Friday, April 3rd

We began today by discussing handout #11 and the dictatorships that will become the Axis powers and the enemies of the U.S. in WWII. You should be able to see similarities reading across the rows.

We also discussed the political ideologies that these dictatorships believed in and where they would be placed on a political spectrum line. You should draw a horizontal line on the back of handout #11. The center point on this line should be labeled "Neutral". Very close to the neutral point are the American political parties-the Republicans are on the right side of neutral and the Democrats are on the left side on neutral. Republicans are referred to as Conservatives and the Democrats are called Liberals. Republicans generally believe in: more national security, national collective values and less taxes. Democrats generally believe in: individual rights, personal freedom and more government services.

At the far, far right end of the spectrum line are the Fascists (Italy) and Nazis (Germany). It is as if you could take our Republican party beliefs of security and collective values to the highest degree. Fascists believe that the nation is all-important and there should be no individual differences. This usually leads to racism and discrimination because no individual differences are tolerated.

At the far, far left end of the spectrum line are the Communists (USSR). Imagine taking our Democratic party beliefs of individual rights and more government services to the utmost degree so that all people are exactly equal (there are no social classes) and the government provides for everyone because all the wealth is controlled by the government and distributed equally among all the people in society.

As you can see, fascism and communism are at different ends of the spectrum and people of these two beliefs do not see eye to eye. Hitler and Mussolini disliked the Communists intensely. Germany will eventually attack the USSR and that will cause the USSR to become on of the Allies in WWII.