The Rise of Totalitarianism

• Examples of dictators
  • Mussolini
  • Hitler
  • Franco
  • Stalin
  • Mao
  • Castro
• Post 1900 movement correlation between the denunciation of royal rule combined with a disdain for weak parliamentarian.
• A Benevolent Dictatorship began to look like the most responsive form of government.
• What is Totalitarianism?
  • Dictatorships, Single-Party States, Nationalist, Expansionist and populist.
  • They have democratic institutions, free elections, legislatures, but they are impeded by single party.
  • Typically they are police states, who had police forces that enforce the will of the leader
  • They are either Capitalist (fascist/rightist) or Marxist (commie/leftist)
• Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
  • Childhood
    • Father was a Nationalist/Irredentist who also was an ardent socialist Blacksmith.
    • Mom was a devout Catholic Schoolteacher.
    • Benito was sent to Catholic Boarding School. He was trained as a teacher, graduated in 1901, but avoided the draft and flees to Switzerland.
  • Development of the Fascist party
    • He was involved with working class movements in the Italian population
    • By 1909 he takes a job as the Secretary of the Labor Party in Trentino, Austria. He becomes an Irredentist Socialist.
    • By 1911 he is back in Italy and is arrested for protesting the Italo-Turkish War in Libya, because he thinks its imperialism. He serves 5 months in prison.
    • Upon release he is made editor of Avanti, the Italian Socialist Daily.
    • By 1914 there was a split in Socialism between the pacifist and patriots Mussolini becomes a patriot and disavows the Socialists. In 1914 forms his own party that is Nationalist + Socialist = Fascisti
  • The War and beyond
    • Mussolini fights as a corporal bravely, and is severely wounded by 40 pieces of shrapnel. By 1917 he is out of the war and begins to organize Fascisti.
    • At the end of the war he swells his ranks with unemployed soldiers (Freikorps) who were organized into paramilitary groups Squadristi (Black shirts). They break up rallies and beat up opponents.
    • Mussolini fans the fear of post war Communism combined with indignation towards the West after their failure to fully award Italy with irredentist spoils in the Treaty of London in 1915.
    • Failure to acquire irredenta fuels the flames of Italian Nationalism. The communists are the scapegoats and Mussolini and the Fascists are their greatest detractors. By 1922 the Fascists have 7% of the vote.
    • In 1922 The Fascist Blackshirts will "March on Rome" to save Italy from a Communists uprising fabricated by Mussolini. The Land and Business owning classes tolerate the violence of the Blackshirts in order to subdue the labor unions, Christian socialists, and peasants demanding land.
    • King Victor Emanuel III will appoint Mussolini as an "emergency" Prime Minister. Mussolini converts his position into one of legislative power and enacts law which is directed at the problems of Democracy and parliamentary government. The Law states that the Italian party which achieves a plurality in an election will receive two thirds of legislative seats.
    • Mussolini and the Fascists receive 60% of the seats in 1924. Mussolini will use this legislative power to consolidate his political power as the Leader, or Il Duce of Italy.
    • This move is furthered by the murder or Italy's leading socialist Giacomo Matte?? by Fascists
    • Although he was not complicit, Mussolini accepts full responsibility for murder (which is insanely similar to Hitler's trial).
    • To the acclaim of Italians, "he made the trains run on time."
    • After 1924 Mussolini begins to assert his dictatorship. He circumvents the legislature, censors the press, abolishes labor unions, outlaws strikes, and bans all other political parties.
  • Economics of Italy
    • Mussolini is anti-communist, anti-capitalist, and anti-democratic. Italy is a single party with state control of the economy.
    • He abandons free trade and laissez-faire economics; he aims towards autarky, and a command economy.
    • Each corporation made economic decisions based upon the input of three groups: 1) the Owners/employers, 2) the workers (fascist organization), and 3) Government representatives who were also Fascist.
    • All three of these groups together make decisions about wages, prices, working conditions, etc.
    • Moreover, each of the 22 corporations assigned representatives to a National Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, which makes the National economic policy.
    • This policy was relatively effective until the Great Depression.
    • Mussolini attempts to mask economic weakness with success in foreign policy
  • Italian Foreign Policy
    • Corfu Crisis (1923) leads to expansionism in Adriatic and Mussolini's willingness to manipulate the League and or the Conference of Ambassadors.
    • Mussolini aims at Albania as a potential satellite/ Agitation against Albania
    • The general concept of the "New Roman Empire." Mussolini wants the Adriatic and Mediterranean, which are a part of "Mare Nostrum." (our sea)
    • In 1929 Mussolini signed a Papal concordat with the Pope from when the whole of Italy got excommunicated. Italy now becomes the protectorate of the Vatican. This is also called the Lateran Treaty.
    • Mussolini also has an aggressive attitude towards the North Horn of Africa. They already control Somalia, Libya, and want "Revenge for Adowa."
    • "Revenge for Adowa" was in 1898 when the Italians were slaughtered by Ethiopians. The Ethiopians were hated because they were Christian.
    • Mussolini also poses as an Arbitrator in European disputes. Locarno guarantors in 1925, active participants for disarmament at the London Naval Conference (1930).
    • Stood up to the Germans in 1934 at Dollfuss Putsch in Austria.
    • Austria has turned to Italy in 1920s he establish a fascist state. Mussolini is their protector. Mussolini sends an army to Austrian border to warn them about the Germans. Italy opposes Germans until the Ethiopian Crisis in 1936
• Jozef Stalin (1880-1954)
  • Childhood and Background
    • His real name is Jozef Dzhvgashivili (1880-1954)
    • Stalin actually wasn't an ethnic Russian since he was born in Georgia. (Not Slavic and not Russian)
    • Stalin is bright and is sent to seminary to become an Orthodox Priest, but got kicked out and joined the Bolsheviks.
  • Joining the Bolsheviks
    • He is 5'4"and has a withered left arm. He becomes a fundraiser for the Bolsheviks by robbing banks. He is imprisoned three times and sent to Siberia.
    • Siberia becomes a school for revolutionary activity. By 1917 Stalin had risen to a high rank within Bolshevism.
    • He is a great organizer, but is not considered intellectual. His position is as Chairman General Secretary of the Communist Party.
    • He uses this position to build allies within the party, mainly through granting his allies positions.
    • With the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin rivals with Trotsky for leadership of the movement.
      • Stalin's Policy
        • Stalin agrees with Lenin's original NEP (New Economic Policy).
        • The NEP allows small factories and farms (Kulaks) to sell on the free market.
        • Stalin wants to focus on developing "socialism in one country" while Trotsky promotes continuous revolution via the Comintern.
    • Trotsky's policy
      • Wants to completely eliminate private property, collectivize agriculture and massively expand industry for Total War purposes.
      • spread Communism now, because it will look different in every country regardless.
      • Becomes exiled fro the USSR and Stalin emerges as the political leader.
  • Stalin as a leader
    • Stalin in 1928 begins to control economic power through the 5 Year Plans.
    • The new plans make the economy a state-planned, command economy that mirrors total war economics.
    • There is a master planning organization, GOSPLAn, that sets quotes, prices, wages.
    • Stalin aims to force an industrial revolution in the USSR.
    • Agricultural Revolution happens during collectivization: food increases with less people making food causes people to gravitate toward Urban factories.
    • Stalin ends private ownership and forces peasants to live on communal collective farms. Joint labor with modernization. Hybrids, fertilizers and mechanization (tractors).
    • Increased production reduces labor on farms and there is a mass deportation of peasants to work in construction: they build dams, canals, railways, and factories.
    • Stalin finances the 5 year plans through selling wheat on the world, which hastens the Great Depression.