BOLSHEVEK REVOULTION

1. BOLSHEVEK REVOULTION • Withdrew from war • First Marxist regime • Repudiated Russia’s foreign debt • Took over privately-owned industries, banks, and transportation facilities • Confiscated land from large owners and redistributed it to peasants • Stripped the Church of all authority • Began the systematic persecution of adherents to the old regime, opponents to their rule, and others • Rise of Josef Stalin to power in 1927 reinforced country’s status as a renegade nation V. I. Lenin Josef Stalin

2. BOLSHEVIK IMITATORS Bela Kun • German communists temporarily seized control of Bavaria • “Spartacists” attempted to seize control of Berlin • January 1919 • Bela Kun seized power in Hungary and attempted to establish a communist regime • Defeated by army from Romania • Placed Admiral Nicholas Horthy in power • British, German, French, and Italian workers joined left-wing unions in large numbers and launched a number of violent strikes • Italian agricultural workers formed “Red Leagues” and seized land • Communist political parties founded everywhere in the West Spartacists

3. COALITION GOVERNMENTS • Definition: No political party could gain a clear-cut majority in their legislature so politicians from various parties temporarily banded together to create an alliance that would provide leadership. • Problems • Any disagreement could cause the alliance to break up • To keep these alliances together, leaders avoided controversial issues that they knew would alienate some allies • Results • Appeared ineffective, indecisive, and even cowardly • Appeared incapable of putting together comprehensive programs to resolve economic problems • Politicians appeared more interested in staying in power than in helping their constituents • People’s faith in democracy became shaky • Yearned for government that acted decisively

4. APPEAL OF FASCISM • An ideology whose appeal cut across social and economic class lines • Rejected traditional conventions and values • Powerful anti-Marxist stance • Promised to streamline government by bypassing democratic institutions

5. FURTHER APPEAL OF FASCISM • Powerful emphasis on the state and national identity • Wanted to create a more powerful state that would expand its borders through conquest and thereby fulfill its “historic destiny” of the national group • Argued that social and economic differences between people were irrelevant and unimportant • Because all people in a state shared a common national identity • They also shared a common mission to make their nationality supreme in the world • This desire was especially strong in those states that had lost World War I • Fascism therefore appealed to those people who desired social stability by denying the importance of class divisions and promoting national unity • Fascism also appealed to frustrated patriotism among defeated nations by arguing that a nationality had a sacred mission to assert its superiority in the world arena

6. RACISM AND FASCISM • If, for example, Germans were inherently superior, then all other nationalities were inherently inferior and not worthy of serious consideration or even humane treatment • Racism was therefore part of fascism in general • Hitler took this idea to unimaginable lengths but it still was part of fascist ideology in general

7. SUMMARY • Fascism was the product of the unique conditions produced by World War I • Spoke to disillusionment and alienation of many men who had fought in the war through its rejection of traditional standards of morality and behavior • It attracted those who yearned for stability and order through its anti-communist stance and rejection of democratic institutions • It gave people a sense of common mission and purpose through its glorification the state as the vehicle through which to assert national superiority and greatness • Also promoted racism • Emphasis on organized violence to accomplish its goals borrowed from and appealed to the habits of violence learned by many during World War I.