Unit 2 - The Interwar years. Economic crisis and totalitarianisms (PPT).pdf

UNIT 2
THE INTERWAR YEARS: ECONOMIC
CRISIS AND TOTALITARIANISMS

1. POST-WAR YEARS: CRISIS AND RECOVERY IN THE 1920S
2. THE 1929 CRISIS AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION
3. AUTHORITARIANISM AND TOTALITARIANISM
4. THE RISE OF NAZISM IN GERMANY
5. THE GERMAN THIRD REICH
6.THE USSR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

1. POST-WAR YEARS: CRISIS AND RECOVERY IN THE 1920S
Economic and cultural reconstruction after WWI.
o Demographic catastrophe.
o Economic disaster.
o High unemployment.
o Shortages of products and higher prices.
o From creditors to debtors (to USA)
1. Post-war crisis in Europe (1918-23)

• Germany  Very severe situation. Unable to pay war compensations (Treaty of Versailles):
- Hyperinflation (loss of value of the Deutsch Mark)
- High unemployment.
- Decline in the standard of living.
- Mid 1920s  USA loaned more funds (1924) and negotiated the restructuring of
German debt.

“No other nation has experienced anything comparable to the events of 1923 in Germany. All
nations went through the Great War, and most of them have also experienced revolutions,
social crises, strikes, redistributions of wealth, and currency devaluation. None but Germany
has undergone the fantastic, grotesque extreme of all of these together; none has
experienced the gigantic, carnival dance of death, the unending, bloody Saturnalia, in which
not only money but all standards lost their value.
[…] Anyone who had savings in a bank or bonds saw their value disappear overnight. Soon it
did not matter whether it was a penny put away for a rainy day or a vast fortune. Everything
was obliterated...A pound of potatoes which yesterday had cost fifty thousand marks now
cost a hundred thousand. The salary of sixty-five thousand marks brought home the previous
Friday was no longer sufficient to buy a packet of cigarettes on Tuesday...In August, the dollar
reached a million [marks]....In September, a million marks no longer had any practical
value...At the end of October, it was a billion...The atmosphere became revolutionary once
again.“
Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler. A Memoir (1939)

WWI  Economic disaster for Europe.
USA  Great prosperity: supply of food, arms and industrial goods.
Largest creditor in the world  Loans to European nations.
Half of the world’s gold reserves  Dollar as strong currency.
Bank of America  World’s main investor.
WORLD’S
LEADING
ECONOMIC
AND
FINANCIAL
POWER
2. The USA: the roaring twenties (1924-29)

PROSPERITY IN THE USA
Second Industrial Revolution: Use of new energy sources
(oil and electricity), new industries (automobile, electrical
devices) and new media (radio, telegraph, cinema).

Workers’ wages increased
Improvement of the standard of living
Consumer society (Mass consumption)
The middle classes’ spending capacity allows consumerism

THE ‘AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE’
Cultural input  American way of life
- Promotion of specific values (initiative,
personal effort, etc.) to help people to
achieve success and well-being.
- Based on consumption of goods and media
(advertising, propaganda).
- Mass entertainment  Cinema, sports,
cabaret, theatre, etc.
- New trends, less uptight and more focused
on fun (instead of protocol)
- Jazz, Charleston, blues, etc.

2. THE 1929 CRISIS AND THE GREAT DEPRESSION
1. The 1929 Stock Market Crash
24th October, 1929  The Roaring Twenties abruptly ended  Collapse of the New York
Stock Exchange  THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

CAUSES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE CRASH:
- Overproduction  Larger offer than demand  Too much stock accumulated  Prices
dropped  Many business went bankrupt.
- Stock market speculation  Easy investment and large profits in the 1920 in the stock
markets  Huge demand (small shareholders even asked for loans for buying more) 
Shares rose value  Not backed by real productivity (speculative bubble).

Black Thursday (24th October, 1929)
- Several problems during 1929: mini crash in
March, decline in production and sales, amount
of private debt.
- Realisation about the difference between real
value and stock exchange value
MASSIVE SELL-OUT NO BUYERS
Law of supply and demand
If no demand  Fall of prices
STOCK MARKET CRASH
Black Thursday, Black Monday and Black Tuesday

Immediate economic consequences
BANKING CRISIS
SHORTAGES OF
CASH
LOSSES OF MONEY
(investors and
companies)
MASSIVE ECONOMIC
RECESSION

• Great economic recession  Banking crisis, bankruptcy of private investors and
companies, closures of factories, high unemployment, very low consumption, etc.
• Unemployment  By 1932, 13 million people (about 25 % active population). Many
families in poverty.
0
5
10
15
20
25
1920
1930
1934
1938
1942
1946
1950
1954
1958
1962
1966
1970
1974
1978
1982
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
2012
2014
US Unemployment (1920-2014)
% of active population
2. The Great Depression

International spread 
• The US Government withdrew their
capital from Europe, asked to return
loans, American companies stopped
investments, reduction of imports in the
US, decrease of trade.

1. THE USA’S NEW DEAL
• President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932-1945) NEW DEAL  Political programme
based on the intervention of the state in economy.
3. The fight against the crisis

• public expenditure and creation of
public companies.
• aid to private companies in
difficulties.
• agricultural stocks to be destroyed
(control supply and demand).
• banking controls and low-interest
loans.
• public works  for tackling
unemployment.
• encouragement to wage raises 
More consumption.
• reduction of the working hours to
40 per week.

2. PROPOSALS FOR EUROPE
1933 → London Economic Conference
Purposes:
• agreement on measures to
fight global depression
• revive international trade
• stabilize currency exchange rates.
No agreement reached.
Proposals for economic recovery →
Keynesian economies: State intervention
in the economy with the objective of
stimulating investment, employment and
consumption.

3. AUTHORITARIANISM AND TOTALITARIANISM
1. The rise of totalitarianism
Post-WW1 and 1929 crash → Affected
democratic systems.
§ Defenceless middle class.
§ Powerless states for improving
situation.
§ Nationalist, militarist sectors:
blamed parliamentary democratic
systems.
§ Fear of communism by conservative
sectors.
Totalitarian movements and parties → offered easy, direct and understandable solutions:
expansionist foreign policies, reduction of unemployment through state intervention in the
economy, ultra-nationalism and very dynamic reformist plans.

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM:
· Glorification of the state over the individual.
· Nationalistic exaltation.
· Militarism of social expressions.
· Expansionist impulse.
· Idea of superiority (racism, masculinity and youth)
→ Racism, persecutions of minorities. Legitimation
of violence.
· Rejection of liberalism, communism, democracies,
etc.
· Limitation of freedoms (press, association,
expression, election, etc.).
· Cult of personalities of charismatic leaders.
· State control of the economy
· Political repression and use of violence.
· Use of propaganda and the control of education
“The State not only is authority which
governs and molds individual will with
laws and values of spiritual life, but it is
also power which makes its will prevail
abroad… For the Fascist, everything is
within the State and… neither
individuals nor groups are outside the
State... For Fascism, the State is an
absolute, before which individuals or
groups are only relative… Liberalism
denied the State in the name of the
individual; Fascism reasserts the rights
of the State as expressing the real
essence of the individual.”
Enciclopedia Italiana, 1932

ITALY AFTER THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Great after-effects of WWI:
• More than 700 thousand dead.
• Destroyed industry.
• Massive external debt.
• Rising inflation.
• Disappointment after the Treaty of Versailles (“Vittoria
Mutilata”):
• No territories they wanted.
• Increasing irredentism (ethnic nationalism).
Political instability, acute social tensions
• Five different governments between 1919 and 1922.
Political divisions.
• Workers’ movements in the North: strikes,
revolutionary movements, etc. Fear of a social
revolution (like USSR).

THE RISE OF FASCISM
‘Fascismo’  Appeared in the scene among the political and social tensions.
Benito Mussolini

1919  Formation of the ‘Fasci di
combattimento’ (‘Camicie nere’,
blackshirts)
1921  National Fascist Party:
• Building a strong state.
• Safeguard of public order and
private property.
• Overseas (colonial) expansion.
• Support of the petite-bourgeoisie,
large landowners, industrial
owners. Tolerated by the Catholic
Church and the king (Vittorio
Emmanuele III).

1922 → Mussolini demanded the king the formation of government.
• March on Rome (‘Marcia su Roma’):
• 300 thousand blackshirts in the street.
• Pressure from conservatives and the military.

King Vittorio Emmanuele III appointed Mussolini head of the
government in October 1922.

THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP
Two phases:
- 1922-24  Appearance of parliamentary regime.
- Political prosecutions.
- Restricted freedoms.
- After 1924  Authoritarian regime with absolute power.
- Victory in the 1924 elections (using violence).

MUSSOLINI’S POWER
• The state as main priority 
No regard to individual rights
and freedoms.
• Control over society  Use
of the media.
• Roman symbols.
• Government of the elites.
• Mussolini  ‘Il Duce’ (‘The
Leader’).
• Totalitarian state run by the
Fascist Party. No elections.
• No Parliament  Chamber
of Fasci and Corporations.

• Autarky as economic system: self-
sufficiency.
• Political prosecution:
• Banishment of political parties.
• Jail for their leaders (ie. Gramsci).
• Strikes forbidden.
• Unions dissolved.
• Foreign policy:
• Control of the Mediterranean.
• Colonial expansion (“New
Roman Empire in Africa and the
Balkans”)  Conquest of
Ethiopia (1935).
• 1936  ‘Axis’ with Adolf Hitler’s
Germany.

• 1918  End of WWI  Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated  WEIMAR REPUBLIC.
1. The Weimar Republic
• Government  Coalition of social-democrats, Catholics and liberals.
• Treaty of Versailles  Loss of territories, reduction of army, compensations  Economic
crisis, poverty, unemployment, sense of injustice and frustration.

• Opposition to the Weimar Republic:
• Left-wing revolutionaries  Uprising 1918-19.
• Extreme-right groups  Munich Putsch by the Nazi militias (1923).

• National Socialist German Workers’ Party - Nationalsozialistische
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP)
• 1920  Founded.
Adolf Hitler joined the party, and in 1921 was already the
leader.
2. Hitler and the Nazi Party

1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater
Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples.
2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to
the other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and
St. Germain.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of
our people and colonisation for our surplus population.
4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race
can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of
creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race.
National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) 25 points (1920)

• 1923  Munich
Putsch
• Hitler judged and
sent to prison (he
only did 1/5 of the
sentence, not even
a year in jail)

• Mein Kampf  Written in jail. His basic philosophy.
• No democracy
• No bolshevism
• Anti-Semitism
• Superiority of the Aryans.
• Need of unity of all German speakers  Reich.

“The foremost connoisseurs of this truth regarding the possibilities in the use of falsehood
and slander have always been the Jews; for after all, their whole existence is based on one
single great lie, to wit, that they are a religious community while actually they are a race - -
-and what a race![…] If we pass all the causes of the German collapse in review, the
ultimate and most decisive remains the failure to recognize the racial problem and
especially the Jewish menace.
We National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to
secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth.
And this action is the only one which, before God and our German posterity, would make
any sacrifice of blood seem justified. […] We National Socialists must go further. The right
to possess soil can become a duty if without extension of its soil a great nation seems
doomed to destruction. And most especially when not some little negro nation or other is
involved, but the Germanic mother of life, which has given the present-day world its
cultural picture. Germany will either be a world power or there will be no Germany.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

• Demagoguery for reaching the workers:
• Employment for everyone.
• Fewer profits for factories.
• Higher wages for workers.
• United society.
• Responsible for the crisis: Jews, democrats, communists, etc.
“A political leader who seeks
support by appealing to popular
desires and prejudices rather than
by using rational argument”.

Party
Assault Troops
[Sturmabteilung - SA]
Protective Sections
[Schutzstaffel - SS]
•For keeping public
order 
•But actually involved in
insurgencies, riots,
clashes with left-wing,
etc.

• 1929 crisis  After some stabilisation, the economy collapsed again  Extremist parties.
• Nazis  Attracted:
- Bankrupt middle classes.
- Unemployed.
- Big names in industry and finance.
• Intellectuals and most of the working classes  Communist Party.
3. The Nazis in power

July 1932 elections.
• NSDAP: 230 seats (out of 608)
• 1st in votes.
• 1st in seats.
• 2nd Social-Democrats
• 3rd Communist
But no coalitions  New elections.

November 1932 elections.
• NSDAP: 196 seats (out of 584)
• 1st in votes.
• 1st in seats.
• 2nd Social-Democrats: 121 (-11)
• 3rd Communist: 100 (+11)

• Pressure on President Hindenburg 
Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of
Germany (January, 1933).

February, 1933  Reichstag fire
Blame on the communists  Hitler declared
state of emergency, prosecution of
opponents, cut civil liberties.
Elections  44 % of the votes for Hitler.

Progressive Gleichschaltung (coordination)  State and society assimilated by the Nazi Party
 Totalitarian government.
June  "Law against the establishment of political parties" (one-party state)
1934  Hindenburg died
 Proclaimed
“Führer und Reichskanzler
Adolf Hitler”
(Merging president with
Chancellor) 
Dictatorship.

1934  Dictatorship stablished.
- Banishment of all political parties (except NSDAP).
- No trade unions except the National Syndicalist Workers’ Front.
- Closure of the Parliament.
- Elections abolished.
- Political and racial purges in the public administration.
- 1934: Night of the Long Knives  Extra-judicial executions
against SA leaders, anti-Nazi conservatives, old enemies,
etc.
- Police state:
- Rule of terror.
- SS + Gestapo (secret police)  Persecution of all
opposition.
- Concentration camps for opponents and enemies (1933).
1. Nazi totalitarianism

• Nazi society  Aryan race + national socialism.
• Education, culture, art, etc.  Nazi ideals.
- Hitler Youth  For indoctrination.
- Women  3 k’s (Kinder, Kirche and Küche –
Children, church and kitchen).
2. Social homogenisation

“The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their
power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda
must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last
member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf.

• Racial purity  Persecution of Jews
- Businesses boycotted.
- Nuremberg Laws  No mixed marriages, cancellation of citizenship for not ‘pure
Germans’.
- 1938: Kristallnacht o Novemberpogrome.
- Jews forced to wear identification badges.

• Economic policy  To
help their expansionist
and military projects.
• Final breach of the
agreements of the
Treaty of Versailles,
regarding the reduction
of the German army.
3. Autarky and rearmament

Strict control over the economy  Pursuing economic autarky (self-sufficiency of the country)
- Heavy industry  Arms.
- Control of prices and wages  For tackling inflation and
unemployment.
- Public works programme  highways, airports, massive
buildings, etc.
- Powerful army  Rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, creation
of the Luftwaffe, increase of the navy, etc.
 Economy towards war.

1922  Formation of the Union of
Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR).
6. THE USSR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT

Federal State, from the imperial nationalities (Slavic, Caucasians, Muslims, Russians, etc.).

Power in the hands of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Other parties
banished.

1924  Constitution.
Legislative
power
SUPREME
SOVIET
Head of State
PRESIDIUM
Executive power
COUNCIL OF
PEOPLE’S
COMMISSARS
Indirect universal suffrage
DICTATORSHIP
TOTALITARIAN STATE  Identified with the party

2. Stalinism
Ths struggle for
power after Lenin’s
death (1924) 
Trotsky and Stalin. Export the revolution
(internationalisation)
Socialism in one country 
Strengthening the internal
structure  USSR superpower
 Future revolutions.

Sole leader  Stalin
Trotsky exiled (1940, killed in Mexico)
Stalin  Personal dictatorship
(even, personality cult).

Unit 2 - The Interwar years. Economic crisis and totalitarianisms (PPT).pdf

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