[1] 1920. An agreement made in November
1920 between italy and the Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats, and Slovenes (see Yugoslavia) aimed at resolving their territorial disputes along the Adriatic coast. It confirmed the Italian hold on ISTRIA, as well as Yugoslav possession of Dalmatia. As for the port of fiume (now Rijeka), the treaty envisaged a compromise by which it would be designated as a “free city.” However, by 1922 the Italians were effectively in control of Fiume, and its special status was formally abandoned in 1924.
[2] 1922. A pact made in April 1922 between
Germany and Soviet Russia. At an epoch when these countries were still virtual outcasts from the rest of the post-1918 international system, this treaty dismayed the other European powers. It provided for the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two signatory states and for their abandonment of all reparations claims against each other. Their pact also offered the benefits of mutual economic cooperation, and was supplemented by a further commercial agreement in 1925.
Ras Collective term for the local party bosses involved in Italian fascism, who took this name from the Ethiopian chieftains that had defeated Italy’s forces at Adowa in 1896. The ras emerged in 1919 amid nationalist frustration and social turmoil, and built up large spheres of local influence. Given money and arms by landowners and industrialists, these bosses recruited provincial armies (see squadristi) to attack socialists and break up strikes. mussolini had considerable difficulty in controlling the corrupt and ambitious ras, but exploited their support in putting pressure on the liberal state. After the march on rome, he turned the squadristi into a fascist militia. This helped to curb the local chiefs, as did the appointment of Roberto Farinacci as party chairman in 1925. Though the latter had himself been one of the most violent members of the ras and was always feared by Mussolini, Farinacci made progress in purging the movement’s wayward elements. During world WAR II it was, however, the ras of the Fascist Grand Council who participated in the Duce’s eventual overthrow (July 1943), while also hoping to maintain Italy’s military involvement in the axis.
Rasputin, Grigori (1871-1916), Russian mystic and “holy man” who exercised an undue influence over the imperial family. Born into a peasant family at Pokrovskoye (Siberia), he was alleged to have developed supernatural powers during his adolescence. As an 18-year-old, he stayed for three months in a monastery, though he never entered religious orders, despite being later called “the Mad Monk.” Much of his early adulthood was spent wandering Russia, with his family in tow, extending his reputation as a mystic, hypnotist, and healer. on that basis he was invited into the imperial court to tend Alexis, the hemophiliac heir to Nicholas ii. From 1911 onwards, Rasputin interfered increasingly in politics and had a particular hold over the Tsarina. Deeply disliked in wider court circles, he also incurred the particular displeasure of the Orthodox Church (see orthodox Christianity). His fondness for drink and his sexual promiscuity became notorious. In World War I, he was alleged to be in the pay of the Germans, and was assassinated in bizarre circumstances in 1916. His close association with the imperial family undoubtedly contributed to the weakening of Romanov authority (see Russian REVOLUTIONS OF 1917).
Rathenau, Walter (1867-1922), German industrialist and foreign minister (February-June 1922). Head of AEG, the electronics firm founded by his father, he came to national prominence in August 1914 when falkenhayn, then Minister of War, put him in charge of organizing raw materials. Given Rathenau’s Jewish background, the choice was surprising. However, it was also inspired, for he undertook his responsibilities brilliantly, requisitioning natural resources and developing synthetic alternatives and thus averting some of the effects of the British blockade during world war i. As foreign minister under the weimar republic this essentially liberal nationalist was especially concerned with REPARATIONS. He relieved domestic inflationary pressure by paying these in kind rather than in gold. He also negotiated the rapallo treaty with the Soviet Union. This agreement, which involved the mutual renunciation of future reparations claims, put Germany in a stronger position to resist Franco-British pressure. He was assassinated by nationalists of the extreme right, who falsely claimed that his diplomatic settlement with Moscow provided evidence of a Jewish-communist conspiracy.
Realism (see naturalism)
Realpolitik German term best translated as “the politics of realism,” which refers to a hard-headed pursuit of aims in which considerations of morality or sentiment are marginalized and where the ends readily justify the means, including use of force if necessary. The word was coined in the early 1850s by a journalist critical of the impractical idealism exhibited by so many of his fellow-liberals during the European revolutions of 1848-9. In the later nineteenth century this broadly Machiavellian concept became primarily associated with foreign policy, and most particularly with the diplomacy of bismarck.
Red Army This was established by the bolsheviks in 1918 to replace the hastily improvised Red Brigades, or workers’ militia. The latter had secured a successful outcome from the revolutions OF 1917, but proved no match for the Germans nor for the reactionary “Whites” at the start of the Russian civil war. The Red Army was ruthlessly organized by trotsky, who included many former tsarist officers while also ensuring that all commanders were overseen by political commissars. It was thus a branch of the Party as well as a combat force. After victory in the civil War and the jettisoning of Trotsky’s notion of “permanent revolution,” the military was scaled down, though all men remained subject to conscription. In the mid-1930s many senior and middle-ranking soldiers became victims of the great purges. That was, however, also the period when the Red Army started to resemble a professional fighting unit: officer ranks (abolished in 1918) were re-established; tank corps created; new technology introduced; and tactics overhauled. Yet constant political meddling especially by staLIN, combined with a belief that wars were won less through equipment than through ideological motivation, meant that the soviet union was badly caught out both in the russo-finnish war of 1939-40 and by Germany’s Operation barbar-OSSA in 1941. Rapid reforms were introduced: the air arm became independent; command structures were simplified; and a general headquarters (Stavka) was established under the minister of defense, thus dispensing with a commander-inchief. improvisation remained a constant feature of the Red Army during world war ii, as did mass production of weaponry. There were also huge reserves of manpower, which enabled the ussR to survive the deaths of some 10 million of its soldiers, and the wounding or capture of an even larger number. Many who fell into German hands were deserters who feared their own commanders more than they did the Nazis, thus suggesting their leaders’ failure to promote revolutionary values. The Red Army was officially renamed in 1944 as the Soviet Army, so as to emphasize its professionalization, but the earlier label survived in popular usage. Through most of the cold war it remained the largest army in the world, though eventually overtaken by its post-1949 Chinese counterpart. in eastern Europe it was pivotal to the suppression of anti-Soviet movements: as manifested in East Germany (1953), the Hungarian rising of 1956, and the Prague spring of 1968. in 1979 it invaded Afghanistan, which quickly became “the ussR’s own vietnam.” During the later 1980s Gorbachev’s efforts to reduce military spending proved unpopular with army leaders, some of whom were involved in the failed coup of 1991 that sought to reverse communism’s collapse. with the dissolution of the soviet union, the army was reorganized, and much of its equipment was handed over to the succession states. However, a revival of Russian military power was subsequently prioritized by putin.
Red Brigades Term used originally by the Russian bolsheviks for the workers’ militia that preceded the establishment of the red army. It is now more commonly encountered as denoting the Brigate Rosse (BR), which formed the most notable of the far-left organizations promoting terrorism in Italy during the 1970s and 1980s. The BR (founded by Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol, students at Trento University) attracted some 400 activists, whose para-Marxism, developed in the aftermath of the student revolts of 1968, urged that the liberal-capitalist state was beyond reform and that the communist Party (see communism) was incapable of revolution. Enjoying a small following among workers in the industrial north, and part-financed by Eastern bloc states, the BRs were highly organized and chose their targets with care, usually magistrates, representatives of big business, and politicians. Their most spectacular assassination was that of a former premier, the Christian Democrat moro, in 1978. Like the baader-meinhoff group, they hoped that such murders and kidnappings would plunge the state into crisis and detach it from NATO. Yet the public was repelled, as was the Communist Party which rallied behind the institutions of the Republic. During the 1980s, the Red Brigades remained active, but suffered a number of reverses at the hands of the intelligence services, while their violence was eclipsed by that perpetrated by far-right groups and organized crime syndicates (see mafia). That liberal democracy survived in Italy during these so-called anni di piombo (“years of lead,” with bullets flying) was a notable achievement.
World History
