The dictionary defines Militarism as the belief or desire, of a government or people, that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests. By that definition, any country that has a standing army ready to defend its interests is militant, but in truth, there is no comparison between a country that uses their standing Army to defend liberty and one that is bent on world domination. Further, it concerns me that a discussion of militarism as a major cause of this great evil might demonize the heroism of national armies who serve in honor to protect their nations. Both Stalin and Hitler, systematically exterminated the leadership of their standing armies and supplanted their own private political armies in the ranks of leadership. Only after they had torn down the old guard and taken political control of the army could they work their plans for military conquest.
As for Nationalism, whether or not it played a significant role, depends on how you define it. It's primary definition is a "patriotic feeling, principles, and efforts, that involves an individual identifying with, or becoming attached to, one's nation." This in and of itself is not the reason this kind of evil is allowed to prevail in the world. For example, a strong patriotic feeling among American citizens and our standing military, has for our history meant that one believes in and is willing to fight to protect the ideals enshrined in our founding documents, documents that are intended to secure individual liberty and equality under the law. Loyalty to ones country alone could not be the cause of such evil prevailing, it would have to take on the quality of being loyal to political ideologies that enslave the individual to state power. If by nationalism the curriculum aims to distinguish it from patriotism and define it as "involving the social conditioning and personal behaviors that support a state's decisions and actions regardless of their virtue and merit," then that form of "nationalism" certainly played a role in the support for such dictators and their success in working mass murder.
The dictionary defines Expansionism as "policies of governments and states for territorial or economic expansion; the doctrine of a state expanding its territorial base (or economic influence) usually, though not necessarily, by means of military aggression." Again this definition might apply to the expanding economic influence of the US during industrialization and modernization, yet these qualities alone are not responsible for the rise of dictators in the mid-20th century. The question posed to the students is, what role did expansionism play in the dictator rising to power and retaining power. This is a case where one should ask whether or not the people were persuaded to support the dictator because of excitement over the prospects of military conquest. In some cases the answer would be yes, but would it hold that a majority of the citizens of these countries wanted to conquer the world? Expansionism was in most cases the ambition of the dictator to expand their lust for power, but this came after they had subdued any dissent among their own people through terror and absolute control.
What part did Militarism, Nationalism, and Expansionism play in Stalin's rise to power and his goals and objectives?
What I would like to do is illustrate how much of history is lost when the rise of Stalin is limited to these three terms. Here are the basic facts of how Stalin came to power, highlight words are instances where Stalin's rise to power meets the three primary discussion points in my sons lesson.
First, Stalin was the successor of the communist revolutionary dictator, Lenin. To rise to power Stalin made himself indispensable to Lenin as a brutal enforcer of party loyalty, and a Bolshevik thug. The Russian people had lived under almost total state control for centuries, and the underclasses were terribly oppressed. Their absolute monarchy was brought to its knees by an enraged public with idealistic hopes of a workers utopia. The first world war brought greater suffering to the people and the conditions were ripe for the communist ideologies of Bolshevik revolutionaries. With Russians hungry, the provisional government destabilized, and loosing the war with Germany. Lenin laid in wait to high jack the revolution and place himself as dictator and communist party leader. Their was enormous resistance to Lenin even in the working class and Lenin employed French Revolution terror tactics to defend his power. As a communist theoretician Lenin held that workers could not develop a revolutionary consciousness without the guidance of a vanguard party. They institute a one party police state in order to accomplish their collectivists ideas.
The Russian people were not alarmed by centralized state power (Nationalism: social conditioning and personal behaviors that support a state's decisions and actions regardless of their virtue and merit), they had not experienced the advancement democratic reforms that had come to the rest of Europe. Under the rule of the Czar, the people were ruled by the iron hand and secret police of the absolute monarchy of czarism. The Orthodox Church propped up the rule of the Czars and the power of the aristocracy. When Stalin came to power he had no need to "convince" the people to support him, there was no general election of the people, the will of the people did not factor in, just the support of the communist party already in control of the nation. Stalin's concern was to make the party leaders believe he was the rightful heir to their beloved Lenin. Militarism (the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively) did not play a significant role in Stalin's rise to power. He inherited a Police State, secret agents NKVD (political police), who worked the will of Lenin and would now carry out every order of Stalin. Stalin's orders were iron clad law.
What influenced Stalin to ally himself with the communist revolutionaries? Was there nationalism working to socially condition Stalin? Did Czarism shape his personal behaviors?
Stalin's mother was a traditional christian woman, she had fierce loyalty to the orthodox church, and hoped her son would join the priesthood. Certainly his mothers values did not underwrite his goals as a young man. Stalin's father was hateful toward him and an abusive drunk, perhaps an influence that contributed to Stalin's violent nature. His education financed by a wealthy benefactor, Stalin was exposed to Darwinism and Karl Marx while at boarding school, and joined the communist party as a young graduate. This choice is the one that would shape his path more than any other. His convoluted dedication to a political ideology and his thirst for power would kill over 10 million of his own people. Stalin became an agitator, enforcer, and organizer in the communist/Bolshevik revolution. He carried out bank robberies and bombings. Stalin was a hardened man even before his time in prison and exile in the arctic circle, but these years would prove him a ruthless criminal.
Stalin did not always follow Lenin's political line but he was useful to Lenin because he he was a great organize and could push men into desperate action. Stalin carried out massive executions on Lenin's behalf, he was the enforcer, and Lenin became more and more reliant on Stalin. Because of the violent revolution and the difficulty holding power, Lenin relaxed the confiscation and centralization of property, this angered idealistic Bolshevik revolutionaries and gave Stalin an inroad for political support. In the end of Lenin's life Stalin made himself his caretaker and controlled access to him. He made sure the people saw him as the heir to power.
How did Stalin hold onto power? Did he gain support from his people because of military conquest and expansion? What role did nationalism play in his holding on to power?
As soon as Stalin took power he moved his communist plans forward with rapid ruthless determination. He immediately confiscated all personal property, of both rich and poor alike. He sent armies of police (not military) to confiscate every asset, every horse or donkey, and even confiscated grain. He divided peasants into categories, those to be killed, those to be exiled, and those to be worked to death in the gulags; all part of his central plan to forcibly industrialize the nation. Land was seized and land owners were declared enemies of "the people". His mission, drag the peasants into the 20th century, if they resisted they were eliminated. The people saw the killing and the deportations but they believed it was the only way their workers paradise would come as promised by the communist. (Perhaps evidence of nationalism, except that Russians did not have a national tradition or social conditioning toward collectivism, this was a radical new social experiment.)
Stalin's revolution enslaved his people under socialist communist reform. He believed that any number of deaths was worth his collectivist paradise. He worked his people to death, 175,000 people died to build a canal that ended up a useless failure. 10 Million political prisoners were forced to work as slaves in gulags (concentration camps) for Stalin's collectivist vision. Those who were not made to work were left to starve. Parents were forced to choose to feed one child over another, choosing to withhold food from the sick ones. Stalin hid the truth of mass death in the country side from the people in the cities and propped up his collectivist utopia myth. Certainly there was social conditioning here but in large part it succeeded out of sheer fear and the nature of humans to ignore what they feel helpless to change as a way to cope.
Those who resisted, died. People of Ukraine resisted collectivism more than others. Ukrainians tried to flee to Europe but were trapped by Stalin who stopped the trains and barred the roads. The sheer murder of people was beyond imagination. 5 million people starved to death in the Ukraine while Stalin exported 5 million tons of grain. Stalin decided all his political opposition should die. Murder became government policy. 90% of congress was executed. 1100 party members sent to the gulags in Siberia. He turned the people against each other, planting informers among the people to report the"spies within". Under physical torture they would confess crimes they had never committed, and then the spies were executed. He decapitated the Russian Army, they were the national heroes of the revolution, he needed the middle soldiers to take command and be loyal to him. He had 30,000 officers executed. He killed every last leader from the revolution in order to gain complete control of the Red Army. Murder was Stalin's primary tool in retaining power, not militarism, nationalism, or expansionism. He murdered everyone who was even suspected of resistance, and then killed those who could reveal the truth of his bloody terror.
While Stalin personally made death lists and ordered whole groups to die, he developed a national myth surrounding his leadership. Stalin provided the people plenty of propaganda, which they desperately needed to believe that Russia was making progress toward utopia. He was not a great orator but he was good at writing and editing, he wove a beautiful myth, he transported his carefully crafted speeches via gramophone records across Russia, he used movies to portray his myth, and he even rewrote his own history. Stalin rewarded his supporters lavishly, bestowing cars and luxury living on a select few. He did everything possible to hide the truth of his regime, his image in the eyes of millions was untarnished by his behavior. He cultivated himself as a man of the people and seized every opportunity to be photographed. He portrayed himself as the father of Russia, the benevolent patriarch. His picture hung in homes, while relics of the Christian faith were destroyed. He replaced religion, with the atheist statism, the religion of Bolshevism. Gulag prisoners wrote letters to Stalin to save them, the man who ordered their deaths, to them it could not of been his fault, he was a God. Stalin's regime was built on violence, blood, and a mountain of corpses and yet the power of the myth he built about himself was so powerful he was never held to account for the atrocities ordered by his own hands.
From what I have seen in my son's text books, I wonder how many students across the US are taught from curriculum that downplays the role of collectivist ideology and statism in facilitating the rise of murderous dictators?
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