The Interwar Years and the Crisis of Western Liberalism

Bolshevism

Fascism

Repression

I. The Fall of Romanov Russia and the Rise of the Soviet Union

I. Revolution in Russia, 1917-1920

• Russia unprepared for long war

• Industrialization came late

• Reform/repression, 1905-07

• rise of soviets

• March Revolution, 1917

A. Dual Power

1. Provisional Government– moderates, constitutional monarchists– Prince Georgi Lvov, Alexander Kerensky

» Kerensky Offensive, 1917

» Women’s Battalion of Death

2. Soviets (workers and soldiers)

- consensus lacking; locally independent

- soviet organization spread to countryside

- peasant soviets hoarded food,

living conditions in cities worsened

3. Return of the Intelligentsia

To the Finland Station

B. The Third Russian Revolution1. Social Democrats (Marxists)

- WWI and Russian Revolution part of historical dialectic

- Mensheviks = work through parliamentary means

- Bolsheviks = change could only come through

violent revolution

-- sweep away bourgeois self-absorption

-- revolution needs discipline

2. V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin)

- disciplined party

- professional revolutionaries

- revolution could be carried out

soviets

3. April Theses

- peace, land and bread

- soviets oppose Provisional Government, Lenin increases influence in same

4. The October Revolution, 1917

- Red Guards (Petrograd Soviet) seize government

- directed by Lenin, Leon Trotsky

- virtually bloodless; Russian soviets

concur with Bolshevik power

C. Bolsheviks establish power1. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, 1918

- give up territory to

concentrate on Revolution

- enrages Western allies,

many Russian moderates

and conservatives

2. The Russian Civil War, 1917-1920

- Whites v. Reds

- Western allies send 100,000 troops

- human toll; Bolsheviks

fail to provide basic

services

3. Elimination of the Czar and his family, 1918

4. Establishing the Politburo

- socialist dictatorship

Trotsky, Bukharin, Stalin vie for influence

5. New Economic Policy, 1921-28

- allowed private agricultural activity

- by 1928, Stalin uses economic problems to drive out rivals

D. Stalinization of the Soviet Union

1. First 5-Year Plan, 1929-1932

- forced industrialization; preserve socialism

2. Forced collectivization of agriculture

- deportation of the kulaks

- death of peasant culture; ethnic repression

3. Comintern

- organize communist parties worldwide

- 1929, Stalin cuts ties to European parties

- w/o soviet help, European socialism weakened

- paranoia in western democracies

4. Great Purges, 1934-38

- gulags, secret police, attacks on intelligentsia

5. Stalin’s foreign policy

Treaty of Rapallo, 1924

Mutual Non-Aggression Pact, 1939

- Stalin makes peace with enemies to gain time in USSR

II. Italian Fascism

Nationalism

Anti-liberal values

Politics of the Irrational

A. Mussolini’s Italy

1. Italy gained no territory from WWI

- 1920, ultra-nationalists criticize “liberal” politicians

- Benito Mussolini; former socialist

2. Squadristi = violence in the streets

socialist reform from the top down

3. Alliance with industrialists; corruption of bureaucracy

- Lateran Treaty, 1929

B. The New Roman Empire1. Worldwide Depression threatened fascist policy

2. Military buildup as economic policy

- jobs; contracts for industrialists

3. Ethiopia, 1935; Albania, 1939

- expansion drives Italy into

the arms of Germany

- 1939, Pact of Steel

III. The Spanish Civil War: Battleground Between the Right

and Left

Guernica - Pablo Picasso

A. The Spanish Republic

1. 1931, Popular Front comes to power

- property seized

- Church attacked

2. Nationalists (landowners, Church, army officers)

begin resistance

- 1936, Francisco Franco leads right

B. International Event1. Germany sends Condor Legion

2. Britain, France, US remain neutral

3. Soviets organize International

Brigade

- Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

IV. Western Democracies Muddling Through

Economic Depression

Political Division

Isolationism

A. Failure of the Left in France

1. Political extremes in Europe (Russia & Germany) led to political polarization in France

2. Depression and Popular Front victory

Leon Blum

3. Economic depression cancelled out socialist reforms

- militarization of Germany, economics frightened French middle class

- Right-wingers exploited fears; fascism grows among French industrialists, army officers

Philippe Petain

B. Great Britain

1. National Government, 1931-35

- coalition of Labour, Liberal, and Conservatives

- liberal traditions prevented totalitarianism, but could not thwart it elsewhere

2. Much of Britain’s resources committed to maintaining Empire

3. British Union of Fascists

- attacked political opponents

- promoted anti-semitism

Edward VIII

4. By 1936, Winston Churchill recognizes the threat from Germany

C. The United States and the New Deal

1. Revolution, starvation avoided by government expansion

2. America undergoes successful

leftward expansion

3. Lays the groundwork for later American

prosperity

V. German Fascism and World War II

A. “The Cult of Personality”

1. Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will

- 1934 Nuremberg rally

- how did the Nazis

seduce the German

people?

B. National Socialism

1. “Witches’ Brew” of nationalism, racism, socialist policies, militarism, corporate power

2. Response to:

- German humiliation of WWI

- decadence of the Weimar Republic

- economic crisis of the Great Depression

3. 1923, Beer Hall Putsch

- decadence of Western democracy

- Jews, Bolsheviks, middle-class liberals

4. National Socialists (Nazis) found support among

farmers , small business men, civil servants,

and young people

- 1933, Hitler becomes Chancellor

- “legal” revolution

5. Legitimacy

- made political alliance with military, big business

6. Paramilitary thugs

- SA, Brown Shirts

- SS, Black Shirts

C. Nazi Goals

1. Lebensraum

2. Secret rearmament

- 1936, the Rhineland

3. Economic self-sufficiency (autarky)

- alliance with industry

D. Propaganda, Culture and Racism

1. Joseph Goebbels

2. Family life

- Hitler Youth

- Women and reproduction

3. Outside influence

- decadence, Bolshevism

4. “Asocials”

The Holocaust

I. definitions

Genocide - Any act committed with the idea of

destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic,

racial or religious group

- killing or causing physical/mental harm

- inflicting conditions that would harm group

- forcefully transferring children

- United Nations, 1948

B. 1990s - Rwanda, Bosnia and Herzegovina,

Croatia

C. 1939 - 1945 - Germany

II. Nazi ideology and “racial” enemies

A. Culture creators (Aryans)

Culture bearers (Japanese)

Culture destroyers (Jews)

B. Race & Social Darwinism

1. Eugenics

III. Pre-war assault on German Jews

A. Exclusion

B. Nuremberg Laws - 1935

- Protection of German Blood and German Honor

- Reich Citizenship Law

C. Kristallnacht - 1938

IV. Assault on Jews during WWII

A. Relocation to Ghettos - 1939 - 41

B. Various other plans

V. Holocaust begins in Earnest

A. 1941 - Germany invades USSR, many Jews

shot (September, Babi Yar)

B. Jan. 1942 - Wansee Conference

“Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”

C. Death camps established

D. Murders increase at frenzied pace

- Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Auschwitz

E. Death Marches - winter 1944-45

F. Liberation - Red Army takes Poland late 1944

VI. Resistance

A. Jewish resistance

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - Jan. 1943

B. German Resistance

“The Road to the Holocaust was built by hate but

paved with indifference.”

VII. Legacy of the Holocaust

A. Nuremberg Trials - 1945-49

B. United Nations guidelines, 1948

C. Punishment of Nazis became secondary factor as Cold War heats up in 1950s

Final Thoughts and Interpretation

1. Racist ideology not unique to Nazis (the scale of murder was)

2. Alienation before WWII was crucial for the murders during WWII

3. Knowledge of the Holocaust existed in Germany and in much of the world prior to German defeat

5. Beginning of WWII

- Rhineland ‘36; Anschluss ‘37; Munich Agreement; Poland, ‘39

6. Early struggles

- France, 1940

- Battle of Britain, 1940

- USSR, 1941

B. Liberalism responds

1. 1941, The Atlantic Charter

Lend-lease; unneutrality

2. The American Crusade

3. Finally, the “progressive” war

- in much of the West, WWII represents triumph of liberalism

- throughout West, expansion of social programs

4. Emergence of US as multilateral power

- civil rights; women’s rights; “Great Society”

C. Groundwork for the new conflict

1. Second front: Allied-Russo Alliance?

- Battle of Stalingrad; Battle of Kursk

- Normandy invasion, 1944

2. Alliance against Hitler born of necessity:

old prejudices still remain

3. Yalta Conference, 1945

4. Iron Curtain Speech

- crusading liberalism now aimed at Stalin