Chapter 30 Chapter 23 The Five-Year Plan and the Great Depression

As the 1920s drew to a close, Europe seemed to be settling into a period of peace, security, and relative prosperity.However, this comforting picture was shattered by the sudden onset of the Great Depression, the resulting economic dislocation and mass unemployment gradually undermining the basis of the reconciliation achieved in previous years.Governments rose and fell under the weight of growing poverty and discontent.This political instability directly and disastrously affected the international situation; while some governments took foreign risks as a means of changing domestic tensions, others ignored such aggression because of their own domestic pressing problems.Thus, the Great Depression was the dividing line in the interwar period. The years leading up to 1929 were promising years as Europe gradually settled the various disputes created by the First World War.Instead, the years after 1929 were filled with anxiety and disappointment, one crisis after another, culminating in World War II.

The impact and significance of the Great Depression were magnified by several Soviet five-year plans.While the economy of the West was indeed a mess, the Soviet Union was continuing its unique experiment in economic development.Although the five-year plan was accompanied by severe repression and popular poverty, it was essentially successful.The Soviet Union rose rapidly from a country dominated by agriculture to the second largest industrial power in the world.This unprecedented achievement had international implications, not least because of the economic difficulties that were crippling the West at the time.

Hence the prominence of the Five-Year Plan and the Great Depression in the interwar period, one as a foil to the other, and both had effects that are still felt today. As soon as the Bolsheviks found themselves masters of Russia, they were faced with the challenge of creating the peace and prosperity of which they had preached for a long time in the past.They soon discovered that they were unprepared for the challenge.There is no pattern to follow in past history, and Marxist writings are of little use because they are mostly about how to seize power, not what to do after.The traditional definition of a socialist society—a society in which the state owns the means of production—does not guide the real realization of a socialist society.Lenin himself admitted: "We knew after the seizure of power that there was no ready-made method for the concrete transformation of the capitalist system into a socialist system. ... I do not know of any socialist who has dealt with these problems. ... We must base Experiments make judgments."

At first, there was little opportunity for experimentation, as the struggle for survival was more important than anything else.The so-called "War Communism" prevailed between 1917 and 1921; it grew out of the extraordinary measures taken to supply the front with the supplies and manpower it needed.A feature of war communism was the nationalization of land, banks, foreign trade, and heavy industry.Another feature was the forced expropriation of surplus agricultural products necessary to feed soldiers and city dwellers.The original plan was to compensate the farmers with manufactured goods, but this proved impossible, as almost all factories at the time were producing for the front lines.

The end of the Civil War meant that the stopgap system of "war communism" was no longer needed.So it was immediately discarded.The peasants took up arms against the free expropriation.As one farmer said: "The land is ours, but the bread is yours; the water is ours, but the fish is yours; the forest is ours, but the wood is yours." Mainly due to the successive wars between 1914 and 1921.Industry had fallen to 10 percent of prewar levels, and grain production had fallen from 74 million tons in 1916 to 30 million tons in 1919.The greatest catastrophe was the nationwide drought of 1920 and 1921, which contributed to the worst famine in Russian history.Countless people died of starvation, and countless others survived only because of the handouts provided by the American Relief Agency.Even the sailors of Kronstadt, who had hitherto been the staunchest supporters of the Bolsheviks, rebelled and raised the slogan "Soviet without Bolsheviks."

The practical Lenin recognized that concessions were inevitable - and in 1921 adopted the "New Economic Policy", which allowed for a partial restoration of capitalism, especially in agriculture and trade.Farmers are allowed to sell their produce on the open market after paying the state an in-kind tax of about 12 percent of their production.Private individuals can operate small shops and small factories.Farmers and new merchants, known at the time as "Nepmans," were able to hire labor and keep the profits they made on the business.However, Lenin managed to bring the state into control of land ownership and control of what he called the "commanding heights" (banking, foreign trade, heavy industry, and transport).For Lenin, the New Economic Policy did not mean the end of socialism in Russia, but a temporary retreat, "one step back is two steps forward".

In the next few years, the biggest question is how to take this "two steps forward".The NEP did give the people some respite and the economy recovered from the general depression of 1921.By 1926, industrial and agricultural output had reached pre-1914 levels; but this was not enough for Soviet leaders.Since 1914, the population has increased by 8 million, so the pre-war per-population standard has not yet been reached.Moreover, these standards were insufficient for tsarist Russia in the nineteenth century, let alone the Soviet Union in the twentieth century.Even more troubling is the growing power of wealthy peasants, known as kulak (literally "fist") and their supporters.As the prices of agricultural products had fallen to a little more than half their 1913 levels, while the prices of manufactured goods had almost doubled, the kulaks were openly hostile to the Soviet regime.They produced most of the surplus food, so they retaliated by either reducing their own production or not bringing the food to market to force prices up.Consequently, the Soviets found it increasingly difficult to feed city dwellers; hostile kulaks were able to starve city dwellers at will.Such was the unpleasant situation for more than a decade after the great revolution that heralded the imminent arrival of the new socialist society.

Lenin died in 1924, and the economic question of what to replace the NEP became linked to the political question of who would succeed Lenin.One faction in the Bolshevik party basically called for the continuation of the New Economic Policy and also believed that concessions should be made to the kulaks on the question of prices in order to encourage them to increase production.Some surplus products can be sold abroad, and the income is used for industrial development.The plan was opposed by another faction on the grounds that it would not bring in the large amounts of capital necessary for industrialization.Therefore, this school hoped to accelerate the development of industry through comprehensive planning, relying on the increase of industrial products to encourage farmers to increase their productivity.When Joseph Stalin succeeded in emerging as party leader, he adopted the second group's proposals for planned industrialization, but he also made his own equally important contribution: the collectivization of agriculture; Force farmers to produce food surpluses without economic concessions, thereby obtaining the capital necessary for industrialization. In 1928, Stalin embarked on the first of a series of five-year plans aimed at making this plan work.Due to national security reasons, the Soviet Union used various resources, and adopted various means of persuasion and coercion to accelerate the realization of these five-year plans.

These plans were unprecedented in that they provided the blueprint and means for transforming and functioning the nation's entire economy. The Gosplan was the center, appointed by the Soviet equivalent of the Western cabinet, the People's Commissars.To this day, the responsibility of the State Planning Commission is still to formulate plans based on the general policy proposed by the government and statistical data sent from all over the country. The government (actually the leader of the Communist Party) makes basic decisions like whether a given program should go all out in producing arms or building heavy industry, whether it should go all out in producing more consumer goods or reduce food crops to increase industry crop.Guided by these guidelines, Gosplan began to deal with the vast amount of statistical data that flowed continuously to headquarters.All Soviet organizations—whether agricultural, industrial, military, or cultural—are obliged by law to provide State Planning Commission with specific information on resources and operations.The vast amount of data was first processed by a team of highly trained statisticians, economists, and technologists, who then worked out an interim five-year plan.After deliberation and listening to different suggestions from relevant organizations, the final plan will be drafted.The first of these five-year plans, although very primitive compared with today's computer-generated plans, also consisted of three large volumes, amounting to 1,600 pages, and included tables and statistics on heavy industry, light industry, finance, cooperatives, etc. , agriculture, transportation, communications, labor, wages, schools, literature, public health and social insurance.

Stalin once said that kulaks' resistance to collectivization was the most dangerous challenge he ever encountered.However, he had no choice but to impose his program on the rich peasants, since collectivization was the basis of the new economy he had devised.The rich peasants were naturally opposed to the collective farms, since they had to join them on the same terms as the poor peasants who had almost nothing.Sometimes the rich peasants burned down collective farm houses, poisoned cattle, and spread rumors to scare other farmers away.The Soviet government ruthlessly suppressed this resistance, stirring up the class struggle in the countryside by mobilizing the poor peasants against the rich peasants.The police drove tens of thousands of kulak families out of their villages and imprisoned them in prisons and Siberian labor camps.In the end, the government was able to go its own way, and by 1938 almost all peasant lands had been consolidated into 242,400 collective farms and 4,000 state farms.

Most of the collective farm's land is cultivated jointly by farmers, who at the end of the year receive a dividend based on the amount of work done and the skills they possess.Each family can have its own house, furniture.Small amount of livestock, farm implements, unlimited number of poultry and a 0.25 to 2.5 acre vegetable garden surrounding the house.In this vegetable garden, each family can grow what they want, and the products they get can be consumed by themselves or sold in the open market in nearby towns.In contrast, products from collective farming were sold at low prices to the government, industrial enterprises, and municipalities.The government also stipulated in fact, if not in theory, what each collective farm should produce and who should be in charge of it. State farms differed from collective farms in two respects: their workers were paid fixed wages like those in factories, and their land was much larger than the collective farms—about five times larger in 1938.The state farms were mainly used as experimental farms for the surrounding collective farms, i.e. model farms, the products of which belonged to the government, which was the owner of the state farms. While the Soviet Union succeeded in eliminating nearly all private farms, the output of collectivized farming has been very disappointing.The 8 million workers on Russian farms produce only about 80 percent of what the 4 million workers on American farms produce.One reason for this disparity is that the climate in the Soviet Union was much less favorable to agriculture than the climate in the United States.Another reason was that the Soviet government was more interested in developing industry, thus starving agriculture.This meant that Russian farms had access to less machinery and less fertilizer than American farms.It also meant high state taxes and low agricultural prices, leaving collective farm farmers almost empty-handed by the end of the year.This lack of stimulus was so detrimental to productivity that it greatly contributed to Khrushchev's downfall in October 1964. Although agricultural collectivization was unsuccessful from a productive point of view, it provided the essential basis for the five-year plan.It wiped out the kulaks who had once greatly threatened the very existence of the Soviet regime.The peasantry was no longer an independent political force, and Soviet authority was firmly established in the countryside.This in turn enabled the Soviet government to force peasants to bear the substantial costs of industrialization.The state siphoned off the surplus in the form of taxes, which were then exported to finance industrialization.Although the peasants had been uncooperative, thanks to the system of agricultural collectivization the government had been able to extract enough from the peasants to feed the city dwellers and help pay for the new industrial centers.The decision of Khrushchev's successors to invest enormous amounts of capital in agriculture can be said to fundamentally alter the traditional policy of taxing the peasantry in the interest of industry. While Soviet agriculture stagnated, industry advanced steadily.In fact, the two trends are directly linked.Agriculture fell behind partly because farmers preferred private farms to collective farms imposed on them by the government, but also because the government directly sacrificed agriculture by sucking capital away for the benefit of industry.In order for the Soviet Union to be independent militarily and economically from the rest of the world, it was necessary for the Soviet leadership to prioritize the development of heavy industry. Most farms are run as agricultural cooperatives, while factories are largely owned and run by the government.In addition to providing the necessary capital to industry, the government used both soft and hard tactics to promote maximum output.Both workers and managers must meet certain quotas, and failure to do so can be fined or fired.On the other hand, if they exceeded their quotas, they would get bonuses. Although trade unions could be formed and recognized, they did not have the basic right to strike—because strikes would be opposed to the goals and functions of the Soviet planned economy.The aim of the strike was to ensure that workers received a larger share of what they produced in the form of higher wages, and the State Planning Commission had already decided how much went to the workers and how much was reinvested by the government in industry. In fact, industry in the Soviet Union had advanced as fast as it did in fact, because the government extracted about 40% of national income for reinvestment; in contrast, the United States only extracted about 20% of national income.Moreover, in a planned economy, the government can allocate investment capital at will.Thus, roughly 70 percent of the total industrial product in the Soviet Union was capital goods and 30 percent consumer goods; in the United States the proportions were roughly the opposite.By the end of the first five-year plan in 1932, the industrial output of the Soviet Union had risen from fifth to second in the world.This staggering surge was due not only to increased productivity in the Soviet Union, but also to a decline in Western productivity caused by the Great Depression.The gross national product of the USSR (which includes, in addition to industrial output, lagging agricultural output) increased three and a half times in the twenty-five years between 1928 and 1952—a development faster than that of any other country during the same period.Today, the Soviet Union remains the world's second-largest industrial power, though it produces about half as much as the United States. It should be emphasized that the development of the USSR economy was achieved at the expense of the wishes of the Soviet citizens, who were forced to work hard for the future and endure the poverty of the present.According to the plan, consumer goods were scarce, expensive, and of poor quality.Soviet GNP (the total market value of goods and services) has been 46% to 48% of US GNP over the past few years.On a per capita basis, the Soviet GNP was about two-fifths that of the United States. From the point of view of global influence, Gosplan will likely prove to be of greater significance than the Comintern.The five-year plan attracted worldwide attention, not least because of the collapse of Western economies during the same period.Socialism is no longer a dreamer's dream; it is a work in progress.American journalist Lincoln Stephens declared upon his return from the Soviet Union: "I see the future, and it works." Thus, what had been a skepticism turned into genuine interest, and sometimes into imitation.Prioritizing the investment of state resources was the essence of planning, and the Soviet Union's success in this regard consciously or unconsciously influenced a variety of economic policies.Some countries have even started their own programs of varying duration in hopes of alleviating their own economic hardships. One reason the Five-Year Plan seems to have made less of an impression on the West than on the developing world is that, by Western standards, Soviet citizens were severely exploited.Westerners who visited the Soviet Union were impressed by the shabby clothes, drab food, poor housing and lack of consumer goods.They were also appalled by the lack of personal freedom reflected in the one-party political structure, the fetters of trade unions, the unified administration of education and the strict control of all media of communication.Despite the achievements of the five-year plan in the Soviet Union, Soviet society did not seem to most Westerners to be a socialist paradise worth emulating. The responses of the peoples of the former colonies in the underdeveloped world were quite different.For them, the Soviet Union was a country that had managed to transform itself from a backward agricultural country into the world's second largest industrial, military power within 30 years.The institutions and technologies that made this astonishing change possible were of great importance to these peoples.Although most ethnic groups have recently won political independence, they are still far from achieving economic independence.Thus, they viewed Soviet living standards with envy rather than sympathy.They paid little attention to the lack of personal liberty among the Soviets, which they generally did not enjoy in their own country. It is an important fact that the Soviet Union is both a European and an Asian power.Its borders extend from North Korea, through Mongolia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Iran and all the way to Turkey.In almost all of these areas, the same peoples lived on both sides of the frontier, thereby facilitating mutual comparison and mutual influence.For the most part, things were going well in the Soviet Union because of the powerful influence of the Five-Year Plan on the eastern part of the Soviet Union.On the other side of the long frontier there is little comparable to the enormous material achievement achieved by the Soviet Central Asian republics, where literacy rose from about 20% in 1914 to 75% in 1940, In addition to rising to almost 100% today, it also includes the 185-mile-long Fergana Irrigation Canal, the 900-mile-long Teksib Railway, newly-built textile factories, the Karaganda coal-producing area, and the Lake Bach Steel Plant , fertilizer plants and agricultural machinery plants, etc. The Soviet Central Asia policy did not win unanimous approval.Between 100,000 and 200,000 Kazakhs fled into Xinjiang, China, to escape repression in the early stages of the five-year plan.Many of the older generation were staunchly opposed to the increasing Russification of their republics - the result of deliberate government policy and the immigrant mass of Slavs.However, this internal dissatisfaction did not substantially affect the attractiveness of the Soviet planned economy to many people living in the former colonies.The reason for this is clearly stated in the following report by an American correspondent who traveled extensively in Central Asia in 1953.The global implications of his observations are self-evident. As 1929 began, America seemed to be growing more prosperous.The U.S. industrial production index averaged only 67 in 1921 (1923-1925 = 100), but rose to 110 by July 1928 and 126 by June 1929.Even more impressive was the performance of the US stock market.During the three months in the summer of 1929, Westinghouse rose from 151 to 286, General Electric from 268 to 391, and U.S. Steel from 165 to 258.Industrialists, pedantic economists and government leaders all expressed confidence in the future.The financier Bernard Baruch wrote in June 1929, "The economic situation of the world seems about to advance substantially." In the fall of 1929, Yale University professor Irving 2. The heights reached appear to be permanent." Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon also assured the public in September 1929: "There is now no cause for concern. This high tide of prosperity will continue." This confidence proved unwarranted; in the fall of 1929, stock market prices hit their lowest point, and a worldwide depression followed, both of unprecedented magnitude and duration.One reason for this unexpected outcome appears to be the serious international economic imbalance that developed when the United States became a massive creditor nation (after World War I).Britain was already a creditor nation before the war, but it used its income from overseas investments and loans to pay for its long-term superannuation.In contrast, the U.S. typically runs a trade surplus, and that surplus has been exacerbated by domestic politics that keep tariffs high.In addition, in the 1920s, due to the payment of war debts by many countries, money continued to flow into the United States; the gold reserves of the United States increased from 1924 million US dollars to 4499 million US dollars between 1913 and 1924, which is half of the world's total gold reserves . For several years this imbalance was offset by large US loans and investments abroad: between 1925 and 1928, US foreign investment totaled an average of $1.1 billion per year.Of course, this situation ultimately reinforces the imbalance and cannot be continued indefinitely.Certain sectors of the U.S. economy, especially agriculture, have been hurt as debtor countries have had to reduce their imports of goods from the United States as payments came due.In addition, some countries feel compelled to default on their arrears, which has shaken some financial firms in the United States. The U.S. economy is as imbalanced as the international economy, rooted in wages lagging behind rising productivity.From 1920 to 1929, workers' hourly wages rose by only 2 tons, while factory worker productivity soared 65 percent.At the same time, the real income of farmers is decreasing due to the continuous decline of agricultural product prices, rising taxes and living expenses. In 1910, the income per farm worker was less than 40 percent of that of nonfarm workers; by 1930, it was less than 30 percent.This poverty in the countryside was a serious problem because at that time one-fifth of the population was in agriculture. The combination of fixed factory wages and falling farm incomes produced a highly unequal distribution of national income. In 1929, 5 percent of Americans received one-third of all personal income (compared to one-sixth at the end of World War II).This means that insufficient purchasing power of the masses coexists with high levels of capital investment by those who are paid and paid well. During the 1920s, the output of capital goods grew at an average annual rate of 6.4 percent, while that of consumer goods increased at 2.8 percent.This ultimately leads to a sluggish economy; such low purchasing power cannot support such a high rate of capital investment.As a result, the index of industrial production fell from 26 to 117 between June and October 1929, creating the Great Depression that prompted the stock market crash that fall. The weakness of the US banking industry was the final factor that contributed to the stock market crash of 1929.At that time, many banks operated independently, and some banks lacked sufficient financial resources to overcome the financial turmoil.When a bank fails, panic spreads and depositors rush to other banks to withdraw their deposits, setting off a chain reaction that gradually undermines the entire financial structure.This weakness in the banking industry was exacerbated by the speculative fever that penetrated the economy in 1929, causing some firms and banks to abandon normal precautions and engage in speculative ventures. The U.S. stock market crash began in September 1929.In one month, the value of the stock fell by 40%, and, with the exception of a few brief recoveries, the decline continued for three years.During this period, U.S. Steel's stock fell from 262 to 22, and General Motors' stock fell from 73 to 8%.Every sector of the national economy suffered a corresponding loss.During those three years, 5,000 banks failed. In 1929, General Motors produced 5.5 million cars, but in 1931, they only produced 2.5 million. In July 1932, the steel industry was operating at only 12% of its production capacity.By 1933, total industrial output and national income had plummeted by nearly half, wholesale commodity prices by nearly one-third, and trade in goods by more than two-thirds. The Great Depression was not only incredibly intense, but had unique worldwide effects.American financial firms had to call back their short-term loans abroad; needless to say, this had all sorts of effects. In May 1931, Vienna's largest and most reputable bank, the Austrian Credit Bank, declared itself insolvent, causing panic throughout the continent. On July 9, Deutsche Bank Danate followed suit, and for the next two days all German banks were ordered to take a holiday; the Berlin stock exchange, the Börsch Börse, was closed for two months. In September 1931, Britain went off the gold standard, and two years later, the United States and nearly every major power did the same. The collapse of industry and commerce was very similar to the collapse of the financial world; the index of world industrial production excluding the Soviet Union fell from 100 in 1929 to 86.5 in 1930, 74.8 in 1931, and 63.8 in 1932, a total decline of 36.2% .In previous crises, the largest decline was 7%.The decline in world international trade was even sharper, falling from $68.6 billion in 1929 to $55.6 billion in 1930, $39.7 billion in 1931, $26.9 billion in 1932, and $24.2 billion in 1933.It should also be noted that in the past, the largest decline in international trade was 7%, which occurred in the crisis of 1907-1908. These economic upheavals gave rise to correspondingly significant social problems.Most serious and intractable is the problem of mass unemployment, which has reached tragic proportions. In March 1933, the conservative estimate of the number of unemployed in the United States was more than 14 million, equivalent to a quarter of the entire labor force.In the UK, almost 3 million people are unemployed, roughly the same share of the workforce as in the US.The situation is worst in Germany, where at least six million people are unemployed: trade union executive committees estimate that more than two-fifths of their members are not working at all, and another fifth work only part-time.France is the least affected due to its relatively balanced agriculture and industry; the country has never had more than 850,000 unemployed, although this figure does not include the considerable underemployment in rural areas (some of the predominantly agricultural countries of Eastern Europe This is especially the case in countries where many workers leave the cities and return to share the sufferings of their relatives in overpopulated villages). Unemployment on such a large scale has greatly reduced the standard of living in various countries.Misery and poverty were widespread, even in wealthy America, especially in the early stages when relief was entrusted to underfunded private and local agencies.This was the age of waiting in line for bread bread, searching for soup kitchens, and ex-soldiers selling apples on street corners.Thousands of men, and even some women, "steal the train" back and forth from coast to coast, hoping to find work, or simply because there was nothing else to do.Many more left the arid dust bowls of Texas and Oklahoma for California, as described in John Steinbeck's novels. In Britain, the situation was made worse by chronic unemployment throughout the 1920s.A sizable portion of an entire generation has grown up with little opportunity, no hope of finding a job.Some bitterly refer to their purposeless lives as "living a hellish life."Others gave up hope and became resigned: "No one has a better chance of finding a job now than winning the Irish lottery".In Germany, the disenchantment was greater and the tension was greater because of the higher proportion of the unemployed; all of which ultimately made Hitler's success possible.Perhaps most tragic of all was the fate of the peasant masses of Eastern Europe.Although they used to live a subsistence life, a survey report in 1939 on the Drina region of Yugoslavia, a region that is quite representative of southeastern Europe, revealed that 46.4% of the 219,279 families had no beds, and 54.3% had no beds. % of the households do not have any kind of toilet, and 51.6% of the households have mud as the floor.In human terms, this means that Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece have infant mortality rates (deaths per thousand live births a year) of 183, 144, and 99, respectively, while Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands have The infant mortality rates were 66, 55 and 37, respectively. Social chaos on such a large scale is bound to have profound political repercussions.Even America, rich in resources and with a tradition of political stability, has been filled with incredible ideas and turmoil in these years: a subsidized army of homeless veterans; a capitalist movement; farm holidays that developed into agricultural sit-in strikes; proposals for redistribution of income, including the Townsend Plan for generous pensions; Louisiana Senator Huey Long's "Sharing the Wealth" "Sports, wait.Another manifestation of political turmoil was the outright victory of Franklin Roosevelt in the 1932 election.The ensuing "New Deal" acted as a safety valve for political discontent, effectively neutralizing extremist movements of all kinds. During these years, the political developments in Britain and France were largely the same as in the United States.Both countries, while battered by political storms, managed to weather the storm within the confines of their traditional institutions.Britain's Labor Party came to power in June 1929, but it almost immediately ran into the problem of distributing "job benefits" to the growing number of unemployed.Meanwhile, US financial firms are calling back on their short-term loans and refusing to consider new loans unless the British government takes some savings. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald bowed to these pressures in August 1931 by agreeing to dissolve his Labor government and lead a new National government.This government, like Lloyd George's coalition government from 1916 to 1922, proved to be merely a facade for Tory rule, as the Conservatives still had a majority in the cabinet.Although the new government was formed to save the pound, it immediately went off the gold standard, and the value of a pound dropped from $4.86 to $3.49. The adoption of protective tariffs in 1932 and the introduction of quotas and preferential trade treatment for members of the Reich was another break with the past.Three years later, the elderly and sickly Macdonald resigned in favor of Stanley Baldwin, so that Britain passed these years effectively under the rule of the Conservative Party, although the coalition government still existed in name. In France, the left was also forced out by the pressure of the Great Depression.The Left won the elections of 1932, and Radical leader Eduard Herriot formed a cabinet with the support of the Socialists, as he had done in 1924.This time, too, the leftist cabinet was gradually undermined by mounting financial difficulties.Radicals and Socialists are irrevocably divided on how to deal with the economic crisis.Heriot was in power for only 6 months, and then the other 4 prime ministers also abdicated in a short period of time. In December 1933, the final contest came with the unraveling of the Stavisky scandal; a Russian-born French citizen who had teamed up with a local pawnbroker to issue fraudulent bonds and, it was rumored, many important Officials and politicians have been implicated in the case.Far-right groups took the opportunity to stir up riots in the streets in an attempt to overthrow the Republic itself.Although they failed to do so, they did force the cabinet to resign in February 1934.Several Conservative Party cabinets have been in power one after another, but none of them can cure the country's fundamental ills. Even more dramatic and fateful was Hitler's rise to power in Germany.The Great Depression also directly and decisively affected the course of political events in this country. In 1919, with the formal adoption of the Weimar Constitution, a Western-style republic was established here (see Chapter 22, Section 2).In its first year, the new republic had to contend with communist uprisings in Bavaria and the Ruhr, in addition to the rebellion of the monarchist Kapp in Berlin.Unrest continued until 1923, when French and Italian troops occupied the Ruhr over a dispute over reparations.Meanwhile, inflation swept across the country, wiping out savings at all levels.It was only with the agreement of the Dawes Plan in 1924 and the withdrawal of French and Italian troops from the Ruhr that Germany finally began to settle down.In the years that followed, Germany accepted the Locarno Pact and joined the League of Nations, and its economy continued to improve thanks to large loans from the United States. The Great Depression hit Germany particularly hard, leaving two-fifths of the workforce unemployed and another fifth working only part-time.当时的政府是一个中间偏左的联合政府，由社会党人赫尔曼·米勒总理领导，而总统则由年迈保守的战争英雄保尔·冯·兴登堡担任。同其他国家的社会党内阁一样，德国的米勒内阁也因如何解决大萧条造成的失业和其他问题方面的争论而逐渐遭到破坏。左派赞成增加失业救济，右派则坚持削减经费和平衡预算。后者的方针得到了大多数经济学家的支持，因为赤字财政的基本原理不论在理论上还是在实践中都还没有被制定出来。 1930年3月，米勒内阁被迫辞职，从那时起，德国由中间派和右派的政党统治。 起先，海因里希·布吕宁组织了一个联合政府，布吕宁是中央党的一位冷酷、严厉但却聪明、正直的成员，他所博得的是尊敬而不是友谊。这位好心的爱国者的悲剧在于他为德国的民主政体挖掘了坟墓。由于缺乏议会中多数议员的支持，他向宪法第48 条求助；该条款授权总统在紧急时刻颁布各种法令，这些法令具有法律效力，除非遭到国民议会多数票的明确否决。实际上，国民议会的确曾投票反对最初的紧急法令，但布吕宁通过说服兴登堡解散国民议会、下令于193O年9月举行新的选举进行了反击。布吕宁预计中间派和右派的各种政党会在选举中获得多数席位，使他能以正规的议会方式治理这个国家。然而，选举却表明希特勒的国社党已作为一种全国性的力量在兴起。 阿道夫·希特勒是奥地利海关一位小官员的儿子，早年曾去维也纳，渴望成为一名画家。由于缺乏才能，他靠从事各种最卑贱的工作来糊口，过了5年悲惨的生活——这是据他自己说的，似乎言过其实了。他的悲惨境遇——不论是真实的还是想象出来的——连同毫无疑问的职业上的失败一起，有助于解释他这时所获得的热烈的信仰：仇恨马克思主义者和犹太人，憎恶议会制政体，蔑视富裕的资产阶级及其“颓废的”文化。希特勒从维也纳流浪到慕尼黑，在那里，于1914年进巴伐利亚团服役。虽然他在战争中作战勇敢，曾三次负伤并荣获令人羡慕的铁十字勋章，但显然没有表现出特别的才能，因为尽管他专心服役，却也只升到下士为止。然而，在军队的这几年是他一生中最幸福的时期，军事训练为他提供了他以往一向所缺乏的辨别方向的能力。 表1 国民议会的选举，1911-1988年（代表人数和全部选票的百分数） *根据《魏玛宪法》规定的选举制度，各政党的候选人每得到6万张民众的选票，该党大体上便可获得一个议员席位。没有列入表中的各小党派在国民议会中未被充分代表。 战争结束后，希特勒转而猛烈反对新魏玛共和国。“我认为现在的德国既不是一个民主国家，也不是一个共和国，而是马克思主义者和犹太人的国际猪圈。” 1919 年，他加入德国国家社会主义工人党这一战斗组织，不久便成为该党的领袖，即元首。在发表了一系列有关民族主义和反犹太人的煽动性演说之后，他和陆军元帅鲁登道夫一起参加了1923年在慕尼黑举行的一场滑稽歌剧式的暴动。这场暴动被警察轻易地镇压下去了，希特勒被关押了9个月。当时，他35岁，他在狱中写下了——一部夸张的长篇自传体回忆录，在书中，他发泄了对民主政体、共产主义和犹太人的仇恨，还详细说明了战败的德国怎样才能成为“全人类的君主”。“种族纯净”是取得这一胜利的关键：“一个在种族被毒化的时代里致力于培养其最优秀的种族成分的国家，总有一天会成为全人类的君主。” 从狱中获释后，希特勒继续从事鼓动工作，但结果却令人失望。在1924 年12月的选举中，他的纳粹党仅获得14个席位和908000张选票，在1928年5月的选举中获得的席位和票数则更少——12席和81万张选票，即总票数的2.6%。1930年9月的选举是一大转折，当时纳粹党获得了107席和6407000张选票，即占总票数的18.3%。这些似雪片般飞来的选票并非来自工人，因为社会党和共产党在1930年得到的席位比1928年时还多13席。希特勒这时正从在猛烈的经济风暴中拼命寻找避难所的各种中产阶级分子那里得到他新发现的支持。 纳粹党的政治纲领为小职员和破产的商人提供了安慰和希望。它要求废除不劳所得和“利息奴役制”、使所有托拉斯国有化、对大企业实行分红制、对高利贷者和好商处以死刑。同时，它还向所有爱国的德国人保证要砸碎《凡尔赛和约》的枷锁，要迫害犹太人；犹太人不但被污蔑为从事剥削的资本家，而且被污蔑为唯物主义的共产主义者。应该强调指出，希特勒在过去几年里一直在为这一政纲奔走游说，但反应却极小。大萧条是使他的政治命运起变化的直接的、首要的原因。在人们感觉到这一政纲的全部影响以前，希特勒被大多数德国人看作是一个爱高谈阔论而又毫无危害的狂热者；而当将近一半的劳动力失业时，他便成为越来越多的人所爱戴的元首，因为他为他们的不幸提供了替罪羊，为个人和国家愿望的实现提供了行动纲领。 由于1930 年9月的选举，纳粹党使其在国民议会中的代表人数从12人增加到107人，从而成为这个国家第二大政党。这一意想不到的结果逐渐破坏了德国的议会制政体，因为它不但剥夺了布吕宁所渴望的中间派-右派联盟的多数票，而且剥夺了曾在米勒领导下执政的中间派-左派联盟的多数票。因而，布吕宁在两年多的时间里只得依靠总统的法令来制定所有必需的法规。他对兴登堡的依赖程度在他提出分散东普鲁斯地产的法规时得到了征实；兴登堡总统本人就是一个容克地主，他坚决反对这一法规，并迫使布吕宁于1932年6月辞职。 新任总理是弗朗茨·冯·巴本，名义上是中央党的成员。实际上他是一个反动贵族，被人们恰当地描绘为“一个文雅、仁慈、温和的无足轻重的人物，一个聪明绝顶的笨蛋”。他所领导的那个软弱的联合政府仅得到国民议会的微不足道的支持，因此，他于1932 年7月举行新的选举，希望加强他的地位。然而，纳粹党却成为最大的获胜者：他们的选票猛增到13799000张，即占总票数的87.4%，他们的席位也猛增到230席。而且，这些进展是在使右派和中间派的各政党受损害的情况下取得的，因为，与1930年相比，社会党和共产党的席位加在一起实际上增加了2 席。 希特勒这时成为全国第一大政党的首脑。在与兴登堡总统的谈判中，他要求完全的行政权。“你提出这一要求是什么意思呢？”兴登堡问道。希特勒回答说：“我就是要求得到与墨索里尼在进军罗马后所行使的同样的权力。”兴登堡拒绝了，对这个他所称呼为“波希米亚下士”的人没有留下深刻印象。但是，议会制政体这时已行不通，既然纳粹党人和共产党人都不会加入联合政府，这个政府就不可能得到大多数人的支持。 1932年11月，巴本又举行另一次选举，企图打破这一僵局。这欢，纳粹党人丢失了200万张选票和在国民议会中的34个席位，使他们的议员人数减少到196人。虽然他们仍是这个国家最大的政党，但他们不再能假装成未来的不可抗拒的潮流。的确，纳粹党领导人突然感到恐慌。希特勒的副手约瑟夫·戈培尔在1932年12月8日的日记中写道：“整个组织极为消沉。缺少资金不可能使事情做得很好。元首在旅馆的房间里来来回回踱了好几个小时。显然，他是在苦思冥想。……突然，他停了下来，说道：'如果党一旦崩溃，我就立即开枪自杀。'可怕的威胁，极端的沮丧。” 不到两个月后，这位想要自杀的人成了德国的总理。这一惊人转变的一个原因在于德国工商企业界领导人这时给了纳粹党以大量的财政援助，因为他们担心，如果纳粹党崩溃，这几百万张选票可能转到左派手中。1 月4日，希特勒会见了科隆的银行家库特·冯·施罗德，从那时起，戈培尔所抱怨的“缺乏资金”已不再成为一个问题。另一原因在于当时柏林的政治被人看作是阴谋诡计的泥淖。兴登堡这时已年老体衰，每天只能神志清醒地工作几个小时。他被说服解除了巴本的职务，任命库特·冯·施莱谢尔来接替巴本；施莱谢尔甚至比他的前任更狡猾。 施莱谢尔决定试用蛊惑人心的方法。他取消了巴本对工资和救济的削减，恢复了分割东普鲁斯地产的计划，并通过政府制定的农业法规着手调查地主所得的非法利润。地主和商人都满腔仇恨地指责他，并把兴登堡拉了过去。施莱谢尔很易受到伤害，其原因与布吕宁和巴本先前易受伤害的原因相同：不能在国会中组成多数。1933年1月28日，施莱谢尔被迫辞职，两天后，希特勒成为一个由民族党人和纳粹党人组成的联合内阁的总理。 6 个月内，希特勒就已根据他关于种族和领导权的思想，将整个德国组织起来。3月5日，继前所未有的宣传和恐怖主义运动之后，一个新的国民议会选举产生了。纳粹党人得到了288席和550万张选票，但它们仍然只占总票数的44%。当议员们聚会时，希特勒宣布共产党人的席位无效，然后，与天主教中央党做成一笔交易，由后者给予他足够的票数，于1933年3月23日通过《授权法》。《授权法》给了他长达4年的以法令进行统治的权力。但到1933年夏时，他已在实际上消除或控制了德国人生活中所有独立的成分——工会、学校、教会、政党、交流媒介、司法系统和联邦各州。早在1933年4月22日，戈培尔就在日记中写道：“现在，元首的权力在内阁中完全占支配地位。将不再有投票。元首个人决定一切。所有这一切的取得比我们所敢期望的要快得多。” 希特勒就这样成为德国的主人，而且正如他不断自夸的那样，是通过法律上的合法手段当上德国主人的。大萧条使他的胜利成为可能，不过，这决不是不能避免的；这种可能转变为现实是由于其他因素的结合，其中，包括希特勒本人的才能、各种既得利益集团提供的援助和他的对手们的缺乏远见——他们低估了希特勒，未能作为反对派联合起来。1934年8月2日，兴登堡去世了，他死得正是时候，使希特勒能把总统和总理的职权合为一体，由他一人掌握。第二个月，纳粹党代表大会在纽伦堡召开，希特勒宣布：“德国今后一千年的生活方式已被清楚地确定。” 国际影响英国外交大臣奥斯汀·张伯伦爵士在将1932年的国际形势与洛迹诺时代的国际形势作比较后说道： 张伯伦所不能确定的“某种东西”就是大萧条及其各种国际影响和国内影响。洛迦诺时代的各种国际协定，尤其是关于赔款和战争债务的国际协定，已无法实行。不久就变得很明显；各国政府由于被不断衰退的经济和日益严重的失业准到崩溃的边缘，已不能履行几年前所作的承诺。1931 年7月，在胡佛总统的倡议下，各强国同意延缓偿付所有政府间的债务。这种延缓偿付表明，在协约国间的种种债务和赔款之间实际上存在着一种密切的联系，尽管胡佛一再重申不存在这种联系。第二年夏天，在洛桑会议上，各强国虽然不是在理论上但在事实上完全取消了德国的战争赔款。同时，结束了对美国的战争债务的支付，虽然在以后几年中作过几次象征性的支付。因此，赔款和战争债务这一棘手的老问题终于被大萧条释放出来的经济风暴扫除了。 经济风暴的另一影响是使地方性的经济民族主义发展到妨害国际关系的程度。在总崩溃的大潮流中，各国的自卫措施都采取了诸如较高的关税、更严格的进口限额、结算协定、货币管制条例和双边贸易协定之类的形式。这些措施必然引起各国间的经济摩擦和政治上的紧张关系。为转变这一趋势人们做了各种尝试，但都没有成功。1933年在伦敦召开的世界经济会议就是一次使人惊恐的大失败，“经济上的独立”即经济上的自给自足逐渐成为通常公认的民族目标。 与此密切相关的是为裁减军备所作的种种尝试逐渐停止，让位于各种大规模地重整军备的计划。始于1932 年8月的裁军会议断断续续地开了2O个月，但与经济会议一样没有成效。随着20世纪30年代的渐渐逝去，各国都将越来越多的力量用来重整军备。事实证明，这一趋势是不可能停止的，因为军火制造不仅提供了想象中的安全，还提供了就业机会。例如，美国的失业人数直到它在第二次世界大战前夕开始重整军备时才大大减少。同样，希特勒因实行庞大的重整军备的计划，才迅速解决了他所面临的前所未有的失业问题。应该清醒地认识到，希特勒之所以能最成功地使其国家摆脱经济萧条，是因为他在其国家的备战方面做得最彻底。此外，大萧条对社会造成的破坏和伴随而来的失业给人们以极大的伤害，因此，各地民众都欢迎新的工作，哪怕是军工厂里的工作。很可能没有一项措施能象给绝望的失业者以工作的大规模的重整军备一样，使希特勒为其人民所爱戴。 这时正在积聚起来的武器装备必然迟早会得到使用，但使用它们还需要有某种理由；“生存空间”便是最明显的理由。这是希特勒新创的术语，意大利的墨索里尼和日本的军事领导人也使用了与此类似的说法和论点。按照这一学说，失业和普遍存在的苦难是由生存空间的缺乏引起的。少数几个幸运的国家夺取了所有的殖民地和人烟稀少的海外领土，使其他国家没有维持其人民的生存所必需的自然资源。明显的出路是扩张，必要时可使用武力，以纠正过去所遭受的不公正行为。这就是所谓的“穷”国反对“富”国时所使用的论点。 大萧条除破坏了德国、意大利和日本外，还同样地、不偏不倚地破坏了美国、加拿大和英国——由这一事实看来，上述论断显然是似是而非的。不过，生存空间的思想起了使“穷”国的人民团结起来、去支持各自政府的扩张主义政策的作用。它还为那种公开宣布其目的是为穷人提供食物、为失业者提供工作的侵略提供了表面上看来合乎道义的正当理由。实际上，即使在“富”国中，也有某些人接受了这些理论解释，为随之而来的侵略进行辩护。甚至连一些不愿轻信这些似是而非的推理的西方政治家有时候也不得不因国内的紧迫问题而对侵略行径视而不见。20世纪30年代中，公然违犯《国联盟约》的做法之所以能一再取得成功，一定程度上就是因为西方领导人首先须予以往意的是那些压倒一切的国内问题。 引起张伯伦于1932年所说的“猜疑”、“恐惧”和“倒退”的各种势力的结合就是这样。在随后几年中，这些势力完全破坏了已于20年代达成的和解，促成了一个又一个危机，最终导致了第二次世界大战。