1000 Ch. 25 • Economic Depression and DictatorshipIn the United States, where the Depression hit hardest, recovery came
even more slowly. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), elected president in
1932, implemented his “New Deal.” It facilitated loans that saved banks,
provided relief for the unemployed through public works programs, and
provided assistance to farmers and to businesses. When Keynes learned of
Roosevelt’s plans, his assessment was that “Roosevelt was magnificently
right” (though as someone noted Keynes might have said that he was “mag
nificently left”). Gradually, a return of consumer confidence, boosted by
the president’s low-key “fireside chats” by radio to the American people,
improved the economy. But only with the entry of the United States into
the Second World War in 1941, with its massive mobilization of economic
resources in the production of war materials, did the Depression finally
end its grip on the United States.
The Dynamics of Fascism
It is against the background of hard times that followed the Great War that
the rise of fascism and other authoritarian movements must be seen both in
the industrialized countries of Western Europe and in the largely agrarian
states of Eastern Europe and the Balkans (see Map 25.1). Fascist parties
developed in the 1920s as political movements seeking mass mobilization—
but not political participation. There was nothing democratic about fascist
organizations: they were hierarchically structured and, rejecting parliamen
tary rule, sought to bring dictators to power.
Several factors contributed to the rise of the extreme right, with none
serving as a single explanation. If in the nineteenth century the middle class
had stood as a bulwark of liberal values in Europe, this was no longer the
case in the post-war climate. In Germany, Italy, and Austria, fascists found
disproportionate support among the middle class, which had been ravaged
by years of economic crisis. Middle-class families watched in horror as their
pensions and modest savings disappeared. They feared union leaders,
Socialists, and Communists, who all demanded an extension of public pro
grams to aid unemployed workers. Many in the middle class feared such
reforms would come at their expense. Big business in Italy and Germany, in
particular, turned against parliamentary rule. But middle-class frustrations
do not provide a sufficient explanation for the rise of authoritarian move
ments in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, where the middle classes were
extremely small. Moreover, the middle classes in Britain and France endured
many of the same economic frustrations, but only in France did a minority
turn to authoritarian political movements.
Fascists, Nazis, and other authoritarian right-wing groups blamed parlia
mentary government itself for the weaknesses and failures of their states in
the post-war years. They believed parliamentary regimes to be unstable
and weak by their very nature, undercut by factionalism and class divi