How successful was Bismarck in his attempts to control the political parties in Germany in the years 1871-90? • Bismarck’s attempts to control political parties from 1871-90 was moderately successful since he often did manage to pass legislature on his own terms by securing an alliance with the National Liberals with the 1871 Kulturkampf and the Conservative with the 1879 Tariff Reforms. Though his repressive policies of Kulturkampf and the 1878 Anti-Socialist laws actually strengthened the political parties of Catholic Centre Party and the SPD, I believe that Bismarck did successfully maintain control by forming new alliances as a result you would serve to distinguish any burgeoning threats. Yes, Bismarck was successful during his liberal era of 1871-78 • Bismarck was initially successful in his alliance with the National Liberals since he capitalised upon the nationalist elements of their party. • This meant they often backed his proposals – e.g.
Tom Andrews ‘The political establishment in Germany succeeded in maintaining the political status quo through a policy of moderate reform.’ How far do you agree with this judgement? The political establishment in Germany succeeded in maintaining the political status quo through a series of moderate reform to a … extent however there were other factors which allowed the political establishment to be maintained, such as the safeguards within the constitution, the voting system and the adventurous foreign policy. In order to answer this question, one must understand that the ‘political establishment’ during this period was the overruling power of the Kaiser and the individual power of the Chancellor and the Army who were directly responsible to the Kaiser, with all major powerbases dominated by Prussians and the wealthier classes and also the hierarchy within Germany with workers at the bottom and the Junkers, Army, Chancellor and Kaiser above them. Therefore ‘maintaining the political status quo’ suggests that the current political establishment did not differ substantially from the system formed during the unification of Germany in 1871 and any ‘moderate reform’ should not unbalance this. This is supported because during this period there were limited reforms which had any dramatic change on the political establishment.
Despite these threats ultimate power remained in the hands of the Kaiser in 1914. Some would argue that this retention of power was a result of the moderate reform put in place in order to placate the parties in the government enough that they would not challenge the status quo. It cannot be denied that a small amount of moderate reform played a small role, there is evidence to suggest that other factors played a larger, more important role. The sense of nationalism and patriotism that gripped the country at the time as well as the disunity of the political parties meant that there was never any real threat to the Kaiser and his autocratic rule. Moderate reform played a small part in keeping power in the hands of the Kaiser but its limited scope together with the lack of any real success show that it may have been other factors that kept power in the hands of the Kaiser.
By convincing Hindenburg that there was a large communist threat the country was put into a state of emergency and, with Hindenburg’s backing, Hitler was allowed to pass decrees to govern Germany anyway he liked, with the financial backing of krupp and bosch etc, which in this case is fortunate for the question at hand. Consequently this is why I believe it was the most important event to dictatorship because it was the “spark” that allowed any other event to happen and without it democracy may have just struggled on. One of these events was the election in 1933. Now Hitler had the power to convince Hindenburg to allow him
Stalin expected agricultural yield to increase due to a higher efficiency, mechanisation and a greater work incentive, he also believed that mechanisation would decrease the need for farm labour, increasing the number of proletariats in the city. Collectivisation was both a success and failure. Collectivisation was a success because it achieved one of its initial aims, state procurement for grain increased from 11 million tonnes in 1928 to 23 million tonnes in 1933, because of this proletariats could be fed and supplied with grain. This was vital for communism to succeed as the proletariats were needed for the factories and industrialisation. The increase in state procurement also meant that exports of grain increased.
How far does Alexander II deserve the Title “Tsar Liberator”? Prior to the reign of Alexander II, his father, Nicholas I ruled Russia under repressive and old fashioned policies. Alexander felt there was a lot of change needed to help boost the Russian economy. Russia’s economy was largely based around agriculture which was seen as backward for the time. One of Alexander’s reforms was to boom industries to start competing with the west who had more developed technology and whose economies were much more stable.
Therefore Liberals wanted constitutional reform and more power to be given to the Reichstag. Whereas socialists demanded social reform and power to the workers and trade unions. However conservatives, such as Bismarck wanted to conserve to the Junkers – the elite class. To do this he proposed the Anti-Socialist Law in 1879 and also passed the Tariff Law, which appeased the liberals. The years leading up to the war the German people were dreading it, there were protests in Berlin in July 1914.
An economic crisis was happening in agriculture and Industry. The Nazi’s under Hitler’s guidance began to claim support from an unlikely source in 1927. The farmers. The SPD has scrapped the policy of protection that had banned the cheap imports of foreign food. While this policy had stood the German farmers were gaining a profit and making a decent living for they were able to sell their produce as it was the best and most locally available to the people.
Whilst the danger of any organised political opposition to the Nazis had been successfully crushed by the enabling act and subsequent legislation, there was still the chance that a populist uprising of the people could take down the regime if it had enough support. Josef Goebbels’ effective use of propaganda ensured this was not possible. By
Hindenburg couldn't oppose against the public's choice otherwise he would be going against the democratic ‘Weimar republic’ regulation of including the people’s views. Overall, Hitler’s popularity with the nation was one of the main reasons why he was appointed as chancellor. He promised things to a variation of people that not many other politicians had offered. Secondly, because of the propaganda that was responsible for the change of peoples view's of the