Why do we have to learn about something that already happened. -- Lessons From History What can we learn from the devastation, horror, and suffering that plagued humankind during World War II(1939-1945)? 50-80 million human beings killed, 20 million people homeless by the end of the war, cities that once thrived laid in rubble from 6 years of total war. Perhaps the best answer to the question of what we can learn from World War II is how societies can go so wrong! By 1933, Russia had become the Soviet Union -- with Joseph Stalin running the country. That same year, Adolf Hitler and the fascist Nazi party had used racism, nationalism, and militarism to take the reigns of power in Germany. And to the south, Benito Mussolini ruthlessly dictated the daily lives of Italians with his own brand of fascism. How did 3 major nations end up with 3 murderous dictators? How could a group of people -- millions of people -- follow monstrous men like Hitler and Stalin? What these two extreme societies had in common was a suffering and desperate public and a feeling of safety, stability, and pride being offered to them in the form of radical ideology.
Radical Ideology = A set of extreme ideas about politics, government, and society (Examples: Communism, Fascism) As we ve learned, before 1917 the country of Russia had been through 300 years of rule by one family of Czars -- The Romanovs. Under Czarist rule most Russians were poor peasants with no political rights. The Czar had absolute power over the people of Russia, and typically that power was used for selfish aims. A desperate, oppressed, abused, and mistreated Russian people had nothing to lose by 1917. The Russian public finally had enough and had a social and political revolution inspired by Karl Marx s radical ideas on communism. Communism preached equality, fairness, relief from poverty, and a worker s Utopia -- but it only promised the utopia after the death of anyone standing in the way. Despite the goals of Communism, millions of men, women, and children were murdered by the communist rulers in Russia, and 10 s of millions more by other communist governments around the world.
A reoccuring theme in history is that revolutions tend to happen to societies with large numbers of people who are desperate and hopeless. Think about it, we discussed the French Revolution that took place between 1789-1799. The people of France were starving, had no rights, and their King lived a life of luxury. This led to a revolution that killed at least 40,000 people. French Revolution 1789-1799 Now fast forward to Russia in 1917. The people were starving, oppressed, and had little to no rights while the Czar lived a life of luxury. Flip over to Germany after World War I (1918)... -- The German people felt hopeless, humiliated, and directionless. Money was worthless, people were hungry and had no jobs. In all of these scenarios radical revolutions and ideologies sprang up as a result of a desperate society grasping for hope. Men with ideologies like Hitler and Mussolini don t get attention when things are going well in a society. Extreme ideas that promise extreme change, or blame social problems on a specific race or group, almost never become popular when the majority of a society is satisfied. When the economy is good, politics is usually more boring,
when the economy is bad, the government oppressive, or the standard of living poor, people look for leaders who promise something better, anything better, even if it s extreme. So, extreme ideologies are more likely to take control of a society when people are desperate -- we ve got that. Still though, how do normal people end up committing crimes like those of the holocaust? What would make average people people do such a thing? The answer is typically some form of radical ideology. Nazi ideas were based on social darwinism -- the idea that some races or groups of people are more evolved than others. If someone really truly believes they are a part of a master race, and other human beings are more like animals, they can justify and rationalize terrible things. Take a look at the picture below In this picture are a number of Nazi guards at the concentration camp of Auschwitz -- a camp known for being one of the worst. How could they carry out murder during the day, and laugh, love, and play at night? Their radical ideology
proclaimed that they deserved happiness and joy, they were the master race, and any pity or empathy for the Jewish victims they were murdering was a waste of time and only getting in the way of a better, more genetically pure world. When a person becomes blindly dedicated to a radical ideology, the ideology dominates their thinking and impacts their behavior. As U.S President William Taft said
Section 4 -- Unit 21 Questions 1) What did Pre-Hitler Germany and Pre-Communist Russia have in common? 2) What made the Russian people of 1917 more likely to turn to an extreme ideology like Communism? 3) What social and political factors helped led to the French Revolution of 1789? 4) When are ideologies like fascism and communism less likely to take hold in a society? 5) What were Nazi ideas of race based on? 6) How would a Nazi prison guard likely justify, or explain the reasons for, his behavior?