THE DIRTY THIRTIES

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THE DIRTY THIRTIES
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Introduction Bert Brecht, The Rise Fall of
the City of Mahagonny (1931)

• Bleak mood
• Economic collapse
• World of criminals prostitutes

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I. THE GREAT DEPRESSION

• WHY?
• Reparations
• Continuing Agricultural Slide
• In the East disorganized inefficient states

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The Great Depression why?

• 4. Tariffs ongoing bitterness
• 5. Speculation instead of Investment
• 6. CRISIS OF DEMAND (Concentration of wealth at
  top kills demand at the bottom)

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October 1929 Wall Street Crashes
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1930 ? Europe Crashes
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The Great Depressions Pervasive Injuries

1. Poverty
2. Panic, depression
3. Quit School
4. Bitterness between men women parents
   children
5. Severe class tension
6. Severe ethnic tension

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II. TRIUMPH OF THE DICTATORS

• COMMUNISM

• FASCISM

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FASCISM

• 1922 Mussolini in Power
• 1922 Hitlers Beer Hall Putsch
• 1928 Nazis get 2 of vote
• 1930 Nazis get 20 of vote
• 1933 Hitler named Chancellor

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Who were the Nazis?

• Recruits from across the social spectrum
• Over-represented middling upper classes young
  people men
• People who tended to vote conservative especially
  switched to the Nazis

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What did the Believe?

• AUTHORITARIANISM
• (Ideal command/obedience hierarchy Law
  Order)
• 2. MILITARISM
• (Uniforms guns male-bonding)
• 3. RACISM
• (Minorities/outsiders are inferior
  Anti-Semitism)
• 4. IMPERIALISM
• (Prosperity via conquest)

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What was the Nazi State Like?

• Enabling Act (1933)
• Nuremberg Laws (1935)
• Kristallnacht (1938)

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COMMUNISM

• Radical social change
• Led by Vanguard Party
• And Infallible Leader
• Driven by Propaganda
• Terror

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STALIN

• 1928 ? COLLECTIVIZATION

• 1934? THE GREAT TERROR

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III. THE DEMOCRACIES SCRAMBLE TO SURVIVE
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GREAT BRITAIN

• Conservatism caution
• STANLEY BALDWIN, NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN
• Chronic stagnation
• 1936 J. M. Keynes, General Theory
• 1936 Edward VIII abdicates

Neville Chamberlain
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Economist John Maynard Keynes The General Theory
Of Employment, Interest, Money
King Edward VIII who gave up the British throne
The classic account of Depression-era Britain
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FRANCE

• 1935 Communists vow to cooperate with Democrats
• 1936-38 POPULAR FRONT
• Léon Blum
• Ferocious tension between LEFT and RIGHT

Léon Blum (2nd from left) Popular Front win
elections But Conservatives vow revenge! And
flirt with extreme Right/Fascists
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SWEDEN

• Constructing the Welfare State
• Redefine public to include health care,
  housing, education
• Fund public needs through progressive taxation
• Alva Myrdal

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IV. The International System FAILS AGAIN

1. Lasting Bitterness from WWI
2. Huge interests in war military political
   parties war industries
3. Militant Fascism
4. Militant Communism

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The International System Fails again

• 5. Resurgence of interest in IMPERIALISM (ideal
  economic unit is system of Mother Country
  Colonies)
• 6. Lack of any Peacemaking body failure of
  League of Nations

Italian Fascist Youth
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9 Steps Toward War

• 1. 1931 Japanese occupy Manchuria

• 2. 1935 Italy attacks Ethiopia

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9 Steps Toward War

• 3. 1935 Hitler announces German Rearmament

• 4. 1936 Germans Reoccupy the Rhineland

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9 Steps Toward War

• 5. 1936-39 Spanish Civil War

• 6. March 1938 Anschluss Germany takes over
  Austria

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9 Steps Towards War

• 7. September 1938 Munich Crisis

• 8. March 1939 Germany occupies rest of
  Czechoslovakia

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9 Steps Towards War

• 9. August 1939 Hitler-Stalin Pact

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