Download The Ideological Polarization of Europe in the Great Depression

INTERWAR EUROPE
PERCENTAGE OF LABOR FORCE UNEMPLOYED
SOME HISTORIANS SPEAK OF THE INTERWAR
PERIOD AS THE “ERA OF FASCISM”
Several movements arose to imitate Mussolini’s political
style, including Le Faisceau and the “Cross of Fire” in
France, Hitler’s Nazis, the Austrian Home Guard, and
Spanish Falange. Their common features:
1. The search in national history and traditions for role
models and values, and attacks on “internationalism”.
2. The call for rule by a warrior elite, and close
cooperation with a paramilitary league.
3. Imitation of the techniques of the socialist labor
movement, with the aim of suppressing it.
Historians still debate whether fascism necessarily implies
imperialist expansion or racism.
Benito Mussolini as “il Duce”
THE CONSOLIDATION OF FASCIST RULE
1924-26: Matteotti Crisis induces Mussolini to impose
outright dictatorship. Fascists suppress all other parties
and independent trade unions.
1927-29: A network of state-sponsored “syndicates”
organizes workers, industrialists, artisans, and farmers.
1929: Mussolini signs Lateran Treaty and a Concordat with
Pope Pius XI.
Mussolini often talked about reviving the glorious Roman
Empire, but the Corfu Incident of 1923 was his ONLY
act of blatant aggression before 1935, and Italian forces
evacuated the island after four weeks.
Mussolini with his
wife and five
children in 1930
At a Vatican
reception with
Cardinal
Eugenio Pacelli
Magazine cover for
Fascist Youth
(1931):
“Fascism promises
you neither honors
nor luxury nor
riches but rather
duty and struggle.”
See P.M.H. Bell, 66.
Mussolini
launches a
construction
project and then
helps to fight the
“battle of wheat”
in Littoria in 1932.
FASCISTS PROCLAIMED A GRAND PROGRAM OF
INDUSTRIALIZATION BUT HAD ONLY MODEST SUCCESS:
Steel production (1,000’s of metric tons)
YEAR
FRANCE
ITALY
1922
4,538
983
1924
6,670
1,359
1926
8,617
1,780
1928
9,479
1,960
1930
9,444
1,743
1932
5,638
1,396
1934
6,155
1,850
Italian production did not decline as much as French during
the Great Depression because of increased spending on
arms….
Mussolini reviews a new detachment of mini-tanks, 1932:
Western leaders believed that his bark was worse than his bite…
Munich’s Odeon Square, August 2, 1914
“To me those hours seemed like a release from the painful feelings of my youth. Even
today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down
on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the
good fortune of being permitted to live at this time” (Mein Kampf, p. 161)
Adolf Hitler with
two fellow
dispatch runners
in his Bavarian
regiment and
his dog, Foxl, in
Fournes, France
(1915)
Anton Drexler, the railroad
machinist who invited Hitler
into his “German Workers’
Party” in September 1919
and renamed it the National
Socialist German Workers’
Party (NSDAP) in 1920
25-Point Program of the
German Workers’ Party (Feb. 1920)
#1. We demand the union of all Germans to form a Great Germany.
#3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the nourishment of
our people and for settling our excess population.
#4. None but members of the nation may be citizens of the state.
None but those of German blood, whatever their creed, may be
members of the nation. No Jew therefore may be a member of the
nation.
#7. If it is not possible to nourish the entire population of the state,
foreign nationals (noncitizens of the state) must be excluded from the
Reich.
#8. All non-German immigration must be prevented.
#11. Abolition of incomes unearned by work.
#13. We demand nationalization of all businesses (trusts).
#16. We demand creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class,
immediate communalization of wholesale business premises, and their
lease at a cheap rate to small traders….
Hitler dictated vol. 1 of
Mein Kampf in Landsberg
Prison in 1924
In Vol. 2 (1925)
he argued that
Germany must
acquire
Lebensraum:
See P.M.H. Bell,
pp. 87-92.
TOTAL GERMAN
SALES:
1929: 23,000
1932: 80,000
1933: 1,500,000
1945: 10,000,000
THE POLARIZATION OF THE GERMAN
ELECTORATE IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION:
In the election campaign of July 1932,
many felt that Germany was on the brink of civil war.
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Communist
Social Democrat
Moderate (Libs + RC)
Con./Nationalist
Nazi
1919 1928 1930 Jul-32 Nov32
“A combat veteran
votes for Adolf
Hitler!”
(presidential
campaign poster
from 1932)
President Hindenburg
appointed Hitler as
Chancellor on
January 30, 1933.
“In our deepest
need, Hindenburg
chose Adolf Hitler as
Reich Chancellor.
You too should vote
for List #1”
(February 1933)
Defense Minister Werner
von Blomberg brought
his fellow generals to
meet with Hitler on
February 2, and Hitler
promised them unlimited
funding for rearmament.
HITLER’S “PEACE SPEECH,” May 17, 1933
“This generation of young
Germans has suffered too
much from the madness
of war to inflict it on
anyone else…. Just as we
love and are faithful to
our own nationality, so
too do we recognize the
national rights of other
peoples and desire with all our hearts to live with them in
peace and friendship.” ….National Socialism, Hitler declared,
sought only to save Germany from the threat of Communism,
put the millions of unemployed back to work, and restore a
stable government with law and order.
German map of the arms race (1934)
FROM LENIN TO STALIN
1921: Lenin favors small business and the family farmer
with the New Economic Policy.
1924-27: Succession struggle after the death of Lenin
leads to the victory of Stalin and exile of Trotsky.
1928-32: In the first Five-Year Plan, Stalin decrees the
“collectivization” of agriculture to accelerate
industrialization. The results are catastrophic.
1934/35: USSR joins the League of Nations and signs
treaties of alliance with Czechoslovakia and France.
1937-38: Criticism of collectivization leads to the “Great
Purge,” i.e., the execution of two million army officers,
civil servants, and C.P. functionaries.
Joseph
Vissarionovich
Jugashvili,
code-named
“Stalin”
(1878-1953):
photographed
with Lenin in 1922
“Industrialization is
the path to
socialism!”
(Soviet poster, 1927)
“We will smite the
kulak who agitates
for reducing the
cultivated area”
(USSR, 1930):
Food production
plummeted after
Stalin ordered
collectivization, and
millions of Ukrainian
peasants starved.
“Imperialists cannot
stop the triumphal
march of the FiveYear Plan”
(USSR, 1930):
See P.M.H. Bell,
pp. 136-40.
“Long Live the
Workers’ &
Peasants’ Red
Army!”
(Stalin & Marshal
Voroshilov,
USSR, 1935)
THE ORIGINAL MEMBERS OF THE C.P. CENTRAL COMMITTEE
(names in red all executed on Stalin’s orders)
“Stalin cares
about everyone
in the Kremlin,”
USSR, 1940
TOTAL DEFENSE SPENDING
IN MILLIONS OF 1952 DOLLARS
Italy
Germany
USSR
**
YEAR
Japan*
U.K.
France
USA
1930
218
266
162
722
512
498
699
1933
356
351
452
707
333
524
570
1934
384
455
709
3,479
540
707
803
1935
900
966
1,607
5,517
646
867
806
1936
440
1,149
2,332
2,933
892
995
932
1937
1,621
1,235
3,298
3,446
1,245
890
1,032
1938
2,489
746
7,415
5,429
1,863
919
1,131
* Japan’s total is hard to measure because of major charges
to Manchukuo and other overseas dependencies.
** Stalin’s command economy and slave labor camps make
the Soviet total the most difficult to calculate.
Wall Street on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929
Wall Street crashed on “Black Tuesday,” October 29, 1929
HERBERT HOOVER (1874-1964)
 A trained mining
engineer, raised as a
Quaker
 1917-19: Director of
American Relief
Administration
 1920-28: U.S. Secretary
of Commerce
 June 1931: Hoover
Moratorium suspends all
payments on war debts
and reparations
 1931/32: Demands
worldwide disarmament
Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937)
 Raised a Scottish
Presbyterian, became a
Christian pacifist
 Resigned as Labour Party
chair in August 1914
 First Labour prime minister,
1924 and 1929-31
 Formed a National
Government with the
Conservatives in September
1931
 Sponsored Round Table
Conference with Gandhi and
Statute of Westminster in
1932
Hunger Marchers have arrived in Chester on their way to
Washington DC, December 2, 1932
THE FAILURE OF DIPLOMACY
IN THE GREAT DEPRESSION
The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 outlows the
“recourse to war for the solution of international
controversies.” Ratified by 34 countries, including
France, the USA, Germany, and the Soviet Union.
Geneva World Disarmament Conference, February
1932—January 1934
Lausanne Reparations Conference, June 1932
London World Economic Conference, June-July 1933