where he rose to prominence serving with the Regulars. He led the military uprising that culminated in the Spanish Civil War.

War Communism

(1918-1921) the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War. According to Soviet historiography, this policy was adopted by the Bolsheviks with the goal of keeping towns and the Red Army stocked with food and weapons by nationalizing industry. The system had to be used because the ongoing war disrupted normal economic mechanisms and relations. It ended with the beginning of the NEP.

Comintern

(1919-1943) abbreviation for the Communist International, which was an international communist organization that advocated for world communism. The International intended to fight by armed force to overthrow the bourgeoisie for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state.

New Economic Policy

(1921-1928) an economic policy of Soviet Russia proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who described it as a progression towards "state capitalism" within the workers' state of the USSR. Lenin characterized it as an economic system that would include a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control. It revived the wage system and private ownership of some business. It was enacted because they realized they had to step back socialism if they wanted to keep control.

Lenin's Political Testament

(1922-1923) the name given to a document by Vladimir Lenin in the last weeks of 1922 and the first weeks of 1923. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies. Sensing his impending death, he also commented on the leading members of the Soviet Union to ensure its future. He suggested Joseph Stalin be removed from his position as General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee.

Why Stalin and not Trotsky?

(1924 Stalin took power) compared to Trotsky, Stalin looked patient, level headed, and pragmatic at handling situations. Stalin turned Trotsky's traits into flaws. External circumstances also influenced it because people did not like the idea of "permanent revolution" and they just wanted socialism in their own country. Stalin appeared as a tactician. Trotsky is the intellectual, which is not always a good thing.

Collectivization (as policy)

(1928-1940) the Soviet collectivization of its agricultural sector during the ascendancy of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to consolidate individual landholdings and labor into collective farms. The Soviet leadership confidently expected that the replacement of individual peasant farms by collective ones would immediately increase the food supply for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution (mainly in grain deliveries) that had developed from 1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program. Eventually, there was peasant revolt.u

Show Trials

(1930s) a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined guilt of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning to other would-be dissidents of transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive rather than correctional justice and also conducted for propagandistic purposes. The show trials were significant in Stalin's regime through the Moscow Trials and the Great Purge Period of 1937 and 1938.

Gulag

(1930s-1950s) the main government agency that administered and controlled the Soviet forced-labor camp system during Stalin's rule from the 1930s to the 1950s. The term is also commonly used to reference any forced-labor camp in the Soviet Union. The camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners. Large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD and other instruments. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union.

Second Republic (Spain)

(1931-1939) the republican regime that existed in Spain following the Provisional government that existed from April to December of 1931. Founded by the 1931 Constitution. It was proclaimed when King Alfonso XIII left the country following municipal elections where anti-monarchist candidates won the majority of votes. Its government went into exile in 1931 when the last of republican forces surrendered and ended the Civil War.

Depression in France

(1931-1940) peaks in 1935, a financial crisis that affected France a bit later than other countries. The depression was relatively mild as compared to the situation that affected the rest of the world because France's economy was much more self-sufficient.

POUM

(1935-1980) a Spanish communist political party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War. It was formed by the fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Left of Spain and the Workers and Peasants' Bloc against the will of Leon Trotsky, with whom the former broke. The writer George Orwell served with the party's militia and witnessed the Stalinist repression of the movement, which would help form his anti-authoritarian ideas in later life.

Red Terror (Spain)

(1936) various acts of violence committed from 1936 until the end of the Spanish Civil War. The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (members of the Catholic clergy, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military coup), as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and politicians, and the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches. It was a response to the news of a rightist military coup.

Popular Front (France)

(1936-1938) an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party, the French Section of the Workers' International, and the Radical Socialist Party during the interwar period. Three months after the victory of the Frente Popular in Spain, the Popular Front won May 1936 legislative elections, leading to the formation of a government first headed by French Section of the Workers' International party leader Léon Blum and exclusively composed of Radical-Socialist SFIO ministers.

International Brigades

(1936-1938) parliamentary units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed for two years. It is estimated that during the entire war, between 32,000 and 35,000 members served in the International Brigades, including 15,000 who died in combat. The International Brigades represented Comintern and Joseph Stalin's commitment to provide assistance to the Spanish Republican cause (with arms, logistics, military advisers and the NKVD), just as Italy, Portugal and Germany were providing assistance to the opposing Nationalist insurgency.

Soviet Policy in Spain

(1936-1939) Stalin was concerned with the spread of fascism in Europe so he urged the growth of left wing coalitions. During the Spanish Civil War, France and Britain called for non-intervention but Mussolini and Hitler continued to give aid to Franco and the nationalists. Stalin became concerned by this and was willing to do whatever it took to stop fascism. He encouraged the Comintern to organize the International Brigades and they helped the Spanish Communist Party (Republican Army) improve position in the Popular Front government. Stalin did this all majorly to win support and respect back in his own home. Stalin blamed losing on other democracies for choosing non-intervention.

CTV (Corpo di Truppe Voluntarie)

(1936-1939) a Fascist Italian expeditionary force which was sent to Spain in order to support the Nationalist forces under General Francisco Franco against the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War.

Politcal Commissars (Spain)

(1936-1939) a political commissar was a high-ranking functionary at a military headquarters. Commissars were established to control and improve morale of the military forces by the Communist party. Commissars were meant to bridge political divisions in the republic. They worked on morale boosting and community building. The problem was that it was unclear what sort of military role they should play and they were too zealous with repetitive speeches and the spy persona.

Condor Legion

(1936-1939) a unit composed of military personnel from the air force and army of Nazi Germany, which served with the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. The Condor Legion developed methods of terror bombing which were widely used in the Second World War and shortly afterwards. The bombing of Guernica was the most infamous operation carried out by the Condor Legion.

Popular Front (Spain)

(1936-1939) an electoral coalition and pact signed by various left-wing political organizations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election. It included the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the Communist Party of Spain, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, and the republican left groups.

White Terror (Spain)

(1936-1939) he "Francoist Repression" also known as the White Terror; was the series of acts of politically motivated violence, rape, and other crimes committed by the Nationalist movement during the Spanish Civil War and during the first decade of Francisco Franco's dictatorship. It involved mass killings of the Spanish Republican loyalists, which included Popular Front adherents, liberals, Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists, anarchists, Protestants, freethinkers, intellectuals and among other things, people branded as Catalan and Basque separatists and Freemasons.

Non-Intervention Committee

(1936-1939) signed in August 1936, the Non-Intervention Agreement created the Committee regarding the Spanish Civil War. Primarily arranged by the French and British governments, important members of the committee also included the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany. Ultimately, the committee had the support of 27 nations.

National Front (Spain)

(1936-1939) the nationalist or rebel faction of Spain was a major faction in the Spanish Civil War. It was composed of a variety of political groups that supported the Spanish coup of July 1936 and the Second Spanish republic, including the Falange, the CEDA, and two rival monarchist claimants: the Alfonsists and the Carlists. In 1937, all the groups were merged into the Falange. One of the main leaders of the 1936 coup, General Francisco Franco, would lead this faction throughout the war and later would become the dictator of Spain from 1939-1975.

Sides in the Spanish Civil War

(1936-1939) the war took place between the Republicans, who were loyal to the democratic and left-leaning Second Spanish Republic in alliance with anarchists. The other side was the nationalists, a Falangist, Carlist, and largely aristocratic conservative group led by Francisco Franco.

Guernica (painting)

(1937) a mural-sized oil painting on canvas by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso. The painting is regarded by many art critics as one of the most moving and powerful anti-war painting in history. The large mural shows the suffering people wrenched by violence and chaos.

May Events in Barcelona

(1937) the May Days of 1937, sometimes also called May Events, referring to a series of clashes between 3 and 8 May 1937, were a period of civil violence in Catalonia, when factions of the Republican side engaged each other in street battles in various parts of Catalonia, in particular in the city of Barcelona, during the Spanish Civil War.

Orwell's Homage to Catalonia

(1938) George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. He gets caught up in the revolutionary spirit of the times and joins the militia. He is assigned to a POUM unit. He spends some time in basic training and then spends three months in the trenches at the front. He sees some combat, but is mostly bored, hungry and exhausted. He then receives some leave and returns to Barcelona to join his wife who has, by this time, also traveled to Spain. In Barcelona, however, fighting breaks out between rival Republican groups. Orwell is caught up in several days of street fighting, which eventually dwindles away. He briefly returns to the front and is seriously wounded and evacuated to a hospital, where he partially recuperates. Continued political rivalry in the Republican government eventually leads to the suppression of POUM, the political group with which Orwell is affiliated. As POUM is suppressed, former members are arrested, jailed, and sometimes executed. Orwell, his wife, and a few comrades escape arrest and flee to France. Orwell then travels to England, where he makes an extensive review of news accounts of the war and writes the book. He intersperses his journalist account of his personal war experiences with two lengthy sections describing the political situation in Catalonia, and with numerous corrections to what he sees as unjust views of, and information about, the war.

Factors in Nationalist Victory

(1939) republicans suffered political dissension, a lack of unified command in military leadership, economic weakness, and foreign aid from the USSR being limited. Nationalists had political unity under Franco, military unity and assistance from the Army of Africa, economic advantage from a controlled food supply and aid, and foreign aid from Germany, Italy, and the United States.

Koestler's Darkness at Noon

(1940) a novel by Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940. His best-known work, it is the tale of Rubashov, an Old Bolshevik who is arrested, imprisoned, and tried for treason against the government that he had helped to create. The novel is set in 1938 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Despite being based on real events, the novel does not name either Russia or the USSR, and tends to use generic terms to describe people and organizations: for example the Soviet government is referred to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is referred to as "the Dictatorship". Joseph Stalin is represented by "Number One", a menacing dictator. The novel expresses the author's disillusionment with the Soviet Union's version of Communism at the outset of World War II.

Guernica (town)

(April 1937) warplanes of the German Condor Legion, commanded by Colonel Wolfram von Richtofen, bombed Guernica for about two hours. Germany, at this time led by Hitler, had lent material support to the nationalists. Later, intense aerial bombardment became a preliminary step in the Blitzkrieg tact.

XIV Party Congress

(December 1925) elected by Congress. The agenda was the general report of the Central Committee, the organizational report of the Central Committee, the report of the Auditing Commission, the report of the Central Control Commission, and the report of the RCP Executive Committee of the Comintern. They talked about the Soviet state and the economics of it. It went down in history as a congress of industrialization.

1936 Constitution (USSR)

(December 1936) adopted as the Stalin Constitution, it redesigned the government of the Soviet Union. The constitution repealed restrictions on voting and added universal direct suffrage and the right to work to rights guaranteed by the previous constitution. In addition, the Constitution recognized collective social and economic rights including the rights to work, rest and leisure, health protection, care in old age and sickness, housing, education, and cultural benefits. The constitution also provided for the direct election of all government bodies and their reorganization into a single, uniform system. A special commission of 31 members, which Joseph Stalin chaired, wrote it.

Stavisky Riots and Affair

(February 1934) a financial scandal generated by the actions of embezzler Alexander Stavisky when he engineered phony city bonds. The government was implicated and the communists/Croix de Feu called the government Free Masons for working with a foreign Jewish conman. Right wing groups armed and gathered in the capital to march on the National Assembly and get to the bottom of things. People feared overthrow and riot. Daladier tries to restore after riots, but resigns the day after. It is only the start of a violent period in France. The popular front is born from it.

Stresa Front

(formed April 1945) the coalition of France, Britain, and Italy formed at Stresa, Italy, to oppose Adolf Hitler's announced intention to rearm Germany, which violated the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. When Italy invaded Ethiopia later that year, France and Britain tried to reconcile the action with the need to remain against Germany, but the coalition dissolved soon.

Primo de Rivera (Spain)

(in office 1923-1930) a dictator, aristocrat, and military officer who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during Spain's Restoration era. He deeply believed that it was politicians who had ruined Spain and governing without them he could restore the nation. Historians depict him as an inept dictator who lacked clear ideas and political acumen, and who alienated his potential supporters such as the army. He did not create a base of support among the voters and depended instead on elite elements. His actions discredited the king and ruined the monarchy, while heightening social tensions that led to the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

Joseph Stalin

(in office 1929-1953) the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Under his rule, the Soviet Union was transformed into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror and many died during his reign. After Lenin died, Stalin outmaneuvered his opponents and took control of the party. Once in power, he collectivized farming and had potential enemies executed or sent to forced labor camps.

General Francisco Franco

(in office 1936-1975) a Spanish genera l who ruled over Spain as a military dictator. As a conservative and a monarchist, he opposed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic in 1931. With the 1936 elections, the conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-Wing Groups lost by a narrow margin and the leftist Popular Front came to power. Intending to overthrow the republic, Franco followed other generals in a failed coup that precipitated the Spanish Civil War. His regime committed a series of violent politically motivated human rights abuses against the Spanish people.

Collectivization (basic concept)

a policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into collective farms.

Secret Pact of Friendship 1936

leads Italy to send arms and power into Spain.

Totalitarianism (features)

totalitarianism is a form of rule in which the government maintains total control over society, including all aspects of the public and private lives of its citizens. The characteristics include rule by a single party, total control of the military, total control over means of communication (such as newspapers, propaganda, etc.), police control with the use of terror as a control tactic, and control of the economy.