Violence in the Twentieth Century West - Research Paper Example

Violence in the Twentieth Century West The number of people who died unnatural deaths in the twentieth century West mainly from violence and politically motivated oppression was enormous and brutal because such form of killings were inevitable as majority of people believed war was a necessity. The people believed that resources were limited and thus the only way to ensure that they lived better lives was through engaging in war in order to eliminate the other groups of people. Nations therefore were confident that for them to be strong and healthy they were to expand their territories in order to avail more resources to their citizens. Countries like Germany, which were more civilized compared to majority of their neighbors, believed that they should conquer those weaker countries and make them their colonies. The colonies would therefore be a source of resources for the surplus population and serve as an added labor to the colonizing country. This motivation of self-preservation inevitably led to war in the twentieth century and it was further made barbaric by the fact that none of the countries opted for peace since peace meant that they were defeated. Defeat would give the enemy the right to oppress them and own their resources hence they would end up living like slaves in their own land. Thus, majority of the people during this period were quite in agreement with the view that war was a moral necessity as long as they were protecting the interests of their countries. For example in the speech of Adolf Hitler in 1937 he encouraged his cabinet to engage in war as it was for their own good and it could not be avoided (“Hitler, Speech to his Generals on the Eve of Invading Poland” 2). Most of the European countries celebrated war and they thus openly welcomed any suggestions for them to engage in war. This tendency was enshrined in the spirit of patriotism since people who went to fight for their countries were portrayed to be more patriotic than those who failed to. Furthermore, some people welcomed wars as an opportunity for them to break from their boring daily activities. For example, in Paris majority of the people gladly welcomed the news of war if not all and they poured into the streets ready to go and fight as if they were just waiting for the news. The Frenchmen both poor and rich, proletarians or bourgeois, right-wingers or military leftists all steeped out to fight their country as they went about singing heroic songs (“Descriptions of public reactions …” 284). The situation in England was not in any way different from that in the other western countries as they welcomed the news of war in a similar way. Bertrand Russell who was a philosopher and Mathematician had believed that England could avoid engaging in the war by remaining neutral. To ensure that his point of view gunned enough support he went all around collecting signatures especially from the educated since he believed that the educated understood well the negative effects of war. To his surprise when war was declared, the people drastically changed and there was a huge wave in support of the war that swept across the country. People from all groups seemed to be delighted by the news and even his learned friends were among the people who supported the war and involved themselves in fighting from the first day. It was evident that people loved destruction more than truth, money or love for children and the urge to fit in the popular views carried almost all the people. The ideologies that prevailed then especially among the Germans under the leadership of Adolf Hitler made war inevitable and not only war but massive violence. Hitler believed that they were supposed to be quick, brutal and ruthless in their attacks so that they can create fear among their enemies. This brutality thus entailed mass murder and generally killing any person who was against them in the most brutal way possible. As a result, this ideology resulted to widespread violence and political oppression among the western countries, which cannot be compared to any other time before or after then. For example, Hitler believed that their strength was in the brutality of the attacks and he had issued a command that anyone who utters any word of criticism to be shot. He described how they would conquer all the states within a short duration and true to his words, though he never conquered all the states he was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. The political governance that characterized majority of the western countries in the early twentieth century directly or in some few cases indirectly fueled violence among the people. This was mainly because majority of the leaders believed that in order for them to prevail they were to suppress and if possible eliminate all those people who were in opposition. They enacted this through measures that curtailed the freedom of the people and especially the intellectuals. This kind of behavior only served to increase the violence since generally human beings tend to fight back when they are oppressed. For example when the Bolsheviks ascended into power, they suppressed the newspapers and later they engaged in mass arrests of intellectuals especially the professors and the scientists. This evoked strong opposition from the Academicians and artists who felt that their ideologies were betrayed by the new regime (Letter from Vladimir Lenin to Maxim Gorky 2). The poor leadership that characterized majority of the ruling parties made sure that violence was inevitable since any sensible person could out rightly predict that war was a disaster in waiting. The laws that were enshrined in their systems of policies could not promote peace but rather encouraged war through majorly incitement of a country’s citizens against their neighbors. For example, the early Nazi Party Programme had summarized its policies in twenty-five regulations that proclaimed their philosophy. Some of these regulations like the one that demanded colonies for the surplus people and the one that stipulated that only a member of the German race by blood could be eligible for citizenship indirectly meant the people were to engage in violence (“Early Nazi Party Program” 2). This is because the only way that it could be possible to acquire territories would only be through conquest of foreign lands, which would be characterized by a lot of violence that resulted to widespread deaths. Moreover the denial of citizenship to all people who were not Germany citizens by birth implied that violence was unavoidable since the foreigners who had already acquires citizenship would resist these policies. Thus, the governing political parties ensured that war remained to be the order of the day in the western countries for almost the entire part of early twentieth century. Propaganda and mass meetings also ensured that that the early twentieth century was characterized by mass violence. These two tools have enormous power to direct masses towards a certain direction depending on the position of the leader and thus influence behavior of people without their knowledge. This is done through sensing the emotions of the masses and thus grasping their attentions, which consequently moves their hearts in the desired direction. Leaders like Hitler and Stalin had mastered the art of using these two tools and instead of using them to influence the people positively they used them to encourage the people to engage in mass killings of the neighbors (Hitler 6). The forced collectivization of agriculture during the Stalin’s revolution was responsible for the mass killings that followed. The collectivization involved the peasant farmers combining their small farms to form one large piece of farm that would then be operated in accordance with the government’s regulations. The farmers who had heavily invested in their farms like the Kulaks resisted the idea of combining the farms, as they would be disadvantaged when combined with individuals whose lands were of poor quality. Out of brutality and ego centric form of leadership Stalin embarked in what he called the eradication of the whole clan of the Kulaks. He firmly believed that the entire clan was an enemy to his collectivization efforts and he did not see any other way to deal with them apart from eliminating them. The result was violence and political intolerance that resulted to mass killings which when combined with the other fights served to ensure that millions of death characterized the early twentieth century (Perry 324). It is evident that the number of people who died unnatural deaths in the beginning of the twentieth century mainly from violence and political oppression was large and was mainly attributed to war, which was inevitable. As discussed above all the events that prevailed then and especially those that revolved around leadership seemed to work together to encourage the people to engage in war. Therefore, during this era war was celebrated by the people and was generally welcomed by majority of the people who did not see any other way they could live at peace apart from through war. Work Cited Hitler Adolf. Selection From Mein Kampf on the Value of Propaganda and Mass Meetings. New York : Reynal & Hitchcock (1925-26). Print. Hitler Adolf. Speech to his Generals on the Eve of Invading Poland, August 22, 1939. Print. Descriptions of public reactions in various European capitals to the news that war had broken out, copied from Marvin Perry, ed., Sources of the Western Tradition, Volume II: From the Renaissance to the Present, Eighth Ed. (Boston: Wadsworth, 2012), 283-88. Print. “Early Nazi Party Program”, 1920. Print Perry, Marvin. Joseph Stalin on the Liquidation of the Kulaks, from Sources of the Western Tradition. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth. “Letter from Vladimir Lenin to Maxim Gorky”, 1919. Print. Read More