Rejection of Liberalism

Context of Communism in Russia

World War I: 1914 - 1918:

• Czarist Russian armies suffer severe losses

• The Russian Revolution occurs in 1917 → offering bread, land and peace

• The Russian Civil War then goes from 1917 - 1922.

Vladimir Lenin - 1922:

• Several republics unite to create the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, led by Vladimir Lenin.

  • Land is redistributed to people.

  • Factories are given to workers who decisioned on wages and working conditions.

  • Men and women are considered equal.

  • Art and music flourished

  • More control over people’s lives versus Czarist rule.

• Subsistence agriculture: just enough to survive.

• Opposition to communism existed too:

  • turmoil and famine continued

  • Lenin responded violently to his opponents.

War Communism

• Russian civil war:

  • Bolsheviks took control of factories/mines/railways and workshops

  • Workers were forced to work within factories

  • Grain was taken from peasants by force

  • Bolsheviks took control of the banks

  • Private trade banned

  • Food rationed

• Bolsheviks: a faction of communists.

• War communism failed badly. Peasants hid grain, people were arrested and shot.

  • 1921’s Soviet famine

  • Factory production fell

New Economic Policy

• 1921: Kronstadt soldiers, fierce Bolshevik supporters, mutinied and demanded an end to war communism.

• Trotsky put down the rebellion through the Red Army

  • Thousands were killed, on the spot executed or sent to Siberian gulags.

• Lenin was lucky: the Bolsheviks won the war, pulled back war communism and introduced the NEP.

  • peasants can keep some crops to sell for profit

  • Nepnen small traders were allowed to set up businesses

  • Non-Russian nationalities were allowed to bring back culture and language

  • Churches, mosques, bazaars were reopened

  • Economy picked up, people were happy.

  • “Religion is the opiate of the masses” - Karl Marx

Stalinism

• Became leader of the USSR in 1928.

• Stalin claimed to be a Marxist-Leninist but his version of Communism was inspired by a desire for absolute power and control.

• Stalin ultimately rejected the values of liberalism.

Forced collectivization of farms

• Traditional farming communities were broken up to form publicly owned farms producing quotas of food for the state.

  • 10 - 12 million died across the USSR

• The Holodomor: manufactured famine with 3 - 7 million killed (1932 - 1933)

  • The USSR flooded international grain markets

The Red Army Purge

• a violent removal of Red Army leadership

  • 3 of 5 marshals; all commissioners; all district commanders; 13 of 15 army commanders; half of the corps commanders and 20-40% of low ranking officers

  • leader of the NKVD overthrown → Trotsky

• Gulags: prison/work camps often located in Northern Siberia — concentrated Stalin’s power through paranoia; millions were sent during Stalin’s era.

Show trials

• Government-controlled trials that always returned a guilty verdict, sentencing the defendant to death or the gulag.

• a technique to instill fear.

Facism

Hitler’s rise to power

• Resentment towards the allies for the Treaty of Versailles which caused an economic downturn and resentment, unrest and anger towards the West.

• Germans think they could’ve won had they not signed the treaty.

  • ‘stab in the back’ myth a part of Hitler’s “Big Lie”

  • Elected government takes over, using communists and Jews as a scapegoat.

• Hitler’s charisma, populism and scapegoating leads to success democratically.

  • Anger and resentment converts to Nazi support.

• Hitler was appointed Chancellor in 1933.

  • Reichstag Fire then occurs

    • The Reichstag Fire Degree gives the German government the ability to suspend civil liberties.

  • In March 1933, the Enabling Act is passed, where Hitler becomes a dictator with absolute control.

Video: Hitler’s Rise

• 1924: jailed for a coup/putch

• 1930: Nazis win 18% of the Reichstag vote

• 1932: Hitler runs for President; Hindenburg becomes re-elected but Hitler wins 35% of the vote

• 2 parliamentary elections then occur, with no majority produced.

  • Hitler then wins 37% of the vote and Hindenburg appoints Hitler as a leader of an interim government.

• In February, a communist arsonist lights fire to the Reichstag.

  • Hindenburg listens to the Nazis, suspends the Reichstag and civil rights; e.g. democratic and press rights.

• In March, Paramilitary Brownshirts roam the streets.

  • 44% of the vote in an intimidated election is won by the Nazis.

  • The Enabling Act is then passed: giving unlimited legislative powers to Hitler.

    • The Presidency and the Chancellorship are combined to become Fuhrer.

Similarities between fascism and communism

• Authoritarianism

• State sponsored terror

• Militarism

• Propaganda

• Cult of the leader

• Collectivist (moreso the USSR)

Differences

Eugencis

• Nazis used vans to kill the mentally ill and disabled — according to the Nazis, they poisoned the Aryan Race.

• Social Darwinism → Nazi militarism → is a pseudoscience BS.

• Eugenicists argued these policies were not racist

  • Selective immigration laws prioritized specific ethnicities

  • Prohibition on interracial marriage

  • Forced sterlization

• Eugenics are false. Races are not genetically different.