27 the great twentieth-century crisis

7/31/2019 27 the Great Twentieth-Century Crisis

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The Great Twentieth-Century

Crisis

Two Successful Revolutions

Distinctive Culture of the20th Century

The Great Depression

Nazi Germany and USSR

Democracies Weak Response

The Russian Revolution

Background to Revolution

Russia was unprepared bothmilitary and technologically for

the total war of World War I

Lacking guns, soldiers using broomsticks to train and sent to

the front without ries

The Russian army sufferedincredible lossestwo million

soldiers were killed, andanother four to six million

wounded or six millionwounded or captured


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Beginnings of Upheaval

Czar Nicholas II was anautocratic ruler whose wife,Alexandra was German born

*Grigori Rasputin, anuneducated Siberian peasant

who claimed to be a holy manhis inuence made him animportant power behind the

throneAssassinated in 1916,

poisoned, shot, beat, anddrowned

The March Revolution

A series of strikes led byworking-class women

broke out in the capitalcity of *Petrograd

The government hadstarted bread rationingafter the price of bread

had skyrocketedStrikes shut down

factories demandingPeace and Bread

The czar tried to dissolve theDuma, or legislative body. Aprovisional government wasestablished which urged the

czar to step down, eventuallydoing so

*Alexander Kerensky, nowhead of provisional

government, continued thewar

*The Soviets challenged thisgovernment and its policiesthe *Bolsheviks came to power


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The Rise of Lenin

The *Bolsheviks began as asmall faction of Marxistparty called the RussianSocial Democrats led by

*V. I. Lenin

He believed that only a

violent revolution coulddestroy the capitalistsystem

German military leaders,hoping to create

disorder in Russia,shipped Lenin to Russia

ushering in a newstage of the Revolution

They promised an end tothe war the

redistribution of all land,etc.

Peace, Land, Bread

The Bolsheviks SeizePower

Lenin and Leon Trotsky took over the government

The Bolsheviks renamedthemselves the Communists

and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovskthey gave up

eastern Poland, Ukraine,Finland, and the Baltic

Real peace did not come,however, because the country

soon sank into civil war


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Civil War in Russia

Many people wereopposed to the new

Communist regimeLiberals and anti-Leninist socialists

The Allies sentthousands of troops to

various parts of Russiain the hope of bringing

Russia back into the war

The Red Army wasforced to ght on

many fronts againstthese opponents

Members of the localsoviet murdered theczar and his familyand burned their

bodies in a nearbymine shaft

Triumph of theCommunists

A policy of *war communismwas used to ensure regularsupplies for the Red Army

A new Red secret police (Cheka) began a Red Terror aimed at the

destruction of all those whoopposed the new regime

Communism transformedRussia into a centralized stateand was largely hostile toward

the Allied powers


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The Great Depression

Uneasy Peace, Uncertain SecurityThe peacesettlement

created new boundaries and

new states

The settlementleft nations

unhappy andGermans

vowed to revisethe terms of the

Treaty of Versailles

A Weak League of Nations

The peace settlement includedunwise provisions that could

serve as new causes forconict

The League of Nations wasnot very effective in

maintaining the peace

Failure of the united States to join the league was oneserious problem with the

organization


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French Demands

Desire for security led the Frenchgovernment to demand strictenforcement of the Treaty of

Versailles

Reparations to be paid byGermany peaked at 132 billion

German marks (33 billiondollars)almost a Trillion

dollars today

The German government couldnot afford this and France

occupied the Ruhr Valley andmine the region

10,000 dollars

Million dollars1001 Billion Dollars

1 Trillion Dollars

Double Stacked

15.5 Trillion Dollarsin debt


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Ination in Germany

German workers went instrike due to loss of

nancesthe governmentprinted money as a

solution to this

The deutsche mark soon became worthless:

19144.2 marks to 1 dollar

19234.2 trillion marks to1 dollar

*The Dawes Planwas an American

attempt to balance

Germany byloaning them 200million dollars,

leading to aheavy American

investment inEurope

The Treaty of LocarnoA spirit of cooperation wasfostered by the foreign ministers

of Germany and France

*The Treaty of Locarno,guaranteed Germanys new

western borders with France andBelgiumleading to an era of

European peace

The Kellogg-Briand pact lednations to renounce war as aninstrument of national policy but such promises provedworthless without a way to

enforce these promises


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The GreatDepression

Economiccollapse and

GreatDepression

emerged in 1924

*Depression is aperiod of low

economicactivity and

risingunemployment

Causes of the DepressionTwo factors played a major role inthe start of the Great Depression:

(1) A series of economicdownturnsprinces for farm

products, especially wheat

(2) International nancial crisisinvolving the US stock market

During the 1920s, the US stock market was booming but by 1929,

the stock market crashed;Germanys market in reaction

completely collapsed

Responses to theDepression

One British worker in everyfour was unemployed

40 percent of the Germanlabor force was out of work

and homeless

These desperate time led to

increased government activityin the economy and led to

renewed interests in Marxistdoctrines and Communism


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Democratic Statesafter the War

Germany

A German democratic stateknown as the *Weimar

Republic was created but facedserious economic problems

Savings disappeared and

pushed the middle classtoward more radical political

parties as Germany was struck by the Great Depression

France became the strongestpower on the European continent

In June 1936, a coalition of leftistpartiesCommunists, Socialists,

and Radicalsformed thePopular Front government

The French New Deal gaveworkers the right to *collective

bargainingthe right of unions tonegotiate with employers over

wages and hours

The Popular Fronts policies failedto solve the problems of the

depression

Great Britain Coal, Steel, and Textilemanufacturing after the war

declined dramatically, leadingto a rise in unemployment

The Labour Party failed tosolve the nations economic

problems

*John Maynard KeynesGeneral Theory of Employment,

Interest, and Moneycondemning free economies

and that governments shouldnance labor projects, eventhrough *decit spending


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The United States

By 1932, US industrialproduction had fallen

almost 50 percent from its1929 level

The Democrat *FranklinDelano Roosevelt led an

active governmentintervention in the

economy known as the*New Dealthe publicworks and the Works

Progress Administration(WPA)

The Social Security Actcreated a system of old-

age pensions and

unemployment insurance

None of these resolvedthe US spiraling

economyonly the USentry into WWII and

weapons industry brought full employment

and industry

The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes


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The Rise of Dictators

By 1939, only two majorEuropean states

remained democraticFrance and Great Britain

*Totalitarian statesemerged to control the

political, economic,social, intellectual, and

cultural lives of itscitizens

These totalitarian stateswanted to conquer the

minds and hearts of

their subjectsinuencing throughmass propaganda

A single party emergedas the head of the stateand all were expectedto achieve the goals of

the singular vision

Fascism in Italy

*Benito Mussolini establishedthe rst European fascist

movement in Italy

He organized a new politicalgroupFascio di Combattimento

(League of Combat)fromwhich the term * fascism derives

This philosophy which gloriesthe state above the individual

by emphasizing the need for astrong central government led

by a dictatorial ruler


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Rise of Fascism

Italy experienced severeeconomic problems after World

War I

Socialists spoke of revolutionand Mussolini formed bands of

armed fascists called*Blackshirts whom crushed

socialists and would-becommunists

Either we are allowed togovern, or we will seize power

Mussolini was namedprime minister by theKing of Italy in 1922,

making movementstoward a Fascist

dictatorship

Formed a secretpolice called the

OVRA and creatednew and more

authoritarian laws

The Fascist State

Mussolini used variousmeans to establish

complete control over theItalian people, particularly

media

Fascist youth groupsincluded about 66 percent

of the population from 8 to18, focused on military

activities and values


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Mussolini nevermaintained complete

control over the Italianstate nor did he gain

totalitarian control seenin Hitlers Germany

Mussolinis regime alsogave the Church land

and money. In return, theCatholic Church urgedall to support the Fascist

regime

A New Era in theSoviet Union

Once civil war in Russia

was over, peasants beganto sabotage the communistprogram by hoarding food

Agricultural disaster led toindustrial collapse

Down with Lenin andhorseesh. Bring back the

czar and pork.

Lenins New EconomicPolicy

*New Economic Policy(NEP)a modiedversion of the oldcapitalist system

Once stability returned,the new state was

formalized under thename Union of SovietSocialist RepublicsUSSR or Soviet Union


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The Rise of Stalin *Politburoa committeeresponsible for policy-making

A faction emerged:One group, led by Leon

Trotsky, wanted to end theNEP and launch a rapid

industrialization leading to aglobal exporting of

Communism

Another group, led by *JosephStalin, wanted to continue

Lenins NEP and built a stablestate internally

Five-Year Plans

Stalin made a signicant shiftin economic policy in 1928,

ending the NEP

*Five-Year Plans areeconomic goals for ve-year

periods

They sought to transformRussia virtually overnight

from an agricultural into anindustrial country

The First emphasized maximumproduction of capital goods and

armaments; The Second focused onsteel production in Russia

numbers of workers increased bymillion but housing actually

declined

*Collectivization was a system inwhich private farms were

eliminatedgovernments owned allof the land while the peasants

worked it

Resistance from peasants led tohoarding crops and killing livestock


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Costs of StalinsPrograms

Collectivization wasdone at tremendous cost

10 million peasants diedin the famines of 1932

and 1933

The Old Bolshevikswere put on trial andcondemned to death;Millions were sent toforced labor camps in

Siberia

Hitler and Nazi Germany

Hitler and His Views

*Adolf Hitler was born in 1889and wanted to become an

artist but was rejected by theVienna Academy of Fine Arts

The core of his idea was racistand extreme nationalism

He joined the GermanWorkers Party, eventually

taking total control andrenaming it *National SocialistGerman Workers Party in

short the Nazi party


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He formed a militia knownas Storm Troops, or

Brownshirts; He attemptedto lead an uprising againstthe government but was

quickly defeated

*Mein Kampf My Struggle

It was laced with anti-Semitism, anticommunism

and liked to SocialDarwinian thoughthe

and his party soughtlebensraum (living space)

Rise of Nazism

Hitler expanded theNazi Party, soon

becoming the largestparty in the*Reichstag the

German parliament

Hitler promised tocreate a new

Germany, appealingto national pride,

honor, and militarism

Victory of Nazism

Right-wing elites looked toHitler for leadership

which allowed him to become chancellor andcreate a new government

1933, the Reichstag passedthe *Enabling Act, giving

the government the power

to ignore the constitutionfor four years while itissued laws to deal withthe countrys problems


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Hitler became a dictatorappointed by the

parliamentary bodyitself

The civil service waspurged of Jews and

democratic elements;*concentration campswere established for

such undesirables

Hitler soon garnered thetitle *Fhrer or Leader

The Nazi State, 1933-1939

The development of an*Aryan racial state that

would dominate Europeand possibility the worldfor generations to come

Aryansancient Greeks,Romans, Germans, theHoly Roman Empire,

German Empire of 1871

*Third Reich

The State and Terror

Nazi totalitarian stateused used terror and

repression

Schutzstafen (GuardSquadrons) known as

the SS headed by*Heinrich Himmler

For Himmler, the goal of the SS was the further the

Aryan master race


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Economic Policies

Hitler used publicworks projects andgrants to private

construction rms toput people back to

work

He undertook a

massive rearmamentprogram, leading toeconomic prosperity

The Nazis announced newracial laws at the annualparty rally in Nuremberg

*Nuremberg laws excluded Jews from German

citizenship and forbademarriages between Jews andGerman citizens; Yellow Star

of David

*Kristallnachtnight of shattered glass; Nazis

burned synagogues anddestroyed some seven

thousand Jewish businesses

27 the great twentieth-century crisis

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