Social 30-1 · Communism, fascism, Cold War
The ideologies that rejected liberalism
Related Issues 2 and 3 keep coming back to the 20th century: the regimes that threw liberalism out completely, and the Cold War that followed. This unit gives you the history behind those examples.
Soviet communism
The idea: the Soviet Union claimed to put Marx's ideas into practice — collective ownership and economic equality — but did it through one-party rule and force.
- 1917: Lenin's Bolsheviks seize power in the Russian Revolution.
- From the mid-1920s: Stalin takes control after Lenin's death in 1924.
- Five-Year Plans (from 1928): the state sets production targets to industrialize fast. Heavy industry grew rapidly, at enormous human cost.
- Collectivization: private farms are abolished and peasants forced onto state collective farms. The disruption contributed to devastating famines, including the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–33.
- Terror: purges, show trials and forced-labour camps (the Gulag) eliminated opposition.
Why it rejects liberalism
A command economy replaces the market with state planning, so there is no economic freedom or private ownership of industry. One-party rule removes free elections, and censorship removes free expression.
Fascism
The idea: fascism puts the nation above everything — above individual rights, above democracy — and gathers all power in one leader who claims to embody it.
Mussolini brought fascism to power in Italy in 1922. Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 and quickly dismantled its democracy.
Common features
- Ultranationalism and glorification of the nation's past
- A single all-powerful leader and one legal party
- Militarism and expansion by force
- Anti-communism and rejection of liberal democracy
- Scapegoating — blaming a group for the nation's problems
Why people supported it
In Germany, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles, hyperinflation in 1923 and mass unemployment in the Depression made democracy look like it had failed. Promises of strength, order and national pride were appealing. Scapegoating turned that anger on Jewish people and other groups, leading to persecution and the genocide of the Holocaust.
Watch out: fascism and communism are opposites on the economic spectrum and hated each other. Do not describe fascism as a kind of communism — but do notice how similar their methods were.
Totalitarianism
The idea: totalitarianism describes how a regime rules, not what it believes. The state tries to control every part of life — politics, economy, media, schools, even private thoughts.
| Method | Nazi Germany | Stalin's USSR |
|---|---|---|
| One party, one leader | Nazi Party, Hitler | Communist Party, Stalin |
| Secret police and terror | Gestapo, concentration camps | NKVD, the Gulag, purges |
| Propaganda and censorship | State-controlled press, film and radio | State-controlled press, cult of Stalin |
| Control of the economy | Private business directed by the state | Full state ownership and planning |
| Control of young people | Hitler Youth | Komsomol |
This is why the two regimes are grouped together despite being bitter enemies: far right and far left arrived at strikingly similar tools of control. Liberal democracy is defined against exactly those tools.
The Cold War
The idea: after 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for global influence for over forty years without ever fighting each other directly.
| Term | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Containment | Stop communism spreading to new countries | Marshall Plan aid to Western Europe |
| Collective security | An attack on one ally is an attack on all | NATO (1949), with Canada a founding member; the Warsaw Pact (1955) in reply |
| Deterrence / MAD | Neither side attacks, because both would be destroyed | The nuclear arms race |
| Brinkmanship | Push a crisis to the edge of war to force a retreat | Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) |
| Proxy war | Superpowers back opposing sides elsewhere | Korea, Vietnam, Soviet war in Afghanistan |
| Détente | An easing of tensions through agreements | Arms limitation talks in the 1970s |
How it ended
In the late 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Communist governments across Eastern Europe fell, the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
Canada's role
Canada was a founding member of NATO, partnered with the United States in continental air defence through NORAD, and became known for United Nations peacekeeping.
Watch out: mixing up brinkmanship and détente. Brinkmanship raises tension on purpose; détente lowers it.