The Rise of Dictatorships: From Economic Crisis to Fascism

Posted on Jun 4, 2024 in History

The Crash of the New York Stock Exchange

On October 24 and 29, 1929, Black Thursday and Tuesday, the share price fell sharply. Within hours, panic spread across the United States. Investors sold huge amounts of shares at a much lower price than the original.

Great Depression

The repercussions of the economic crisis were quickly felt around the world. Many countries depended on US loans that were canceled as a result of the crisis and its effects.

Responses to the Great Depression

The United States: In 1933, President Roosevelt proposed a plan, the New Deal. He proposed state intervention, which involved the promotion of public works, subsidies for firms, the control of banking, and more social welfare.

Great Britain: The state did not intervene in the economy and restricted itself to devaluing the pound. This favored exports and invigorated the domestic market.

Free Trade vs. Protectionism

Free trade is committed to the free movement of goods without the state intervening to regulate international trade.

Protectionism consists of establishing customs tariffs on imports to favor the country’s own industry.

The Rise of Dictatorships

Members of the wealthy and middle classes, who were afraid of the Soviet example, started supporting dictatorial models. At the end of the 1930s, dictatorships in Europe predominated over democracies. Some dictatorships were totalitarian regimes with some common characteristics:

Characteristics of Totalitarian Regimes

  • Dictatorship: Single mass party, repression.
  • Exaltation of the dictator: All-embracing state.
  • Official state ideology.
  • System of terror and violence.

Characteristics of Fascism

  • Totalitarianism: People had no rights outside the interests of the state.
  • Irrationalism: Violence, war, anti-intellectualism, and strength were worshipped. Fascism twisted Darwin’s theories of natural selection at the expense of the rest. The “weak” had to die as a part of a process of social selection.
  • Radical nationalism: It stated that the nation itself was superior to all others and was indivisible.
  • Racism and xenophobia: Belief in the division of humanity into superior and inferior races and cultures.
  • Anti-communism, anti-liberalism, and anti-feminism: Rejecting foreign ideas, the nation would overcome social conflicts. Rejected the rights of the individual: patriarchy as the basis of society.
  • Imperialism and militarism: A belief in the superiority of the nation, the cult of war justified militaristic expansionism.
  • Corporate state: Denying the existence of social classes, society had to be organized in associations or corporations (jobs, family, etc.).
  • State-led capitalist economy: Fascist states were anti-communist, preserved private property and capitalist labor and production. However, the government guided the economy to strengthen the state and become an autarky.
  • Belligerence against international institutions: The principles of national superiority, imperialism, and militarism were totally opposite to those of the League of Nations.

Italian Fascism

  • Italy was deeply frustrated after the lack of attention in the Treaties of Paris (1919). Many deaths, wounded, lost territories, and Italy’s compensation was scant.
  • Post-war economic crisis created “Biennio Rosso” (1919-1920). Socialists and anarchists created worker’s councils (inspired by the Soviets).
  • The bankruptcy of the liberal parliamentary system (since no party won by majority).
  • Irrationalism in culture, anti-intellectualism, and legitimized use of violence.

The Rise of Mussolini

  • 1921, Benito Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party.
  • Benito was the leader (Duce).
  • Policy of violent attacks against workers, justified as a way to confront the revolutionary demands of the “Biennio Rosso.”
  • 1922, the Blackshirts (paramilitary militias) undertook/started the March on Rome.
  • King Victor Emmanuel III entrusted Mussolini to form a new government.
  • He dismantled democratic institutions, increased ideological, political, and social control.
  • 1925 Giacomo Matteotti (socialist) was assassinated by fascists. The parliament was dissolved, and a fascist dictatorship was installed.
  • The state controlled politics, the economy, social organizations, and media.
  • Political repression began against the opponents of the party.
  • Strikes were outlawed.
  • The crisis of 1929: production fell, unemployment increased. Solution: Mussolini created a policy of public works and started the imperialist expansion in Ethiopia.
  • In 1935-1936 the “League of Nations” condemned the massacre of thousands of Ethiopian civilians.
  • The propaganda apparatus spread an image of great power, prepared for war.
  • Mussolini allied with Germany and Japan. They intervened in Spain too.

Nazism in Germany

The Rise of the Nazi Party

  • Economic burdens imposed in the Treaty of Versailles.
  • Deflationary policies caused unrest.
  • The number of soldiers was taken down to 100,000.
  • Nationalist ideologies rose.
  • Creation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party).
  • Leader: Adolf Hitler.

Characteristics of Nazism

  • Superiority of the Aryan race. Destined to dominate the world (blonde, tall, blue eyes).
  • Murder of disabled people to preserve purity.
  • Anti-Semitism, against Jews.
  • Expansion towards Eastern Europe: Lebensraum (living space).
  • Revanchism against France.

Hitler’s Rise to Power

  • 1923: Germany experienced inflation and crisis. Nazis took it as an advantage to carry out the Munich Putsch (a failed coup d’etat). Hitler was tried and imprisoned.
  • The Great Depression: Collapsed banks and industries, increased poverty, unemployment, and social tension because they depended on US credit.
  • After the elections with no majority, in 1933 Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Prime Minister.
  • Once in power, he dismantled the democratic system and imposed a dictatorship.
  • 1934: Hitler established a new order, “The Third Reich.” He became President, Chancellor, and Commander.
  • Hitler carried out an intense industrial policy of public works.
  • By the end of the 1930s, economic growth was ending, so they started to expand their empire (consented to by France and Great Britain).
  • Germany had military interventions in Spain.
  • The Nazi regime exalted the Aryan race through the propaganda apparatus led by Joseph Goebbels.
  • 1936: The Gestapo (military police) repressed opponents of the party: Jews, Romani, communists, socialists, liberals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and disabled people.
  • Political terror was spread. 1934: The SS (Elite Nazi Corps) murdered the members of the SA, a Nazi paramilitary organization that fought for power within the National Socialist Movement (Night of the Long Knives).

Anti-Semitism

  • Anti-Semitism: Discrimination against Jews and their culture.
  • It was one of the ideological foundations of Nazism.
  • Nuremberg Laws approved it in 1935.
  • Nazi propaganda against Jews made them the enemy.
  • Prohibition of mixed marriages, Jews were excluded from the government, and removed of German nationality.
  • 1939: Jews were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothes to identify them.
  • It was the start of the growing harassment and concentration camps.