Liquidation of the Kulaks

Thesis: As Joseph Stalin sought to eliminate the Kulaks, he portrayed them as the enemy of the government's efforts to eliminate harmful capitalist practices and claimed his alternative system of collectivization would be able to mitigate the harmful effects of removing the Kulaks.

x- Kulaks refused to surrender private plots and personal earnings

x- Stalin foments a class struggle between the Kulaks and less successful peasants by arguing these collectivization goals are an effort to fight against capital

x- Stalin argues that the Kulaks must be eliminated in order to ensure the success of the fight against capitalist elements of the countryside and bring about prosperity

x- Stalin points out such an attack on the Kulaks ears ago would have been foolish adventurism, but the establishment of collective farms changes this decision calculus.

x- Stalin argues the present day material base makes them immune from the harms of striking against the Kulaks

x-Must eliminate the Kulaks as a class- only way to substitute their output for one of collective farms. Kulaks do not belong on the collective farms, they are its sworn enemies

Joseph Stalin: “The Hard Line,” “Liquidation of the Kulaks”

“The Hard Line” - Main Idea: Russia must modernize quickly or fall behind and be taken advantage of.

• Tempo of modernization must not be reduced but increased
• Old Russia suffered due to its backwardness
• Nekrassov on Old Russia: “You are poor and abundant, mighty and impotent, Mother Russia.”
• The jungle law of capitalism means that if a country is backwards it is taken advantage of.
• Lenin said, “Either perish, or overtake and outstrip the advanced capitalist countries.”
• Stalin admits that russia is fifty to one hundred years behind the advanced countries. He draws the hard line: “Me must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.”

“Liquidation of the Kulaks” - Main Idea: Kulaks must be eliminated to make way for the goal of collectivism.

• Notes characteristic features of the work during the past year of 1929
• the party and soviet government have developed an offensive on the whole front against the capitalist elements in the countryside (Kulaks)
• this offensive has brought about and is bringing about positive results
• Admits that Russia could not have successfully taken on such an offensive 3-5 years previous
• Wishes to substitute for their output, the output of the collective farms and state farms
• States the goal of solid collectivization
• States that the Kulak is the sworn enemy of the collective farm movement

"Terror in the Countryside" Kopelev

“Terror in the Countryside” Kopelev

Thesis: As a former liquidator of the kulaks, Kopelev turned against participation in collectivization and became a tolerant person, who was given a jail sentence for anti-state crime (keeping a Russian soldier from raping and pillaging).

· “Struggle for grain was the struggle for socialism”

· he was fighting against kulak sabotage for grain which was needed by country for the 5 year plan

· They would take away food and livestock and valuables and surpluses of clothing and money stashed away and gold, silver, and currency

· The children began screaming, choking, and coughing like their mother at the collective farmers

· The men were impassive, half-mad and having daring ferocity

· He was performing his rev duty

· The only true religion was religion of scientific socialism; the party became his church

· His great goal was the triumph of Communism

o To lie,, steal, destroy thousands and millions of ppl, all considered hinderers of their work

o He was convinced he was accomplishing great and necessary transformation of countryside

o In 1933, he saw ppl dying from hunger and he cursed those who sent him to take away peasants’ grain in the winter

· They dismissed the concepts of conscience, honor, humaneness as idealistic prejudices

Khrushchev - Secret Speech

Khrushchev in his secret speech revealed some of the evils behind Stalin's power

• Stalin was intolerable to anyone who opposed his ideas and demanded for complete obedience of the people in accordance to his ideas
• Stalin veered away from passive methods such as persuasion
• Lots of corruption and many people fell to despotism
• "Stalin originated the conce't of "enemy of the people"
• "Stalin used extremem methods and mass repessions at a time when the revolution was already victorious"
• Lenin, unlike stalin, used severe methods only in the most necessary cases

Sigmund Freud - a Legacy of Embitterment

Sigmund freud in this passage describes how the optimism and uplifting nature of Europe was erased by WWI

"Science herself has lost her passionless impartiality"

• Science is now used for reasons of war
• "we had expected the great world-dominating nations of white race upon whom the leadership of the human species has fallen"
• races and people have been displaced
• Comments of the idealistic/uplifting nature before the war which were destroyed by WWI

Disillusionment of the war

Loughnan - Genteel Women in the Factories

In Genteel Women in the FActories, Loughnan comments on the poor working conditions in the munition factories as well as others during the war and describes the new social attitude toward classes and gender during the war.

Conditions of the the factories

• Air quality is poor and conducive of bad health
• dirty working conditions
• Hard work - from sheer lifting
• long shifts that are tiring

Women and gender conditions in the factories

• men look down on women, believe that they are unfit to work with the machine

Meshing of classes in the factories

• notices many lower class people doing "crude" things like swearing and other evils but still tries to befirend them

The Black Hand

Black hand was a terrorist organization trained in "fanatic nationalism"

• created in 1914 and had some 2,500 member

By-Laws of the Organization Union or Death

• Article 1 - org. is created for realizing national ideal - union of all Serbs
• Article 2 - prefers terrorist action
• Article 3 - bears the name Union or Death
• Article 4 - to fulfill its purpose: exercise influence on gov circles, organize rev action, beyond the frontiers of Serb, maintain amicable relations, assist nations and orgs that are fighting in their cause
• Article 24 - every member has a duty to recruit other members
• Article 25 - members of the org are forbidden to know each other personally
• Article 26 - org itself, the members are designated by numbers
• ARticle 27 - Members of the org must obey all commands
• Article 28 - Each member has a duty to communicate
• Article 29 - interest of the org stand above all interests
• Article 32 - each member must aid the org
• Article 33 - when the central committee of belgrade pronouces a death sentence, only importance is success of execution
• 
  

TORTSKY AROUSES THE PEOPLE- N.N. Sukhanov

Trotsky was one of the main leaders of the the Revolution of 1917, and uses his rhetoric and ability as an orator to excite the crowd and evokes great feeling and emotion in them in this passage.

-Trotsky was the chairman of was elected chairman of the Petrograd soviet after being exiled twice.

-Trotsky organized the Military-Revolutionary Committee and was one of the most integral players in the Bolshevik movement.

-Trotsky's just ideals and speech against the bourgeois arouse the working classes in the audience.

"This, actually, was already an insurrection. Things had started..."

A.O. AVDIENKO, THE CULT OF STALIN

Thesis: In Avdienko’s Cult of Stalin, the author deifies the accomplishments of Stalin and holds him in the highest regard.

I. All of Russia will regard this period as momentous

a. All will remember Stalin as a great leader

b. Avdienko praises Stalin for his leadership

II. Avdienko is educated

a. Has a wife, family

III. Avdienko reveres Stalin’s every action

Miron Dolot, "Execution By Hunger"

• Setting: 1932 famine-ridden Ukraine in which the Communist government has resorted to getting as many agricultural products from the countryside as possible, leaving the farmers on the verge of starvation trying to stay alive.


• Men, women, and children alike all do backbreaking work and scourge the potato fields looking for something to eat, whether the food is rotten or frozen.


• Farmers used to be able to move to the city to find work but now it has been made illegal to hire farmers in order to stop the flor of labor from the collective farms and to prevent farmers from receiving food rations from other cities.


• Deaths from starvation slowly start to become daily occurences.


• Soon the "Hundred Thousanders" or "Thousanders," 1120,000 of the Party's most active and reliable members, started showing up in villages like tryrants, imposing their demands in order to organize a speedy harvest.


• The Thousanders demand that the grain quota be just as much as last year's - something that is impossible to do.


• In order to save themselves and their families, people started to eat anything and everything (dogs, cats, small forest animals, small birds, crustacean shells, bark, weeds, leaves, diseased animal meat, etc.) - even food that had already rotted.


• When Dolot and his mother try to leave the village they are confronter with thousands of frozen bodies lining the roads - there was absolutely nowhere to go.


• The village eventually ceasmed to exist as a coherent community - instead it was replaced with a sort of tribal survival of the fittest atmosphere.


• Mothers abandoned children; people stayed locked in their houses


• Eventually, rumors of cannibalism were found to be true, particularly with one case when "a woman was found dead, her nock contorted in a crudely made noose. The neighbors who discovered the tragedy also found the reason for it. The flesh of the woman's three year old daughted was found in the oven."

Miron Dolot - Execution by Hunger

Miron Dolot witnessed the horrors of famine within his own country of Ukraine and later left for the West. He wrote The Hidden Holocaust years later to recall his past observations. Here are some points from the excerpts.

· 1932 - the battle for bread

· BASIC OVERVIEW: The Communist government began taking food from the starving farmers for the “greater good”, and it forced a mass famine from lack of crops

· In this year (1932) famine broke out and brought endless amounts of beggars

· People were roaming the forest for food and the riverbanks were crowded with hungry citizens in search of some nutrition

· Every farmer would go into the city looking for work, but since the city itself was already in economic ruin, the government made it illegal to hire farmers for any work in order not to make the job market too stagnant

· Deaths from starvation became a daily occurrence. The bodies starved were just deposited in a large common grave

· At the end of May, The Party (Communist Gov’t) had mobilized 112,000 members to secure a swift and smooth harvest, but it soon became clear that the nine who had come to Dolot’s village would hold tyrannical power

· The quota the government asked for in grain was just unrealistic for the farmers

· In January 1933, Dolot and his mother set out from the city to the town – everywhere on the side of the roads were frozen corpses

· Farmers were found dead having collapsed in their endless search for more potatoes

· A friend of Dolot’s mother, named Solomia was expelled from her collective farm because she had a child, her husband had already died and she could not keep up her quota. From there she went seeking a job but could never get one, and eventually she committed suicide in her Ukrainian national uniform.

· In March of 1933, the famine hit its worst point, as people locked themselves inside and neighbors became enemies

· The first rumors of actual cannibalism were related to the mysterious and sudden disappearances of people in the village

· One woman had killed herself after eating her three year old daughter, another arrested for killing her two children

Khrushchev's Secret Speech

Thesis: In a secret speech to the Party Congress three years after Stalin's death, Khrushchev attacked Stalin, revealing some of the awful crimes that had been committed during his rule.

• Stalin was brutal toward everything that opposed him and contrary to his concepts


• Stalin did not use persuasion and co-operation with the people, but imposed his ideas and demanded absolute submission of the people to his way.


• Many prominent party members, honest and dedicated to Communism, fell victim to his despotism.


• His concept "enemy of the people" rendered it unneccessary that any kind of ideological errors of a man engaged in controversy be proven.


• "Confessions" were acquired through physical pressures on the accused.


• Glaring violations of revolutionary legality


• Large quantity of materials from the secret police revealed fabrication of cases, leading to deaths of innocent victims.


• Lenin used severe methods only in the most necessary cases, but Stalin used it when the Communist state was already strong.


• Stalin used repression and physical annihilation instead of mobilizing the masses.


• The False Accusations and slaughter of Comrade Eikhe, who refused to confess to any crime, is a great example of glaring violation of Soviet power and false condemnation.

Arthur Koestler: “I Was Ripe to be Converted”

Rob Edwards

Arthur Koestler: “I Was Ripe to be Converted”

• The economic misery of the Depression led many people to find a new hope in communism

• Seduced by soviet propaganda, many intellectuals saw the Soviet Union as a champion of peace and social justice

• A faith is not acquired by reasoning, or acquired at all for that matter. Rather, it is an idea the grows like a tree

• He became converted to the communist party because he was “ripe for it” and lived in a disintegrating society thirsting for faith.

• He didn't just become a communist over night though

• It all started in 1914 when he witnessed his father's financial and emotional demise through those crushing times

• He torturously acquired a social conscience through penny-pinching his whole life, and learning to detest the obviously rich people

• Horrified when he learns of the extreme measures that fat capitalists go to to increase their own profit, including burning crops to keep prices up, even though people are starving

• Déclassé people didn't want to admit their own ruin, many found comfort with the Nazi party and blaming their problems on the Jews

• Many intellectuals like Koestler were ripe for conversion to communism because of the rapid moral disintegration in the society around themselves

• After studying Marx and Engels, many of these intelligentsia were captivated by the promises of communism

"The Breakdown Of Military Discipline"

Excerpts from a Russian Army Intelligence Report in 1917:

Northern Front:

• Lack of confidence in the officers
• Bolshevik ideas are spreading rapidly throughout the camp which add to a desire for peace
• Officer regulation is seen as counter-revolutionary
• Many soldiers are faking sick and going to hospitals

12th Army:

• The provisional government is being criticized especially Kerensky
• Readers of moderate newspapers are seen as counter-revolutionary
• Whole regiments are refusing to carry out military orders

Western Front:

• Soldiers are attempting to fraternize with Germans which they believe is a sure way to attain peace
• Soldiers stormed an armory and stole the equipment in an act of rebellion

Southwestern Front:

• Lack of supplies is disintegrating the troops
• Soldiers are leading armed invasions of country estates
• Soldiers will demoralize during winter

“I was ripe to be converted”

Arthur Koestler

“I was ripe to be converted”

Thesis: Arthur Koestler describes his conversion to Communism as a not only a political idea that he decided to favor but as an entire new way of thinking caused by his own struggles in life with capitalism.

· Arthur Koestler, born in Budapest of Jewish ancestry and educated in Vienna

o Worked as newspaper correspondent for leading Berlin newspaper chain

o Joined communist party in 1931

o He broke with the party in 1988 because of Stalin’s liquidations

· In the passage written by Arthur Koestler he recounts the attraction communism held for him, written 1949

o Arthur describes his conversion to communism as a long process that began in his childhood and produced by his disintegrating society

o Arthur then describes the fall his family had to endure from middle-class prominence to financial ruin as a result of the first world war and capitalistic economy that forced him to become the only financial support for his family

o Explains his dislike for the rich as not because his jealous because the rich don’t have a guilty conscience

o Arthur now describe his own guilt further, the guilt he feels for his family providing for him at a young age things they could not afford and the guilt he feels for those around him who are poorer than himself.

o At this point in his personal conflict Arthur says he was ripe to learn of the food burned during depression years to keep food prices up and gives us the quote; “Woe to the shepherds who feed themselves, but feed not their flocks.”

o Arthur describes the polarization, which occurred as a result of the disintegration of the middle class strata into the Right or Left.

o Arthur again states he was ripe to be converted as a result of his previous history to left.

o Arthur describes the state of Germany as it was becoming Nazi Germany could only be stopped by Communism

o Describes his conversion experience as magical and very much like a religious conversion.

Perry: Clemenceau: French Demands for Security and Revenge

Main Idea: Clemenceau Claims That WWI was Germany’s Responsibility and criticizes Germany’s sense of superiority.

• Clemenceau claims that the Germans are responsible for the war
• He criticizes the phrase “Deutchland uber alles” which means “Germany above everything.”
• He mentions Bernhardi’s pamphlet Our Future which establishes that Germany considers itself “the greatest manifestation of human supremacy.”
• He talks of the German intellectuals who met to produce the manifesto of the ninety –three super-intellectuals of Germany
o He criticizes Germany for their burning of libraries
o Uses a very sarcastic tone to refer to the sense of superiority that these German intellectuals have over the rest of the world
o He claims that the manifesto is full of nothing but lies
• Manifesto of the ninety-three super-intellectuals of Germany
o He counters the stated idea that Germany believed it was not in the wrong for starting the war in neutral Belgium
o He criticizes the notion that the Keiser only wanted peace and calls it an unsupported lie
o He notes that in the writings of Ostwald, a German chemist, the famous French chemist Lavoisier was not even mentioned
• Clemenceau laughs about the idea that the crap about German supremacy and the superiority of the race coming from the top would have gotten a common man thrown into an insane asylum
• He notes the insane words spoken by Erzberger who felt that human rights was a secondary issue and that the destruction of the entire city of London would be more humane than the death of one German soldier
• He analyzes the ultimate framework of the old but childish German race to be the drunk men at the beer houses listening to calls for German supremacy and blindly repeating it everywhere they go while the women and children listen in fear

Lenin, "The Call to Power"

Thesis: In powerful words meant to play on the emotions of the common Russians Lenin tells the people that they must rise up now and that the only way to change the path of Russia is through armed uprising.

I. Lenin says the Russian situation is critical

a. “Everything now hangs by a thread”

b. The problems of Russia will not be solved by government but rather by actions of the people

II. Lenin says the question over who will step into power is irrelevant

a. Simply says to let the Bolshevik organization to take over everything, most especially the army…

III. Makes promises that through the uprising help will come to the peasants (esp. food)

Finally, Lenin tells the people that history will never forgive them if they sit around doing nothing to help the cause of Russia

Wilson, "The Idealistic View"

Thesis: Woodrow Wilson encouraged a peace treaty that would be fair to all and that did not punish for the sake of retaliation, but rather only for wrongs done.

I. Land played a major role in almost all of peace talks – Wilson stressed that all land adjustments should be made in the interest of the people living in the territory

a. Colonies – people in the colonies should have equal say over what happens to them

b. French territory – all French land lost should be returned, including Alsace-Lorraine

c. Italy – borders should be established along clearly recognizable lines of nationality

d. Several new, independent states should be established, primarily in eastern Europe, but also Poland

II. Wilson thought that he could lead the world to almost eternal prosperity and happiness

a. Part of this was not pushing ridiculous reparations onto the German people

Wipe away the foundations that caused the war

Army Intelligence Report- Breakdown of Military Discipline

Thesis: The spread of Bolshevik ideas among the Russian army in the summer of 1917 has led to widespread discontent and general defiance of the war forced upon them by their superiors.

• In the Northern Front, there is a complete lack of confidence in the officers and other commanding personnel.


• Soldiers believe they cannot be punished for what they do.


• They desire peace at any price.


• Any attempt by the officers to regulate the life of the army is seen as counter-revolution.


• Large numbers of soldiers are feigning sickness to leave the front


• Refuse to carry out orders, call Kerensky a traitor.


• In the Western Front, war weariness, malnutrition, mistrust of officers has contributed to defeatist agitation and refusals to carry out orders.


• Some try to fraternize with the Germans


• Soldiers are listening to Bolshevik newspapers, that cry out against the Provisional Government.


• On October 1, 8,000 soldiers refused to go to the front and demanded to be sent home. They then stormed the armory and assaulted the Assistant Commisar


• In the Southwestern Front, disintegration is in full swing. Bolshevik influence is increasing due to general disintegration, absence of strong power, and the lack of supplies and equipment.


• Peace at any price and under any condition, every order is met with hostility.


• Soldiers are organizing raids on country estates


• Courts are paralyzed because of the attitude of the soldiers, there is nothing to enforce order.


• Supplies must be given by the winter campaign, or the army will completely disintegrate and will be destroyed.

V. I. Lenin: “The Call to Power”

Rob Edwards

V. I. Lenin: “The Call to Power”

• Speech by Lenin on Oct. 24 encouraging immediate action

• He says that to delay the uprising at all would prove fatal

• Russia is faced with problems that can't be solved by conferences or congresses, but only by the struggle of the armed masses

• At present, it isn't important who will take power, because that will be dealt with later by the Revolutionary Military Committee

• All that matters at the current time is the that the government must be overthrown immediately

• All power must be taken from the hands of Kerensky and Co. immediately

• History will not forgive revolutionaries for procrastinating, when their chance of success lessens with every passing moment

• The government is tottering, and must be given the death blow swiftly and without mercy

von Salomon- The Brutalization of the Individual

Soldiers had been brainwashed by the violence -they did not smile of speak -blank, staring gazes -destroyed the spirits of our heros -turned our men into soldiers -had left everything about themselves on the battlefield -war was destroying the national spirit by destroying the spirit of individualism and morality

Zweig- The Rushing Feeling of Fraternity

In Austria, the war turned from something everyone wanted to avoid to a great celebration overnight. This was accomplished by the massive propaganda issued by the gov't -the propaganda is irresistable, even to one who knows the inept people behind it -even those who hated the war were prone to this celebration -people were making history, and wanted their country to be at the very center -classes and ranks disappeared -life seemed to have endless possibilities -fervor could be attributed to Freud's "primative human instincts" -great tool to instill confidence in new troops -these people didn't actually know what real war was -war seemed romantic and heroic, but the people were quickly disillusioned

Trotsky Arouses the People

N.N. Sukhanov

Trotsky Arouses the People

Thesis: Sukenov as an eyewitness of Leon Trotsky speech arousing the people explains how the Leon seems to have manipulated the people into revolutionary frenzy.

· N.N. Sukhanov an eyewitness to Leon Trotsky’s speech

o The Menshevik (Social Democrat Moderate) leader

o In the his book The Russian Revolution

· Leon Trotsky

o Elected chairman of the Petrograd Soviet

o Masterminded the Military-Revolutionary Committee, the Bolshevik strike force

· Leon Trotsky’s rousing speech at the People’s House

o The audience was about 3,000 primarily workers and soldiers, but more than a few typically lower middle-class men.

o Trotsky heats up the atmosphere with a extraordinary depiction of the trenches and that the Soviet regime would end the stuffing in these trenches.

o The Soviets would also give land and heal internal disorder

o He went further to say that the Soviet Government will give it all the country has to the poor and the men in the trenches and that the bourgeois should give up its excess for the men in the trenches and the working man

o Sukhanov describes the mood of the audience as bordering on ecstasy

o Sukhanov also asks if these people had been penetrated by a consciousness of political occasion, under the influence of the political agitation of a socialist.

o Sukhabov finishes by explaining this same mood in the audience was being felt all over Petersburg and the insurrection had already begun.

All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque

• The excerpt is from All Quiet on the Western Front, the most famous literary work to emerge from WWI


• Remarque was a verteran of the trenches himself, and he graphically describes the slaughter that robbed Europe of its young men


• His narrator is a young German Soldier


• Describes the terrifying and horrible conditions in the trenches


• Depicts a long bombardment from the enemy, and its effects on the men


• An attack on them by French troops is detailed, the wholesale slaughter of hundereds of men is made apparent in the text


• "We are insensible, dead men, who through some trick, some dreadful magic, are still able to run and kill"

Militarism...Impedes...Progress In Civilization, Liebknecht

• Militarism long oppossed by pacifist groups in Europe


• groups had predominantly middle class and politically left wing membership


• they caught public interest, but were of limited political influence


• Germany- Social Democratic Party established anti-militaristic movement in 1890's


• Marxists sharply differentiate themselves from pascifists in:


• belief of necessity to overthrow capitalist class by force


• appeal to the working class


• However, they were in agreement with the pascifists on the deploring effects of militarism on society


• Social Democratic spokesman for anti-militarism was Karl Liebknecht


• His books were confiscated by German authorities in 1907


• Convicted of high treason for injuring the morale of the army and advocating its abolition


• He served 18 months in prison


• WWI increased Liebknecht's radicalism


• Met a violent death in turmoil of post war Germany as the leader of the Sparticist Revolt

Valery - Disillusionment

Paul Valery, a prominent French writer, expressed the mood of disillusionment that he felt permeated the minds of many intellectuals in various writings. The following points are from a speech and writing both published in Variety, a collection of some of his works, that describe the emotions of men right after WWI:

· The wrecks of the past are of almost no concern to the people of the present, but if a great event happens in one’s lifetime – this tragedy seems much more real than one not experienced

· The storm (WWI) died away but the people are still uneasy and restless, and the affairs of men remain in uncertainty

· They fear the future without any sort of reason, and doubt and disorder are with them and in them

· He claims they are a very unfortunate generation, whose lot has been to see the moment of their passage while they deal with terrifying and horrible events that will echo throughout their entire lives.

· The fundamentals of the world have been affected by the war

· Among all things injured the most wounded is the MIND.

Sigmund Freud- A Legacy of Embitterment

Thesis: In his "Thoughts for the Times on War and Death", Sigmund Freud asserts that WWI destroyed the optimism and good feeling that had existed in pre-war Europe.

• Science is used to justify war
• Lots of people have been displaced
• Before the way people were idealistic, believed that problems could be settled without fighting
• Naive, idealistic belief system destroyed by WWI
• People thought that civilians would not be touched by the war
• War brought disillusionment, disregarded international law

Surrealism and Dada Pictures

Here are just a few prime examples of artwork from the Dadaist and Surrealist movements:

Max Ernst's "Celebes" or "Elephants Celebes" (Dada artwork)

Marcel Janco's "Marine Landscape" (Dada artwork)

Salvador Dali's "Crucifixion" (Surrealist artwork)

(note the almost realistic quality Dali uses)

Joan Miro's "The Garden" (Surrealist Artwork)

Salvador Dali's "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" (Surrealist artwork)

(notice the almost realistic quality Dali uses)

Dada And Surrealism: Art Between The Wars

Thesis: Dadaism and Surrealism, two revolutionary new art movements in Europe and America in the early 1900's, sought to shock and defy common mindsets.

I. Dada

-founded in Zurich in 1916 by refugees from WWI

-named after nonsense word

-protested war

-main strategy to denounce and shock

-John Arp- one of the founders of Dada

<--Game of Chance

-Kurt Schwitters- created "merz", collages of non-art material to make art

II. Surrealism

-created two years after Dada, began as literary movement

-goes beyond the real, deliberately bizarre

-Miro- tried to banish reason- "Dutch Interior II"

-Ernst- employed ambiguous titles

<--Little Tear Gland That Says Tic Tac

-Dali- based his technique on his own neuroses

"The Idealistic View" by Woodrow Wilson

Wilson's thoughts from May 26, 1917 through January 25, 1919:

• We are fighting in the War for the liberty of all peoples
• Wrongs must be righted and safeguards must be put in place so that we may prevent wars in the future
• No people should be forced to live in a country where they do not want to live
• No territory may be acquired unless it is for liberty
• No indemnities shall be asked for except for those truly wrong
• No readjustments of power shall be made unless it benefits the people
• There must be a league of nations to act as an international mediator
• In the peace talks each decision must bring permanent peace
• no people will change from country to country like chattel
• Nationalities need to be grouped together in order to avoid future antagonism
• We will be fair to Germany and we will not hold a grudge against it
• We must reorganize the world and return it to its natural order without future wars

Excerpts from the Fourteen Points:

• National armaments must be reduced
• All colonial claims must be impartial
• All French territory should be freed and restored. The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 must be settled
• A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should recognize lines of nationality
• The people of Austria-Hungary shall be placed into nations according to their nationalities
• The Ottoman Empire shall be partitioned and awarded autonomous development
• An independent Polish state shall be erected
• A League of Nations shall form

Thesis: Peace treaties after World War I were created in a way which enraged the German people, who accused peace conditions to unfairly burden Germany and unjustly break the German state apart.

x- German territory is stolen from them in the peace process

x- Even countries receiving these territories, such as Denmark, argue it is too much

x- Regions are separated without regard to ethnic unity or economic well being

x- German is denied the right to pursue colonialist objectives

x- Germany unfairly receives a non-falsifiable reparations figure with no legal justification

x- These breaks in German territory violate the resolve to promote self determination

All Quiet on the Western Front

Thesis: The terrors of the battlefields and front line fighting in World War I drove soldiers into both insanity and brute savagery as they struggled to fight for their lives.

x- Constant shelling forced insanity among recruits who were inexperienced

x- Terror and frustration comes out in the form of striking at other creatures, such as rats

x- Ineffective tactics cause massive slaughters of entire lines of troops as they suffer beneath machine guns

x- Fear of death drives the soldiers into a fight for survival

x- Brutality causes soldiers to slaughter even those who try to surrender

x- They become men once the fighting subsides

Dada and Surrealism (pictures to come later)

Thesis: Both radical new looks at artwork, Dada and Surrealism made themselves very apparent during and following World War I and displayed a restlesness mainly in Europe and North America.


I. Dada

• Founded in Zurich in 1916 by a group of refugees from WWI
• Name is based on the nonsensical quality of the art
• Ironically held a no-nonsense artistic aim: to protest the madness of war without the use of artistic resaon and respect of the establishment
• Main strategy: to denounce and shock
• More serious purpose was to awaken imagination
• Jean Arp: Founder of Dada, and collagist, who believed that "everything that comes into being or is made by man is art"
• Kurt Schwitters: German collagist, created "merz" (a collage made up of a collection of non-art materials)
• Dada dissolved into anarchy in 1922

II. Surrealism

• Power of the unconscious
• Began as a literary movement in 1920's and 1930's
• Godfather of the movement: poet, Andre Breton
• Grew from Freudian free-association and dream analysis
• Experimenting with automatism (a form of creating without conscious control) to tap into "unconcious imagery"
• 2 forms: improvised art/total loss of conscious control (Miro), realistic techniques to present the hallucinatory (Dali)
• Miro - Surrealist who practiced total loss of conscious control to get the proper blurred imagery associated with this movement
• Ernst - both Dadaist and Surrealist
• Dali - realistic technique user to present the hallucinatory (paintings often disturbing)
• Magritee - Similar to Dali in how disturbing the art was --> often a result of his being terrified of many normal things on Earth

Giesl: Austrian Response to the Assassination

Thesis: Giesl's discussion of Austrian response to the assassination is a potentially justified verbal attack on the Serbian people, especially its revolutionaries, for their hostility and blatant disrespect of the Habsburg Monarchy. His ultimate conclusion is the inevitability of war between these two parties, which he believes should be begun as soon as possible.

I. "Relations between the Monarchy and Serbia"

• Poisened on the Serbian side by national chauvinism, animosity and an effective propaganda of Great-Serbian aspirations carried on in that part of Austrian territory where there is a Serbian population.
• Austrians, at least Giesl, view increased chauvinism as a paroxysm, the expression of which appears as insanity.
• Serbian policy is built up on the separation of Habsburg territories or former Habsburg territories inhabited by Southern Slavs

II. Serbian expectations

• The assassination of Francis Ferdinand aroused among the Serbians an expectation that in the immediate future the Habsburg States will fall to pieces
• Giesl sees it as "nationalist madness"
• Serbian's see Habsburg states as powerless
• Serbian newspapers are extreme in their insults of Habsburg states. Giesl states that Serbians have spent too long being educated by such propaganda as is found in their press.

III. Electoral campaign

• All parties on a platform of hostility to Austria-Hungary

IV. Giesl's conclusion

• War is inevitable (war for poistion of the Monarchy as a Great Power)
• Requests that no delay be made and that the war be done with to prove Austrian dominance

THE IDEALISTIC VIEW, Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson showed great prescience during his participation in the Paris Peace Conference, but was dismissed as an academic and idealist by Clemenceau, Orlando, and Lloyd George.

-Wilson's Fourteen Points espoused liberal views and wished to end the subjugation of peoples under autocracies and empires.

-Wilson did not want the reparations and punishments towards Germany to be too harsh, because he feared that reactionary movements would gain steam and end in another war.

-Wilson was forced to mediate between the powers of Europe and was forced to give up his Fourteen Points in order to establish a League of Nations.

-Wilson believes that we need to change the psychological mindset of the world in order to avoid another international catastrophe.

"London: 'Average Men and Women Were Delighted At The Prospect of War" by Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell's thoughts on the people's reaction to entering World War I:

• He did not believe that England would be foolish enough to plunge into war
• He wrote a paper at Cambridge about how England ought to stay neutral if war breaks out
• Amazed at how the average person was delighted at the thought of war
• Russel foresaw the horror of World War I before anyone else
• With the amount of people in support of the war, Russell became involved in Psychoanalysis and agreed that human nature is inherently aggressive
• He had not seen anybody love something as much as the people loved war
• He was disgusted at the propaganda of each nation and saw a "return to barbarism"
• These people called themselves "patriots" but they were actually barbarians
• The war was not fought between countries but between men who shared things in common

Sigmund Freud - A Legacy of Embitterment

Freud asserts that WWI had destroyed the idealism of European civilization present previously.

• War corrupted thought, making science biased towards weapons development, anthropology biased against the enemy’s culture, and psychiatry eager to diagnose the enemy as mentally decrepit
• Before the war, most had an idealistic view that conflict could be settled without war, but this idealism was destroyed after WWI
• Pre-war Europeans were unbiased against other countries and enjoyed a freedom of travel and thought that was destroyed though WWI
• Warfare before WWI was thought to be a chivalrous exercise without damage to civilians, a stance clearly overturned by the war

Perry: Scheidemann: Berlin: “The Hour We Yearned For”

Main Idea: Sheidemann notes the enthusiastic push for war among the people in Germany, however, he, himself, opposes the war from the very beginning.

Sheidemann says that the supporters of war, jingos, seem to be in a great majority but questions their clarity of mind.

Treitschke and Bernhardi were both war mongers – Bernhardi says, “the preservation of peace can and never shall be the aim of politics.”

Notes that the counter demonstrators organized by the Berlin Social Democrats were more orderly and disciplined than the war supporters

The Pan-German papers were saying, “It is the hour we yearned for – our friends know that.”
Other publications like The Post by von Summ also called for war.

Baron von Holstein was much like Bernhardi when he said at the first Peace Conference at the Hague: “For the State there is no higher aim than the preservation of its own interests; among which Great Powers these will not necessarily coincide with the maintenance of peace, but rather with the hostile policy of enemies and rivals.”

Erich Maria Remarque, "The Lost Generation"

• All of the WWI soldiers who have been injured rest in a hospital, classified by the places they've been wounded almost like broken toy soldiers or action figures shelved because they don't work properly anymore
• The whole building is filled with human waste and broken body parts - it's extremely gruesome.
• The soliders are essentially dehumanized
• There are hundereds of thousands of hospitals all over Germany, France, and Russia just like this one.
• The narrator is part of a lost generation because he is only twenty yet he knows "nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and the fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow" all because of the war - and his whole generation is experiencing the same thing.
• The narrator ponders what society could possibly want from them once the war is over because through they years the only thing they've known to do is kill - "our knowledge of life is limited to death." What will they do?

Wilfred Owen, "Disabled"

• Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) - british poet who volunteered for duty in 1915. Sustained shell shock at Battle of Somme and was sent to hospital in Britain. His powem Disabled portays the enduring misery of war
• First stanza depicts a wounded soldier, missing both legs and an arm, bound to a wheelchair as he listens to happy sounds of boys playing outside
• Second stanza describes how he would be out enjoying this particularly joyous time of year had he not "thrown away his knees."
• Third stanza explains how he only wanted to join because of the romantacism of war - he never imagined how bad it could be
• Fourth stanza ironically explains how although he appeared to be very heroic, women's eyes still pass "from him to the strong men that were whole."

The poem in general describes the irresponsible use of the romantacism of war and the ill effects they can have on people.

"The Lost Generation" Remarque

“The Lost Generation” Remarque

Thesis: In All Quiet on the Western Front, a wounded German soldier recounts his actions in the war, seeing himself as part of a lost generation.

• On the floor below him are the abdominal and spine cases
• On his right are the jaw wounds, gas cases, nose, ear and neck wounds
• On his left are the blind and lung wounds, pelvis wounds, and wounds in the joint
• 2 soldiers died from tetanus: skin turns pale, limbs stiffen
• Many have shattered limbs; some have a basin placed beneath their wounds to catch the pus
• These wounded people have faced and a life which struggles through the pain
• Hospitals alone show what war is
• He is young, yet only knows about despair, death, fear, and sorrow in life
• He is disillusioned; that much bloodshed was unnecessary
• Killing in the war was his generation’s first calling in life
• Therefore, their “knowledge of life is limited to death”

Georges Clemenceau: “French Demands for Security and Revenge”

Rob Edwards

Georges Clemenceau: “French Demands for Security and Revenge”

• France is really upset with Wilson's promised “new world,” because after being invaded by Germany in 1870 and 1914, France was completely in ruins

• France feels that the only way to get fair compensation and security is to cripple Germany

• Clemenceau argues that the Germans are entirely responsible for the events of 1914

• The war was entirely undertaken and instigated by the German people

• Germany's characteristic tendency to go to extremes showed itself here

• If the Germans had won the war, society would have relapsed into violence and bloodshed

• Europe should feel menaced by the “mad doctrine of universal Germanic supremacy over England, France, America, and every other country”

• Everyone, including Germany's most powerful aristocracy and smartest professors and thinkers of the time, bought into and supported the propaganda that the German people are superior to all men, and that the Kaiser is “the most eminent of living men”

• German officers were quoted as saying that they wanted to find a way of completely wiping out London, and that they would use it to save the life of even one German soldier

• Germany must be completely crippled if Europe wants to feel any sense of security whatsoever

"Genteel Women in the Factories" Loughnan

“Genteel Women in the Factories” Loughnan

Thesis: Working in a munitions plant, Loughnan had to work 12-hour shifts in London to aid the war effort.

• By sacrificing their ease by working, women gained a life worth living
• Women are learning lesions and aid the effect of Freedom
• Although they are tired, their minds are “expanding, their souls are growing stronger”
• The genteel women in the factories wear gloves
• Work is hard and they breathe in dust and their hands are filled with grease
• They learn the monotonous work in the factories is painfully boring
• Women get used to the noise of the place
• The 12-hour shift at night is tough: struggle with sleep; the foremen even sleep occasionally
• This work is a “wilting process” because it steals women’s youth and beauty
• Women can work, but to avoid criticism and contempt, they need not use their brains, but rather just work
• Women’s entry into this factory work has increased production of munition
• The men develop jealousy but behave kindly
• Women’s presence have an “educative effect” upon men
• Language is subdued
• The upper class are having their eyes opened to the awful conditions of factories
• “Foul language, immorality, and other evils are the natural outcome of overcrowding and bitter poverty”
• Work is good
• Live in safety, have shelter, have food, and are earning a lot of money

"The Greatness of War" by Heinrich von Treitschke

Treitschke's beliefs of war:

• War is the remedy for an afflicted people
• During a crisis, the individual must forget himself and recognize the good of the whole and the state
• Nationalities must make a sacrifice for their own land
• It is foolish to try to abolish the heroism that comes out of wars
• The Bible and God agree that " the man in authority shall wield the sword"
• Everlasting peace is a foolish thought because the Aryan race is brave
• War is a "terrible medicine for humanity" and everlasting peace is foolishly reactionary
• "To banish war from history would be to banish all progress and becoming"

Magda Trott - Opposition to Female Employment

Trott describes the difficulties that women faced when replacing men’s jobs during WWI.

• Women were employed in virtually every job imaginable to replace men
• However, when offered the chance to move to higher positions within a company, women often failed, mostly due to the uncooperativeness of male coworkers who opposed the infiltration of women into traditionally male jobs
• Working men faced the risk of women replacing them, as women were only paid half of men
• Women were sometimes unprepared for more demanding jobs, and Trott calls for increased awareness and education for women to counteract this deficiency

Magda Trott - Opposition to Female Employment

Trott describes the difficulties that women faced when replacing men’s jobs during WWI.

• Women were employed in virtually every job imaginable to replace men
• However, when offered the chance to move to higher positions within a company, women often failed, mostly due to the uncooperativeness of male coworkers who opposed the infiltration of women into traditionally male jobs
• Working men faced the risk of women replacing them, as women were only paid half of men
• Women were sometimes unprepared for more demanding jobs, and Trott calls for increased awareness and education for women to counteract this deficiency

Opposition to Female Employment

Magda Trott

Opposition to Female Employment

Thesis: Women in the workplace were ready to step up to the new positions provided for them by the men who left for the front but their success was hindered by their male colleagues who were afraid of competition with them in the workplace.

· In the second year of the war a German woman described the hostility faced by women in the work force.

· With men leaving the workplace to go to war women were urged not to waste the opportunities offered them by war and to continue their education so that they would be prepared to take on the position once held by a male colleague

· In the six months since the beginning of the war women began to enter into many fields where only men had been employed before

· All those who were certain that women would be completely successful were disappointed when many women resigned who were invited to step up to a higher position

· Enemies of women’s employment where delighted by this failure

· All women were ready to accept these new positions but it was evident even on the first day it was obvious that not everything would proceed as supposed.

· Women were seen as intruders who were taking the position of a colleague who was fighting on the front

· Women also received half the salary of the man filling the exact same position.

· Saving so much on salaries, it became feared that bosses would continue to draw on female personnel and a united male front was organized

· Women were helped in learning their new jobs and their appointed mentors let them fail on purpose

· If these women in the years before the war had learned their business and asks their colleagues question they would have been glad to answer.

· Magda Trott urges all women to use this time of war as a learning experience and keep their eyes open.