CHAPTER 9, Section 2 Lecture
-Benito Mussolini became dictator of Italy as head of the Fascist Party (reactionary, anti-individualism,
pro-totalitarianism, pro-militarism, one-party rule & one dictator.)
-Postwar Italy faced severe economic difficulties. Middle class feared a revolutionary Communist takeover.
-Mussolini formed bands of armed Fascists (squadristi, Blackshirts) to attack Socialist offices & newspapers and
break up strikes. Middle class industrialists & large landowners supported Mussolini.
-Italy angry it didn’t receive more land post W.W.I. Mussolini demanded land (extreme expansionist & nationalist.)
-Fascists threatened to march on Rome, so King Victor Emmanuel III made Mussolini prime minister.
“Il Duce” created dictatorship, suspended freedom of the press, made laws by decree, had one-party rule, gave
police unrestricted authority & created the OVRA (secret police.)
-Mussolini was expelled from school for stabbing fellow student (later became a teacher!)
-In 1912 he was editor of Socialist (left wing!) newspaper until he was expelled from party.
-Mussolini then formed the Fascist party (extreme right wing!)
-Goal of fascist youth groups to make young people physically fit, disciplined & militaristic.
-School texts re-written using fascist propaganda. Fascists taught traditional female roles (homemakers & mothers.)
-Mussolini was unable to create true totalitarian state like Hitler did in Germany & Stalin in Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.)
-Lateran Accords were Mussolini’s compromise agreement with the Catholic Church.
-He granted sovereignty of Vatican City, money to the church and recognition of Catholicism as the “official state
religion.” In return, the pope urged Italians to support the Fascists!
-Soviet Union (Russia) lost World War I, suffered civil war & war communism, famine & industrial collapse.
-Lenin pulled Russia back from the “very edge of the abyss” by introducing the New Economic Policy.
-N.E.P. allowed private produce to be sold at market, small businesses owned by individuals, but big industries,
banks & mines remained in govt. hands (allowing some capitalism actually saved socialist Soviet Union!)
-Just before Lenin’s death in 1924, he predicted a power struggle for control of the Soviet Union between Stalin &
Trotsky. He suggested that Stalin be removed from his govt. job!
-After Lenin’s death, (& entombment in the Kremlin) a power struggle did break out in the Politburo.
-Leon Trotsky (& his followers) wanted: to end the N.E.P., rapid industrialization & start a worldwide communist
revolution immediately.
-Joseph Stalin (& his followers) wanted: to continue N.E.P., slower industrialization & build a strong communist
state at “home” first, before starting a global revolution.
-Trotsky had been Commissar of War. Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party.
-As Gen. Secretary, Stalin had the power to appoint loyal followers to the Politburo (allowed him to gain complete
control over the Communist Party.)
-Trotsky was expelled from Communist Party, exiled & later assassinated in Mexico by Stalin’s secret agent.
-Joseph Stalin’s real name was Dzhugashvili (created his own name “Stalin” = Man of Steel!)
-Stalin was a Bolshevik bank robber, great organizer (Comrade Index-Card) & mass murderer of 25 million!
-In 1928 he launched his first Five-Year Plan (economic goals for five year periods.) It emphasized maximum
production of arms, capital goods, oil & steel production.
-Urban workers lived in crowded, spartan conditions. Propaganda stressed need for individuals to sacrifice for the
socialist state.
-Collectivization of agriculture = private farms eliminated, govt. seized land & people worked for the state.
-Resistance by peasants only led Stalin to speed up collectivization. Hoarding of food & slaughter of livestock
contributed to famines of 1932 & 33 (10 million peasants died!)
-Great Purge = Stalin’s quest for power & paranoid personality led him to remove all “opponents.”
-Old Bolsheviks were targeted by Stalin. Eight million Russians arrested, subjected to mock trials & forced
“confessions,” sent to labor camps (gulags) in Siberia and/or executed.
-Most parliamentary (democratic) govts. in Eastern Europe failed. Only Czechoslovakia maintained its political
democracy due to its large middle class, educated population, liberal traditions & strong industrial base.
-Spanish Civil War = General Francisco Franco overthrew Republican (democratic) government with help of
fascist regimes of Italy & Germany & set up a right wing dictatorship (supported the clergy & rich.)
-Soviets & international volunteers unsuccessfully aided the republican forces of Spain.
-Spain became testing ground for new weapons & strategies of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force!)
-Pablo Picasso’s painting of “Guernica” (p. 477) reflects suffering of Spanish civilians caused by fascist bombings.