Treaty of Versailles & Rise of Totalitarianism

The Treaty of Versailles and the Rise of Totalitarianism

The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty at the end of World War I. It officially ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied countries. It was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the First World War. Although the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, to stop the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude a peace treaty. The Treaty entered into force on January 10, 1920.

Of the many provisions of the treaty, one of the most important and controversial required that Germany and its allies accept full responsibility for causing the war and, under the terms of articles 231-248, disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the victors. The Treaty was undermined by subsequent events as early as 1922 and was widely violated in the 1930s with the rise to power of Nazism.

The Rise of Totalitarian Ideologies

Totalitarianism refers to political movements and regimes where freedom is severely restricted and the state exercises all power without divisions or restrictions (much more intensely and extensively than the theoretical absolute power of the monarchies of the Old Regime). Totalitarian regimes differ from other autocratic regimes by being led by a political party that purports to be, or behaves in practice as, a single party and is fused with state institutions.

These regimes typically exalt the figure of a character who has unlimited power that reaches all areas and is manifested through the authority exercised hierarchically. They drive a movement of masses in which they presume to encompass the entire society (for the purpose of forming a new man in a perfect society), and make heavy use of propaganda and different mechanisms of social control and repression, such as secret police or concentration camps.

The Emergence of Fascism in Italy

Fascism in Italy (which originated the term Fascist Italy) was a political movement of the 20th century that arose in the Kingdom of Italy at the end of WWI. It was born partly in reaction to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and strong fighting union workers and laborers, which culminated in the Biennio Rosso, and partly as a discussion about the liberal-democratic society left battered by the experience of the First World War. The name derives from the Italian word fascio (Latin: fasces). The word, in ancient Rome, was used to symbolize the union of the wrestlers. The fascist symbol is the Roman Fasces, which represented the regime's power, including judicial power.