Mussolini and Totalitarianism/French and Russian Revolutions

Mussolini and Totalitarianism

A totalitarian government is characterized, in varying degrees, by a breakdown in democracy, fear of dependency on foreign interests, mobilization of the masses, and the blind allegiance to a demagogue. In 1922, Italy saw the rise of such a government and its charismatic leader was Mussolini.

After World War I, Italy, like many of the European nations, struggled with its identity and legitimacy. All over Europe, writes historian Merkl (1981), “old societies were destroyed by major economic changes” (p. 132). To enter the 20th century as a modern, economically competitive nation, Italy felt it must do away with monarchies and any semblance of intellectual elitism that did not have as its raison d’etre the health of the state and common good over the individual. This focus on the common good was driven in part by a suspicion of foreign and plutocratic societies. Plutocracy was the direct opposite of syndicalism which Italy embraced. Revolutionary syndicalism advocated an overthrow of the wealthy and pushed economic reform through the mobilization of a working class. This working class was organized through the establishment of unions and it helped expand economic efficiencies, most markedly infrastructure such as electrification and road maintenance.

By isolating itself from the free flow of ideas and policy, discussion and debate, Italy created for itself a “closed industrial state.” To be assured of the perpetuity of this “closed state,” Italy needed patriotic ideology. To accomplish this, it was necessary to involve youth. Young people were easily persuaded so political socialization into totalitarian movements was not particularly difficult.

Following World War I Italy found its very core of democracy being eroded by economic disaster and so it struck out at individuals and institutions it perceived as problematic, at those who represented: “the popular and elite support for the democratic system” (Merkl, 1981, pp. 124-125). Italy’s desperation in resolving its identity and legitimacy took a turn for the worse. By embracing totalitarianism, Italy had traded one repressive system of governance for another. The rise of the popular masses of working people, or proletariat, over the “intellectual elite” was, to historian Merkl (1981), contradictory in nature and reactive.

Most likely the biggest draw to a totalitarian government is the leader himself. Typically, a charismatic totalitarian leader espouses that he and only he knows how to navigate out of the “mental ties that bound together the previous social order” (Merkl, 1981, p. 121). A demagogue who is a skillful and eloquent public speaker can rally crowds into a reactive frenzy.

All these components coalesced in a society that had just been through a major world war and that found itself floundering economically and socially as it tried to position itself in the new century. There have been many historians who have tried to piece together the events that took place within a totalitarian system like Mussolini’s Italy; they have argued that although it was repressive, it contained some elements of progressive features. Those features included the “smashing of the old sectarian parties and associated groups, and the corruption from within of the seemingly indestructible codes of the military and the civil service” (Merkl, 1981, p. 119). Whatever good he accomplished, Mussolini will always remain one of the most violent and abhorrent leaders of the 20th century.

French and Russian Revolutions

The most striking similarity between the French Revolution of the eighteenth century and the twentieth-century Russian Revolution was that both were precipitated and subsequently sustained by the peasant class. There were marked differences in the broad sense of demographics. In this comparison and contrast analysis, I will examine the similarities and differences.

France is a small nation, engulfed on all sides by potentially threatening governments and culturally alien societies. In the eighteenth century, however, its main threat was its own peasant class. This class of people made up the social background of the entire Revolution, yet it is surprisingly overlooked (Korff, 1921, p. 217). In Russia, a huge landmass of people who are so diverse that they exist side-by-side with barely a thread of cohesiveness, the peasants were largely ignored, as well. In neither case should they have been.

For decades before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the feudal system was beginning to erode. As part of that feudal system, serfdom was still very much alive, yet it too was ebbing in influence and was eliminated during the Revolution. Though they were free from being enslaved to the land-owning ruling classes, the peasant class had not yet obtained economic emancipation. This was a vicious cycle with the peasant classes caught in a web of paying ridiculous taxes and unfair tributes or forced to work or face the loss of their produce. There were unjust and numerous restrictions placed on their usage of particular lands and forests (Korff, 1921, p. 218). If the peasants tried to remedy the situation through the court system, they found little help; the entire court system was comprised of the same class of people they were battling. What made the situation even more bitter, was the fact that the ruling classes were not taxed. This fact alone was reason enough for the peasant class to revolt. So impoverished was the peasant class, that they finally rose in violent rebellion on August 4. The peasant classes, now freed from the strangling grasp of the ruling classes, began to land grab as well as engage in taking estate and forests in provinces all over the countryside. The remarkable part of this aspect of the Revolution was that all the acquisitions of land and property were “legally sanctioned by the National Assembly, by the Legislative Assembly and the Convention” (Korff, 1921 p. 222). This was the case in Russia, as well, whose peasant Revolution I will examine now.

Russia was and still is to some extent a nation of agriculturally inclined people. During the decades preceding the Revolution, the peasant class, unlike France’s, was granted freedom from serfdom and they were given land. This was due to the wisdom of Tsar Alexander II who was cognizant that simply granting freedom to the peasant classes without benefit of land, would mean “simply the increase of their economic dependence upon the wealthy classes” (Korff, 1921, p. 225).

So, from where did the discontent evolve? An act passed in 1861 directed that noblemen were to free their serfs and give them a small parcel of land. However, this was very quickly abused. The landowner could choose which area of land he would bequeath to his serfs. Often, the given land was not arable, or unfit for cultivation, or sometimes so far from the village as to be impractical to even work. Also, like France’s peasant classes who owned their land, the taxes levied against them were astronomical.

The peasant class, largely uneducated, were, like their French counterparts, used as a tool by the intellectuals and the bourgeoisie to highlight their discontent with the government. This helped the peasant class because they were not as articulate about their unethical treatment and there is precisely where the bourgeoisie excelled. In speaking up for the peasant class, the bourgeoisie facilitated the peasants who rose and began their own land grabbing. In fact, “During the autumn of 1905,” Korff writes, “riots took place all over Russia, but especially in the central provinces, for just there the shortage of land was greatest” (Korff, 1921, p. 229).

It is very clear through the study of scholarly articles, that the Revolution of the peasant classes, had little cross-over involvement with what the middle-classes were fighting for. And their (peasant class) Revolution was by no means benign. During both the French and Russian Revolutions, there were horrendous murders that took place, and blood-soaked revenge was enacted. The acquisition of land was a sweet outcome of the Revolution; however, the euphoria did not last long. In 1919, the Bolshevik government decided that property ownership was very much in opposition to Communism, which forbids private property.

In conclusion, it is important to study both Revolutions from the various class points of view to assess the events that transpired objectively. In this paper, I have shown that where the French peasants were ultimately satisfied with their land acquisition, the peasants of Russia were only satisfied for a few years before the reality of the Bolshevik government hit home. In the years following the Bolshevik government take over, the peasant class would continue to allow the gulf between the government and themselves to broaden and deepen. To this day, this subject matter is a sensitive one with varying degrees of acquiescence and suspicion.

Another important aspect that is often forgotten or dismissed is how the success of both Revolutions was due to the inextricable link between the bourgeoisie and the peasants. Though neither class of people recognized it at the time, the alliance was the formidable underpinning of what eventually broke down the old systems of the aristocracy and allowed in a fresh, new paradigm of governance.

References

Korff, S. A. (1921). The peasants during the French and Russian revolutions. The Journal of International Relations, 12(2). 215-237. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/29738474

Merkl, P. H. (1981). Democratic development, breakdowns, and fascism. World Politics, 34(1), 114-135. Retrieved from http://archive.org/stream/jstor-29738474/29738474_djvu.txt