AP Euro - Chapter 19
Problems in Agricultural Commodities
-1920s, the market demand for European goods shrank leaving much of the Continent's productive capacity idle or underused -difficulty arose from agriculture -increased the quantity of grain produced by more efficient practices -world wheat prices fell to all time low -helped consumers, decreased the income of European farmers or peasants -these problems were especially acute in central and eastern Europe and increased farmers' disillusionment with liberal politics -German farmers, would become prime supporters of the National Socialist Workers (Nazis) -outside Europe similar problems affected other producers of agricultural commodities -wheat, sugar, coffee, rubber, wool, lard all influenced -commodity production has simply outstripped world demand -the result of the collapse in the agricultural sector of the world economy and the financial turmoil were stagnation and depression for European history -unemployment spread
The Decision for Rapid Industrialization
-1927, the Party Congress decided to push for rapid industrialization -as implemented through what has been termed 'industrialization by political mobilization' this policy marked a sharp departure from the NEP and a rejection of the pockets of relatively free-market operations -policy required rapid construction -Stalin's organizational vehicle = series of 5 year plans starting 1928 -The State Planning Commision, or Gosplan, set goals for production in every area of economic life and attempted to organize the economy to meet them -enormous economic disruption occurred as the Gosplan built power plants and steel mills and increased the output of mines -plans consistently favored capital projects over the production of consumer goods -expansion created the first genuinely large factory labor force in Russia -workers recruited, cities expanded/built, people worked in horrible conditions -the government and Communist Party undertook a vast program of propaganda to sell the 5 year plans to the Russian people -such propaganda was necessary because most industrial workers were displaced peasants who had never worked in a factory before and often resisted industrial discipline workers, such as legendary coal miner Stakanov, who exceeded their work requirements received awards and publicity -results impressive, Soviet industrial production rose by 400% between 1928-40 -social and human cost at this effort = appalling
The Purges
-1933, Stalin and others in the central Soviet bureaucracy began to fear they were losing control of the country and the party apparatus and that effective rivals to their power and policies might emerge -resulted in the Great Purges -pretext for onset purges was the assassination on December 1, 1934 of Sergei Kirov (the popular party chief of Leningrad and a member of the Politburo) -today, many scholars believe that Stalin himself authorized Kirov's death for his own purposes -any persons accused of disloyalty and sabotage = executed 1936-1938 a series of spectacular show trials were held in Moscow -former high Soviet leaders, including members of the Politburo, publicly confessed to political crimes and were convicted and executed -they had also been interrogated under the most difficult conditions, including torture, and feared for their families' lives -other lower level party members were tried in private and shot -hundreds of thousands of ordinary Soviet citizens received no trial and were either executed or deported to concentration camps -after the civilian party members and leaders had been purged, the prosecutors turned against the government bureaucracy and the Soviet army and navy, convicting and executing thousands of officials and officers -the exact number of executions, imprisonments, interrogations, and expulsions is unknown but it ran well into the millions -the only one safe = Stalin himself -rational explanation -different portions of the party leadership moved against others, used purges to settle old scores and to discipline and gain more control (by 1937, Stalin seems to have become distrustful of the central party elite and began to find or pretend enemies) -no matter how much tension, Stalin's primary motive in the purges was almost certainly fear for his own power and a ruthless determination to preserve and increase it ... personally selected victims ... the old Bolsheviks of the October 1917 revolution = first targets -the internal difficulties of collectivization and industrialization and his worries about internal opposition led Stalin to make an important shift in foreign policy -1934 he ordered the Comintern to permit communist parties in other countries to cooperate with noncommunist parties against Nazism and fascism -new Stalinist policy allowed the Popular Front Government in France to come to power
(Racial Legislation)
-1935, a series of measure known as the Nuremberg Laws robbed German Jews of their citizenship -the professions and major occupations were closed to those defined as Jews -marriage and sexual intercourse between Jews and non-Jews were prohibited -legal exclusion and humiliation of the Jews became the order of the day -the Nazi legal definition of who was a Jew took into account the number of Jewish parents/grandparents, as well as whether a person practice Judaism
Financial Tailspin
-France was determined to collect reparations from Germany for the destruction the war caused in Northern France -allies also owed debts to each other -most of the money the Allies collected from each other went to the USA -early 1923, the Allies declared Germany to be in technical default of its reparation payments -January 11, to ensure receipt of the hard-won reparations, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr mining district -the Weimar Republic ordered passive resistance that amounted to a general strike in Germany's largest industrial district -French sent technicians and engineers to run the German mines and railroads -Britain became more suspicious of France and more sympathetic to Germany -the cost of the Ruhr occupation vastly increased French as well as German inflation and damaged the French economy -the political and economic turmoil of the Ruhr invasion led to international attempts to ease the German payment of reparations -American investment capital was pouring into Europe the crash of Wall Street in October 1929 saw the loss of large amounts of money -credit sharply contracted in the US as numerous banks failed -thereafter little American capital was available for investment in Europe -a major financial crisis struck the Continent -May 1931, the Kreditanstalt bank in Austria collapsed, was a primary financial institution for much of Central and Eastern Europe -as the German difficulties increased, US president Herbert Hoover announced in June 1931 a one-year moratorium on all payments of international debts -Hoover prelude to the end of reparations established to the Lausanne Conference -over the next year, the debts owed to the US were settled
Racial Ideology and the Lives of Women
-Hitler and the Nazis were less interested in increasing the national population, like Mussolini -German women had the special task of preserving racial purity and giving birth to pure Germans who were healthy in mind and body -women were to breed strong sons and daughters for the German nation -Nazi journalists often compared the role of women in childbirth to the role of men in war -Nazi racial ideology focused on women as the carrier and bearers of both the desired and undesired races -as early as late 1933, the government raised the issue of what kind of persons were fit to bear children for the nation, disapproving of mothers who were from disapproved backgrounds (Jew, Gypsy, etc) -Nazi theorists also discriminated between the healthy and the unhealthy, the desirable and the undesirable in the German population itself -the government sought to prevent the 'undesirables' from reproducing -the Nazi's population policy was one of selective breeding that profoundly affected the lives of women -to support motherhood among those whom they believed should have children, the Nazis provided loans to encourage early marriage, tax breaks from families with children, and child allowances -these policies were administered on the premise that only racially and physically desirable children received support although Nazi ideology emphasized motherhood, in 1930 the party vowed to protect the jobs of working women, and the number of working women rose steadily in Germany under the Nazi regime -party urged them to pursue jobs that was 'natural' to their character -intended for women to be educators of the young .. in which women became special protectors of German cultural values -as consumers, women were to support German stores and boycott Jewish stores
Hitler's Consolidation of Power
-Hitler consolidated his power with lightening speed with a process of 3 facts capture full legal authority the crushing of alternative political groups purging of rivals within the Nazi Party -February 27, 1933 Reichstag building set to fire by mentally ill Communist -Nazis quickly used this incident to their own advantage, claiming that the fire proved the existence of an immediate Communist threat against the government -with Article 48, Hitler suspended civil liberties and proceeded to arrest Communists or alleged Communists .. remained in force as long as Hitler ruled -Nazis still received only 43.9% of the vote -Communist arrest meant that Hitler could control the Reichstag -March 23, 1933 the Reichstag passed an Enabling Act that permitted Hitler to rule by decree -thereafter, no legal limits on his exercise of power -Hitler understood that he and his party had not inevitably come to power -Hitler outlawed/undermined various German institutions that might have served as rallying points for opposition early May 1933, offices, banks, and newspapers of the free trade unions were seized and their leaders arrested -late June/early July other German political parties were outlawed -July 14, 1933 the National Socialists were the only legal party in Germany -close of 1933, all major institutions of potential opposition had been eliminated -by late 1933, the SA consisted of about 1 million active members and a larger number of reserves -commander of this party army = Ernst Roehm, a possible rival to Hitler himself -the German army officer corps = jealous of the SA -to protect his own position and to shore up support with the regular army, June 30 1934 Hitler ordered the murder of key SA officers including Roehm -exact number of purged victims estimated to be around 100 -German army did nothing -month later on August 2, 1934 President Hindenburg died thereafter, the offices of chancellor and president were combined -Hitler was now the Fuhrer of Germany and of the Nazi Party
Nazi Economic Policy
-Hitler still had to confront the Great Depression -German unemployment had helped propel him to power -Nazis attacked this problems with a success that astonished and frightened Europe -as far as the economic crisis was concerned, Hitler had become the most effective political leader in Europe ... gave the regime credibility -Nazi economic experiment provided that, by sacrificing all political and civil liberty, destroyed free trade union-government, limiting the private exercise of capital, and ignoring consumer satisfaction, a government could achieve full employment to prepare for war and aggression subordinated all significant economic enterprises and decisions about prices and investment to the goals of the state -instituted a massive program of public works and vast military spending -government spending and other economic policies served to persue the cause of rearmament -1935, the renunciation of the military provisions of the Versailles treaty led to open rearmament and military expansion with little opposition -these measures essentially restored full employment 1936 Hitler instructed Hermann Goring to undertake a 4 year plan to prepare the army and the economy for war with the crushing of the trade unions in 1933, strikes became illegal -also required workers and employers to participate in the Labor Front, an organization intended to demonstrate that class conflict had ended -the Labor Front sponsored a 'Strength Through Joy" program that provided vacations and other forms of recreation for workers
Hungary: Turn to Authoritarianism
-Hungary = one of the defeated powers of WWI ... achieved its long-desired separation from Austria but with a hefty price -Bela Kun established short lived republic -Admiral Miklos Horthy then established the Hungarians also deeply resented the territory Hungary had lsot in the Paris settlement -largely agrarian Hungarian economy suffered from a general stagnation -1920s, effective ruler = Count Stephen Bethlen -1932 succeeded by General Julius Gombos who pursued anti-Semitic policies and rigged elections
The New Economic Policy
-Lenin made a strategic retreat following these conditions outlined the New Economic Policy -apart from what he termed 'the commanding heights' of banking, considerable private economic enterprise was allowed (ex: peasants could farm for profit) -the NEP was consistent with Lenin's earlier conviction that the Russian peasantry held the key to the success of revolution .. changes came too late to avert the famine of -1921-22 where close to 5 million died -similar free enterprise flourished within light industry and the domestic retail trade -revolution seemed to have transformed Russia into a land of small farmed and privately owned shops/businesses
(Locarno)
-Locarno Agreements of October 1925 -Austen Chamberlain for Britain and Aristide Briand for France accepted Stresemann's proposal for a fresh start -Germans made treaties of arbitration with Poland and Czechoslovakia, and France strengthened its ties with those countries -France supported German membership in the League of Nations and agreed to withdraw its occupation from Rhineland in 1930 -Germany was pleased to have achieved respectability and a guarantee against another Ruhr occupation -Britain enjoyed playing a more evenhanded role -Italy was glad to be recognized -French happy too -Locarno Agreements brought new hope to Europe spirit of Locarno was carried even further when the leading European states, Japan, and the US signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact in 1928, renouncing 'war as an instrument of national policy' -joy and optimism not justified -in both France and Germany, the conciliatory politicians represented only a part of the nation -in Germany, most people continued to reject Versailles and regarded Locarno as only an extension of it -Dawes Plan ran out in 1929, replaced by the Young Plan ... lowered reparation payments, put a term on how long they must be made, and removed Germany entirely from outside supervision and control -despite these problems, war was by no means necessary Europe, aided by American loans was returning to prosperity -continued prosperity and diplomatic success might have won the loyalty of the German people for the Weimar Republic and moderate revisionism, but the Great Depression of the 1930s brought new forces to power
The Fascists in Power
-Mussolini had not really expected to be appointed prime minister ... moved cautiously to consolidate his power -succeeded because of the impotence of his rivals -November 23, 1922 the king and Parliament granted Mussolini dictatorial authority for one year to bring order to the lower levels of the government -new election law, the party that gained the largest popular vote received 2/3s of the seats in the chamber -1924 election Fascists won a great victory and complete control of the Chamber -1925-6, series of laws passed in 1925 and 1926 permitted Mussolini to rule by decree -1926 all other political parties were dissolved and Italy was transformed into a single-party dictatorial state -Italian dictator made one important domestic departure that brought him significant political dividends ... : through the Lateran Accord the Roman Catholic Church and the Italian state made peace with each other -agreement recognized the pope as the temporal ruler of the mini-state of Vatican City -state also recognized Catholicism as the religion of the nation, exempted church property from taxes, and allowed church law to govern marriage
Austria: Political Turmoil and Nazi Occupation
-a quarter of the 8 million Austrians lived in Vienna -viable economic life was almost impossible, the Paris settlement forbade union with Germany -throughout the 1920s the leftist Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Socialists contended for power .. employing small armies to terrorize opponents and impress followers -1933, Christian Socialist Englebert Dollfuss - chancellor outlawed all political parties except his own, the agrarians, and the parliamentary groups that composed his own Fatherland Front -his successor, Schuschnigg, presided over Austria until Hitler annexed it in 1938
(The Final Solution)
-after the war broke out, HItler decided in 1942 to destroy the Jews in Europe -about 6 million Jews died as a result of that staggering decision
The Collectivization of Agriculture
-agricultural productivity had always been a core problem for the emerging Soviet economy -many peasant farmers of all degrees of wealth tried to circumvent the system, often by keeping off the grain market in hopes the prices would increase -the scarcity of consumer goods available for purchase also encouraged hoarding -many of them refused to sell grain to the government as the low prices it set and insisted on selling it at the market price, which the government refused to accept in 1928-9 as a result, the Soviet government confronted shortfalls of grain on the market and the prospect of food shortages in the cities and social unrest -Soviet economists and party officials devised an explanation for the difficulties they confronted asserted that the traditional peasant holdings were too small to produce enough grain -claimed that a class-enemy was responsible for the hoarding and for what they regarded as sepculation in the grain trade -this enemy in the group = prosperous peasants, or the kulaks -Stalin decided that Soviet agriculture must be collectivized to produce enough grain for domestic food and foreign export -collectivization would also put the Communist Party firmly in control of the farm sector of the economy and free up peasant labor to work in the expanding industrial sector -to carry out this policy, Stalin portrayed the kulaks as the fundamental cause of the agricultural problems -enormous turmoil and violence resulted -after the harvest of the year had been secured, the drive to collectivize the farmed renewed with vehemence -peasants determined to keep their land often with women in the lead, had sabotaged collectivization by slaughtering millions of livestock between 1929-33 -peasants who resisted were killed outright, other starved to death on their own farms when all the grain that they had produced was seized -over 2 million peasants were forcibly removed from their homes and deported -they then had to patch together some kind of life as industrial workers or miners in Siberia or another inhospitable province -much of the violence of collectivization occurred in Ukraine ... Stalin used the process to crush any nationalist vestiges -the Communist Party also targeted priests of the Russian Orthodox Church -party had always opposed religion -1926-37 the number of priests recorded in the Soviet census dropped by more than ½ -by 1937 over 90% of Soviet grain production had been collectivized -government organized Motor-Tractor Stations that supplied the seed and equipment for several collective farms in a region and oversaw the collection and sale of grain -the heads of these stations were Party political operatives the government allowed farmers small household plots to grow fruit and vegetables for their families and for local sale -Stalin and the Communist Party had won the battle of the grain fields, but they had not solved the problem of producing enough food -that difficulty would plague the Soviet Union until collapse in 1991 and remains a problem for its successor states
Economic and Ethnic Pressures
-all the new states faced immense postwar economic difficulties -political independence disrupted the economic relationships that each of them had developed as part of one of the prewar empires -except for Czechoslovakia, all of them depended on foreign loans to finance economic development -most became highly dependent on trade with Germany -Depression hit these states especially hard -collapse of the old German, Russian, and Austrian empires allowed various ethnic groups to pursue nationalistic goals unchecked by any great power or central political authority -each state included minority groups that wanted to be independent or to become part of a different nation in the region -again, except for Czechoslovakia, all these states succumbed to some form of domestic authoritarian government
Anti-Semitism and the Police State
-as Hitler consolidated his power, he oversaw the organization of a police state -chief vehicle for surveillance = the SS -SS commanded by Heinrich Himmler -in 1933 the SS had about 52,000 members -SS = the instrument that carried out the blood purges of the party in 1934 -by 1936 Himmler had become head of all police matters in Germany
Hitler Comes to power
-in 1932, the 83 year old president stood for reelection -Hitler ran against him and forced a runoff -although Hindenburg was returned to office, the vote convinced him that Bruning had lost the confidence of conservative German votesrs -May 1932, he dismissed Bruning and appointed Franz von Papen -with the continued paralysis in the Reichstag their influence over the president amounted to control of the government -the government needed the popular support on the right that only the Nazis seemed able to generate -called a Reichstag election for July 1932, Nazis won 230 seats and polled 37.2% of the vote -Hitler would only enter the cabinet of he were elected chancellor, Hindenburg refused -another election was called in November, partly to wear down the Nazi's finanicial resources -Nazis won only 196 seats, percentage dropped to 33.1% early December 1932, Pipen resigned and General Kurt von Schleicher became chancellor -people were now afraid of civil war between the extreme left and the far right -Schleicher decided to try and fashion a broad-based coalition of groups -prospect of such coalition frightened the Hindenburg circle even more than the prospect of Hitler -thus, persuaded Schleicher to appoint Hitler as chancellor + Papen named vice chancellor with other conservatives appointed to cabinet -January 30, 1933 Adolf HItler became the chancellor of Germany -this outcome = inevitable -Hitler did not come to office on the tide of history, but through the blunders of conservative German politicians who hated the Weimar Republic and its rejection of traditional German political elites and who feared the domestic political turmoil the Depression had spawned -like Mussolini, Hitler had technically become head of government by legal means -all supporting bodies could support him in good conscience -understood how to touch the raw social and political nerves of the electorate -support came from across the social spectrum, particularly strong among farmers, war veterans, and the young -German big businesses once received much of the blame for the rise of Hitler ... there is little evidence of this -The Nazis won out over the conservative nationalist parties because the Nazis did address social insecurities
Southeastern Europe: Royal Dictatorships
-in SE Europe, revision of the arrangements in the Paris settlement was less of an issue -Yugoslavia had been founded by the Corfu Agreement of 1917 and was known of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes until 1929 -Serbs dominated the government & were opposed by the Croats -Serbs had advantage of having had an independent state with army prior to WWI -Croats generally RC, better educated, and accustomed to reasonably incorrupt government administration -Serbs generally Orthodox, less well educated, and considered corrupt administrators -B&H had a significant Muslim population -all political parties except the Communist Party represented a particular ethnic group rather than the nation of Yugoslavia -violent clash of nationalities eventually led to a royal dictatorship in 1929 under King Alexander I himself a Serb outlawed political parties and popular politicians -eventually assassinated -other royal dictatorships were imposed in the Balkans (Romania by King Carol II, Bulgaria by King Boris III -in Greece, parliamentary monarchy floundered amid military coups and calls for a republic -1936, General John Metaxas instituted a dictatorship under King George II
(Invasion of the Ruhr and Inflation)
-inflation brought on the major crisis of this period -value of the German currency fell, by early 1921 the German mark against the American dollar at a ratio of 64:1 -the French invasion of the Ruhr in January 1923 produced cataclysmic inflation -unemployment soon spread from the Ruhr to other parts of the country, creating a new drain on the treasury and also reducing tax revenues -stores were unwilling to exchange goods, farmers withheld produce -middle-class savings, pensions, and insurance policies were wiped out, as were investments in governments bonds -debts and mortgages could not be paid off
(Hitler's Early Career)
-late 1923 Adolf Hitler made first significant appearance on the German political scene -lived in Vienna, encountered Mayor Karl Lueger's Christian Socialist Party which prospered on an ideology of anti-Semitism and from the social anxieties of the lower middle class -came to hate Marxism, which he associated with Jews during WWI, fought and earned high honors ... gave him first sense of purpose -post-conflict, Hitler settled in Munich and during the two years after the war firmly and frequently voiced anti-Semitism as a fundamental part of his political outlook -soon became associated with a small nationalistic, anti-Semitic political party that in 1920 adopted the name National Socialist German Workers Party (aka Nazis) -party issued platform, or program, of Twenty-Five Points Nazis redefined the meaning of the word socialist in the party name, so that it suggested a nationalistic outlook the "socialism" that Hitler and the Nazis had in mind was not state ownership of the means of production, but the subordination of all economic enterprise to the welfare of the nation -Nazis discovered that their party appealed to virtually any economic group that was at risk and under pressure -the storm troopers (SA) were organized under the leadership of Captain Ernst Roehm -initially provided its members with food and uniforms and, later in the decade, with wages -mid-1920s the SA adopted its famous brown-shirted uniform -chief Nazi instrument for terror and intimidation before the party controlled the government -existence = sign of the potential for violence in the Weimar Republic and the widespread contempt for the law and the institutions of the republic -social and economic turmoil following the French occupation gave the fledgling party an opportunity for direct action vs the Republic -by this time, Hitler personally dominated the Nazi Party clearly had Mussolini image in mind -November 9, 1923 Hitler and a band of followers accompanied by General Erich Ludendorff attempted an unsuccessful putsch from a beer hall in Munich -Hitler + Ludendorff arrested + tried for treason ... used trial to create Hitler's national figure -convicted + sentenced for 5 years in prison ... actually majority on parole in which he wrote Mein Kampf -he outlined key political views from which he never swerved including anti-Semitism and encouraged Eastward expansion to achieve greater "living space" -Hitler transferred the foreign policy goals and racial outlooks previously associated with German overseas imperialism to the politics of central and eastern Europe natural targets = Jews, successor states of eastern Europe, Soviet Union, any groups within Germany that opposed Hitler's vision of national unity and purpose during imprisonment -Hitler reached two other decisions came to a position from weakness to strength decided that he and the party must pursue power by legal means
Czechoslovakia
-only state to escape the fate of self-imposed authoritarian government -possessed a strong industrial base, a substantial middle class, and a tradition of liberal values -Czechs and Slovaks during the war had cooperated to aid the Allies ... learned to work together and trust each other post-war, government divided up large land holdings for peasants -Thomas Masaryk = gifted leader of immense integrity and fairness -there were Czech-Slovak tensions -non-Czech national groups resented being part of the state -parliamentary regime might have been able to work through these problems, but extreme German nationalists in the Sudentenland looked to Hitler
The Rise of Mussolini
-the Italian Fasci di Combattimento (Band of Combat) was founded in 1919 in Milan -they feared socialism, inflation, and labor unrest -the leader (Duce), Benito Mussolini became active in Italian Socialist politics and by 1912 had become editor of the socialist newspaper Avanti -1914, supported Italism entry into war .. later established his own paper Il Popolo d'Italia -as a politician, Mussolini was an opportunist par excellence .. could change his ideas and principles to suit every new occasion -action for him was always more important than thought or rational justification -one real rule = political survival -postwar Italian politics = muddle ... many Italians dissatisfied with the parliamentary system as it then existed -felt that Italy had emerged from the war was less than a victorious nation, had not been treated as a great power at the peace conference, and had not received the rewards it deserved -main spokesman for this discontent = Gabriele D'Annunzio (provided example of the political use of a nongovernmental military force) -1919-1921 Italy = wracked by social turmoil -government seemed incapable of dealing with this unrest ... the Socialist Party had captured a plurality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies -new Catholic Popular Party had also done well -neither party would cooperate with the other, and parliamentary deadlock resulted ... many Italians believed that a Communist revolution might break out he first supported the factory occupations and land seizures, had discovered that many-upper class and middle-class Italians who were hurt by inflation and who feared the loss of their property had no sympathy for the workers of the peasants -Mussolini and his Fascists took direct action in the face of government's inaction -formed local squads who terrorized socialists -by early 1922, the Fascists controlled local government in many parts of northern Italy -1921, Mussolini and 34 of his followers had been elected to the Chamber of Deputies -the Fascist movement now had hundreds of thousands of supporters -October 29, monarch asked Mussolini in Milan to become prime minister -Mussolini had come into office by legal means, but he had no majority in the Chamber -behind the legal facade of his assumption of power lay months of terrorist disruption and intimidation and the threat of the Fascists' October march
Stalin versus Trotsky
-the NEP caused sharp disputes within the Politburo, the highest governing committee of the Communist Party -the partial return to capitalism seemed to some members nothing less than a betrayal of sound Marxist principles -Lenin suffered a stroke and never returned to his original self -thus, 2 factions emerged ... one led by Trotsky and the other by Joseph Stalin -Lenin criticized both men shortly before his death, more harshly on Stalin -each faction wanted to control the party and this also the state, but the struggle was fought over the question of Russia's path toward industrialization and the future of the Communist movement -Trotsky urged rapid industrialization and looked to voluntary collectivism of farming, urged revolutions to take elsewhere -as Trotsky's influence within the party began to wane, he also demanded that party members be permitted to criticize the policies of the government and the party -mid-1920s, group manipulated by Stalin pressed for continuation of Lenin's NEP and relatively slow industrialization -Stalin was the ultimate victor in these intraparty rivalries .. had not been exiled, more brutal, influential in his command of bureaucratic and administrative methods -mid 1920s Stalin supported Bukharin's position on economic development, enunciated the doctrine of 'socialism in one country' -by 1927, Trotsky and his supporters had been removed ... died 1940
->German Democracy and Dictatorship (The Weimar Republic)
-the Weimar Republic was born from the defeat of the imperial army, the revolution of 1918 against the Hohenzollerns, and the hopes of German Liberals and Social Democrats -name derived from the city in which its constitution was written -the republic was nevertheless permanently associated with the national disgrace and the economic burdens of the treaty -became all too easy for nationalists and military figures whose policies had brought on the tragedy and defeat of the war to blame the young republic and teh Socialists for the results of the conflict -the desire to revise the treaty was closely related to a desire to change the mode of domestic government -the constitution was a highly enlightened document ... guaranteed civil liberties and provided for direct election by universal suffrage of the Reichstag and the president also contained crucial structural flaws that eventually allowed it to be overthrown -made it relatively easy for small political parties to gain seats -Article 48 allowed the president, in an emergency, to rule by decree -thus the possibility of presidential dictatorship established -government suffered major and minor humiliations as well as considerable economic instability -March 1920 the right-wing Kapp Putsch (armed insurrection) erupted in Berlin ... attempted coup failed same month Reir district strikes occurred -May 1921 the Allies presented a reparations bill for 132 billion gold marks -throughout the early 1920s there were numerous assassinations or attempted assassinations of important Republican leaders -violence = hallmark of the first five years of republic
-> The Soviet Experiment
-the consolidation of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia established the most extensive and durable of all the 20th century authoritarian governments -the Communist Party of the Soviet Union retained power from 1917 until 1991 -the Bolsheviks seized power violently through revolution -the Communist Party was neither a mass party nor a nationalistic one -early membership rarely exceeded more than 1% of the Russian population -the believed in and practiced the collectivization of economic life -fear of communism and determination to stop its spread became one of the leading political forces in Western Europe and the US for most of the rest of the century
Depression and Government Policy in Britain and France
-the economic downturn spread potential as well as actual insecurity -people in nearly all walks of life feared the loss of their economic security -the governments of late 1920s early 30s were not well suited on either structure of ideology to confront the problems -Great Britain and France, because of their vast empires commanded very large economies, undertook moderate political experiments -1924 -> Labor Party in GB established itself -Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald organized a National Government (coalition of the Labour, Conservative, and Liberal parties) remained in power until 1935 -1920s also saw the establishment of an independent Irish state -British suppressed multiple uprisings, including Dublin, executed leaders, created martyrs -leadership of the nationalist cause quickly shifted from the Irish Party in Parliament to the extremist Sinn Fein, or "Ourselves Alone", movement -movement won all 4 Parliament seats -then created their own Dail Eireann, or Irish Parliament -January 21, 1919 they declared Irish independence ... civil war thus broke out between the Irish Republican Army and the British Army -ended with a treaty in December 1921 which established the Irish Free State as one of the dominions in the British Commonwealth -most important French interwar political experiment = Popular Front -despite fierce resistance from business and conservative groups, the Popular Front enacted major social and economic reforms -parliamentary support gradually faded until final October 1938 collapse -these reforms of domestic significance, did not reshape the world like the following other reforms
->The Fascist Experiment in Italy
-the general term fascist was derived from the Italian Fascist movement of Benito Mussolini -governments regarded fascist as anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-parliamentary, and frequently anti-Semitic -hoped to hold back the spread of bolshevism, which seemed a real threat at the time -rejected the political inheritance of the French Revolution and of 19th century liberalism -wanted to overcome class conflict of Marxism and the party conflict of liberalism by consolidating the various groups and classes within the nation for great national purposes -fascist governments were usually single-party dictatorships characterized by terrorism against and police surveillance of both opponents and the general citizenry
Poland: Democracy to Military Rule
-the nation whose postwar fortunes probably most disappointed liberal Europeans was Poland -with the country restored in 1919, nationalism proved an insufficient bond to overcome political disagreements -new Poland had been constructed using portions Germany, Russia, and Austria for over a century -each of those regions used to different governments + ways of life -host of small political parties bedeviled the Polish Parliament, and the executive weak -1926, Marshal Josef Pilsudski carried out military coup, ruled personally until his death -government became increasingly anti-Semitic
(The Stresemann Years)
-the officials of the republic were attempting to repair the damage from the inflation -Gustav Stresemann was responsible primarily for reconstruction of the republic and for its achievement of a sense of self-confidence -with the aid of banker Hjalmar Schacht he introduced a new German currency -rate of exchange 1 trillion of the old German marks for one new Retenmark -November, Stresemann resigned to become foreign minister -1924, the Weimar Republic and the Allies renegotiated the reparations payments -Dawes Plan lowed the annual payments and allowed them to fluctuate according to the fortunes of the German economy -1924, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg elected president of the republic -governed in strict accordance w/ constitution, but his election suggested that German politics had become more conservative -foreign capital flowed into Germany and employment improved -in foreign affairs, Stresemann pursued a conciliatory course -willing to accept the settlement in the west, but was determined revisionist in the east -first step = achieve respectability and economic recovery
The Third International
-the onset and consolidation of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia was a transforming event for the history of socialism as well as for Russia and international affairs -the Bolshevik victory forced Western European social democrats to rethink their position within the world of international socialism -1919, the Soviet communists founded the Third International of the European socialist movement, better known as the Comintern -worked to make the Bolshevik model of socialism as Lenin developed it (the rule for all socialist parties outside the Soviet Union) -1920, the Comintern imposed its Twenty-one Conditions on any socialist party -Comintern sought to destroy democratic socialism the decision whether to accept these conditions split every major European socialist party ... led to separate communist and social democratic parties conflicting Comintern policies and the resulting divisions of the socialist parties directly affected the rise of the fascists and the Nazis -the presence of separate communist parties in Western Europe mean that the right-wing politicians always had a convenient target they could justly accuse of seeking to overthrow the government and impost Soviet style rule the divisions between Communists and democratic socialists also meant that right-wing political movements rarely had to confront a united left
Depression and Political Deadlock
-the outflow of foreign and especially American, capital from Germany undermined the economic prosperity of the Weimar Republic -depression struck -Social Democrats refused to reduce the social and unemployment insurance -more conservative parties insisted on a balanced budget -President von Hindenburg appointed Heinrich Bruning as chancellor -new chancellor governed through emergency presidential decrees -party divisions prevented the Reichstag from overriding the decrees -the Republic had become a presidential dictatorship German unemployment rose, economic downturn and the parliamentary deadlock worked to the advantage of the more extreme political parties -post 1930 election, Nazis held 107 seats and Communists 77 -power of Nazis on street also increased -unemployment fed thousands of men into the storm troopers number increased from 100,000 to 1 million in 3 years -for the Nazis, politics meant the recapture of power through terror and intimidation as well as through elections -Nazi rallies resembled secular religious revivals -Nazis transformed this discipline and enthusiasm born of economic despair and nationalistic frustrations into impressive electoral results
(Attack on the Jewish Economic Life)
-the people who were most consistently experienced terror = German jews -Anti-Semitism had been a key plank of the Nazi program -Anti-Semitism was based on biological racial theories stemming from late 19th century thought -1933, shortly after assuming power, the Nazis excluded Jews from the civil service -for a time, they also attempted to enforce boycotts of Jewish shops and businesses
(Kristallnacht)
-the persecution of the Jews increased again in 1938 -business careers = forbidden -November 1938, under orders from the Nazi Party thousands of Jewish stores and synagogues were burned or otherwise destroyed -the Jewish community itself had to pay for the damage that occurred on this Kristallnacht because the government confiscated the insurance money
->Trials of the Successor States in Eastern Europe
-these new states were to embody the principle of national self-determination and to provide a buffer against the westward spread of Bolshevism
-> After Versailles: Demands for Revision and Enforcement
-those peace resentments counted among the chief political factors in Europe for the next two decades -Austro-Hungarian Empire felt that their rights to self-determination had been violated -stridents demands for further border adjustments because significant national minorities (German and Magyars) resided outside the national boundaries -the victorious powers, especially France, often believed that the provisions of the treaties were being inadequately enforced
-> Toward the Great Depression in Europe
-widespread yearning to return to the economic prosperity of the prewar years -after 1918, it was impossible to restore in the economic realm what US president Warren Harding would term normality -what had been "normal" in economic and social life before 1914 could not reestablish
War Communism
-within the Soviet Union, the Red Army under the organizational genius of Leon Trotsky had suppressed internal and foreign military opposition to the new government during the civil war that raged from 1918-20 -within months of the revolution, new secret police, Cheka, appeared -Lenin declared that the Bolshevik Party as the vanguard of the revolution, was imposing dictatorship of the proletariat -political and economic administration became highly centralized -under the economic policy of War Communism, the revolutionary government confiscated and then operated the banks, the transport facilities, and heavy industry -the Bolsheviks used the need to fight the civil war as justification for suppressing any resistance to these economic policies -War Communism helped the Red Army defeat its opponents -the policy, generated domestic opposition to the Bolsheviks -alliance of workers and peasants forged in 1917 by the Bolshevik's slogan "Peace, Land, Bread" had begun to dissolve -1920-21 serious strikes occurred, peasants discontented and resisted the requisition of grain, sailors mutinied -each act of opposition suggested that the proletariat was opposing the dictatorship of the proletariat
Popular Front
a government of all left-wing parties that took power in France in 1936 to enact social and economic reforms (socialist, radicals, and communists)
New Economic Policy
a limited revival of capitalism, especially in light industry and agriculture, introduced by Lenin in 1921 to repair the damage inflicted on the Russian economy by the Civil War and war communism
Duce
meaning "leader." Mussolini's title as head of the Fascist Party
Kristillnacht
meaning 'crystal night' because of the broken glass that littered German streets after the looting and destruction of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues across Germany on the orders of the Nazi Party in November 1938
Fuhrer
meaning leader, the title taken by Hitler when he became dictator of Germany
Mein Kampf
meaning my struggle Hitler's statement of his political program, published in 1924
fascism
political movements that tend to be anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-parliamentary, and often anti-Semitic. Fascists were invariably nationalists and exalted the nation over the individual. They supported the interests of the middle class and rejected the ideas of French Revolution and 19th century liberalism. The first fascist regime was founded by Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s
Weimar Republic
the German democratic regime that existed between the end of WWI and HItler's coming to power in 1933
SA
the Nazi parliamentary forces, or storm troopers (Sturm Abteilung)
Collectivization
the bedrock of Stalinist agriculture, which forced Russian peasants to give up their private farms and work as members of collectives, large agricultural units controlled by the state
SS
the chief security units of the Nazi state
War Communism (def)
the economic policy adopted by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War to seize the banks, heavy industry, railroads, and grain
Great Purges
the imprisonment and execution of millions of Soviet citizens by Stalin between 1934 and 1939
