Democracy and Totalitarianism in Europe - Essay Example

RE-ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENT Module HIST1004 Module Democracy and Totalitarianism in Europe Assignment no: 002 Essay Word length: 1500 Tutor: P. McNally Throughout history, democracy has struggled with other political governments. Democracy is a self going process and relies heavily on the participation of the civilians residing in that nation. Democracy cannot thrive from itself. The people must to pursue the idealistic values that democracy offers. Freedom and democracy are nothing when citizens won’t pursue it. Liberal democracy lacked thus lacked independent force in order to be enforced in Eastern Europe since World War I and World War II had left Europe in ruins of chaos, confusion, and desperately in need of funds. The inter period between the World Wars in Europe was a trademark of different regimes ruling Europe at a dark time(Pratchett 44). The casualties were far more terrible than anyone had foreseen, and international conflict was without a doubt filled with consequences. Hence, the failure of democracy to spread to Europe between the World Wars can be attributed to various reasons. One of the primary reasons why democracy failed to spread in Europe between World Wars was because no country had enough desire or power to enforce democracy in their own nation. At the time of World War I, this triumphant ideology of an expansionist democratic republicanism was simply clear. Under Wilsons administration, the European war became an ideological mission, which was to make the world safe for democracy and free of corrupt rulers(Jeffries 66)..  The Allies were being urged to think of their motive to enter war “to make the world safe for democracy,” and the Germans, on their side, were correspondingly encouraged to visualize the war as a struggle of “culture” against “barbarism.” Wilsons false vision of democracy was disillusioned because it gave rise to more conflict(Parkingson 22).. Democracy failed in the post-World War I mainly because it was unable to allow for economic reliability. Germany for example, was in total economic collapse as inflation continued to plague their economy. During the Weimar Republic many anti-democratic political groups sprang up from angry war veterans, including the Communist, Socialist, and the Nazi party(Siedentop 45)..  For Germans, democracy meant turmoil, revolution, and poverty. Many Germans longed for the stability of the kaisers empire. Democracy is based on a strong foundation of social system in which the economy is prosperous. However, these conditions did not prevail in Europe between wars especially after the Great Depression. Numerous nations were created in Europe post World War I, which were divided in which government to implement because of ethnic differences. The Treaty of Versailles was another cause for the failure of democracy to expand since it was drawn by Allied Powers that were democratic nations. The Treaty of Versailles literally crippled Germany in all aspects and give while the war guilt clause was viewed by the Germans as entirely hypocritical and illegal as they were found guilty of crimes that did not exist under international law at the time(“ideology”). Other nations such as Italy, Spain, Austria were not committed either. The Republic Russia under the control of Stalin, found democracy to be a disease, and continued to propagate communism instead. Even England was slow to take a major step in spreading democracy. Ultimately, a failure to rise to challenge may lead further prevention of democracy over Europe (Pratchett 34). Italy was one of the nations that flourished under fascism because of Mussolini’s leadership. The Fascists, parliamentary democracy could only lead to inefficiency and corrupt government; and so the whole parliamentary system must be discarded. Much of Europe’s success including Italy’s was promised on national glory. Mussolini preferred state to control economy rather than a lassiez faire, which clashed against democratic ideals(Parkinson 65).Ultimately, a failure to rise to challenge may lead further prevention of democracy over Europe (Pratchett 34). Consequently, Romania was in power of King Carol in 1938, who outlawed any political party, enlarge his own powers, and rule with an iron-fist (Ramet 31). Clearly, the rise of fascist parties impacted the failure of democracy to spread in Eastern Europe. Another primary reason that democracy failed to spread in Europe between World Wars was the propaganda that the chaos and loss during the World Wars was due to democracy. Economic instability after the massive destruction of WWI with the turmoil of the depression lead to political instability (“ideology”). The great depression after World War I hit internationally fast and hard. Extreme differences such as Fascism and Communism offer simple solutions which quickly make broadly democratic leaders look selfish, corrupt and evil (Cook 23). The two democratic nations in Europe, Britain and France, both showed flaws in their system. Britain faced major crisis in unemployment, with around 2 million on welfare. Countries such as France and Great Britain were in major economic crisis because of post war debt. This crisis gave a rise to a new party called the Labour party, which served as another barrier for democracy to spread. The rise of Nazism was a symptom as a cause of failure of Germany democracy(Jeffries 63). It was quite evident that democracy got subverted in midst of this crisis. Meanwhile, Democracy failed in the new states of Eastern Europe because of numerous reasons. It was clear that small, independent nations were dominated by ethnic struggles, which played a critical role in politics. Much of Eastern Europe was home to peasants and landlords with little industrial production (Siedentop 67). As a result, the assimilation of people with different social and political differences played a huge role towards the failure of democracy to expand. In addition, ethnic discrimination continued to haunt nations such as Yugoslavia, Poland, and Romania (Ramet 33). Conflicts continued to mount as some people were denied intellectual skills necessary for real world in order to keep certain ethnic groups uneducated and ignorant(Jeffries 68). The economic pressure mounting along with ethnic clashes served as a barrier for the spreading of democracy. Sabrina P. Ramet discusses this as she states, “another factor was the sheer proliferation of political parties...The proliferation of parties in parliament made necessary elaborate coalitions that could only prove highly unstable..”(Ramet 30) This was a key factor that politicians found it expedient to resort to extremism in an effort to run a nation on an electoral base (Ramet 30). . In addition, the leadership of dictators such as Hitler and Lenin motivated civilians to follow a nation under charismatic leadership who promised hope rather than reforming a nation’s government. Another key factor that deterred democracy to spread over Europe was due to the lack of “civic culture” in Eastern Europe (Ramet 30). Much of Europe lacked the democratic ideals of tolerance, compromise, coexistence and the emphasis was no doubt placed on national glory and fame (Ramet 35). In essence, much of the population was uneducated about democracy due to severe growth of authoritarian parties as Huge Seton-Watson writes in his book problems of the political education, The most essential condition... for the establishment of democratic Government is Eastern Europe is an improvement and intensification of general education. This means that not only the education of youth, but raising the tone of the press, literature, and all forms of public opinion. The communists insisted to educate people in a way to harbour harmony and peace amongst people; however pride and glory became the main aspect. Furthermore the communists, blamed democracy for the initiation of World War I(Siedentop 34). Citizens feared that if people had power to express their ideas and had the power to vote, it would lead to bad decision making. Many of the things that were committed in the name of democracy just contradicted the fundamental principles of democracy (Jeffries 367). Hence, many people became fed up with the short comings travesties of democracy in the Balkan and Eastern Europe during 1920’s (Jeffries 367). The “icing of the cake” that could be accounted for the failure of democracy can be attributed to weakness of elites to rule with sensible leadership. Most elites were clueless on leading their countries, and most leaders wanted to protect their own interests rather than implement a democratic government (Siedentop 55).. Hence, the rise of dictatorship became the theme for several nations because it provided a country to go under one leadership. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were prime examples of this style of government because they were able to propagate their cause, implement fear and propaganda, and giving the people hope(Sandburg 312). Hitler used Nazism to gain power in Germany, Mussolini used Fascism to gain power in Italy, and Stalin used Communism to gain power in Russia. Without a doubt, all these factors contributed to failure of democracy in the Eastern Europe between World War I and World War II. These reasons consisted of weak ability of nations to enforce democracy, propaganda against democracy, lack of “civil culture,” and weak leadership. The vision of expansion of democracy is critical even in the 21st centuries as conflicts continue to mount in Middle East and other parts of Europe. Who will be the front runners to spread democracy internationally? The question remains, can democracy spread globally for the liberty and justice for all? MLA "ideology." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Web. 30 July 2010  . Jeffries, Ian. A History of Eastern Europe. British Library of Congress. Madison Avenue; New York. 2007. Print Parkinson, Roger. The Origins of World War I. Wayland Publishing. Sussex: England. 1970. Print Ramet, Sabrina. Whose Democracy? Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Oxford; England. 1997.Print Pratchett, Lawrence. Developing democracy in Europe .Council of Europe Publishing. Belgium. 2004. Print Sandberg, Mikael. Social Capitalization and Democratization. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. England. 2004 Print Siedentop, Larry. Democracy in Europe. Columbia University Press. New York; New York. 2001. Print Watson, Seth. Problems of the political education. British Library of Congress. New Hampshire, USA. 1985. Print Read More