The Rise of Extreme Ideologies: Communism, Fascism and Nazism

Why this lesson matters

The revised Grade 10 history course asks you to study extreme political and social ideologies because they led directly to the Second World War, the Holodomor and the Holocaust, which you will study in the next lessons. This lesson gives you the tools to understand how ordinary societies came to accept extreme ideas, and to recognize the warning signs today.

Some of this material is upsetting. Take breaks if you need them, and talk with a parent or trusted adult about anything that bothers you.

Ideologies and the political spectrum

An ideology is a set of beliefs about how society should work. Last lesson you placed Canadian parties on the political spectrum. Most were democratic: they competed in elections and accepted the result.

Extreme ideologies go further. They usually:

• reject democracy and equal rights for all people;
• demand total loyalty to a party, leader, class or nation;
• blame a group of people for society's problems;
• accept or celebrate violence to achieve their goals.

When such an ideology controls a government, the result is often totalitarianism: a state that tries to control every part of life through one party, a leader cult, propaganda, censorship, secret police and terror.

Three extreme regimes

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Communist Party ruled the Soviet Union (USSR). By the late 1920s Stalin held total power. His Five-Year Plans forced rapid industrialization, and collectivization forced peasants onto state-run collective farms. Millions of people labelled "enemies" were sent to labour camps (the Gulag) or executed, especially during the Great Terror of 1936 to 1938. Stalin's policies also caused the Holodomor in Ukraine (next lesson).

Italy under Benito Mussolini. Mussolini's Fascist party took power in 1922. Fascism glorified the nation, the leader and war, and crushed communists, unions and free newspapers. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935.

Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler's Nazi party used the Depression, anger at the Treaty of Versailles, and fear of communism to win support. He became chancellor in January 1933 and quickly made Germany a one-party dictatorship. Nazism added racism to fascism: it claimed Germans were a superior "Aryan race" and blamed Jewish people for Germany's problems. The Nuremberg Laws (1935) stripped German Jews of citizenship rights.

Why did extreme ideas attract people in the 1930s?

• Economic despair. Mass unemployment made democracy look like a failure. Extremists promised jobs, order and national pride.
• Fear. Many business owners and middle-class people feared a communist revolution and saw fascism as protection. Some workers saw communism as protection from fascism and poverty.
• Resentment. In Germany, many people felt humiliated by defeat in 1918 and the Treaty of Versailles.
• Scapegoats. Blaming a minority offered a simple, false explanation for complicated problems.
• Propaganda. New mass media (radio, film, rallies) spread simple messages to millions.

Extreme ideologies in Canada

Canada stayed a democracy, but extreme ideas had supporters here too.

• Communism. The Communist Party of Canada was small but active among the unemployed and in unions. Governments responded with a Red Scare: Section 98, the 1931 arrests of party leaders, and Quebec's Padlock Act (1937).
• Fascism and Nazism. In Quebec, Adrien Arcand led a fascist party (the National Social Christian Party, founded in 1934) that published antisemitic propaganda; in 1940 he was interned for the rest of the war. Small pro-Nazi and fascist groups also appeared in other cities, including Toronto and Winnipeg.
• Swastika Clubs and Christie Pits. In August 1933 in Toronto, young men calling themselves "Swastika Clubs" displayed swastikas at the eastern beaches to intimidate Jewish residents. On August 16, 1933, after a baseball game at Christie Pits involving a mostly Jewish team, members of an antisemitic gang unfurled a swastika banner. Fighting broke out between Jewish youths, joined by Italian Canadians and others, and the gang and its supporters. The Toronto Daily Star reported a crowd of more than 10,000. No one was killed. Afterwards, Toronto's mayor promised to prosecute future swastika displays.

Many Canadians opposed these groups: Jewish community organizations, unions, churches, newspapers and ordinary people who stood with their neighbours. But antisemitism was also widespread in mainstream Canada, as you will see in Lesson 7.