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Tools of Totalitarianism : state of exception, state of emergency

Tools of totalitarianism : state of exception, state of emergency

The origins of the state of exception or state of emergency can be traced back to the two American and French Revolutions. After the American Declaration of Independence, the Young American republic was to cope with Shays’s Rebellion of 1786 which was the trigger and the principal motive for elaborating of a constitution and provisions allowing the executive the instauration of the state of exception and the state of emergency. In France, a  » Revolutionary » Government had been set up by the Jacobin National Convention provided with exceptional measures of “public safety” to meet the needs of both war outside and chaotic situation inside especially  after the new situation provoked by General Dumouriez’s defection in March-April 1793 and by a next crisis of August-September giving way to serie of exceptional measures such as the decree of the levée en masse, the Law of Suspects, the control of food prices and the establishment of the armées révolutionnaires. such measures both extraordinary and exceptional were devised in order to deal with critical situations but their control contrary to the American constitution, remained strictly within the hands of the Assembly itself and did not, in themselves entail any strengthening of the executive at the expense of the legislature and these measures were perfectly compatible with the provision of the Constitution proclaimed by the new Jacobin majority in June 1793.

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European totalitarianism (2)

European totalitarianism (2) 

In the aftermath of the First World War, the main concern of the victorious powers was less the peace in itself that of how dealing with this new and dangerous threat which was the Bolshevism. Indeed, Versailles’s peace-settlement imposed by the major victors (USA, Britain, France, Italy) was dominated by  two main considerations  : First how the surviving dictatorial regimes in Europe and in the USA  would deal with  the new revolutionary regime in Russia and second how to avoid its spread and its contamination of West European countries, the old and new ones,  by an alternative revolutionary regime, that of Bolshevism.  In short, the main preoccupation of the Victor powers during Versailles negotiations was how making the world safe from Bolshevism  and how re-mapping Europe domestic politics either within the Victor countries as well within the new states in eastern Europe those which had been built on the overthrow of the Russian and Habsurg empires. The  priority for the Allied was  to thwart Bolchevism through direct intervention into Russian territory or by setting up a mercenary and proxy troops, the « Whites » in order to stamp out the new revolutionary Bolshevik regime. The second thing was to redraw the map of Europe by creating proxies regimes and proxies states around dedicated to isolate it behind a « quarantine belt » (cordon sanitaire), in the contemporary language of diplomacy) of  anti-communist states built both on the spoils of the formerly Russian lands and on those of Austro-Hungary empire. This « quarantaine belt » went from north to South : from Finland an autonomous region allowed by lenin to secede; three new little Baltic republics(Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania) proxies states created ex-nihilo having any historical precedent ; Poland restored to independent statehood after 120 years and an enormously enlarged Rumania in size doubled by accessions from the Hungarian and Austrian lands of the Habsburg empire and ex-Russian Bessarabia. The attempt to form proxies states into the Caucasus failed because of the support brought by an anti-communist but  revolutionary Turkey to revolutionary Bolshevik Russia. The attempt to create proxies states such as Armenian and Georgian proxies states setting up after Brest Litowosk and attempts under the British to detach oïl-rich Azerbaijan, had failed after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War of 1918-1920 and the Soviet-Turkish treaty of 1921;  Other proxies states had been created out of nothing like Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia combinations.

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European totalitarianism (1)

Bonapartism

European totalitarianism (1) 

 

 European totalitarianism can be traced back first to the « total war » waged by the French armies during the Revolution, to Bonaparte dictatorship and to his nineteenth century’s offshoot the Bonapartism embodied by Napoleon III and Bismarck and then to the First World War which played a key role in the passage from Bonapartism and dictatorship with strong executive and strong government to totalitarianism properly so called.    Indeed, after the outbreak of the First World War, western totalitarianism has been progressively set up step by step when European governments transformed their civil societies into militarized societies. Henceforth European governments played not only a role in the management and the direction of military operations but actively intervened in all domains of social and material, by controlling economic production, nationalizing factories determining production targets, allocating manpower and resources During the Fist World War, European governments arrogate to themselves the right of life and death on their own citizens by imposing conscription introduced to strengthen military forces. All civil liberties and the privileges of the habeas corpus had been put aside by implementing press censorship and imposing strict punishments in order to silence any dissident voice. In order to control public opinion and to mobilize the masses for war, European government waged a huge psychological war and made extensive use of propaganda inventing a new device and new techniques in the mental manipulation.

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Rise of Bonapartism (2)

Rise of Bonapartism (2)

Behind the The rise and the srenghtening of Bonapartism after the Napoleonic wars in europe lay major changes and  radical innovation and the major and determinant fact the emergence of the working-xclass as an indepdendent and self-concious force in politics in Britina and in France. urban discontent was universal in the West a proletarian and socialist movement was chiefly visible and palpable in the countries biritna and France  because of Jacobinism and babouvism France possessed the was more predisposed and rmorre ready for revolution  working class or urban revolution and socialism appeared very real dangers in Western Europe. Radical democracy had made major advances both in the USA Under President Andrew Jackson(1829-37) as in Europe where the European revolution rehained its momentum. For the mass of the common people the problem pushed them inevitably towards social revolution.  their hatred of the rich and the greta gave their desperation eyes and a purpsoe were concious of taht purpose.  the greta awakening provoked by the jacobin model had taught them that common men. this was the « spectre of communism » which haunted Europe the fear of « teh proletariat » which affected not merely with the revolution which broke out in the firts months of 1848 was not a social revoltuion merely that it involved and mobilized all social classes. it was the rising of the labouring poor.

In 1848, Revolution triumphed In France and the republic was proclamied on 24 February. during the firts months of the springtilme of people all governements were swept away or reduced to impotence. In France where the revolution succeded rapidly  in France the firts Landmark of conservative revival was the lecetion of April in which universal suffarge teh second Landmark was the isolation and defeta of the revolutionary workers in paris defeated in the June insurrection where the urban plebeians or more the enw proletarians came within the ardius of jacobin, socialist or democratic republcan idleogy they became a political force at least as rioters.

As Thermidorean reaction during the French revolution and its subsequent napoloenic miliatry dictatorship which had destroyed the Jacobin Revolution and its ideals, the dream of equality liberty and fraternity, Louis Napoleon coup d’état of dcemeber 1851 played the same role than that of his illustrous uncle by destroying the dream of popualr democracy and the people rising to shake off oppression after 1848 Revolution in franxce and in Europe too. The revolution of 1848 in France was not merely a brief historical episode without consequence. it was, like the jacobinism, the achievment of real popualr democracy with large popualr political participation by contrast with the cosntitutional monarchy where barriers and institutional hurdles had been erceted based on property or educational quallifications for the voters and where there wasthere was only 168 000 voters. the Jacobin experience servend as set of models and patetrs for popualr upheavals during the post-napoleonic period in europe and over the world.

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Rise of Bonapartism (1)

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Rise of Bonapartism (1)

After the collapse of the democratic Republic of the Year II created with the aid of the sans-culottes, succeeded the property-owners’ republic of Thermidor and the Directory, giving way to Bonaparte and his military dictatorship. With the accession of Robespierre and the Jacobins to power, the French Revolution took  a new pace, that of popular democracy and the achievement in concreto of what really means the concept of  popular sovereignty. In this respect, the Jacobin Declaration and Constitution of 1793 marked a turning-point not only in French political history but in that of the world. Here for the First time in history a nation was provided (on paper at least) with a system of government under which all male citizens had the right to vote and a huge measure of control over its representatives and rulers. But following Thermidor reaction, after the fall of Robespierre, Jacobinism and popular Jacobinism died in 1797 when Augereau dispersed the Jacobin mob  Two year later, Bonaparte  ordered his grenadiers to disperse the Five Hundred in 1799 and with it, the first democratic and popular democracy was over and a new began in the history of France, that of Bonaparte dictatorship and the rise of a new form of modern dictatorship, the Bonapartism.

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American totalitarianism (2)

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American totalitarianism (2)

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In the Postwar years, the United States became literally has bees benne firmly established. As in totalitarian Europe, the United States witnessed in the aftermath of the war and during interwar years witnessed the same phenomenon as in Italy and Germany. The slogan « American way of life » was not so different from European racism. during the interwar years, the executive remains dictatorial as during as that during the war enjoyed by Wilson. With Herbert Hoover who came to the presidency in 1929 the executive had been strengthened and became more efficient. Nationalism and chauvinism which had been planted during the war sprouted in terrifying form. Like in Europe, these nationalism and chauvinism had been expressed by widespread hostility to foreigners and to foreign ideas as Well against the political opponents Inside the United States. The American racism and the hunt against all not America, against foreigners and foreign ideas were the same as that which were at the same time widespread in Europe. Aliens suspected of radical ideas and radical notions were rounded up and deported by the scores ; legislatures were « purged » of socialists and states tried to enforce loyalty to political and economic institutions by repressive legislations. like the European racist and chauvinist movements, there was their equivalent in the USA with the Ku Klux Klan which boasted a membership of millions dedicated itself to that notion of Aryan supremacy which European dictators were to take up a decade later in two notorious cases that of Mooney and Billins in California and of Sacco and Vanzetti in Massachusetts in both cases the victims were punished more for their radicalism than for any crimes proved against them.

in the aftermath of the Second World War campaign for loyalty, conformity and hundred-per-cent Americanism reappeared in more virulent as it was the case the first World. Though the Communist party in the United States had at most seventy-five thousand members a number steadily diminishing a clamor arose for outlawing it and for a recklessly indiscriminate investigation of alleged disloyalty especially in the government, the press and the amusement Industry. The movement threatened basic civil rights and the Eugene Dennis secretary of the Communist party had been convicted and sentenced  in order to eradicate any disloyal and specially Communist activities two Committees had been set up : the House Committee on Un-American activities  in the Eightieth Congress and President Truman’s special Civil Rights Committee both of which reported in 1947. In the fall of 1946, Truman issued an executive order creating the President’s temporary commission on Employee Loyalty the following an elaborate machinery was created.  The Civil Service Commission established regional loyalty or subversive were giving hearings before a loyalty board with counsel

Just after Truman’s election for second tenure in 1949 Eleven Communist leaders, the « Politburo » of the party were brought to trial in 1949 on the charge of violing the Smith Act of 1940 which made conspiracy to « advocate and teach » the violent overthrow of the government a crime the jury found all eleven defendants guilty and ultimately they went to jail  Alger Hiss head of the Carnegie Endowment for international Peace went on trial he was charged with perjury. After one jury disagreed another found Hiss guilty and sentenced to five years jail. The government deported a number of aliens charged with Communist activities

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American totalitarianism (1)

American totalitarianism (1)

Making a pretext of sinking of eight American vessels and of revealing of a « plot » to involve the United States in a war with Mexico and Japan, President Wilson appeared on April 2 1917 before the Congress and asked for a declaration of a state of war and on friday April 6, 1917, the United States went to war. Wilson’s slogan « force, force to the uttermost, force without stint or limit » was a declaration for a « total war and marked the passage from American dictatorship to American totalitarianism. At this juncture, the austere and stern scholar turned, under the circumstances of the war, into one of the greatest of war Presidents controlling every aspect of the war effort maintaining morale at home and abroad, mobilizing the nation for war and fight. The government became dictator over industry labor and agriculture ; it took over the railroads and the telegraph lines, farm production was increased  by one fourth and fuel and coal production was raised by two fifths, a colossal shipbuilding program, with more than three million tons in a single year was launched  Conscription had been voted putting Under arms some twenty-five million men; Wilson made use of propaganda at home and abroad. From the beginning of the war Wilson waged a wide and aggressive psychological warfare against Germany; He tried to sow dissension in Germany by insisting that the United States was not fighting against the German people but against his tyrannous and autocratic government. The hunt against dissent and “disloyalty” had been implemented and the First World revealed a constant continuity and a logical development between Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s and the Sedition and espionage Acts of Wilson’s presidency during the first World War or lately the Smith Act of 1940.

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Rise of American dictatorship (2)

Rise of American dictatorship (2)

American dictatorship entred a new phase at the beginning of the ninettenth century with the netry to the White House of Andrew Lackson in 1828 jackson’s inauguarated a new eraa in American dictatorship . Jackson had been described according to Justice Story as the « king of Mob » because of his populism and his appeal to the people as he had always  one of them. Once in popwer, Jackson vigorously carrieed his main ideas into practice ; Under his presidency he strenthened the power of the executive by opposing his « Maysville veto » disapproving voting money by Congress for olocal roads an d canals from Maysville to Lexington into  Kentucky. He opposed South carolina when it attempted to nullify the protective tariff of 1828; in 1832, Jackson strenly vetooed a bill for recharter of the second bank of the United States

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Rise of American dictotatorship (1)

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Rise of American dictatorship (1)

The genesis of American dictatorship began with Sahys’s Rebellion (1786-1787) in massachusetts. A series of popular uprisings  at Northampton and Worcester. At Springfield, the leader of popualr uprising was daniel Shays an former captain in  the Continental army. To end the rebellion an army of four thousand four hundred men was raised and put Under the command of general Lincoln supported by troops funded by voluntary loans from wealthy citizens iof Boston and othe towns. thanks to the governor james Bowdoin the insurrection was at lenght suppressed but Shays’s Rebellion had a far-reaching political conséquences. the rebellion by disclosing the danger strengthen the hands of the conservatives who were seeking for a strong power able to prevent further popualr uprisings. the ultimate  and the most ultimate conséquences of Shays’s rebellion was the laying down the foundations of American dictatorship with the establsihment of political institutions and the creation of a strong governemetn and a striong executive capable of insuring domestic tranquility » and the proetction of the property. shays’s rebellion was the pretext for Wahington for underlying the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation  and for  claiming  a corecive power and a new political reorganization.. Experience of Shays’s rebellion taught the necessity of bestowing on some central authority the power to prevent more disorders and social and popualr uprisnings.  A partir fo these cosndierations emegede the necessity of building an imperial organization  Virginia Plan recommended that a national executive was to be estabslished consisting of a supreme legisaltive, Executive and judiciary. the establishment of the United States was the making and the outcome of a coup d’étata fomented by the federalists as the supporters of the Cosntitution called themselves. in pennsylvania state convention whicj met Novemver 21, 1787. On September 17, 1787, The new constitution of the United states had been definitely ratiifed

The firts chapter of American dictatorship has been inaugurated by the repression of the « Whiskey rebellion. On the 6th of April 1789, the first Congress elected george Washingtion as President and Adams as Vice-President. five years after Washington took office, broke out the whiskey rebellion, an insurrection of inhabitants of western Pennsylavania  and Virginia agaiants Hamilton’s excise tax of march 3, 1791.  On Hamilton’s recomemndation, washington orderd out the militia in order to suppress the rebellion . Wasghington in his address to Congress justified the repression of the rebellion by the « subversive » proceedings and the « spriti of opposition » to the « just authority of governement and the rights of individuals » Washington qualified acts committed by the insurgents as acts of treason « being overt acts of levying was against the United States »

the second chapter of American dictatorship was the two infamous Alien and SEDITION ACTS of 1798 aseries of four Laws directed against foreigners suspexcted for dissent and disloyalty.

 

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Ideological roots of western totalitarianism

Ideological roots of western totalitarianism

 The natural law is a guide-post and lumber-room which points in different directions and permits a convenient diversity of arguments.  The theory of eighteenth-century jurists of the natural law Scholl justified conquest as a right incident to war. The failure of the natural philosophy in general and the natural right philosophy in particular to provide definite and restrictive answers makes the right of security preeminently serviceable in the justification of both imperialism outside and totalitarianism inside. Though the natural right to liberty did not lend itself to territorial expansion and to enslavement of their peoples, it could be used in the same time as ideological weapon for expansionism and imperialism through a corollary natural right to « safety » or security. The concept of security is logically flexible yo a degree permitting much more sweeping political implications.  in virtue of the natural doctrine and the natural right to security and self preservation, the law of nations has been deduced from natural law and this apparent assumptions was the ideological fundament allowing both the infant United States to annex adjacent territories and the European powers to colonize and to enslave other people Inside and outside continent. The natural right of security and self preservation lead to override the right of self-determination and here for the first time the idea that « our rights » must not be destroyed leads to the destruction of that cornerstone of the natural right philosophy the universal right to political liberty. This imperialistic idea had become synonymous of another idea that of subordination of the political liberty of citizens to the general welfare of the larger geographical unity. Imperialism imperatives were the impetus for domestic totalitarian system under the pretext that the governed, for their internal and external security must to consent to government whether for better or for worse.

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