Single Party States and Rise to Power and Origins of the Cold War - Essay Example

The Rise of Single-Party s The Methods used and the conditions which helped in the rise to power of Adolph Hitler The rise to power of Adolph Hitler occurred as a culmination of a multiplicity of forces and conditions both within and outside of Germany. Germany had been left broken and essentially penniless by World War I and the resulting Versailles Treaties. An air of desperation existed within the country as the Depression spread from America to the rest of the world, including Germany. Desperation, whether within an individual or a country, can lead to people turning to an extreme figure that offers apparently simple solutions to their woes. Economic and political weakness left a space to be filled, a foreboding vacuum. Hitler used the vacuum caused by the demise of the Weimar Republic to gain an electoral majority for the Nazi Party in 1933. One of the most important events in his rise to authority was his rejection of the idea of seizing power through violence after the disastrous Munich Putsch in the 1920’s. (Britannica) Unusual for a man that would eventually become a dictator, Hitler worked within the legitimate political system of his time to win power democratically, and then to quickly consolidate that power into an absolutist one-party state through isolated, symbolic acts of violence (such as the burning of the Reichstag) in order to create a paranoia that he could exploit. The organizational and administrative structure of the Nazi Party, together with Hitler’s well-documented ability to virtually hypnotize individuals, Party and country within a cult of personality and the still mysterious willingness of the German people to accept what appear on face-value to be ludicrous ideas led to the creation of the one-party, Nazi state. The rise of Hitler is perhaps a classic case of “cometh the hour, cometh the man”. He used Germany’s misery to hoist himself from obscurity to absolute power. The Successes and Failures of Adolph Hitler One might easily argue that Hitler’s greatest ‘success’ (judged by his perverse standards) was his managing to lead the German people from the baiting of Jews in the early 1930’s to the implementation of the Final Solution in the last four years of WWII. Unlike other leaders, who use a ‘divide-and-rule’ strategy to gain power through conjuring a hatred of the ‘Other’, Hitler gained power in order to be able to destroy that other. The hatred of Jews was not a means to an end, but the end that Hitler always had in mind. The Holocaust was not a sudden occurrence, but rather a slowly developing continuum of increasingly extreme acts that eventually led to mass-murder. Hitler’s greatest success was in convincing a large portion of the German people to at least passively accept what was occurring, if not actually openly help in the effort. (Goldhagen) All other successes must be seen as secondary as the destruction of Jews was surely Hitler’s prime motivation. However, he did succeed in transforming the German economy into a dynamic war machine within a few years of gaining power through artfully mixing together the improvisational power of Capitalism with the organization of the one-party state. The armed forces that resulted from this economic growth scored enormous successes in the first years of the war, realizing that blitzkrieg would be the tactics of the future while other Europeans – such as the sad, but perhaps magnificent Polish still charging their cavalry – were left still fighting the previous war. Hitler’s greatest failure was probably the invasion of Russia in 1941. Like Napoleon before him, Hitler saw defeating the Russians as the ultimate prize, but failed to realize the enormous problem posed by what is regarded as the greatest of all Russian Generals: the winter. (Shirer) Hitler’s growing refusal to accept the reality of the situation: refusing to issue winter boots is a graphic example, illustrates that he had made the cardinal military mistake of being hopeful rather than brutally realistic. While the Final Solution was perhaps Hitler’s greatest personal success it was perhaps the greatest failure for the country that he claimed to love so much. Germany’s descent from a great centre for cultural, scientific and political civilization into almost unbelievable barbarism on a scale never seen before is a misfortune from which it has yet to fully recover. Ultimately, Hitler used Germany to try to fulfill his own distorted longings for the world: when facing death in his bunker he stated that Germany deserved to be destroyed because it had not followed his orders to the letter. Thus was the supreme egotism of the man, something which perhaps helped bring him to power, but which caused his own, and his country’s destruction. Lenin’s Methods of Maintaining his Regime Lenin established his regime on the chaos that surrounded the departure of Russia from the First World War. With the February 1917 Revolution in Russia and the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, who had long been a socialist revolutionary, decided to return to Russia from neutral Switzerland where he was sheltering from the war raging throughout Europe. Through a convoluted route that involved a closed train passing through Germany, Lenin arrived back in Russia on April 16, 1917 and became a leader of the Bolshevik movement. He published the April Theses, which took an uncompromising stand against the Provisional Government and that crystallized a highly left-wing vision for Russia. Eventually, after fleeing Russia because of accusations that he was a German agent, Lenin returned in October and inspired an armed revolution with the slogan “All Power to the Soviets”. On November 8th, 1917 Lenin was elected Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars by the Russian Soviet Congress and his regime had been founded. (Britannica) Luck, canny political maneuvering and a message that suited the aims of the masses had brought Lenin to power. He removed Russia completely fromWWI in April 1918 and moved to consolidate his domestic power through the institution of various new policies. These included a secret police, labor camps and the execution of those who were (or who were perceived to be) political enemies. Lenin’s vision demanded that a professional revolutionary cadre would lead the masses in their conquest of power and also centralize economic and political power in the hands of a workers’ state. Lenin’s hold on power was short-lived because he did not live long past his fiftieth birthday. He had a stroke in May 1922, and was already suffering from the effects of syphilis and a bullet that was lodged in his neck in an assassination attempt early in his life. The exact degree to which Lenin was actually in control of Russia after his stroke is unclear. In December of 1922 he suffered a second stroke and retired from politics, and a third stroke rendered him bedridden and unable to speak within a few months. He died on January 21, 1924. Lenin had gained power through being a catalyst for revolutionary impulses that already existed within the people, as well as his skilled political maneuvering that on more than one occasion seems to have saved his life. The system of control and coercion that he instituted was to come to maturity within Stalin’s regime. Lenin laid the groundwork for what Stalin was to perfect. A Comparison of the Outside Influence of Hitler and Mao Hitler and Mao came to power by different routes, and their influence outside their countries was similarly contrasting. Mao took power in China in 1949 after waging a guerrilla campaign and winning a civil war, while Hitler became Chancellor of Germany after his Nazi Party was democratically voted into power. Both leaders had some influence outside their countries before and after they cam to power. Mao was an exponent of Communism while Hitler’s Nazis had an influence within Europe. These were ideological influences. Once they had gained power both won overseas support through propaganda, but Mao, in contrast to Hitler (Trevor-Roper), was far more cautious in his approach to outside countries. Mao sent aid and advisers to numerous African and Asian countries, but Hitler invaded many countries and made them part of his Third Reich (Empire). Hitler fought WWII as its main instigator, (Toland) whereas Mao was more insular and ideologically driven. After WWII Hitler’s influence disappeared almost as fast as it had developed in the first place: there were no new Nazi countries once Germany had fallen. Mao’s influence, while more subtle, was longer lasting. The Maoist revolution inspired numerous other revolutionary movements, such as those in central America, even though he did not directly sponsor their actions. The Cold War The Part played by differing ideologies in the origin of the Cold War When the “Iron Curtain” that Winston Churchill spoke of descended across Europe the conflicting ideologies that had led to the one-time allies, America and the USSR, beigin diametrically opposed positions had already developed. The one-party state of Communist vision was a direct contradiction of the democratic systems of the West in which a degree of political instability was an essential component. The unchanging structure of Communism was necessitated by its inherent weakness, whereas the ability to change government based upon differing ideologies was a strength of the democracies. Thus a basic conflict of political ideologies was at the heart of the beginning of the Cold War. Second, there was a conflict of economic ideologies. This was the conflict between a directed/planned economic system in the Eastern Bloc and a capitalist, free market economy in the west. The two economies could not co-exist and allow the free movement of goods, services and peoples: the only way for both to exist at the same time was for them to be separated from one another. Stalin’s refusal to accept American money when it was offered as part of the Marshall plan was the catalytic start of the economic cold war. A degree of mutual suspicion between the two forces existed. The rush to fill the vacuum of Europe as Nazi Germany collapsed caused the armies of England and France to rush for Berlin as the Russians were doing the same. The Cold War partially stemmed from the fact that the two sides were in fact “allies” while they were already planning for the next conflict, that would place them on opposite sides. The reason for the Cold War being “cold” rather than “hot” is scientific in origin. The development of atomic weapons by America, and then of hydrogen bombs by both America and Russia, meant that any hot war would lead to virtually complete annihilation for all concerned. The Cold War with all its characteristics:- diplomatic pressures, arming and funding surrogates and espionage – stemmed from the inability of either of the super-powers to actually fight the other head-on and win. In what ways, and with what results, was Germany the key focus of the early stages of the Cold War? Germany was the key focus of the Cold War because it was its defeat that led to the uneasy ‘alliance’ (never formally ratified by Congress) that Roosevelt made with Russia. The land armies of America and Russia had defeated Germany by May 1945, but as a result of the victory, now faced one another across a line of division stretching through Germany. Stalin had made clear at the Yalta Conference of February 1945 that he intended to take as much of Europe as he could, and would have swept to the coast of France had he the opportunity. America swept across Europe into Germany to avoid such an occurrence as much as to bring about what was by now the inevitable defeat of the Nazis. Once Germany had surrendered, both it and its capital city, Berlin, was divided into four areas of influence according to the four powers that had won WWII. This placed the opposing parties of the Cold War in direct opposition to one another within Germany, making it the most important region for the early Cold War. The Potsdam Agreement that had led to Germany being divided into four also brought about the Blockade of Berlin the resulting airlift. Berlin was wholly situated within the Russian sector, but the city itself was divided into four distinct areas controlled by the same ‘allies’ that controlled Germany. On June 24th, 1948 the Soviet Union blocked access to the roads that led to the three western held areas of Berlin, essentially attempting to stave them into giving up the territory. While a direct challenge to the Russian blockade was suggested, this was abandoned as too risky and so an airlift was organized. Eventually the conflict of Berlin would lead to the division of Germany into two different countries: East and West. These two countries would become both the literal and metaphoric centre of the Cold War: different ideologies fighting one another with only a wall – what would become known as the Berlin Wall – separating them. The Part played by Cuba in the development of the Cold War Cuba plays a fascinating role in the Cold war, mostly because of its geographical position less than a hundred miles from the coast of Cuba. It became a literal threat to the United States during the Missile Crisis, but remained a symbol of Communist defiance of American hegemony for far longer. Indeed, even now, when the Cold War has long ended, Cuba remains an echo of that defiance in the form of Fidel Castor. In November 1956 Castro returned to Cuba with 82 fighters and managed to overthrow the Batista government with the held of popular discontent. Castor immediately embraced the USSR and its political/economic models and rejected American influence. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs fiasco, in which Cuban expatriates failed to take the island from Castor largely because of President Kennedy’s reluctance to come to their rescue and become officially involved was an example of a ‘proxy war’ gone wrong from the American point of view. In 1962 the Soviet Union planned to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, and America responded by blockading the island. In contrast to the Bay of Pigs and other failed assassination attempts, the October Missile Crisis involved the very real threat of direct confrontation between the two super-powers. In essence, it threatened to turn the Cold War into a hot war, and thus perhaps Armageddon. Once the missile crisis had been solved, Cuba took on a new role within the Cold War. Castro supported revolutionary hopefuls in numerous other countries and gave aid to Communist programs and ideas in general. He continued with these efforts until the end of the Cold War, and even beyond it to the present day. While Cuba represents the place where the Cold War came the closest to turning hot, it ironically also showed that East and West could co-exist without bringing the world to the edge of catastrophe. The compromise that ended the Missile Crisis was perhaps the first move of détente and the avoidance of nuclear war that it represented. Evaluate the role of one superpower in the Cold War after 1970 In 1970 the USA was involved in one of its proxy or surrogate wars with the USSR: the Vietnam War. While never officially called a ‘war’, this conflict would lead to a breakdown in American confidence and the first clear defeat for a superpower during the Cold War. While it was illustrating its scientific superiority over the Soviet Union in the Apollo Program, America was also involved in a war that domestic feeling and military realism showed it could never win. The fact that the USA was forced, in the words of some on the Right, ‘to fight with one hand tied behind its back’, simply because it could not use the nuclear weapons that could have ended the war in a day, became a symbol for the apparent obsolescence of the whole super-power idea. In 1972 another event occurred that showed that America was approaching the Cold War in a different manner. President Nixon went to China and shook hands with its premier. The meeting resulted in the Shanghai Communiqué, in which both countries pledged to try to fully normalize diplomatic relations. This was a remarkable move in which the USA seemed to be acknowledging that the conflict that was occurring between the two ideological rivals was essentially futile and self-defeating. At the same time, and apparently contradictory to this realization that the Cold War would need to lead to some form of peaceful resolution, came American involvement in South and Central America. The support of various coups against Leftist leaders and the propping up of often murderous dictatorships that claimed to be of the Right illustrated a Machiavellian touch to American foreign policy. The support for the rebels in Afghanistan and Reagan’s renewal of an armed race at least partially led to the end of the Cold War. Ironically, the support of the Afghan rebels would lead to the creation of a future enemy that would succeed in attacking the United States in a manner never managed, or even contemplated, by the USSR: Osama bin Laden. To what extent did economic problems in the Communist bloc bring about the end of the Cold War? Economic factors were an important element in bringing about the end of the Cold War, but they acted in concert with other forces that enabled the actual collapse of the USSR and its control over its satellite states to occur. As is normally the case in human history, multiple interlocking processes brought about the complex event that is summed up by “the end of the Cold War”. Economic factors may be characterized as the final catalyst that gave force to various other processes that were already putting pressure on the Soviet Union. First there was a growing disillusionment with communist ideology and the fact that the Berlin Wall had become essentially the cage walls that were needed to keep citizens of Eastern Bloc countries from leaving for the West in their millions. The population of Eastern bloc countries was essentially imprisoned, and they slowly but surely were coming to both the knowledge that this was occurring and also a resentment of it. Not only the people of Eastern Europe but its leaders were starting to recognize the impracticality of continuing with the Cold War: these people were embodied by perhaps the most important leader of all, Mikhail Gorbachev. He attempted to introduce reforms into the political system of the USSR and its bloc, but the system was too weak to change and therefore it collapsed. For example, Gorbachev relaxed censorship rules, allowing nationalist (and anti-Soviet) voices to be heard in soviet satellite countries. Economic factors did play a large role in actually bringing about the collapse of the Soviet system at this point, but it was a system ripe for change. By the end of the 1980’s there were severe food shortages of even basic staples such as meat and sugar. A war time system of food cards was introduced in which only a certain amount of food could be issued to any one citizen. The state deficit rose to 120 billion dollars and the futile attempt to match the American arms build-up only exasperated the problems. These economic problems tipped the balance on the Cold War, but co-mingled with numerous other factors in ending the war. ---------------------------------------- References Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 19, 1991. Goldhagen, Daniel. Hitler’s Willing Executioners. Knopf, New York: 1996. Shirer, William. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1960. Shirer, William. Berlin Diary. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1941. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler. Simon and Schuster, New York: 1947. www.wikipedia.org Summary of Answers Hitler’s rise to power Post-WWI German weakness Humiliation of the war/aftermath Economic depression Hitler’s political skills Lack of rivals Organization of the Nazi Party Hitler’s successes and failures SUCCESSES The Final Solution was a partial ‘success’ under his own warped view of the world. Transformation of German economy into success once again Early military victories in WWII Control over Germany FAILURES The Final Solution led to German moral bankruptcy and a guilt it still suffers from. Loss of WWII mainly because of invasion of Russia: perhaps his biggest mistake. Failure to destroy all Jews (again a failure in his warped sense of the word). Lenin’s methods of maintaining his regime Established regime from the chaos surrounding Russia’s departure from WWI. Mixture of political and military skill led to him rising to be leader. He became a catalyst for revolutionary forces that already existed. Secret police, execution of rivals and labor camps maintained him in power. Centralization of power within the state and control of the economy were central to his vision for Russia – these were continued by Stalin. A comparison of the outside influence of Hitler and Mao Mao had won control of China through winning a civil war Hitler controlled Germany through winning an election Both won overseas support through propaganda Mao was more cautious in his influence in foreign countries: he would send advisers whereas Hitler invaded much of Europe. Hitler’s influence faded soon after his death and the loss of WWII but Mao continued to be an inspiration for a long time. Different ideologies in the Cold War One-party state of Communist vision was in direct conflict with the democratic systems of the West. The Communist system attempted to be rigidly stable while the different parties/presidents in the West meant a degree of instability. Communist economic principles envisioned a centralized, controlled economy. Capitalism is not controlled by the government. Germany as the key focus for the beginning of the Cold War Germany was the physical area that the Russian and American armies ended up facing each other over at the end of WWII. Russia and the USA had been ‘allies’ during the war, but were now enemies. America used Germany to stop Russia from sweeping across all of Europe as Stalin had implied he would like to do at the Yalta Conference in 1945. Germany (and Berlin) was divided into four areas to be controlled by the victorious allies. Cuba’s part in the development of the Cold War Geographical position less than 100 miles from America 1956 Castro took over Cuba and immediately espoused Communist principles and open hatred of America. 1961 – Bay of Pigs fiasco in which America abandoned rebels trying to retake Cuba because it did not want direct involvement. Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962: Russia wanted to put nuclear missiles in Cuba – America said no. Closest to nuclear war that the two countries came. Ultimately showed that compromise in the Cold War could still occur. It now represents the “ghost” of the Cold War as one of the few countries that still claims to follow Communist sympathies. The role of the USA in the Cold War after 1970 Proxy war with the USSR through involvement in Vietnam Loss of Vietnam War showed a superpower could be beaten. 1972 visit of Nixon to China showed that pragmatism was starting to occur. The Cold War benefited no-one. American involvement in South/Central America. Supplied rebels in Afghanistan war against USSR. Arms race during the 1980’s led to pressure against Communism, as well as Reagan’s tough policy: “the evil empire” speech etc. Economic problems bringing about end of Cold War Economic problems worked in concert with other factors, not alone. By end of 1980’s there were severe food shortages and re-introduction of war-time rationing. State deficit in Russia rose to 180 billion dollars. Also other factors involved: disillusioned with Communism, Gorbachev sees need for change. Softening of censorship leads to Nationalist sympathies being reborn in Soviet satellite countries. Read More