Chapter 13

Rise of Totalitarianism

Postwar Social Changes• Roaring Twenties-

– Jazz music– US economic boom,

pop culture, experimentation

– Flapper

• Prohibition-– Ban on manufacture

and sale of alcohol– Speakeasies created– Rise in organized

crime– Repealed 1933

Literature and Art• “Lost Generation”

– Moral breakdown of Western civ

– Harlem Renaissance

• American Cultural awakening; black artists thrived

• Pride in African-American culture

• Artist rejected traditional styles

– Abstract

– Dada

– Surrealism

– Frank Lloyd Wright

Western Democracies Stumble• Post-War Foreign

Policy– France’s Maginot Line– Kellogg-Briand Pact:

renounced war, disarmament, never agreed on size of armies

– League of Nations: powerless to stop aggression

• 1931 condemned Japan’s invasion of Manchuria but no military action

• Postwar Economies– Britain in debt– France recovers – US boom • Great Depression

• Overproduction• World Markets• Loss of faith in

Democracy• Misery and

hopelessness created openings for extremists who promised radical solutions

At Least the Trains Ran on Time

• Mussolini- “Il Duce”, fascist fueled by effects of WWI on Italy. Champion of order and efficiency. 1st fascist state

• Nation and race were more important than the individual.

• Won elections by force using Black-Shirts, or party militants.

• Seen as a model of strength and determination. Restored Italy’s power in Mediterranean by invading Ethiopia.

Fascism• Any centralized,

authoritarian government that is not communist whose policies glorify the state over individual and are destructive to human rights

• Extreme nationalism• Glorified action, violence,

discipline and blind loyalty to the state

• Aggressive foreign expansion

• Anti-democratic, rejected faith in reason, equality and liberty

Fascism vs Communism

• Fascists appealed to Italians because it promised a strong stable government

• Sworn enemies of Communists

• Pursued Nationalist goals• Society with defined classes,

allies with business leaders, wealthy landowners, and lower middle class

• Communists worked for International change

• Wanted classless society, support among urban and agricultural workers

• Both had blind devotion to the state, charismatic leaders, terror to guard power

Soviet Union and Stalin• Lenin dies 1924, body

displayed in Red Square for 65 years

• Five-Year Plans: gov’t control over USSR’s economy: building heavy industry, improving transportation and increasing farm output

• Command Economy: gov’t officials made all basic economic decisions

• Mixed Results in Industry: • Oil, coal, steel production

grew, mining and railroads expanded

• Standard of living remained low, central planning inefficient causing some shortages

• Large quantities of low-quality goods

• Consumer goods scarce

• Stalin deemed Lenin’s NEP ineffective thus forcing all peasants onto state owned farms or collectives, large owned and operated by peasants as a group

• Gov’t would provide tractors, fertilizers, better seed and new farming techniques. Peasants could keep houses and belongings but all animals and tools would be turned over to the state

• Some peasants did not want to give up land and sell crops at state’s low prices.

• Peasants resisted collectivization by burning crops, killing animals, destroying tools.

• Stalin blamed resistance on wealthy farmers, or Kulaks

• Stalin responded with brutal force, 1929 declared ‘intention to liquidate the Kulaks’ – land was confiscated and kulaks were sent to labor camps

• Angry peasants still refused to cooperate; gov’t seized all grain purposely starving the peasants- ‘Terror Famine’ killing 5 to 8 million deaths

Stalin’s Terror Tactics• Terror as weapon – gulag• Great Purge: 1934, secret

police cracked down on old Bolsheviks

• Increased Stalin’s power; purged experts in industry, engineering, talented writers and thinkers, military leaders and officers

• Propaganda: made himself a godlike figure

• Censorship of the arts – socialist realism to show Soviet life in a positive light

• Russification: Make culture more Russian, making Russian official language throughout USSR

• War on religion: Atheism became state policy

Germany• End of WWI: 1919 drafted

a constitution and created the Weimar Republic, with parliamentary system and Chancellor

• -faced political struggles• - Inflation• - Dawes Plan helped

reduce reparations, the Great Depression

• - Culture thrived

• Adolf Hitler: Born in Austria; moved to Vienna at 18 where he developed his anti-Semitic feelings

• Fought in German army during WWI; despised Weimar gov’t; joined small group of extremist and rose to top of NAZI party

• Arrested in 1923 after failed attempt to seize power; wrote Mein Kampf while in prison

• Nazi membership grew with unemployment; Hilter released and resumed political goals

Rise of Nazi Germany• Hitler created the Nationalist

Socialist Germans Workers Party (Nazi). Hated the Jews and non-Aryan peoples. Blamed them for economic problems. In reality it was the outcome of WWI.

• Established the 3rd Reich, took advantage of discontent and denounced Treaty of Versailles. Chancellor 1933, abolished Presidency and declared himself Fuhrer

• Convinced Reichstag to let him make laws without their consent

Third Reich Controls Germany• Named after Holy Roman

Empire (1st Reich)• To combat depression Hitler

launched public works programs

• Totalitarian Rule: gestapo, controlled all aspects of German life

• Nuremberg Laws – deprived Jews of German citizenship, placed severe restrictions (couldn’t marry non-Jews, attend or teach at German schools or universities, hold gov’t jobs, practice law or medicine

• Nazis beat up Jews, Jews fled

• Kristallnacht: Night of Broken Glass, Nazis attacked Jewish communities

• “Final Solution” – plan to exterminate all Jews

• Hitler Youth• Purging German Culture-

‘purify’, denounced modern art, jazz, rejected religion

•