In contrast to ancient despotism, modern dictatorships have tended to rely on the involvement of the masses to a surprising extent (Lim 2005). One line of comparative inquiry into the functioning of Fascism and Communism stresses the aspect of coercion by investigating the records of the secret police, their repressive policies, victimization of opponents and concentration camp system. Another, more recent direction of research emphasizes instead the âsoft stabilizersâ of dictatorial regimes such as ideological propaganda, public rituals or material incentives that generated voluntary compliance. For their self-perception as well as international reputation dictatorships required the acclamation and participation of large numbers of citizens for their political legitimation and actual functioning. Beyond personal charisma or messianic faith, it was generally a shared ideological project that cemented the bond between leaders and followers.
The endless debate about categorizing dictatorships according to their predominant traits tends to overlook the centrality of this social engineering drive to remake society. No doubt, such classifications as authoritarian versus totalitarian, personal versus party or military, conservative versus modernizing or counterrevolutionary dictatorships have their merits by highlighting significant aspects of their rule (Wiatr 2011). But the approach of analyzing dictatorial systems solely as efforts to exploit resources and repress opponents in order to gain and preserve political power ignores their ideological motives. The rhetoric of modern dictatorships is replete with references to constructing a ânew manâ and developing a ânew society,â which indicate their profoundly transformative aspirations. It is the common enterprise of creating an egalitarian âclassless societyâ or a genuine âpeopleâs communityâ that makes modern dictatorships so dynamic and deadly, because it leaves little room for accommodation with its victims.
These ideological projects made dictatorship attractive because they offered alternate paths to modernity that promised to avoid the pitfalls of faltering capitalism and democracy. While conservative dictators like Franco attempted to preserve the power of the church, the landed aristocracy, the officer corps or the state bureaucracy, they knew that their efforts could only postpone inevitable modernization (Linz 1970). When economic troubles such as hyperinflation or depression discredited the free play of the market or legislative deadlock failed to address the social problems of parliamentary systems, the public became receptive to the allure of alternate roads to modernity. One such radical proposal was the Communist effort to overturn the class system through revolution, appealing both to workers and to intellectuals as a secular utopia. Another equally thorough effort on the opposite end of the political spectrum involved the construction of a national community by expelling enemies such as the Jews and embarking on foreign imperialism. Both of these alternatives attempted to re-engineer society in their image.
The Soviet effort to create an egalitarian socialist utopia proved especially appealing to industrial workers in advanced countries and to exploited natives in the European colonies. Leninâs victory in Russia owed much to popular resentment against Tsarist autocracy and disappointment in the loss of the First World War. At the same time, it was also a more radical effort at renewal than the Western-style Provisional Government that was preoccupied with creating a constitution while the populace hungered for âbread, land and peace.â By displacing various socialist rivals, the Bolsheviks self-consciously set up a Rousseauian âdictatorship of the proletariatâ for the people, since the Russian people seemed not yet ripe for self-government. The result of Leninâs coup was a ruthless class war against royalist Whites, moderate democrats and foreign interventionists. But the key promise was the modernization of Russian society through literacy and electrificationâa futuristic vision of equality and prosperity that was hard to resist (Fitzpatrick and Geyer 2009).
At the other political extreme, Fascism offered an organic vision of modernity that rejected both decadent democracy and socialist egalitarianism. In Italy it arose from veteransâ disappointment in the small spoils of a âmutilated victoryâ during the First World War, while in Germany a related ideology achieved its breakthrough due to the Great Depression, which discredited the struggling Weimar Republic. The goal of the curious fusion of nationalist and socialist ideas was the creation of a peopleâs community that excluded Communists and Jews as enemies. Such a national rebirth intended to produce a more vigorous foreign policy, recapturing not just ethnic territory, but regaining vast empires beyond. In contrast to the party-centered Soviets, the Fascist movement developed a charismatic leaderâfollower system in which the masses were to offer acclamatory support for the dynamic Duce or wise FĂŒhrer. Instead of privileging social class, Fascism revolved around an even more mythical notion of race as principle of in- or exclusion (Griffin 2007).
Both totalitarian dictatorships appealed to the masses because they promised economic development of a backward country and security against the vagaries of the capitalist business cycles. In the Russian case the Soviets were outspoken about their effort to drag a still largely agrarian society into the industrial age. Stalinâs ruthless collectivization of agriculture and compulsory industrialization through the Five Year Plan became internationally famous models of leaping over intermediary stages of bourgeois development (Kotkin 1995). In Italy Mussoliniâs various campaigns for reclaiming land, growing grain and so on were efforts to create a sufficient economic base to make the country into a great power. In Germany Hitlerâs policy of autarchy was supposed to inspire enough agricultural self-sufficiency and industrial growth to sustain massive rearmament in spite of the poverty of available natural resources (Tooze 2006). While the democracies seemed unable to shake the impact of the Great Depression, the mass dictatorships looked rather dynamic by comparison.
On the international stage, both mass dictatorships strove to promote their ideological aims, restore national power and acquire imperial domains. Since the authoritarian land-based empires ruled by the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Romanovs and Hohenzollerns had collapsed during the First World War, it was the hegemony of the victorious sea-borne empires of Western Europe that the dictatorships wanted to contest. In Russia belief in socialist internationalism fostered a hope to overthrow the losses of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty by sparking sympathetic revolutions in Central Europe. Among the Fascists the key aim was the erasure of the shame of defeat in the Great War and the acquisition of contiguous or transoceanic empires in order to become a major player in world politics. Since both ideological rivals were basically revisionists, seeking to alter the order of the League of Nations, they collaborated with each other in spite of their basic enmity. Where their claims overlapped in Eastern Europe the unfortunate populations were subjected to a bloodbath of unprecedented extent (Snyder 2010).
The blueprint for achieving modernity was the ruling ideology which provided a metaphysical belief system, a compass for policies and a vocabulary for communication. Though often seeming ludicrous to international observers, the professions of faith in the proletariat as leading class or the Aryan race as superior stock fulfilled an important function of creating a frame of reference that claimed to explain the course of historical development, address the problems of the present and provide guideposts for decisions on the future. Repeated rituals of acclamation such as military parades, spectacular party congresses or bogus elections reassured the leaders of unwavering public support. Membership in the ruling party was an initiation into an elite that alone had the power to decide what should be done, whereas the cult of a superhuman leader inspired the followers with faith, no matter how problematic his policies. Though secular modernization credos, these ideologies retained strong elements of a political religion (Gregor 2012).
The mass dictatorships sought to prove more modern than âmoribund democracyâ by claiming to be based on science and using the newest products of technology. Updated by Leninâs revolutionary voluntarism, Marxism purported to be a scientific explanation of economics rather than a moral philosophy of history, leading to the ubiquitous practice of quoting from classic texts in order to justify present decisions. The confused Fascist blend of ideas was more actionist than rational, but even the murky speeches of Mussolini or Hitler tended to rely on intellectual authorities like Georges Sorel or Carl Schmitt and cite ethno-cultural linguistics to buttress territorial claims. Moreover, the dictators were enamored of the speed and mobility of fast roadsters and airplanes, while appreciating the persuasive power of radio broadcasts or motion picture newsreels. To spread their message, they developed an innovative propaganda apparatus which borrowed from the advertising techniques of American corporations. As a result, they appealed especially to the younger generation as dynamic and future-oriented (Jarausch 2015).
Ultimately the modernizing impulse of the mass dictatorships proved, however, inferior to a revitalized capitalist democracy. Due to the confusion of parliamentary decision making, its opponents consistently underestimated the political appeal, economic resources, cultural vitality and military power of the West. The clear line of Fascist authority may have been an advantage during the Blitzkrieg, but it was prone to strategic miscalculation, incapable of compensating for inferior resources and likely to spur resistance due to racial extermination. The Soviet party model held broader appeal due to its stress on equality and economic development, but it failed to provide sufficient consumer goods and to inspire its subjects with voluntary loyalty. In spite of all of its blemishes, such as the Vietnam War, Western modernity proved to be a more âirresistible empireâ because it provided greater political freedom and a higher standard of living (De Grazia 2005). Ironically, the dictatorial path to modernization therefore turned out to be rather a dead end.
References
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