Goose Stepping and Totalitarian Regimes

[Fear_Itself]

With North Korea in the news lately, it occurred to me that goose stepping armies are almost always those of totalitarian regimes. Are the there any democratic countries that employ the goose step?

[d12]

It’s just my WAG but wouldn’t the countries behind the Iron Curtain still follow with tradition? I could have sworn I saw some nice big steps in the Czech Republic last I was there.

[Ringo]

Do geese really walk like that? Only when they’re marching?

[MC_Master_of_Ceremonies]

Goose stepping was invented by the Prussians and was designed as a very delibrate (albeit more than slightly silly)display of strength, toughness and endurance (to continualy march up and down in such an unnatural fashion requires a very high level of fitness). It was later adopted by the Soviet regimes for these reasons.

[Alessan]

Because totalitarian regimes use their military to intimidate/impress/motivate the public

[stockton]

[python]

SERGEANT MAJOR:
Don’t stand there gawping like you’ve never seen the Hand of God before!

Now, today, we’re going to do marching up and down the square! That is, unless any of you got anything better to do. Well?! Anyone got anything they’d rather be doing than marching up and down the square?! Yes?! Atkinson.

What would you… rather be doing, Atkinson?
ATKINSON:
Well, to be quite honest, Sarge, I’d… rather be at home with the wife and kids.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Would you, now?!
ATKINSON:
Yes, Sarge.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Right! Off you go! Now, everybody else happy with my little plan… of marching up and down the square a bit?
COLES:
Sarge!
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Yes?!
COLES:
I’ve got a book I’d quite like to read.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Right! You go read your book, then! Now! Everybody else… quite content to join in… with my little scheme of marching up and down the square?!
WYCLIF:
Sarge?
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Yes, Wyclif?! What is it?!
WYCLIF:
Well, I’m, uh, learning the piano.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Learning the piano?!
WYCLIF:
Yes, Sarge.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
And I suppose you want to go and practise, eh? Marching up and down the square not good enough for you, eh?!
WYCLIF:
Well,–
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Right! Off you go!
WYCLIF:
Oh.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
Now! What about the rest of you? Rather be at the pictures, I suppose.
SQUAD:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right.
SERGEANT MAJOR:
All right! Off you go!

[/python]

from this site:
http://www.stone-dead.asn.au/movies/meaning-of-life/07-fighting-each-other.html

[Lodrain]

That was my favorite scene, apart from that bit with the ‘waffer-thin mint’.

[GIGObuster]

From the time of WWII we get this opinion from George Orwell:
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/e/e_eye.htm

One rapid but fairly sure guide to the social atmosphere of a country is the parade-step of its army. A military parade is really a kind of ritual dance, something like a ballet, expressing a certain philosophy of life. The goose-step, for instance, is one of the most horrible sights in the world, far more terrifying than a dive-bomber. It is simply an affirmation of naked power; contained in it, quite consciously and intentionally, is the vision of a boot crashing down on a face. Its ugliness is part of its essence, for what it is saying is ‘Yes, I am ugly, and you daren’t laugh at me’, like the bully who makes faces at his victim. Why is the goose-step not used in England? There are, heaven knows, plenty of army officers who would be only too glad to introduce some such thing. It is not used because the people in the street would laugh. Beyond a certain point, military display is only possible in countries where the common people dare not laugh at the army. The Italians adopted the goose-step at about the time when Italy passed definitely under German control, and, as one would expect, they do it less well than the Germans. The Vichy government, if it survives, is bound to introduce a stiffer parade-ground discipline into what is left of the French army. In the British army the drill is rigid and complicated, full of memories of the eighteenth century, but without definite swagger; the march is merely a formalized walk. It belongs to a society which is ruled by the sword, no doubt, but a sword which must never be taken out of the scabbard.

And from “Europe: a History” by Norman Davies:

The career of the goose-step has been a long one. It was recorded in
the seventeenth century, and was still alive at the end of the
twentieth. It was a standard feature of all military parades in
Prussia and Germany until 1945. It was exported to all the armies of
the world which were trained by Prussian officers, or which admired the
Prussian model. In Europe, it was adopted by the Russian Army, later
by the Red Army and by all the Soviet satellites. It was rejected by
West Germany’s Bundeswehr, but was kept in being by the army of the
German Democratic Republic until one month before DDR’s collapse in
November 1990. In 1994 it was still being performed in Moscow by the
special squads of KGB troops who had been high-stepping in slow motion
round Lenin’s mausoleum for the past 70 years.