World Politics

The interwar years: Three world views: March 5, 2008

IDEALISM: Idealism focused on: 1) Trying to build international law and organization to ‘govern’ international relations. States would be sovereign, but also bound to a higher law. The law would come through treaty and agreement, with a basis on human rights and, Wilson hoped, democracy. 2) Self-determination (discussed last week). 3) Open diplomacy, a rejection of secret treaties, and a rejection of alliance politics; and 4) collective security. An attack on one state would be an attack on all; that way, no nation would dare disrupt the peace.

Wilson’s ideas echoed those if Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher who over a hundred years earlier had written "Perpetual Peace," an argument that an alliance of Republics which respected individual rights and operated ethically could create a world where war would be banished. Wilson wanted to start that kind of development. The alliance would be the League of Nations.

John Maynard Keynes, a brilliant British economist, saw trouble. In the book The Economic Consequences of Peace he argued that if Germany felt "defeated," Germans would try for revenge, and extremists would come to power since there would be economic But the French and British leaders thought it would be safer to thoroughly humiliate and defeat Germany to teach it a lesson. Wilson didn’t like this, but he could do little. (Later the British would realize that they had mistreated the Germans at Versailles and decided they would work to appease legitimate German interests so Germany could become an equal, but by then it would be too late).

League of Nations was created, but Wilson lost his biggest battle -- it wasn’t approved of by the US Senate. Wilson literally killed himself trying to get it passed. Without the US, the League would not be powerful enough to act. But even if the US had joined, it was clear that the Europeans had rejected Wilson’s idealism. Instead, they were going back to the power politics of the Bismarck era, though this time trying to keep Germany weak and keep the peace that way.

Still, Idealism was the official theme. International law, attempts to regulate conflict grew. And why not? Nobody wanted war again! Even the thought of the trench warfare scared the wits out of Europeans. By 1928 war was outlawed with the Kellogg-Briand pack (only Japan, Germany and Italy approved it without reservation, however -- think about that!) Life was getting to normal, and it seemed like people were moving away from the horror that had caused WWI.

However, there were clouds on the horizon...

LENINISM: An intriguing theory came from Russia. In 1917 Russia was decimated, and had a revolution. The Germans tore up the Czar’s army; just like the Ottoman Empire the Russian Empire was old and anachronistic. It could not survive into the 20th century. The revolt was against the war, primarily, and a new government under a man named Kerensky was democratic and modeled on western democracies. Note: Kerensky spoke at UMF! This took place in the late forties, and he had bodyguards to protect him from Stalin’s potential assassins. So UMF had a bit of history here.

But back to 1917. Needing aid from the west (or thinking he needed aid), Kerensky agreed to continue the war, his major mistake. Russian armies were trounced, troops deserted, and soon a second revolution occurred which brought to power the Bolshevik party under a revolutionary theorist named Lenin. Lenin: had spent most of his life in exile, studying the works of Marx and other socialist theorists. He despised reformism and emerging Social Democracy, taking an opposite tack than Marx before his death, and Marx's companion Engels.

Lenin had been put on a train and sent by the Germans into Russia to hopefully create a revolt (be careful what you wish for...) They sealed the train to make sure this polyglot would not get loose in Germany! He made it, and indeed started stirring up trouble.

Lenin built a theory of WWI that colluded closely with that of a British economist named Hobson. This is called the Hobson-Lenin thesis. But Hobson drew a different lesson.

Hobson: Imperialism and colonialism were caused by excess capitalism.

Here's how it worked: Businesses made products to sell, and paid labor. New technology allowed products to be made cheaper, but the population of the state couldn't afford them. The result was an attempt to find new markets in order to invest and increase profits.

Hobson: Reform and income redistribution could solve the problem. Give the workers more money.

Lenin: Hobson naive. Capitalists will never do that. Instead they will fight each other for access to markets thereby bringing the death of capitalism. Lenin's Imperialism was an extension of Marxian thought, and when world war I came, he looked like a genius. Here was the Imperialist war he had predicted. When the revolution in Russia took place, the new Soviet government signed a quick peace treaty with the Germans, believing that they would recover lost land after the capitalists got done eliminating each other. They really believed the world was about to become Communist (and indeed, many in the West feared it, which is one reason they made peace!)

The Russian revolution is another turning point, just like the French revolution. Where the French revolution brought nationalism and a new conception of sovereignty, the Russian revolution brought conceptions of ideology to the fore, and set the stage for a much different world war II.

Reaction by West: send troops to Russia. American, British and French troops tried to defeat the new Bolshevik government, and even after WWI, Poland attacked and made progress. Easy to see Russian paranoia -- the west had tried to get rid of the government. Every Russian school child learns this early, but many Americans don't realize it ever occurred. So Russia went Lenin’s route, and next to western Democracy would be Soviet Communism. Soon a third group, the fascists, would join the fray.

Desire for Normalcy: 20's

Soviet Union -- Lenin dies 1924, now what? Lenin’s death was a turning point. He had been experimenting, even with opening markets. Wanted what was good for Russia, but the ideology didn’t work as well in practice as in theory. But in trying to create order needed to implement his theory, Lenin centralized power to the party. That created an opening for Stalin, who after Lenin took power and created a new type of political system called totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism:

A new form of authoritarian system that showed the dangerous side of modernism and technology. Before Monarchs or the church held power, but their reach wasn’t too extensive. Now, with phones, mass media, and the capacity to organize a bureaucracy, the state found it possible to try to control the way people lived -- limit their speech, their daily actions, and indoctrinate them into an ideology.

Ideology was the key here. Before, it was tradition and culture, or perhaps religion to keep the people in line. Now you could try to change them and organize them from above. Didn’t really work in the long term, but the attempt was often brutal.

Stalin: Industrialized the Soviet Union, eliminated his opponents, and started making the Soviet Union into a force to be reckoned with. The ideals of the revolution soon faded. Socialism was now bent to fit the needs of the party, which became less a vanguard of the proletariat, but a bureaucratic elite.

Moreover, the power given to one leader plus the use of technology and bureaucracy, led to the slaughter of 20 million in Stalin’s purges, the liquidation of the kulacks, and the use of slave labor. This worked, it seemed – The Soviet Union went from a defeated weak state to a world power – but it was false development, built on a system that couldn’t last.

Still: World War I’s aftermath shows a major shift in world politics. Instead of politics being primarily about nations and power, now it became about ideology. The age of ideology has begun.

Wilson: Democracy and idealism: spread democracy and western notions of human rights.

Stalin: Communism

Social Democrats: anti-communist socialists, wanted socialism, but meshed with democracy and human rights.

Note: Mass politics and ideology are abstractions. It’s not people any more, it’s national pride, race, or class war. It’s dangerous to believe in a cause so much that you abstract reality into ideological boxes! Better to think of day to day life and how people are affected. But that wasn’t the way of life back then. Unfortunately we still often abstract others and ignore the intrinsic worth of a human life. Someone who can rape and beat a woman to use her to make money in a sex trade scheme is certainly just as capable of pushing the button in a holocaust gas chamber. When humans are abstracted into being a means to an end, or being something without value, even "non-human" in the eyes of others, evil becomes possible. And I’d call it evil, even if the term is not scientific.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929 it seemed capitalism was failing. Socialism and Communism were ascendant. But there was a backlash from conservatives and traditionalists – fearing the rise of the Left, they turned to radical nationalism and yet another ideology: fascism.

FASCISM:

Italy: After the war, Italy was in politically disarray.   Benito Mussolini emerged as an ex-Socialist who moved away from socialism to a new radical form of nationalism which got the name fascism.

Fundamental aspects of fascism:

 * Irrationalism.  Life and nature are not rational, as the enlightenment claimed, but irrational.  Fascism looked to German philosophers Schopenhauer and Heidegger, as well French Henri Bergson and Georges Sorel.  Intuition is the highest form of knowledge, myth pulls social movements.  Genius, revelation and intuition guide action.

 * The state as the supreme value -- The state is an end in and of itself.  Mussolini -- Rome was the highest form of civilization, Italy should reclaim that mantel.  Freedom and individual self-worth can only be realized through identification with the state on an emotional level, learning and finding true identity with the myths of the state.

 * Hero worship and elitism -- elites and heros are necessary to give guidance, to help people achieve what they could.  Neitzsche -- the one who decried that God was dead -- noted that perhaps a hero, an übermensch could replace the lost ideal, something people can strive for.

 * War -- War brought people together, strengthened the state.  But should not be engaged in if not in thenational interest.

 * Racism and anti-semitism.  Not so evident in Italian and Spanish fascism, but in Hitler’s nazism traditional German anti-semitism, which goes back to Martin Luther (and of course before) and consideration of the Aryan race as superior.  Also social darwinism.

 * Anti-intellectualism.  Mussolini: ‘we think with our blood.’ 

 * Anti-communist, and anti-liberal

Mussolini -- emerged with Italian fascism after Italy’s collapse in WWI.  Fear of bolshevism evident, and Mussolini explored the alliance of radicals with conservatives, or anti-communists.  Marched on Rome, police watched, and Mussolini invited with his “black shirts” to form a new government.  Glory of Rome!  Control.  Peace until 1935 (took power in 1922), then attacked Ethiopia.  Sent troops to Spanish civil war, then occupied Albania in 1939.  Fell in 1943.

GERMANY

Weimar Republic: A dynamic, exciting time!  Berlin overtook Paris as the center of popular life, especially the Cabarets, often raucous comedy musicals, with all night partying, loose morals, and a wide open lifestyle.  On the countryside, however, distrust of this new democracy.

Also, there were private armies -- Freikorps forming.  In 1919 there were 400,000 of these, but by 1933 Hitler's alone numbered 4.5 million.  Ebert and others tolerated the Freikorps, since there was no way to keep the peace with such a small national army in such a tumultuous time.  The Interallied Control Commission first ordered Ebert to do away with these, and he tried and did for awhile (at least with some).  But he could not halt the trend -- the groups were tolerated in Bayern, esp. Munchen, where they were known as "Organization C," or the "Bavarian Woodcutting Company."  Judges were lenient, and Germany was becoming "ungovernable."

1.  Inflation - Early on Germany decided to try to pay its reparation debts by simply printing more money.  This led to hyperinflation in 1923.  Economic reform finally cured it, but the inflation wiped out savings and left its scars.  If this is democracy, most people thought, we’d prefer something else. 

1914:  $1=4rm, 1919 $1=9rm, 1920 $1=180rm, 1922 $1=500 rm, and

   1923 $1=25,000,000,000rm.

Inflation hit middle class the hardest, as well as elderly and those relying on government aid (pensioners, etc.) -- these were the natural constituency of the Social Democrats, but the Social Democrats would be blamed for the inflation.  The right wing went after Ebert with a vengeance, calling him a traitor, accusing him and all “socialists and liberals” of treason, and engaged in a smear campaign which kept Ebert fighting scandals.  That ultimately killed him, as he was too busy trying to redeem his reputation from lies and attacks that he ignored a doctor’s advice and died of appendicitis in 1925.

2. Stab in the back legend:   Since Germany never actually had been pushed back out of occupied territory, many did not believe they should have lost the war -- something happened, some conspiracy.  The SPD (Social Democrats) were blamed for selling out.  Anti-Semitism rose as Jewish business people were blamed for being wealthy.  Socialists, Pacifists, and Jews blamed for giving Germany a loss many Germans didn’t think they deserved.  They had been fed propaganda up until the end saying they were near victory; they couldn’t understand that they lost. Some, like Adolf Hitler, a brave messenger at the front lines (a low survival rate for that task) was temporarily blinded by a British gas attack, and was in the hospital when he found out about the defeat.  He said he was certain that liberals had caused the defeat and he knew his destiny was politics, and to avenge that defeat.

3.  Rise in nationalism/conservative movements: Distrust of democracy led to monarchist movements, and other nationalist groups.  Nazism came out of these.

YET:  optimism, growth, technology:  Captures the spirit of the 20s.  Society was opening up, the moving pictures, the airplane, communication.  War was over, things were getting better.  Storm clouds -- excessive speculation, the far right in Germany, Stalin’s system, political turmoil -- ignored.