The Interwar Period

1. The Interwar Period Socialism in one country? ---------- Balance sheet

2. Midterm exam, Tuesday, Feb. 17th Part I. Indentify and give the significance of five (5) of the following: 4% each, 20% • Locarno pacts • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Part II. Briefly comment on the validity of four (4) of the following statements, 10% each, 40% • The Russian Revolution was the inevitable result of changes in class structure in Tsarist Russia. Part III. Essay, 1 question out of 2, 40%

3. Studying for the midterm • Go over class notes and presentation outlines • Think of questions which might be asked • Go back through readings, trying to answer them

4. The Interwar Period in Context • An unsettled & uncertain period • Tremendous energy unleashed • Modernism in art and architecture • Citizens’ rights extended, regimes democratized • New political forms emerge: • Fascism, Nazism, Soviet Communism • An age of anxiety?

5. Experimentation in Art & Design

6. De Stijl & Bauhaus

7. Democratization • Universal manhood or universal suffrage in most countries • New political democracies established • Extension of public housing, public health, • Some welfare state measures • Mass media (radio & film) connect people, provide a new intimacy • Make people listeners or viewers – potential observers

8. Older democracies Britain & France stabilize in 1920s despite threats of revolution UK • Irish question: • ‘ resolved’? • or put out of mind? • Integration of the working class • Labour comes to power in minority governments (1924-26, 1929-1931) • General strike fails France: growing stalemate between right & left

9. The 1929 crash • October 1929: NY Stock market crashes • Immediate knock-on effects • ‘Scramble for liquidity’ • Bankruptcies, bank failures • Creditanstalt (1931) > runs on other banks, firms, pressures on gov’ts dependent on credit • Rising unemployment • Falling demand reinforces downward spiral • US responds by raising tariffs, calling loans • Impact spreads rapidly to Europe: • Germany’s ability to pay reparations depends on US loans…. • Contraction of world trade

10. 1930s • Most governments respond by • Balancing budgets • Instituting import quotas, protective tariffs • Little sense of how to manage business cycle or halt the decline • Reluctance of most governments to inject stimulus: • Exceptions: • United States • Sweden • Nazi Germany

11. Democracies v. dictatorship • Support grows for extremist parties, right or left • Communists, Fascists, Nazis • France: polarized democracy survives, • with an increasingly strong anti-democratic right • But problems on southern tier, successor states: • Portugal • Spain: collapse of 2nd Republic • Austria: civil war in 1934… • Hungary • Poland…. • Liberal democracy in question • Not clear to everyone that liberal democracy is desirable • Alternate models available: • Admiration, flirtation with fascism in intellectual circles • For others, Communism is the solution

12. Back to the USSR • Problem: • what do you do next when you have made an unlikely revolution? • Lenin’s solution: the New Economic Policy (NEP) • Stalin & Stalinism

13. Marx’s theory of revolution • Revolution as the product of class struggle • State is the instrument of the ruling class • Revolution will occur at the highest phases of capitalism: • Proletariat seizes control of the state • Establishes socialism: state ownership of the means of production • Creates the conditions for communism & the withering away of the state

14. Lenin’s modification Revolution • can take place in a backward country in which the “objective conditions” are not right • can be brought about by a small conspiratorial organization – a vanguard party • can serve as a catalyst for revolution elsewhere

15. Putting theory into practice • Bolsheviks seize power in Oct. 1917 • Multiple problems: • Establishing control • What to do about the war? • How to proceed with the revolution?

16. ‘Solutions’ • Sue for peace • Fight civil war • Suspend Constituent Assembly, elected in 1918 • Implement ‘war communism,’ seizing food, material needed for war effort • Consolidate power in 1920

17. The revolutionary project Problem: • What do you do when revolution elsewhere fails to materialize as expected? Options: • Continue to promote world revolution? • Build socialism in one country? • Consolidate your position?

18. Lenin’s interim solution: New Economic Policy (NEP) • Advocated by Bukharin • “one step backward, two steps forward” • temporary reversion to capitalism to get the economy going again (1921-28) • Private ownership permitted • Ultimate direction determined by Lenin’s impairment (1922), death (1924) and Stalin’s succession to power

19. Stalin’s succession • Stalin • A lesser figure in Bolshevik hierarchy • However, as general secretary of the Communist Party, well placed • Uses control of the administrative apparatus to advance supporters • 1925: Moves against left (Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev) in defense of NEP • 1927-28: Moves against Bukharin & moderates, promoting ‘Socialism in one country’

20. Stalin’s policies • Use of party & state apparatus, terror, • to industrialize USSR • plan the economy – via five year plans • lay the conditions for socialism and communism • Justification • bourgeoisie in Russia had failed to industrialize the country and establish the conditions for socialism • therefore the party & state must do it instead • Process required “forced saving” from peasantry • attacks on kulaks

21. Leninism v. Stalinism • Democratic centralism (Lenin) presumes that party has a voice • Discussion permitted until decision made • Then everyone adheres • Under Stalin, party persists, but increasingly under attack • Purges, show trials, used to eliminate potential rivals, including Bukharin, other members of Lenin’s politboro • Stalinism: more centralism rather than democratic centralism

22. Consequences • Agriculture collectivized, opponents liquidated • Russia industrialized, but at tremendous human cost • Decline in individual consumption • USSR substantially isolated from other countries • Until mid-1930s, beacon for some • Afterward, “The god that failed”

23. Soviet Communism & Nazism compared: Totalitarian or nearly totalitarian • Each, by extension of party & state, reduces private space • Elevation of leaders • Use of propaganda • Marginalization & demonization of selected groups: • Jews, Slavs, Gypsies • Kulaks, capitalists • Recourse to terror, anomic violence • Moscow trials, purges • Kristallnacht • SA & SS activities

24. Balance sheet • Liberal democracy survives in • Britain • France (until 1940) • Low Countries • Scandinavia (including Finland) • Czechoslovakia (until 1938) • Under siege in Spain (Civil War 1936-1939) • By mid 1930s, a world not very safe for democracy

25. Midterm exam, Tuesday, Feb. 17th Part I. Indentify and give the significance of five (5) of the following: 4% each, 20% • Locarno pacts • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Part II. Briefly comment on the validity of four (4) of the following statements, 10% each, 40% • The Russian Revolution was the inevitable result of changes in class structure in Tsarist Russia. Part III. Essay, 1 question out of 2, 40%