Communism and Authoritarianism

THE INTERWAR PERIOD HIST 1301 | History Communism and Authoritarianism People were more frustrated as the global economic downturn spread, believing that their governments were not doing enough to address the issues. The 1930s saw a notably widening divide between the "haves" and "have-nots" in nations with capitalist economies. While some individuals lost their jobs and houses, a large number of the wealthy continued living their lives as usual. For many who were disenchanted with the capitalist system, communist ideology became more alluring due to the promise of economic parity. In several nations, the economic downturn served as a pretext for greater authoritarianism. In many Western democracies, the Communist Party saw significant expansion in the early 1930s as a means of overcoming the challenges posed by the Great Depression. During this decade, the Communist International, or Comintern, aggressively supported the Soviet Union's goal of spreading communism throughout the world. For some, communism promised the possibility of racial as well as economic fairness. Some African Americans in the United States looked to communism as a fresh path towards the equal society it promised due to the country's segregation laws and ongoing discrimination against them. In the US, the Communist Party likewise aimed to repeal laws that were discriminatory. The appeal of communism increased in Western Europe as governments looked for ways to deal with the Great Depression. Different cabinets were created and reorganised many times in France, and the chaotic political environment raised the possibility that far-right politicians would take advantage of the void. The Popular Front, an alliance of communist organisations, succeeded in taking control of the government in 1936. They ushered in progressive and labor-friendly measures like minimum wages and forty-hour workweeks, which are defining characteristics of democratic Western responses to the Great Depression. However, as other nations had discovered, France discovered that merely altering its policies would not be enough to end the Great Depression. Some leaders seized the chance to establish authoritarian control under the guise that certain measures were required for the welfare of the people during this crisis. This was especially true in the 1930s in Germany, Spain, and Italy, all of which supported fascism. The goal of the fascist political movement was to turn people into ardent nationalists who would work for racial purity and unity in order to reverse what they saw as a perceived degradation in the country. Fascists advocated using violence to unite the country, renunciating democratic values and the rule of law to destroy actual or potential opponents, and implementing totalitarianism—the government's complete control over every area of an individual's life. The globe became disillusioned with democratic and parliamentary administrations throughout the interwar years and the 1920s difficulties. By the 1930s, Benito Mussolini had established his dominance over Italy. His ascent to national popularity had started in 1919, in part because of his criticism of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which many Italians felt had robbed their nation out of land that was rightfully theirs as a recompense for their military service on the Allied side. Similar to Hitler, Mussolini employed intimidation and fear to seize political power. He also threatened his opponents with physical harm by using a group of followers known as the Blackshirts. With the victory of his Fascist Party in 1924, Mussolini—who went by the moniker Il Duce, or "the leader"—took the helm of Italy. Subsequently, he banned further elections. Italy's industrial growth had languished during the 1920s and 1930s, particularly in the southern part of the nation, and this was something that the fascists wished to emphasise. Mussolini seized control of several industrial organisations in the 1930s when banks collapsed all across the nation in an effort to support the manufacturing sector. Labour unions were likewise abolished by the Italian government. A military dictatorship was imposed in Spain in 1924. It came to an end in 1930, and a republic was swiftly founded with the goal of modernising the country. In addition to attempting other reforms like land redistribution, women's voting rights, and more lenient divorce laws, it sought to undermine the Catholic Church's hegemonic position in politics and culture. But in 1936 there was a genuine military coup. Fascists identifying as Nationalists had gained the backing of right-wing conservative authoritarians and had commandeered a large portion of the Spanish armed forces. Republican beliefs were challenged by the well-liked commander Francisco Franco, the previous dean of Spain's military college. Franco was able to enlist the aid of fellow fascists Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in his battle against modernism, Republican radicalism, and the threat of communism. People did tremble at the growing horror of warfare, even if it is questionable how militarily successful the German and Italian bombardment of civilian targets like Madrid and Guernica was. But given Japanese growth in Asia and abroad, as well as the U.S. policy of neutrality, British, French, and other European nations believed it prudent to follow a policy of nonintervention. The League of Nations did not intervene either. Between 1936 and 1939, the Spanish Civil War claimed up to 500,000 lives. After the shooting stopped, Franco established his fascist government. Thousands of Republicans and Franco opponents were put to death by Spanish fascists during the 1930s on the grounds that a Jewish-Bolshevik-Masonic plot against property and social order threatened Catholic Spain. To build a single political movement, Franco combined fascism with every other political party. In other nations that gave rise to fascism, the army, the bureaucracy, and the Catholic Church were not allowed to maintain the same level of autonomy. Similar to Italy, propaganda efforts and the upbringing of children who were patriotic were used to enlist Spanish women as servants. Franco shared the same kind of fascism as Mussolini and Hitler, as well as a strong dislike of liberal principles, popular democracy, secularism, feminism, and communism. After ten years of severe inflation and economic instability in Germany, the Depression provided Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party (Nazi Party) with a chance to solidify their hold on power. The catastrophic military defeat Germany suffered in World War I also contributed to the growth of fascism in that country. The German people were shocked to learn of the armistice since they had been promised triumph. The Weimar Republic, the nation's new constitutional government, took power when the country's political parties compelled the kaiser to step down. Because of the timing of these events, a lot of Germans thought that civilian politicians were to blame for their country's failure in the war. 1919 saw the rise of communists, socialists, and monarchists who used violence to seize control of Berlin's streets and other cities. Their criticism of the Weimar Republic's response to the start of the Depression and its management of the 1920s hyperinflation gave the Nazis a significant boost. The Germanic Nordic or Aryan races were seen to be superior people, according to nineteenth-century conceptions of racial hierarchy that the Nazis embraced. German fascist militias attacked political opponents and Jews, calling them dirty, unclean, vermin, or subhuman, in an effort to gain political support—either by acceptance or fear. Following World War I, fascist violence and anti-Semitism were ingrained in the political fabric of the country. Hitler was given another opportunity to profit from the perception that Germany was being victimised, as up to four million Germans lost their jobs as a result of the Great Depression. The economic unrest that the public was unhappy with gave the Nazis the opportunity to gain more seats in the Reichstag, the country's legislature. Drawing on a long history of anti-Semitic sentiment in Europe, particularly in Austria, Hitler and the Nazis further asserted that Jewish bankers and business owners were to blame for the Great Depression, promising to stop wreaking such destruction. German voters, fed up, embraced their arguments with ease. In the legislature, the Nazis were starting to take the lead. Thus, pressure mounted on President Paul von Hindenburg to name Adolf Hitler as chancellor in January 1933. Hitler swiftly rose to prominence. The German Reichstag building in Berlin was set on fire by an arsonist just one month after Hitler was appointed chancellor. The crime was erroneously attributed to a Dutch communist and communist instigators in general, in keeping with Nazi antipathy to communism. The situation persuaded conservative lawmakers to approve the Enabling Act in March 1933, which gave Hitler temporary emergency powers. Then, Hitler was able to reign practically free from both constitutional restraints and parliamentary oversight. He proclaimed himself führer ("leader") in 1934, combining the powers of chancellor and president into one supreme position. Some of Hitler's supporters since the Beer Hall Putsch were aiding him. Former fighter ace of World War I Hermann Göring rose to prominence as the second most influential Nazi commander, heading the Luftwaffe, the German air force, and organising the country's economy. Heinrich Himmler was in charge of enforcing Nazi racial policies and promoting German institutions and culture. He also expanded the paramilitary militia, the Schutzstaffel (SS), from a tiny force of 290 to over a million members. The Gestapo, which emerged as the primary agent of violence and the guardian of law and order, was formed by combining the several German security and secret police organisations. Propaganda made greater use of the developing mass communication medium. Leni Riefenstahl, a German film filmmaker, is one potent example. Triumph of the Will, her 1934 documentary on the Nazi rally at Nuremburg, is still regarded as a seminal work in the history of documentary filmmaking and cinematic technique. The focus of the restructured educational system is on the physical growth of kids and their complete indoctrination into Nazi ideology concerning race and racial history. Eventually, it became mandatory for all educators to become members of the Nazi Teacher's Alliance and educate their students from official Nazi textbooks. German youngsters were arranged into tiers of youth groups outside of school, which culminated in the League of German Girls and the Hitler Youth for Boys. While ladies were taught domestic skills to be excellent housewives and mothers and racial hygiene (the idea that having offspring with particular qualities is necessary), guys were trained for military roles. The Nazis didn't waste time in implementing their pledges. Laws restricting Jewish people's access to jobs and social activities were passed, and the severity of the restrictions increased over the course of the decade. Hitler established a one-party system in Germany by outlawing all political parties but the Nazis. To spread the Nazi message to the general public, radios were routinely given away for free, and all newspapers and other media outlets were under Nazi control. The Nazis vowed to restore Germany's international standing and reassured the population that they were the only ones who could address the country's economic issues. Hitler launched a vast infrastructure programme to build new highways and establish the Autobahn system in an effort to give jobs to everyone who needed them. For Nazi political rallies and sporting events like the 1936 Berlin Olympics, enormous stadiums were built. Along with new dwellings, ships, aircraft, tanks, and weapons were constructed. The workweek was extended to sixty hours; employees were prohibited from going on strike or requesting rises, yet the unemployment rate decreased. Those without industrial jobs may find employment in the German military, which is constantly growing. Hitler increased the size of the German Army to about a million soldiers, defying the restrictions set by the Versailles Treaty and declaring that job creation was an urgent necessity. The world's powers were aware that rearmament was taking place in Germany by 1935, even if they may not have fully understood the scope of it. If there was a chance to foil Hitler's schemes, it was right now, before Germany gathered the armaments required for the next conflict. But there wasn't much support for this kind of action on a global scale. Given that it may very probably imply military action, none of the former Allies were interested in doing so during the depths of the Great Depression. Furthermore, such efforts had little popular support in these countries. Under Hitler's administration, the country's economic woes did start to improve through job creation initiatives and deficit spending—spending that relies on borrowing funds rather than tax revenue. From a peak of nearly thirty percent, the jobless rate decreased to roughly ten percent. Hitler handled the Great Depression well, and was praised by many people worldwide. For those aligned with the Nazi cause, life could be tolerable, if not delightful, with jobs, regional and national celebrations and festivities, lots of outdoor exercise, and continual reminders that they were part of a people selected for a unique purpose under the guidance of a messianic leader. For those who oppose the system, life may be terrorised and filled with hardship.