How Did Fascism Contribute To The Threat Of Communism

Between what was perceived as the “threat of communism” and the great depression, the political situation in Europe in the 1930s was not exactly stable. Great poverty and growing frustrations in the population of countries like Germany and Italy allowed for a new political system to rise when new democracies or ideas of democracy were perceived as weak or insufficient. Fascism was characterised as radical, totalitarian and nationalist. It suppressed political opposition, was often tied with a sense of supremacy and racist ideologies, and sometimes even imperialistic desires of expansion. It was first created in Italy when Mussolini took power in the early 1920s and quickly spread through Europe, most notably in Germany under Hitler and the

How does this contribute to the creation of a global conflict? It is quite simple. With Italy and Germany under the leadership of Fascist parties, the priorities of those types of government were, as mentioned above, aggression, militarisation and expansion. Germany managed to overcome the depression by investing into the military despite the fact that they were firmly prohibited to do so by the Treaty of Versailles. Fascist countries were preparing for a war and making sure that they would be strong enough if - but most likely when - the need would arise. Fascists countries had also aggressive expansion policies and the desire to regain territories lost after World War I. Germany, for example, quickly annexed lost territories before starting to conquer others on its way to world domination in the late 1930s before the Western powers took a stand and declared war. Germany annexed Austria in 1938, then Czechoslovakia, eventually Memelland before they walked onto Poland. The aggressiveness of Fascism as a political ideology, while not the only reason for expansionism, greatly contributed to Germany and Italy’s attempts to conquer Europe, and eventually to a global conflict on the

Appeasement is defined as making concessions, material or political, to an enemy in order to maintain peace, or at least status quo. Mostly the British adopted this strategy against Germany and Italy before the war in the hope to avoid conflict. Between 1935 and 1939, concessions and exceptions were made for Germany and Italy, which allowed them both to grow as powers and gain important territories before the war even started. This put them in a good position when the conflict erupted. From 1935, when Germany reinstated the mandatory military service, until the beginning of the war, Hitler broke every commandment of the Treaty of Versailles and the Western powers let him do it. After reinstating the military, Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland without consequences from either the allied forces or the League of Nations, which led him to believe he could continue his military growth and territory expansion without resistance. Afterwards, he annexed Austria in 1938, again against the explicit agreement of the Treaty of Versailles, and the international pushback was almost inexistent. No one was ready to use force to stop what had happened and once again, Hitler got away with a new victory without resistance. The Munich agreement of 1938 allowed Germany to gain control of a German populated area of Czechoslovakia, without the country’s consent, and Germany and Britain signed a peace