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He was asking about socialistic policies, not marxist policies.
History questions not worth their own thread V
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He was asking about socialistic policies, not marxist policies.
Since when is abortion a socialist policy?
To answer the question, yes, the Nazis instituted a few socialist policies, primarily welfare reforms. They tended to be undercut by other legalization though.
TheLastOne36
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How real was the idea of a balance of power in the 19th century?
Not whether it actually existed or not, but in the minds of statesman of the era, how did the idea of achieving a balance of power influence European politics and diplomacy?
Not whether it actually existed or not, but in the minds of statesman of the era, how did the idea of achieving a balance of power influence European politics and diplomacy?
This is a fairly complicated question, and I would just recommend Paul Schroeder's massive book on the subject (with the caveat that it does not extend past 1848). But that might be unreasonable.
The short answer is that some important diplomats of the time genuinely sought a state of affairs to which they referred as a "balance of power", yes. Most of these people did not believe that a "balance of power" was a peaceful state of affairs, nor should it be; they did not believe that a "balance of power" meant any sort of equality, but rather a circumstance in which a single country, usually theirs, could hold itself apart from opposing camps and gain disproportionate influence from wielding its power and authority in such a way as to break deadlocks.
The trend is particularly evident in British thinking - Palmerston, Canning, and Edward Grey being the most well-known avowed believers in this style of diplomacy - and since British historians have dominated the study of international relations in history in English up to recently, the notion of the "balance of power" has followed them.
"Balance of power" should be contrasted with "equilibrium", a term that gained a great deal of popularity in Europe during the so-called Congress System in the first part of the century. This sort of thinking is associated with the idea of a "balance of satisfactions", a term that ought to be self-explanatory, which also, oddly enough, had direct implications for the pursuit of peace, unlike "balance of power"; it is not for nothing that Congress Europe was at its most peaceful in history before the creation of the EU. (And maybe since the creation of the EU, too. We'll see.)
Funnily enough, I just started reading a book on the Congress of Europe last night. Would it be safe to say that Metternich and Castlereagh were the prime movers in this "balance of satisfactions" (I've never heard the particular term before)? They seem to have spent much of the period immedately following Napoleon's defeat in Russia engaging in a huge amount of strategic horse-trading to get Prussia and Russia to behave themselves and bring the smaller European states onside. Bavaria, for instance, seems to have been courted by Metternich as a counter-balance to Prussia, despite the fact that Austrian policy seems to have been highly antagonistic to Bavaria for a few decades prior.
Metternich and Castlereagh were definitely prime movers, but Aleksandr himself also deserves a great deal of credit. And, of course, the myriad negotiators who actually got the nitty-gritty details worked out, and the people who framed the debates, and so forth. But yeah, those were the big three. Talleyrand was more showy than he was important.
I would describe the Treaty of Ried and the subsequent end to the long Austro-Bavarian secular rivalry as being ended more because Metternich and Franz believed that it was desirable in and of itself to end the rivalry. It's hard to point to any instance where Austria even tried to use Bavaria as a stick with which to beat Prussia (except maybe 1866, when the entire confederation was on side and Metternich was also dead), much less to one where Austria succeeded in doing so. There was a tacit understanding that Prussia's sphere of the Confederation would be the north and Austria's the south, but also a similar understanding that a) these spheres were very permeable (hence, for instance, the Zollverein) and b) Austria's sphere was necessarily much more fictional than Prussia's given the nature of the states over which Austrian influence would supposedly be exerted.
Look at the immediate consequences of the Treaty of Ried. Bavaria was not pledged to employ any troops in the allied service, nor was it compelled to dispense monies to the coalition. Austria permitted the Bavarians to occupy potential Bavarian compensations in Germany in Franconia and the Palatinate while not taking up its own compensations from Bavaria (e.g. Salzburg and the Innviertel). The upshot of this was that the Bavarian army under Wrede wasted its time conquering Würzburg (represent!) and was consequently too late to bar Napoleon's escape into France at Hanau (with the result that the Bavarians were unceremoniously brushed aside). And for this sin the Bavarians paid a premium of precisely zero. Montgelas, the pro-Napoleonic statesman at Munich, said that if Austria had been ruled by a Montgelas, he would not have let (the real) Montgelas live - and yet Montgelas did live, and remained in power until internal Bavarian politics forced him out in 1817.
So, yeah, Austria's treatment of Bavaria doesn't really lend much weight to the idea that Metternich saw Bavaria as a stick with which to beat Prussia. That would have been "balance of power" talking, really, and the spirit of the Congress was designed to be anything but.
I would describe the Treaty of Ried and the subsequent end to the long Austro-Bavarian secular rivalry as being ended more because Metternich and Franz believed that it was desirable in and of itself to end the rivalry. It's hard to point to any instance where Austria even tried to use Bavaria as a stick with which to beat Prussia (except maybe 1866, when the entire confederation was on side and Metternich was also dead), much less to one where Austria succeeded in doing so. There was a tacit understanding that Prussia's sphere of the Confederation would be the north and Austria's the south, but also a similar understanding that a) these spheres were very permeable (hence, for instance, the Zollverein) and b) Austria's sphere was necessarily much more fictional than Prussia's given the nature of the states over which Austrian influence would supposedly be exerted.
Look at the immediate consequences of the Treaty of Ried. Bavaria was not pledged to employ any troops in the allied service, nor was it compelled to dispense monies to the coalition. Austria permitted the Bavarians to occupy potential Bavarian compensations in Germany in Franconia and the Palatinate while not taking up its own compensations from Bavaria (e.g. Salzburg and the Innviertel). The upshot of this was that the Bavarian army under Wrede wasted its time conquering Würzburg (represent!) and was consequently too late to bar Napoleon's escape into France at Hanau (with the result that the Bavarians were unceremoniously brushed aside). And for this sin the Bavarians paid a premium of precisely zero. Montgelas, the pro-Napoleonic statesman at Munich, said that if Austria had been ruled by a Montgelas, he would not have let (the real) Montgelas live - and yet Montgelas did live, and remained in power until internal Bavarian politics forced him out in 1817.
So, yeah, Austria's treatment of Bavaria doesn't really lend much weight to the idea that Metternich saw Bavaria as a stick with which to beat Prussia. That would have been "balance of power" talking, really, and the spirit of the Congress was designed to be anything but.
I didn't mean that it was so-much a "stick with which to beat Prussia," and more a case of 'let's be friendly with Bavaria, lest they fling themselves into the arms of Prussia.' Of course, since I am only now reading up on the subject, I could be mistaken.
Eh. If there was that sense, it was quickly dissipated by the small states' general fear of the German nationalists that tried to take over Prussian policy in late 1813 and early 1814. Humboldt and Stein and their commissariat helped destroy any early pro-Prussian sentiments in the Third Germany if they ever existed in the first place.
TheLastOne36
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Just something I want to get clarified, but from where and how exactly does Russia get it's claim as the continuation of Rome/Third Rome? Feel free to go in details.
Brief statements rather than details, but there are two different sources of the claim.
One, Ivan III married a niece of Constantine XI and the claim is that he and his heirs became the legitimate successors to the Byzantine emperors after Constantinople fell. And the land ruled by the new Roman Emperor is the Third Rome. As I recall (though this part is quite sketchy), under Russian law this succession would have been the case, but not under Roman.
The second is simply, as the biggest and most powerful Eastern Orthodox country with close ties to the Byzantines, Moscovy was the successor to the Byzantine Empire, and becomes the Third Rome.
sophie
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Has to do with the Councils of Florence and Ferrara in 1438-9. When the Patriarch of Constantinople met with legates in Ferrara with the intention of reuniting the two churches, Moscow balked, essentially declaring the patriarch of Constantinople to no longer be Orthodox and therefore leaving Moscow as the one remaining True Church. Since Constantinople was the second Rome, it therefore follows that Moscow, being the one true inheritor of Orthodoxy would be the third.
AND A FOURTH THERE SHALL NEVER BE!
AND A FOURTH THERE SHALL NEVER BE!
Bowsling
Deity
The fourth is in upstate NY, dude. 
Ofcourse, other than the Russian czar title being derived from caesar there is no actual relation between ancient Rome and medieval Muscovy other than the spread of Ortodoxy. The grand-duchy of Muscovy only emerged as such in the 15th century. The older Kievan state never made any claim to be a successor to Rome; quite possibly, the decline of Kiev following the Mongol incursions made possible the rise of Muscovy. Similarly, without the final decline of Constantinople in the 15th century due to the Ottomans, a reunison with Catholic Rome might never have been considered.
The Byzantine Empire has a rather dubious claim to be a successor state to Rome - a bit like Kazakhstan claiming to be the successor state to the USSR, since it encompassed Greek-speaking parts of the Empire which had their own distinct culture. The Holy Roman Empire is even more dubious: Shaw memorably quipped that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Surely the "Third Rome" thing is fundamentally a theological, or ecclesiological, claim rather than a primarily political one (although no doubt there are political ramifications of it). Outside the context of Orthodox theology it's meaningless.
Oh, of course. It's no accident that the royal titles of most of Europe - Kaiser and Tsar, to name two - were derivations of Caesar, and that the eagle, symbol of Roman power, features heavily in the iconography of Russia, the Holy Roman Empire, the United States, Napoleonic France, and so on.
History_Buff
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Wait, what? They were like, the same damned thing. And always considered themselves Roman to boot.
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