Liberal democracy vs. Communism vs. Fascism

Question 1

Challenges to liberal democracy

Answer 1

• Too bourgeoisie
• Economic depression
• Attacks on democracy from right and left
• Minorities and nations
• Crisis of capitalism

Question 2

Crisis of capitalism

Answer 2

• Transition from state-run economy to private
• Interconnectedness of economies
• Stock market crash causes bank failure
• US/France/UK create social programs

Question 3

New Economic Program (NEP)

Answer 3

Adopted by the Bolsheviks in USSR in1921, after war communism
-State capitalism: owned all major industry and financial concerns while individuals could own private property, trade freely, and farm land for their own benefit.

Question 4

Stalin

Answer 4

• Came to power during the “Revolution from above”: the most rapid social and economic transformation in modern history
• Wanted to discard the NEP system and launch an industrialization drive
• Forced industrialization and collectivization of agriculture
• The Five-Year Plans: Stalin’s set of goals for industrialization
• “The Great Terror” eliminated Stalin’s enemies, unprecedented mass repression
• Bolshevik party purged, military, industry leaders
• Social reform
  - Higher education
  - Reduced illiteracy

Question 5

Trotsky

Answer 5

Communist leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917

-Eventually loses power struggle to Stalin who takes over after Lenin

Question 6

Appeal of the USSR

Answer 6

socialism promised equality and justice, rapid step toward new possibilities

Question 7

Kollontai

Answer 7

Russian Communist revolutionary

-Marxist ideas

Question 8

Mussolini

Answer 8

• Established a one party dictatorship in Italy
• Made fascism part of the Italian constitution
• Restructured economy and labor

Question 9

Fascism

Answer 9

• Statism: “nothing above the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”
• Nationalism: state has a life of its own transcending those who composed it
• Militarism: war ennobled man and regenerated sluggish/decadent people
• Success has less to do with strength of Fascism, more to do with weakness of older governing classes and disappointment after the war
• Sought to restore traditional authority but at the same time mobilize all of Italian society for nationalist and economic purposes which undercut authority

Question 10

Syndicalism

Answer 10

Strategy of strikes and sabotage by workers in efforts to bring down the capitalist state and replace it w/ workers’ syndicates/trade assoc.
-refuse to participate in politics= limiting factor

Question 11

National Socialism (Nazisim)

Answer 11

• Single party dictatorship
• Advocated for a strong Germany, offered a return to world power and economic protection
• Want a racially pure state: eugenics
• Nationalism