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Many social, political and economic problems plagued the world at the end of World War I, leading people to search for alternative solutions. Coincidently as the war ended, Fascism was introduced to the masses. Fascism was everything the people looked for and wanted. It placed an emphasis on the nation as the center and regulator for all history and life, and on the indisputable authority of the leader behind whom the people were expected to form an unbreakable unity. (Britannica. com, 2. 10. 01) Before delving into the complication known as Fascism, we must look at the events that led up to its outbreak and instant popularity. Edmund Burke once stated, Social change is inevitable and desirable.
He was never more correct in his evaluation. At the start of the Twentieth Century, massive changes began to occur around the world. People were not satisfied with the stagnant nature of their lives, and change began to occur. What was initially a world consisting of Imperials and Empires slowly began to break up and fall apart.
The Industrial Revolution brought about so much change that it became impossible to slow it down and prevent the inevitable. Inanimate objects began to take the place of human power, new products replaced old products in terms of production, and rapid development of cities led to urbanization. New class systems developed, leading to tension between people. The Bourgeoisie began to prosper as the employer while the Proletariat earned low wages as employees who were forced to move into the cities to earn a living as agriculture and farming no longer yielded the income it had once before. As urbanization increased, so did the population and the dissension among the people. Factory work became more prominent as the industrial revolution continued as with the newfound resources of iron and steel that led to new inventions such as the steam engine and the need for railroads and ships.
The more these opportunities arose, the closer the empires came to collapsing. Ancient Empires could not compete with the new Western empires that began to emerge in the late nineteenth century. The new empires were technologically advanced with stable economies and manufacturing systems as a result of the Industrial Revolution. In accordance to the Industrial Revolution, new transportation was available as well as the manufacture of new weapons, forms of communication, and inventions of new equipment that led to advancement in the world of medicine and disease control. The desire for progress in this new world was infectious and continued throughout the century.
New developments led to deeper desires and what was once satisfactory no longer was. The quest for expansion as well as the foreign became an addiction that could no longer be curbed. Change became inevitable. One of the key factors that led to change was the development of nation-states and the human rights they gave their people. Human rights were a big issue in the early twentieth century, a factor that brought about many of the issues that led to dissension amongst the people. Back then human rights was usually called liberalism.
Classical Liberalism led to Modern Liberalism as time went on. Classical Liberalism was centered on individualism. Society was composed of individuals, with the idea that people were basically good and could be improved based on the optimism of human nature. At the time, society was based on a free market. There was competition of goods and ideas, a limited government consisting of constitutions, human rights and parliaments, while the people were ruled by the wealthy that would evolve into democratic radicalism and political equality.
As time went on, Classical Liberalism evolved into what was called Modern Liberalism. There was no longer a free market nor was individualism praised. Monopolies had resulted from Classical Liberalism leading to Modern Liberalism that was basically socialist type of thinking. Modern Liberalism encouraged socialist ideas such as social welfare and government involvement in what used to be the free market.
Capitalism now required state regulation and control, where John Stuart Mill summed it up best: The maximum individual liberty consistent with the public good. Classical Liberalism failed to provide its people with three crucial issues: full rights of citizens, protection of human rights, and the evasion from addressing the problems of social inequality. This led to the socialist movement of the early twentieth century. Karl Marx inspired many with his theories. Socialists viewed economic relations to be as important or even more so than political principles and believed that social class, not citizenship, was the real basis of an individuals inalienable rights. Marx's socialist theories consisted of three main principles: 1) ownership of property determined wealth and poverty power belonged to property owners (the bourgeoisie) 2) class conflict is therefore inevitable amongst the smaller portion of bourgeoisie in comparison to the larger portion of the proletariat because they share no common interest and 3) the collapse of capitalism followed by a classless communist society.
This new belief emerged and was soon taken up almost immediately. Progress proved to give vast improvement to the lives of people. At the same time, social conflicts and nationalist ideologies began to simmer. Modernism is the term that coined this progress.
These new social and economic conditions and the cultural attitudes that emerged from the passionate intellectual debates generated by these changes is referred to as Modernity. Modernity eventually led to the revolutions and the combined tension and quest for change that essentially was a cry for power. For the most part, it was a cry for power for the people. New ideas brought about new desires, each more demanding than the previous. This of course led to World War I. So much had been lost and so little had been gained by the end of the war.
The masses were shocked at all the damage the war had caused that there was a lack of faith in the governments. Revolutions had risen; most significant were the three major revolutions of China, Russia, and Mexico. Following the war was the Treaty of Versailles and the conditions it entailed, the most noteworthy being war guilt and reparations. It was in essence World War I and the treaty of Versailles that led to the outbreak of Fascism. The war left the world in a heap of despair and economic futility. The triangle trade was formed, and the stock market crash of 1929 represented the world and the depression it had fallen into.
The economic instability of the world, particularly those of small nations began to drag and chip away at the already weak economic and social conditions. What little faith there was in the existing government was soon abolished, leaving people confused and distrustful. As a result of growing dissatisfaction over the economy, the masses looked to political parties that offered the most practical solutions. The war had turned peoples hopes of victory to bitter disappointment. Many were bewildered by modernity-with its cities, factories, and department stores, which they blamed on ethnic minorities. In their yearning for a mythical past of family farms and small shops, increasing numbers rejected representative government and sought more dramatic solutions.
Radical politicians quickly learned to use wartime propaganda techniques to appeal to a confused citizenry, especially young and unemployed men. They promised to use any means necessary to bring back full employment, stop the spread of communism, and achieve the territorial conquests that World War I had denied them. They borrowed their tactics from the Bolsheviks and their goals from the war. Fascism is essentially extreme nationalism.
Some of its key aspects involve the complete submission of an individuals will given to the state, the state being a leader who embodies the state. Combat, conquest, and military qualities are celebrated while democracy, rationalism, and bourgeois values are belittled. Fascism was almost a religion in its own right. It was the preservation of the state and the state or race was the declaration of its destiny.
People aimed and lived for the fulfillment of their beliefs in Fascism. The following are characteristics of Fascism. Fascism has one leader who incorporates the will of his people, usually with the title of Der Fuhrer, or Il Duce, both meaning leader. Fascism was extreme nationalism leading to mass mobilization that brought everybody into nationalism and politics. It was also anti-communism, anti-socialism, and most of all, anti-liberalism. Also common to Fascism was the militarism and political violence it was associated with.
Fascism was more like national socialism, in that it was a corporation as well as a quasi-cult of youth and sexism in the sense that it appealed to young intellectuals in college and brought about negative change to the female sex. Fascism was all for the return to what has been dubbed the three Ks expected of women, Kinder, Kirche, Kuche, which meant children, church, kitchen respectively. It involved the first women graduates and the career woman, also changing the style of dress, pretty much back to what it used to be before women had jobs, thus releasing jobs for men. Fascism is anti-communist yet borrows communist methods to use against the communists. It has one leader who knows what is good for the people and will go after it.
Fascism also had a need for soldiers and men. The importance of the Fascist party was that they did not play the political game. In fact, they used political power to gain power. Violence played a big part in gaining their instantaneous power, for Fascism involved scare tactics that essentially scared the people. Using that fear, the party would reassure the people of its stability, again reminding them that the party was there to protect its people. Fascism pretends to be socialism also.
Socialism being the solidarity of people, all the while arguing for national socialism, also aiming for corporatism, which was essentially organized capitalism centralized by the state-the state being the leader. The fascist movement thereby adopted the motto might makes right. Mussolini, its leader, oversaw Italian Fascism. Mussolini's goal was to overthrow parliamentary government, and in order to do that, he organized a com...
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Research essay sample on Socio Economic Change After World War I
