80 Influential Politicians of the Twentieth Century

80 Influential Politicians of the Twentieth Century

Borja Loma Barrie

80 influential politicians of the twentieth century

© BORJA LOMA BARRIE 2015

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Harry S. Truman

American politician (1884-1972) President (two terms, 1945-1949 and 1949-1952) ordered to drop two atomic bombs on Japan (1945). He began the Cold War (1945-1991) against the Soviet Union (1922-1991). He badgered inside communism by witch hunt (1946-1954). Launched the Marshall Plan (1947), European reconstruction after the end of World War II (1939-1945). He had to face the Korean War (1950-1953).

During the Korean conflict was the most unpopular president in the history of the country, with 68% of citizens who disapproved management (Gallup) he concocted the Truman Doctrine consisting of anti-communism and the US support to any nation who fought against communism, which was established as an official political-ideological axis; this was formally announced by President Harry S. Truman to Congress on March 12, 1947. He responded with the conviction that communism and Marxism were the two main US threats. Although initially applied to European countries, it remained in force, on a global scale for many years. The Cold War was consolidated and also the Korean War, among many others. In its early years he meant the US intervention in Greece, then immersed in a civil war between nationalists and communists country, as well as in Turkey, whose northern territories were partly claimed by the Soviet Union.

In his speech explaining the Doctrine, President Truman said that communism was a system that relies on the will of a minority forcibly imposed by the majority. Rests on terror and oppression on the control of the press and radio, on prefabricated elections and the suppression of personal freedoms, so he considered that the duty of the United States was sustain the free peoples who are resisting domain attempts, carried out by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

He was born on May 8 in Lamar, Missouri, within a humble family. He emigrated to Kansas City. He joined the National Guard. Artillery captain during World War I (1914-1918) Joined in 1921 in the Democratic Party. Congressman and Senator (1934-1940) Head of a Commission of the Senate (1941) for Defense. He found corruption among a sector of the army and certain weapon companies. Vice President (1943) in F.D. Rooselvet´s administration (1932-1945) (1885-1945). Democratic presidential candidate (1944). President in 1945 (after Rooselvet´s death).

Its management policy was characterized by the establishment of Truman Doctrine, he perceived the Soviet Union and Marxism in general as the main enemies of the United States. This meant the perpetuation of the state of war in various regions of the planet. He understood however that conflicts, armed or not, small or large scale, could be a good deal for the United States.

His personal crusade against Marxism outside the country, coincided with the clearance of suspected communists public, social and cultural life of the United States itself, through allegations of Senator (Republican) Joseph McCarthy (1909-1957) before the Anti-American Activities Committee (1947-1954). He participated in the Potsdam Conference (1945, with Stalin and Atlee).

On August 10, 1945, Japan requested, through Swiss diplomats, an armistice, after two atomic blasts, which he opposed. He demanded the unconditional surrender. He arranged the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction after the war, among other reasons, to arm the countries which could ally with the United States in its fight against the Soviets. Thus, he divided into two blocks of influence, the international political scene. He was re-elected on November 2, 1948. On June 12, 1949 officially insisted on his claim to rearm European countries and against reducing aid under the Marshall Plan. In 1950, during the Korean War, after several years of scientific research, announced the finding of the H bomb or hydrogen bomb, which destructive potential was much greater than the atomic. In 1952 he refused to another re-election (he was succeeded by Eisenhower).

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Lenin

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Russian politician and statesman (1870-1924). Archetype of the revolutionary of the twentieth century, precisely he developed a theory of revolutionary practice, which influenced the entire planet. Most of his existence was devoted to overthrow the tsarist. Founder of the Soviet Union and Bolshevik leader during the Russian Revolution of 1917, his political doctrine is called Leninism, an interpretation of Marxism, focused on the dictatorship of the proletariat, for the attainment of socialism and nationalizing the means of production that characterized the first phase of the Bolshevik revolution. It is also called Marxism-Leninism.

It comprises three key aspects: first, the establishment of a revolutionary theory, without which, it is impossible to make the revolution. Secondly, the establishment of a revolutionary vanguard party, composed exclusively of professional revolutionaries, and determined to change the course of history. It differs in this point of Marxist orthodoxy that (Lenin) considered the proletariat was not necessarily revolutionary in itself, since that socialist consciousness, scientific origin, could only be transmitted by bourgeois intellectuals, from outside into the proletariat, concept initially established by Marxist Karl Kautsky. Third, the objective and political use of the emancipatory zeal, latent nationalism, for the revolutionary struggle against the bourgeois state, but not to integrate later in the structure of the proletarian state, because Marxism seeks the emancipation of humanity and not only that of a country, a nation, or social class.

He is the author of several classic texts on political and revolutionary theory, although almost none exceeded the size of the pamphlet or short essay. Born in Simbirsk, Ulyanovsk village later named in his honor, within a petty bourgeois family. His real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. The son of a school inspector, and grandson of a slave freed by the father, and a doctor by his mother's side. His father was victimized because he was in favor of the public school should be open to each and every one of the Russian children. His older brother was hanged for participating in an attack on Tsar Alexander III when Lenin was 17 years old. Bright primary school pupil, was transferred to Kazan, to keep him from possible radical political influences, and so that started in college, studying law. He was expelled from the University of Kazan, for demonstrating against the academic authorities, shortly after his arrival, and arrested by the czarist police.

He spent a year exiled to the countryside in Kokushino, devoted mainly to reading authors like Chernyshevsky, Marx and Engels, and five in Samara. His first text of this time was entitled The New Economic Processes in Peasant Life (1893). That same year achieved a degree in law, and settled in St. Petersburg, immediately making contact with Marxists and revolutionaries, especially with members of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1894 he wrote Who are the Friends of the People, and How to fight the Social Democrats; and On the Question of Markets. He was arrested by police in 1895, and sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. In 1898 married to Nadezhda Krupskaya, pedagogue, in the village where both were serving the sentence. Their marriage lasted 30 years.

He finished one of his most important works The Development of Capitalism in Russia, in 1899, and in 1900 traveled to Europe, meeting in Switzerland with Plekhanov, Social Democrat leader, later to settle in Germany. In Munich he founded the Iskra (The Spark) newspaper, which wording would be the embryo of the revolutionary vanguard party. In 1902, he published one of his most representative brochures, entitled What to do? Burning Problems of our Movement, which had a great impact in Russia. Fearful of being arrested, traveled to Britain that year. In London Fortress of Capitalism and then in Brussels, during the Second Congress of the RSDLP, was expelled from Iskra´s editorial staff by Mensheviks, consummating the division and confrontation between them and the Bolsheviks.

After five years, he made a short trip to Russia, during the failed revolution of 1905. He had to flee due to the intensification of repression, via Finland to Geneva, where after meeting with his wife, traveled with her company to Paris.

After spending time in Poland, he settled in Switzerland in 1914 to avoid World War, and tried to organize an international peace front of socialist parties. Then he wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and The Bankruptcy of the Second International. In 1917 he traveled back to Russia, aware of the revolutionary disturbances, and shortly before descending the train that brought him from Germany, wrote: The April Theses, a program of revolutionary action. He was enthusiastically received in Petrograd, but his revolutionary theories were not accepted. Definitely he was considered an enemy of the provisional government after the insurrectionary events of July, so again he was forced to flee to Finland, where he concluded the text The State and Revolution.

In September, Kornilov´s attempted counterrevolutionary coup d´etat, completely changed the political scene, and thus control of the Soviets of Moscow and Petrograd, went to the Bolsheviks. Upon his return, in early October, he decided to organize an armed insurrection and defined along with Leon Trotsky, a strategy to overthrow the Kerensky government, and get access to power of the Bolsheviks, which occurred on November 8th. In August 1918, shortly after aborting a coup d´etat, promoted by socialists contrary to his person, he was victim of an attack in which he was shot twice. As soon as he took power, nationalized the means of production, banks, railroads, land, mines, factories, etc.

In 1921, he had to rectify, due to wear caused by the war, stating New Economic Policy, which involved some capitalist activity, and that after five years was a success. In these years, he wrote political essays as the graduates The Dictatorship of the Proletariat and the Renegade Kautsky (1919), Left-Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder (1920), and The State and Revolution (1921). In November de1922, after his second hemiplegic attack near his death, he dictated Letter to Congress, known as his Political Testament and silenced for many years. He tried to name as his successor Trotsky, the general secretary of the Communist Party, due to suspicion that gave him the brutal and arbitrary figure of Stalin, who came to insult his wife and even verbally expressed desire to refuse him access to power, but he ended up taking over with this.

Adolf Hitler

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German politician (1889-1945) German dictator, creator