The Apogee of European Nation-States led to a high level of tensions in the Great Colonial period (1850-1914) when European elites control de World. The Armed peace nevertheless led to the carnage of World War I, and European Nation-States initiated a descent to Hell since 1914. We will study this week the Apocalyptic conflict of 1914-1918 and how it drove Europe during the Interbellum Period (1919-1939) to a spiral of violence and decadence in which Nationalisms played the main role.
Empty shells at Verdun's battle
First of all we will analyze how Nation-state system imploded after Sarajevo’s Assassination of heir of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on June 28, 1914. Trying to understand why this fact led to the declaration of one of the most letal Wars in Human History (pages 123-126).
Then we will see how this “Total War” had essential constitutional consequences in European political history. How the Liberal model of State entered a very severe crisis that led first to State interventionism and then to the appearance of Totalitarian regimes that impose dictatorship trying to solve the “Social Question”, that is the fact that most of European population lived in extreme poverty, while ruling elites enjoyed a scandalous wealth.
Children in British coal mines (1911)
We should understand how the Liberal State model led to the triumph of “Big Capitalism” thanks to the appearance of mass production through the “Technical revolution” that accelerated and intensified economic growth of the Industrial revolution due to the appearance of inventions that changed everyday life deeply and resulted in an extraordinary Demographic expansion and the the growth of urban population (pages 127-130).
The problem was that this rising wealth was not shared by most of the population and that this horrid social inequalities brought internal unrest, despite the fact that a large number of European emigrated to the New World, essentially America and Australia (p. 131). For getting an idea of ominous conditions in which most of Europeans lived read the Vicens Vices text in pages 132-133. That was the Social Question that tried to be solved by some great thinkers from Rousseau, to Romantic socialists as Saint Simon or Charles Fourier, Pierre Proudhon or Louis Blanc. This movement started in France because as a result of the Agrarian Reform initiated during the French Revolution, France was the western nation-state with the largest number of small landowners.
Socialism only became effective nevertheless with Germans Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, thinkers that in the Communist Manifest of February 21, 1848 indicated the way for how Proletarians should fight inequality. The recipe was simple: all workers of the world should unite, independently of their nationality. The social combat became “International” and fought from the beginning the “nation-state” system, through the creation of successive “Internationals” (1864 and 1889). First, between 1848 and 1871, through a revolutionary approach and then though the Social-democrat approach, creating Mass parties and Trade unions of workers. A movement that started in Germany and spread all over Europe and the Western World with important consequences as it opened up the way to Universal suffrage (Pages 133-136).
This international social approach to European politics was counteracted by a strong reaction on the part of Conservative forces. First in Germany with Bismarck who first approved a set of “Anti Socialists statutes” from 1878 to 1881, and then tried to develop a “Social State” (Sozialstaat) through a series of legislative measures aimed at protecting the workers, between 1883 and 1889 This opened up a movement of social protection at the nation-state level. In England it was carried out with Lloyd George policy (page 137).
The International socialism won a decisive battle thanks to the triumph of the Russian revolution in 1917. A violent movement that expanded through the creation of a Communist International by Lenin: The Kommintern in 1919. That provoked Communists revolutions all over Europe, being the most famous one the Spartacist Uprising (page 140) that was crushed by a Social democratic movement.
Violent reaction of International Communism was responded from the conservative perspective by national dictators as Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. It is interesting that you read carefully how this right wings totalitarianisms got to power, as a result of the Social Question. And how this Fascist and Nazi movements adopted social measures that were extremely efficient in terms of helping the poorest classes (pages 140-141) but rejecting the Liberal Model. Nation-State adapted to the circumstances but through horrid dictatorships that in some aspects have lasted to our days, as it is the case with the creation of almighty Political Parties that have turned our democracies into Partitocratic regimes (page 143). Please read the interesting intellectual position of Carl Schmitt, Hitler’s jurist, justifying why it was convenient to get rid of Parliamentary liberal democracies (pages 143-145).
The rejection of Liberalism based on the fact that private interest had completely taken control of the state, was counteracted by the US reaction during F.D.R. Roosevelt’s administration (1933-1945) with the appearance of the New Deal. It was the result of the Great Depression that came after the golden Coolidge Era, the “Roaring Twenties” described by Scott Fitzgerald in his novel the Great Gatsby (1925). The tremendous crisis of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929 brought the first Western global financial crisis and destroyed not only American economy but spread to Europe as well. The result was that the pure liberal model of the United States, was severely reduced by legal regulations that tried to stop the worst effects of the crisis. For the first time in US history the Federal State intervened in economy investing in Public works and creating taxes (Income and Company taxes) for helping jobless people. This “democratic” response to the Social question would led to the Welfare State after 1945. Before that, only the socialist government of Leon Blum in France, would introduce some social measures in 1937. The rest of democracies would only implement social programs after World War II (pages 145-148).
Black Tuesday 1929 NYSE
Social totalitarianisms in the “international” (Russia) or “national” (Italy and Germany) versions would be far more efficient than democracies introducing efficient measures to protect poor people (see pages 149-152). The problem was that the exaltation of nationalism would led, due to Hitler’s Lebensraum theory to a new World War that would completely destroy European nation-states and would open up the way for European integration after 1945. As we will see in Teaching Guide number 7.
