The Rise Of Fascism Essay Example

📌Category: History
📌Words: 899
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 09 May 2021

Once the European nations first procured a taste for imperialism in the late 1700’s the need for wealth and power only escalated. It was a race between European nations to fabricate the most extensive and strongest country. The power craving nations created immense militaries, an abundance of colonies, a complex interlace of allies and an extremely vigorous passion for their countries. This all could only lead to one thing… Conflict. Then it hit June 18th 1914, “The shot heard around the world”. An event that led to over 40 million casualties, starvation, famine and a devastation all across the globe, World War 1. After the tragedy of World War 1 came the rise of fascism across Europe. Fascism was a political system controlled by the government that emphasized loyalty to the state and obedience to its leader. The rise of Fascism was generally caused by people wanting the destruction and chaos caused by the war to end. People turned to Fascism because of the resentment from the treaty of Versailles, economic depression, and they wanted a solution to their weak democratic political systems.

To start, some countries resented the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty that brought an end to WW1. Germany lost 13% of its territory and its colonies in Africa. Not only did Germany lose land but they also had restrictions on their military. Furthermore Germany had to take sole blame of the war and had to pay reparations to the allies. All of these things “left a legacy of bitterness in the hearts of the German people”. Japan and Italy also were unhappy with the Treaty because they gained less territory than expected. The humiliated and angered countries put the blame on their leaders which created an opening for fascist figures to come into power. The fascists leaders promised to revive the economy and punish those responsible for hard times. This appealed to Germany and Italy because they were negatively affected by the Treaty of Versailles. Overall the Treaty of Versailles and its negative impact on countries such as Germany, Italy and Japan led to the beginning of the spread of fascism across the world.

Furthermore, many countries had very weak, failing democratic political systems. In 197 Russia's provisional wanted a democratic and constitutional rule but within months Russia fell to a communist dictatorship. Japan and Germany also struggled with their democratic political system because for centuries it was ruled by emperors or kings. France and Italy's large number of political parties made their government ineffective. Countries like Germany and Italy were ready for strong leadership. In 1919 Benito Mussolini founded the fascist party and boldly proclaimed that he would rescue Italy's economy and build up its military. As Italy's economy declined because of the failing democratic political system, Mussolini’s popularity increased. He became II Dulce which means leader or dictator after the march on Rome. The march on Rome was when 30,000 fascist marched on Rome demanding that King Emmanuel III was to put Mussolini in charge. Eventually the king agreed and Mussolini abolished all other forms of government except fascism. In Germany Adolf Hitler, Leader of the Nazi party also dominated German politics with the idea of fascism. Hitler became chancellor and won control over Germany. Similar to Mussolini he banned all other political parties. All in all the weak political systems gave fascist leaders an opportunity to step in and take charge.

In addition, the world was in an economic depression. After WW1 the only country who wasn't in debt was the U.S. The U.S. tried to help balance the economy of other foreign nations such as Germany, France and Britain using Dawes' plan. The Dawes plan provided a loan of $200 million to stabilize German currency, which they would turn around to help Great Britain and France. After WW1 the stock market in the U.S. became very popular and it was looking hopeful. Lots of middle class Americans bought stocks on the margin, which meant that they paid a small piece of the stock price as a “down payment” and borrowed the remainder from the stock broker. Everything was going great until September 1929 when the stocks went unusually high. That led to inventors speculating that the market would collapse. With the panic everyone started selling their stocks and on October 29th the stock market collapsed. It was the beginning of the Great depression. Unemployment rates skyrocketed, many businesses closed, 9 million lost their life savings, farmers lost their farms and tariffs interrupted trade. It was a global depression. The poor economic conditions created an angry, frightened and financially struggling population who were more open to extreme political systems such as fascism. Leaders like Hitler and Mussolini brought hope and promised a fix for the depression so many people followed them. At the end of the day a poor economy due the economic depression fueled civil unrest which ultimately led to the rise of fascism.

In conclusion the rise of fascism was similar to the rise of communism in Russia.  Much like countries that had turned to fascism in the midst of the depression, Russia was also struggling with the same things such as a poor economy, upset civilians and weak leadership before they turned to communism. You can also compare leaders of fascism such as Mussolini and Hitler to leaders of communism such as Vladimir Lenin. Vladimir was the leader of the Bolsheviks who were a small group in Russia committed to radical change at all cost. He eventually won control of Russia and enacted his plan to fix the problems in Russia. Hitler and Mussolini eventually won control of their countries and enacted their plans using facism to fix their problems. In total even though fascism and communism are two different political ideas you can find several similarities on how they became popular.

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