Why were some countries (USA, UK, France, etc.) left unaffected by ideological struggles (i.e. communism, fascism, authoritarianism, etc.) during the Interwar Years as opposed to the ones in Germany, Russia, Japan, etc?

by bballconnor
Galhaar

To some minor extent, all of those countries experienced some degree of ideological struggle. You had the blackshirts (the British Union of Fascists) in England, the CPUSA and fascist groups in the US and yet again communists in France. The simple explanation for why we don't recall these as overly noteworthy, is because they weren't successful. The explanation for why they weren't successful is equally simple: most countries overtaken by extreme ideologies in post-WW1 Europe came out as losers or as underdogs in the colonial race (Italy and Japan). I'll do a bit to explain the countries that I understand, and leave the ones I don't with a couple comments that can hopefully be expanded on and better explained by contributors with more thorough knowledge.

Russia and the USSR. While the central powers got bogged down and fought a static trench-war in the west, the eastern front was very much not static, and Russia looked to be losing. Alongside this, the economy was stagnating and Russia already had several failed revolutions under its belt. A disillusionment with the tsarist system spread since the war was being effectively being lost, so support for alternative systems to the autocracy was high. Alongside this, absolutely horrible work conditions and a lack of lower class political influence had made various socialist factions rather popular. The February revolution came, and a provisional government was established, though this did extremely little to fix the issues that made radicalism so thoroughly prevalent in Russian politics. The provisional government was unable to reconcile the multitude of ideologies vying for power. Militarist nationalism was still the primary ideal of the military leadership, there were intellectuals favoring a system of market capitalism, social democrats, variously aligned republicans, a multitude of socialist factions ranging from moderate socialists to the hard-line Bolsheviks, none of whom were able to gain primacy. Meanwhile, larger towns and cities saw the establishment of workers' councils (soviets) as a form of governance, which shared power with the local government organization. When October came, the Bolsheviks campaigned with the slogan "all power to the soviets", demanding the dissolution of the government as a means of transferring power to the workers. The successful dissolution of the provisional government in major cities was branded the Great October Socialist Revolution, in response to which the Civil War began. I could go on about the logistics of how the Bolsheviks actually won, but all things considered, all of this simply boils down to massive instability, a war in the process of being lost, and instability in the institutions of power made Russia vulnerable to radicalism, which the Bolsheviks could exploit to seize power.

Germany. It is often ignored when considering the nazis' rise to power that they didn't actually gain prominence until the great depression. Of course, the chaos caused by mass reorganization (as in, the government transition over to democracy) and the economic exploitation of the Versailles Treaty inspired the formation of various radical groups, both socialist and ultranationalist. These both had their own attempts at grabbing power in the late 10s and early 20s (Bavarian soviet republic, beer hall puttsch), when they experienced limited popularity, but nothing came of these. By 1923, the German economy was able to recover from the Versailles reparations, replayed by taking up American loans. On the back of these loans, the German economy stabilized, and a golden age began which saw most extremist groups, left and right, experience a massive drop in popularity. Simply put, there was no reason for them to exist, since life was good, and radical change was not in demand. Now, remember how I said that American loans paid of the German reparations? The natural consequence of the American stock market crashing was that the countries who owed them money also saw massive economic crisis, and the Germans, having fixed their economy on borrowed money, were once again neck deep in shit. Massive poverty, unemployment, and all other types of misery that an economic crisis brings, hit Germany with special harshness. Extremist groups saw their due rise in popularity, and the nazis and communists began their regular fighting and campaigning. Now, as to not understate the key factor: communist popularity actually contributed to the nazis being able to take power. The conservative faction had been willing to form a coalition with Hitler, believing that if he were surrounded with moderates, he could be controlled. This proved to be a mistake. Again, boiling this all down, crisis and unstable power were the key factors in allowing radicalism to take hold in Germany.

Italy and Japan were best explained in another comment a while ago about what shared features the main three axis powers had. Said comment will be linked if I am able to find it. Simplifying it quickly, Germany and Italy were only unified in the late 19th century, and as such were far behind on colonization. Similarly, Japan had no sphere of influence, having proven themselves worthy of world-power status only in 1905, with their victory against Russia in the Russo-Japanese War. This desire for expansion gave way to ideologies that made this expansion part of their programme. Fear of communism was also a major factor in enabling Italian fascism. Hopefully someone can expand on this, I am well aware that this explanation is massively inadequate.

As for why the other world powers didn't experience the same thing, I'll just elaborate slightly on what I already said. France, Britain, and the US were all comfortable in their ever so efficient spheres of influence. The Americans had made central America utterly dependent, to such an extent that in several cases American companies held almost government-strength political power in certain countries, and monopolies on trade, Cuba being a great example of this. The UK still ruled India, much of Africa, and its governments were still extremely closely tied to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. France held most of northwest Africa, alongside significant territories in the Middle-East and Indochina. In effect, colonies provided economic stability and a sense of power, with no particular expansionist sentiment being required. Victory in the first world war also guaranteed that the political status quo remained in place and popular. The great depression did not cause the extreme crisis it did in Germany, and the systems in place offered relatively stable, rational solutions, such as the new deal in the US. Effectively, high stability and no reason to desire radical change made extremism thoroughly unattractive in the stable powers.