sept 21-29

One of the things that I find interesting about this course is reading about connections or building blocks to the National Socialist and the Nazi Germany. In David Blackbourn's "peasants and Politics In Germany" Blackbourn cites the peasant class' politics helped fuel the National Socialist Party and the Nazi's. The economic and social changes taking place in Germany seem to me to be a major reason the peasant class could get behind the National Socialist and Nazi's. Blackbourn wrote about the distrust the rural peasant class had fro the social changes taking place in the city. He stated the city was seen as a non-community and alienated the rural class with "latin names and complicated chemical formulae". The distance between rural and urban created a rural political alignment. When the national socialist were coming to power with a glorified image of these rural "salt of the earth" people as being distinctly "german" that it would seem to appeal to the peasant class. I find it interesting that distrust of modernization is a root in the foundation of a, despite being backward and socially archaic, a very modern government: the Nazi national socialists.

sept. 7-13

As I sit here looking over my notes from friday's discussion about the Erfurt Program, it seems to interesting to me that Reformist and revolutionaries in the program were essentially polar opposites. Reformists, the southern wing and labor unions were working to better working conditions, like an eight hour work day and better wages. Revolutionaries on the other hand were obviously working to overthrow the current economic system and create a utopian socialist society. The labor unions had the most invested in the current economic structure. Consider this, If the goal of the union is to work towards bettering working conditions while also voicing the grievences of its members, a total overthrow of the economic system would put them out of a job. For that reason, they had a fundamental difference with radicals within the program. Throughout the 1890s labor unions became increasingly centralised in order to achieve more, become stronger, etc. as a result they made several contracts with employers and employer associations'. The unions had contractual obligations to capitalism and did not want to see an overthrow. In the 1896 Leipzig Trade-Union congress voted in favor of the contracts with employers. Differences like these between the two branches created a rift within the social Democrats that split the party down the middle.