A Radical Change

During the inter-war years, Europeans in Germany and Italy supported radical ideologies because these ideas made the future for their nations look more prosperous and powerful. Although the people wanted peace, they were told that in order to gain their rightful place as leaders in the world they had to use imperialism to get there. Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, and the Spartacists’ sold the idea of collectivism in order gain popularity with their people. While the Spartacists’ wanted peace with no violence and collectivism for all, Hitler and Mussolini wanted only collectivism within their nation and thought violence was necessary to achieve their goals. For Germany, Hitler thought it would be in their best interest to make the Germanic people the superior race while the Spartacist believed equality for all would work in favour for Germany. Mussolini believed Italy would reign supreme as long as they followed a Fascism lifestyle and brought themselves back to being a nation of power. The ideologies at this time worked in the favour of those who sold them because the people of Germany and Italy were looking for change and the people were also afraid of the consequences if they decided to rebel against these new ideas. For those that opposed war and wanted equality they had the Spartacists and there communist ideas. For those who wanted to be in a more powerful nation and become a part of the state as a whole they followed the ideas of Hitler’s Socialist party or Mussolini’s Fascist party.
One of the main ideas for these parties was collectivism. This was a main focal point in all of the sources written by these new radical groups. They wanted to make the people feel united by taking away their individualism, they would become a nation or at least that is what they wanted the people to believe. Mussolini went as far as saying that “this will be the century of collectivism”1 addressing that individualism was now a part of the past. Hitler also agreed that...