Tag Archives: communism

“…if men remained loyal to the ideals of their youth?”

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In Bread and Wine, author Ignazio Silone recounts the tale of Pietro Spina, an Italian youth whose work as a revolutionary caused him to be exiled from his home by the prevailing Fascist state in the interwar period.  Beginning in media res, the first sixteen chapters of Bread and Wine find Spina having infiltrated his homeland once again several years later, concealing himself with a cosmetic agent that makes him appear much older than his years.  With the reluctant aid of his boyhood friend Nunzio, Spina assumes the false identity “Don Paolo” and returns to his peasant home region, Abruzzi, under the guise of a traveling priest.  While there, however, Spina’s revolutionary spirit cannot help but show through; “Don Paolo” begins to use his incendiary intellect and misappropriated messianic reputation amongst the locals to urge his new community of cafoni to believe in the possibility of what he perceives to be true liberty: freedom from fascist rule.

One of the most prominent themes addressed in these opening chapters is the value of youth.  The varied perceptions of this subject are expressed most pithily in the exchange between Don Paolo and a number of local officials and men of stature in the Abruzzi community in chapter fifteen.  In discussing the desire for a “second revolution,” Don Paolo is assured that such sentiments are expressed only by young people. (Silone, 144, 151)  This Zabaglione attributes to the fact that the youth are “taking theories literally,” saying that “the greatest of evils is when the young start taking seriously what they read in books.” (Silone, 145)  Given his ideals, Don Paolo takes caution in concealing his disagreement, asking only “what would happen if men remained loyal to the ideals of their youth?” (Silone, 146)  Dismissing this scenario as unthinkable, Don Luigi allegorically explains that when in the throes of “poetry,” young people feel the need to eschew the “bread and wine” of their native culture and ideology in order to seek that which exists “at the crossroads of the great highways.” (Silone, 146)  Conversely, it is only when people mature to the phase of “prose” that their thoughts begin to bear any semblance of rationality. (Silone,146)

Do you feel that remaining loyal to the ideals of one’s youth indicates dedication to one’s beliefs or simply close-minded inflexibility?

 

Mussolini, “What is Fascism”

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Benito Mussolini’s “What is Fascism” (1932) outlines that basic principles and guiding ideals of Fascism as he perceived and created this political ideology. He maintains throughout this piece that Fascism and Marxism (specifically Marxian Socialism) are “complete opposite[s].” In many ways this is true. These two ideologies have opposing beliefs and ideals, but each is underlined by many of the same opinions as well.

The Foundation Pit by Andrei Platonov is a novel based in the USSR during the early 1920s. This book centers on a construction project that was meant to assist in the country’s industrial aspirations. Throughout much of the novel, the protagonist and other characters are consumed by the idea of finding the true meaning of communism. They want to become the best citizens, the best workers and the best communists. Throughout the novel, the characters work tirelessly for the benefit of the state so that they may prove their loyalty and commitment to the communist cause.

While the goals of communism and Fascism are different: one strives for the party and the ideology; the other strives for the state and the country; each places a duty on the people to work tirelessly towards this goal. In working for the party and communist ideology, Soviet citizens bettered the state. By sacrificing for the state, Italians improved the power of Fascist ideology. The rhetoric in each movement and culture reads very similarly: “[the Fascist] rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others—those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after…” This sentiment is very similar to the way in which propaganda promoted working for communism in the USSR, especially in the use of the Stakanovite figure.

There are similarities in how Fascism and communism were presented and understood during this period. How does democratic, Nazi and other political rhetoric follow similar patterns?

Metropolis’ Status in German Society

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In 1927, Metropolis premiered to critical acclaim, citing both the incredible new film making techniques of Fritz Lang as well as its story, in light of recent political developments in Europe. While the film is seen as revolutionary movie in cinematography, it has undergone quite a few changes in the years since its original release in Berlin. I happened to watch the restored version (2010), which is the “most complete” version and is the one deemed closest to Lang’s original release. However, the movie that most audiences saw was not this release, but rather a fraction of the film due to cuts made at the studio level for commercial reasons.

The reasons for the cuts was profitability and recent political developments in Europe. The movie in its original length ran two and a half hours, a long stretch even for some modern films. The film released was pared down to ninety minutes, removing much of the thematic content and motivation for some of the action. For example, the entire plot line of Rotwang’s revenge was removed in order to speed the movie up. While this has little to do with its impact on Europe, it is the other cuts that change the thematic content of the movie.

There is an entire sub-plot of communist revolt that was not released to the masses during Metropolis’ original theatrical run. This theme was originally developed by the author of the short story in response to the Russian (and other subsequent) revolutions; but in light of recent political changes and the economics behind this content, the decision was made to cut this from the film. While there was no political body behind this decision, this is one of the first major examples of self-censorship by the studios. This decision, although it had little impact on movie-goers, set a precidence for future studio executives, leading to further censorship in cinema.

sources

http://www.fipresci.org/undercurrent/issue_0609/pena_metropolis.htm

The Russian Working Class

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Both “We Grow out of Iron” by Gastev and “Chapaev” by Furmanov dealt with the feelings of the working class during the Soviet takeover of Russia.

“We Grow out of Iron” is a propaganda poem glorifying hard work, an idea that was spread throughout the Soviet Union.  While this poem could be dismissed as a piece of propaganda, it is more than that.  Gastev was from the poor, working class.  Without the breaking down of the class system, he would most likely have never been able to write his poetry.  It makes sense that Gastev would love and support the Soviet Union because communism gave him a chance to be more than just a worker.  Unfortunately, during Stalin’s perversion of communist ideology, Gastev was killed.  But under idealistic communism, Gastev flourished.

In “Chapaev,” the main character, Fyodor, is a member of the working class, just like the author, Furmanov.  As an urban worker, Fyodor is skeptical of Chapaev because he is a peasant.  While Fyodor admires Chapaev, he is unsure of the peasants’ commitment to the Soviet cause.  He believes peasants are more likely to switch sides spontaneously than the urban workers.  Furmanov highlights the distinctions between the rural peasants and urban workers even more when it is revealed that the middle-aged Chapaev only recently learned to read.  The story deals with many stereotypes held by the urban workers about the peasants, such as peasants are backwards and uncontrollable.

Both Gastev and Furmanov write about the experience of urban workers at the beginning of the Soviet Union.  Both these authors show urban workers at the heart of the political upheaval in Russia as one ideology replaced another.

Critical Summary of Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent

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Dark Continent by Mark Mazower is a historical text which covers the interwar period of Europe in a unique way. The first four chapters each focus on a different aspect of interwar Europe: the decline of democracy, nationalism and the effects it has on minority groups, health and social welfare as a means of control over populations, and the economies of nations. Mazower’s geopolitical coverage of Europe is large; he touches upon other countries in Europe that are usually neglected. Mazower’s interpretation of these historical events is also unique. He ties his interpretation into his themes of decline, fall, and social struggles in Europe to his thesis that Communism, Nazism, and democracy are more related than the reader may have originally thought. Through these views of the forms of governments and the main social struggle of the era, Mazower helps the reader gain a greater understanding of interwar Europe.

Starting with the first chapter and continuing through the next three, Mazower repeatedly points out the primary social struggle present throughout all countries and political parties: the strained relationship between the individual and the population as a whole. This is especially apparent in chapter three, when Mazower expands on the welfare state and social welfare. The welfare was not for the good of the individual; it was for the good of the country as a whole (89). This was constant throughout all countries in Europe. Another historian, Hoffman, reaffirms this idea in his historical writing, Cultivating the Masses. Hoffman, like Mazower, writes about a country’s concern for its productivity level, as it is directly correlated to the creation of social welfare for its people.

In Mazower’ interpretation of history, he views Communism as a favorable political solution. He touches upon the positives of Communism, explaining the basic goals of tackling corruption and social injustice. This interpretation sheds a positive light on Communism, which the reader may not have expected. He believes that the Soviet Union dealt with the issue of minorities and nationalism the best out of all of the governments. The Soviet Union was able to win over the minorities in the country by offering them involvement in the government (50). This united the country in a way in which no other country in Europe was able to do.

Mazower also examines the growth of Nazism in Europe, especially Germany. Nazism grew from citizens’ hatred of communism. This is apparent from many SS members’ own testimonies, including Hitler’s bodyguard, Rochus Misch. Like many members of the Nazi Party, he stated that he joined the SS because it was a “counterweight to the threat of the left,” and that it was for anti-communist goals. Yet Nazism was a form of imperialism that fits into history better than many believe it should (74). It did have a focus on social welfare; however that focus was then manipulated to benefit a minority of Germans, the Aryan race.

The most discussed form of government, which failed quite often, was democracy. In interwar Europe, there was not a universally agreed upon definition of democracy (5). This directly lead to the development of “democratic governments” which were no more than totalitarian or militant, non-parliamentary regimes. This can be seen in post-World War I Germany when a Constitutional provision, Article 48, was created in order to suspend the Constitution under specific conditions. This article was inevitably abused by then-Chancellor, Hitler, and although he was democratically elected, it is obvious that this abuse was not one of good faith and democratic idealism (33). From democracy, Nazism was born.  On the other hand, in other countries’ democracies, there was great distrust of the executive branch of government (19). Mazower does a good job of linking, comparing, and contrasting each individual European country’s form of democracy with the others.

From Mazower’s descriptions alone, the reader can see that these three forms of governments had similar goals. These three governments grew from and were related to each other; one cannot exist without the others. Each was constantly evolving, rising and falling with the changing climate of worldwide political trends. This leads to a greater understanding of the political structure, and conflict, in interwar Europe.

Overall, Mazower’s Dark Continent is a great text for an undergraduate history course. It intelligently follows the rise and fall of vastly different political ideologies in Europe, while also following the social struggles stemming from each. It does so without confusing the reader with irrelevant details, employing the use of brevity through text. It goes without saying that Mazower provides the reader with an extensive overview of the interwar period and successfully supports his thesis.

Mazower Critical Summary

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In Mark Mazower’s Dark Continent, Chapters one to four serve as a strong introduction to the cultural, political and economic problems that plagued inter-war Europe. Mazower argues that the growth of fascism, nationalism, bureaucracy, and new economic systems came as a counter-reaction to the failures of democracy and capitalism in post-World War I Europe. Arguing that because of the slow-pace of democracy and the economic failures that the Treaty of Versailles brought, revolutionaries mobilized the population and seized control of the governments, instituting radical reforms and changes in all aspects of life-social, political and economic which guided Europe to recover and another world war. While Mazower does do an excellent job of balancing a generalization of Europe and using specific examples; however, these examples tend to focus on Germany and Russia too much at certain points. While his use of these general outliers do help to show the extremes that Europe faced during these critical years, they do not add anything to his thematic arguments or prove his generalizations of the continent.

Dark Continent has the benefit of coming after the collapse of the Soviet Union which allowed Mazower and other historians access to documents previously unavailable. This helps to create the impact that Mazower’s work has on the general historical community. Mazower relies primarily on secondary accounts mainly from the 1970s and 1980s with some outliers in the 1960s and 1990s as well. His primary sources are limited, but when they are used, specific examples and quotes are used to bolster his argument.

The major issue with Dark Continent is the problems of length and organization. In order to provide clarity, Mazower organizes his topics thematically rather than chronologically. In order for the reader to properly follow this text, a companion text emphasizing the chronology of events in inter-war Europe is extremely helpful, allowing the reader to better understand the relationship between Mazower’s themes and the overall history between the wars. However, because Mazower analyzes overarching trends in those years, the way he organizes his text is quite understandable.

Overall, Mazower adds an interesting perspective to the changes of inter-war Europe, bringing new light to a period which primarily emphasis the actual events rather than the thematic trends one sees during those years.

The Last Witness

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Friday, September 6th, 2013; the second day of the Jewish new year called Rosh Hashannah. Today marks a day of new beginnings, and an end to the past. Today, Hitler’s bodyguard Rochus Misch, the last surviving witness of Hitler’s suicide, has died. I am Jewish, and my Grandpa Larry’s whole family was brutally murdered in Auchwitz during the “Final Solution.” For me, Mr. Misch’s passing brings a mixture of feelings. Of course I do not rejoice in the death of a human being; if I did so I am no better than Hitler himself. At the same time, I cannot help but feel a sense of closure for my family members that I never got to meet.

Now, Rochus Misch claims that he had no idea that 6 million Jews were being slaughtered  or worked to their deaths. To me, that is a completely absurd concept. There is no way that he being Hitler’s bodyguard never overheard a conversation or had any idea of what was really going on in Germany. He said that he was constantly by Hitler’s side; eating with him, living with him, protecting him. Misch obviously knew what Hitler’s agenda was, and the fact that Misch was never held accountable for any actions whatsoever dumbfounds me. He was never tried for crimes against humanity, even though in my opinion him simply protecting Hitler should be a crime in itself. Instead, Misch spent nine years in a prisoner of war camp in the Soviet Union (Rising).

All of my personal feelings aside, Rochus Misch’s life directly relates to Mark Mazower’s historical writing Dark Continent. In Chapter 1 of Dark Continent, Mazower speaks of Communism and Facism in the 1930s. When Misch was 20 years old, he said he joined the SS  because he saw it as a “counterweight to the threat of the left.” This exact point was made in Mazower’s writings. Misch was so anti-communism that he joined a Fascist group. Speaking about his decision to join the SS, Misch said “It (joining the SS) was anti-communist, against Stalin — to protect Europe.” He noted that thousands of other Western Europeans served in the Waffen SS. “I signed up in the war against Bolshevism, not for Adolf Hitler.”

Shanah Tovah ooh Metukah. Have a happy and sweet new year. The last witness to Hitler’s suicide is now gone. Never forget.

Bibliography: RISING, DAVID. “Hitler Bodyguard Rochus Misch Dies at 96.” Ap.org. Associated Press, 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 06 Sept. 2013.

Battleship Potemkin and Mazower

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Watching Battleship Potemkin confronted me with the raw power of a political film with no three dimensional characters. Each individual possesses individuality only inasmuch as they represent a certain aspect of a cause or argument. The child shot by the czarist soldiers and crushed by the stampeding crowd careening down the steps facing the Odessa harbor matters because of the innocence he comes to embody in the face of czarist barbarity. The same goes for the film’s protagonist, the sailor and revolutionary Vakulinchuk, whose life, death, and words all act to symbolize the fundamental goodness of the communist cause, the heroism of its leaders, so unwilling to submit to fear in the face of their totalitarian enemy that their martyrdom suffices to drive crowds into a revolutionary frenzy.

The men and women move as crowds, but we do not for a second imagine that they lack individuality; it simply does not matter. Here I find myself reminded of Prince Lvov’s declaration of March 1917, on the subject of the Russian people’s role in the European democratic movement, cited by Mark Mazower in the first chapter of Dark Continent. “The soul of the Russian people,” he proclaims, “turned out by its very nature to be a universal democratic soul…prepared not only to merge with the democracy of the whole world, but to stand at the head of it and lead it along the path of human progress…” While the rebellious citizens and sailors of Battelship Potemkin do not stand for the Social Liberalism advocated by Levov, their bristling mass of clenched fists represents something similar: the helm of a movement in the name of human liberation.

The attack of the Cossacks left the strongest impression on me of all the scenes. It reminded me of Mazower’s section on the failure of Russian liberalism.  Unlike the liberals, Russia’s rural peasants and urban working class wanted peace and a higher standard of living, neither of which the liberals offered. “In the factories, in the countryside, social order was collapsing, and the middle ground in Russian politics disappeared”. Nothing indicates this state of affairs better than the facelessness of the Cossacks in Battleship Potemkin. As the shock troops of czarism, they stand for nothing, save the brutality of power. Nothing denotes impotence better than repression.

Religion in Battleship Potemkin

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Traditionally, when people are in unsatisfactory situations, or are unhappy with their lives, they turn to religion. The Communist Party flips the notion of religion as a solace on its head, and preaches that religion is what keeps the lower classes appeased and prevents them from taking down those that oppress them. In Battleship Potemkin, directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein, this Communist ideal and its merits are displayed.

The film takes place during the 1905 Revolution, in which the lower classes rallied together to fight the Czar. The most interesting thing, to me, was the portrayal/the importance of religion in the film. Before the mutiny on the ship takes place, a sailor breaks a plate that has “give us this day our daily bread” in-scripted on it. During the mutiny, a priest stands in the way of the sailors, siding with the captain and the officers. In this way, religion is shown as a proponent of the Czar and his authority. Distain for religion is  a large part of Communism, which, at the time that the film was made, was the political ideology of the Russian government. The film was ostentatiously about the 1905 Revolution, but it was really a way to enforce the views of the Communist party, and reiterate the reasons why Russia turned to Communism in the first place.

Because they both morphed into authoritarian states, German Fascism and Russian Communism are often look at as similar forms of government; they are not. The film shows this when a Russian aristocrat says “Kill the Jews”, and all of the lower class people attack him for this comment. In Russia, everyone was supposed to be equal, and religion and ethnicity were things to be forgotten with the rise of Communism. In Russia, it was the rich and privileged who were hated, regardless of ethnicity and/or religion. In Germany, it was quit the opposite; the Germans wanted to racially cleanse their country. As Mazower explains in Dark Continent, “the law no longer protected the rights of jews and gypsies, as well as “degenerate” classes of Aryans” in Nazi Germany (Mazower 33).

This film illustrates why Communism was appealing to the Russian people. The brutal actions of the Czar’s regime are connected to religion, and both the regime and the church must lose their power for the people to gain theirs. Battleship Potemkin reminds the Russian people of the camaraderie they share under the rule of the Communist government.

 

Gender and Sexuality under Differing Ideologies

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Emily Smith

Revised Paper Proposal

 

In this paper, I want to examine the way that gender and sexuality are viewed under different forms of government. Gender and specifically women’s role in society has always been a controversial subject because different societies view women with varying degrees of equality. In the United States, women did not have full rights until the nineteenth amendment outlawed discrimination in suffrage based on gender. Yet women continue to have lower wages and have more difficulty obtaining jobs in certain fields than their male counterparts. When thinking about gender inequality and how women were only allowed full rights recently, a logical connection is the current debate on sexuality and how same sex couples continue to be discriminated against in much of the United States. The United States claims to be one of the most progressive societies in the world, and yet there are two major oppressed groups that are still working to gain equality in a country that claims to be the “land of the free”.

First I will examine one of the earliest works of literature to reference sexual relationships between two individuals of the same sex, Plato’s The Republic references the relationship between two males. I will examine Plato’s view on sexuality and gender, then the society which the philosopher lived in. How were the roles of women and sexuality viewed in classic Greek society? This question leads me to look to a government system essentially in opposition to the democratic republic of the United States, Soviet Socialist Russia. What are the similarities and differences in the ways gender and sexuality are treated in each society and form of government? How have these perspectives changed with time or have they changed at all? In my investigation I will attempt to expand upon these questions and why each society views gender and sexuality the way they do.

Originally my plan was to compare socialist and communist governments in general to the way democracy views gender and sexuality but when attempting to research I found that there was a lack of general information about each ideology and this made obtaining information much more difficult. In order to fix this problem I narrowed my research topic to three specific societies and ideologies. This has made research much easier and the information more related to the topic. I am in possession of Plato’s Republic, in which the philosopher strives to create an ideal state of justice and truth. In Bertel Ollman’s article, Social and Sexual Revolution, the NYU fellow discusses the changing views of sexuality in the social setting from the perspective of many different ideologies ranging from Marxist theories to radical liberalism. Another source which I will rely on is Disorders Of Desire Rev: Sexuality And Gender In Modern American Sexology, written by Janice Irvine, this work explores the evolution of sex in modern American culture. She investigates the psychological effects of these changes and the changing views of sex in the social setting. These resources and others such as: Socialism and Homosexuality, Gender and Society in Soviet Russia, and Greek Homosexuality will help me to investigate different perspectives on gender and sexuality during different time periods and under various government ideologies. There is enough information from these sources to support my investigation and comparison of these topics, with most of the sources available in full text online.

Works Cited

Ashwin, Sarah. “Gender and Society in Soviet Russia.” Well Placed Pottery. www.wellplacedpottery.org/alec/literature/russia.html (accessed September 30, 2012).

Harrison, Thomas. “Socialism and Homosexuality  | New Politics.” New Politics. http://newpol.org/node/79 (accessed October 1, 2012).

Irvine, Janice . Disorders Of Desire Rev: Sexuality And Gender In Modern American Sexology. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2005.

Irvine explores the convoluted psychology of sexuality and gender in modern American culture. She uses social movements, government policy, debates and research to create a summation of American sexology in the late twentieth century.

Katz, Marilyn. “Ideology and `The status of women’ in ancient Greece..” History & Theory 31, no. 4 (1992): 70.

Kon, Igor S.. “The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality: Russia.” Der WWW2-Webserver — Website. http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/IES/russia.html (accessed September 30, 2012).

Loftus, Jeni. “America’s Liberalization in Attitudes Towards Homosexuality.” American Sociological Review 66, no. 5 (2001): 762-782.

Ollman, Bertel. “Social and Sexual Revolution.” The Writings of Bertel Ollman. http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/ssr_ch06.php (accessed October 1, 2012).

A more general view of the changes in perspectives in sexuality, Ollman discusses sexuality from varying perspectives and ideals. He provides useful background in different idealogies and time periods and how each viewed sexuality in a social setting.

Plato. The republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. *Primary Source*

The philosopher explores his ideal fantasy of the “perfect” state, in which all individuals are working most efficiently towards a common goal. One of the first works to ever mention the most basic ideas of communism and socialism, Plato explores the topics of family, property, government, and what it means to be truly just and whether or not this creates happiness.

van Dolen, Hein . “Greek homosexuality.” Livius. Articles on Ancient History. http://www.livius.org/ho-hz/homosexuality/homosexuality.html (accessed October 1, 2012).