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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?
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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
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.