Civilization

Section 1, Question 1

The so-called Spring of Nations that took place in 1848 were the influential revolutions that evolved most of the European states and provided the changes into the stable political and economic order of the European society. Besides, these revolutions also showed that something was wrong in the European monarchies, and the capitalist world of the middle XIX century had some weaknesses that presupposed the series of revolutions. Thus, such thinkers as Marx and Engels tried to make some conclusions from those events and proposed their interpretation of the situation in Europe in their famous Manifesto. Communism is the utopic social, political, and economic teaching that operated with the reduced image of the reality, and in this way, the main failure of Communism is the inadequate theoretical conclusion based on the analysis of the relations between workers and capitalists.

Marx and Engels proposed workers (they called them proletarians) to struggle together against their common enemy, the owners of the means of production, the so-called capitalists who exploit the workers. Thus, Communism became the reaction on the revolutionary events of 1848. In this way, Marx and Engels tried to use the revolutionary impulse to realize their political project oriented on the establishment of the workers’ dictatorship. As the authors of the Manifesto claimed, the Spring of Nations were the “high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies” (Marx & Engels, 1848). The political views of Communists were based on the economic theory elaborated by Karl Marx. According to Marx, the world consists of two classes, exploited workers and capitalists who exploit them. The main intention of Communism was to overcome this struggle through the victory of the workers that would allow them to make production without exploitation. Besides, the Communist ideology failed in its practical realization because every society always needs a group of people who organize it and lead towards achievement of its goals. Capitalists do not exploit their workers; both classes just perform different functions, and their collaboration is the best guarantee of the effectiveness of their work. Through the reduced aggressive social teaching based on the struggle between classes, Communism became an utopian ideology that harmed all societies that shared and accepted it.

Thus, the main problem of Communism is its inadequacy to the real challenges of the world, and the substitution of them by some theoretical models simplified and adapted for masses. Marx and Engels tried to interpret the struggle between workers and capitalists through the aggressive prism. Besides, the relations between these groups of people are much more complicated, and each of them need another one for the effective collaboration. The aggressiveness of Communism was the cause of its main failure in the sphere of political realization.

Section 2, Question 2

The raise of totalitarian ideologies in the European states in 20s-30s of XX century became the source of different conclusions concerning the general situation in Europe before World War I. The Italian Fascists, German Nazis and Communists of the Soviet Union appeared at the same time as a result of some common tendencies, but the dominant forms of their politics’ realization were different in some aspects. It is clear that the success of totalitarianism demonstrates the peoples’ inclination to it that appears in some situations just such that in the first half of XX century. The main differences between Italian, German and Soviet totalitarianism concerns the formal aspects of their ideologies. However, all those regimes used the same measures to ensure their popularity and power in the states controlled by them.

Nazis, Fascists and Communists achieved the political dominance in Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union (the former Russian Empire) after World War I that transformed the political map of Europe and made many European people unsatisfied with the results of the struggle. Some European states became involved into the revolutionary movements that protested against the war, and thus some European monarchies became destroyed. After the end of the war, some political movements used the general spirit of those peoples who suffered most from World War I and provided the adequate ideologies for those peoples. In this way, the ideological differences between Nazis, Fascists and Communists became the main reason for contradictions between those movements. For example, the main idea of Nazis was the purity of the German nation and providing this purity based on the biological features of people; thus, the Nazi regime started genocide against Jews, known as the Holocaust (Mann, 2004). The Fascists’ main value was also their nation, but much more in political and cultural dimension than in its biological and ethnical aspects (Mann, 2004). The Soviet ideology relied on the Communist teaching about the class struggle, and the main goal of the Soviet people was Communism based on the proletarians’ dictatorship. As a rule, the leaders of those totalitarian states resolved the internal problems connected with the opposition through repressions. At the same time, they claimed that their main goal was the protection of the majority from collective enemies. Therefore, they propagated their ideologies as humanist, progressive and useful.

Thus, despite all formal ideological differences, all totalitarian regimes provided the aggressive ideologies that presupposed the struggle against a common enemy. This struggle justified all the repressions against dissidents, provided by the state to save the totalitarian regime. The propagated opposition between state that protected the majority of people and the malicious minority that represented the interests of the people’s enemies ensured the support of the totalitarian regimes by the majority.

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