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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