In this week of the course, you will be studying the development of authoritarian
political regimes that occurred in much of the Western world after World War One.  In
many countries of Europe in the 1920s, especially in the defeated countries, there
developed a widespread perception that liberal political regimes were incapable of
solving the fundamental social and economic problems of the day, such as
unemployment, inflation and political gridlock.  Political parties would argue, form new
coalitions, hold new elections and argue again, with little real concrete action taking
place.  Increasingly citizens began to believe that a single leader, embodying the will of
the nation, was necessary to get a nation moving and break through party politics.

The first semi-coherent authoritarian political ideology to develop was in Italy, where
the leader of the fascist movement was Benito Mussolini, a former socialist, who in the
early 1920s increasingly used authoritarian political tactics and violence against the
working-class in an effort to restore order in Italy and recreate the glory that had been
Rome.  Eventually Mussolini legally formed a government, and that government then
became the basis for his creation of a fascist dictatorship.  

Adolf Hitler in Germany was one of the many veterans dissatisfied at the outcome of
the war (Hitler felt that somebody other than Germany had to be blamed for Germany's
loss.) and at the inability of the government to deal with the after-effects of the war,
such as the skyrocketing inflation which destroyed the savings of the middle class. 
Hitler attempted a revolt against the government, the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, and
was imprisoned for a short time in relatively comfortable circumstances while he
dictated his autobiography, Mein Kampf.  Hitler studied the tactics of Mussolini and
worked to create a party of national socialists.  When the Great Depression hit
Germany in the early 1930s, Hitler was on the scene with a political and social program
that promised to get Germany out of the depression.  In 1933 Hitler legally formed a
government, and that government then became the basis for his creation of the nazi
dictatorship.

Italy and Germany were not the only countries that experienced a turn to authoritarian
politics in the 1920s and 1930s.  Most of the countries of Eastern Europe turned to
strong political leaders in one form or another as the liberal regimes established after
the war proved unable to provide solutions to pressing issues, such as land
re-distribution.