20th Century Totalitarians Questions

Benito Mussolini, "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism" 1. What does Mussolini declare are the adversaries of fascism? 2. What do Fascists consider as an act of cowardice? 3. What puts a stamp of nobility on peoples? 4. What anti-Pacifist motto was used by Mussolinis supporters? 5. Mussolini states that fascism is the complete opposite of which doctrine? 6. Mussolini declares the economic conception of history as fallible and replaces it with the 2 hs. 7. Why does Mussolini deny the equation: well being = happiness? 8. How does Mussolini refute democracy? Authoritarianism & Mass Mobilization -Russia 9. All of the three major right-wing dictatorships shared an antipathy to: 10. Why was there a famine in Russia in 1921-1923? 11. What was the Soviet govt response? 12. What did this policy do? 13. What were the stages of Revolution according to Marx? 14. What were some main differences between capitalism & socialism? Bourgeois parliaments Unregulated markets Inefficiency, unemployment

Exploitation of private ownership 15. How did many peasants react to collectivism? 16. What was the first Five-Year Plan? 17. What happened in the purges? 18. What other republics became part of the USSR along with Russia? -Italy 19. Mussolini seized power after what events in Italy? 20. What did early fascists demand? 21. How did the fascists shock troops dress? 22. What was the March on Rome? 23. What was Mussolinis nickname?

-Germany 24. What was Hitlers background? 25. How was he politically different from Mussolini? 26. What were the three pillars of the Nazi movement? 27. What grievances did they hold? 28. What brought the Nazis to the publics attention? 29. Who appointed Hitler as chancellor? 30. What event did Hitler use to incite panic in the German people? 31. What did Hitler do to repudiate the Treaty of Versailles? 32. What did Hitler call his state? 33. What were the first two empires? Cult of the Dynamic Leader 34. What is the source of the Fuhrers authority? 35. What is the nature of the Fuhrers authority? Militarist Japan 36. Did Japans economy improve after WWI into the 1920s? How? 37. How did Japan turn toward military control of the country? Common Features: Communism and Fascism 38. How did the dictatorships centrally direct their nations economies? 39. How did the dictatorships commonly control their masses? 40. What were common social-economic welfare policies employed by the dictatorships? 41. Which dictatorship did not pass social-economic welfare legislation? 42. What were the dictatorships attitudes toward womens role in the nation? 43. What were the Japanese and Italian names for the modern woman or flappers? 44. How was the violence commonly used by the dictatorships? The Hybrid Nature of Latin American Corporatism 45. What is corporatism? 46. What were some of some of the groups battling for power? 47. Which states created truly democratic features in their governments? 48. In the other Latin American States, what was the true nature of their government? 49. How has pluralism increased in Latin America during the last 30 to 50 years? 50. Which countries are more pluralistic according to Wiarda?

Benito Mussolini, "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism"

From Benito Mussolini, "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism," International Conciliation, 306 (January 1935), pp. 5-17, passim. Reprinted by permission of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Capitalizing on the economic and political unrest of Italy following World War I, Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) came to power after his black-shirted fascists marched on Rome in 1922. In 1932 Mussolini, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, wrote the following definition of Italian fascism. The years which proceeded the March to Rome were years of great difficulty, during which the necessity for action did not permit of research or any complete elaboration of doctrine. The battle had to be fought in the towns and villages. There was much discussion, but-what was more important and more sacred-men died. They knew how to die. Doctrine, beautifully defined and carefully elucidated, with headlines and paragraphs, might be lacking; but there was to take its place something more decisive-Faith. Even so, anyone who can recall the events of the time through the aid of books, articles, votes of congresses, and speeches of great and minor importance-anyone who knows how to research and weigh evidence-will find that the fundamentals of doctrine were cast during the years of conflict. It was precisely in those years that Fascist thought armed itself, was refined, and began the great task of organization. The problem of the relation between the individual citizen and the State; the allied problems of authority and liberty; political and social problems as well as those specifically national-a solution was being sought for all these while at the same time the struggle against Liberalism, Democracy, Socialism, and the Masonic bodies was being carried on, contemporaneously with the "punitive expedition." But, since there was inevitably some lack of system, the adversaries of Fascism have disingenuously denied that it had any capacity to produce a doctrine of its own, though that doctrine was growing and taking shape under their very eyes, even though tumultuously; first, as happens to all ideas in their beginnings, in the aspect of a violent and dogmatic negation, and then in the aspect of positive construction which has found its realization in the laws and institutions of the regime as enacted successively in the years 1926, 1927 and 1928. Fascism is now a completely individual thing, not only as a regime, but as a doctrine. And this means that today Fascism, exercising its critical sense upon itself and upon others, has formed its own distinct and peculiar point of view, to which it can refer and upon which, therefore, it can act in the face of all problems, practical or intellectual, which confront the world. And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism-born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision-the alternative of life or death. Thus a doctrine which is founded upon this harmful postulate of peace is hostile to Fascism. And thus hostile to the spirit of Fascism, though accepted for what use they can be in dealing with particular political situations, are all the international leagues and societies which, as history will show, can be scattered to the winds when once strong national feeling is aroused by any motive-sentimental, ideal, or practical. This anti-pacifist spirit is carried by Fascism even into the life of the individual; the proud motto of the Squadrista, "Me ne frego" (I do not fear), written on the bandage of the wound, is an act of philosophy not only stoic, the summary of a doctrine not only political-it is the education to combat, the acceptance of the risks which combat implies, and a new way of life for Italy. Thus the Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after. This "demographic" policy of the regime is the result of the above premise. Thus the Fascist loves in actual fact his neighbor, but this "neighbor" is nor merely a vague and undefined concept, this love for one's neighbor puts no obstacle in the way of necessary educational severity, and still less to differentiation of status and to physical distance. Fascism repudiates any universal embrace, and in order to live worthily in the community of civilized peoples watches its contemporaries with vigilant eyes, takes good note of their state of mind and, in the changing trend of their interests, does not allow itself to be deceived by temporary and fallacious appearances.

Such a conception of life makes Fascism the complete opposite of that doctrine, the base of the so-called scientific and Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history; according to which the history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production. That the changes in the economic field-new discoveries of raw materials, new methods of working them, and the inventions of science-have their importance no one can deny; but that these factors are sufficient to explain the history of humanity excluding all others is an absurd delusion. Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their- control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class war is also denied-the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society. These two fundamental concepts of Socialism being thus refuted, nothing is left of it but the sentimental aspiration-as old as humanity itself-towards a social convention in which the sorrows and sufferings of the humblest shall be alleviated. But here again Fascism repudiates the conception of "economic" happiness, to be realized by Socialism and, as it were, at a given moment in economic evolution to assure to everyone the maximum of well-being. Fascism denies the materialist conception of happiness as a possibility, and abandons it to its inventors, the economists of the first half of the nineteenth century: that is to say, Fascism denies the validity of the equation, well being = happiness, which would reduce men to the level of animals, caring for one thing only-to be fat and well-fed--and would thus degrade humanity to a purely physical existence. After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in it practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such a universal suffrage. The democratic regime may be defined as from time to time giving the people the illusion of sovereignty, while the real effective sovereignty lies in the hands of other concealed and irresponsible forces. Democracy is a regime nominally without a king, but it is ruled by man kings-more absolute, tyrannical, and ruinous than one sole king, even though a tyrant. This explains why Fascism, having first in 1922 (for reason of expediency) assumed an attitude tending towards republicanism, renounced this point of view before the March to Rome; being convinced that the question of political form is not today of prime importance, and after having studied the examples of monarchies and republics past and present, reached the conclusion that monarchy or republicanism are not to be judged as it were, by an absolute standard; but that they represent forms in which the evolution--political, historical, traditional, or psychological--of a particular country has expressed itself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AUTHORITARIANISM AND MASS MOBILIZATION

Norton. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart Like the liberal systems they challenged, authoritarian regimes came in various stripes. On the right arose dictatorships in Italy, Germany, and Japan. These differed from one another in important respects, though all shared an antipathy to the left-wing dictatorship of the Soviet Union. And heedless to say, the Soviets had no liking for the fascists. Yet, all the postwar dictatorships, on both the right and left, were forged principally in opposition to the liberal democracies, whose "decadence" they claimed to have transcended. In place of liberal inertia, these regimes professed their success in mobilizing the masses to create dynamic yet orderly societies. All also had charismatic leaders, who personified the prestige, power, and unity of the societies over which they ruled. Although dismissive of liberal democracy, postwar dictators insisted that they had the support of the people. True, they demanded much of the people, treating society as a mass conscript army that needed to be commanded if the problems of liberal capitalism were to be overcome. But their demands, the leaders maintained, would result in rebuilt economies, restored order, and renewed national pride. In addition, dictators gained support by embracing, to varying degrees, public welfare programs. Thus, in the short run, authoritarians claimed to protect the people's well-being better than did liberal regimes and vowed to deliver on all of modernity's promises-prosperity, national pride, technology-without having to endure any of its costs--class divisions, unemployment, urban-industrial squalor, the breakdown of morals. For a time, a large number of the globe's inhabitants believed them. THE SOVIET UNION The most enduring blow against liberal capitalism was struck in Russia, where liberalism had never had deep roots. In October, 1917, with World War I still going on and the empire in chaos, the most radical of Russia's political parties, the Bolshevik Party, seized power in the capital. Their coup detat aroused opposition inside and outside the country. Fearing the spread or socialist revolution, Britain, France, Japan, and the United States sent armies to Russia to subvert or at least contain Bolshevism, After the Bolsheviks executed the tsar and his family in July 1918, they rallied support for their cause by defending the homeland against its invaders, They also mobilized to fight a vicious civil war (1918-1921) that pitted an array of disunited forces (former supporters of the tsar as well as some social democrats and large independent peasant armies) against the Bolsheviks and their supporters (many soldiers, sailors, workers, and state functionaries), Their armed opponents came close but failed to dislodge the Bolsheviks from the Muscovite core of the former Russian empire, It was precisely in the all-out mobilization against those whom they labeled the Whites, or "counterrevolutionaries," that the Bolsheviks, calling themselves the Reds, began to rebuild state institutions, The civil war also provided an impetus for Bolshevik-led armies to reconquer, in the name of revolution, many of the former tsarist lands that had seceded from the empire, The need to requisition grain from the peasantry as well as the military operations that covered much of the country weighed heavily on the population and interfered with the harvest, From 1921 until 1923, Russia suffered from a severe famine, Some 7 to 10 million people died from hunger and disease, To revive the economy in the early 1920s, the Bolsheviks enacted dozens of decrees (collectively known as the New Economic Policy) that grudgingly sanctioned private trade and private property, In 1924, with the country still recovering from the civil war, the undisputed leader of the revolution, Lenin, died. Lenin had suffered a series of strokes in 1922, but until that time no one had done more to shape the institutions of the revolutionary regime, including creating expectations for a single ruler. After skillfully eliminating his rivals, especially Trotsky, Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) emerged as the new leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. Stalin and the Soviet leadership understood history as moving in the stages defined by Karl Marx, from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and to communism. But before achieving communism, a final stage in which there would be a classless society and a withering away of the state, they believed that the Communist Party would first have to build socialism. Yet, since socialism as a fully developed social and political order did not exist anywhere in the 1920s, no one was quite sure how it would work in practice. During the 1930s, the leadership moved aggressively to resolve this dilemma by defining Soviet or revolutionary socialism in opposition to capitalism. Since capitalism had "bourgeois" parliaments serving the interests of the rich, socialism, as elaborated by the Bolshevik leaders, would have "soviets" of worker and peasant deputies. Since capitalism had unregulated markets, which led to inefficiency and unemployment, socialism would have economic planning and full employment. Because capitalism permitted the "exploitation" of private ownership, socialism would outlaw private trade and private property. In short, socialism would eradicate capitalism and then attempt to invent socialist forms in housing, culture, values, dress, and even modes of reasoning. The efforts to build a non-capitalist society were by design violent, and they began in the countryside, where the majority of the population lived. Peasants had long been organized in village communes, owning the land together, while working it individually. Stalin wanted to combine the farms into larger units, called collectives, that would be owned and worked collectively and that would be run by regime loyalists. Tens of thousands of enthusiastic urban activists and Red Army soldiers, under the slogans of "class

warfare" and liquidation of the class of "kulaks" (supposedly better-off peasants), led a drive to establish these new collective farms and to compel the farmers working on them to sell all of their grain and livestock at state-run collection points for whatever price the state was willing to pay. The collectives also became dependent on the state for obtaining their seed, fertilizers, and farm equipment. In protest, many peasants burned their crops, killed their livestock, and destroyed their farm machinery. These protesters, derided as kulaks even if they were dirt poor, were deported to remote areas of the country. Villages were given quotas for deportation, and often those selected were the people who had slept with someone's wife or stolen someone's milk; thus, "class warfare" was likely to be based on personal animosities, greed, ambition, and vengeance. In the midst of this turmoil, harvests again declined, and a second famine between 1931 and 1933 claimed another 3 to 5 million lives. When the dust settled, the collectivized peasants were permitted to have "household plots," on which they could grow their own food, and could even take some of it to legally sanctioned peasant markets. For the cities, in the late 1920s, the leadership announced the beginning of a frenzied Five-Year Plan to "catch and overtake" the leading capitalist countries. Millions of enthusiasts as well as deported peasants set about building a new socialist (non-capitalist) urban utopia, founded upon advanced technology, almost all of it purchased from the Depression-mired capitalist countries. In just a few years, more than 10 million people moved to cities, where they helped build or rebuild hundreds of giant factories, as well as hospitals and schools. A number of the Soviet projects were intended to demonstrate the audacity of the new regime: huge hydroelectric dams, automobile and tractor factories, heavy machine-building plants. These stood as symbols of the promise of Sovietstyle modernity, which eliminated unemployment, then the scourge of liberal capitalist societies. The Soviet authorities also embarked upon what they called building socialism in the borderlands. In 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) was formed. It joined the nominally independent states of Ukraine, Belorussia (Belarus) and the Trans-Caucasian Federation with Soviet Russia to form a single federal state. The U.S.S.R. also included a number of republics; eventually fifteen, all of which acquired borders and their own institutions, though they were subject to centralized rule from Moscow. A policy of "nativization" of the Union republics fostered native-language schools and the development of local elites. In the 1930s, the collectivization and mass arrests devastated the peasants and nomads as well as the officials of the republics, but industrialization and urbanization helped to consolidate the power of local elites who advanced the cause of the Union and socialism. The Soviet political system grew more despotic as the state bureaucracy expanded its size and reach. The political police grew the most, partly as a result of their role in forcing peasants into collectives and organizing mass deportations. During the early 1935, as the ranks of the party grew, ongoing "loyalty" verifications also led to the removal or "purge" of members from the rolls, even when they professed absolute loyalty. Whatever the reason for expulsions, initially most former party members were not arrested. All that began to change in the mid-1930s. From 1936 to 1938, both public and closed trials of supposedly treasonous "enemies of the people" resulted in the execution of around 750,000 people and the arrest or deportation of several million more. They were sent to forced labor camps, collectively known as the Gulag, which spread across the country. Such purges decimated the Soviet elite-party officials, state officials, intelligentsia, army officers, and eventually even members of the police who had enforced the terror. Behind this mass terror stood the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, who relentlessly built up a personal dictatorship. Although Stalin initiated the mass terror against the elite, his motives remain unclear. Neither he nor the regime was threatened, and the loyalty of the leaders was not in doubt. What is clear is that the political police, given sizeable arrest quotas, often exceeded them. In addition, millions of ordinary people helped to implement the terror. Some reluctantly turned in neighbors; some did so to try to save themselves; many showed fanatical zeal in fingering "enemies." In the end, the terror, like the regime's grandiose rule more generally, was actualized by the pettiest of motives, to avenge wrongs, assuage hunger, satisfy greed, but also by a desire to play one's part in the violent crusade of building socialism in a hostile world. Indeed, it appears that most inhabitants of the Soviet Union accepted the upheaval and mass arrests as a response to internal and external opposition and as a method for creating a new world. Moreover, despite the staggering losses, the elite continually expanded because the planned economy had a voracious need for officials and administrators. Collectivized Agriculture. Soviet plans for the socialist village envisioned the formation of large collectives supplied with advanced machinery, thereby transforming peasant labor into an industrial process. The realities behind the images of smiling farmers-such as in this poster, exhorting - "Work happily, and the crop will be

good. Spring, summer, fall, winter" - were low productivity, enormous waste, and often broken-down machinery.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came into being after World War I. How did the Russian republic (RSFSR) dominate the Soviet state? How did the territorial boundaries of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic compare with the older Russian empire of the nineteenth century as shown? What were the larger Soviet republics besides that of the Russian republic? Could these other republics be described as "borderlands"? ITALIAN FASCISM Long before the Soviets could boast any accomplishments, disillusionment with the costs of the Great War, along with inspiration drawn from the Bolshevik takeover in Russia had begun to alter the political situation in capitalist societies. In Italy, for example, the mass strikes, occupations of factories, and peasant land seizures swept through the country in 1919 and 1920. In response to this disorder, rightists, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), seized power. In 1919, Mussolini, a former socialist leader, sought to organize disaffected veterans into a mass political movement that he called fascism. His early programs mixed nationalism with social radicalism and revealed a yearning to sweep away all the institutions discredited by the war. Fascist supporters demanded the annexation of "Italian" lands in the Alps and on the Dalmatian coast, called for female suffrage, an eight-hour workday, a share of factory control for workers, a tax on capital, land redistribution, and a constituent assembly-in short, a populist program. The fascists believed in the value of direct action and attracted much attention and numerous followers. Their direct action shock troops wore black shirts and loose trousers tucked into high black leather boots, and saluted with a dagger thrust into the air. In 1920, the squads received money from landowners and factory owners to beat up socialist leaders, and it was at this point that Italian fascism became fully identified with the right. Still, the fascists saw themselves as champions of the little guy, of peasants and workers, as well as of war veterans, students, and white-collar types. By 1921, the squads numbered 200,000. In 1922, Mussolini announced a march on Rome. The march was a colossal bluff, an exercise in psychological warfare-but it worked. Dressed in their black shirts, his followers intimidated King Victor Emmanuel III (1900-1946), who opposed fascist ruffians but feared bloodshed, and thus withheld use of the well-equipped army against the lightly armed marchers. When the Italian government resigned in protest, the monarch invited Mussolini to become prime minister, despite the fact that the fascists had won only 35 seats out of 500 in the 1921 elections. The 1924 elections, in which the fascists won 65 percent of the vote, were conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation and fraud. Mussolini dealt with other challenges by mobilizing his squads and carrying out police crackdowns on the liberal and socialist opposition. A series of decrees transformed Italy from a constitutional monarchy into a dictatorship. By the end of 1926, all parties except that of the fascists were dissolved. Mussolini's dictatorship came to terms with big business and the church, thus falling short of the social revolution that the fascist rank and file desired. Nonetheless, it was skilled at using parades, films, the radio, and visions of recapturing Roman imperial grandeur to boost support during the troubled times of Depression. The cult of the leader, Il Duce, also provided cohesion and uplift. As the first anti-liberal. anti-socialist alternative, Italian fascism served as a model for other countries. Mussolini. Benito Mussolini liked to puff out his chest, particularly when appearing in public. Il Duce pioneered the leader's radio ad-

dress to the people and he encouraged fascist versions of the mass spectacles that also became common in Soviet Russia. GERMAN NAZISM: (In contrast to Mussolini's vague ideological goals, Hitler had grand aspirations to impose racial purity and German power in Europe, and perhaps beyond.) In Germany, too, fear of Bolshevism and anger over the punitive peace imposed after the war helped to propel the right to power. Here, the dictator was Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), whose rise to power, like Mussolini's, was anything but easy or inevitable. Throughout 1918, and for several years thereafter, Germany was in political ferment, marked by the appearance of many small political groups. In Munich, in January 1918, a nationalist workers' organization was formed, dedicated to winning workers over from socialism to nationalism. In 1920, a young demobilized corporal was ordered by the army high command to infiltrate and observe this new nationalist group. That corporal, Adolf Hitler, the son of an Austrian customs official, soon came to dominate the nationalist workers' movement, whose name he changed to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (National-Sozialisten, or Nazis). Unlike Mussolini, the young Hitler was never a socialist. The first Nazi party platform, set forth in 1920, combined nationalism with anticapitalism and anti-Semitism. The program also called for the abrogation of the Versailles Treaty. It was an assertion of Germany's grievances against the world and of the small man's grievances against the rich. The Nazis came to public attention with the "Beer Hall Putsch" in 1923. That year, the French occupied the industrial Ruhr Valley to obtain German reparation payments that had not been forthcoming, and German communists made an attempt to seize power in the provinces of Saxony and Thuringia. Making their own grab for power, Hitler and his associates invaded a meeting of Bavarian leaders in a Munich beer hall to force them to support the Nazis, The army, however, fired on the Nazis and arrested Hitler. He was sentenced to five years in prison for treason, though he served less than a year. While in prison, he wrote an autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) (1925), which sold widely. Although the Nazi Party received only 2.6 percent of the vote in 1928, it started to build up support when it broadened its appeal to small farmers, shopkeepers, and clerks. The Nazis' fortunes grew as Germany's economy sagged. As more and more people lost their jobs and saw their savings wiped out by hyperinflation, they lost faith in the leaders of Germany's Weimar Republic and looked to more radical political alternatives. Fearing the growing popular support of both the Communist and Socialist Parties and convinced that he could control Hitler, Germany's eighty-five-year-old president, Field Marshal Paul van Hindenburg (1847-1934), appointed Hitler chancellor (prime minister) in January 1933. Initially, Hitler pledged that the government would be dominated by traditional conservatives. Thus, like Mussolini, Hitler came to power "peacefully" and legally. True, troops of young men (the "brown shirts," who grew from 100,000 in 1930 to 1 million in 1933) kept up the pressure in the streets with marches, mass rallies, confrontations, and beatings, But Hitler was invited to become chancellor by the existing elites, who feared a Bolshevik-like revolution, Once in power, Hitler's first steps were to heighten the impression that there was a communist conspiracy to take power. The burning of the Reichstag building in Berlin on February 27, 1933, provided the opportunity. Without any real evidence, the Nazis blamed the fire on the Communists, and a young, deranged Dutch Communist was arrested. A decree on February 28 suspended civil liberties "as a defensive measure against the Communists," Hitler then proposed an "Enabling Act," so that he could promulgate laws on his authority as chancellor, without the parliament. The Enabling Act that was passed on March 23, 1933, freed Hitler from the parliament and also from the traditional conservative elites who had agreed to make him chancellor. In May, the offices, banks, and newspapers of trade unions were seized, and their leaders were arrested. The Socialist and Communist Parties were outlawed; other parties of the center were dissolved, By July 1933, the Nazis were the only legal party. Hitler, who became a German citizen only in 1932, soon became dictator of Germany. He moved aggressively to curb dissent, ban strikes, and stamp out anti-Nazi protests, The Nazis filled the prisons with political opponents and built the first concentration camps (initially to house political prisoners) when the jails overflowed. They also unleashed a campaign of persecution against the Jews, excluding them from the civil service and the professions, forcing them to sell their property, depriving them of citizenship, and forbidding them to marry or have sex with Aryans (so-called "pure Germans"),

Although some in Germany opposed Hitler's illiberal activism, the Nazis won popular support for restoring order and reviving the German economy. In 1935, Hitler repudiated certain provisions of the Versailles Treaty and began a vast rearmament program, which absorbed the unemployed. The Nazis transformed economic despair and national disgrace into fierce national pride and impressive national power. Ownership of the economy remained in private hands, but the state directed and coordinated it. It also financed public works like reforestation and swamp drainage projects, organized leisure, entertainment, travel and vacations for lowincome people, and built highways and public housing. Nazi rhetoric about nationalism and anti-Semitism persisted, but so did full employment and social welfare programs. With internal foes disciplined or silenced and the economy revived, Germany reemerged as a great power with expansionist aspirations. Hitler called his state the "Third Reich" (the first being the Holy Roman Empire and the second the empire created by Bismarck in 1871). He claimed that the Third Reich would last 1,000 years, just like the Holy Roman Empire. In contrast to Mussolini's vague ideological goals, Hitler had grand aspirations to impose racial purity and German power in Europe, and perhaps beyond. As the song went, "Today Germany, tomorrow the whole world," Hitler. Adolf Hitler, perhaps better than other dictators, staged mass rallies and projected an image of dynamism and collective will which he claimed to embody. Hitler Youth. Youth became a special target of Nazi recruitment and socialization, just as under the Italian fascists and the Soviet Communists.

Cult of the Dynamic Leader

Nazi political theorists offered no apologies for dictatorship. On the contrary, like their Soviet, Italian, and Japanese counterparts, they bragged about it as the most efficacious form of mobilizing the energies of the masses and directing the state, The Fuhrer, or Leader, stood above the Nazi party and all government institutions, and embodied the supposed will if the German nation. The Fuhrer also decided who belonged, or did not belong to the nation. Even though Nazi administration proved to be chaotic, the Fuhrer and the idea of dictatorship were popular. The following excerpt, taken from the writings of Ernst Rudolf Huber, Germany's major constitutional expert of the 1930s, elaborated on the awesome powers that were being conferred on Hitler as Fuhrer. The office of Fuhrer has developed out of the National Socialist movement. In its origins it is not a State office. This fact must never be forgotten if one wishes to understand the current political and legal position of the Fuhrer, The office of Fuhrer has grown out of the movement into the Reich, firstly through the Fuhrer taking over the authority of the Reich Chancellor and then through his taking over the position of Head of State, Primary importance must be accorded to the position of "fuhrer of the movement"; it has absorbed the two highest functions of the political leadership of the Reich and thereby created the new office of "Fuhrer of the Nation and of the Reich," , . , The position of fuhrer combines in itself all sovereign power of the Reich; all public power in the State as in the movement is derived from the Fuhrer power. If we wish to define political power in the volkisch Reich correctly, we must not speak of "State power" but of "Fuhrer power," For it is not the State as an impersonal entity which is the source of political power but rather political power is given to the Fuhrer as the executor of the nation's common will. Fuhrer power is comprehensive and total; it unites within itself all means of creative political activity; it embraces all spheres of national life; it includes all national comrades who are bound to the Fuhrer in loyalty and obedience. Fuhrer power is not restricted by safeguards and controls, by autonomous protected spheres, and by vested individual rights, but rather it is free and independent, exclusive and unlimited. Source: Ernst Rudolf Huber, Fuhrergewalt, in Nazism /9/9-/945: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, edited by J. Nokes and G. Pridham (Exeter. England: University of Exeter Press. 1984), pp. 198-99.

MILITARIST JAPAN Unlike other authoritarian regimes, Japan's power and pride were not wounded during World War I. To the contrary, because wartime disruptions greatly reduced European and American competition, Japanese products found new markets in Asia. Japan managed to expand production, exporting munitions, textiles, and consumer goods to Asian and also Western markets. During the war, the Japanese gross national product: GDP) grew 40 percent, and the country built the world's third largest navy. Like the United States, Japan had been a debtor nation in 1913, but it became a creditor by 1920. After the war, the nation continued on what seemed a successful road to modernity. Between 1910 and the 1930s, Japan experienced a twelve-fold increase in manufacturing and a three-fold increase in the production of raw materials. Having suffered a devastating earthquake and fire in 1923, Tokyo was rebuilt with steel and reinforced concrete, symbolizing the new, modern Japan. Initially, postwar Japan seemed headed down the liberal road. When Japan's Meiji Emperor, a symbol of national power and prosperity, died in 1912, his third son took over and ruled from 1912 to 1926, overseeing the rise of mass political parties, These eclipsed the oligarchic rule of the Meiji era, Suffrage was expanded in 1925 to all males over twenty-five, increasing the electorate from around 3 million to 12.5 million. Still, this democratization was accompanied by new repressive measures. Although the Meiji Constitution remained in effect, a Peace Preservation Law, passed the same year that male suffrage was enacted, specified up to ten years' hard labor for any member of an organization advocating a basic change in the political system or the abolition of private property. The law served as a club against the mass leftist parties, such as the Japanese Communist Party, which was founded in 1922. Japan veered still further from the liberal road after Emperor Hirohito succeeded his enfeebled father in 1926. In Japan, as in Germany, a major catalyst in the eventual shift to dictatorship was the Great Depression. Japan's trade with the outside world had more than tripled in value between 1915 and 1929, but after 1929 China and the United States imposed barriers on Japanese exports. The demand for silk and cotton goods also dropped precipitously. These measures contributed to a 50 percent decline in Japanese exports. At the same time, unemployment surged. Such turmoil invited calls for stronger leadership, which military commanders were eager to provide. Already the leaders of Japan's armed forces were beyond civilian control. In 1927 and 1928, the army flexed its muscles by twice forcing prime ministers out of office. New "patriotic societies" echoed the call for order. Professing dedication to the emperor and nation, these squads used violence to intimidate political enemies. Violence culminated in the assassination of Japan's prime minister in 1932, accompanied by an uprising of young naval officers and army cadets. This coup failed, but it further eclipsed the power of the political parties. During the 1930s, militarism and expansionism became dominant themes in the Japanese press. In 1931, a group of Japanese army officers arranged an explosion on the Japanese owned South Manchurian Railroad, using this as a pretext for taking over Manchuria. The following year, the Japanese formed the puppet state of Manchukuo, adding Manchuria to its Korean and Taiwanese colonies. At home, "patriots" continued their campaign of terror against uncooperative businessmen and critics of the military, while intimidating others into silence. As in Italy and Germany, the Japanese state took on a sacred aura. This was done through promotion of an official religion, Shinto, "the way of the gods," and of the emperor's divinity. By 1940, the clique at the top dissolved all political parties into the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, ending even the semblance of parliamentary rule.

COMMON FEATURES: COMMUNISM AND FASCISM

Communist Russia, fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and militarist Japan may seem too diverse to be compared. But, in fact, they shared many traits and, to some extent, imitated one another. All four rejected parliamentary rule as ineffective, and sought to revive their countries' power through authoritarianism, violence, and the cult of the leader. In the economic sphere, all were convinced that modern economies required state direction. In Japan, the government fostered the emergence of huge business conglomerates, known as zaibatsu. The two largest zaibatsu, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, were probably the biggest private economic empires in the world. The Italians encouraged big business to form cartels. In Germany, the state also looked to the private sector as the vehicle of economic growth, but it expected entrepreneurs to support Germany's racial anti-democratic, and expansionist ambitions. The most thorough form of economic coordination took place in the Soviet Union, which enthusiastically adopted American-style mass production, while eliminating private enterprise. Instead, the Soviet state owned and managed all the country's industry, with separate government ministries overseeing the manufacture of different products, Here, as elsewhere, state-organized labor forces replaced independent labor unions. Employing mass organizations for state purposes was a second common feature of the four authoritarian regimes. Russia, Italy, and Germany had single mass parties; the Japanese had various rightist groups until a merger occurred in 1940. All sought to rally the young, often with dynamic youth movements, such as the Hitler Youth and the Union of German Girls, the Soviet Communist Youth League, and the Italian squads marching to their anthem Giovinezza (Youth). Three of the four states adopted large-scale social welfare policies for members of the national community. Only the Japanese failed to enact innovative social welfare legislation, but the Home Affairs Ministry eagerly enlisted helpmates among civic groups, seeking to co-opt the new middle classes to raise savings rates and improve childrearing, The Nazis emphasized full employment, built public housing, and provided assistance to families in need as long as they were racially Aryans, The Italian National Agency for Maternity and Infancy, created in 1925, provided services for unwed mothers and infant care. The Soviet authorities proclaimed social welfare as one of the fundamental tenets of the socialist revolution. Unemployment benefits ended when the government announced the end of unemployment in 1930. Still, the state created or extended programs to deal with disability, sickness, old age, death, maternity, and retirement. Unencumbered by private property interests, the Soviet state had ceased to think of welfare assistance as a stopgap in cases of social breakdown; instead, it was viewed as an ongoing, comprehensive program that distinguished socialism from capitalism. A fourth common feature of the dictatorships was their ambivalence about women in public roles. Most propaganda emphasized women's traditional place in the home and their duty to produce healthy offspring for the nation. The state targeted them in campaigns aimed at higher rates of reproduction. It rewarded mothers who had many children, and it restricted abortion. State officials were eager to honor new mothers as a way to repair the loss of so many young men during the Great War. Yet, women were also entering professional careers in greater numbers, monetary losses that middle-class families suffered during the war, coupled with a rise in the number of single women, compelled many women to become primary wage earners. In Italy, the fascist authorities were forced to accept the existence of la maschietta-the new woman, or flapper, who wore short skirts, bobbed her hair, smoked cigarettes, and engaged in freer sex. In Japan, she was called the moga or modan garu (modern girl), and though her presence provoked considerable negative comment, the authorities could not suppress the phenomenon. The Soviets offered the most glaring case of contradictory behavior. In 1918, they declared men and women equal, legalized (and subsidized) abortion, and eased divorce laws. The state changed its mind, however, and in 1935-1936, new laws made divorce nearly impossible, drove abortion underground, and rewarded "hero mothers" of multiple children. But the rapidly industrializing Soviets had by far the highest percentage of women in the paid workforce. Finally, the four dictatorships used violence and terror against their own citizens, colonial subjects, and "foreigners" living within their state borders. Violence was not an external element but was viewed as an essential lever for remaking the socio-political order, To be sure, the extent of that violence varied greatly, The Italians and the Japanese were not shy about arresting political opponents, particularly in their colonies, but it was the Nazis and the Soviets who filled concentration camps with those deemed to be enemies of the state. In Germany, repression meant that almost every German Jew faced systematic persecution. Still, brutal as all these regimes were, they were founded on mobilizing popular support for their schemes, Their successes in mastering the masses were apparent enough at home. Across Europe and the Americas, these accomplishments drew envious glances even from those still trying to stay on the liberal road. Given the power projected by dictatorships, above all, by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, it is not surprising that they attracted imitators. British and French fascists and Communists, though they never came to power, formed national parties and proclaimed their support for foreign models. Numerous admirers of Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin could also be found among politicians, intellectuals, and labor organizers in Latin America and the United States. Often, admirers saw what they wanted to see rather than the realities in the political and economic systems of Germany and the Soviet Union. They also sometimes admired the methods of mass mobilization and mass violence, which they hoped to use for their own ends. This was particularly true of anti-colonial movements.

THE HYBRID NATURE OF LATIN AMERICAN CORPORATISM

Wiarda, H. J. (1995). Latin American Politics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. (Control of the government by small interests groups) In Latin America, leaders devised solutions to their problems that had elements of both authoritarianism and democracy. Latin American nations were subject to the same pressures that produced liberal and authoritarian responses to modern problems in Europe, Russia, and Japan. But here leaders devised solutions to their problems that had elements of both authoritarianism and democracy. The Latin American countries had stayed out of the fighting in the First World War, but their export economies had suffered. As trade plummeted, popular confidence in oligarchic political regimes fell, while radical agitation rose. During the war years, trade unionists in the port of Buenos Aires took control of the city's docks, and the women of Sao Paulo's needle trades inspired Brazil's first general strike, Bolivian tin miners also took up the banner of protest and, inspired by events in Russia, they proclaimed a full-blown socialist revolution. The Great Depression brought even more severe challenges to the status quo from workers' groups, More than in any other region of the world, the Depression hammered at the trading and financial systems of Latin America. Responding to the Depression's destruction, Latin American governments, with the enthusiastic backing of people from the middle classes. Latin America's politics have their roots in a system called corporatism. Corporatism is a system of governing where various socioeconomic groups or corporations surround the central authority and compete for power and for a place at the governing table. During the days of the Spanish crown, the corporations were the landed aristocracy, the Catholic Church and the military conquerors. In this period, a democratic process did not exist - the Crown was all-powerful and authoritarian. This system created a closed, exclusive structure, with political and economic inequalities. Even into the contemporary period, the conflict between the traditional elitist corporations and new power contenders such as labor unions, student associations, peasant movements, political parties, leftist revolutionaries and drug cartels continued, creating great political instability. Some countries such as Costa Rica and Venezuela attempted to create stable democratic institutions such as checks and balances and separation of powers. These efforts expanded the political participation opportunities for new power contenders. Other countries were less willing to let new power contenders participate in the governing process, and thus democratic institutions were in place, but in actual practice the power was still held by a powerful, charismatic leader, surrounded by socioeconomic elites and supported by the military. To further understand corporatism, a comparison with the United States is helpful. Although Latin American politics have become more pluralist than before, the number of interest groups in Latin America is far fewer than those in the United States. In Washington D.C. thousands of interest groups are represented, whereas in Latin America the number of interest groups is much less. The other difference is that these groups are organized under the state in Latin America, whereas in the United States they are independent of government. This system of organization in Latin America is a direct example of corporatism. However, much change has occurred in the last 30 to 50 years in the numbers and types of interest groups. Wiarda claimed that there was an "explosion" in the numbers of interest groups. "It is not just the army, the church, and the oligarchy who are organized anymore, but also the middle class, workers, peasants, women, indigenous groups, university students, government workers, and internationally based groups" Wiarda stated. However, Wiarda cautioned that although there are more interest groups, pluralism in Latin America is still a limited pluralism compared to other areas of the world such as the United States. Most of the new groups are unorganized and inarticulate, and the political bias still leans toward the "privileged few rather than the many. Wiarda claimed that Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay have a level of pluralism that mimics the United States. Others that are "approaching pluralist democracy" include Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Venezuela. Although pluralism is increasing, Wiarda claimed that "Latin America consists, for the most part, of small, intimate societies where everyone who counts knows everyone else who counts, as well as their families, life histories, and business. Thus, the personal influence model of public relations, where practitioners strive to establish personal relationships with key individuals in the media, government, or political and activist groups, would tend to thrive in Latin America (The Public Relations section includes an analysis of public relations models). The personal influence model may also operate as a component of the other models, for example, as a tactic employed in the press agentry model. This aspect of Latin America has implications for the development of the Internet. Ecommerce is not a personal business. Consumers buy products without ever touching the item or talking to a salesperson. Thus, ecommerce sites will need to come up with creative solutions to meet these culture-specific challenges.