The year is 1937, and civil war has broken out throughout Spain. There are so many conflicting political ideologies coming from all over the place. On one side of the war, you have the nationalists, including their leader Fransico Franco. He sure is one charismatic guy, similar to a couple of other leaders in Europe, such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Franco had a successful career in the Spanish military, fighting in the Rif War. He also had a large role in the suppression of the Asturian miners’ strike by Spanish military forces. It seems, at least to me, that Franco wants to model Spain after fascism, similar to Italy. Franco wants the political power to be centralized in the leader of Spain. However, there are other sides in this war. There are people who favor different political ideologies than Franco. There are some in the Republican forces who disagree with the idea of a fascist state. They believe that fascism may allow the leader of the state to become too powerful. Instead, they would prefer to model their country after a liberal democracy. Some of the Republicans believe that the power should reside in the people, not the state. Power should be given by the people to the leader of the state, and the people should have ability to take away power from their leader, if the leader is not looking out for the people’s best interests. There are also others in the Republican forces that believe that Spain should be modeled after a communist state, such as the Soviet Union. The goal of communism is to create a classless society. Everyone is a worker in a communist state, even women. With communism, people are working towards a collective goal, instead of worrying about their individual goals. Communism creates equality among all people. Choosing between these political ideologies is difficult, but I personally want to model Spain after a liberal democracy. I think it is the best option for Spain moving forward. Firstly, I am going to discuss the pitfalls of the other two political ideologies, fascism and communism. Then, I am going to show why liberal democracy is the best option out of these three political ideologies for Spain to be modeled after.
Fransico Franco is the leader of the Nationalists, which is a far right leaning political faction. If Franco and the Nationalists were to win the civil war, Franco would most likely want to model Spain after Italy, who is extremely fascist. Benito Mussolini is the fascist leader of Italy, and he has been since 1922. With fascism comes an authoritarian government, in that it is basically a dictatorship. A dictatorship with one person in control of the entire state, such as the case in Italy and Germany currently. Franco, I presume, will want to be like Mussolini and become the dictator of Spain, if he has the opportunity. Fascism needs all the power to be in the state, thereby putting the state above the individuals. Fascism is fueled by nationalism, which makes sense as to why Franco supports the ideology. With all the power going to the state and the state being led by one dictator, this could lead to the corruption of power for the dictator. The desire for more power becomes stronger and stronger in the dictator as more time goes on. The end goal for the Italian fascists was to create a new Roman Empire. While I would say that the new Roman Empire has not been created yet, Italy has already made some advances, such as the pacification of Libya. Fascism also restricts the voice of the people. People have the right to freedom of speech, but fascists do not like to take criticism very well. Fascists do not do well with opposition either, and this is shown by Hitler banning the communists from running for political office in 1933 because they were a threat to his power. The dictator has control of the whole country, with nothing and no one able to check his power. Fascism usually spends a lot of money on military spending, which could be a disadvantage for countries that do not have a lot of money. Fascism can also be used to oppress certain types of people, such as in Germany and Italy, where antisemitism is very strong. Fascism is definitely not the ideology that I support for the power is all in the state, and rarely ever in the hands of the people. I can see why Franco would want to be a fascist state, but it would not be the best thing for Spain.
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Communism is not my preferred political ideology. The main goal of communism is for a classless society, where all people would be equal. This sounds like a great idea! However, that is not what is actually happening in the Soviet Union. The Soviet workers should have all the power in the state. But, Joseph Stalin is the person with the real power in the Soviet Union . The will of the collective is so much more important than the will of the individual in communism. One major disadvantage for communism is that you lose your individual rights. You have to do what is good for the collective, not want is good for yourself. You cannot privately own anything because everything is owned by the government. With communism, nationalism is a means to an end. People are willing to work for the collective will of the state, as long as that means that there is no longer class conflict. Propaganda is huge in communist states such as the Soviet Union, and it is used to try and control their citizens. They would do this by trying to instill a sense of nationalism in its people. In the Soviet Union, under the ideology of communism, there were famines throughout the state. The first was in 1921 until 1922 and the second was in 1932 until 1933, potentially even lasting longer for some people. With communism comes poverty and that is what happened in the Soviet Union five years ago. Also with communism, there is only a single party, meaning no potential opposition to communism. This makes it very difficult for there to be potential revolutions if you need to overthrow the government. The government can do whatever they want to do because there is no check on their powers. Communism wants people to believe that it is creating a classless state and treating everyone equally. However, that is not the case. In the Soviet Union, the communist regime has turned into a dictatorship for Joseph Stalin. He has complete control of the entire government and can do whatever he wants to do. Stalin does not really care about the Soviet people, but more about consolidating more power under his regime. The similarities between Fascism and Communism are very interesting, especially since they despise each other. Both ideologies allow for authoritarian governments to gain power and try to take control of every aspect of life. Both ideologies see liberal democracy as their true enemy, which is part of the reason why I support liberal democracy.
Liberal democracy is probably one of the most important political ideologies around today. In a liberal democracy, the government is elected by the people and responsible to the people. That means that the people have a say in what is happening in the government. For example, if America elected a president that was too corrupted by power, then the people of the state have the ability to change the outcome in the next election. In liberal democracies, there are elections that occur quite frequently. That means if an elected official is doing badly at their job, then the people can vote to get them out of office in the next election cycle. There are also multiple political parties, ensuring that the people have options for who they want to vote for. Czechoslovakian President Tomáš Masaryk gave some ideas for what democracy is, such as, “Democratic states aim for administration, not at domination” and “Democracy is the antithesis of aristocracy and oligarchy”1. Liberal democracy is supposed to bring stability to governance, even though there elections quite frequently. Also, liberal democracy allows for equality, under the law, for all people. People are born with the equal chance of success. In liberal democracies, there is usually a separation of church and state, which Masaryk asks for in The New Europe.
I chose the liberal democracy ideology because it gave the people of the state the power, instead of the power resting in the hands of the government or a dictator. Fascism and communism does not allow for people to be in control of the government. A dictatorship in a liberal democracy would be almost impossible to happen, but dictatorship is common for both fascism and communism. These two ideologies want to control every aspect of life. In Italian fascism, the state has all the power, while communism in the Soviet Union is supposed to give the workers all the power. In liberal democracies, the people have all the power because the elected officials have to answer to the people. The elected officials were elected by the people, for the people, but that can change if the people want it to. Communists and Fascists hate liberal democracies because they feel threatened by liberal democracies. People are not easily controlled when in a liberal democracy, but they are easily controlled in places where fascism and communism are the main political ideology. Instead of thinking about the collective like they do in the Soviet Union, people in liberal democracies are able to think and act for themselves instead of being told what to do. Liberal democracies are not going to try and take over the world for themselves, like Communists and Fascists want to. Liberal democracies give people the freedoms they deserve, while communism and fascism both oppress and control these freedoms against their people. So yes, I 100% favor liberal democracies over fascism and communism.
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