User:Funnyface222

Rise of the Soviet Union - W.w.i had gone badly for Russia. - Food riots broke out in March 1917 accompanied by a strike of factory workers. - Nicholas ii (the last tsar of Russia) issued decrees to dissolve the Russian parliament (the duma) and ordered strikers back to work. The duma refused to disband and rival centers of authority emerged. - In mid March 1917, tsar Nicholas abdicated. - A provisional government (march - November 1917) was established headed by prince Lvov and Alexander Kerensky as his minister of justice. - Russia was now a republic dominated by the liberal middle class. The new government continued the war against the central powers with disastrous results. - a premature revolt by the Bolshevik’s to seize power in Petrograd (st. Petersburg) occurred in July 1917. Lenin was the head of the revolution calling for "peace, land, and bread." as a result of this defeated revolution, Kerensky became the new head of the provisional government. - In September, the provisional government was forced to put down an attempt by a rightist coup. The Bolsheviks increased their power as a result of this coup. - Finally the Bolsheviks seized power on November 6-7, 1917 "the October revolution" overthrowing the provisional government. a council of people's commissars took control headed by Lenin and included Trotsky and Stalin. - On December 5, an armistice between Russia and the central powers was signed, although fighting continued as Germany continued advancing. Formal peace came at the treaty of Brest - lentos - march 1918 which was an extremely harsh treaty to Russia (it was later nullified by the armistice of 1918). - The civil war (1918-1920) - A counter revolution of the "whites" consisting of monarchists, aristocrats, liberals, Cossacks, etc. this revolution against the Bolsheviks included military intervention by British, French, Japanese, American and polish forces. - During this civil war, the Bolsheviks executed tsar Nicholas ii and his entire family. - The Bolsheviks were finally victorious but the country was devastated by war losses, famine, and epidemics. - The Bolshevik party was renamed the communist party and the capital was moved from Petrograd to Moscow during the civil war. - The communists nationalized land, factories, banking, etc. and confiscated all church property. - Nep (new economic policy) 1912-1928 - The NEP represented Lenin’s compromise with capitalism because of the devastation caused by the civil war. Some measure of individual capitalism was permitted but the state controlled most things. - in 1923 Russia was reorganized as the union of soviet socialist republics (ussr). - this federation started as 4 and eventually grew to 16 republics dominated by the Russian republic. - in the new government structure, the communist party was the real power in the USSR and the only political party allowed. - the party consisted of only a tiny percentage of the soviet population and was controlled by its executive arm - the politburo. key members of the newly formed politburo were: 1. Lenin - complete head 2. Trotsky - war commissar 3. Stalin - secretary-general of the communist party. - after Lenin’s death in 1924, a power struggle took place between Trotsky and Stalin. among their differences, Trotsky wanted communistic revolutions world wide immediately while Stalin felt the capitalistic countries could not be overthrown immediately and therefore, advocated investments by foreign capital and concentrating on building up the country economically. - Stalin succeeded in having Trotsky expelled from the politburo in 1926 and exiled in 1929. he was finally assassinated in Mexico in 1940. - Stalin was in complete control of the user by 1929. - it was Stalin who brought the USSR into the role of a major power by his brutally enforced plans. 1. industrial - he inaugurated five year plans of state planning stressing heavy industries, i.e., steel, machinery, electrical defense. by the outbreak of w.w.ii, the USSR was a major industrial power ranked #3 behind the U.S. and Germany despite not meeting all the goals of its continuous five year plans. 2. agriculture - Stalin began the collectivization of agriculture by regrouping peasants on collective and state farms. he met bitter resistance from the kulaks (more prosperous farmers) particularly in the Ukraine. Stalin brutally prosecuted the kulaks. it should be noted that even with collectivization, Stalin had to make compromises by giving peasants some private land and some tools. 3. internal policies - Stalin was ruthless to anyone who opposed him. in the 1930's he introduced the purges. he made great use of his secret police in enforcing internal policy. 4. foreign policy - in 1934 the USSR was admitted to the League of Nations. - because of growing verbal attacks by Hitler against communism, Stalin had made an alliance with France in 1935 against nazi Germany. - the USSR also aided the loyalists against the German supported nationalists (under general Franco) in the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). despite soviet aid to the loyalists, they lost the civil war to Franco’s nationalists. - in 1939, Stalin shocked the world by signing a nonaggression pact with nazi Germany. Germany - between the wars - Weimar republic (1918-1933) - Kaiser William ii had been forced to resign near the end of w.w.i. - very shortly before the end of w.w.i., a Germany republic was proclaimed. national elections in 1919 resulted in a coalition government under a new constitution, the Weimar constitution, which made Germany a representative government with a bicameral legislation. - attack upon the Weimar republic. - various uprisings occurred against the Weimar republic from both the right and the left. attacks from the right included the beer hall putsch in Munich in 1923. this revolt led to the imprisonment of Hitler where he wrote his outline for the future - mein kampf. Hitler had become rapidly anti-Semitic and anti-democratic and organized the national socialist German workers' party (nazi) in 1922. - internally the Weimar republic suffered from severe inflation in its early years which had very detrimental effects on the working and middle class people. recovery was to occur, however, under the Dawes plan (1924) sponsored by the U.S. which eased war payments and ended French occupation of the Ruhr. this recovery was short-lived as Germany encountered a severe economic depression by the early 1930's. - foreign policy - the Weimar republic followed a policy of cooperation with the other western democracies. - in 1926, Germany joined the League of Nations. - in 1928, Germany signed the kellogg-briand pact which condemned war. - Hitler’s rise to power - Hitler’s nazi party was based on a platform that appealed to many: 1. it promised to remove much of the stipulations of the Versailles treaty including the odious article 231. 2. it blamed Germany’s defeat on the communists and the Jews. 3. it promised to restore economic prosperity to Germany which was suffering from economic depression with large unemployment by 1932. - Hitler’s greatest support came from the white-collar middle class whose financial security had been destroyed by inflation in the early 1920's and now faced increasing unemployment with the growing depression. - in the elections of 1930, the nazi party had become the second largest in Germany. - in the elections of 1932, Hitler was defeated by the aging president von Hindenburg in the presidential elections but the nazi party was now the largest in the Reichstag. in 1933, Hitler became appointed chancellor of the Reichstag and immediately dissolved it calling for new elections to increase seats. the nazi party used SA storm troopers (brown shirts) to intimidate opposition during the five week campaign. - these new elections resulted in an increase of seats to the Reichstag for the nazi party. Hitler continued to increase his power and with the death of president von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler assumed presidency and became "der führer." - Hitler’s policies as "der führer": 1. economically/socially - a. retained capitalism and private property. b. he outlawed collective bargaining and strikes. c. established four-year plans to achieve self-sufficiency. d. established complete government control of foreign trade. e. increased taxes but ended unemployment and greatly improved production efficiency particularly of heavy industries. also created system of super highways called autobahns. f. created myth of racial superiority with the Aryan race (Caucasians of non-Jewish descent) being the superior race. the Nordic people were the most "pure" of Caucasians and Germans were the master race of the Nordic people because they were the strongest. Slavic people e.g., Russians were considered inferior. Jews and Negroes were at the bottom of Hitler’s list. g. by July 1933, all political parties except the national socialist (nazi) party had been outlawed. h. in the "night of the long knives" directed by Hitler’s ss in June 1934, the nazi party was purged of its left wing supporters. Hitler tightened his reign on the state with the creation of the Gestapo under Himmler. he also made great use of his propaganda minister - Goebbels. I. he gained wide support from the military as he openly and rapidly rearmed Germany. - he was spending much more on arms than both Britain and France combined by 1935. j. he reached a tenuous agreement with both the Catholic Church and various protestant denominations. k. by 1935, Hitler had deprived all Jews of citizenship and forbade intermarriage with Jews. he stepped up his attacks on Jewish professional people as well as on synagogues. 3. foreign policy a. Hitler withdrew Germany from the League of Nations in 1933. b. Hitler denounced the treaty of Versailles' limitation on German armament in 1935 and openly began the rebuilding of Germany’s military forces. c. in 1936, Germany reoccupied the Rhineland taken away from her by the treaty of Versailles. d. territorial expansion - Germany’s need for "lebenstraum" or living space resulted in the incorporation of the saar basin in 1935; the annexation of Austria in 1938; and the annexation of the sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938; the annexation of the rest of the western-half of Poland in 1939 (the beginning of w.w.ii). e. alliances - Mussolini and Hitler formed the Rome - Berlin axis of 1936 between Italy and Germany. Japan also joined the axis alliance. Hitler had Germany heavily involved in the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) favoring the nationalists under general Franco. As mentioned earlier, Hitler and Stalin signed the nonaggression act of 1939 which led to the demise of Poland and the start of w.w.ii. italy (between the wars) - Italy suffered serious economic and political instability after w.w.i. Italy was the least industrialized of the major powers, and peace brought inflation and unemployment that further weakened the economy. - In 1921, a reorganized movement of Italian national fascist party under Mussolini occurred. - Major differences between fascism and communism: 1. Democratic values a. Fascism attacked democracy as decadent and a sign of moral weakness. b. Communism accepted democracy in theory but stressed economic and social equality rather than political equality. 2. Capitalism a. Fascism preserved capitalism and its profit system - under complete government control - and its rise to power was supported by the leading industrialists of Italy and Germany (fascism often called "the last stand of capitalism"). Fascists addressed real fears by speaking to small business people threatened by the competition of large corporations and to all business people threatened by workers' demands. They spoke to the unemployed threatened by continuous economic depression. 3. Nationalism and social classes a. Fascism was intensely nationalistic in character, preached national unity, and discouraged class consciousness. b. Communism was international in theory and called for the class struggle of the working class throughout the world against the bourgeoisie. 4. War and imperialism a. Fascism exalted war and was frankly imperialistic - especially since Italy and Germany lacked colonies and extensive natural resources. b. Communism criticized war as the natural result of capitalistic monopolies and imperialism. 5. Racial intolerance a. Under fascism, anti-Semitism was violent. b. Racism was never part of the communist theory, and many of its leaders - including Marx and Trotsky - were Jewish. - In 1992, Mussolini staged his "march on Rome" with 50,000 fascists to seize power. A compromise was worked out with the king whereby Mussolini became premier of Italy. By 1926, Mussolini had made Italy a one-party dictatorship, i.e., the fascist under his direction. He had become "il duce." Mussolini’s policies: 1. Economically a. Created the "corporate state" by dividing the country economically into 3 syndicates. b. Ended strikes but guaranteed satisfactory wages and improved employment. c. Permitted capitalism although the state controlled the amount of profit received. 2. Religious - Lateran treaty of 1929 between Italy and the Vatican in which the independence of Vatican City within Rome was guaranteed. Additionally, Catholicism was recognized as the only state religion. Activities of the church, however, were carefully regulated. The reduction of the 19th century hostilities between church and state remained one of fascism's most important assets. 3. Internal policies a. Glorified militarism including large increase in armed forces. b. Extolled the greatness of ancient Rome and drew parallels between it and Italy. c. He outlawed opposition parties. 4. Foreign policy a. Imperialistic expansion led to invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and Albania in 1939. b. Allied with nazi Germany in Rome - Berlin axis of 1936 (later with Japan as well). c. Supported (with Hitler) the nationalists under general Franco in the Spanish civil war. d. Withdrew from the League of Nations in 1937. e. Fascism played a major role in influencing countries besides Italy and Germany to its philosophy: - Portugal became semi-fascist in 1928 under Antonio Salazar. - Spain became fascist in 1939 under general Francisco Franco. - Japan in 1932 came under the domination of an aggressive military dictatorship. - in Europe by the 1930s, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland, and the Baltic states had become dictatorships of various kinds, some of which were fascists. new regimes of eastern Europe (between the wars) - new states in Eastern Europe represented the allied commitment to self-determination. - in nearly every case, nationhood had brought war with neighboring regions. - peasant revolts or military takeover was almost a constant threat. - rising populations, widespread illiteracy, and lack of capital plagued economic development - only Austria and Czechoslovakia had advanced industries. - disappearance of the Russian, Austrian and ottoman empires had however opened the way for modernization. - Mustafa kamala in turkey borrowed western ideas and institutions to modernize turkey from old ways under the Ottoman Empire. - Czechoslovakia under president misery became a model of a prosperous democracy in Eastern Europe. great Britain (between the wars) 1. internally - in 1924, Great Britain saw its first labor government with Ramsey McDonald as its first prime minister. - the labor party inaugurated a policy of friendship with the Soviet Union including recognition of the USSR. also favored nationalization of key industries. - the labor party lost power late in 1924 to the second Baldwin ministry (1924-29) which renounced Russian commercial treaties with great Britain (established by the labor party) and broke off diplomatic relations with the USSR. - underwent the only general strike in Great Britain’s history in 1926 begun over crisis in the coal industry. anti-labor legislation followed this general strike. - extended universal suffrage to all women age 21 and over. - Baldwin’s government was defeated in 1929 by the labor party because of its failure to solve the growing problem of unemployment. - the second McDonald ministry (1929-1931) resumed power and once again restored diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. - a coalition government of conservatives, liberals, and laborites under McDonald’s prime minister ship ruled from 1931-1935. - another coalition government under the prime minister ship of Stanley Baldwin was in power from 1935-1937. - in January 1936, king Edward viii ascended the throne of Great Britain. he was very popular with the public. - in December 1936, he abdicated "for the woman I love" i.e., Wallis war field Simpson who was a twice-divorced American. this was the only voluntary abdication by a king in the history of England. 2. Irish question - there had been a revolt for Irish independence during w.w.i (1916) in Dublin called the Easter rebellion under the direction of "sin Fein" (we ourselves). - after a week of bloody fighting, the rebellion was suppressed and several of its leaders executed. this bloody repression increased support for sin Fein in southern Ireland. - in 1919, emanon de Valero declared an Irish republic. - this resulted in war between Irish nationalists and Great Britain which finally culminated in the Irish free state of 1921 whereby Great Britain gave southern Ireland basically autonomy while northern Ireland (six counties in northeast Ireland) remained with Great Britain. - the splitting of Ireland caused much divisiveness in the sin Fein with the moderates accepting this agreement while the "irregulars" under de Valero insisted on one united country. - in 1937, the Irish free state (southern Ireland) became known as Eire. - Eire withdrew from the British Commonwealth in 1949 as completely independent from Great Britain. 3. foreign policy - most memorable of Great Britain’s foreign policy between the wars was Prime Minister Neville chamberlain’s policy of appeasement to Hitler. this policy was an utter failure and chamberlain was replaced by Winston Churchill in 1940. - another aspect of note is the Indian policy of "civil disobedience" under mahatma Gandhi which resulted in much more autonomy for local Indian rulers. - 1926 saw the imperial conference which stated that the dominions of Great Britain were autonomous in all domestic and foreign affairs and that their ties to the British crown were volitional based on traditions, loyalty and friendship. France (between the wars) 1. internally - France suffered great instability between the wars as the rift continued between the right and the left. - the right - opposed to social welfare and included: a. industrialists b. monarchists and wealthy clergy c. supported by many small businessmen as well. - the left - favored the "welfare state" and included: a. socialists b. communists c. cut (general confederation of labor) - the multi-party system typified France between the wars and resulted in a rapid succession of ministries that were too short-lived to be effective. 2. foreign policy - France suffered severely in w.w.i and therefore wanted Germany to pay for her setbacks. - because she still feared Germany, France sought alliances with numerous European countries including a soviet-soviet alliance with Stalin in 1935. she was unable to obtain cooperation from Great Britain against Hitler’s "lebenstraum" in Europe. - she constructed the magi not line which was extensive defense fortifications along her border with Germany. - she built up a large army, navy, and air force. u.s. (between the wars) 1. internal policy - (presidents Harding and Coolidge - 1920's) - dominated by president Harding’s expression of "a return to normalcy." - two major amendments of the u.s. constitution were the: 18th - national prohibition (1919) - the passage of this amendment led to the rise of organized crime with large profits being made from illegal liquor. 19th - woman suffrage (1920) - the Harding administration (1921-1923) as well as the Coolidge administration (1923-1929) were dominated by big business. - both administrations enjoyed major technological advances e.g., the mass production of automobiles started by Henry ford before w.w.i continued. great strides were made in the field of aviation including Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927. 2. foreign policy - (presidents Harding and Coolidge - 1920's) - the U.S. had become the most powerful nation in the world yet her foreign policy was dominated by isolationism - refusal to join the League of Nations - refusal to recognize the USSR. - the U.S., however, did play a role in arms limitation at the Washington conference of 1921-1922 which included a ratio of battleships to be possessed by the major powers. - she also sponsored the Dawes plan (1924) to ease the schedule of war payments by Germany and end the French occupation of the Ruhr. - secretary of state Kellogg proposed a pact providing for compulsory arbitration for future political differences. this led to the briand-kellogg pact of 1928 among the U.S. and leading European powers. 3. internal policy - (presidents hover and f. d. r. - 1930's) - in the election of 1928, president hover, a republican, easily defeated the democrat, al smith, who was catholic. - after this landslide victory for hover, his presidency experienced the great crash of 1929 which led to the great depression. a. thousands of businesses were wiped out. b. millions became unemployed. c. thousands of families lost their farms or homes. d. banks failed which resulted in millions of people losing their entire savings. - hover believed strongly in free enterprise and, therefore, did not want to get the federal government heavily involved in relief. this resulted in his defeat and a decisive victory for the democrats in 1932 under f. d. r. - f. d. r. introduced the new deal which included the hundred days of March - June 1933 that brought federal government involvement in numerous areas. - despite these efforts, business continued to suffer particularly during the recession of 1937-1938 and it was only the war contracts for w.w.ii that finally lifted the U.S. out of her worst depression. 4. foreign policy - (presidents hover and f. d. r. - 1930's) - the U.S. continued her policy of isolationism. - as w.w.ii approached, the American public continued to want to remain out of European affairs. f. d. r. however, increasingly wanted to intervene on behalf of Great Britain.