Monday, December 10, 2007
"Perhaps the hardest question of twentieth-century history"
In the 1930s, why did the United States tip one way, and Germany the other? As Niall Ferguson argues in his excellent new book
The contrast between the American and German responses to the Depression illuminates the central difficulty facing the historian who writes about the 1930s. These were the two industrial economies most severely affected by the economic crisis. Both entered the Depression as democracies; indeed, their constitutions had much in common -- both republics, both federations, both with a directly elected presidency, both with universal suffrage, both with a bicameral legislature, both with a supreme court. Yet one navigated the treacherous interwar waters without significant change to its political institutions and its citizens' freedoms; the other produced the most abominable regime ever to emerge from a modern democracy. To attempt to explain why is to address perhaps the hardest question of twentieth-century history.
Perhaps, but I have another one also inspired by Ferguson's book, particularly the passages that describe in detail the deprivations of Bolshevism: Given the enormous amount of evidence to the contrary, why did so many people around the world believe that communism would lead to justice?
15 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Dec 10, 10:52:00 PM:
Better yet, why is ANYONE still a Marxist?
By 
Pax Federatica, at
Mon Dec 10, 10:53:00 PM:
Given the enormous amount of evidence to the contrary, why did so many people around the world believe that communism would lead to justice?
Short answer: Because communism had become a secular religion unto itself, and this belief was an article of faith. Essentially the same reason why Islamic supremacists believe shari'a is the perfect system of law (minus the divine origin, of course).
Longer answer here.
By , at
Mon Dec 10, 11:12:00 PM:
Communism has not failed. Things are just taking longer because leaders were not ruthless enough in stamping out bourgeois and capitalist influences. Some blame must also be assigned to the citizens of communist regimes, who may have to be replaced before the program will succeed.
By Purple Avenger, at
Mon Dec 10, 11:18:00 PM:
why did so many people around the world believe that communism would lead to justice?
They didn't really. The vanguard (but not the highest elites) always believes it will get preferential treatment by the elite when the revolution succeeds. Of course, what they always get is a bullet in the head on the highest elites orders because they're dangerous, albeit temporarily useful, fools.
By , at
Mon Dec 10, 11:32:00 PM:
William Shirer notes in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" that Germany's experience with democracy was far less deeply entrenched than was ours. Not many years prior to the Weimar Republic, the Germans were still literally feudal. He cites the Hundred Year War as a major factor, delaying and retarding the transition towards democracy that both England and France had undergone.
In our own case, the Civil War, while undeniably divisive, did in the end have the effect of uniting the States and made, to borrow a phrase, "a more perfect union."
Looked at in this way, one could argue the cause of WW II was actually due to a failure on the part of both Germany and Japan to adopt and fully embrace democracy, making it necessary to impose it from without.
Perhaps it is a waste of our time and treasure to try to reform the mideast (or, more specifically, Iraq) by imposing democracy and staying on to nurture and protect it, but the historical record would seem to contradict such a pessimistic view.
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 12:07:00 AM:
'Rise and Fall' chronicles in some detail the political wrangling between factions in Germany after World War I. Monarchism was a strong force there, and gave Nazism an air of legitimacy in its early days when they coexisted in a Rightist alliance. The Germans as a people preferred strong central leadership to the chaos of a working democracy, not unlike the Russians nowadays.
Besides, we had our own brush with a fascist take-over in 1933.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
Another one of those little details you don't learn in history class.
By drank, at
Tue Dec 11, 12:12:00 AM:
one navigated the treacherous interwar waters without significant change to its political institutions and its citizens' freedoms
That has to be one of the most implausible descriptions of the New Deal that I have ever read. No matter how you judge its effects, I would think there is universal agreement that the New Deal entailed a massive expansion and re-definition of the scope and powers of the federal government. There is literally no comparison between the governments lead by Hoover and Truman.
The better question is why the sweeping changes in political institutions and freedoms took such different forms in the US and Germany.
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 08:39:00 AM:
In America, in the '30's, Bolshevism was the dog barking loudly in the neighbors' yard.
In Germany, the dog was at the kitchen table.Nazism was an unhealthy antidote to Marxist disease. It nearly killed the host, and killed millions before it was stamped out.
There is a recurring fascination with Marxist-Leninist ideas in America, and every time, the intellectuals will say "This time it will work!", and the pragmatic, less educated but more democratic plebes will know that "no, it won't". The commonsense of the average man is the only reliable antidote to the collectivisit nonsense that periodically sweeps the world.
For anyone who doubts this, just yesterday I read that a new adaption of an Upton Sinclair novel has been made into "an award winning movie!" ("There Will Be Blood"); once again, dear friends, into the breech.
-David
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 09:28:00 AM:
"Given the enormous amount of evidence to the contrary, why did so many people around the world believe that communism would lead to justice?".....rampant, abject, blind stupidity, not unlike that which still, today, remains whenever the topic of discussion turns to the glory of communism ,or, even, socialism. Blind stupidity.
By antithaca, at
Tue Dec 11, 10:42:00 AM:
yeah TH...this question is right up there w/how Wilsonian is BushHitler (and I'm being flip but, I mean this seriously).
I mean, I wish everybody could see the looks on students faces when Bush as Wilson, as a concept, is discussed.
By , at
Tue Dec 11, 11:44:00 AM:
Not to belabor the point, but it would seem that the strength and resiliance of a democracy depends on the commitment of its people to preserve it. A constitution, free elections, a court system, a representative legislature mean little to nothing if the people do not have a deeply ingrained desire to make it all work. Even then, as previous commentators have noted, things may well get dicey when the going gets tough.
It would seem that newly formed democratic republics are more vulnerable to internal and external destruction than more well established ones. But even the oldest and most venerable are not immune to disruption, especially in times of duress. The Business Plot is a telling example.
One wonders what might have happened had that plot gone through, or had Roosevelt been assassinated and Huey Long survived. The institutions of democracy are great things, but they of themselves are no guarantors of our freedom. That burden, responsibility, and honor lies with the people alone.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Dec 11, 03:19:00 PM:
By Purple Avenger, at
Tue Dec 11, 09:15:00 PM:
Any democratic society is only one generation away from totalitarianism under the right circumstances.
The moment the people lose the desire to maintain it, there would be a host of would be tyrants ready to step into the spotlight. This includes the USA.
By pst314, at
Tue Dec 11, 09:34:00 PM:
"why did so many people around the world believe that communism would lead to justice"
Not to minimize the abject stupidity of educated people who believed that paradise could be built on a foundation of tyranny, I think there is another important factor often forgotten: Communist revolutionaries endlessly lied to the largely uneducated workers and peasants about just what communism meant and would mean for them. Of course, once the revolution was won the people found out all too well what it meant.
By , at
Wed Dec 12, 07:16:00 PM:
Perhaps the hardest question that is/was unasked in the 20th century was, that if, as Nieztsche postulated "God is dead", then who or what replaces God?
If God and the Christian religions are to be condemned and moved out of the public commons (as has been the trend in most of Europe the last 100 years), what replaces this?
Nazism? Marxist-Leninist Socialism? Free-market capitalism?
What?
I have no answer, and I doubt few people have an honest real answer, but the lies of the past century are the root of the death cult that still attacks the roots of Western Culture. Islam is merely an opportunistic alternative to those who wish for a certain kind of surety, or religious Tyranny, as PA alludes to.
Either we re-affirm our Judeo-Christian heritage (fat chance) or find a healthy philosphical alternative to base our society and culture on (fat chance of that, too).
-David
