Age of Dictatorships
Introduction
The modern dictatorship was a consequence of WWI and the peace treaties that followed it.
– A radical revolt against:
o capitalism (major businesses and banks made huge profits during and after the war,
while rest of population suffered great personal and financial losses)
o liberalism (minimum state intervention in economy + protection of individual rights)
o democracy (seen as a system promoting the “tyranny of the masses” and mediocrity)
– Made possible by technological advancements, which facilitated communication,
transportation, swift implementation of decisions over large territory and large number of
people.
– Aspired to gain full control not only of politics and economy, but also of the social, cultural,
and private life.
o Two versions: totalitarianism (Soviet Union) & authoritarianism (Italy and Germany)
Emergence of Totalitarianism: Bolshevik Russia
Reasons for revolution in 1917:
– Defeats in war
– Widespread discontent with the poor military leadership
– Shortages of food and fuel
– Political instability
March-November 1917, provisional government led by liberals and moderate socialists.
– Nicholas II abdicated on March 15. Prince George Lvov (coming from an old Viking royal
family) took over as prime-minster.
o Alexander Kerensky, socialist minister of justice, replaced Lvov as PM in July.
Problems: postponement of land reforms and continuation of the war.
November 1917, Lenin’s coup d’état w/ help of soviets (communist cells spread thru/o the
country).
– Declared the dictatorship of the proletariat: working class to have sole rule and rely on the
army.
o Freedoms instituted by provisional government abolished, death penalty reintroduced,
dissenters and upper classes declared “enemies of the revolution.”
o Separate peace with the Germans: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, March 3, 1918.
Russia surrendered to Germany Poland, the Baltic provinces, Finland, and parts of
the Caucasus region.
The areas surrendered provided ¾ of Russia’s iron and coal resources, ½ of its
industrial plants, and ⅓ of its crop area.
Natalie Sherwan
HST 103 – Outline Dictators
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Once relieved of the war obligations, Lenin began building his socialist paradise.
– Most people disagreed with the Bolsheviks.
o Civil war, 1918-1922: White Army (aristocracy, bourgeoisie, middle-class) vs. Red
Army (socialists); won by Lenin.
– Marxism-Leninism: Lenin introduced the idea that the joint forces of peasants and workers
could build together socialism
o New party emblem: the sickle and the hammer.
– Lenin initiated (and Stalin continued after 1924) the major Bolshevik policies :
o Nationalization of private property, lands, businesses, banks;
o Mandatory collectivization: peasants deprived of their lands and organized in
cooperatives (kolkhoz);
o Secularization: churches and monasteries closed, all to adopt atheism as their creed;
o (Physical) annihilation of the “exploiting class”
– War communism was also introduced (i.e. total war against whoever opposed the socialist
transformation of the country): included arrest, torture, death or imprisonment in forced labor
camps, deliberate starvation (the Holodomors).
o 1921-1923, First Holodomor, caused by Lenin’s refusal to help out recalcitrant peasants
in the Volga basin during a severe drought; ca. 2 million Russians and Ukrainians died
in the famine.
o 1932-1933, the Second Holodomor, caused by Stalin’s decision to punish Ukrainian
peasants who resisted collectivization by destroying their crops, the seeds for next
planting season, and the livestock; ca. 7 to 10 million people died of hunger and
hunger-related diseases.
o 1946-1947, the Third Holodomor, a result of Stalin’s anger with the Ukrainians who
had sided with Hitler during WWII.
Stalin launched the five-year plans: planning the production and distribution of goods for five
year periods.
– Everything, from agriculture, to industry, tourism, education, cultural entertainment, personal
choices with regard to career, workplace, political beliefs etc., was decided by the
Bolsheviks.
Totalitarianism: a political system in which a small elite relying on the army and secret police
controls all branches of government, the economy, the schools and universities, the cultural life,
as well as people’s private lives.
– Did not rest on its appeal to the masses, but on a well-organized repressive system that
punished immediately any kind of dissent.
o Communism in the S.U. responsible for ca. 50 million deaths.
The Politburo: highest policy-making governmental authority in the Soviet Union.
– Founded in October 1917, refashioned in 1919. Five members: Vladimir Lenin, Leon
Trotsky, Joseph Stalin, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Krestinsky.
o Major rivalry: Stalin-Trotsky
Trotsky in charge of the army and navy; played major role in turning the military
into a weapon of mass oppression.
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Advanced the idea of a permanent revolution: socialism to be exported by force of
arms to all countries of the world (or otherwise capitalism, which generated
wealth, would remain a continuous threat to socialism).
Stalin wanted a gradual revolution: first create a stable proletariat dictatorship in
Russia, then move toward communism; once successful at home, socialist
revolution could be exported abroad.
o Stalin managed to isolate Trotsky:
October 1927, Trotsky dismissed from his position as commissar of the army.
November 1927, expelled from the Communist Party.
January 1928, exiled to Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan).
February 1929, expelled from the Soviet Union to Turkey.
Moved then to France, Norway and finally Mexico.
August 20, 1940, assassinated by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born NKVD agent;
died next day in hospital.
The Great Depression in the U.S.
Worst economic recession in the history of industrialized world, lasting from 1929 to 1939.
– Causes: the U.S. a major international creditor, but debtors unable to pay off loans +
industrial and agricultural production stagnated at home + low salaries.
– Developments:
o Stock market crash on October 29
o Industrial output declined steeply
o Businesses went bankrupt
o Inflation was rampant
o Unemployment reached 25% by 1933
– FDR – first Democrat president in many decades – instituted the New Deal: a series of federal
programs: public work projects; financial reforms; regulations that sought to restore
economic production at its previous levels, to provide relief to those hardest hit, and reform
the banking system so as to prevent future depressions.
Political reactions in Western Europe
Great Britain did not fare economically very well in the 1920s and 1930s.
– A significant part of its fleet had been destroyed.
– The country was no longer the world’s financial center.
– The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia closed its markets to “capitalist goods.”
– No modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment
o The Depression began in England much earlier than anywhere else, in 1920.
France was also struggling economically, since much of the war had been carried out on its soil
leaving it devastated. As usual, the country was also struggling politically.
Socialists dominated the political scene in most Western European countries.
– Anarchists and conservatives had become, to a large extent, vanishing species.
– The only opposition to the socialists were the liberals, and, in Italy, the fascists.
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Rise of the Fascist State
Despite promises made by allies during war, Italy gained very little territory as a result of the
peace talks, and none of the economically profitable areas in the Mediterranean and Africa.
Economic and social difficulties crippled Italy.
– 1919, the Socialist Party won the majority of seats in the national assembly.
o In September 1920, the socialists in the north began confiscating factories and banks.
Happy working class.
Terrified upper and middle classes, plus the peasants in the south.
– Benedetto Mussolini started out as a socialist.
o Broke up with the socialists over the question of Italy’s involvement in the Great War;
also angry with the poor way in which they negotiated the peace treaty.
o 1919, organized the Fascist Party.
Emphasized national unity despite regional, economic and political differences.
Denounced all “parasitic groups:” bankers and factory owners, who had made
huge profits from wartime contracts, and the socialists, who wanted to live off
someone else’s work.
Described his party as the movement of combatants and producers (former
soldiers and the working classes: proletariat, middle-class, peasantry).
Huge appeal with the masses.
o Organized members into Fascist squads dressed in black (Black Shirts), trained them
militarily and sent them to protect people and property attacked by socialists.
The police, unable to put an end to socialist violence, most often turned a blind
eye when Mussolini’s squads fought the socialists.
o Origin of name: ancient Roman fasces
1921, the Fascist Party won 35 seats in the National Assembly (6%).
– Mussolini became a deputy.
o Turned fascism into a coherent political program meant to replace socialism.
1922, march on Rome.
– King Victor Emmanuel III allowed Mussolini to form a new government, to avoid civil war.
1924, Mussolini’s party won 375 seats (65%).
– Under the slogan, “everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the
state,” he seized all power, ruling by decree, disbanding old political parties, introducing
press censorship and creating a secret police.
o Italy a one-party state.
o Introduced a close cooperation between trades and professions, between workers,
factory owners and businessmen.
Representatives in the assembly were not chosen by region but by profession and
class.
o Elaborate program of public works designed to provide employment for a large number
of people, and at the same time to build structures that would glorify fascism.
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1929, Lateran Agreement with the pope: Vatican became an independent state w/in Italy (had
to have same foreign policy).
Fascist Italy was an authoritarian state: one-man rule relying on popular support.
National-socialism in Germany
Like Mussolini, Adolf Hitler started out as a socialist. He dissociated from Marxism when he
realized its internationalism was threatening German national identity, but never fully renounced
socialist ideas.
– In 1919, Hitler attached himself to the small but vocal German Workers’ Party, which
championed a nationalistic branch of socialism.
o 1920, he gained almost complete control over the party, and refashioned it as The
National Socialist Party of the German Workers (NSDAP/Nazi).
o 1923, taking advantage of the political instability and economic recession in the
Weimar Republic, Hitler tried to seize power.
Arrested and imprisoned.
o While in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf, which espoused his main ideas on race (against
Jews and Slavs), on the German “living space,” and the need for a leader-dictator
(Führer) with unlimited power who could restore German greatness. He also rejected
free-market capitalism and defended the welfare state.
The Great Depression deepened the economic crisis in Germany.
– Many small businessmen, educators, clerks, workers and peasants voted for Hitler’s party in
1929, which promised to introduce government programs to end food and fuel shortages,
inflation and high unemployment (up to 43%).
– May 1930, to avoid the access to power of the national socialists, President Hindenburg
authorized Chancellor Heinrich Bruning to rule by decree.
o Bruning cut government spending and lowered wages, while prices continued to rise.
– January 1933, conservative and nationalist Germans, afraid of people’s reaction to the
worsening economic situation, pressured the president to appoint Hitler as chancellor.
o When fire damaged the Reichstag building in spring 1933, Hitler blamed the Marxists
and communists for it, and persuaded the president to sign dictatorial emergency
decrees.
Abolition of freedoms (speech, press, assembly).
New elections called.
The National Socialists won 44% of the vote.
– March 23, the Enabling Act gave Hitler dictatorial power for four years.
o His party took over the German bureaucracy, professional organizations, publishing
houses, and universities.
Like Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany soon became an authoritarian state
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