In the aftermath of World War I, many observers believed that a new age of democratic government had dawned. Wilson had proclaimed that the war's great aim was to "make the world safe for democracy," and the democratic Western Allies had emerged victorious. All of the new states of Central and Eastern Europe became democracies. Even Germany, a former bastion of authoritarian rule, adopted this form of government. In East Asia, Japan also appeared to be making the transition to democracy. Although the Bolsheviks had created a dictatorship in Russia, they supposedly intended it to be temporary, in keeping with Marxist doctrine. But during the 1920s the democratic flame began to flicker, and in the 1930s it threatened to die out almost completely. Instead of an age of democracy, the interwar years, to a large extent, became an era of dictatorship.
They also became an era of conflicting ideology. Ideology played a vital role in all the major dictatorships that came into being in Europe during this period - communism in the Soviet Union, fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany. Belief in the necessity of territorial expansion formed a key aspect of fascism and especially Nazism. It also reflected the deep-seated desires of Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany. Both fascism and Nazism were also at odds with the democratic outlook of Britain, France, and the United States as well as the communist ideology of the Soviet Union. The ambitions of Hitler were virtually boundless, deeply influenced by his racial ideas, and more than any other factor were to lead Europe into World War II. Those of Mussolini were to lure him into ever closer relations with Hitler and ultimately into war on Germany's side.
The Marxist ideology of the Soviet regime called for the spread of communism throughout the world, but when Josef Stalin came to power he deferred this goal. He preferred to focus instead on consolidation of his personal dictatorship and a massive expansion of Soviet industry, although he hoped eventually to regain the territory lost in World War I, and perhaps to acquire more. His insistence on making the Soviet Union a great industrial power would pay handsome dividends during World War II.
In Japan, ideology played a lesser role. The militaristic circles that came to dominate the country remained essentially faithful to traditional Japanese conservative values, although they did champion the pan-Asian concept of a new East Asia Order. They hoped that this would rally the peoples of East Asia to Japan's side. In part, this approach reflected the belief of some that Japan must distance itself from Western influences, which they feared were deflecting the Japanese people from their cultural traditions. In practice, however, it came to represent a justification for Japanese expansion on the Asian continent.
THE EMERGENCE OF TOTALITARIANISM
The immediate postwar atmosphere did not prove conducive to the survival of democracy in many countries. None of the new nations had any experience with this type of government, and cleavages between social classes soon became reflected in multitudes of quarreling political parties. The new governments proved unable to fashion solutions to the problems that confronted them, including severe economic distress. Disillusionment over the war and the peace settlement also gripped defeated Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and even victorious Italy. After the brief interval of partial recovery in the late 1920s, the Great Depression plunged the continent once again into economic chaos. It also spawned a growing reaction against the democratic governments. By 1938, almost all of the hopeful fledgling democracies of Central and Eastern Europe had become dictatorships, and Japan had followed a similar course.
In three countries - the Soviet Union, Italy, and Germany - the dictatorial regimes became totalitarian. Although autocratic governments had been in existence for many centuries, totalitarianism was a development of the twentieth century. Totalitarian political systems were much more thoroughgoing in their efforts to control the individuals and groups that made up their populations than was the case with older forms of autocracy. In each of the three totalitarian states, the catalyst of the dictatorship was a political party that viewed itself as an elite group devoted to the commands of a single leader. The party also paid allegiance to an ideology that rejected much or all of the previous social and political systems and projected a utopian vision of the future. The leader became so central to the party and system that there soon developed a "cult of personality" that portrayed the leader as larger than life and the virtual embodiment of the nation.
Although none of the three parties originally had the backing of a majority of its people, after securing power each of them rapidly gained a large measure of popular support. To some extent, fear underlay this acceptance. Control of the army and the creation of a secret police force provided the bases for fear. Domination of the means of mass communication and the development of a sophisticated system of propaganda, which preached the glories of the party, the leader, and the nation, contributed to the growth of popular enthusiasm. Exploitation of the educational system to indoctrinate the young with the party ideology provided the basis for extending this support into the future.
Each of the totalitarian states also proclaimed the need for a centrally controlled and directed economy. But in reality, only the Communist regime in the Soviet Union provided a totally state-dominated economy. In both Italy and Germany, the dictatorships came to terms with the established capitalistic system, though subjecting it to a certain amount of governmental direction.
Popular disillusionment with the previous political systems and despair over economic conditions helped ease the way for the acquisition of power by the totalitarian parties. All of them promised revolutionary change and, in varying degrees, made good on their pledges.
LENIN AND THE BOLSHEVIKS
Russia created the first totalitarian regime following the Bolshevik victory in the revolution. The Bolsheviks, though a small fraction of the population, gained control of the government because of their superior organization and Lenin's brilliant leadership.
Lenin believed strongly in a small, tightly organized party composed of professional revolutionaries. He remained faithful to the Marxist doctrine of revolution when many others were turning to a more moderate type of socialism that sought reforms by working through the established system. But he departed from Marx's belief that a revolution would only come in a highly industrialized country when conditions were favorable for success. Clearly, Russia's industrialization had not progressed to a point that would make it a candidate for revolution by this standard. Lenin considered it possible to speed up the process, using the party as the vanguard of the revolution and mobilizing the discontented groups in society.
When the Russian Revolution began in March 1917, Lenin was in exile in Switzerland. He returned to Russia in April. Lenin believed from the start that the provisional government was weak and that if the Bolsheviks gained control of the soviets, they could topple it from power. By the fall of 1917, it was clear to Lenin that the time to strike was at hand. The Bolsheviks followed their quick seizure of Petrograd with the capture of Moscow, and within a month most of the cities of European Russia were under their control. But once they had overthrown the provisional government, the Bolsheviks faced the immense problems of consolidating their power and restoring Russia to some semblance of order and economic well-being after the years of war and revolution. The outbreak of civil war in 1918 created still more chaos.
Soon after coming to power, Lenin tried to establish strong popular support for Bolshevik rule by holding elections for the constituent assembly that the provisional government had promised. The elections proved a great disappointment to the Bolsheviks, who gained only 25 percent of the seats in the assembly. Lenin solved the problem by dissolving the assembly after its first meeting and creating a Bolshevik dictatorship. He and his comrades visualized a temporary dictatorship in keeping with Marxist doctrine. This regime would take over the means of production in the name of society as a whole and provide an equitable redistribution of wealth. It would also create a classless society in which all persons were equal and no one would prosper at the expense of others.
But the outbreak of civil war soon made the survival of the regime the first order of business, and for a time it appeared that the anti-Bolshevik (White) forces would actually win. At the low point of the Bolsheviks' fortunes, they controlled only the central portion of European Russia, including the cities of Petrograd and Moscow. (Lenin had moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow early in 1918.) This desperate situation called for extreme measures. One of these involved the development of an effective military force to fight the White armies. Lenin's brilliant colleague, Leon Trotsky, was the driving force in the development of the new Red Army. He provided both organizational and leadership ability, and utilized the talents of former tsarist officers and noncommissioned officers to train and direct the army.
The Bolsheviks benefitted from a lack of unity among the Whites, who consisted of various groups with differing political views. Their military forces lacked coordination, and their generals frequently regarded one another as rivals.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks also faced a serious economic dilemma. The war had revealed the inadequacies of both Russian industry and the transportation system. With the coming of civil war, the situation deteriorated still more. The government had to provide weapons, equipment, food, and other supplies to the army while feeding the civilian population as well. To achieve this, the Bolsheviks resorted to emergency measures, which became known as "war communism." These included the forced requisition of grain, livestock, and other commodities from the peasants, who had taken over the holdings of the large landowners during the revolution, and the nationalization of industry. Although these actions contributed to victory and the salvation of the regime, they also caused much confusion and even more dissatisfaction. The peasants resented the forced requisitions, and many of them preferred to burn their crops and slaughter their livestock rather than allow them to fall into the hands of the government. Workers also protested the stringent production demands and regimentation that the government had imposed on them.
By the end of 1920, the Red Army had effectively defeated the Whites, but the economy was in deplorable condition. Widespread devastation, rampant inflation, and shortages of all kinds were the order of the day. The peasantry and workers were so hostile that another rebellion seemed highly possible. To add to the critical situation, the combination of shortages created by the peasant resistance to the requisition policy and crop failures led to an appalling famine in 1921, which took the lives of 3 million people.
Lenin recognized that he must relax controls in an effort to gain the support of the peasants and workers. In 1921, he instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP), which eliminated forced requisitions and enabled the peasants to sell their surplus crops on the open market. Lenin retained government control of large-scale industry but allowed smaller operations to revert to private ownership. The NEP created a mixed system that included elements of both private enterprise and government control. But Lenin viewed the NEP as a stopgap measure. As he said at the time, "It is sometimes necessary to take one step backward in order to take two steps forward."
In 1923, the Bolsheviks reorganized the country as a federation of republics - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union). Each republic represented an area whose population consisted primarily of a specific ethnic group. This action recognized the fact that the country contained various nationalities, although the ethnic Russians were by far the most numerous. Their republic, the largest, included not only European Russia but most of Siberia as well and dominated the others.
The Bolsheviks established a hierarchical system of soviets ascending from rural and urban localities through the levels of the territories and provinces to that of the republic itself. Despite this elaborate government structure, real power lay with the party, which officially became the Communist party in 1918. It was the only political party, and Lenin still viewed it as an elite group. The party's organization was similar to that of the soviets, with local, territorial, provincial, and republican levels. At its summit was the Party Congress, which met in Moscow. The Congress selected a Central Committee, which included three smaller bodies, the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Organizational Bureau. In reality, the Politburo was the governing body of the country. But the Secretariat, headed by a general secretary, was also important. The general secretary became increasingly powerful. The Politburo made the decisions, and they were carried out at each level of the Union and party hierarchies.
As early as December 1917, still another party organization came into operation - the secret police. Its duty was to hunt down and eliminate enemies of the party and the state, and it carried out this mission with enthusiasm and efficiency.
THE STALINIST ERA IN THE USSR
Lenin suffered a series of strokes, starting in May 1922, and died in January 1924. Long before his death, it became apparent that a power struggle was developing among Communist leaders for the right to succeed the architect of the Bolshevik dictatorship. The two principal figures were Trotsky and the general secretary of the party, Iosif Dzhugashvili, who had taken the name Stalin, derived from the Russian word for steel.
Stalin was born to peasant parents in the region of Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains. He had entered a seminary as a youth but soon turned to revolutionary socialism. Unlike Lenin and many other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin did not go into exile and, in fact, had never ventured out of Russia. He became involved in conspiratorial activity and in the process became an astute organizer. From an early age, he betrayed symptoms of ruthlessness, cruelty, and an excessive desire for power. Although overshadowed by Lenin, Trotsky, and others during the revolution, he emerged as a major figure in the civil war and its aftermath.
Trotsky and most other Soviet leaders were international in their outlook. They believed that the Bolshevik success in Russia would be followed by revolution in other parts of Europe. To promote this goal, they developed an organization that would coordinate Communist movements in other countries - the Communist International or Comintern. Stalin was much less dedicated to the exportation of revolution. He believed that the Communists had enough to do in Russia itself. Stalin not only headed the Secretariat as general secretary but led the Organizational Bureau as well, which gave him control over the party machinery and personnel. He also proved exceptionally skillful at political infighting and repeatedly outmaneuvered his rivals. By 1928 he had succeeded in purging all of them and had emerged as the undisputed leader of the party and the country.
Stalin now felt strong enough to launch a massive program to nationalize the economy and transform Russia into a first-class industrial power as quickly as possible. He decided to bring the entire economy under state control by nationalizing all industry and abolishing private ownership of land in favor of a system of collectivization. To accomplish this, he launched a series of five-year plans, the first of which went into operation in 1928. It set sharply increased production goals for both agriculture and industry.
In agriculture, peasants were required to merge their holdings in large collective farms that the state would supervise and provide with mechanized equipment. But the program soon encountered resistance from the kulaks, a class of peasants who had acquired large land holdings under the NEP. The kulaks burned their crops and slaughtered livestock. Stalin responded with ruthless measures. Secret police and army units intervened, killing large numbers of kulaks and rounding up many others for shipment to Siberia. Peasant resistance, coupled with a crop failure in 1932, led to another terrible famine in 1932-33. Although reliable statistics are not available, Stalin himself later admitted that 10 million persons died as a result of collectivization and famine. Contrary to Stalin's hopes, agricultural production did not reach the level of 1928 until as late as 1937. Stalin persisted in his program, however, and, by 1939, fully 95 percent of agricultural land had come under collectivization. But many peasants remained both unhappy and uncooperative, and production continued to fall short of his goals.
The First Five-Year Plan also emphasized the development of heavy industry - steel mills, power plants, chemical factories, and large-scale machinery. Although industrial output increased substantially, the concentration on quantity led to problems in quality control. It was not until the Third Five-Year Plan in the late 1930s that quality improved to a satisfactory level. Expansion of heavy industry was costly, and the state could finance it only by diverting capital away from other areas of the economy such as light industry and agriculture. Wages and the standard of living remained low. But many peasants, who had suffered from much worse conditions in the countryside, found jobs in industry and became relatively better off. Many women also secured employment and were able to supplement the incomes of their families.
Meanwhile, Stalin consolidated his own personal power, but his ruthless tactics increased opposition within the party as well as within the hierarchy of the army's officer corps. In the mid-1930s, Stalin moved against his enemies in a series of massive purges. He ordered many "old Bolsheviks" arrested and tried for various crimes against the state and party. Among those found guilty was Trotsky who had fled the country, but an assassin tracked him down in Mexico and murdered him in 1940.
Not content with eliminating these leaders, Stalin cast his net much farther and ordered thousands of lesser party and military officials either shot or imprisoned in Siberian labor camps. In all, perhaps 800,000 party members died in the purges, which also decimated the officer corps of the army. Stalin replaced the purged officials and army officers with men whom he trusted.
Despite Stalin's ruthless policies and the dictatorial nature of his system, by the late 1930s a new generation had grown up under the Communist regime. Its members had no ties to the prerevolutionary era and were proud of the achievements of the Soviet Union. Many of them had received technical, administrative, or scientific training and had found attractive positions in industry, government, the party, and the professions. This new intellectual elite felt a deep sense of loyalty to the system.
But the system was far from the one that Karl Marx had envisioned in his dream of a classless society. Instead, party and government officials, industrial managers, technicians, and professional people enjoyed much higher salaries and prestige than the majority of the population. And far from the state withering away, the dictatorship of the Communist party under Stalin's iron control, had become permanent. Nevertheless, Stalin had transformed the Soviet Union into an industrial giant. This was to prove a vital factor in its ability to emerge triumphant in World War II.
FASCISM IN ITALY
Soon after the victory of Communist totalitarianism in Russia, fascism triumphed in Italy with startling speed. When the Fascist movement began in 1919, it lacked both an efficient organization and a definite ideology. It did not even become a political party until 1921. Nevertheless, by October 1922, Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader, had become premier of Italy and within a few years had created a dictatorship. A multitude of problems that afflicted Italy in the immediate postwar period contributed greatly to this remarkable success story. These included a general sense of dissatisfaction in the aftermath of the war. Italy had gained little from the conflict, at the cost of almost 500,000 dead. Italian nationalists felt a special sense of frustration and betrayal. Returning war veterans were angry over a lack of appreciation for their services, and many of them found it difficult to obtain jobs. Their troubles reflected the dislocation that plagued Italy's economy. Many blamed the democratic government for not achieving more at the peace conference and for failing to solve their economic dilemma.
Italy had only adopted manhood suffrage in 1912, and the system had proven unstable, being characterized by a multitude of parties and dependence on coalition government. Not only did the government provide no solutions to the persistent economic problems, especially reducing Italy's debts and curbing inflation, but it also failed to carry out promises made by the wartime government to adopt a land reform program that would help the country's peasants. Similar pledges to aid the working class also went unfulfilled. These failures led to unrest both in the cities, where strikes became common, and in the countryside, where peasants frequently took matters into their own hands and seized land from the large landlords.
Economic unrest reached a climax in 1920 when industrial workers, inspired by the Socialist party, briefly occupied many factories in the industrial north by means of sit-down strikes. The takeover of the factories and the peasant revolts convinced many of the property-owning classes that there was a real danger of a Socialist revolution. The specter of the Bolshevik victory in Russia haunted them, and they feared that the government would be too weak to cope with such a development. Ironically, the Socialists had reached their peak during the factory takeovers and soon fell victim to internal divisions.
It was against this chaotic background that Benito Mussolini and the Fascists came to power. Mussolini's father, a blacksmith and a Socialist, named him after the Mexican revolutionary leader Benito Juarez. The young Mussolini acquired a deep resentment of the privileged classes and the clergy from his father. But his devout mother sent him to a Catholic school, which he soon came to hate. He especially disliked the upper-class students, and when he attacked one of them with a pen knife, the administrators expelled him. After an unsuccessful career as a teacher, he turned to socialism and rose rapidly in the Socialist party leadership. Mussolini became editor of the party newspaper and initially preached the Socialist doctrine of internationalism and opposition to war. But a few months after the outbreak of World War I, he suddenly urged Italy's entry on the side of the Allies. This heresy outraged his fellow Socialists and led to his ouster from the party. When Italy did enter the conflict, Mussolini joined the army and served capably, seeing action and rising to the rank of corporal before being wounded when a grenade launcher blew up, showering him with fragments.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, many disgruntled veterans and ardent nationalists organized a number of fighting groups in various parts of Italy. One of these bands was led by Mussolini, who gradually won the allegiance of the others and formed the nucleus of the Fascist party. His movement gained the name from the fasces, a symbol of authority during the Roman Empire, consisting of a bundle of rods surrounding an ax. The fasces also became the Fascist insignia. Mussolini combined the movement's fighting units into a paramilitary force known as squadristi or Black Shirts.
The various Fascist groups had little in the way of a common policy, except for their superheated nationalism but it soon assumed an anti-Socialist guise and posed as the great opponent of "Red revolution." The Black Shirts spent much of their time fighting Socialists and other opposing groups in the streets, frequently forcing large doses of castor oil down the throats of those who fell into their hands. But the Fascists were less adept at winning parliamentary elections, failing to gain even one seat in 1919 and capturing only 35 in 1921.
Fascist leaders soon became more aggressive. Black Shirts forced many Socialists out of local government councils and even seized a number of railroad stations and telegraph offices. Despite the obvious illegality of such actions, the government refused to move against the Fascists and tended to look upon them as a bulwark against socialism. Considerable support for fascism also existed in both the officer corps of the army and the court of King Victor Emmanuel III. All of this encouraged Mussolini and other Fascist leaders to attempt to seize power by sending the Black Shirts to march on Rome in October 1922. The government finally awoke to the danger and urged the king to sign a declaration of martial law. But Victor Emmanuel refused, and the cabinet resigned. Instead, the king asked Mussolini to become premier in a coalition cabinet. He took this action in large part because he feared civil war, but he also remembered Mussolini's recent declaration that he favored continuation of the monarchy.
Technically, Mussolini had come to power through constitutional means, but his threat of force had cleared the way for his appointment. Although he intended ultimately to impose a dictatorship, he approached this task cautiously. Mussolini indicated his willingness to preside over a coalition government in which the Fascists would have only three posts. In return, the democratic parties supported his request that he be granted full government powers for a year. During the following months, he appointed Fascists to key local and national positions and transformed the squadristi into a national militia. In the 1924 parliamentary election campaign, the Fascists resorted to intimidation and violence. When the balloting ended, a list of Fascist and non-Fascist candidates that Mussolini had endorsed had won 65 percent of the vote.
Now armed with a massive majority, the Fascists applied pressure to other political parties and the press. They even murdered the most outspoken critic of fascism, Giacomo Matteotti, in June 1924. This incident created a serious crisis. A wave of revulsion gripped non-Fascist Italians, and members of the democratic parties walked out of parliament in protest. They hoped that their action might rouse the king to dismiss Mussolini, but Victor Emmanuel took no action. Despite his initial concern, Mussolini actually benefitted from the crisis, because the withdrawal of the democratic parties from the Chamber eliminated the last source of opposition.
In 1925 and 1926, Mussolini forced non-Fascists out of the cabinet, dissolved all other parties, and imposed tight censorship on the press. He also banned trade unions and secured his total control over local government. A Fascist secret police came into existence in 1926. By the end of 1926, Italy had become a one-party dictatorship.
The parliament remained in existence but henceforth had little to do while Mussolini ruled by decree. Victor Emmanuel III remained head of state, but though technically superior to Mussolini, the king deferred to the premier. As in the Soviet Union, the party was the actual center of power. Mussolini preferred his party title, Duce (leader), to that of premier and dominated both party and state. At the party's summit, Mussolini established the Fascist Grand Council, consisting of 20 to 30 top party leaders, which loyally approved his decrees.
With power secured, the Fascists belatedly formulated an ideology that remained their official creed until the party's downfall in 1943. It denounced democratic government as corrupt and inefficient. Fascism, according to this argument, protected the interests of the community as a whole through strong, efficient leadership that subordinated selfish interests to those of the state. In reality, in the following years, members of the party proved quite attracted to self-interest and corruption.
The Fascists also adopted the doctrine of corporativism, which supposedly furthered understanding between industrialists and workers while eliminating the selfish individualism that had characterized the capitalistic economy. It provided for the division of economic activity into seven categories - industry, commerce, banking, agriculture, internal transport, the merchant marine, and the intellectual community. A corporation was to represent each of the seven, and a Ministry of Corporations came into existence in 1926 to coordinate them. In theory, this organization became the basis for a "corporate state." But in reality, corporativism was a fraud that masked a cynical deal between Mussolini and Italian industry in 1925. This arrangement granted the industrialists a privileged position in return for their support of the regime.
The industrial workers were not so fortunate. The government denied them the right to strike and forced them to join a Fascist-dominated organization. They came under the joint control of their employers, the party, and the state. The regime made similar preferential agreements with organizations of large employers in both commerce and agriculture. The propertied classes had come to terms with the Fascist state, and Mussolini had suppressed his long-standing hatred of the privileged groups in Italian society.
Fascism also exalted the importance of nationalism, and militarism. Mussolini spoke in grandiose terms of Italy's right to achieve its national destiny through the creation of a large empire in the Mediterranean and Africa. Clearly, a powerful war machine was mandatory to attain this goal. To instill a warlike spirit in the Italian people, the Fascists argued that pacifism was a cowardly doctrine, whereas war unleashed the noble human virtues - patriotism, self-sacrifice, and courage. Mussolini posed as a man of action, often appearing in uniform and given to much strutting and posturing. Unfortunately for Mussolini and the Fascists, Italy's armed forces and industry were insufficient to accomplish their grandiose ambitions. Nevertheless, Mussolini would eventually seek to fulfill them. This quest would ultimately lead him and Italy into World War II.
By the early 1930s, Mussolini's government had gained general acceptance. To many Italians, its emphasis on order and discipline was a welcome relief from the instability of the democratic system. But support for the Duce and fascism was actually passive rather than enthusiastic. There appeared to be no alternative, and if one conformed, it was possible to live with relatively little interference from the state.
It is actually questionable to what extent the Fascist regime was totalitarian. To be sure, it was a one-party state and abounded with organizations designed to bring all aspects of life under its scrutiny. But in reality, it had preserved much of the old system - the monarchy, the catholic church, capitalism, and the large landowners. And each of these enjoyed a certain amount of independence.
The Fascist dictatorship was much milder than the Nazi regime that came into existence in Germany in 1933. Like Italian fascism, Nazism was largely the creation of its leader, Adolf Hitler. And also as in Italy, conditions in Germany provided the opportunity for Hitler and the Nazis to come to power.
HITLER AND THE NAZIS IN GERMANY
Adolf Hitler rose from rather modest origins, though not as humble as those of Mussolini and Stalin. His father was a minor customs official in the village of Braunau, Austria, where Adolf was born in 1889. Hitler was an indifferent student and dropped out of school at 16. He dreamed of becoming an artist or an architect but failed to gain admission to either the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts or the Vienna School of Architecture. He remained in Vienna for six years, however, living an aimless life and making ends meet primarily on inheritance money and an orphan's pension. In 1913, Hitler moved to Germany, taking up resistance in Munich. When World War I broke out the following year, he joined the German army and served as a dispatch runner at the front. He was wounded twice and earned five decorations, including an Iron Cross, First Class, a rare honor for a common soldier. Despite his exemplary record, he never rose above the rank of lance corporal.
When the war ended, Hitler was in a hospital, recovering from the effects of a poison gas attack that left him temporarily blinded. The news of the armistice filled him with a deep sense of shame. He readily accepted the "stab-in-the-back" story and felt intense hatred for the German republic that embraced the "dictated peace." After leaving the hospital, he returned to Munich, where he became a member of the German Workers' party, one of the many small extremist political groups that hatched in the aftermath of Germany's defeat.
Hitler soon revealed an exceptional gift for oratory and an astonishing ability to dominate his fellow party members by sheer force of personality. He also demonstrated considerable organizational and leadership skill. In 1921, the party, now renamed the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) party, voted him the official title of Fuhrer (leader) with virtually dictatorial powers. In its original form, the party drew most of its members from manual laborers, but it soon attracted many former soldiers as well as various adventurers and misfits. The Nazis were violently nationalistic, anti-Semitic, and totally opposed to the democratic republican government, which they considered guilty of treason. The party also organized a paramilitary force, the Sturm Abteilung (SA), or storm troops, in 1921.
Although the republic that the Nazis so detested came into existence with the fall of the monarchy in November 1918, it did not receive its constitution until August 1919. Since the constitution was proclaimed in the city of Weimar, the government became known as the Weimar Republic. The constitution provided for an elected president as head of state, a cabinet led by a chancellor, and a two-house parliament. The most important parliamentary body was the democratically elected Reichstag. As in the parliaments of the French Third Republic and early postwar democratic Italy, the Reichstag came to be characterized by a multiparty system, and the cabinet was dependent on the backing of a majority coalition. The Weimar Republic was beset by a number of enemies - various ultranationalist and conservative groups on the right and the Communists on the left. The right-wing parties favored either a restoration of the monarchy or some other kind of authoritarian regime, while the Communists looked forward to a Soviet-type system.
During its first few years, the republic contended with the difficult economic problems that followed the war, especially the disastrous inflation. It also had to withstand a number of revolts. The earliest of these, a Communist uprising in January 1919, forced the government to seek protection from the army, which easily put down the revolt with the help of the Freikorps, unofficial bands of former soldiers similar to those that developed in Italy. The army proved less reliable in the case of right-wing revolts. In 1920, a conservative ultranationalist group used one of the Freikorps to seize Berlin for a time, but the army refused to move against it. Fortunately, the rebel forces were weak and collapsed entirely when the Social Democratic party and the trade unions called a general strike, which paralyzed the capital.
The last of these revolts came in 1923 and became known as the Beer Hall Putsch because its preliminaries took place in a Munich beer hall. It involved a Nazi attempt to seize the state government of Bavaria, to be followed by a march on Berlin, but it failed miserably. The authorities arrested Hitler and several other party leaders and tried them for high treason. Although it appeared as if this fiasco had dealt the Nazis a death blow, they had suffered only a temporary setback. In fact, during the trial Hitler became a national figure for the first time. He took full responsibility for the putsch and turned his defense into a dramatic appeal to German nationalism. The court was sympathetic and administered the most lenient possible sentence, five years, of which Hitler actually served only nine months.
While in prison, Hitler dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a poorly written, bombastic, and self-serving book in which he expressed his major views. Among the most important was his belief in the superiority of what he referred to as the Aryan race. During the nineteenth century, a number of theorists of dubious qualifications had expounded on the supposed existence of such a race, notably the Frenchman Count Arthur de Gobineau and the Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Generally, they referred to the Aryans somewhat imprecisely as the inhabitants of northwestern Europe and considered them superior to other races. Chamberlain saw the Germans as the purest form of Aryan. Hitler identified all the Germanic peoples as Aryan. In addition to the ethnic Germans, these included the Dutch, the Flemish-speaking Belgians, the Scandinavians, and the English. He believed that the Aryan Germans must avoid interbreeding with lesser peoples, which would pollute Aryan blood and weaken the race.
In Hitler's scheme of things, the most loathsome of these lesser breeds were the Jews. To him, they were not only inferior but a sinister influence as well. He associated them with Marxist socialism and the Weimar Republic, both of which he detested. Karl Marx had been a Jew, as had a number of other Marxist leaders, including some of the founders of the republic. Marxism, with its emphasis on the international solidarity of the working class, ran counter to his own nationalism, and, of course, he blamed the republic for selling out the army and making a shameful peace.
Mein Kampf was also full of scorn for democracy and parliamentary institutions. Hitler much preferred the rule of one man, and, of course, he visualized himself in this role. To him, leadership was primary and decisive, providing order, discipline, and purpose in contrast to the confusion and drift he saw in democracy.
Finally, Mein Kampf expressed Hitler's views on foreign policy, including his call for an end to the limitations that the peace settlement had imposed. He also insisted on the need for Germany to absorb the ethnic Germans of Austria, the Sudetenland, Danzig, and Poland. But his ambitions did not end there. His ultimate goal was the conquest of Lebensraum (living space) for the German people in the Soviet Union. He looked with special longing to the vast area of the Ukraine with its rich agricultural land and natural resources. Few people read Mein Kampf when it first appeared in 1925, and many of those who did refused to take it seriously.
While in prison, Hitler also acquired the conviction that the Nazis must come to power legally through the electoral process of the Weimar Republic. There would be no more attempts to overthrown the government by force. But to win power legally would necessitate appealing to larger segments of the population, thereby creating a mass following. To accomplish this, the Nazis, who were primarily a regional party, needed to create a nationwide organization and make skillful use of propaganda to attack the republic and offer a popular alternative.
Propaganda was particularly important to Hitler's approach, and in Joseph Goebbels he found just the man to head the party's new propaganda division. Goebbels, who walked with a limp as the result of a deformed foot, had considered entering the priesthood but earned a Ph.D. from Heidelberg University instead. Goebbels soon recognized Hitler's political genius and became a devoted follower. He proved a master of persuasion and of the art of using the mass media for the greatest impact.
Another of Hitler's chief lieutenants was Hermann Goering, an air ace who had shot down 22 Allied planes during World War I. He had served as the last commander of the legendary Baron von Richthofen's Flying Circus and deeply coveted fame, wealth, and power but held few ideological convictions. Able but intensely vain, Goering had commanded the SA before fleeing the country following the Beer Hall Putsch. He returned in 1928 and eventually became second only to Hitler in the Nazi leadership and commander of the Luftwaffe (air force).
Despite the efforts of Hitler and other Nazi leaders, the party's outlook was far from bright. The prosperity that Germany enjoyed during the second half of the 1920s strengthened the republic, as did Gustav Stresemann's foreign policy achievements. In the Reichstag elections of 1928, the party won only 12 seats. But Hitler remained confident that his chance would come.
Opportunity beckoned with the advent of the Great Depression in 1929. Despite the prosperity of the late 1920s, the world economy had not recovered completely from the disruptive effects of World War I. Britain never regained prewar production levels, and unemployment remained a chronic problem throughout the 1920s. Germany's remarkable economic comeback rested to a large extent on foreign loans. World agriculture did not share in the prosperity of the late 1920s because commodity prices remained low. The related problems of war debts and reparations also continued to be a source of concern.
In the postwar economy, the position of the United States was of special importance. Any sharp reversal in its economic fortunes was sure to have great impact on the rest of the world. Although prices on the American stock market began to rise dramatically in 1928 and continued upward during the next year, there was actually little reason for optimism. Not only was U.S. agriculture depressed, but also industrial production edged downward during 1929. When the spectacular rise of the stock market abruptly ended in October 1929, stock values skidded catastrophically. The crash ruined many investors and destroyed the confidence of others. Industrial production plummeted, banks failed and unemployment soared. Aftershocks of this disaster spread rapidly as American financiers cut off loans to Germany, creating a severe shortage of capital. German production declined precipitously, businesses failed, and unemployment rose alarmingly.
THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC IN CRISIS
The Weimar Republic found itself in a dilemma, with sharply declining revenues and increasing demands for unemployment assistance. Business interests opposed any increase in these payments, while organized labor refused to support any reduction. The cabinet, unable to agree on a solution, resigned in March 1930. The new chancellor, Heinrich Bruning, actually favored a restoration of the monarchy. His authoritarian views made him acceptable to a number of generals who were influential with President Hindenburg, the World War I military leader. Although a monarchist at heart, Hindenburg had remained loyal to the oath he had taken to uphold the republic when he became president in 1925. But he was 82 years old and susceptible to his military advisers, who had recommended Bruning's appointment.
Bruning adopted a program that called for tax increases and reduction of expenditures in an effort to restore the financial stability of the government. The Reichstag voted against his program, but Bruning asked Hindenburg to put the program into effect by decree. Under article 48 of the Weimar constitution, the president had the power to enact programs by decree in times of emergency. Bruning's action marked the end of parliamentary democracy in Germany and launched a three-year period of rule by presidential decree. The chancellor also called a parliamentary election for September 1930, hoping that he could convince the electorate of the soundness of his program.
Unfortunately, the election of 1930 proved a disaster for both Bruning's hopes and the republic. The extremist parties, the Communists and Nazis, scored major gains. But the Nazis were especially successful, winning 107 seats, which gave them the second largest Reichstag delegation. Bruning now had no chance of creating a majority coalition but refused to resign. Instead, he continued to rely on presidential decree powers and clung to his rigid fiscal policy while the depression worsened. Unemployment had hovered around 3 million when he came to power. By the end of 1930, it had risen to 4,380,000 and a year later reached 5,615,000. The popularity of Bruning, now referred to as the "hunger chancellor," declined steadily.
By the spring of 1932, Bruning was losing the confidence of both Hindenburg and General Kurt von Schleicher, the army's liaison man with the government. In May, the chancellor bowed to their pressure and resigned. Schleicher now persuaded Hindenburg to appoint Franz von Papen as his successor. The general thought that he could dominate Papen, a second-rate figure with no strong personal following. Both Papen and Schleicher hoped to lure Hitler into accepting Nazi participation in a coalition cabinet. They believed that the need to share responsibility for government decisions would undermine Hitler's appeal with the voters. But Hitler had no intention of falling into their trap. He did agree not to oppose Papen in the Reichstag, however. In return, the chancellor agreed to call another parliamentary election in July.
While Hitler concentrated on more traditional campaigning, the SA, under the leadership of Ernst Rohm, engaged in a struggle for "control of the streets." Storm troopers battled Communists and Social Democrats and resorted to acts of terrorism. Rohm, an army officer during World War I, had recruited many members of the Freikorps into the SA in its early days. But he had abandoned the party after the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, serving for a time as an officer in the Bolivian army. Hitler had enticed him back in 1930 to reorganize the SA. By the end of 1932, Rohm commanded a force of over 400,000 men.
Far less conspicuous at this time but destined for much greater importance in the future was the Schutz Staffel (SS), which began as Hitler's bodyguard and consisted of less than 300 men in 1929. In that year, Heinrich Himmler, a former operator of a poultry farm, took command of the SS and began to increase its size and functions. Himmler appeared to be anything but the ideal Aryan. Of modest stature with a flabby body, he wore pince-nez glasses, which gave him the appearance of a pedantic schoolmaster. But behind his unimposing façade lay burning ambition and totally ruthless dedication. He became a devoted disciple of Hitler but at the same time constantly sought to aggrandize his own power.
When the election took place, the Nazis captured over 37 percent of the vote and increased their Reichstag delegation to 230, making them the country's largest party, but they were still far from a majority. Hitler now felt strong enough to demand the chancellorship for himself, but Schleicher, Papen, and Hindenburg refused to go along with this. Papen offered him the vice chancellorship instead, but Hitler declined and withheld Nazi support for the government in the Reichstag. His action forced Papen to call another election in November, but this time the balloting resulted in a major setback for the Nazis. They lost 2 million votes, and their Reichstag delegation fell to 196, although they remained the largest party. It looked as if the Nazis had definitely passed their peak. They were also deeply in debt because of the expense involved in waging three major election campaigns in one year.
Papen and Schleicher soon split over how to solve the government's continuing dilemma, and Schleicher persuaded Hindenburg to dismiss the chancellor. In the absence of another acceptable candidate, Schleicher became chancellor himself, but Papen remained active behind the scenes and worked out a deal with Hitler. Under its terms, Hitler would become chancellor while Papen would take the vice chancellorship. Papen also promised to use his connections with important bankers and industrialists to help the Nazis with their financial problems. In return, Hitler agreed that Papen and his associates could choose the great majority of the cabinet members. Hindenburg did not relish the prospect of Hitler in power, but he finally bowed to Papen's pressure. On January 30, 1933, he appointed Hitler chancellor. Papen was delighted. As he commented to a friend shortly afterward, "We have hired him!" He told another, "Within two months we will have pushed Hitler so far into the corner that he'll squeak!"
THE THIRD REICH TAKES FORM
Hitler had no intention of allowing Papen or anyone else to dominate him. Instead, he set out to outmaneuver Papen and the cabinet. His first step was to gain agreement for an immediate dissolution of the Reichstag and the calling of a new election in March. He hoped to gain an absolute majority for the Nazis. This would be an important step toward obtaining the two-thirds majority necessary to enact legislation that would authorize him to rule by personal decree for four years. To facilitate his goal, he took measures to curtail freedom of the press throughout the country.
In February, Hitler's hopes rose still higher when the Reichstag building burned down. Clearly arson, it is still not certain who actually set the fire. The Nazis blamed the Communists and used this charge as a pretext not only to crack down on Communist party officials but to suspend civil rights as well. Armed with this authority, the Nazis interfered with the activities opposition parties. But despite all these advantages, Hitler found the election results disappointing. Although the Nazis won 288 seats, they were still short of a bare majority, not to mention the two-thirds needed to pass the enabling bill. Hitler now resorted to intimidation to gain the necessary support. On the day that the vote took place, SS personnel surrounded the building in which the Reichstag met, while SA troopers stationed themselves inside and chanted, "We want the bill or fire and murder!" Under such pressure, only the Social Democrats had the courage to vote against the bill, which passed by a margin of 347.
Hitler was not yet the complete dictator of Germany, but he was well on his way. To finish the process, he embarked on a policy of Gleichschaltung (coordination). This included bringing the state governments under Nazi control. Hitler also eliminated all other political parties, ousted unacceptable members of the cabinet, and merged the labor unions in a new, Nazi-directed German Labor Front. Industrial workers lost their rights to engage in collective bargaining and to strike. The Reichstag continued to exist, but only as a Nazi-dominated assembly that listened to Hitler's decrees and roared back its total, slavish approval.
Soon after coming to power, the Nazis brought the educational curriculum from the elementary through university level in line with Nazi ideas. The Nazis also absorbed all the country's many youth organizations into the Hitler Youth. This movement fostered love of the Fuhrer, obedience to the party and state, and exaltation of warlike virtues.
Hitler referred to Nazi Germany as the Third Reich, the Third German Empire. The first Reich had been the medieval Holy Roman Empire, the second the imperial system that World War I had destroyed. Hitler predicted that the new Reich would last for a thousand years.
As soon as they gained power, the Nazis began to move against political opponents, especially the Social Democrats and Communists. A secret police organization, the Gestapo, relentlessly tracked down enemies of the regime. In 1933, both SA and SS units established concentration camps. Dachau, near Munich, became the largest and served as a model for other camps. In 1934, the SS gained control over all of them and reduced their number to three - Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. After the outbreak of World War II, the influx of political prisoners from occupied countries necessitated the creation of several new camps, including Bergen-Belsen. Special units known as "Death's Head Formations," staffed the camps, treating inmates with utmost cruelty. The Nazis also quickly began to persecute the Jews. They purged them from the civil service and universities and subjected them to discrimination and violence. At first, these measures were unofficial and somewhat random in nature, but in the following years they became much more formal and increasingly restrictive.
By 1934, Hitler had essentially completed his revolution. Only two potential sources of opposition still existed - the army and the SA. Military leaders listened with pleasure as Hitler promised to increase the size of the army and provide it with modern equipment. But the generals were alarmed by the rapid expansion of the SA, whose ranks had swollen to over a million men. They were also troubled by reports that Rohm hoped to merge the army with the SA. Hitler shared their concern over Rohm's intentions and feared that the SA leader might attempt to seize power. In June 1934, at the urging of both the army and Himmler, Hitler ordered the purge of the SA. SS troopers took Rohm and many other SA leaders by surprise and executed them without trial.
Shortly after this purge, remembered as the "Night of the Long Knives," President Hindenburg died, and Hitler announced that the offices of chancellor and president were now combined in his new position as Fuhrer and Reich Chancellor. The army agreed to support his acquisition of the presidential powers and swore an oath of allegiance to him. In return, Hitler affirmed the army's position as the sole bearers of arms in the nation. But while the army officers felt honor-bound to remain loyal to their oath, Hitler soon violated his part of the bargain. He recognized the SS as the SA's replacement with the right to form actual combat troops. In the following years, the SS grew rapidly and, under Himmler's leadership, became the chief instrument of internal Nazi power. By 1936, Himmler had gained control over all German police, including the Gestapo. Later Himmler created special military units, the Waffen SS (armed SS), which were separate from the army. During World War II, they were to receive preferential treatment, including the finest equipment available, much to the army leaders' disgust.
THE FUHRER AT THE HELM
Hitler now wielded absolute power over both party and state and contended that he embodied the aspirations of the entire German people. Whatever their original misgivings, a majority of Germans soon began to accept the Fuhrer's rule as beneficial. Hitler received credit for Germany's economic recovery from the depression and the great reduction in unemployment. Although recovery actually began before he came to power, his policies certainly contributed significantly to the process and gave the people a new sense of pride and achievement. They included an ambitious program of public works and rearmament.
Despite the power wielded by Hitler and the Nazis, the system lacked the complete coordination of all levels of government from the top that is usually associated with totalitarianism. Instead, a good deal of confusion, duplication of effort, and competition characterized relations between party and state. Hitler retained the governmental departments of the republic as well as most of their personnel, who tended to be of high quality. The most notable new department, the Propaganda Ministry, staffed by Nazis and headed by Goebbels, performed its functions of spreading lies and promoting hatred with chilling efficiency. But Hitler provided no systematic machinery for coordinating the policies of the departments. The Fuhrer also had a fondness for creating special authorities and agencies to deal with problems that existing ministries could have handled with greater efficiency. These bodies proliferated alarmingly and tended to compete not only with the ministries but also with each other.
In part, this duplication and the resulting jurisdictional rivalries stemmed from Hitler's own deliberate efforts. By dividing his underlings, he maintained unquestioned ascendancy over all of them. But despite this confused reality, Nazi propaganda effectively portrayed the regime as one of totalitarian order and efficiency to the German people and the outside world. The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin seemed to confirm this view when Germany swept 33 gold medals, compared to only 24 for the United States. Oddly enough, two Jews competed for the German team, one winning a silver medal in fencing.
THE TRANSFORMATION OF JAPAN
In East Asia, dictatorship also came to Japan, but the form of oppression and the manner in which it developed differed from the models of Russia, Italy, and Germany. The driving force behind this transformation was not a political party or a single leader but the army. Japan possessed an ancient military tradition that had originated in a period of civil war between rival feudal clans, starting in the twelfth century and continuing until the 1500s. Throughout this period a succession of emperors presided over the Japanese government. Although the emperor claimed divine origin as the descendant of the Sun Goddess, he actually played a minor role in the political system. Imperial power, such as it was, lay in the hands of the shogun, a military regent who ruled in the name of the emperor.
Despite the turmoil of those centuries, Japan maintained a highly developed civilization and a thriving commercial economy. The prestigious landowning clans, supported by armed retainers called samurai, dominated Japanese society, followed at a respectful distance by the wealthy merchant class. The landlords mercilessly exploited the peasantry, which comprised the overwhelming majority of the population. One of the clans, the Tokugawa, gradually gained control over Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and acquired the office of shogun. For the next 250 years, Tokugawa shoguns governed the country as a military dictatorship. They maintained the feudal system but dominated the feudal lords.
The Tokugawa feared foreign influence and isolated the country from most contacts with the West. The Japanese looked inward and became exceedingly nationalistic. Starting in the eighteenth century, however, signs of change became evident. The wealthy merchant class rose steadily in importance and the impoverished landless peasantry grew restless. In 1853, an American fleet under Commodore Matthew Perry forced its way into Yedo (later Tokyo) Bay. Perry demanded that the Tokugawa enter into commercial relations with the United States and other Western powers. In the years that followed Perry's brusque visit, Japan agreed to a series of treaties with various Western countries. These were similar to the ones that China had made with European powers, complete with trade concessions and grants of extraterritoriality.
These concessions angered some of the great clans who defied the authority of the shogun and resorted to attacks on foreign ships in Japanese harbors. The rebels enlisted the support of the emperor, who now loomed as a counterweight to the shogun. This antiforeigner movement backed down, however, when in 1864 a Western fleet, containing warships from four nations, bombarded Japanese shore batteries and sent a landing force ashore to seize them. But this crisis ignited a period of internal strife and weakened the Tokugawa. In 1867, Shogun Keiki resigned in favor of restoring the imperial dignity in the person of 16-year-old Emperor Musuhito who had only recently succeeded to the throne. The young emperor applied the name Meiji (Enlightened Government) to his reign. During the next few years, the great clans surrendered their feudal fiefs to the emperor, and in 1871 an imperial decree abolished feudalism and created a system of centralized administration. The new government turned to Western technology and organizational methods in an effort to resist Western domination. In keeping with this approach, they reorganized the administrative and legal systems and encouraged industrial and financial modernization. Japanese business groups invested in manufacturing enterprises and rapidly increased production while seeking foreign markets.
The new regime created a modern army, patterned after Prussia's military establishment, and transformed the samurai into an officer corps. Somewhat later, a navy, modeled after Britain's, also came into existence. By the early twentieth century, Japan had shaken off Western domination and had emerged as an important power. Its new war machine won victories over China in 1894-95 and Russia in 1904-05. In the latter conflict, a Japanese fleet under Admiral Heihachiro Togo scored a major success in a surprise attack on a Russian squadron at Port Arthur before war had been declared. This decisive victory made a lasting impression on Japanese naval leaders and appears to have ultimately influenced development of the strategy that resulted in the surprise attack on the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor during World War II. Secure in their newly established position of power, the Japanese engaged in the same type of imperialistic activity in China that they had resisted in their own country.
Despite this startling transformation, Japan's traditional social structure continued largely unchanged. Landlords retained their control over the peasantry. The industrial and commercial groups had grown wealthier, but a few great families dominated the economy through giant trusts. And the industrial working class remained thoroughly subordinate to management. Japan's culture also continued its age-old form, except for the government's campaign to reduce the power of the Buddhist religion and to encourage Shinto cult, which worshiped the emperor as the descendant of the Sun Goddess. Shinto, meaning "the way of the gods," was an ancient form of religion, which originally focused on the worship of a vast array of spirits or gods personifying aspects of the natural world. It had virtually disappeared as a separate religion by the ninth century but experienced a revival during the eighteenth century. In its revised form, Shinto stressed ancestor worship and complete obedience to the emperor and in effect, through him, the state. It also contended that the Japanese were superior to other peoples because they had descended from the gods.
Japan based its government on a constitution drafted in 1889. It vested authority in the emperor, but in reality, the premier and his cabinet ruled the emperor's name, while the emperor existed in a state of exalted aloofness. A small electorate, based on property ownership, chose the members of the Diet, the Japanese parliament. Cabinet ministers were responsible to the emperor rather than to the Diet, but since the emperor remained above political affairs, they ruled with virtual freedom from civilian limitations. But they did have to contend with the army and the navy ministries, which wielded enormous influence. High-ranking officers on active duty headed the war and navy ministries, and either minister could bring down the cabinet by resigning. The services could also block the formation of a cabinet not to their liking by refusing to designate officers to fill these positions. Both services even refused to provide information to the cabinet on the pretense of the need to protect military secrets.
Despite the traditional importance of the military, a movement toward liberalization of the system produced remarkable results during the 1920s. Western-style political parties and trade unions developed, and in 1925 Japan adopted manhood suffrage as the basis for parliamentary elections. There was even an attempt to reduce the influence of the army and navy in the realm of foreign affairs. The most notable examples of this were the commitments that Japanese officials made at the Washington and London conferences to limit naval strength over the vehement protests of many navy leaders. To a large extent, the liberalization movement found its strength in the relative economic prosperity that Japan enjoyed during the 1920s. But beneath the surface, the traditional social system still remained largely unchanged, and powerful forces objected to the innovations in the political system.
JAPAN MOVES TOWARD MILITARY DICTATORSHIP
With the coming of the Great Depression, Japan encountered severe economic problems that discredited the civilian government and provided the opportunity for the military to reassert its power. Army leaders took the lead by insisting that the country must seek expansion on the Asian mainland as a way out of the economic dilemma. In particular, they demanded aggressive measures in Manchuria. Junior officers became active in secret organizations that resorted to the assassination of government officials. Their first victim was Premier Hamaguchi, whose government had negotiated the London Naval Treaty in 1930. These violent tendencies culminated in an attempted coup by a group of fanatical army officers in 1936. Although they failed in their bid for power, the rebels did succeed in assassinating several cabinet ministers.
The actions of these junior officers reflected the paradoxical nature of the Japanese army. Despite the ability of top-ranking generals to manipulate cabinets, they were not successful in controlling their own subordinates, who often acted in a startling independent manner. This was in keeping with the Japanese tradition of gekokujo, which involved open defiance of senior officers by juniors, a frequent occurrence in Japan's history. Army authorities often overlooked such glaring breaches of military discipline. In large part this was due to the fact that senior officers often sympathized with the motives of their subordinates. Even when they did not, they admired their spirit. Indeed, Japanese military doctrine considered fighting spirit the decisive element in war and regarded cautious officers as cowards. All of this was indicative of an irrational element in the army's outlook, which focused on a willingness to undertake military action without due regard for the consequences. It also took the form of fanatical devotion to military honor, fighting to the death in hopeless circumstances, and an insistence on suicide rather than surrender.
These tendencies reflected the centuries-old code of Bushido ("the way of the warrior"), which originated with the samurai of feudal Japan and extolled such virtues as duty, courage, self-discipline, endurance, and especially devotion to the emperor. Bushido dictated that the soldier must fight until victory was achieved or until he met his own death. Surrender was not an option. Instead, the soldier must commit suicide to preserve his honor. To be taken prisoner was the ultimate disgrace.
Japan's military leaders encroached steadily on the government during the 1930s, and the promising liberalization movement of the 1920s withered away. Civilian authorities buckled under to the army's demand for territorial expansion in China, and the more conservative political groups shared this desire. Japan gradually took on the characteristics of a military dictatorship. But in many respects, the transition was more subtle than in Italy or Germany. There was no mass political movement, no charismatic leader, no revision or suspension of the constitution. But there was steady erosion of civil liberties, encroachment on freedom of the press and other forms of expression, and imprisonment of critics of the regime. The government undermined the powers of the Diet and gradually outlawed opposing political parties.
In Japan, as in Germany and Italy, the expansionist ambitions of the dictatorship along with a willingness to go to war to achieve them formed a dangerous and explosive combination. During the 1930s the foreign policies of all three dictatorships moved steadily in the direction of war. In fact, the consolidation of the dictatorship in Japan was largely a product of a war that the Japanese unleashed against Chinese rule in Manchuria as early as 1931. This aggression marked the start of an accelerating Japanese military involvement in China during the next few years. By 1937, Japan and China were locked in a war that would not end until 1945. By 1939, Hitler had plunged Europe into war as well. The two widely separated struggles ultimately blended into the global conflict we call World War II.