C 34: An Age of Anxiety

Post-War PessimismCrash of 1929Global DepressionEconomic ExperimentationThe New Deal

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Conscious v

s Unconsci

ous?

“The Lost Generation”??

October 1929John Maynard Keynes?The New Deal?

Vladimir Lenin =Rapid CollectivizationConfiscationsUNPOPULAR New Economic Policy (NEP)

* partial privatization* promotion of agriculture* promotion of industry* “Kulaks” and speculation

Centralized government/authoritarianStroke 1922Died 1924

Peasants who rose

to prosperity

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)“Socialism in One Country”1924

vs. Trotsky “international communist revolutions”

Massive Agricultural CollectivizationFirst FIVE YEAR PLAN 1928-1932Ukrainian Famine 1932-1933De-kulakization = SECRET POLICEThe GREAT PURGE: 8 million Soviets in

labor camps by 1939 (gulags)

Isolation

Ukraine 1929-1933:3 million died

Including 1 million children

Nikolai Yezhov, the young man walking with Stalin in the top photo from the 1930s, was shot in 1940.

Following his death, Yezhov was edited out of the photo by Soviet Censors. Such retouching was a common occurrence during Stalin's rule.

The Great Purge: Results =

Arrests, 1937-1938 - about 7 millionExecuted - about 1 millionDied in camps - about 2 millionIn prison, late 1938 - about 1 millionIn camps, late 1938 - about 8 million

Hostile to liberal democraciesHostile to class based visions ofthe future

MILITARISM

Alternatives?

Benito Mussolini 1883-1945

1921 elected 35 fascists to Italian parliament(“Blackshirts”)

1922 March on RomeKing Victor Emmanuel III asked him tobecome prime minister

1926 Seized total control

Adolf Hitler 1889-1945

1930-1933Nazi party becomes the largest party in parliament

Hitler appointed Chancellor

July 1933Nazi party only legal party

1933Compulsory sterilization program begins1935 Nuremberg Laws1938 Kristallnacht