Totalitarian States

Russia, Italy, Germany

Cultural Pessimism in Art

“Great Nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, the book of their art. Not one of these books can be understood unless we read the two others; but of the three, the only quite trustworthy one is the third”

John Ruskin

Post Impressionism

Cezanne Large Bathers 1899-1902

Cubism

Les Demoiselles de Avignon 1907 Seated Woman 1908

Picasso

Bottle of Pernod (Table in a Café) Harlequin 1915 1912

Picasso

Girl Before the Mirror 1932

Italian Futurism 1909

Luigi Russolo Dynamism of a Car 1912-1913

Umberto Boccioni

Dynamism of a Cyclist 1913

The Charge of the Lancers 1915

Muscular Dynamism

Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968)

Nude Descending Staircase 1912

Duchamp and Dada

The Fountain 1917

L.H.O.O.Q. 1919

George Grosz (1893-1959)

A Winter’s Tale 1919 Grey Day 1921

Surrealism

Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory 1931

Marc Chagall

I and the Village 1911

Di Chirico

The Disturbing Muses 1925

Dali

Soft Construction With Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) 1936

Guernica 1936

Russia : The First Totalitarian State1920 -1940

The Civil War 1918-1922

Bolsheviks vs

Russians, nationalities, foreigners

March 1918 First Challenge for New Regime

Bolshevik Party renamed Communist PartyBrest Litovsk signed – Lenin had no choice – this promise (along with Land and Bread) is what enabled him to defeat KerenskyCivil war ensues immediately Multiple Russian groups to the right of Lenin

Tsarist reactionariesLiberalsBourgeois businessmenZemstvo membersCadetsSocial RevolutionariesMensheviks

First institutions

 Oldest – the party founded in 1903 Soviets of 1905 and 1917Council of People’s Commissars day of the Revolution Cheka December 7, 1917 – the first of the new regime Red Army set up by Trotsky January 1918

First institu

Reasons Bolsheviks win

Anti-Bolshevik forces never unite Red Army effective Distribution of land to peasants

Red Terror response to foreign intervention and civil waraims at the physical extermination of all who oppose the new regime – class was enough

Kronstadt sailors (1921) an example from the left results in

a left wing repudiation of communism in western Europe

First Social Policy:War Communism

Nationalization of some industries; most still controlled by worker committees Food production the largest problem – less being produced (62% of land)Govt. requisitions and military seizureKulaks hated in countryside.Class war between country and the city workers Resistance to war communism develops

Don river valley – Kornilov and DenikenMiddle Volga – Social Revolutionaries

Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan declare independence early 1918

The New Economic Policy 1921-1927

peasant resentment, drought, famine, ruin of productive facilities force rethinking NEP conceived as compromise with capitalism, a “strategic retreat”characteristics:

state controls “commanding heights” of the economy – state owns basic productive industriesprivate trading for profit allowedtrade between town and the country encouraged – moves peasants beyond subsistence agriculturemiddlemen sell things at market pricekulaks are favorednewly rich bourgeois class emerges

Evaluation: Problems in Industry and Agriculture remain

NEP eliminates worst problems of war and revolutionary period

BUTas late as 1928, production levels in certain key industries still at 1913 levels

Stalin’s Answer: The Five Year Plans

Centralized planning first introduced 10 years after the revolutionBolsheviks not clear on “what next?” aspect of Marxist revolutionEngels had introduced the theoretical link between large cooperative model vs smaller competitive units Rational planning had been introduced as World War I dragged on Planned society has both theoretical and practical antecedents

First Five Year Plan 1928-1932 Goal: strengthen the country; economic self-sufficiencyObjective: build up heavy industry, no loans from  abroad; agricultural revolution (collectivization to promote investment of capital in agriculture – mechanization)reverses Russian policy since Emancipation and Stolypin - 1929 revolution in the country; by 1939 collectivization completeFails to increase agricultural output; frees up labor force for industry but millions die despite famine of late 20s; early 30s, Stalin still exports cereal to pay for industrial goods imported from the westGosplan central administrative agency-coordinates financing, production, wage scales, prices – estimates generated at the lower levels and passed to the topSystem intricate and inefficient – lots of paperwork

Second Five Year Plan 1933-1937

worldwide depression impacts grain price and western industrial plant becomes too expensive to purchaseStalin fears specifically the hostility of Germany and Japan and so 2nd 5 year plan even more committed to self sufficiency for military reasons

industrial growth in USSR 1928-1938 unmatched in Western experience

Specific Achievements

industrialization east of the Urals for the first timetrade with Asian peoples developediron and steel production quadruplescoal production increases 3.5X80% of industrial plants builtworld’s largest producer of farm tractors and railway engineswith the opening of the interior “frontiers” railways carry 5x freight of 1913

gross industrial output 3rd to US and Germany

Evaluation: Second Five Year Plan

in part Russia survives German occupation because of this eastern development; in part because the industrial output first equipped the Red Army

Third Five Year Plan

Problemsinterrupted by World War IIRates high because starting point so lowQuality shoddyEfficiency lowPer capita production low

Social CostsKulaks and millions others lost their livesProliferation of gulagsAusterity with respect to food, housing, consumer goods1/3 national income reinvested in industrypropaganda plays a role in keeping people working hard for low wages – future

Effects of Totalitarian Regime in Russia

Food rationing ended 1935Living standards improved - better than 1927No unemploymentNo cycle of boom and depressionNo oppression of women and children in early industrial periodSafety net minimumNo economic equality No stock exchangeStakhanovites (labor heroes) compete to increase productivity and raise personal wages

Totalitarian Art

The Elusive Ideal

Workers

The Reality:Russia’s Totalitarian System

No free pressNo free labor unionsNo freedom of associationArt, literature, and science vehicles for propagandaPurges

Italy the First Fascist State

Problems in Italy Prior to WWI

Parliamentary politics“Trasformismo”Widening the suffrage among a largely illiterate population

Anticlericalism/Papal Ban on Political Participation

Eased in 1907

Industrialization in the NorthPoverty and Illiteracy in the SouthIrredenta

Promises with regard to Albania

Anti-parliamentary ideology, nationalism, irrationalism

“Futurism” nihilismGabrielele d’Annunzio and Filippo Marinetti

Problems added by World War I

Terms of the Treaty of LondonItaly would receive Austrian lands – Tyrol, Trentino, Istria, TriesteColonies increased in Somaliland and Libya

Catholics and socialists (peace party) vs extreme nationalists (war party)Opening second front costly

600,000 livesCaporetto another embarrassment

Peace failed to meet expectationsItaly received no mandates

Wilson refuses to recognize Treaty of London

Unemployed Soldiers

Problems of Postwar Italy

Wartime DebtDepression and UnemploymentSocial Unrest

Land seizures in countryside,refusal to pay rents, peasants burn crops - worry landownersStrikes in industrial cities, plant seizure; demands for worker control

Government IneptitudeNo addressing of problemsShifting coalitions of liberal, moderates, Christian Socialists (Catholic) and Socialists joined by Mussolini’s Fascists (35) in 1922

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

Professional revolutionary, socialist, journalistNationalist, corporal in warFounder of Fascio di combattimentoFirst condemned war profiteersCalled for taxes on capital and profitLater upholder of law, order, property

The Appeal

Nationalists like the rhetoric the symbols of powerMiddle class pinched economically – don’t want anything to do with labor unions or socialists propertied classes frightened – willing to lend financial aid

Techniques

beatings, bullying, castor oil treatment for socialists, Christian socialist mayors

Mussolini declares loyalty to church and king (former anti-clerical republican)

March on Rome, October 1922

Blackshirts threaten government takeover; Mussolini remains in MilanLiberal coalition government (happy enough to use Mussolini’s fascists to control the left) try to declare marshal lawKing refusesCabinet resigns Mussolini declared premier

Italy remains a constitutional monarchy with Mussolini at the head of a coalition government with one year’s emergency powers

Mussolini as Premier2/3 law solution to unstable coalition government where largest party rarely in the majority 1924 fascists get over 60% of the seats thanks to electoral fraud Matteoti, a socialist deputy is assassinated after blowing the whistle

Where the trains ran on time

Italian parliament bypassed Press censorship Labor unions destroyed; no right to strike All political parties except the Fascists eliminated

Personal style of Il Duce

Equestrian poses Vigorous action,

Military uniforms Strong Leader Flaming hoops

Italian Fascism in the 20’s

Criticized democracy - historically outmoded, accentuates class divisions, empty talk Criticized liberalism, free trade, laissez faire capitalism – inefficient, selfish Criticised the Marxist materialism, class consciousness Replaces these with national solidarity and state management of economic affairs under leader

Makes peace with the Catholic Church -

Lateran Treaty of 1929

The Corporative State: “born of a need for action”

Economic life divided into 22 areas/corporationsLabor, industry, government to determine wages prices, working conditions, industry policiesNational council to devise plan for Italy – self sufficiency the goalGovernment representatives more equal than others Minister of corporations was the head of the structure 1938 Chamber of Deputies replaced by the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations (economic parliament representing economic not geographic regions) members chosen by government not the people corporative state = state control of economy within a private enterprise system

The Challenge of the Depression

economic controls didn’t help very muchpublic works projects launchedeconomic self sufficiency the goal

hydroelectric plants built since Italy had no coal “battle of the wheat”reclamation of swamp land

no fundamental change for peasantsextremes of wealth and poverty remainSubstituted psychological exhilaration and imperialist adventures

Palmer and Colton’s Critique

Mussolini’ Corporative State

“failed to provide either economic security or material well-being for which it had demanded the sacrifice of individual freedom.”

Foreign Policy Record1934 attempted coup by Austrian Nazis who demand union with GermanyMussolini mobilizes troops on the Austrian border; stops Hitler for 4 years1935 war with Ethiopia to avenge the defeat at Adowa in 1896League of Nations imposes sanctions but not on oil; Britain unwilling to risk general war; French admire Mussolini 1936 Mussolini consolidates Italian African Empire despite Haile Selassie’s personal appeal – League weakness exposed 1936 50,000 Italian troops sent to fight on Franco’s side in Spanish Civil War; Rome-Berlin Axis formed; anti-Comintern Pact signed1938 Mussolini accepts Austrian Anscluss and attends Munich Conference April 1939 Mussolini invades Albania1940 Mussolini invades France; invades Greece and North Africa; eastward push towards Suez from Libya 1943 Allies conquer Sicily; 21 year Fascist regime falls; Mussolini establishes Italian Social Republic in Northern Italy; Marshall Badaglio tries to make peace in August; Germans occupy Italy.

Artist’s Perceptions

Futurist Portrait

DiegoRivera, 1933