Second Semester:French Revolution (English Medium)

French Revolution

There were both short term and long term causes that led to the crisis in the Ancien Regime, according to John Merriman. The short term causes in the decades immediately preceding the French Revolution included financial crisis, failed attempts at reform, and the unpopularity of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette as rulers. The long term causes were the growing social and institutional crises of the Regime as well as the intellectual developments and emergence of public opinion following French Enlightenment. The French revolutionaries gave a name to what they had abolished - Ancien Regime, defining less of they had suppressed and more of what they wanted to create - a complete break with the past. Institutional and Social Crisis Under the Ancien Regime, the kings of France were absolute monarchs with supreme power. The king headed all public authority, magistracy, legislation, and was not subject to human laws, but was accountable to God, a greater power. However, over the centuries, certain untouchable custom-based principles had developed: primogeniture, the Catholic faith of the sovereign, respect for the liberty and property of his subjects, the integrity of the royal domain. Under Louis XIV this concept had shifted towards deification of the king himself. Many other elements entered into it, besides the old monarchic doctrine. Attribution of divinity to the king became a factor in the enfeeblement of royalty, seen in his successors - unlike their ancestor, neither Louis XV nor Louis XVI was able to bear the weight of a burden which had become inseparable from their private persons. Further, it was the nature of royalty which changed more rapidly than its image. Dominated by wars and constantly short of money, the monarchy, while attempting to hold onto its power, continued to spread an administrative network throughout the country in order to mobilise men and wealth more effectively. Originally vested with a sort of judicial high office, the king now became the head of a government. His two roles were superimposed, but the second was characteristic of absolutism. Thus, France transitioned from a judicial to financial state in mid-17th c, at the beginning of Louis XIV’s reign. Absolutism weakened the traditional image of monarchy. The kings of France did not build and extend their power over a passive society; on the contrary, they had to negotiate each increase in it. Holding entirely new offices, the king remained the highest lord on the feudal pyramid. The need for money was immense, especially to maintain supremacy in the wars against the Habsburgs, bourbons, and Valois. Money was raised by levying taxes like taille, poll tax and indirect taxes on farmers, and from the privileges and liberties of various social bodies - loans were taken from the clergy, the city government of Paris or the Company of the King’s secretaries in exchange for privileges, the most expensive giving access to the nobility. Aristocratic society thus played the role of a bank for the government, and the monarchy in turn had thus sold off a portion of public power. Thus, alongside the intendant, there emerged a body of state servants who owned their offices. This posed a problem because as these officials enjoyed independence conferred by ownership and were not dismissible, they could potentially resist the king. Also, ennoblement for money introduced into aristocratic society a question of the position of the nobility and what would become of it. The administrative monarchy was an unstable compromise between the construction of a modern state and an aristocratic society remodelled by that state - it uprooted the old nobility by breaking up hierarchies of birth and tradition, reducing them to mere endowments of exemptions and honours, and at the same time separating orders of society into castes by converting them into cash for privilege. The eighteenth century aggravated the tensions of this mixed system of absolute monarchy and aristocratic society. The death of Louis XIV in 1715 had restored independence to society. None of his successors was in a position to control the court or Paris. Everything conspired to enfeeble them: intellectual activity, growth of wealth, public opinion. By ennoblement, the state integrated into the second order the commoners, dangerously exposing its own authority. The 'old' nobility/nobles of the sword, less wealthy than those recently ennobled, resented the fact that provincial parlements were coming to be filled with new nobles/ nobles of the robe, who had purchased offices, consequently shifting power away from them. Despite increasing opposition from old noble families, in the fifteen years before 1789, almost 2,500 families bought their way into the nobility. At the same time, new nobles immediately sought to close behind them this opening into privilege, since proliferation of beneficiaries would devalue what they had acquired. Thus emerged a mania for rank, and as under the Ancien Regime, the state was the parsimonious distributor of rank, it became inseparable from these personal interests, therefore alienating the nobility. Crisis of the nobility was therefore not a result of its decline, but of failure to adjust its relations with the state and redefine its political vocation within the framework of administrative monarchy. These were the origins of the social and political crisis of 18th c France. Neither the French king nor the nobility succeeded in putting forward a policy to unite state and ruling society around a minimum consensus. While Louis XIV had been able to control the process of promotion and unification of elites within a society divided into orders, his successors Louis XV and XVI did not manage to do so. They were torn between the demands of the administrative state and their solidarity with aristocratic society, wavering between clans and cliques of the court, failing to bring them together. These elites eventually settled their internal differences to the detriment of absolutism. This conflict between the aristocracy and monarchy has been called by Lefebvre an aristocratic revolution, forming the basis of the French Revolution. Due to the financial crisis of the Ancien Regime, a number of fiscal and other reforms were implemented by France’s various Controller-Generals of Finance (Shruti). To further understand the social crisis of the Regime, it is important to view the aftermath of these reforms. In 1771, Louis XV carried out reform by exiling the Parlement of Paris and trying to establish new law courts that would likely be more subservient than the parlements. Opponents believed that the king was trying to subvert long-accepted privileges. After Louis XV’s death, Louis XVI reinstated the parlements. However, the step taken by Louis XV was a social revolution, involving the expropriation of an order of society which had been accustomed to hereditary privilege. In this sense, the entire nobility was attacked. The Assembly of Notables retaliated to this and other reforms (e.g. Calonne’s 1787 proposal to elect provincial assemblies without distinction as to order by restriction of their powers, and attack on clergy’s manorial rights; decisions regarding taxes; transfer of power of registration to a ‘plenary court’ of princes and crown officers, and reform of judiciary at the expense of the parlements without abolishing venality; edict announcing a litigant could now refuse to accept the ruling of a manorial court by referring his case to royal tribunals) by supporting its own interests along with liberties of the realm, rights of the nation and the Estates-General. The entrenched hostility of most nobles towards fiscal and social reform was generated by two long-term factors: first, the long-term pressures of royal state-making reduced the nobility’s autonomy; and, secondly, the challenge from a wealthier, more critical bourgeoisie and an openly disaffected peasantry towards aristocratic conceptions of property, hierarchy and social order. The demand for the Estates-General placed the king in a difficult position - noble privileges had to be reduced to solve the financial crisis, but this without their approval would lead to accusations of despotism. However, capitulating to noble demands would compromise absolute authority. In August 1788, Louis XVI announced that he would convoke the Estates-General on May 1 1789, hoping to win support of the Estates-General in imposing new taxes. But the convocation of the Estates-General helped unify public opinion against the king. Further, the question of how voting would take place - would each of the 3 estates have a single vote or would each member of the Estates-General have a vote - remained unanswered. Till now, many commoners had favoured the revolt of the nobility, while others remained neutral. Nothing suggested that bourgeois would take part in events. But news that an Estates-General was to be convened sent a tremor of excitement through the bourgeoisie. As the Parlement of Paris ruled that each of the three estates would have the same number of representatives and be seated separately (voting by estate), the parlements became defenders of privilege, losing the claim to being representatives of liberty and the nation against the king’s despotism. Focus now shifted to the third estate for this, and the crisis now became a war between the third estate and the other two orders. This is regarded as the phase of Bourgeois Revolution by Lefebvre. The "patriot party," a coalition of the bourgeoisie and liberal nobles came up, demanding a predominant role for the third estate in political life, e.g. the Committee of Thirty proposed that the third estate have twice as many representatives in the Estates-General as the nobility and clergy. In December 1788, the king doubled the number of representatives of the third estate. Local assemblies and the first two estates were asked to draw up lists of grievances (cahiers), which the Estates-General would discuss.The bourgeois freely participated in drafting these cahiers, and alongside the nobility, expressed devotion to monarchy in cahiers, while agreeing with them upon the need for liberty. However, class conflict existed. The privileged classes resigned themselves to financial sacrifices but generally opposed voting by head and stipulated that the orders be preserved and privilege and manorial rights be retained, whereas for the Third Estate, equality of rights was inseparable from liberty. On May 5 1789, the Estates-General assembled at Versailles. While the first two estates agreed to verify their powers, the third refused. It refused to constitute itself as a separate order, declaring itself as the National Assembly. The clergy supported the fusing of the three orders, but nobility did not. When attempting to gather for a meeting on 20 June, the third estate’s representatives found their meeting hall closed, leading them to gather in a nearby tennis court, taking an oath to remain united until a constitution was established. Although the king declared these deliberations as invalid, he announced substantial reforms, agreeing to convoke periodically the Estates-General, to abolish taille, corvee, eliminate internal tariffs and tolls that interfered with trade and lettres de cachet. He also agreed that the EstatesGeneral would vote by head, but only on matters that did not concern the ancient and constitutional rights of the three orders. This marked the success of the bourgeois. Intellectual Currents and Public Opinion According to McPhee, the origins of the French Revolution can also be viewed by analysing its ‘political culture’ - the role of symbols, language, and ritual in inventing and transmitting a tradition of revolutionary action. Coinciding with gradual economic change, there were several intellectual challenges to established forms of politics and religion - Enlightenment. Marxist historians, for whom the origins of the Revolution are linked with fundamental economic change, see the Enlightenment as a symptom of a society in crisis, as expressive of the values and frustrations of the middle classes or bourgeoisie. This perspective of the Enlightenment has been contested by other historians, who point to the interest nobles took in new philosophy. According to McPhee and Furet, the Enlightenment could be viewed as the intellectual expression of democratic political culture, expanding notions of political culture and public space by going beyond elite intellectual history to the ‘spaces’ in which ideas were articulated and contested - academies, freemasonry, salons. The real significance of the Enlightenment was as a symptom of crisis of authority and as part of wider political discourse. Well before 1789, the language of ‘citizen’, ‘nation’, ‘social contract’, and ‘general will’ was articulated across French society, clashing with an older discourse of ‘orders’, ‘estates’, and ‘corporations’, emerging from the works of Rousseau, Voltaire and others. The new intellectual realm was the workshop. Apart from its philosophical and literary brilliance, what characterised it was the scale and the forcefulness of condemnation it brought to bear on contemporary life - including the Church and religion. There was a violently anticlerical and antiCatholic side to the philosophy of the French Enlightenment. Cultural changes of 1770s and 80s are evident in the area of social history of Enlightenment - analysis of book trade shows what the reading public wanted. The trade in banned books was crucial, as a whole network of people - printers, booksellers etc., risked imprisonment to profit from public demand. The ribald yet moralistic tone of these publications mocked the Church, nobility, and royal family for its impotence, undermining simultaneously the mystique of those born to rule and their capacity to do so. Just as the Enlightenment was not a unified intellectual crusade which alone undermined the fundamental assumptions of the Old Regime, the Catholic Church was not a monolith which always shored up the power of the monarchy. Long-term religious legacy of Protestant and Jansenist notions of political liberty also challenged ecclesiastical hierarchy. Jansenism, emphasised the miracle of divine Grace in a world given over to sin and engaged in meditation on Grace, contributing to the isolation of the Church in old French society; it had been too insistent on the difficulty of asceticism and too sharply condemned many ministers of religion, like the Jesuits. 18th c Jansenism was subordinate to politics, becoming Gallican and parlementaire, uniting the lowly and great judges against the Church and the king, in the name of rights of the nation. The transformation of this French-style belated Protestantism into a movement for national liberties, according to Furet, suggests the secularisation of public mentality. Alongside the Church, the other great culprit was absolute monarchy, incapable of appearing before the court of reason - not monarchy as an institution per se, but that particular monarchy, encumbered with prejudices, the distributor of arbitrary privileges, reigning over a state filled with vestiges of feudalism. Features that came after feudalism - privileges bestowed by the king in return for loans, corporate structure of society, a nobility largely uprooted from the land and defined by the state, for instance - were included in the overall condemnation of not only a 'feudal monarchy', but an ‘administrative despotism'. Royalty, which was too modern for what it had preserved of the traditional, and too traditional for what it already had in modern administration, became scapegoat for an increasingly independent society, which was still bound to the government, deprived of political rights and representation, trying to work out its autonomy in terms of government by reason. In spite of attempts to control opinion under Louis XV, the monarchy lost authority over opinion: it no longer obtained consent for its actions, or imposed arbitration on the burning questions of the hour - the struggle of Jansenists and parlements with the Church, fiscal reform etc. Paris, especially, produced an ever-increasing number of pamphlets and debates, dominated by writers, orchestrated by the salons and cafes. The crown followed trend - it bought defenders, paid writers, financed pamphlets and argued its cause before the new public tribunal, i.e., public opinion. Thus, it was the increasing prevalence of the ideas of Enlightenment, stressing equality before law and differentiating between absolute and despotic rule, placing the monarchy under close scrutiny of public opinion. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were highly unpopular rulers - Louis XVI was solitary, graceless, lacking in the ability to communicate and react. He was the most unpopular member of his family, a psychological misfortune which distanced him from his grandfather and the task of kingship. This was furthered by a failure of his youth i.e. his failure to consummate his marriage to Marie Antoinette for seven years, making him an object of mockery, and his wife the butt of various rumours of promiscuity. Marie Antoinette, as a queen, foreigner and woman, was an easy target for public opinion. Although Louis was ill-equipped to deal with the mounting problems of the time, according to Michelet, the drama of French monarchy had already been played out, and by the time Louis XVI came to power, monarchy was dead.

Napoleon

Napoleon’s rise to power in France when seen in the context of French Revolution we can discern a clear growth from the ranks of military to the emperor of France in 1804. He favoured the revolution for three reasons : he wanted to see a curtailment of the abuses of the Old regime, hoped that revolution might end Corsica ‘s status within France a little more than just the conquered territory, and thought the revolution might provide him with an opportunity for promotion. In 1796, the directors made Napoleon commander of the army of Italy and proved himself as a successful military leader after his campaigns in Italy and Egypt.  While he was conducting military and foreign policies ,Sieyes was plotting to overthrow the directory . Napoleon with the coup d’etat of the 18th Brumaire along with Sieyes overthrew the Directory. With the fall of the directory in 1799, Napoleon became the first consul with strong executive authority in the hands of 3 consuls.

The victors in the coup d’etat faced a nation in economic, political, religious, and moral disarray. Financers hesitated to invest in the securities of a government that had been so often overturned. The map of Europe had already undergone noticeable change, and the expansion of French territory to the ‘natural frontiers’ had clearly upset European equilibrium. A social conflict existed between the privileged classes and the bourgeoisie. A political conflict existed also because royal despotism, like privilege, had been condemned, and kings, having taken the aristocracy under their protection, ventured the risk of perishing with it. Finally, there was also a religious conflict due to a Church divided. Public spirit, which in 1789 had risen to rare heights of patriotism and courage, was dying in a people weary of revolution and war, skeptical of every leader, and cynical of its own hopes.

In such a situation, the consulate came up with various reforms. A council of state whose members were appointed by the first consul, would propose legislation and a legislative body would vote on the laws but could not debate them. The plebiscite became a fundamental Napoleonic political institution embodying the principle of “ authority from above, confidence from below”. The consulate provided political stability by institutionalizing strong executive authority. 

In local administration, the Consulate reversed the practice of the Revolution, and returned to the centralization of the Bourbon monarchy. By the law passed in 1790, the old provinces of France were replaced by new administrative areas called the Departments. This had deprived the Central government of any effective control over the elected local authorities. By a new law now passed in 1800, the elective principle was done away with. Each district ( department) received an appointed Prefect whose powers were delegated by the central government in Paris .  The prefects exercised in their own sphere ample executive authority. The powers of these provincial units were severely curtailed. The idea behind such a system was at one level to increase centralization of power, while at the same time keeping local level officials busy enough so as not to interfere in political affairs.

Napoleon made peace with the Catholic Church bringing it under state supervision. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1791 had provoked a religious schism. A minority of the bishops and a majority of the clergy accepted the Constitution; the remainder became non-jurors and émigrés, and were suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. All bishops and clergy were required to take an oath of fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king and of support to the Civil Constitution.  The Civil Constitution had been condemned by the Pope as un-canonical, because it subjected the bishops and the clergy to popular election. Pius VII , The successor of Pope Pius VI was eager to end a decade of religious turmoil . In 1801 Napoleon signed a Concordat with the papacy declaring Catholicism as the religion of the majority of citizens in france. The Pope would henceforth appoint new bishops but on the recoomendation of the first Consul . The Church also abandoned all claims to those church lands that had been sold off as national property during the revolution. The Concordat restored the Catholic influence in france which was reflected in an increase in religious observance and number of people entering clergy. Significance of sundays and religious holidays were reestablished .

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Having secured the agreement, Napoleon proceeded to distort it in his own interest by issuing Organic Articles. By these supplementary Organic Articles Napoleon tried to turn the Concordat into the instrument of a new and stronger Gallicanism ( a movement advocating administrative independence from papacy ) . Through the 77 Organic Articles the Church was subordinated to the State in every practicable way. For instance, no papal bull was allowed to be published without the permission of the government and bishops were placed under close control of the prefects. The Vatican to protested against the Organic Articles, but was powerless to so anything. Cobban points out that while the Concordat seemed to be a victory for Napoleon, in spite of this, he failed to obtain any permanent religious sanction for his rule. On the contrary, the Concordat did much to discredit Gallicanism and strengthen the ultramontane ( advocation of supreme papal authority) tendencies in the French Church.

The reason behind the Concordat was not simply to return to the Old Catholic order. This act was motivated by a number of tactical and strategic factors as well. Napoleon was aware of the importance of religion and knew that the peasants were still obstinately attached to their churches and their priests . Napoleon hoped too that through a religious settlement with the Vatican he could check the Civil War smoldering in the Vendee and Brittany. Napoleon also knew that émigré bishops were still very influential among the French clergy and to destroy their influence the Pope’s authority was required. Also, in newly acquired areas like Belgium and the Rhineland, the support of the local clergy was required. Another factor was that with the large-scale transfer of Church lands in the Revolution, a Concordat would also assure the new owners of Church land that it would not be reclaimed by the Church. Hence, pragmatism became the motivating factor behind this policy. One might argue that the Church settlement was a violation of Revolutionary ideals, but we need to remember that while the Church had been physically destroyed, its influence in the minds of the people was immense. Also, protecting the newly distributed Church lands was definitely not a violation of the ideal of equality.

Administrative reforms were introduced in the realm of finances, and it was in this area that centralization scored its first success. Napoleon’s first act was to deprive local officials of the power to assess and in part collect direct taxes, reserving this responsibility for agents of the central government. He established the Bank of France in 1800, which facilitated the state’s ability to borrow money. He abandoned the inflated paper money of the revolution stabilizing France’s currency. He facilitated the assessment and collection of taxes by ordering a land survey of the entire country.

The new Civil Code was promulgated as a law on March 21, 1804, under the title Civil Code of the French People, and later renamed as the Code Napoleon in 1807. The division in French law between the written Roman law in the South and customary law based upon regional and local traditions in the north was solved by the Civil Code of 1804 . The code was egalitarian in nature and granted freedom of religion. Through this code, the rights of the property owners were made sacrosanct. Family was given prime status between the state and the individual and reaffirmed the patriarchal nature of the traditional family. George Lefebvre remarks that the Code was  dual in character. On the one hand it adopted the social principle of 1789: the liberty of the individual, equality before the law, secularization of the state, freedom of conscience, and freedom to choose one’s profession. However on the other hand, the Code also confirmed the reaction against the democratic accomplishments of the Republic. Conceived in the interests of the bourgeoisie, it was concerned primarily with consecrating and sanctifying the rights of property, which it regarded as a natural right.

Army and Bureaucracy were the two pillars of the empire. Napoleon brought in the system of Legion of Honor rewarding those who served him well with titles and lucrative positions. He restored titles of the old regime -prince, duke, count, baron and chevalier but instead pf being hereditatry rather were awarded for the service to the state.

Napoleon paid much attention to the question of education, because of his need for trained officers and civil servants. The Revolution had produced grandiose schemes on paper for free state education, but by 1800 primary education had sunk to a level lower than in 1789. The Revolutionary assemblies had set up ecoles centrales or County secondary schools. Napoleon did not like these county schools. He believed that the education they provided was too liberal and detached from political and civic utilities. Like Voltaire Napoleon believed that to educate the poor was politically and socially inconvenient. Secondary institutions were patterned on the Prytanee, which was one of the few old schools preserved by the Revolution. But Napoleon’s distinctive creation was the lycee a selective secondary school for the training of leader and administrators, with a militarily strict and secular curriculum and with its direction reserved to the state alone. There were to be forty-five lycees in which 2400 places would be reserved for sons of officers and civil servants. In 1808, a constitution for a ‘University of France’ was produced. Education for girls was sidelined and not given much limelight and were thought to be better brought up by their mothers.

Lefebvre believed that Napoleon by 1802 had in his heart broken with the Republic and with the notion of equality. The reforms of the Consulate, considered as a whole, look both ways. From one aspect, they are a continuation of the Revolution; from another, a surreptitious return to the institutions of the Bourbon monarchy. They confirmed and secured the national gains of in equality, legal and administrative unity, the career open to talents etc. In this sense Napoleon’s claim to represent the Revolution is justified.

Napoleon was a despot, often enlightened, often hastily absolute. Napoleon preferred monarchy to all other forms of government even to defending hereditary kingship. He said, “There are more chances of securing a good sovereign by heredity than by election.”  He did not feel that he had destroyed democracy. He felt that he had destroyed the liberty of the masses, but that liberty was destroying France with mob violence and moral license, and only the restoration and concentration of authority could restore the strength of France as a civilized and independent state. Like the reforming despots of the eighteenth century, Napoleon pursued, behind a façade of humanitarian pretexts, the basic program of administrative consolidation.

British Democratic Politics

Evolution of British Parliamentary democracy during the 19th and 20th century

During the 19th century, elements such as particular constitutional conventions, organizational and ideological aspects, a sense of pragmatic necessity, clearly defined positions on key issues, individual talent, collective ‘party’ effort and the growth of popular influence all became essential features of the British political system. My essay shall trace the reforms that took place during the 19th and 20th century that set Britain on the path of democracy and the extent to which these reforms were successful in democratizing British polity.

 

The working of the British Constitution involved a balance between the three pure forms of government, namely the monarchy, the aristocracy and democracy, which were represented by the Crown, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, respectively. The upper house was largely composed of landlords, who lived in cities and drew their income from landed estates. The Lower House was populated mostly by smaller landlords and members of the country gentry; there were also a few members of the mercantile and professional classes. The two major political parties were the Whigs and the Tory, both of which were were aristocratic factions, not mass-organized grassroots parties.  At the 1807 general election ‘Tories’ were defenders of court, church and established institutions, and ‘Whigs’ were advocates of greater civil and religious liberty. They essentially represented two different political perspectives or attitudes: one could be a Whig on one issue, Tory on another, even up until the latter half of the 19th century. Members were often related to each other through ties of blood and marriage. Further, they had a framework of shared existence – there was consensus on key issues such as the parliamentary system, opposition to popular democracy (seen as mob rule), emphasis on land as the basis of wealth and social standing, etc.

Three major reforms in 1832, 1867 and 1884 and two in the 20th century – 1918 and 1928 were carried out which not only led to the widening of the franchise, but also a change in the balance of power between the Crown and the parliament and within the parliament between the House of Lords and House of Commons.

The clamour for reform began in the late 18th century itself when the loss of America was blamed on corruption as well as the persistence of aristocratic and royal influence in government. The mass petitioning movement it inspired had as its goal a House of Commons that was independent and members who were accountable to voters. The outbreak of the French Revolution drew further attention towards the question of reform. In the events of 1789, Britons saw the reflection of their own political system and consequently cried for change, ushering in an unprecedented era of popular political participation and agitation. Those who raised the reform question were the middle and working classes who rallied together in clubs, associations and societies. However, when reform finally came in 1832, it was brought about by the efforts of Whig aristocrats, not working-class radicals, although it is true that popular pressure greased the wheels. French Revolution and the war with France were the very events that did not work in reformers’ favour since anti-reformers in Westminster and loyalists across the country painted reform with the broad brush of revolution, and the Whigs had abandoned the issue.

 

Reform was not a single ideology by any means. There were those who proposed a moderate alteration of the electoral system which would involve an increase in county seats, the abolition of ‘rotten boroughs’, and the establishment of a standard property qualification. Whig reformers did not desire democracy: a political system in which everyone could vote secretly and without a property qualification was inconceivable to them. There were others who had a more radical vision including universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, the secret ballot and

payment of MPs. If reformers had anything in common, however, it was the belief that patronage, aristocratic and royal influence, and corruption had to be reduced or rooted out. Each county sent two members to parliament, and the county franchise rested on freehold land or property valued at 40 shillings or more. The main problem was that the county representation was not linked to population size, so even though a majority of English voters resided in counties, only 16 per cent of parliamentary seats were in fact county seats. The other type of seat, the borough, was equally rife with problems. Some of the largest boroughs such as Manchester and Birmingham did not return any members to parliament. The problem was all the more glaring in light of the fact that boroughs with smaller populations returned members to parliament eg. Old Sarum with 7 voters. Boroughs also had a wide variety of franchise qualifications but the most problematic, however, was the nomination from boroughs which were the property of a local landowner, a member of government or the crown. Candidates were simply nominated by the landowner, contested elections were rare, and voters were often bound to approve the nominated candidate. The inherent problems of the system of representation were exacerbated by the high cost of electioneering, because of which middle classes were unable to contest elections.

 

The Great Reform Act of 1832 was the culmination of several significant elements, the first of which was a climate of change in early-nineteenth-century Britain. This climate of change corresponded with the second element of a series of political crises from 1829 to 1832. Bad harvests, high prices and unemployment created massive social unrest in 1829, including significant strikes in the textile industry in Manchester and Oldham and agricultural riots in Norwich, as well as mass petitioning by citizens in Spitalfields, Manchester, Stockport and Coventry.

 

The Great Reform Act made major changes to the electoral system even while it retained many anomalies. The framers of the Act wanted to eliminate some of the abuses of the unreformed system without undermining the central role of property, to balance the composition of the House of Commons, and to integrate public opinion under propertied leadership. The Act enfranchised sixty-five new counties while disenfranchising fifty-six boroughs, while thirty boroughs lost one seat. The householder franchise in the boroughs was standardized at £10 per annum. In the counties, the qualification was set for property worth was further lowered (at least 40 shillings, copyholds worth at least £10, and leased or rented property at £50 per annum). Scotland and Ireland received 8 and 5 seats respectively, with the borough and county franchises for both countries at £10 (for property-holders and leaseholders). The Act also restricted the polling period from fifteen days to two and required registration of voters in all constituencies. By establishing a standard householder franchise that required residency of a minimum of one year, the Act’s framers hoped to weed out nonresident voters, limit influence and establish a respectable voting force that would be resistant to bribery.

 

Older accounts treated the Act as a timely concession to popular pressure and a Whig party manoeuvre designed to weaken the Tories, but since the 1960s there have been many alternative interpretations. One of the most notable is that of D. C. Moore, who argues that the Reform Act was designed to revive electoral deference. This was achieved, Moore claims, by depriving the unpropertied of voting rights, clearly distinguishing county from borough constituencies, excluding middle-class influence from counties, and reinforcing landed influence by giving the counties more parliamentary seats. Moore’s interpretation has been questioned on a number of points. Eastwood suggests that rural voters were less pliant, and county politics more complex and Parry has pointed out that counties continued to have large urban electorates after 1832. F. O’Gorman questions Moore’s assumptions about deference. It appears, therefore, that there was no master plan, and the fact that neither PM Grey’s cabinet nor the Whig party was really united on reform also tells against Moore’s thesis.

 

D. Beales has argued that redistribution of seats was far more important to the framers of the Reform Act than expansion of the electorate. L. Mitchell’s interpretation of reform underlines this point. For Mitchell reform was part of the old struggle against the crown. Senior Whigs believed that liberty and property were inseparable and that more influence for property would impede executive tyranny. Hence their main purpose in 1832 was to increase the political power of property by redistributing seats, disfranchising ‘rotten’ boroughs and revising borough voting rights. Meanwhile James Vernon asserts that reform enabled the elite narrowly to define ‘the people’ as propertied men and thereby contributed to a political closure. He points to ‘democratic losses’ experienced after 1832, though these should be balanced against the undoubted gains in terms of political influence for non-elite interests. Phillips has examined the importance of 1832 in promoting new types of political organization, registration drives, party cohesion, the rise of urban and industrial influence, and a higher number of electoral contests.

 

This was a remarkable change, although anti-reformers at the time, and historians since, have argued that the Reform Act left much unchanged. The size of constituencies still varied a great deal, with some boroughs having electorates of less than 300 and some towns remaining unrepresented, despite their growth in population. Regional variation in property values would qualify some householders but disqualify others. Most important, great landowners continued to exert influence over who was returned to parliament, just as those who sat in the House of Commons were similar to those who sat before 1832. The politics of influence remained important in many places.

 

Despite the continuities between the unreformed and reformed electoral system, the Great Reform Act was, in the larger scheme of things, monumentally important and transformative, particularly in three areas: partisanship, participation and public opinion. Partisanship increased greatly as a result of the 1832 Act. Increased partisanship coincided with increased political participation. The presence and influence of local political clubs and a partisan provincial press only increased in the years around reform and, owing to the requirement to register voters, the increase of county seats, the enfranchisement of new towns and the increasing political awareness of the electorate, political parties had to organize and work more efficiently in their constituencies than ever before. Local party agents became increasingly busy and important, and the use of party labels, colours and partisan terminology went hand in hand with national political issues.

 

The 1830s and 1840s were dominated by the Chartist Movement, which grew out of frustrations with the failure of the earlier trade union movement and the very conservative Reform Act of 1832. The famous ‘People’s Charter’ of 1838 enumerated the six main demands of this movement: universal male suffrage, election by secret ballot, abolition of property qualifications for MPs, payment of salaries to MPs, equal electoral districts and annual Parliamentary elections. These demands were taken up by workers of the industrial districts, especially in London, Birmingham and Leeds, and the movement became much more radical, particularly in times of economic discontent. The three peaks of Chartist activity were in 1839, 1847 and 1848. The movement didn’t really talk of a violent overthrow of the state; in fact in practise, the movement was basically parliamentary in nature, since it took the form most often of petitions to the Parliament; these were rejected all three times. This movement tended to die out during times of economic stability. With the rejection of its petitions, the leadership generally couldn’t resolve the problem of what to do next. Eventually the Chartist movement became a spent force by the late 1840s and 1850s, with a tendency to move away from street politics towards more institutionalised forms of agitation, through channels such as the trade unions and collective bargaining.

The parliamentary reform party of the mid-Victorian era was a motley crew of philosophic radicals, independent Liberals, radicals and members of the ‘Manchester School’ such as Cobden and Bright, who kept alive the traditional reformist argument that interest and corruption plagued the electoral system and that only a further extension of the franchise could provide an adequate remedy. The demand for democracy received a further thrust from the debates over the American civil war, which was seen by the British lower classes as a war for democracy, especially since the upper orders supported the Confederate cause.

 

The two stands – Liberal and Conservative – were personified in the figures of William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli respectively. Gladstone represented the rising mercantile and industrial section of the ruling elite. He saw politics as a moral crusade. He argued that the vote should be given to the relatively skilled and prosperous workers, as a reward for the increasing ‘sobriety’ of their behaviour. Disraeli, on the other hand, stood for the older, land-owning aristocratic section of the ruling elite. He viewed politics as essentially an irrational affair, and romanticised many British institutions such as the Crown, Parliament, and aristocracy as preserving Britain’s ‘liberty’. He saw the extension of the vote as a manifestation of aristocratic benevolence, with the aim of rallying the masses around the existing institutions. Both were speaking of parliamentary reform in the 1850s and 1860s.

 

Thus, the second Reform Act was passed in 1867 by Disraeli. This extended the right to vote urban working men, nearly doubling the electorate.  Although it also had redistribution clauses, in sum the old balance was maintained, in which the south and west of Britain were over-represented.  The Second Reform Act had a significant impact upon the political nation as a whole, and that included the unenfranchised as well as the franchised. The political weight of the electorate increased greatly as a result of Disraeli’s bill, as the future of ministries now would be determined as much by the behaviour of electors as by political events in Westminster. The major parties understood these developments and responded accordingly. The Conservatives already had their National Union, and Joseph Chamberlain followed suit by forming the National Liberal Federation in 1877. Local political organization became deeply important to success at the polls. This increase in local political temperature could also be gauged by the rise of party-sponsored political clubs and formal constituency associations, which often had memberships running into the thousands, as well as by the increased presence of trade unions and trades councils, skilled workers’ associations and temperance societies, which involved the activity of non-voters.

 

The third reform of the franchise in the nineteenth century did not make Britain a pure democracy but made the electoral system equitable, consistent, and wide enough to include agricultural labourers and two out of every three adult males. The 1880s, in terms of Britain’s political structure, marked the real watershed. The electoral system created by the series of acts collectively known as the ‘Third Reform Act’, which virtually sounded the death knell for an old order dominated by the aristocracy. To a great extent, change was already under way. In 1872, Gladstone’s government had granted the secret ballot, fulfilling the longstanding dreams of radicals and reformers. Its rationale was that only a secret ballot could ensure the purity of elections and protect voters against corruption, bribery and the intimidation of elites, landowners, local party associations, trade unions and other sources of pressure.

 

The assault on election expenses came with the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883. This Act codified rules for electoral conduct, making corruption, bribery and treating punishable by imprisonment and limiting election expenses to roughly £1,000 for every 5,000 voters. The Act also provided for public inspections of candidates’ accounts to ensure adherence to the law. The assault on the traditional constitution came with the Representation of the People Act of 1884 and the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885. The Franchise Act removed the traditional distinctions between the towns and the counties. It also contained a lodger franchise set at £10 with twelve months’ residency and an occupation franchise with lands or tenements worth £10 per annum. The electorate of Great Britain grew from roughly 2.6 million in 1883 to 4.4 million in 1886. More than 60 per cent of all adult males now had the right to vote. Britain was not a pure democracy; the franchise was still based on a connection to property, not all working-class males qualified, and anomalies remained. It is imp to note that the First and Second Reform Acts were necessary, but in the long run both kept the traditional representative system largely intact. The Third Act precipitated the dismantling of that system.

 

James Vernon argues that politics became less participatory after the reforms. Newspapers became cheaper and more widely available, so that communal reading and discussion were superseded by home-based, privatized reading. The Ballot Act of 1872 privatized the act of voting. Political assemblies moved indoors and admittance was restricted to those with entry tickets. All this, Vernon concludes, amounted to a political ‘closure’.

 

There were gains as well as losses for participatory politics: expansion of the electorate, opportunities for non-elite interests to shape policy, direct representation for large towns which had only been represented as part of their respective counties before 1832, and the continued ability of non-voters to be politically active in extra-parliamentary associations and, at election time, to influence outcomes through such means as exclusive dealing. Despite these developments, however, it should be recognized that in some respects political transformation proceeded very slowly. Hoppen finds that parliamentary reform had no significant impact on British politics until after 1884–5. Till then, elections carried on much as before. Local issues often predominated, candidates and their backers still had to spend a lot of money to win contests, and in many places elections continued to give rise to customary rowdiness and violence.

 

The final phase in the evolution of B.P.D. can be seen as lasting from 1885 onwards till 1928. An important development was the decline of the old Liberal party, and its replacement by the Labour Party in the two-party dominated system. This was accompanied by a strengthening of the Conservative Party. Important Acts in this phase include the Local Governments Acts of 1888 and 1894, which applied the principle of democratisation to rural areas, which had been applied to the urban areas by the Municipal Acts some 50 years ago. Especially significant was the Parliament Act of 1911, which dealt with the residual powers of the House of Lords. This House lost all power over money bills, and kept only a suspensory veto of two sessions over other bills. Also, the maximum time between Parliamentary elections was reduced to five years. In 1918, the Representation of People Act gave universal franchise for all males above 21 years of age, and finally gave the vote to women; atleast, to women over the age of 30 who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 or graduates of British universities. This inequality was removed by the 1928 Equal Franchise Act, which provided for universal adult franchise above the age of 21.

                                           

 The Industrial Revolution

The period 1815-1914 was one of extraordinary economic transformation, a time when a number of developed countries underwent the process of industrialization. Hobsbawm calls the Industrial Revolution “the most important event in the world history, at any rate since the invention of agriculture and cities”.  

 

Industrial revolution was no doubt initiated by Britain. Many factors contributed to the development of industrialization in Britain in the latter part of the 18th century. Britain produced many technological inventions. Some of the important patents taken out in 1760s and 70s were Arkwright’s water frame, Hargreaves’ spinning jenny, Crompton’s mule and James Watt’s steam engine. In 1780s Cartwright’s power loom and Cort’s iron puddling process were patented. These technological changes had immediate consequences for the cotton and iron industries and long-term consequences for manufacturing industry and transport system.

 

There was a three and a half percent increase in the population of England and Wales between 1741 and 1751. The rate of growth accelerated to about 7 percent in the 1750s to 1770s. This rate of population growth in the context of a pre-industrial economy would normally have resulted in a decline of product per head, as population grew faster than national output. However, output managed to keep pace with population growth not because of industrial output but due to agricultural output. Agriculture thus played a significant role as the source of raw materials to the bulk of manufacturing industry.

 

There was a significant expansion of the English economy by 1770. This expansion was achieved partly through a slow improvement of techniques by the more progressive farmers, but more by an extension of cultivated land.

 

Overseas trade played a significant role in the development of English economy. Earlier exports had been dominated by woolen goods but England, by the middle of the 18th century, began to sell a diversity of domestic manufactures to new markets in America, Africa, India and Far East. Between 1789 and 1848 Europe and America were flooded with British exports which included steam engines, cotton machinery, and investments.

 

The role of cotton industry and investment has been traditionally stressed by historians which, according to them, brought about the British industrial revolution.  After the East India Company seized political power in 1757, India became a market for Lancashire cottons. According to Hobsbawm, this was not merely a great achievement of Lancashire mills but a major landmark in world history. Historically so far Europe had imported more form the East than she had exported, namely calicoes, silks, jewels and spices but cotton cloth from Lancashire reversed this relationship. This great expansion of overseas trade opened up new economic opportunities for the English industry and paved the way for rapid industrialization.

 

The changes in economic organization also had a great impact. These were of two kinds: firstly, the change from a self-sufficient family-based unit of production to the impersonal capitalistic market-oriented form of enterprise, employing specialized labour and costly equipment; secondly, the evolution of an international market.

 

There was also a development of the ‘putting-out’ system in the textile industry, whereby the merchants supplied the working materials and intermediate products and marketed the finished goods. The marked improvements in the internal system of communications, such as roads, rivers, canals, the extension of the international market to almost all English manufacturers and the development of specialized commercial and financial institutions was all significant features of the period. Construction of major railways connecting the larger cities and towns began in the 1830s but only gained momentum at the very end of the first Industrial Revolution.

 

The major change in the metal industries during the era of the Industrial Revolution was the replacement of organic fuels based on wood with fossil fuel based on coal. In the Iron industry, coke was finally applied to all stages of iron smelting, replacing charcoal. This had been achieved much earlier for lead and copper as well as for producing pig iron in a blast furnace, but the second stage in the production of bar iron depended on the use of potting and stamping (for which a patent expired in 1786) or puddling (patented by Henry Cort in 1783 and 1784).

 

The fact that these factors developed to this extent in England explains the timing of the industrial revolution and why it first came to England.

 

In France the Industrial Revolution was not original but largely imported from England. This is not to underestimate the originality of French inventions such as Jacquard’s loom, Thimonneir’s sewing machine, Berthollet’s chlorine bleacher. However, it must be admitted that the basic technique was of English inspiration. The spontaneity associated with a revolution cannot be found in France, because the prototype was derived from abroad. The French monarchy made efforts to attract English specialists such as Milne, Holker, Wilkinson and others or by the missions of French businessmen to England to try to penetrate the industrial secrets of the country.

 

The American historian Louis Dunham dates the maturity of the French Industrial Revolution from 1860 onwards. Rostow, in his ‘Stages of Economic Growth’, places the ‘take off’ time for industrial revolution in France between 1830 and 1860, thus reaching almost the same conclusion as Dunham. In Maurice Levy-Leboyer’s view, the French economy in the 19th century was dominated by the progress of industry and the relative decline of agriculture did not handicap the economy. In Crouzet’s view, industrial growth appeared to be relatively slow in the pre-1830 period. In his view, the most intensive period of industrialization was achieved under the authoritarian Empire (1850-1860). Stagnation set in during the last quarter of the 19th century, with the vigorous revival at the beginning of the 20th century.

 

The political evolution worked against the development of a phenomenon which had shown itself in the 18th century with the adoption of machines which had come from England and the interest shown by the monarchy in the industrialization of the country.

 

The outbreak of the Revolution interrupted the first phase of industrialization. The French position was further weakened because of the loss of her colonial empire. Cut off from the world outside, France also lost contact with technical progress. The creation of a continental market during the Napoleonic era could not compensate for the loss of colonies. The “national catastrophe” for the French economy represented by the Revolution and twenty years of war caused irreparable harm.

 

After 1815 France experienced a long period of peace which was beneficial to economic growth. The State favoured development of transport, roads, canals and railways, what previous governments had not been able to achieve because of war expenditure.

 

The slow expansion of elementary education was also a handicap to industrialization. However, the percentage of illiterates declined after 1815 but distribution of education remained unequal between regions. The regions with established educational record were those which contributed most to industrialization.

 

Population in France increased by about 40% at the end of the century and continued to increase in the 19th century. However, France, through the 19th century, remained predominantly rural in contrast to Britain and Germany. The fact that the bulk of the population lived in the country proved to be a handicap to industrialization with most of the countryside cut off from urban areas. The prosperity of French rural society in contrast with other western countries largely explains the weak and late development of industrial revolution in France. It was the combination of roads and railways, after 1850, and perhaps more after 1870, that more regions were opened up to trade.

 

Banking system was well-established by the end of the 18th century which testifies to the growing wealth of France. Capital began to be directed towards industrial enterprises. However, the movement of investment into industry ceased from 1790 to the first years of the Empire. The Napoleonic government tried to revive it by creating a stable currency, based on gold, and by founding a central bank, the Bank of France.  

 

French foreign commerce trebled from 1830s to 1860s. In 1870 French industry was using five times as much horse power than it had used in 1851 and three times as much coal was being consumed. Iron produced an output of five thousand tons a year in 1836, which was raised to 133,000 tons by 1867. Thus by the end of the 19th century the spread of industries became possible due to the conjunction of several factors such as unification of home market by railways, use of new techniques in metallurgy, among other sectors and the development of foreign competition.

 

However, the slow pace of industrial revolution in France led her to develop a noticeable backwardness in comparison with other economic powers such as Germany, United States, Japan and Russia which became striking by the middle of the 20th century.

 

The timing of the German industrial revolution differed from that of its western and eastern neighbours. Two factors primarily responsible for the special nature of the German development were the geographical and historical conditions of the country and the fact that German industrialization was derived and not autonomous.

 

Until the 19th century Germany did not possess an integrated territory with an economic and administrative centre. The lack of political unity led to a great confusion of currencies, customs, weights and measures. Even the Customs Union, Zollverein, was no substitute for complete political and economic unity. Furthermore, areas rich in mineral deposits, such as the Ruhr and Silesian coalfields, were on the edges of the country and were too remote from the centres of population. Germany’s north seaports were too far from the Atlantic to compete successfully with Dutch and British commerce until steamships reduced the importance of this factor.

 

Political unification in 1871 contributed to economic progress. However, unification was not a “necessary” condition for progress because politically and economically Prussia on her own had been strong enough since 1866 for sustained growth. 

 

Economic progress in Britain exerted a profound influence on the German evolution. Many Germans visited Britain towards the end of the 18th and in the 19th centuries to study the innovations and transmit their newly acquired knowledge to Germany. British capital goods were especially important in the development of German industry. For instance, German railways from 1835 onwards were largely equipped with British engines, wagons and rails.

 

The start of railway building in Germany was another important development. By the Law of 1838 the government regulated its construction work. During 1840s and 50s railways emerged as the most important carrier of long distance bulk products, for example in transportation of coal. A large number of canals were also built and roads were improved.

 

Industrial investment took the lead after 1870. The share of total net investment in every kind of industry rose form 14% in the early 1850s to more than 50% at the end of the 19th century. There was a rapid development of economy of various sectors such as mining and agriculture. However, coal did not overtake wood as a source of power till 1860. Iron mining was widely dispersed. The Saar district, Upper Silesia, Ruhr and Alsace-Lorraine (after 1871) became new centres of iron mining and smelting.

 

Textile industry prospered after 1873. In heavy industry, such as steel, Germany forged ahead of Britain by 1900 by as much as 300%. According to Hoffmann and Wagenfuhr all manufacturing industry expanded from 1850 to 1930 by almost 3.8%. In contrast metal production, especially iron and steel, metallic manufacture, paper making, the chemical industry and gas, and electricity supply grew much faster.

 

Capital in Germany was raised for the foundation and extension of industrial enterprise. The emergence of cartels reinforced the influence of banks and weakened the financial role of the merchants. The big German banks, such as the Deutsche Bank, often exerted a direct influence on the business decisions of industrial firms. They were centres of ‘business decision-making’. From 1871-1914 economic factors alone ensured that Germany was to emerge as the most powerful state in Europe.

 

Thus, the Industrial Revolution enabled the European states to emerge as technically advanced modernized nations.

American Industrialisation

The industrial growth that began in the United States in the early 1800's continued steadily up to and through the American Civil War. o Still, by the end of the war, the typical American industry was small. o Hand labour remained widespread, limiting the production capacity of industry. o Most businesses lacked the capital needed for business expansion.  After the Civil War, however, American industry changed dramatically. o Machines replaced hand labour as the main means of manufacturing, increasing the production capacity of industry tremendously. o A new nationwide network of railways distributed goods far and wide. o Inventors developed new products the public wanted, and businesses made the products in large quantities. o Investors and bankers supplied the huge amounts of money that business leaders needed to expand their operations.  The industrial growth centred chiefly on the North. The war-torn South lagged behind the rest of the country economically.  America's role in foreign affairs also changed during the late 1800's and early 1900's. The country built up its military strength and became a world power.  The value of goods produced by American industry increased almost tenfold between 1870 and 1916. Many interrelated developments contributed to this growth.  Improved production methods: o The use of machines in manufacturing spread throughout American industry after the Civil War. o With machines, workers could produce goods many times faster than they could by hand. o The new large manufacturing firms hired hundreds, or even thousands, of workers. o Each worker was assigned a specific job in the production process. This system of organizing labourers, called the division of labour, also sped up production.  Development of new products: Inventors created, and business leaders produced and sold, a variety of new products. o The products included:  typewriter (1867),  barbed wire (1874),  telephone (1876),  phonograph (early form of record player) (1877),  electric light (1879),  petrol engine car (1885).  Natural resources: o America's rich and varied natural resources played a key role in the rise of big business. o The nation's abundant water supply helped power the industrial machines. o Forests provided timber for construction and wooden products. o Miners took large quantities of coal and iron ore from the ground.  A growing population: o More than 25 million immigrants entered the United States between 1870 and 1916. o As American wages were much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. o The rapid expansion of industrialisation led to real wage growth of 60% between 1860 and 1890, spread over ever increasing labor force. o Immigration plus natural growth caused the U.S. population to more than double during the same period, rising from about 40 million to about 100 million.  Distribution and communication: o In the late 1800's, the American railway system became a nationwide transportation network. o The total distance of all railway lines in operation in the United States soared from about 14,500 kilometres in 1850 to almost 320,000 kilometres in 1900. o A high point in railway development came in 1869, when workers laid tracks that joined the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railways near Ogden, Utah.  This event marked the completion of the world's first transcontinental railway system.  The system linked the United States by rail from coast to coast.  Mining companies used them to ship raw materials to factories over long distances quickly. o Manufacturers distributed their finished products by rail to points throughout the country. The railways became highly profitable businesses for their owners. o In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. These developments, along with the telegraph, provided the quick communication that is vital to the smooth operation of big business.  Investment and banking: o The business boom triggered a sharp increase in investments in the stocks and bonds of corporations. o As businesses prospered, people eager to share in the profits invested heavily. Their investments provided capital that companies needed to expand their operations. o New banks sprang up throughout the country. Banks helped finance the nation's economic growth by making loans to businesses.  Government: o Political leaders strongly favoured business interests. o But the government of the era was marked by widespread corruption. Corruption also flourished in state and local government.  The availability of jobs in industries drew people from farms to cities in record numbers. In 1870, only about 25 per cent of the American people lived in urban areas. By 1916, the figure had reached almost 50 per cent. Though industrialisation in the USA gave prosperity to the people, the labourers who toiled in factories, mills, and mines did not share in the benefits of the economic growth. They usually worked at least 60 hours a week and had no fringe benefits. The everyday life of the city poor was dismal and drab. 

Japanese industrialisation

Modernisation in Japan began with the establishment of Meiji rule in 1868. The Meiji government shortly after coming to power adopted a programme of fukoku kyohei to modernise Japan by building a ‘rich nation and strong army’ to deal with internal and external threats. Fukoku kyohei envisaged political centralisation, military reform and most importantly, modern economic growth. For economic advancement, it was necessary to revolutionise agriculture and industrialise Japan. Therefore, modern science and technology began to be applied to production, per capita productivity accompanied population growth, the industrial structure was transformed and international contacts created, according to Jansen.

 

All this was done under the direct control and paternalism of the government, which undertook several economic and financial reforms and development measures.

1. Appeasement of the older feudal classes **

Immediately after coming to power, the Meiji government moved towards a centralised national polity with the emperor at the helm, for which the politically fragmented system of domains had to be done away with. Daimyo were thus compelled to return their domains to the emperor. In return for their loyalty, they were reappointed as domain governors with handsome salaries. Even after domains were abolished and replaced by prefectures in 1871, the daimyo were well-compensated - given pensions or pay offs of 1/10th the income of their former domain while being freed from political obligations, they no longer incurred governing expenses and the government assumed their debts. After 1876, pensions were replaced by state bonds with high interest rates.

 

At the same time, the government was creating opportunities for capital investment. These benefitted the well-off daimyo, who came to invest in joint stock companies, banking, industries and commerce. The daimyos were thus the first investors or capitalists in Japan and were transformed from an old feudal class to a class of financial and commercial magnates with the transformation from feudalism to capitalism. They were given loans by banking houses with the government as guaranteer.

 

The old samurai similarly had to be appeased, which was more difficult as early reforms had eroded their economic and social privileges, leaving them disgruntled - samurai pensions were first taxed, then forcibly converted to bonds; lower samurai classified as commoners etc. To win their loyalty, the government took over their debts, offered them access to various occupations including government jobs, provided small loans and opened up lands in Hokkaido for them to cultivate. Thus, according to Norman, the entire bureaucracy and army came to be filled with samurai ethos and according to Beasley, initial modernisation of Japan began with samurai-run farms.

 

2. Agrarian reforms

 

Doing away with feudal restrictions was accompanied by reforms in agriculture to create a stable revenue base. In 1872, the ban on the sale, lease or partitioning of land was lifted, converting land into a transferable commodity and allowing its free sale. In 1873 a new tax system was put in place. This system gave the government a predictable and regular annual revenue as it provided for a national land survey that matched an owner to every piece of land and issued title deeds or chiken. Chiken were issued to all owners. The system also assessed the market value of all plots of land. Finally, it set the land tax at 3% of assessed value, which had to be paid in cash and not rice. Additional local taxes were not to be more than 1/3rd the national tax.

The positive impacts of the land tax reform were that private property rights, unified tax system and a cash nexus based on tax collection in cash were established, essential for capitalist development of the economy. Social impact, however, was negative. It led to rural impoverishment and exploitation, as there was rise of landlordism - consolidation of land in the hands of a few and the consequent rise of tenancy; the system demanded individual and not collective collection; the woods and meadows belonging to the lord of the han were no longer accessible to peasants, as they were classified as state property, according to Gordon.

3. Relationship between agriculture and industrialisation

 

Irving Kramer describes Japanese economic development as dual, involving both land reform to revolutionise agriculture and industrial development. Thus, agrarian measures were intrinsically linked to and fuelled the process of industrial growth.

1. Modernisation required tremendous funding, which could not be raised from trade due to the unequal treaties imposed by western nations, and Meiji leaders did not want to rely on foreign loans. Thus, capital was raised internally from the agrarian sector as the economy was still dependent upon agriculture for its growth. Hane states that in early 1870s, land tax constituted 90% of state revenue, 80% in 1882 and 45% in 1893, while for Gordon land tax accounted for 80% of government income in the 1870s and early 1880s but fell to around 60% by early 1890s. Decline was due to the imposition of new taxes, agricultural taxes still provided the majority of the government’s revenues.

2. Labour for industrialisation was provided by the countryside, following the rise in Japan’s population from 1880s. According to Norman, land tax caused peasant dispossession, which forced this ‘stagnant surplus population’ or ‘potential labour force’ towards urban areas and hence industry. Hane and Gordon point out that teenage girls of farm families were especially important as labour, particularly in textile industries, as women were cheaper to employ than men.

3. Agriculture supported the growth of Japan’s population from 35 million to 45 million between 1880 and early 1900s, with a 1-3% increase in productivity due to addition of new crops, seeds and fertilisers and the best practice of existing farms, states Gordon. This helped conserve valuable foreign exchange as Japan met its domestic food needs.

4. The agrarian sector also earned large amounts of foreign exchange by exporting tea, cotton and silk products. Tea accounted for 26% of exports in 1880, but eventually declined in importance. In the 1870-80s, silk accounted for 30% of exports of 1880 and 42% of Japanese revenue from exports, as there was growing demand for it in the US and Europe, according to Beasley. Cotton exports while initially negligible rose to 14% of exports by 1910.

Gordon points out that agriculture further indirectly earned foreign exchange for Japan through the export of people - emigrant labourers sent a portion of their earnings in Hawaii, California, or Latin America to relatives in their home villages.

5. Commercialisation of rice and other agricultural produce and its allowed export from 1871 created the need for foreign markets and turned Meiji attention towards Korea, Manchuria and China. This together with the demand for tax in cash under the 1873 tax reform led to the growth of a money economy and the creation of a home market. Foreign goods from advanced capitalist countries entered villages and competed with Japanese handicraft industries e.g. cotton fabric and yarn. According to Norman, this forced traditional industries to modernise.

 

6. According to Kramer, the government aided the shift from agriculture to industry as the conversion of daimyo and samurai to government-paid pensioners helped them accumulate wealth, and provided opportunities of investment through government-established industries. Daimyo and samurai thus emerged as businessmen and financiers. **

Thus, agrarian reforms helped change Japan’s feudal economy into a modern capitalist economy. The government played a major role by introducing these reforms and also by encouraging an improvements in agriculture - students were sent abroad for agricultural studies, foreign experts on agriculture invited, new varieties of seeds fertilisers etc. imported and provided to farmers to increase production, and finally, agricultural colleges, experimental farms and a national agricultural society were established. Yield thus rose by 30% from 1880 to 1900, though the area of arable land only increased by 13%.

 

4. Capital formation and early industrialisation

 

Agriculture was unable to meet the capital requirements of large-scale industrialisation alone. While private commercial capital did exist in Japan, it was inefficient and inexperienced, monopolised by Tokugawa period merchant bodies, big traders, private banks and moneylenders such as Mitsui and Ono. For it to quickly acquire the independent character required for industrialisation, government help was necessary. Further, according to Norman, private investors were hesitant to become pioneers of industrialisation as initially there existed no clear signs of profitability. Thus, the task of industrialisation to begin with was taken up by the state, aided by loans from these magnates and agricultural revenue. Therefore, Norman describes Japanese capitalism as growing under shelter of state protection and subsidy.

 

Capital accumulation was the first step, with the aim of transforming commercial capital into banking capital. For this, it was necessary to increase and centralise the available private commercial capital. This was achieved through economic settlements - stipends made into pensions made into government bonds, and with the creation of a new banking arrangement in the 1870s which setup a uniform standard currency based on gold, a decimal system with yen as the basic unit and a centralised banking system with the Bank of Japan at the helm. Several other national banks were created, dominated by the already wealthy houses, advised by the government to take up credit-banking operations. The government also encouraged them to form commercial companies, exchange companies and commercial bureaus. Commercial capital was thus accumulated and changed into banking capital.

The next step was the development of industries using this capital. Loans were thus taken from the commercial-banking business houses, thus transforming banking capital partially to industrial capital. Foreign loans were also used to industrialise, although only 2 of these were taken till the end of 19th c - 1870 to build the first railway and 1873 to help the government meet cash needs of pension commutation and capitalisation.

Government initiative, subsidy, and protection were first extended to those industries that were essential to national interests and required large capital investment, according to Hane. These included heavy industry, mining, shipping, arms and ammunition, and transportation and communication and were developed using skills of foreign experts and technicians who were given massive salaries, and later with aid of Japanese students who had been sent abroad for training. For example, in shipping, shipyards, lighthouses, harbours, arsenals, machine shops, and technical schools were established; a telegraph line between Tokyo and Yokohama was setup in 1869; a postal system between Tokyo and Osaka in 1871; and most importantly, a railway network beginning with the line between Tokyo and Yokohama in 1872.

Soon after the development of strategic industries, the government turned to subsidiary industries  which were experimental or so far dominated by foreign imports such as the silk industry (first modern silk filature setup in 1870), cotton spinning, cement, tiles, sugar, beer, glass, chemicals, woollen fabrics, coal, iron, paper. The industry that expanded most rapidly was textile manufacturing - silk and cotton textiles. This marked the beginning of industrialisation.

 

5. Cooperative capitalism and rise of the zaibatsu

 

The visible hand of the state was complemented by significant competition and entrepreneurship in the private sector, especially after the 1881 policy. 

 

In 1881, the government changed its industrial policy from direct control to indirect protection, transforming the nature of its paternalism. Ownership of nonstrategic industries e.g. glass, chemicals, sugar etc. was handed over at low rates to private houses, which were given incentives like free technical advice, subsidies, setting up of business bureaus and the prospect of profit. However, those who rushed to invest in these industries were the former commercial and banking houses - Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Yasuda. They thus controlled banking on one hand and industry and commerce on the other, consequently strengthening politically and economically. No new class of industrial capitalists emerged. These houses thus acquired monopolies over various industries and came to constitute the zaibatsu or financial clique. Their central role is the most distinctive feature of Japan’s emerging capitalism. The zaibatsu had broad reach - they were not limited to particular industries; each spanned the entire range of business from trade to finance to factory production.

A period of close cooperation between the government and business interests of the zaibatsu began after the 1881 policy, as the government showed clear favouritism towards certain houses.

Further, the four big business houses which founded the zaibatsu cooperated with one another, respecting the industries that each controlled and not competing with one another. Therefore, cooperative capitalism developed.

The control of the zaibatsu can be seen in various industries, for example:

1. The government’s Hiroshima cotton spinning mills were sold to Hiroshima prefecture in 1882.

2. In railways, government ownership of lines partially given up in 1880 and in 1881 the Nippon Railway Company was founded and given government loans and subsidies. Railroad construction thus enjoyed a minor boom in the 1880s.

3. In shipping, Mitsubishi was almost exclusively favoured - support and subsidies enabled it to compete with foreign companies e.g. Nagasaki shipyards sold to Mitsubishi.

4. In mining and heavy industry, initially government control was maintained, with the exception of Sumitomo, which controlled the Besshi copper mine. By 1885, however, private firms increasingly moved into this industry and there was steady increase in mineral production, especially in iron and steel after the Russo-Japanese War.

 

Another result of the 1881 policy was the significant development of the military and strategic industries, as the government by handing over nonstrategic firms was now free to focus here.

Scholarly opinion on the sale of industries is divided. In marxist interpretation, scholars like Gordon argue that industries were sold by the government at nominal prices with incentives to win over the moneyed class. The aim was to ally the money and power holders, without benefitting common people. Others have argued that industries were sold as a response to growing political pressure and movements led by dismissed samurai and other ex-feudal groups. Others like Thomas Smith and WW Lockwood conclude that sales were dictated by government difficulties and that those fortunate enough to have capital to buy them were so few that better bids were not forthcoming. Lockwood elaborates on the role of state - the Meiji state was confronted by an empty treasury, for which it was forced to adopt a paternalistic policy. Following direct measures to develop initial industries, sale of industries to private investors was the next logical step.

Japan’s economic growth thus depended on a dynamic mix of state and private initiative.

6. Banking and currency reforms under Matsukata Masayoshi

The various government measures along with the costs of suppressing the satsuma rebellion of 1877 led to a sudden rise of expenditures and consequent financial crisis in the late 1870s. The government responded by printing money which in turn caused inflation. In 1881, finance minister Matsukata Masayoshi launched fiscal and monetary reforms to halt inflation - state expenses were cut, unprofitable government industries were sold, money supply was shrunk by shutting down printing presses, new taxes e.g. on cigarettes and sake were introduced, and silver-backed currency was returned to.

Matsukata’s reforms led to major deflation in the early 1880s - there was widespread bankruptcy and rural distress, although the budget surplus created stabilised Japan’s economy and built a strong industrial base. Economic reforms also boosted foreign trade, especially between 1900-13. The nature of imports and exports changed. Imports transformed from raw materials and manufactured goods to raw materials needed by strategic industries. Exports expanded beyond silk and tea to include copper, coal, cotton etc. By the end of the 19th c, the two main export items were silk and cotton textiles and 60% of the workforce was employed in textile industries, although mechanisation in both had initially been slow. By late 19th c, however, financial backing of the zaibatsu coupled with mechanisation to helped these industries past the handicraft stage. Mechanisation of silk filature and the establishment of model cotton plants, import of cotton spinning machinery from 1878 and turnover to private entrepreneurs boosted silk and cotton production respectively.

Mechanisation in the textile industry was followed by similar developments in other nonstrategic areas - modern pulp factory established in 1889, sugar-refining plant in 1895, substantial gains in production of cement, fertilisers, drugs etc. in the 1890s.

Another impact of the developments of 1881-1913 under Matsukata was the development and diversification of heavy industries. For example, mining of gold, silver, copper etc. expanded and copper especially became a major item of export. Shipping and shipbuilding also expanded. Under the combined cooperative control of the government and zaibatsu, foreign shipping and expertise were done away with.

 

Matsukata’s policies also led to massive increase in Japan’s international prestige as they provided basis for the attack on China over the issue of Korea. Military victory along with economic progress meant that now western powers were readily offering loans to Japan, which were eased by the currency reforms of Matsukata. The humiliating treaties of the Tokugawa period with the westerners were also done away with.

 

7. Consequences of industrialisation

 

Thus, by the turn of the century, Japan was a rapidly modernising country, a process which continued in the 20th c. While Japan was economically advancing, however, industrialisation had both positive and negative consequences for the people.

1. Industrialisation created new jobs and provided the poor ways to supplement income e.g. peasants living within commuting distance of factories - fathers and sons worked in factories, while mothers and children cultivated.

2. Economic changes improved the quantity and quality of Japan’s goods availability. Although there wasn’t much improvement in the quality of food, housing and clothing for the masses, quantity of food produced increased as did the availability of goods like machine-made cotton fabric, western-style clothing, matches, soap etc.

3. Industrialisation imposed new hardships upon the working class - industrialism and joint stock companies changed the traditional employer-employee paternalistic relationship into an impersonal business contract personal contact grew impossible. As a result, unrestrained exploitation became frequent - no laws regulated age, hours, wages, or working conditions - to effectively compete with advanced western nations. The government was slow to act on behalf of the workers as it had close business ties with firms and as its main goal industrial growth was being met. Thus, Have states that the state supported business interests at the expense of workers e.g. strikes were prevented.

4. In the area of health and sanitation, there was little improvement. Crowded and poor conditions and inadequate sanitation resulted in frequent outbreaks of epidemics and incidents of large-scale fires.

5. Modernisation failed to do away with prostitution, according to Hane, as slavery was banned but ‘voluntary servitude’ permitted. 

German Unification

The terms ‘nation’, ‘nationalism’ and the like are open-ended concepts. Hobsbawm points out that attempts to establish objective criteria for nationhood, or to explain why certain groups have become ‘nations’ and others have not, are often made based on a single criteria such as language, common territory, common history, cultural traits etc. All such objective definitions have however, failed, for exceptions can always be found. Moreover, the criteria used for this purpose – language, ethnicity etc. – are themselves vague and ambiguous. Yet it is with these concepts that the history of the modern times is inextricably linked. This must be kept in mind while attempting a study of the evolution of national feeling in Germany. 

 

Nationalism emerged from two main sources - the Romantic exaltation of “feeling” and “identity” and the Liberal requirement that a legitimate state be based on a “people” rather than a dynasty or God. Over time, different concepts of nationalism emerged. One was the political notion, drawing on the French Revolution, which declared that people who swore allegiance to the universal ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity were ‘citizens’ comprising the French nation. Thus nationality was a matter of the subjective will of the individual.

On the other side of the Rhine, where multi-racial and multi-lingual states were common, nationality came to be determined by such objective factors as language, folkways and ethnic origin. This became part of what was known as cultural nationalism.

 

In Central and Eastern Europe, the awareness of nationality preceded and even helped in the creation of the nation-state. The study of the evolution of national feeling in Germany is thus linked to ‘the German question’ or the problem of unification of Germany, which was achieved for the first time in 1871.

Certain obstacles to this process of unification had always existed.

 

·   Germany had a unique geographical position - it is located in the heartland of Europe and has no natural frontiers that define its boundaries. Hence the frontiers of Germany remained a source of debate. The problem was further intensified due to the political developments that gave rise to a dual German identity. Areas to the west of the river Elbe, because it had been a part of the Roman Empire, were a mixture of German and Latin cultures and had patterns of development that were closer to the Mediterranean. By the 18th century, the region became the seat of French ‘high’ culture. But the regions east of the Elbe developed a unique anti-Roman and anti-Catholic identity. The contempt of the west soon turned into an aggressive anti-German identity. With industrialization, this divide deepened. This gave rise to a prolonged debate about who, among the two, is German.

·   The territorial division was arched over by a religious one, beginning in 1517 with the Reformation. Luther rejected the political hegemony of the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church and obtained the support of the princes. But after Luther’s death, frequent wars between the princes and the Holy Roman Emperor divided the Germans. The period of Counter-Reformation served to further decentralize Germany. The Diet of Augsburg (1555) laid down that a German province would follow the religion of her prince. So north Germany remained largely Protestant, while the south and west became predominantly Catholic.

·   Germany, like most of Europe, also faced a cultural division occurred along class lines. The aristocracy was cosmopolitan in nature and pledged allegiance to the French culture. They were separate from and often looked down upon the masses, who spoke different dialects.

·   The fate of Germany was also dependent upon the relationship between the two most important German states – Austria and Prussia. The Habsburg Empire in Austria, with its capital at Vienna, was composed of 3 main racial and linguistic groups - the Germans, who predominated in the west and comprised one-sixth of the population; the Magyars, who predominated in Hungary; and various Slav peoples. It was staunchly Catholic and German in a very cosmopolitan sense. On the other hand, the non-German Slav people dominated Prussia, with its capital at Berlin. The ruling dynasty was Hohenzollern, which by the 17th century had become Protestant. By the 18th century, the subordination of one power to the other was impossible, since neither Prussia nor Austria would accept the leadership of the other. Neither was ready to see the other in a unified Germany

·   German unification was also hampered by the interest of the other Great Powers of Europe – Britain, France and Russia. They saw every concentration of power in Germany as a threat to their own power and the European equilibrium. Also the region acted as a shock absorber for the frequent wars that broke out among them.

 

In the late 18th century thus, there was no clear German identity, given the absence of a single German nation-state and the wide distribution across Europe of communities speaking German dialects. Yet, at the same time, the nation also grew precisely because of its fragmented identity and the practical requirements of the small states. The demands of administration required highly trained officials of ability and qualification; aristocratic birth alone could not suffice. This resulted in the rise of an educated middle class in Germany, including civil servants, lawyers, journalists, professors etc. They tried to move away from the dominant French culture of the elite and foster German values through a common German language. For them, language was not merely an administrative convenience or a vehicle of universal intellectual expression or even a revolutionary device for spreading liberty and progress to all. It was the only thing that made them Germans.

 

German national identity first emerged in response to the challenge of Napoleonic aggression, in a definite anti-French form. Napoleon, in fact, unwittingly paved the way for unification by reducing the number of the states from 314 to 39. He did it, however, mainly for strategic as well as administrative convenience. The Holy Roman Empire was formally dissolved in 1806 when the last Emperor, Francis II, resigned. Rhineland was annexed to France, under the direct control of Paris. The rest of Germany, outside Prussia and Austria, was organized into the Confederation of the Rhine under the protection of Napoleon and, like the rest of his empire, had imposed upon it a common social and political pattern, helping to modernize it. This was the first time that these states had been brought together and French interference stirred up a natural resentment. A.J.P. Taylor has also argued that since these areas were subjected to liberal reforms, which were nevertheless seen as French, German nationalism took on an “anti-liberal character”.

 

More importantly, Napoleon forced the people to define what it meant to be German, and whether this had political or larger cultural connotations. For most ordinary Germans, it amounted to little more than resentment of French rule. But among the German intellectual circles a great debate began and soon, two distinct attitudes emerged. The first group saw Germany as a part of the Western world and so wished to retain French culture. The second group contended that German nationalism was equivalent to an attack on the elite, yet corrupt and decadent, French culture. New value was attached to local institutions, native customs, traditional culture and national language. French rationalism and enlightenment were cosmopolitan; in reaction, nationalism was romantic, particularist, exclusive in character.

 

At a more popular level, German nationalism was further aroused by the Prussian victory at Leipzig in 1813, when Napoleon was defeated. But its role has been greatly exaggerated. It was in fact an allied victory, and it was made possible in part by Napoleon’s disastrous campaign in Russia the year before. There was no popular movement - the rural mass, almost 80% of the population, was not involved in the struggle against the French at all. However, it gave an indirect boost to the German national myth. This myth was that of a patriotic war blended with the common cultural heritage to which Romanticism had given a powerful boost.

 

After Napoleon's defeat, the Great Powers decided to continue with his organization of Germany as it served their interests in keeping Central Europe divided to maintain the balance of power among each other. Hence the pre-created 39 political units were combined into the German Confederation. The central body of this organization was the Diet – a diplomatic organization comprising representatives chosen by the rulers of the member states.  The Congress of Vienna had stipulated that all member states should have constitutions of their own. But apart from a few rulers none bothered to even make empty promises about it and the Diet proved powerless to do anything about it.

After 1815, the war-time enthusiasm for nationalism was kept alive in the universities by professors and students, who formed the student organization Burschenschaften. It was devoted to the moral and political regeneration of Germany and the cause of national unity. A number of other secret societies were also formed but their role was limited. A.J.P. Taylor, in fact, regards these as student disturbances, not evidence of a nationalist movement in Germany. Public festivals were also organized on a large scale with the intention of boosting national fervour among people.

 

True German nationalism began to emerge in the years between 1815-1848. Many factors contributed to its growth. Till 1815 Germany was economically backward, had no capital, no factories, no working class. The first railway line was laid in 1835. Prussia became the motor of German industrialization since it had been defeated at Napoleon’s hands. The acquisition of the Rhineland (hubbub of rich mineral resources) made Prussia the strongest industrial power in Germany within the next 30 years. In 1818, the government introduced a new tariff law that abolished all internal rolls while imposing a moderate tariff on goods coming in from outside. Zollverein – the Prussian Customs Union was formed in 1834 that make the member states increasingly dependent on Prussia, gradually reducing Austrian influence in Germany, and thus paved the way for the hegemony Prussia achieved.

It was the Rhine Crisis of 1840 that gave German nationalism the opportunity to appear in its full form. Failing in their effort to secure control over Syria and Palestine the French decided to seek compensation in Europe by acquiring Rhineland. This led to a furore across Germany and nationalist sentiments were articulated strongly against the French ruler through patriotic songs, plays and poems. The fact that Rhineland was a part of Prussia again seemed to indicate that Prussia might take up the cause of leadership in the German Question.

 

The continent-wide revolutions of 1848 sought to achieve liberal, democratic and nationalist aims in Centralized Eastern Europe. It was an attempt to replace monarchy with some kind of a representative government. The first attempt to unify Germany occurred against the Princes. The Frankfurt Parliament that comprised of representatives from all German states including Prussia and Austria aimed to transform Germany into a federal union, presided over by a hereditary emperor with a strong parliament representing the educated and propertied classes and a ministry that was responsible to it. It drew up the Declaration of Fundamental Rights which established Freedom of speech and equality before law as basic rights of all Germans. But long-windedness in these debates led to a breakdown in the unity of their purpose.

 

The developments in and around 1848 had clarified how unification was an issue of power and the princes were not ready to surrender their power to a popularly elected Government. It was realized finally that the only way to unify Germany was through military force.

 

There was little scope for a national movement during the 1850s. Counter-revolutions made open politics impossible and governments restricted the scope for cultural activity which might have promoted a sense of national identity. However, in the late 1850s, a relaxation of controls allowed more communication across state boundaries. Associations such as choral societies, shooting clubs etc. had a larger membership and geographical spread than ever before. There was also a revival of popular festivals of the lower middle-classes.

 

In the summer of 1859, there was a further resurgence of German nationalism, once again over the Rhineland. Napoleon III’s annexation of Savoy and Nice in 1860 confirmed the growing fears of French imperialism. A wave of anti-French feeling swept through Germany and by 1861, the German people were united in their hatred of France.

 

ROLE OF BISMARCK

 

Bismarck came from the Junker class – the landowners of Germany similar to the gentry in England. They were not a very rich class but deeply conservative. The typical Junker attitude to economy was development of agriculture and blind opposition to the Industrial Revolution. Bismarck paid a lip service to the rural values but with the realization that industrialism had come to stay after 1848, he decided to harness it and use it in the interests of the Junkers. He made a compromise. He noticed that industrialism had created a class of industrial – capitalists and he decided to take them into a partnership because he knew it was necessary to do so to stay in power. Socialism was an inconvenience to the Junkers. Bismarck was also opposed to it but he attempts some kind of a compromise. He realized that blind opposition to it would mean an open invitation to revolutions.

 

In foreign policy Junker ideology meant reverence for Austria as the Senior German Power. They considered Austria and Germany as the bulwarks of conservatism in Central Europe after Napoleon’s defeat.  Bismarck was never a German nationalist. His sole aim was to increase the power of Prussia and within Prussia his own power. Thus we see that Bismarck was a member of his class until 1848. Thereafter he breaks with his class. His flexible approach and diplomatic skills were amply displayed during the 3 wars that resulted in the unification of Germany in 1871.

In 1863 the Austrian monarch summoned to Frankfurt a meeting of the princes which was the last and most grandiose attempt to unite Germany by consent. Austria proposed a strengthening of the federal authority, the establishment of a federal assembly and the voluntary surrender by the princes of part of their sovereignty. Bismarck however persuaded William I not to accept this proposal, which in effect led to its failure. This ended all chance of a Germany achieved by negotiation.

 

The first war was fought when Austro-Prussian friction arose on the question of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. These duchies were essentially German but shared a border with Denmark. They had always maintained freedom but in 1863, the King of Denmark decided to annex them. Prussia and Austria decided to co-operate in liberating them which they achieved quite easily. But they disagreed on how to dispose of them. Under a temporary agreement, Austria took over Holstein and Prussia Schleswig. Two years later, however, conflicts between them over occupation rights escalated.

 

Meanwhile Bismarck secured the neutrality of France and Russia. He struck 3 separate alliances with Italy, Magyars and German radicals. With the German radicals the alliance was political as Bismarck proposed a German parliament elected by direct universal suffrage. The capitalists accepted because it gave them prosperity and unification; the working classes accepted it since it gave them social security and the vote.

In June 1866, when the dispute between Prussia and Austria broke out into war, most German states joined Austria. Yet, within 7 weeks, the Prussians emerged victorious due to their superior military organization and equipment. Although, during the war Bismarck had encouraged attempts at revolt in Hungary and had made offers of independence to Czechs, the last thing he wanted was the destruction of the Habsburg monarchy who were his essential allies against Greater Germany. Austria, therefore, lost no territory to Prussia except the theoretical share of Schleswig and Holstein. But she withdrew from German affairs and the German Confederation was dissolved. Of the German states north of the River Main were forced into a new North German Federation under Prussian control.

 

The task of unification was not complete. Southern Germany had to be included in this organization. In August 1870, Prussia went to war with France over the question of succession to the Spanish throne. The French armies were defeated and the southern states were united with the North German Confederation. They also had to cede Alsace and Lorraine. The German princes were induced by Bismarck to offer the crown to William I and on January 18, 1871, the German Empire was proclaimed in the Palace of Versailles.

 

German unification was the result of not German nationalism but brilliant diplomacy and statecraft. The success of Bismarck was so rapid and so perfect that many observers accepted it as inevitable. It is doubtful, however, that his real aim was to achieve a unified Germany; it was imposed on him by the national movement. His only interest was to increase the power of Prussia, and within Prussia his own power; and this he did by presenting himself, on one hand to the nationalists as one who had the diplomatic expertise to manipulate the international scene to achieve unification, and on the other hand to the Great Powers as the only one could defend Germany against the national movement in the interest of the old order.

 

Italian Unification

During the first half of the 19th century small groups of German and Italian nationalists agitated for the political unification of their respective peoples, and many revolutionaries in 1848 had demanded national unification but the outcome of the revolutions notwithstanding , Germany and Italy were not unified.

John Merriman argues that Italian unification came, not because of the utopian nationalism of Giuseppe Mazzini nor because of Giuseppe Garibaldi and his followers into the south, but rather largely as a result of the expansion of Piedmont-Sardinia, the peninsula's strongest and most liberal state. Italy was unified politically under the liberal auspices of the Piedmont Sardinian monarchy, the House of Savoy.

The emergence of Italy in the 1860s changed the history of modern Europe as it emerged as a would be great power, and along with the unification of Italy, led to the Austro Hungarian monarchy being confronted by demands from its ethnic minorities for their own independence, which remained a factor for instability in its domestic and international politics.

Since the end of the Roman empire, Italy had been politically disunited with competing voices from different regions and peoples, and Austrian statesmean Klemens von Metternich even termed it as a mere ‘geographical expression’ .

There were marked differences in economic development which compounded political fragmentation. Northern Italy has always been considerably prosperous than the South. The Habsburg monarchy also presented a formidable obstacle to Italian unification, as it retained Venetia and Lombardy, and dominated Parma, Tuscany, and Modena in north-central Italy (the rulers of the latter two states were members of the Austrian royal family). The pope's influence and temporal control over the Papal States around Rome posed another barrier to Italian unification. Furthermore, Italy lacked a tradition of centralized administration. Powerful local elites dispensed patronage, constituting unofficial parallel governments in much of the south and Sicily. Finally, these structural barriers to unification were accompanied by disagreement among elites and nationalists about whether a unified Italy would be governed by a monarchy (constitutional or not), a republic, or even by the pope.

Although many forces were working against Italian unification, some factors promoted the ultimate Risorgimento ("Resurgence") of Italy. Nationalist sentiment developed among the liberal aristocracy and the upper middle classes, particularly among northern lawyers and professors. It was fanned by nationalist brochures and newspapers, the memory of the failures of the Revolutions of 1848, and a common hatred of Austria, the latest of the outside powers that had held parts of Italy since the end of the fifteenth century. Most Italian nationalists envisioned a Risorgimento independent of the pope and the Catholic Church.

Leadership for Italian Unification

There seemed to be two possible sources of leadership for Italian unification.

First, Victor Emmanuel II (ruled 1849-1878) of the House of Savoy, king of Piedmont-Sardinia (the Kingdom of Sardinia), wanted to unify Italy by gradually extending his control over the peninsula. Piedmont-Sardinia was far and away Italy's most prosperous region, boasting a significant concentration of industrial production, fine sources of water power, and accessible markets. It had inherited from the French revolutionary and Napoleonic eras a relatively efficient bureaucracy.

Appointed to be his Prime Minister- Count Camillo di Cavour ( 1810-1861)

Born into a family of Piedmontese nobles during the Napoleonic occupation, Cavour entered a military academy. In the army, he became enamored of political radicalism. Cavour's political radicalism was unlikely to win him promotion in the army. He resigned his commission as

a military engineer, pleading poor eyesight and bad health. He read widely in economics and politics and traveled to France and England, both of which impressed him with their prosperity and efficient administration. He finally found a compelling goal- the unification of the Italian peninsula.

Cavour came to espouse aristocratic liberalism. He became determined to effect political unification by gradually expanding the constitutional monarchy of Piedmont-Sardinia. An idealist of vision and courage, according to Merriman, Cavour was also capable of ruthlessness and unscrupulous trickery, all of which would be necessary to achieve Italian unification. He bragged that he liked to reduce political problems to graphs on which he had plotted all possible factors and outcomes.

Elected to the Piedmontese Parliament in 1849 in the new constitutional government, named minister of commerce and agriculture the following year and prime minister in 1852, he initiated the first of a series of loose coalition liberal governments based on the political center, standing between the noble and clerical right and the republican left.

Cavour's policies helped stimulate the Piedmontese economy. He facilitated the availability of credit for businessmen, helped attract foreign capital by lowering tariffs, built railways, and strengthened the army. Reflecting Piedmontese liberal secular values, Cavour made the clergy subject to the same civil codes as everyone else and taxed Church property. Like the liberalism

of the French Orleanist monarchy and the early Victorians in Britain, however, Cavour's liberalism stopped well short of republicanism.

Giuseppe Mazzini, on the other hand, remained the spokesperson for the second more popular nationalist tradition which survived the broken dreams of the Revolutions of 1848. He had, as a boy watched Piedmontese patriots leave for exile after an ill fated revolutionary uprising in 1820-21. The failure of conspiratorial uprisings led him to espouse a nationalist movement that had a wider

range of support, with the goal of establishing a republic that would implement social reforms. While he was a determined enemy of monarchism and aristocratic privilege, Mazzini believed that classical liberalism was devoid of moral values, and he rejected socialism as overly materialistic. He

embraced unification as a moral force that would educate and uplift the people of Italy, providing a common faith and purpose that would unlock their potential and make them worthy of democracy.

Mazzini believed that the unification of Italy had to be the work of the people themselves, and should not be achieved merely through the expansion of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. Drawing on the conspiratorial

tradition of the Carbonari, Mazzini's secret society, "Young Italy," hoped to mobilize the European masses, beginning in the Italian states, to rise up for nationalism and democracy. He thus supported the goals of other nationalist groups in Europe, including Hungarians, Poles, and Slavs in the hope that "Young Europe," a brotherhood of nations, would eventually come into existence.

Mazzini was undaunted by the failures and repression that followed the Revolution of 1848, including the ill-fated attempt to proclaim the Roman Republic in 1849. However, these debacles discredited his movement among the middle classes. Four years later, Cavour tipped off the Austrians that Mazzini was planning an insurrection in Lombardy. King Victor Emmanuel II congratulated Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph on the success of the subsequent repression. Yet Mazzini's effective propaganda kept the Italian question alive in European diplomatic circles while attracting the interest of lawyers and liberal landowners in some of the northern Italian states.

Alliances and Waifare to Further Italian Unification

Italian unification would be impossible as long as Austria dominated much of northern and central Italy. Having first concentrated on reforms within Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour next began a series of diplomatic moves that he hoped would bring the support of Great Britain and France. Specifically, he wanted to form an alliance with France against Austria that would further the cause of Italian unification. Austria was not about to withdraw from Lombardy on its own, and Piedmont-Sardinia was too weak to defeat the Habsburg army alone. Cavour initiated commercial agreements with France, as well as with Great Britain, trying to impress both powers with Piedmont-Sardinia's political and economic liberalism.

In March 1854, France and Great Britain joined the Ottoman Empire in opposing Russia in the Crimean War (1853-1856). Cavour worked to make the war serve the interests of Piedmont-Sardinia and Italian unification. He informed the French and British governments that Piedmont-Sardinia would be willing to join the coalition against Russia in exchange for a role in determining new frontiers in Eastern Europe at the war's end. Knowing that Britain needed more troops for the fight, Cavour sent 15,000 soldiers to Crimea in January 1855. Mazzini, on the other hand, bitterly opposed intervention as irrelevant to his vision of a united republican Italy. Piedmont-Sardinia signed the Peace of Paris in 1856, which ended the Crimean War, an occasion Cavour used to focus diplomatic attention on the Italian situation.

Cavour was now eager to ally with imperial France in the interest of working toward Italian unification. Despite a failed assassination attempt against him by an Italian nationalist republican in 1858, French Emperor Napoleon III was eager to extend his country's influence in Italy and hoped to annex Savoy and Nice from Piedmont-Sardinia. He proposed marriage between Victor Emmanuel's fifteen-year-old daughter and his own young cousin, Prince Napoleon Bonaparte. Such an alliance would help cement relations between France and Piedmont-Sardinia, not a happy situation for the Austrians.

Cavour devised an agreement with France against Austria, which was signed in July 1858 at Plombieres, a spa in eastern France. Napoleon III now agreed to support Piedmont-Sardinia in a war against Austria. In January

1859, Piedmont-Sardinia and France formalized the Plombieres agreement in a treaty. Russia, Austria's rival in the Balkans, was happy to sit this one out in exchange for French acceptance of a possible revision of the Peace of Paris, which had in 1856 deprived Russia of the right to have a fleet in the Black Sea. In turn, Russia would look the other way if events in Italy altered the settlements enacted by the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

Austria provided an excuse for war, announcing that it would draft men from Venetia and Lombardy into the imperial army. Piedmont-Sardinia, in turn, made it known that it would accept deserters from Austrian conscription, and it mobilized troops in March. But the British government lobbied so effectively for a peaceful solution that Cavour denounced a "conspiracy of peace" and threatened to resign. Napoleon III hesitated, asking Piedmont Sardinia to demobilize its troops. Austria saved the situation for Cavour by issuing an ultimatum to Piedmont-Sardinia on April 23, 1859, hoping that other German states would support it. With Austria now appearing as the aggressor, Prussia and the other German states felt no obligation to come to its aid. Piedmont-Sardinia rejected the ultimatum, Austrian troops invaded Piedmont, which brought France into the war. Napoleon III himself led 100,000 troops into northern Italy; many of the troops went by train, the first time that a railway played a major part in warfare.

The French and Piedmontese defeated the Habsburg army at Magenta and then at Solferino in June 1859, driving the Austrians out of Lombardy. But the French feared that a crushing defeat of Austria might yet bring Prussia and other German states into the war against France, with the bulk of the French armies still in northern Italy. Furthermore, Cavour had sparked several nationalist insurrections against the Austrians in Tuscany, Bologna, Modena and Parma, whose rulers fled, leaving the duchies under Piedmontese control. Further revolts in the Papal states failed; the pope’s Swiss mercenaries recaptured Perugia, looting the city and shooting unarmed civilians. It became apparent to the French emperor that if Piedmont Sardinia were too successful, Victor Emmanuel’s expanded kingdom might become a rival instead of a grateful, compliant neighbour. Without consulting Cavour, Napoeleon III arranged an armistice at Villafranca with Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in July.

Cavour and Victor Emmanuel now believed that France had betrayed them. Austria lost Lombardy to Piedmont-Sardinia but retained Venetia. By the Treaty of Turin on March 24, 1860, Napoleon III agreed to Piedmont-Sardinia's annexation of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Bologna, in addition to Lombardy. In exchange, Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice, which passed to France after a plebiscite. With the exception of Venetia, almost all of northern and central Italy had now been united under the constitutional monarchy of Piedmont-Sardinia.

Garibaldi and the Liberation of Southern Italy

At this point, Giuseppe Garibaldi leapt onto the stage. He had joined Mazzini’s Young Italy movement in 1833. After twelve years in exile in South America, he fought against the Austrians in Lombardy in 1848 and against the French in Rome in 1849. The war of 1859 provided him with another opportunity to fight Austria. Angered that the Villa franca armistice had cut short what he considered a war for Italian unification, Garibaldi formed an army of volunteers, hoping to drive the Austrians from Venetia and the French from Rome. But an ill-prepared attack on Rome failed completely. In April 1860, a revolt began against Francis II, the Bourbon monarch of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily), as a protest against the milling tax and the high price of bread. Secretly encouraged by Cavour (who planned to send Piedmont-Sardinia's army to Rome later to rescue the pope) and openly urged on by Mazzini, Garibaldi landed in Sicily with an army of I ,000 "Red Shirts." Sicilians welcomed him as a liberator. Garibaldi's followers outfought the larger Neapolitan army, taking Palermo on May 27, 1860. This success swelled his ragtag army of nationalists and adventurers. He then announced that he was assuming dictatorial power in Sicily on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia. In August, Garibaldi's army returned to the Italian peninsula. Aided by a popular insurrection, the Red Shirts took Naples, Italy's largest city, in September. Garibaldi's victories now put Piedmont-Sardinia in a difficult situation. If Garibaldi marched against Rome, France might declare war because of the threat to the pope. If Garibaldi moved against Venetia, which seemed inevitable, Austria would almost certainly fight again, perhaps this time with Prussia's support. Cavour sent Piedmontese troops into the Papal States the same day that Garibaldi's troops took Naples. The ostensible goal was to join Garibaldi, but the real intention of the expedition was to stop the adventurer's dramatic independent operations. The combined forces of Piedmontese troops and Garibaldi's army put an end to papal resistance and that of the royal Bourbon family of Naples.

Italy Unified

Plebiscites in October in Naples, Sicily, and the Papal States demonstrated overwhelming support for joining the expanding Italian state of Piedmont Sardinia. The annexation of these states angered Napoleon III, as Cavour had promised that an international conference would provide arbitration. Now only Venetia-still Austrian-and Rome and its region-the shrinking kingdom of the pope-remained unincorporated into the new Italy. Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia triumphantly entered Naples with Garibaldi in November 1860. He took the title King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy in March 1861. Garibaldi retired in semi-exile. On June 6, 1861, Cavour died at age fifty-one, depriving Italy of his effective decision making and political acumen.

Two more conflicts completed the political unification of Italy. In 1866, Austria went to war with Prussia, its rival for the leadership of the German states. Italian troops, allied with Prussia, moved into Austrian Venetia. When Prussian forces defeated the Austrians in July, Venetia became part of Italy. The final piece in the Italian jigsaw puzzle fell into place when French troops left Rome in 18 70 at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War. Italian troops occupied Rome, making it the capital of the new Italian state. On May 13, 1871, the Italian Parliament passed the Law of Papal Guarantees, which reduced the holdings of the pope to the Vatican, barely larger than Saint Peter's Basilica and its adjoining ecclesiastical buildings.

Russian Revolution

While assessing the fall of autocracy it’s important to examine the various elements of Russian state and society, their interactions with each other and their contribution to the abdication of the Tsar. The foremost factor that led to the fall of Tsarism was the inability of the tsarist system to modify itself and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people. Various social groups and movements were able to take advantage of this failure. The incapacity of the regime was further compounded by the impact of the First World War; it added to the sufferings of the Russian people, these tensions came to head in the February Revolution that toppled the Tsar.

 

By the nineteenth century, the imperial civil service was in urgent need of reform; it was rigid and hierarchical, and dominated by the nobility. The mid- nineteenth century saw some important changes in the composition of the civil service. The spread of higher education in the 1830’s and 40’s led to the entry of a new class of civil servants who called for modernization and reform. Three such important reforms were undertaken in the 1860’s. In 1861 the Russian serfs were emancipated from their landlords and given some of the rights of citizens. However, while they were liberated from the judicial control of their landlords they didn’t come under the jurisdiction of the civil courts, like the other members of society. Their rights were secured and defended in peasant class courts that were based on custom and not written law. Further they weren’t given many civil rights that members of other social groups enjoyed. Still, Emancipation was a starting point for the growth of an independent peasantry. Judicial reforms in 1864 set up an independent legal system with civil courts for all estates apart from the peasantry. Other new laws were passed relaxing censorship, giving more autonomy to universities and modernizing the military. In 1864 local assemblies of self-government called zemstvos were established in most provinces of Russia.

This reforming zeal of the government soon petered out. One of the main problems was the conflict between the reformists and the reactionaries. While liberal nobles accepted the need for reforms, supporters of the traditional order, strongest in the Ministry of the Interior, which was filled with nobles from ‘old Russia’, vociferously opposed change.  In March 1881 Alexander II was assassinated and his son Alexander III came to power. Alexander III was easily persuaded that further reforms would produce more revolutionary terrorists like the ones who had killed his father.

 

Alexander III launched a counter reform movement to quell these liberal tendencies. He tightened Tsarist control over zemstvos subordinating them to a provincial governor under the Ministry of the Interior. An 1890 statute increased the control of nobles over the zemstvos by barring Jews and peasant landowners from being elected to the assemblies. In 1899, land captains with a wide range of judicial and executive powers were introduced. These were another means of increasing Tsarist influence in the countryside- they were known as little tzars. They were highly unpopular and damaged the perception of the regime in rural areas.

 

Orlando Figes argues that zemstvos were the one institution that could have created a stable political base for the regime in the countryside. The isolation of the peasantry from the cities as well as the ruling regime manifested at social, cultural, political and legal levels. Tightening bureaucratic control and a lack of reforms to deal with problems like the shortage of land alienated the peasantry from the Tsarist regime. The attempts at reducing the power of the zemstvos and bringing them under central control created a scenario where the peasants had no stake in the tsarist system, giving them impetus to rise up against it in 1917.

In 1891, famine struck the Volga province and by autumn I t had spread to seventeen other provinces.  The inability of the government to handle the situation made it seem careless and indifferent to the plight of the peasants.

 

In February 1899 the banning of a routine students celebration led to defiance and repression followed by further widespread protests and another round of brutal suppression in 1901. Thousands of disillusioned students joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The late nineteenth century saw the Russian intelligentsia influenced by a spate of new philosophies many of them aimed at reform and revolution. Figes argues that in Russia many of these philosophies spread through literature. In the 1870’s Populism gained mass appeal among students. This was a set of attitudes rooted in the idealization of the peasantry and the belief that Russia was to follow a separate path of development from the west. In the summer of 1874 thousands of students left universities to go love among the peasants and share in their sufferings.  In March 1872, Marx’s “Capital” came to Russia, by the late 1870’s his views had spread like wildfire, especially among the students.

 

Marxism gained support among the working class as well. It spoke to their desires of living a better and more fulfilling life. Workers were forced to live in and work in terrible conditions with long workdays and cramped unhygienic housing. Rates of tuberculosis and premature mortality were high. Many employers treated their workers in a degrading manner- searching them for stolen goods every time they left the factory, flogging them for minor transgressions, fining them for low productivity and minor infringements of factory rules. It took major strikes for the government to pass the 1885 and 1897 laws disallowing the night time employment of women and children and cutting the workday to eleven and a half hours respectively. However even these reforms were half hearted, small trades and sweatshops, which employed a majority of the countries workforce were exempt from such legislation. Further, employers often inserted clauses into workers contracts depriving them of their rights. The spread of literacy and the acquisition of new skills led to new desires and expectations, which enhanced the workers disaffection with their lives.In the 1890’s strikes became the prominent way by which workers registered their protest.

 

On Lenin’s return from exile, he came out with a pamphlet in 1902, its name inspired from Cherneshevsky’s ‘What Is To Be Done’, that argued for a centralized party of professional revolutionaries where the masses would be instruments of the party. This vision led to a split in the Social Democratic party with the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions being formed, though the differences in their ideologies didn’t become clear until 1905. 

 

Thus at the turn of the twentieth century large sections of the Russian population were disenchanted with the regime and its inability to bring about meaningful reforms. In 1904 a Japanese attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur (Manchuria) led to a Russian retaliation. The Tsar and his advisers took victory for granted in this war. Had this war been won, the regime could have gained from the patriotic support, however the war went from bad to worse. The Russian military was poorly equipped with modern technology and constrained by the fact that the war had to be run from 6000 miles away. Thousands of Russian lives were wasted in bayonet charges against well-entrenched artillery positions. Liberal opposition against the government flared up. It was evident that reforms would have to be carried out to thwart the threat of revolution. While the tsar passed a decree on December 12th promising to strengthen the law and the autonomy of the zemstvos, the order was silent on the issue of a Parliament.

 

On 9th January 1905, 150,000 workers marched to the Winter Palace to plead with the Tsar to improve working conditions. As the column approached the Narva Gates it was charged by a squadron of cavalry- forty people were killed and hundreds wounded as they attempted to flee. Similar massacres occurred in other parts of the city. This day, which came to be known as Bloody Sunday, led to a huge wave of strikes. In January itself 400,000 workers rose in protest across the country. Rebellion soon spread to the countryside. Peasants demanded higher wages from their landlords, they trespassed their squire’s estate, cutting their trees and hay.

 

Russia was a large and multi ethnic empire with various diverse groups like Poles Ukrainians, Finns, Georgians and Armenians. From the late 19th century, the Russian state, especially under Nicholas II had been promoting an aggressive policy of Russification.  The turn of the century saw the rise nationalism and demands for autonomy among many of these groups.

 

While the regimes initial response to the 1905 revolution was suppression, under the counsel of Witte, the tsar finally relented and proclaimed the October manifesto. This granted civil liberties, a cabinet government and a Duma elected on the basis of democratic franchise; it was aimed at pacifying the liberals and alienating the left.

 

The State Duma opened on 27th April 1906; it was evident from the beginning that the government was trying to circumvent the Duma, it refused to even acknowledge its demand to carry out land reform to appease the peasantry. The Duma was dissolved within 2 months with a second Duma being elected in February 1907; this was headed by Petr Stolypin. In his attempt to ‘restore order’ Stolypin carried out a series of repressive measures- hundreds of radical newspapers were shut down, 60,000 political prisoners were executed and thousands of peasants were tried in military field courts.  He also carried out a modernizing agenda- introducing reforms to dismantle communes, make membership to local government contingent on property and citizenship, regulate the courts of law and the police, universalize primary education and improve the condition of factory workers. The composition of the second Duma with its majority of socialists and Kadets meant that there was little chance of Stolypin finding support for his reforms. He soon dissolved it and changed the electoral law to ensure that the next Duma would be dominated by conservative elements. Accordingly in the third Duma, convened in November 1907, 287 of the 443 seats were controlled by the pro government parties. Thus it was clear that even when it was willing to carry out reforms the Tsarist government consistently undermined the role of the Duma.

 

On 28th June 1914 Serbian nationalists assassinated The Archduke Ferdinand. Austria, supported by Germany threatened Serbia with war. Public opinion clamored for a war to defend Russia’s European interests. On 31st July 1914 Nicholas II called for a general mobilisation. The Duma, which had already seen a loss of power since its constitution, suffered further restrictions and had almost no influence over the war. 

 

Under pressure from France, Russia launched an all out offensive on both the Southwestern and Northwestern front.  The Russian military had not been prioritized for many years, between 1881 and 1902 the military’s budget reduced from 30% to 18% of government spending. Further there was much resentment within the army among the lower classes of soldiers mostly from the peasantry. Russian reserve forces also lacked adequate training. The lack of preparation of the government was also evident; having expected the war to be over by Christmas no preparations had been made for winter provisions.

The poor performance of the Russian army as well as the munitions crisis of 1915 emboldened the opposition to demand reforms from the court. Conflict arose between the administration and army with the army chastising the administration for its lack of planning. Angered by these demands and accusations and jealous of the Grand Duke Nikolai’s position as commander in chief, Nicholas prorogued the Duma and on August 22nd 1915 took over the Supreme command of the army and left for the front.

According to Tsuyoshi Hasegawa the “war made the break between the autocracy and the liberals inevitable.” With the consistent refusal of the tsar to form a ministry of confidence the radical wing of the liberals began to focus on revolution, while the other faction (led by A.I Guchkov) plotted a coup.

 

The inability of the tsarist regime to carry on the war as well as take care of the home front led to the rise of a number of private organisations to take care of public welfare. Associations like the “Pan-Russian Union of Zemstvos” – to help wounded soldiers and the “Committee of War Industries”- to coordinate war production were formed. The war also strained Russian finances; supporting the needs of sixteen million soldiers required a massive overhaul of the economy.  There was a huge scarcity of basic commodities as well. The number of strikes by workers skyrocketed; when the workers organized a march in 1917 there was large-scale participation by white-collar workers and tradesmen- something that had been absent in 1905.

All these tensions and problems came to a head in the end of February 2017. On February 23rd women workers in the Vyborg district of Petrograd went on a strike with a cry for ‘Bread’, this strike soon spread to neighbouring areas. At this stage those who were protesting were mostly workers. These workers engaged in violent clashes with the police- they were hated symbols of tsarist regime. On the other hand there were attempts to win over the soldiers, most of them were peasants or from lower classes and thus seen as sympathetic to the common people. On 25th February the Tsar ordered General Khabalov, chief of the Petrograd Military district to use military force on the protestors.

On Sunday morning as the workers gathered on the Nevsky Prospekt the police and soldiers opened fire, systematically shooting down the demonstrators.

 

This proved to be a fatal mistake on the part of the tsarist government. On the morning of 27th soldiers from the Volynskii regiment revolted. This mutiny spread to neighbouring regiments. Katkov argues that if the commanding authorities had provided able leadership then a small and capable force could have crushed the mutinies.

On 1st March The Petrograd Soviet and the Duma began negotiations on the formation of a government, which were completed in the early hours of the next morning. What emerged was a dual system of power, where the Soviet would support the Provisional government in so far as it adhered to certain Soviet principles.

 

On the evening of 27th March news reached the Tsar of the Petrograd mutiny. Hasegawa argues that the Duma committee played a central role in slowing the progress of the counter revolutionary forces. While initially the military high command had supported the Tsar’s decision to quell the mutinies, on learning that power had been transferred to the Duma, the leading Generals sent the Tsar telegrams asking him to abdicate. Nicholas acquiesced on 2nd March, abdicating both for himself and his son, giving over the throne to his younger brother Grand Duke Mikhail. On 3rd March members of the Duma committee and the Provisional government met Grand Duke Mikhail and secured his refusal to accede to the throne. On the night of 3rd March two manifestos were released- one announced Nicholas’ abdication and the other Mikhail’s refusal. Autocracy had fallen. 

New Economic policy 1921-1928

By the time 1921 came around, Russia’s economy had been maimed by the effects of War Communism. Power wave of rural and industrial strikes began to crop up all over the country, Socialism had not begun on a good note, and Vladimir Lenin was becoming concerned with the unfortunate state of the economy. The ravaged state of the economy convinced Lenin to change course in the direction of what soon became known as the New Economic Policy. The new economic policy was in its basic sense a series of measures that appeared over the course of several months beginning in the spring of 1921. NEP was ‘new’ because it was a departure from the practices of the War communism period.

Ideological Basis

The ideological basis for the new economic policy was based on Marxist ideology which the Bolsheviks adhered to. Lenin believed that feudal societies must progress through capitalism in order to accumulate wealth (Lenin was following Karl Marx’s precepts that a nation must first reach ‘full maturation of capitalism as the precondition for socialist realization’.). Only by promoting limited state capitalism within the Soviet Union could the Bolsheviks rebuild the nation’s industry and eventually achieve the socialist state they desired. The peasantry, already agitated and unwilling to cooperate with the Bolshevik government, had no incentive to produce their goods due to the lack of market to trade in. therefore to avoid another potential widespread famine and further alienation from the peasantry, the Bolsheviks had to allow free trade amongst the peasants as an incentive for them to work the land. With capitalism being considered an inherent evil amongst the Bolshevik party, the NEP was never considered to be a permanent policy for the nation. The NEP was considered a necessary but temporary evil by the Bolsheviks in order to allow economic growth within the Russian republics, and to prepare the Soviet people for socialism and international communist revolution. Therefore Lenin believed that NEP represented a forced and highly undesirable retreat, and logically the next step should be to regroup and to resume the advance in due course.

Tax in kind

In March 1921 we see the introduction of the Tax in kind (prodnalog) policy, which would replace ‘Surplus-food appropriation,” or the policy which assigned a certain amount of peasants produce to the state which it was entitled too.  The tax in kind was fixed substantially below the earlier targets under the Prodrazvyorstka. The delivery quota for 1920-21 had been 423 million poods, whereas the grain tax in kind for 1921-2 was fixed at 240 million poods. For potatoes the figures were respectively no and 60, for meat 25.4 and 6.5, and so on. After the payment of tax the peasants were free to use their produce as they thought fit and could sell it in the Local market. Alec nove argues that his further lead to legalization of private trade as it would be absurd to expect that peasants would travel hundreds of miles to sell their goods in remote industrial cities.

 

He further states that the practice of free exchange was such that, Once trade of any kind was legalized it would snow ball out of control and sweep away all restrictions, which was exactly what followed, Cooperative trading was encouraged, and was particularly successful in selling consumers' goods in the countryside, as well as goods of all kinds in towns alongside the state retail network, which was gradually being built up from the ruins of war communism. However, private traders were allowed gradually to enter into trade deals of almost every kind: selling to peasants, buying from peasants, buying from and selling to state enterprises, selling goods made by state factories as well as those made by a resurgent private manufacturing sector.

 

For the Bolsheviks, the idea of having to accept the revival of capitalism was held in suspicion. Lenin had called it a strategic retreat so that they could gather their strength before a renewed assault against capitalism.

Suspicions were also directed against the Kulaks and the Nepmen as the NEP allowed the re-emergence of the Kulak class and formation of the Nepmen . The enterprising farmers emerged prosperous and soon were treated as a socio economic category of kulak which had a different connotation from the original meaning of the word. The Nepmen or local private entrepreneurs emerged as private trade flourished. Initially the regime had hoped that private transactions would be more of a barter-economy but soon it emerged to loosen price regulations and compete and outdo the consumer cooperative networks controlled by the government. In many areas, nepmen were the only sellers of manufactured goods. In 1922-23, private entrepreneurs controlled over three fourths of all retail trade.

We also see that Nationalization of industry was ceased, while some enterprises were nominally owned by the state, they were leased to individuals and operated privately. Government subsidies were stopped, and enterprises were expected to make their own way purely by buying and selling in the market. Heavy industry, which represented a minority of enterprises, was required to give priority to the state, but permission to sell in the free market was frequently given. Combinations of enterprises, called trusts, were formed during the period and were permitted to make profits. By 1924, industrial production returned to almost half the 1913 level. Disillusion with a moneyless economy persuaded the government of the importance of money, banking, and capitalist accounting principles. All were restored under the NEP. In November 1921 the Soviet regime also introduced currency reforms that would back inflation and restored trust in the rouble. The demand for money, which had plummeted under war communism because of the severe shortages and fear of repudiation, soon rose substantially as consumer goods became available.

Results

 

Increase in agrarian output and the Scissors crisis

According to Alec nove under the NEP, which ended requisitioning and allowed Russians to buy and sell surplus produce, giving them a personal economic incentive to produce more grains. This along with improved weather conditions also helped. The 1922 and 1923 harvests were extremely successful. With more produce on the market, food prices more than halved between August 1922 and February 1923. By 1925 Russian agricultural production was in its best shape for more than a decade, grain production and livestock numbers approaching pre-World War I levels. The Soviet government helped by becoming the monopoly purchaser and distributor of grain and setting price levels. This prevented gouging and profiteering and kept food prices low. While Russian agriculture was recovering, the industrial sector was progressing far more slowly. There were several reasons for this. Industrialization required capital, expertise and infrastructure, all of which were in short supply in post-revolutionary Russia. Factories required large amount of labour, however seven years of war and miserable conditions had depleted the nation’s urban workforce. As demand for industrial and manufactured items increased, so did their prices. By late 1923 the cost of manufactured items had increased to almost three times their prices in 1913. In contrast, food prices were around 90 per cent of their 1913 levels. This fall in prices of agricultural goods and sharp rise in prices of industrial products was known as the Scissors Crisis

Low food prices meant that farmers going to market received smaller sums for their crops; high commodity prices meant they could not afford to purchase manufactured goods. Without enough surplus cash to purchase equipment, machinery or building materials, Russian farmers could not embrace new methods or increase their productivity. Low crop prices were also a disincentive to production.  Peasants began withholding their surpluses in wait for higher prices, or sold them to "NEPmen" (traders and middle-men) who re-sold them at high prices. Many Communist Party members considered this an exploitation of urban consumers. To lower the price of consumer goods, the state took measures to decrease inflation and enact reforms on the internal practices of the factories. The government also fixed prices, in an attempt to halt the scissor effect.

According to Orlando figes NEP allowed for a mixed economy in which state and socialized sectors could compete with the private and the sole purpose of the NEP was to create a socialist economy which was brought about by state regulation, Fiscal measures and agronomic aid to encourage the peasants to join collective farms and Agricultural cooperatives. Figes says that it was the measure of NEP which increase the number of agricultural cooperatives, which lead to a steady rise in farm productivity which reached the 1913 levels by 1926.

Prices, Markets and Private enterprise

With the coming of NEP, the problem of price control became particularly acute. A decree of 5 August 1921 set up a Prices Committee attached to the Commissariat of Finance. It had power to fix wholesale and retail prices for goods made or sold by state enterprises, as well as prices at which government agencies were to buy from others, for instance private peasants. However, these controls were largely ignored, and in 1922 were replaced by Approximate prices AKA Minimia. Therefore private traders could sell products at whatever price they wanted. A Commission on Trade attached to the STO, set up in 1922, endeavored with some success to establish direct links between state industry and consumer cooperatives, and to cut out private commission agents, but had no effective way of controlling prices. The co-existence of private and state (plus a largely autonomous cooperative) sectors, under conditions of inflation, transport breakdowns and administrative inefficiency, led to some very substantial price fluctuation.

The Nepman were almost the sole seller in many rural areas in 1923. Where a rural cooperative existed, it was exceedingly inefficient. This lead to private trade filling the gap left by the inadequacy of the state.

Transport

The transport situation in 1921 was appalling. Over half of the available locomotives were described as 'sick' and the repair shops were incapable of coping with their tasks, for lack of manpower, equipment and fuel. Indeed in 1921 the principal bottleneck in the railways was poor supplies of fuel for locomotives, and even the few that were in good health could not run. Great efforts were made to build up stocks of fuel, and scarce foreign currency was used to import locomotives and components. In 1922-3 45 per cent more passengers and 59 per cent more goods were moved than in the previous year. Recovery continued. In 1923-4 rail transport carried 54 per cent of its 1913 traffic. Already in 1926-7 it surpassed 1913 levels. It is interesting to note that the estimate made in 1922 concerning the recovery of rail transport proved to err greatly on the side of caution: by 1926-7 it had been expected that only 62.7 per cent of the prewar level would be reached.

Impact on Urban workers

With the Coming of NEP and the abolition of free ration, the workers had to buy everything with bare minimum wage and this was further aggravated by inflation. Alec nove says that shortages of all kinds made a standard of life well below pre-revolutionary. The major cause for this was the drop in wages from 25 roubles to 9.47 roubles per month. Conditions improved as more goods became available. The average monthly wage of workers and almost reached the levels of 1913 by 1926. The comparison with 1913 is more favorable if one takes social services into account. These, for the 'proletariat', were relatively generous. Already the Provisional government had adopted advanced labour legislation, and the labour code of the war-communism period would have been very advanced indeed if it had been possible to make a reality of it in the chaos of the time. The labour legislation of 1922 reasserted some of the principles of past decrees, and laid down some new ones. Workers were entitled to an eight-hour day (less in heavy work), two weeks' holiday with pay, social insurance benefits (including sick pay, unemployment pay, medical aid). Collective agreements between management and unions would regulate wages and working conditions. A disputes commission, with the union strongly represented, would consider grievances. The regime could point with pride to such legal enactments; they were well ahead of their time

However a grave problem was that of unemployment. It particularly rose rapidly in 1923, when the Trust (factories) were finding it difficult to sell their goods. This was mainly a product of government’s policy of encouraging profits- making and the elimination of surplus jobs and featherbedding. Unemployment reached 1.24 million in January 1924, and fell to 950,000 in the next year, but began rising again to reach a figure of 1.6 million in 1929. The Social consequence of high unemployment affected the young people in particular, partly because the progressive labour legislation of 1922 gave them special privileges (including a sixhour day), which naturally made the employers (be they state managers or private Nepmen) think twice about employing them. Youth was already much shaken by its experience in the civil war. The number of orphan vagabonds (besprizornye) was a menace to public order. The fact that there were so few honest jobs for them to do was of no help in rehabilitating them. Crime rates were high.

Opposition to NEP

Despite the undeniable improvement in living standards, party officials feared things were slipping beyond their control. The NEP became a central point of controversy in the three-way rivalry that followed Lenin's death in 1924. Many Bolsheviks believed that Rapid industrialization required (1) a large grain surplus(to feed a mushrooming proletariat and export In exchange for foreign technology) and (2) investment decisions that favoured heavy industry as much as possible. Steel mills, coal mines, hydroelectric projects and machine shops turned out products that could be used to produce still more factories, while light (consumer goods) industry did not. Neither of these things – according to them could be met through NEP. As they argued that a lot of the budget was used to buy grain from the peasants. Bukharin believed that this could be fixed by modifying the policies.   (From here on out its basically the great debate)

On the other side of the party were people like Stalin, who favored a decisive change. According to them NEP seemed too incompatible with their aggressive industrialization which was required to construct socialism. This opinion gained more traction by 1928 with the development of the Grain crisis. Harvest in 1927 was little more than half the amount it had received during the corresponding year. Party leader Joseph Stalin depicted the shortfall was political in nature, the result of the rich peasantry withholding supplies in an effort to force the state to raise grain procurement prices. This Stalin likened to blackmail — forcing the state to abandon its industrialization plans in favor of filling their own pockets with the proceeds of sales to the market. Bukharin, regarded this perspective as a "fairy tale," instead arguing that rather than hoarding and speculation the cause of grain supply difficulties was a poor harvest, combined with insufficiently attractive procurement prices that deterred sales to state grain collectors.

The crisis in grain collections caused a split of the top leadership of the Communist Party, with a majority of party activists rallying around Stalin, who had now begun vigorously espousing the virtues of rapid industrialization previously associated with Trotsky and the Left Opposition.

The opposition led by Stalin, agreed that world revolution was not near, but held that socialism could be established in Russia nonetheless. Stalin, originally closer to Bukharin, managed to eliminate both Trotsky and Bukharin and eventually consolidated his power and took over the government.

Nazism in Germany

The global economic depression that began in 1929 had dramatic political consequence in Europe. Economic insecurity and social unrest undermined parliamentary rule. The wartime inflation greatly increased during the years followed by a steep fall of steel and iron prices when the demand plunged for the tanks and artillery pieces. Overproduction and the increasing use of hydroelectricity and oil caused the price of coal to fall rapidly leading to industrial jobs to disappear. The German economy was persistently short of capital and industrial production overall expanded very little. Once the depression struck, unemployment mounted rapidly. Unemployed workers and middle class people sought new alternatives. German reparations also adversely affected the world economy. Following the Dawes Plan, Germany borrowed $110 million from Us banks to meet its reparation payment to the allies post war. German railroads acted as guaranty for the loans. In 1928, US banks refused to issue more loans to Germany, investing available funds instead in the wall street stock market further undercutting German banks. East European agriculture was in a depressed state well before the crash of 1929. More grain, meat and other food supplies arrived on the continents from Australia, Argentina, Canada and US. The price of locally produced agriculture goods fell down. Farm incomes declined and the trouble was aggravated by the burden of taxation. European states responded by erecting tariff barriers to protect their internal markets. By 1929 US economy was in recession after the New York stock market crashed. American and British investors with assets still tied up on Germany now began to pull their money out. German gold reserves were depleted as banks owed far more money to creditors than they had assets.

It is against this backdrop of hard time that followed the Great war that led to the rise of fascism and other authoritarian movements in both industrial countries of Western Europe, agrarian state of eastern Europe and Balkans.  While in the 19th century the middle class stood for the liberal values in Europe, but in post war the support shifted towards the fascist forces in Germany, Italy and Austria. The middle classes lost their trust on the union leaders being ravaged by years of economic crisis. Fascism did not emerge as an ideology per se than a violent plan of action with an aim of seizing power. They did not put forward’ programs’ for authoritarian rule rather saw themselves building a new social and political order based upon the service to the nation.

Fascists movements opposed trade unions, Socialists and Communists. They viewed economic and social tensions as irrelevant arguing that it was enough that all people shared a common national identity and eventually Fascism would make such divisions obsolete. But we need to remember that  there was no one single fascist ideology and not all right wing authoritarian movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s can be qualified as fascist.

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The principle of interpretations of fascism have been directed towards defining the underlying nature of this presumed genus of politics, towards it overall significance or more commonly towards its causes. It is understood under the following subheadings-

1. Fascism as a violent, dictatorial agent of Bourgeois Capitalism

The notion that fascism is primarily to be explained as the agent of ‘capitalism, big business, finance capital, the bourgeoisie, state monopoly capitalism’ is one of the oldest and most widely disseminated interpretation. More critical minded communists later offered more sophisticated interpretation calling it ‘Agent Theory’ and defined Fascism as ‘imperialist elements of finance capital’.

2. Fascism as the expression of a unique radicalism of the middle class

Many scholars saw fascism as the vehicle of the middle classes, who were previously denied status among the national elite, to forge a new national system that would give them a more salient role. This interpretation was first suggested by Luigi Salvatorelli which largely coincides with the thesis of Seymour Lipset that Fascism is the ‘radicalism of the centre’. But this approach is limited as it fails to take into account the number of fascist supporters outside the middle classes in diverse countries like Germany, Hungary, and Romania. Hence it is inadequate to provide a general theory of fascism.

3. Fascism as a Cultural revolution

George L. Mosse’s presented fascism as a cultural revolution. He has interpreted it as the effort to develop a new ideology and culture and to create a revolutionary ‘ new man’ in place of the materialist and liberal culture of the 19th century. National Socialism is here seen as the actualization and crystallization of elements of a specific tradition in German history since the war of liberation against Napoleon. The Fascist culture made a strong appeal to the past and simultaneously to the creation of a new race of heroes.

4. Fascism as the product of cultural and Moral breakdown

Certain historians of culture in Germany and Italy, like Benedetto Croce and Friedrich Meinecke have interpreted fascism as the product of cultural fragmentation and moral relativism in European values from the late 19th century onwards. According to them , the crisis of the WW1 and its aftermath, producing intense economic dislocation, social conflict, and cultural anomie, resulted in a kind of spiritual collapse that permitted novel forms of radical nationalism to flourish. By contrast, A.James Gregor argues that Italian fascism developed a coherent ideology that was not the product of spiritual collapse but rather the consequence of new cultural, political, and sociological ideas developed in western and central Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries/.

5. Fascism as a reaction against Modernization

The old argument that saw fascism as primarily opposed to central features of western liberal society such as urbanization, industrialization and liberal education, individualism, pluralist autonomy and so categorized fascism as inherently opposed to modernization itself. Barrington Moore Jr. employing a highly elastic definition of fascism has argued that it was the product of an aberrant and distorted modernization process controlled by rural, martial elites. Another interpretative approach recognizes that fascism adopted fully modern methods and technology but holds that these were embraced for essentially anti modern ends. This argument is presented in Jefferey Herf’s ‘Reactionary Modernism’.

6. Fascism as a stage of Socio-Economic growth

This approach was first essayed by Franz Borkenau who interpreted Italian fascism as a  sort of ‘Development Dictatorship’. The stages of growth concept holds that the process of modernization and industrialization has frequently tended to produce several internal conflict as the balance of power shifts between or threaten various social and economic groups.

NAZISM

The rise of the Nazis became closely identified with the rise to power of a charismatic leader, Adolf Hitler(1889-1945). During his time in Vienna he expressed great hatred for the Social Democrats. He moved to Munich as a proud German nationalist and joined the national army. The war accentuated Hitler’s fanatical German nationalism and transformed him into a raging anti- Semite. By 1919, Hitler had constructed a world view very similar to that of Oswald Spengler who believed that the cause of German defeat in the Great War was the decay of Western civilisation and the only way German race would emerge victorious was in a biological struggle against its competitors. Hitler’s ideology was composed of racism, anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and aggressive nationalism. He believed that Germans were ‘Aryans’ descended from a superior race. He soon became the head of  right wing nationalist organization renaming it as Nationalist Socialist German workers Party or Nazi Party.

The Nazis drew much of the support from the middle classes which had been devastated by the hyperinflation of early 1920s and turned against the Weimar Republic. Pensioners, small businessmen, shopkeepers, craftsmen suffering in this economic condition supported the Nazis for a hope of respite. Gradually the German politics was moving towards the right, led by the powerful National People’s Party, most of whose members were increasingly anti republican and preferred monarchy or military dictatorship.

The economic depression increased opposition to the Weimar Republic, particularly among the middle classes. The Nazis in 1929 were one of the extreme right wing groups determined to overthrow the republic. The depression further eroded the centrist coalition within the Reichstag upon which the republic had depended from the beginning. In March 1930, the last remnants of the Weimar coalition came apart under the pressure of economic turmoil and the government led by the Social Democrats resigned. President Hindenburg began to rule by decree.

The election of 1930 confirmed the erosion of the parliamentary centre where the Nazis received 5 times more votes than last year obtaining 18% of the popular votes and 107 seats in Reichstag. Although the Nazi Party had become very powerful, they lost close to two million votes in the November 1932 Reichstag elections, which meant that they only had 33 percent of the vote, and not the majority they needed. A notable feature of the 1932 elections was the drastic decline of all the liberals and moderate middle class parties. On Jan 30, 1933 Papen succeeded in convincing Hindenburg of appointing Hitler at the position of Chancellor but yet it was important to gain a complete parliamentary majority to create a façade of legitimacy for the transition to dictatorship.

In March 1933, there was considerable Nazi violence during the election campaign primarily directed against communists and socialists. This time the election gave Nazi a plurality of 43.9% and 288 Reichstag seats and with this the Communist Party was banned and Hitler now had the greatest parliamentary majority which allowed him to attain the Enabling Act giving Hitler the power to govern by a decree for 4 years.

Two aspects of Nazi strategy made it especially effective, 1) The Nationalist Socialist propaganda appealed to each major segment of society in its own terms, promising solution to economic problems. 2) The Nazis proclaimed themselves the only true-German movement which stood above party, class and faction. Thus they alleged that Hitler was the only true national leader with a program for the entire society. Anti-Semitism played a major role but only in moderation as Nazis were increasingly careful not to frighten ordinary people by preaching them dire tactics against Jews. The main theme was Nationalism , economic salvation and anti communism.

The Nazis implemented a dictatorial state. In May 1933, they organized the state controlled German Labour Front to replace the unions they had decimated. Strikes were illegal. The state parliaments were dissolved and the Nazis took over the state governments. A new law empowered officials to dismiss subordinates whom they considered potentially disloyal to the Nazis or who could not prove that they were of pure ‘ Aryan’ race. In October, the first concentration camp was set up at Dachau nae Munich for the incarceration of political prisoners. Hindenburg’s death in august 1934 allowed Hitler to combine the titles of chancellor and Fuhrer ( leader), which replaced that of ‘ President’ a title that smacked of  a republic. The Nazis gradually took over the voluntary associations such as professional associations and sports clubs. They worked to convert schools according to their ideologies of a perfect state, providing new textbooks with instructions for the teachers to teach concepts like ‘ racial theory’ and ‘teutonic prehistory’. New university chairs in ‘racial hygiene’ military history and German prehistory reflected Nazi interests.

While interpreting the Nazi State, there are mainly two schools of thought, - Intentionalists and Structuralists. The former believed that Hitler had clear and decisive goals from the start and was firmly in charge of all major decisions. From 1960s, revisionists historiography developed structuralists interpretations which contended that the understanding of the rise of Nazi system and of Hitler’s leadership had been overdetermined by earlier analysis who stressed intentionalism. These scholars asserted that the course of events and the major decision were influenced much more b the structure of institutions, the pressure of cumulative events or economic factors and the changing international situation. 

Fascism in Italy

The inter-war period in Europe witnessed a number of drastic changes on the continent as a whole and specifically in some countries. One such change that occurred in Italy was the collapse of the liberal democracy and the rise of a new Right-wing ideology known as Fascism under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. It was on October 28th, 1922 that Mussolini had launched his ‘March on Rome’ that enabled him to capture power in Italy. The rise of Mussolini has become a matter of great historical debate. Some historians have seen the rise of Mussolini purely as a product of Mussolini’s opportunism, while, others have seen it as a outgrowth of Italian History and especially as a response to the problems that confronted Italy in the post-WW1 scenario.  In order to understand the rise of Fascism in Italy it is not possible to consider both these aspects in isolation from each other.

The problems that led to the rise of Fascism can be traced back to the Unification of Italy or ever since the time ‘Italy’ came into existence. The Unification of Italy had been unable to create a sound social, political and economic foundation because of which the Italian state was always suffering from a prolonged crisis that made the rise of Fascism easy. The Risorgimento had given rise to more hopes than it could fulfill and it was the pessimism that had arisen as a result of the failure of this movement was the real evil that gave birth to fascism (A.J. Thayer). The Unification politically had disastrous consequence. It was not brought about as a result of a popular movement resulting in a republic but instead was imposed from above by royal conquest. In fact, many people believed that under the garb of Unification, the ‘Piedmontization’ of Italy had taken place. This had created a great deal of discontent in the country, particularly in the South, which believed that it had almost been colonized by the North. In the last resort, the unification seemed to have been created by foreign powers and this created a sense of national inferiority amongst the Italians, which they were unable to overcome.

The new constitutional system that was created post-1871 was founded on shaky grounds. The new parliamentary regime was a typical 19th century liberal constitution comprising a monarchy of limited powers, a bi-cameral legislature made up of an appointed senate and a Chamber of Deputies elected on a narrow property franchise.  This was the foundation of Italy’s compromise-coalition politics, which at that time was necessary to stabilize the infant government, but ultimately impeded the growth of a clear-cut party system and an organized opposition. As a sound parliamentary system did not come into being it led to a frequent change of governments resulting in a great deal of political instability. Stephen J.Lee has argued that between Cavour and 1900, there were 22 changes in the government, between 1900 and 1914 9 changes and between 1914 and 1922, there were 7 changes. The entire party and political system of Italy was highly fluid in which the government was formed on the basis of a temporary consensus and this entire system came to be known as “Transformismo”. The coalition politics was aided by the fact that the liberal regime had a very narrow and regional base. Out of a population of 2 million, the electorate comprised of only half a million, of which only 300,000 voted.  Such a system could function smoothly only as long as majority of the populace was not politically mobilized and thus, this system was described by many as one with had encouraged “self-perpetuating elites”.

Giolitti was one politician, who was reelected time and again to the post of PM and made efforts to resolve the problems of the Italian state. He embarked upon reform measures in legal code, taxation and government. His tenure had also seen  some degree of industrialization but despite that Italy had continued to remain a predominantly agrarian economy. Finally, he had ignored the problem of the south due to which the gulf between the North and South had become even more pronounced. For Elizabeth Wiskemann Giolitti’s reforms were “democratic in appearance but in effect simply changed the composition of the ruling elite and favoured those adept at manipulating elections and utilizing the democratic myth”.  He has been often dismissed as an old fashioned parliamentary manager who governed by corrupt and conventional means. The perpetuation of old and tainted methods after the expectation of something better rekindled the popular spirit of cynicism and contributed to the steady debasement of the parliamentary regime which ultimately opened the door to fascism. Alan Cassels has called him the “unwilling precursor to Fascism”.

It was this situation of political instability that was causing a great deal of frustration and disillusionment among the Italians and were fed up of constantly oscillating between the left and right. They wanted a stable government that could survive for a long period of time and when Mussolini presented them with this third alternative people jumped to support him (A. De Grand). Salvotorelli has spoken about how anti-liberal and hence, anti-Risorgimento feelings had developed among the people and it was this scenario that had made the rise of Mussolini quite easy.

The absence of a social or economic revolution at the time of 1871 had also sown the seeds of tension for the future Italian state. Antonio Granici has argued that 1871 was a ‘missed revolution’ as the interests of the peasantry-the masses- and the countryside were not taken into account. In the absence of this agricultural revolution, wherein there was no redistribution of landed property except among the nobility and bourgeoisie, no increase in productivity etc the countryside remained poor. Thus, no efforts were made to link the interests of the peasants with that of the new state. A weak agrarian base in turn had led to a weak industrial base. This according to many scholars was the main reason behind Italy playing a minimal role in International politics, which in turn was a huge source of concern for the people in Italy.

Finally, the new Italian state was also characterized by a great regional divide between the North and South, which came to represent two almost entirely different levels of civilization. The South was barren, poverty-stricken, over-populated and steeped in illiteracy,malaise and backwardness. It was permanently on the verge of revolt and impeded Italy’s progress on the road to unity and material progress.  The South had a historic tradition of private justice ( mafia, camorra). In 1890s in Sicily, rebels took on the name Fasci and perpetrated the most notorious disturbances. The contrast between the North and the South resulted a deep sense of parochialism (for which both history and geography were responsible) which forever impeded the cohesion of the Italian masses into a nation.

Thus, it can be seen that on the eve of Mussolini’s rise to power Italy was suffering from a prolonged crisis in all spheres (and this was accentuated by the impact of WW1). The tendency to see the rise of fascism as the inevitable outcome of a long process of national decline is also common among Italian writers. The ‘role of history’ is outlined in what has come to be known as the ‘Revelation Thesis’. Guistino Fortunato described fascism as a revelation of the ancient vices and defects of Italy. G.M Trevelyan saw the historical causes of fascist dictatorship in Italy as residing in ‘the unbroken millennial continuity of the politics of the piazza’. In his words, “without the obscure hereditary instinct for parliamentary government, it was natural that the Italian constitutional experiment should have failed”. Others have blamed the poverty and rising economic crisis as being responsible for the rise of Fascism as it made the masses vulnerable to the Fascist propaganda. G.A. Borgese described the Italian disease that invited Fascism as a combination of ‘cultural megalomania with a political and military inferiority complex’. Thus, it would be suffice to say that the long period of instability caused by the legacy of the Italian Unification of 1871 had created a situation in which the people were desperate for a strong, stable government headed by a charismatic and powerful leader, who could help resolve all its problems. It was Mussolini, who had provided the people with this option.

Many scholars cite the First World War as the point of departure -responsible for this decisive turn of events. Initially, Italy had been a member of the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria but this alliance could not completely fulfill the Italian ambitions in the Adriatic and the Balkans. It is for this reason that Italy in 1915 had switched over to the side of Britain and France through the secret Treaty of London (1915) on the promise of gaining Trentino, Trieste and part of Albania and Asia Minor. This was the period that had witnessed the rise of the Nationalists in Italy, who were in favour of joining the war as they believed that Italy could increase her prominence in International politics by intervening in this war. This was a view point that was supported by Mussolini, who urged the workers to fight for the country claiming that this was the only way they would be integrated with the state. This type of rhetoric was to become a part of his campaign, wherein he tried to solve all economic and social problems by appealing to the concept of nationalism.

The intervention in the war, according to many historians, marked the final episode of the liberal chapter in Italy. Firstly, the maladministration in the war had brought the parliamentary regime under strict criticism. The war reversals at Caporetto in 1917, when the Italian armies in the North east were rolled back a hundred miles in three weeks were a huge blow to the Italian national pride. However, it was the post-war scenario that seems to have antagonized the masses and in particular the nationalists the most. The Post-War foreign policy had earned the regime common discredit as the terms of the Peace Conference at Paris were translated as ‘mutilated victory’ for the Italian people. The wartime promises of handing over colonies in Africa, Middle East, Dalmati and Fiume to Italy were not fulfilled by the allies and this was looked upon as a national insult. The parliamentary regime was now blamed for entering a war that had had disastrous economic effects on Italy for gaining nothing in return. It was believed that Italy at the Paris Peace Conference had been treated like one of the defeated nations as she got nothing of the war spoils. This had become a matter of national humiliation and the people were in need for a leader, who could restore their pride and assert Italian power in the international sphere. It was once again Mussolini, who through his rhetorical, passionate and fiery speeches that highlighted his desire to assert national will abroad and to avenge this humiliation was able to infuse a feeling of confidence in the people.

Scholars like Volpe and Louigi Salvotorelli have looked upon the Fascist movement as a strongly nationalist movement, which was motivated by nationalist sentiments and fervor. Salvoterelli gave it the name of “Nazional Fascismo”. They claimed that Italy in the post-WW scenario was in a state of depression. They felt betrayed by the post-war treaties as they had gained nothing for their participation. Thus, their image as a nation was at the lowest ebb. It was in a situation like this that Mussolini through his personality and propaganda was able to give some sense of hope to the people, who began to rally around him.

Beneditto Croce has also argued that it was the internal crisis created by the war that brought Mussolini to power. The post-war Italy was suffering from a severe economic crisis and it was this destruction that was damaging to the morale of the Italian public. The gross national product and overseas trade declined steadily, massive unemployment ensued and between 1919 and 1921 the cost of living rose by more than 50 percent. Stephen Lee has pointed out that 148,000 Lira had been wasted as part of the economic budget to sponsor the war. This was more than twice the total expenditure of all the governments from 1861 to 1922. As a result, the war had caused a huge dent on the economy of Italy; many industries were shut down, the economy reverted back to the traditional means of production and there was a serious shortage of food grains, which now had to be imported from abroad. It these economic factors that have often been cited as a moving force behind the growth of fascist dictatorship, in the wake of Italy’s economic failures. The political instability and constant bickering between the existing political factions had made the people realize that a change in the political system was required if the country had to come out of its economic misery.

It is in this regard that besides Mussolini’s capability, the economic programme offered by him became an attractive pull for the people. A.J. Gregor identifies Fascism as one of the ‘developmental revolutionary regimes’ in world history. According to him, the fundamentals of Mussolini’s fascism were his economic motives, as he claimed to be committed to the modernization of the Italian economy. Fascism, prior to its advent to power did offer a specific economic program, articulated in the doctrinal literature of 1921 and 1922. Mussolini spoke of Italy’s disadvantaged position in the modern world and declared the Fascist economic program as a collaborative venture of national syndicalist organizations and private enterprise in pursuit of national self-sufficiency and “grandeur” of the Italian nation. According to Mussolini, Italy had been “enslaved” by her industrial retardation and the solution to all her problems lay in modernization and mass mobilization for rapid industrialization.

It was the rise of socialism as an ideology all over Europe and in particular after the success of the Bolsheviks in Russia that had created a hysteria against the socialists in Italy. After the war, the Italian socialist Party which always vacillated between moderation and extremism was inspired by the Russian events to make revolutionary demands both in country and town. It mocked at the intervention which had brought no glory or gains and invited widespread social and economic discontent.  A wave of strikes followed in 1919 and 1920 and this resulted in the socialists usurping administrative control in many areas in the North. This drove home the fear of a Bolshevik Coup, among industrialists, landowners and middle classes ,while further destroying the remaining prestige of the government. The success of Socialists in the local elections further aggravated the fear of the bourgeois and the elite.

Scholars like Angello Tasca have argued that it was this threat of socialism that brought Mussolini to power. Mussolini was vehemently opposed to Marxism and socialist ideas and offered to send action squads to put an end to factory and land occupations. This was in stark contrast to the declarations of the liberal regime, which urged the landowners and employers to make concessions. It was in a situation like this that Mussolini cunningly exploited this twin hatred and fear of the liberal regime and Bolshevik alternatives. The elites were frustrated by the government’s inaction and preference for narrow-minded pacifism, and began to sponsor Mussolini’s Squadristi violence against the Left.

Mussolini’s alliance with the Bourgeois started when in the summer of 1918, he took the fateful step of accepting subsidies for his paper from big business groups, notably Ansaldo –a big shipbuilding firm. From now on, fascist expenses for uniforms, arms, transport, publication etc were all funded by the men of Property. On their part, they used Mussolini and his fascist bands against rural squatters and urban strikers. The year 1920 was the year of sit-in strikes and escalation of the class war. The Confindustria was established for the purpose of countering working class agitation and deluged the fascist treasury with funds.

Stephen Lee has argued that one of the important reasons for the rise of Mussolini in Italy was the support that he received from a wide spectrum of people. As already seen above, the big landlords and capitalists jumped on to the Fascist bandwagon due to their fear of socialism. His ruthless suppression of trade unions and the peasant leagues had won him the loyalty of this powerful group. Similarly, Mussolini was able to win the support of the lower middle class that has been termed as the “floating masses” by Seymour Lipset. They feared that if a socialist government came to power it would lead to the proletariasation of the middle class and they would be reduced to the status of a working class. The Fascist membership in 1921 was estimated at over 300,000- majority of whom included the lower middle class, small shopkeepers, clerical workers, artisans.

Another important group that rallied around Mussolini was that of the war veterans. This group consisted of people, who had fought for Italy during WW1 and wanted some form of monetary compensation so that they could re-start their life. However, this form of compensation was not sanctioned by the liberal government given the economic situation of the country in the post-war period. It was Mussolini’s assurances of compensation to this group of people that won him their support.

Mussolini’s attempts to win over these scattered groups of people are a fine example of his phenomenal sense of opportunism. He even signed a pact of pacifism with some of the labour leaders and called off the attacks of the squadristi, even at the risk of causing friction with his rural leaders, the ras. The Queen mother Margherita was an avid pro-fascist and other members of the royal house too harboured ulterior motives , in support of Mussolini.  Once an angry atheist, Mussolini even began to make conciliatory gestures towards the Catholic Church and won the Pope Pius XI’s support, who led the catholic chapter to believe that between the twin evils of socialism and fascism, the latter was far less threatening. The values of nationalism, revolution, economic democracy etc endeared him to the Italian intelligentsia.  Thus, it can be seen that Mussolini was able to exploit the situation as per his own convenience and was able to muster a strong support base for himself and by 1922, almost all segments of the Italian establishment were ready to collaborate with fascism.

One must finally turn to the personality and methods adopted by Mussolini that enabled him to come to power. As already seen above Mussolini was a great opportunist, who was able to exploit the existing situation for his own purpose and interests. It was in this way that he was able to create a strong support base for himself that represented every shade of opinion. His capability as a shrewd strategist was extremely evident when he exploited the fears of communism and the hatred of the liberal democracy to pull people into his camp. In the same way he had aligned himself with the Nationalist party during the 1921 elections to project his Fascist party in a more respectable light in order to win over the more educated sections of society. However, it was his oratory skills and fiery, passionate speeches that seems to have worked the most in his favour as they were able to instill a sense of confidence and hope into the people during a time of crisis.

As far as his methods are concerned, Louigi Salvoterilly has argued that it was the use of violence by Mussolini against his rivals and the anti-fascist that seems to have made his intentions very clear. This had become clear during the Matteotti affair, who was kidnapped before his house and a few days later his mutilated body was found dumped somewhere. This showed the harsh, brutal measures that Mussolini was willing to adopt and increased the confidence of the people in him. While, the use of force had alienated a few people, majority of them believed that Fascism was a better alternative than liberalism or socialism. It was the constant use of force that had convinced the royal court and the government that it would be difficult for them to hold off against a Fascist onslaught, while, at the same time Mussolini’s strategic creation of a support base had created a large pool of pro-Fascist factions within the court. As a result, Mussolini was invited to form the government and was thus, able to usurp power through constitutional means. As Alan Cassels writes, the transfer of power was hardly a coup d’etat because the authorities surrendered before the blow could be struck. Mussolini came to power by constitutional tactics.

The intellectual humus of fascism has been associated with the ‘irrationalist or reactionary’ tendencies of an age otherwise inspired by progressive, humanitarian and idealistic goals. The philosophical challenges to the Western traditions of Moderation and Reason by thinkers such as Nietzsche, Rosenberg and Schopenhauer, are said to have been decisive influences on Mussolini and the like. Ernst Nolte sees fascism as arising from the survival of regressive ideals in a progressive era, where they played an alien and destructive role. According to him, fascism was an extension of the French counter-revolutionary tradition. Jacque Martain sees the growth of fascism in the context of the decline of religion, while Freudian thought, to no one’s surprise, concerns itself with ‘centuries of emotional deprivation’ that culminated in such a violent response.

Thus, to conclude one can see that the rise of Fascism in Italy could not be attributed to one single factor. It was a combination of both Italy’s progressive decline, which was an outcome of its historical legacy and the opportunism and personality of Mussolini. Mussolini was able to exploit the political vaccum that had been created by the feebleness of the liberal Risorgimento government in domestic and foreign affairs along with the twin myths of Bolshevik danger and ‘mutilated victory’, which pushed Italy into the embrace of fascism. It was with the rise of Mussolini to power that a new era had started in the history of Italy and the world that was to have disastrous consequences.

Post-war reconstruction

At the end of the war, many people in the West saw the Soviet Union as a mighty power, boundlessly ambitious and ready for new conquests. However, the country had been devastated by the war and the primary goal of the Stalinist leadership was not to push the borders of the Soviet Union, but to re-impose discipline and order at home. The period under review was dominated by reconstruction and rebuilding, with priorities affected by the cold war and the resultant arms race. An oppressive censorship made public discussion of serious matters impossible. Central control was maintained and so was the policy of imposing disproportionate burdens on the peasantry. Yet this period saw some remarkable achievements in rebuilding and re-equipping the economy.

The economy of the Soviet Union had been severely damaged by the war. The western half of European Russia and nearly all of Ukraine and Belorussia were wrecked. Alec Nove estimates that about 25 million people were homeless and over 1700 towns and 70000 villages were classified as ‘destroyed’. Communications were disrupted and there was an acute shortage of technology. There was a shortage of men in the villages owing to war deaths and migrations to industry.

Industry

The regime issued orders for the rapid reconversion of war factories to civilian production while enterprises were instructed to submit proposals as to what goods they should be producing. Gosplan (State Planning Commission) was instructed to draft a five-year plan covering the period 1946-50 with the aim of surpassing pre-war output by 1950.

Immediate action was taken to insist on reparations from ex-enemy countries, whether or not these now had pro-Soviet or even communist-led governments. German factories were dismantled and taken away to Russia and so were some workers in order to train Russians in their trades. Even in Manchuria, incoming Chinese found that many factories had been taken away. Some Western analysts claim that huge sums were extracted as reparation by the Soviets and that the success of the reconstruction owes much to this cause. Similar emphasis is laid on trade treaties which worked out to the Soviet advantage to an unreasonable extent. However, Nove contends that while reparation deliveries no doubt helped, the achievement of reconstruction was due above all to the efforts of the Soviet people.

In 1945 the output of industries in the erstwhile German-occupied areas was only 30% of their pre-war output. Since the possibilities of financing and supplying capital construction at this period were limited, resources were concentrated on the restoration and development of heavy industry and rail transport (87.9% of industrial investments in 1945-50 were directed to the producers’ goods sectors). Factories took priority over dwelling-houses and there was a priority scheme in rebuilding, with some historic cities and provincial capitals being given first attention.

The first full peacetime year, 1946, was a difficult one. Productivity was adversely affected by a general feeling of relaxation after the stern discipline and privation of wartime. The labour force, which had grown accustomed to producing tanks and guns, had to be retrained to produce other goods. Demobilized soldiers required time to settle down and learn their new occupations. As a result, while civilian output rose by 20%, it did not outweigh the fall in armaments production, so total industrial output fell, according to Soviet data, by 17% as compared to 1945.

However, after 1946 industrial output increased by very high percentages as a result of successful reconversion, retraining, repair and reopening of damaged mines and factories, along with many new investments. Many metallurgical plants and heavy engineering works were modernized in the course of their reconstruction. The investment plan for 1946-50 was reported to have been surpassed by 22%. Investments were directed mainly to formerly occupied regions and the speed of reactivation of damaged mines and plants was most impressive and the output in most regions approached pre-war levels by 1950. This was accompanied by the growth in the capacity of industries in the Urals and Siberia (refer to my WW2 answer for context) which created a net result that was more than the projected amount in the five-year plan. The Dnieper dam was rebuilt and began to generate electricity by March 1947. The revival of the consumers’ goods industries from the exceedingly low levels of 1945 was also rapid in all parts of the USSR.

Thus, in 1950 planners had every ground for satisfaction. Errors and difficulties there were in plenty, but achievements could be said to be great. The USSR could face the arms race, which in 1950 was again beginning, with a stronger industrial structure than before the war.

Agriculture

1946 was a difficult year for agriculture as shortage of manpower, tractors, horses, fuel, seeds, transport, and (in war-affected areas) houses delayed recovery. The total area of land sown was only 76% of that of 1940. A severe drought drastically reduced the grain harvest and many went short of food. The depletion of food reserves caused a delay in the abolition of rationing. Yet in order to project itself as a strong nation to the rest of the world, this famine was not mentioned in the official data and Stalin even ordered grain to be exported.

From the point of view of the regime there were two agricultural issues: how to increase production in order to provide the population with food, and how to reassert control over the villages. The government was more successful in achieving the second goal than the first. During the war discipline on the collective farms was substantially loosened. At least in some places, the peasants were able to expand their private plots at the expense of the collective, and the peasants grew what they wanted without state intervention. During the war there had been rumours among the peasants, which the regime did nothing to contradict, that following victory the system of collective farms would be abolished.

However, Stalin took an early opportunity to reassert control. According to a decree passed on 19 September 1946 all lands acquired by private persons or institutions had to be returned to the kolkhoz. Further decrees reasserted the primary duty of compulsory deliveries to the state, and the power of the procurement organs. Following the decree of 1946, a Council of Kolkhoz Affairs was set up to prevent breaches of the kolkhoz statute, and to exercise general supervision over kolkhozes and MTS.

Earlier in 1946 the Ministry of Agriculture had been divided into three parts: for Food Crops, Industrial Crops, and Livestock. The problem was that virtually all kolkhozes had some livestock, some industrial crop (sugar-beet, cotton, flax, sunflower, etc.), and a food crop, and so were under different ministries in respect of each, as well as obeying the Council of Kolkhoz Affairs, not to speak of the procurement agencies and the local party committee. This bureaucratic tangle was ended in February 1947 with the re-creation of a single Ministry of Agriculture 'in order to eliminate organizational imperfections and parallelism'. The Council for Kolkhoz Affairs withered away. But central influence was strengthened as it was decided that the expansion of agricultural output needed to be carefully regulated. Every kolkhoz was to have sowing plans laid down for each kind of crop. Procurement quotas could now be varied within each region in light of circumstances, meaning that local arbitrariness in making delivery demands on kolkhozes was legalized.

The amount available to pay members of the kolkhozes was extremely low. But the government refrained from increasing agricultural procurement prices and instead but additional burdens on the kolkhozes. The kolkhoz now had to maintain its own seed reserves instead of obtaining them from the Ministry of Procurements. Taxes on them were increased and they now had to set aside a greater amount for capital investment. Nove points out that taxes on private plots was also increased and comes to the conclusion that Stalin seemed determined to make the peasantry pay for post-war reconstruction. The burdens on kolkhozes were further increased with the adoption of a great ‘Stalin plan for the transformation of nature’ which thrust upon farms in steppe areas the responsibility of planting forest shelter-belts and providing for canals and irrigation at their own expense. A decree outlined a three-year plan for livestock, demanding an expansion of livestock holdings and a 50% increase in the output of milk, dairy produce, and eggs alongside an increase in procurement quotas. But prices were so low that this further impoverished the kolkhozes. While the plan was not fulfilled, procurements increased considerably. In 1947, collectivization was extended to the Baltic states and was imposed upon the peasantry in those areas using various forms of coercion.

Top priority was given to industry, and the villages were left without building materials or electric power. Instead of offering higher prices the authorities offered medals and honorific titles to heroes of labour in the villages. There was no increase in procurement prices between 1940 and 1947. In 1952 the averages for grain, beef, and pigs were actually lower than in 1940. The price paid for compulsorily delivered potatoes was less than the cost of transporting them to the collecting point, and since this cost had to be borne by the kolkhozes themselves, it meant that they actually lost money. While the prices of industrial crops was increased in the early fifties, there were no real gains since they were offset by the extra burdens mentioned above as well as by increases in the cost of fuel and building materials.

The peasants were able to survive because of their private plots and animals. But in the absence of sufficient incentives for collective work these were seen as undesirable distractions. The heavy taxes levied during the war on private cultivation and animals were retained. The high taxes led to peasants reducing their cultivation and livestock. But peasants who sold their livestock or eliminated their potato plantings faced other troubles. For their duty to make compulsory deliveries to the state on account of their private holdings was not dependent on the possession of livestock or the cultivation of the crop in question. Thus every household had to deliver certain quotas regardless of whether they had the means to deliver on them. For example, they had to beg, borrow, or buy this milk if they had no cow. Only just over half of kolkhoz households had cows.

The Stalinist leadership hoped to improve agriculture without paying for the improvement. Constant reorganizations had always been a characteristic feature of the Soviet political system. At first the regime put its faith in the so-called link (zveno) system. That system meant that a few people (ranging from five to eight) assumed responsibility for cultivating a strip of land, and their income depended on their performance. The advantage of the system was that it offered some incentive to the workers, and in some aspects at least freed them from the constant intervention of the collective farm authorities. The MTSs understandably, opposed the links, pointing out that they made the rational use of tractors more difficult.

The link system was also suspect for reasons of ideology: it smacked too much of individual enterprise and a return to private farming. Some even feared that the system undermined the very foundations of the collective farm. Perhaps if the system had led to a great increase in productivity, it would have been allowed to exist. But given the circumstances, it could not by itself solve the problems of the collective farms, and agriculture continued to languish. The link system came to be repudiated, and with it its chief sponsor, Andreev.

The new organization favoured by the regime was the brigade, a much larger entity, sometimes including as many as one hundred peasants. The brigade was built on assumptions that were the very antithesis of those on which the links were founded. This was the system associated with Nikita S. Khrushchev. Instead of making the working collectives smaller and therefore better connected with their work, the new system, adopted in 1950, aimed to make the collective farms larger. Soviet leaders had always assumed that giant size, both in industry and in agriculture, was superior and somehow more “modern”. Furthermore, at a time when the regime found it difficult to establish control over the farms, the party and the government considered it easier to control a few big ones rather than many small ones. As a consequence of the new policy, the collective farms came to be amalgamated, and their number was thereby greatly reduced.

The ultimate extension of the idea was to make peasants live like workers in apartment houses – in effect, in small cities. The peasants would have ceased to be peasants, and would have received higher income and some of the social benefits enjoyed by workers. This would be the realization of the age-old Marxist dream of eliminating the distinction between the town and the country. Nothing came of this plan; indeed, it was explicitly repudiated in 1952 at the nineteenth party congress. Society did not have the means to realize it, and furthermore, the party leaders understood that the peasants would resist the idea just as furiously as they had resisted collectivization – not so much because they hated to be parted from their villages, but because they would have lost their private plots, the economic mainstay of their existence.

Thus, after recovering from war damage, Soviet agriculture remained in a very weak state until a drastic change of policy occurred after Stalin’s death. Nove presents the argument that he delayed long-necessary changes of policy by his obstinately hostile attitude to the peasantry. Combined with the shortage of investment in agriculture, and the low prices paid for agricultural products, it is understandable that productivity recovered very slowly. Not until the mid-1950s did Russia reach the per acre productivity of 1913. The overall grain output in 1954 was still smaller than in 1913, and the per-hectare productivity of 1963 was only a shade higher than in 1913.

Transport

The reconstruction of the railways after war damage was a great achievement. The railways surpassed their freight plan. This required great efforts, and in September 1948 political departments were re-created on the railways. Freight was given priority, and passengers without official reasons for travelling often faced long delays and queues. The equipment of the railways had been vastly improved in the thirties. But the introduction of new ideas slowed down, possibly reflecting the increasing age of key party figures, notably Kaganovich, who retained a kind of overlordship with regard to transport. He apparently expressed a preference for steam traction, or so his enemies later alleged, and diesel and electrification developments were delayed.

Large-scale canal construction was undertaken in Stalin's last years. The Volga-Don canal was one of many such projects. It is doubtful whether their economic value repaid the heavy expenditure involved.

Impact of Stalin

The cult of Stalin's personality had a negative effect on the economic development of the country. The fact that Stalin decided all important questions himself led to errors in plans and the lessening of the creative activity of party, planning and managerial organs; many questions were decided without sufficiently wide discussion among the workers, engineer-technicians and scientists. In planning and direction of the economy over-centralization was dominant.

While the quantitative gains were impressive the quality and technical progress both suffered. Everyone was rewarded above all for fulfilling output plans which led to several defects. Firstly, the simplest way to produce more is to go on making the same designs. Therefore, unless the particular item was given detailed attention at the very top, there was a marked tendency to go on making obsolete equipment.

Secondly, the pattern of production was to a great extent frozen: thus the output of coal, oil and electric current was increased in like proportions, whereas in America non-solid fuels were making spectacular relative gains. New products, such as plastics and synthetics, or a new and highly economical fuel, natural gas, were neglected. Matters were not helped by the 'anti-cosmopolitan' campaign, which led to the claims that everything had been invented in Russia and that there was nothing to be learnt in the decadent West.

Stalin was more unpredictable and arbitrary than ever. Though the mass purges were not repeated arrests were still a common occurrence. This led to a fear of responsibility and a tendency to ‘please the boss’ by adopting spectacular rather than economically sensible methods. Thus while output rose, the pattern and quality of products along with the investment policy no longer measured up to the needs of a developed industrial economy.

NAM

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a group of states which are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. The organization was founded in Belgrade in 1961, and was largely conceived by India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; Indonesia's first president, Sukarno; Egypt's second president, Gamal Abdel Nasser; Ghana's first president Kwame Nkrumah; and Yugoslavia's president, Josip Broz Tito. Nature/character of NAM  Based on principle of Non-alignment: o Non-alignment symbolised independent vision, independent posture,, independent stand. o It implied pursuance of independent foreign policy, rejection of every form of dominance  Pragmatic move on the part of newly independent nations that was to protect and promote their hard won freedom and their interest such as to preserve the independence, economic development etc.  NAM was not a non-commitment/ neutrality/isolation/ non-involvement o It was a political concept whereas neutralism is legal concept written in the constitution of the country. For e.g. Austria and Switzerland followed neutralism, not participate in any war. (Now Turkmenistan- Permanent neutrality) o Not a provision written in constitution. o Neutralism is a permanent feature of state-policy, Non-alignment is not. o NAM instead of isolation or non-commitment, stood for active and assertive role. o It presented a new alternative in international relation i.e. alternative of international cooperation and peace.  NAM didn’t represent Third Bloc: o A bloc need a leader country around which the entire system revolves. (e.g. Capitalist bloc- USA; Communist Bloc- USSR) o The combined military strength of all Third World countries was not equal to strength necessary to form a Bloc while Bloc system requires minimum military strength. o NAM members don’t follow a completely uniform military policy which is also requirement of a Bloc system.  NAM was not a opportunism as some branded it so. o Its objective was not to gain advantage by playing one power against other or gaining benefits from both.  Secretaries General of the NAM had included such diverse figures as Suharto, an authoritarian anti-communist, and Nelson Mandela, a democratic socialist.  During the 1970s and early 1980s, the NAM also sponsored campaigns for restructuring commercial relations between developed and developing nations, namely the New International Economic Order (NIEO), and its cultural offspring, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). o In 1960s, NAM presented the idea of NIEO (New International Economic Order)  This was an ide of an economic order in which the interest of Third World stand promoted and protected.  The focus was the economic assitance, promotion of exports and a share in international decision making (in economic field)  UNGA passed a resolution on NIEO in 1974 and also called for North-South Dialogue. (North- Developed; South- Underdeveloped)  When North-South Dialogue did not produce desirable results, the idea of South-South Cooperation emerged and grew. NAM stood for cultural freedom in the face of dominance of western communication system.  Western communication system subverted the political sovereignty of Third World nations by encroaching upon the domains of the Third World nations.  Western communication system subverted the traditional values of the Third World nations.  Western communication system presented distorted facts about the Third World nation.  NAM called for New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and in the pursuance of this formed a Non-aligned news pool in 1976.  Peace and Disarmament: o Consisting of many governments with vastly different ideologies, the Non-Aligned Movement is unified by its commitment to world peace and security. o At the seventh summit held in New Delhi in March 1983, the movement described itself as "history's biggest peace movement". o The movement places equal emphasis on disarmament. NAM's commitment to peace pre-dates its formal institutionalisation in 1961. o The Brioni meeting between heads of governments of India, Egypt and Yugoslavia in 1956 recognized that there exists a vital link between struggle for peace and endeavours for disarmament.  Other: o A new alternative in international relation- peace and cooperation o Relaxation of Cold War tension- role in Detente o Voice against imperialism, colonialism, racism, apartheid, all form of dominance o Role in softening conflict situation like Arab-Israel conflict, Vietnam War o Strengthening of UN because NAM countries constituted majority o Role in creation of Third World groupings such as G-77 in 1964, G-24 in 1971, G-15 in 1989 o Promotion of South-South cooperation o Presentation of the idea of NIEO o Projecting the national interest of Third World countries o Role in formation of UNCTAD o Role in disarmament issues such as PTBT (Partial Test Ban Treaty), 1963, NPT, 1970 o Role in protection of environment, human rights etc.