Chapter 19 Notes: Of Masses and Visions of the Modern, 1910-1939

Jim Crow Laws

"Jim Crow" laws in the American South mandated racial segregation, enforcing separate and unequal facilities for African Americans, including schools, hotels, and theaters.

The New Deal

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal aimed to save capitalism, not destroy it.
While the New Deal included initiatives like irrigation and rural electrification, privately owned enterprises continued to dominate American society.
The New Deal succeeded in staving off authoritarian solutions to modern problems.

Authoritarianism and Mass Mobilization

Authoritarian regimes, including dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and Japan, challenged liberal systems.
Despite differing in specific ways, these regimes generally opposed the left-wing dictatorship of the Soviet Union.
Post-war dictatorships were largely formed in opposition to liberal democracies.
These regimes emphasized their ability to mobilize the masses to create dynamic and orderly societies, contrasting this with the perceived inertia of liberal systems.
They had charismatic leaders who embodied the power and unity of their societies.
Dictators insisted they had popular support and treated their people like a conscript army to build new societies and guarantee well-being.
Leaders promised robust economies, restored order, and renewed pride.
Authoritarian regimes embraced public welfare programs to gain support.
They vowed to deliver on modernity's promises (prosperity, national pride, technology) without the costs (class divisions, unemployment, urban squalor, moral breakdown).

The Soviet Union and Socialism

The Bolshevik Party's seizure of power in Russia was a significant blow against liberal capitalism.
Britain, France, Japan, and the United States sent armies to Russia to contain Bolshevism, fearing the spread of socialist revolution.
The Bolsheviks executed the Tsar and his family and mobilized support by defending the homeland against invaders.
They mobilized people to fight and win the civil war (1918-1921) in the name of defending the revolution.
The conflict was between the Bolsheviks (Reds) and a disunified array of forces, including former Tsarist supporters (Whites).
The Bolsheviks rebuilt state institutions during the civil war.
Grain requisitioning and extensive military operations led to a severe famine from 1921 to 1923, causing 7 to 10 million deaths.
The Bolsheviks legalized private trade and property to revive the economy.
In 1924, after Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin emerged as the leader of the communist party and the country, which became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.).

The Soviets Build Socialism

Socialism was defined by Stalinist leaders in opposition to capitalism.
Socialism featured soviets (councils) of worker and peasant deputies, economic planning, and full employment, contrasting with capitalist parliaments and unregulated markets.
Socialism outlawed private trade and property, aiming to eradicate capitalism and create socialist forms in housing, culture, values, dress, and reasoning.
Efforts to build a noncapitalist society required class war, particularly in the countryside.
Stalin aimed to combine farms into larger, collectively owned units run by regime loyalists.
Urban activists and Red Army soldiers forced farmers to sell grain and livestock to the state at low prices.
Peasants protested by destroying crops, livestock, and farm machinery. The government responded by deporting protesters and bystanders to remote areas.
"Class warfare" reflected personal animosities, greed, and ambition, not just ideological struggle.
Harvests declined, leading to another famine that claimed millions of lives.
The regime allowed collectivized peasants to have household plots for personal food production and sales.
Collectives depended on the state for seed, fertilizers, and machinery, limiting independence.

Collectivized Agriculture

Soviet plans envisioned large collectives with advanced machinery to transform peasant labor into an industrial process.
Realities included low productivity, enormous waste, and broken-down machinery.

Five-Year Plan

The late 1920s saw the beginning of a frenzied Five-Year Plan to "catch and overtake" leading capitalist countries.
Millions helped build factories, hospitals, and schools.
Huge hydroelectric dams, automobile and tractor factories, and heavy machine-building plants symbolized Soviet-style modernity, which eliminated unemployment during the capitalist Great Depression.

Expansion of the U.S.S.R.

In 1922, the U.S.S.R. was formed by joining Soviet Russia with Ukraine, Belorussia (Belarus), and the Transcaucasian Federation.
The U.S.S.R. eventually included fifteen republics, each with its own institutions but under centralized rule from Moscow.
Collectivization and mass arrests devastated peasants, nomads, and officials in the republics, while industrialization and urbanization strengthened local elites.

Mass Terror and Stalin's Dictatorship

The Soviet political system became despotic as the state expanded, with increasing police power.
Loyalty verifications led to the removal of party members.
From 1936 to 1938, trials of alleged "enemies of the people" resulted in the execution of around 750,000 people and the arrest or deportation of several million more to forced labor camps known as the Gulag.
The purges decimated the loyal Soviet elite, including party officials, state officials, intelligentsia, army officers, and police.
Mass terror was driven by fear, perceived conspiracies, and Stalin's dictatorship, but his motives remain unclear.
Political police exceeded arrest quotas, and ordinary people participated in the terror for various motives.

Italian Fascism

Disillusionment with World War I and fear of communist takeovers led to political changes in capitalist societies.
In Italy, mass strikes, factory occupations, and peasant land seizures occurred in 1919 and 1920.
Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist, organized disaffected veterans into a mass political movement called fascism in 1919.
Early fascist programs mixed nationalism with social radicalism, calling for annexation of "Italian" lands, female suffrage, an eight-hour workday, worker participation in factory control, taxes on capital, land redistribution, and a constituent assembly.
Fascists attracted numerous followers whose shock troops wore black shirts and engaged in violence.
In 1920, landowners and factory owners funded squads to attack socialist leaders, leading Mussolini to align fascism with the right.
Fascists presented themselves as champions of the common person, including peasants, workers, veterans, students, and white-collar workers.
In 1922, Mussolini announced a march on Rome, which intimidated the king into appointing him prime minister, despite the fascists' small minority in the 1921 elections.
The 1924 elections, in which fascists won 65 percent of the vote, involved intimidation and fraud.
Mussolini cracked down on liberal and socialist opposition, transforming Italy into a dictatorship within two years.
All parties except the fascists were dissolved.
Mussolini's dictatorship made deals with big business and the church.
Parades, films, radio, and visions of Roman imperial grandeur boosted support during the Depression.
The cult of the leader, Il Duce, provided cohesion.
Italian fascism served as a model for other countries as the first antiliberal, anti-socialist alternative.

German Nazism

Fear of Bolshevism and anger over the war's outcome propelled the right to power in Germany.
Adolf Hitler joined and then dominated a nationalist workers' organization in Munich, renaming it the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis).
Unlike Mussolini, Hitler was never a socialist.
The first Nazi Party platform in 1920 combined nationalism with anticapitalism and anti-Semitism, calling for the renunciation of the Treaty of Versailles.
Hitler was arrested and wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle) while in prison, which became popular among Nazis.
The Nazi Party gained popularity after the collapse of the American stock market in 1929, when more people lost their jobs and businesses.
In 1933, Germany's president appointed Hitler chancellor, believing he could be controlled.
Hitler heightened fear of a communist conspiracy, using the burning of the Reichstag building as an opportunity.
The Nazis blamed the communists for the fire, suspended civil liberties, and suppressed the left-wing press.
Hitler proposed legislation enabling him to promulgate laws without parliament's approval.
Within a month, Hitler was free from parliamentary control.
The government seized trade union offices, banks, and newspapers and arrested their leaders.
The socialist and communist parties were outlawed, and others were dissolved.
By July 1933, the Nazis were the only legal party, and Hitler was dictator of Germany.
He curbed dissent, banned strikes, jailed political opponents, and built concentration camps for political prisoners.
Hitler persecuted Jews, believing they controlled the banks, spread disease, and undermined the purity of the Aryan race.
Legal measures excluded Jews from the civil service and professions, forced them to sell property, deprived them of citizenship, and forbade marriage or sex with Aryans.
Terror was used against Jews, destroying their businesses and homes and encouraging them to leave Germany.
The Nazis restored order and revived the economy through rearmament, public works, and organized leisure activities.
Anti-Semitism mixed with full employment and social welfare programs that privileged racially approved groups.
Germany reemerged as a great power with expansionist aspirations.
Hitler called his state the Third Reich and aspired to impose racial purity and German power in Europe.

Ernst Rudolf Huber on Führer Power

The office of Führer developed out of the National Socialist movement and is not a State office.
The Führer combines in himself all sovereign power of the Reich.
Political power in the Third Reich is not State power but Führer power.
Führer power is comprehensive, total, free, independent, exclusive, and unlimited.

Dictatorships in Spain and Portugal

Authoritarian regimes spread across Europe, with the military taking over in Spain and Portugal.
The Spanish civil war from 1936 to 1939 was provoked by the military's attempt to seize power after the republican government introduced reforms.
Germany and Italy aided Generalissimo Francisco Franco, while Britain and France did little, and only Stalin's Russia supported the republican government.
Franco established a dictatorship.

Militaristic Japan

Japan did not suffer wounded power and pride during World War I; instead, it expanded production and found new markets in Asia.
The Japanese gross national product (GNP) grew 40 percent during the war, and the country built the world's third-largest navy.
Tokyo was rebuilt with steel and reinforced concrete after an earthquake and fire in 1923.
Initially, post-World War I Japan seemed headed down the liberal democratic road.
Suffrage expanded in 1925, increasing the electorate roughly fourfold.
A new Peace Preservation Law specified up to ten years' hard labor for any member of an organization advocating change in the political system or abolition of private property.
Emperor Hirohito came to power in 1926.
The Great Depression spurred the shift to dictatorship.
China and the United States imposed barriers on Japanese exports, contributing to a 50 percent decline in exports and surging unemployment.
Military commanders forced prime ministers out of office.
New "patriotic societies" used violence to intimidate political opponents.
Violence culminated in the assassination of Japan's prime minister.
In 1931, army officers arranged an explosion on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railroad as a pretext for taking over Manchuria (the Manchurian Incident).
In 1932, Japan proclaimed the puppet state of Manchukuo, adding Manchuria to its Korean and Taiwanese colonies.
In 1933, the Japanese army seized the Chinese province of Jehol.
"Patriots" continued a campaign of terror against uncooperative businessmen and critics of the military.
Promoting Shinto and Emperor Hirohito's divinity gave the state a sacred aura.
By 1940, all political parties had merged into the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, ending parliamentary rule.

Common Features of Authoritarian Regimes

Rejection of parliamentary rule.
Revival of national power through authoritarianism, violence, and a cult of the leader.
Belief that modern economies required state direction.
Government fostered large business conglomerates in Japan and cartels in Italy.
The German state expected entrepreneurs to support Nazi aims.
The Soviet Union eliminated private enterprise and state owned and managed all industry.
State-organized labor forces replaced independent labor unions.
Use of mass organizations for state purposes.
Russia, Italy, and Germany had single mass parties like the Hitler Youth and the Union of German Girls, the Soviet Communist Youth League, and Italian squads marching to the anthem "Giovinezza" (Youth).
Extensive social welfare policies (except in Japan initially).
Ambivalence about women in public roles (except initially in the Soviet Union).
Use of violence and terror against citizens, colonial subjects, and "foreigners."
Even liberal democracies admired the successes of authoritarian regimes in mastering the masses and attracted imitators.
Anticolonial movements hoped to use methods of mass mobilization and mass violence.

The Hybrid Nature of Latin American Corporatism

Latin American nations felt the same pressures that produced liberal democratic and authoritarian responses in Europe.