The Rise of Totalitarianism · Postwar Economics and the Great Depression •Britain and France use reparations to pay war debts •U.S. economy booms •Falling demand; overproduction

The Rise of Totalitarianism

Politics in the Postwar World

• Economic problems; social unrest

• Political divisions in Europe deepen; parties from conservatives to communists compete for power

• ‘The Red Scare’ drives a demand to limit immigration Irish Republican Army

volunteers in Dublin, 1922

Postwar Foreign Policy

• France wants secure borders; alliances; strict enforcement of the treaty; reparations

• England wants to relax the treaty; keep France weak

• The Kellogg-Briand Pact

• The League of Nations

Postwar Economics and the Great

Depression

• Britain and France use reparations to pay war debts

• U.S. economy booms

• Falling demand; overproduction

• FDR and the New Deal

• Loss of faith in democracy; increased radicalism

Attempting to withdraw

funds in a bank run;

clients are denied during

the Great Depression

Postwar Italy

• Allies break promises of A-H territory to Italy; nationalists upset

• Looking at Russia, peasants seize land, workers strike; trade declines

• Veterans come home to chaos, rising taxes, unemployment Benito Mussolini

Mussolini Comes to Power

• Mussolini comes to power; the Black Shirts

• Rejected socialism for extreme nationalism

• Fascist

• March on Rome

• State control of economy

• Loyalty to the state

What is Fascism?

• First totalitarian state

• No unifying theory;

unlike communism

• Fascism: any

authoritarian

government; not

communist; glorifies

state over individual;

destroys human rights

Fascism Communism

Nationalist International

Defined classes No classes

Wealthy Workers

Similarities

Blind devotion to state

Charismatic leader

Use of terror

Rise in hard economic times

Extreme programs for change

A Totalitarian State Under Stalin

• Five-Year Plans

• Mixed results in industry; inefficient; low quality; low wages; shortages

• Forced collectivization

• Terror as a weapon; the Great Purge

• Russification; atheism; propaganda; censorship

A New Elite Takes Control

• Stalin destroys the old

social order of

landholders and

peasants

• Destroys the

communism of Marx

and Lenin

• New elite; business

and military leaders

Early Twentieth Century Russian

Social Hierarchy

Weimar’s Rise and Fall

• 1919 Germany creates the Weimar Republic; chancellor

• It’s weak from the start; no strong leader; many small parties; coalitions fall apart; liberals v. conservatives

• Runaway inflation

• Scapegoat

Hitler, Nazism, and the Third Reich

• Born in Austria; fights in WWI; right-wing extremist; hates Weimar

• Hitler’s Manifesto

• Hitler comes to power; creates the Third Reich

• Gestapo; Nuremberg Laws; Kristallnacht; Nazi Youth

Aggression and Appeasement

• 1930s aggression goes unanswered

• Japan takes Manchuria; eastern China

• Italy invades Ethiopia

• Hitler takes the Rhineland; pacifism, appeasement

• Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis

Dr. Seuss Political Cartoon, 1940s

Moving Toward War

• Living space; the

Aryan race

• Anschluss

• Sudetenland

• ‘Peace for our time;’

appeasement and the

Munich Conference

• Nazi-Soviet Pact

• Invasion of Poland

Axis Attacks

• Invasion of Poland;

blitzkrieg

• Dunkirk

• France falls; Vichy

• Operation Sea Lion

and the blitz

• Mussolini goes into

Egypt; Rommel into

North Africa London during the blitz

Germany Invades Russia

• June 1941 Hitler nullifies the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invades Russia

• Soviets lose 2.5 million soldiers; scorched earth

• Hitler gets to Leningrad and stalls

• Two and a half year siege begins