The First World War, 1914-1918

Modern Weapons: War and the Industrial Revolution

• New weapons, like the machine-gun, were especially suited to defensive trench fighting.

• Both sides developed new offensive weapons to try and counter the defensive advantage, such as heavier artillery and poison gas.

Planes and Tanks…

Results

• 20 million military and civilian casualties. 11 million dead.

• Collapse of the Russian Empire, and the emergence of the Soviet Union.

• The collapse of the Austrian Empire.• The collapse of the Ottoman Empire.• Defeat of Germany, ruin of France• Destruction of the European economy• Spanish Flu, 1919 (20 million more dead)• British victory• American victory, emergence as a world power

Treaty of Versailles, 1919

• Germany

European territory to France

Give up overseas empire (mostly to Britain and Japan)

Reparations!• Austria Empire broken up• Ottoman Empire broken up

– Newly organized as Turkey– Middle Eastern territories divided up by Britain and France– Arab (and Kurdish and Egyptian) national ambitions?

• Poland rebuilt from land given up by Germany and Austria• Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations (an antecedent to the

United Nations)

Sykes-Picot Agreement

End of the Nineteenth Century

• Nationalism largely repudiated as the cause of the “Great War” as it was called.

• Competition for Imperial possessions was essentially over, also seen as a cause of the war.

• Classic Liberalism was essentially over as well, as the European economy was in complete shambles after the war.

• Many observers saw WWI as a total failure of the politics and policies of the Nineteenth Century, a sentiment which led to the creation of several reactionary political philosophies.

The Russian Revolution

Russia in 1917: Why everyone hates the Czar

• War against Germany was a disaster; Conscription.• Very unhappy peasants• Russian cities were suffering all the problems of the industrial revolution, plus high prices, food shortages, etc.• Bourgeoisie/industrialists: unhappy with high

taxes, and conservative economic policies… and the war!

February, 1917

Czar Abdicates, 1917

The Duma (Russian parliament) declared a Provisional government in March.

The Soviet labor union councils and the socialist challengers

Vladimir Lenin

• Longtime revolutionary politician, had been exiled

• Inspired by Marx, led the Bolshevik (majority) wing

of Russian socialist parties.

• Lenin disagreed with Marx about the need for a spontaneous revolution, and believed that a worker’s uprising could be jumpstarted by hard-working leaders like himself.

• Lenin that imperialism was the ultimate form of capitalism, as the Imperial powers were looking for markets around the world to enrich their capitalists.

• He saw World War I as entirely caused by imperialism, and therefore a natural outcome of the Liberal Capitalist world system.

• Because imperialism was an aggressive military act, Lenin thought that a military defense, under the banner of socialism, was the only appropriate response.

October, 1917

• Lenin returned in April 1917, worked to organize Soviets under Bolshevik leadership.

• The Provisional government was wracked with turmoil.

• War going badly!

• Military coup in August

• Lenin and the Bolsheviks forcefully took control of St. Petersburg in

Late October, and created the Soviet Socialist Republic.

Soviet Russia

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

• From 1918-1920 the Communist government fought a civil war against the “White Russians”, anti-communist forces backed by French, British and American troops and supplies. Even Japan intervened.

• By 1920, the Communist government had won, and Lenin’s party was in full control of the Soviet Union

• Lenin’s plan was for industrial

development, gradual

reorganization of the agricultural

sector.• Consciously international, pledged

to help socialists everywhere in the world.

Post-War economic woes

Political Choices in the 1920s

• High unemployment (20%+), no real world trade, economic turmoil.

• Liberal capitalist governments seemed unable to fix the economy.

• Socialism seemed like a viable option (USSR), and many people supported socialist politics

• Many did not, especially people with strong nationalist sentiments, or people who felt their wealth and power were threatened by socialism.

The “Third Way”

• Many who felt old liberal capitalist system was broken, but who did not want to support socialism were eager for a third way.

• The alternative that developed was fascism, a strong nationalist political ideal that put the collective needs of the state ahead of individual or international needs.

• Fascists were willing to take aggressive steps to improve economy, rejecting liberal capitalism and socialism equally.

.

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)

-elected 1921 to the Italian parliament.

Il Duce (The Leader)

-Prime Minister in 1922-Dictator from 1925-1944

-Successful: Italian economy recovering by late 1920s

Adolf Hitler and Mussolini

National Socialists (not socialists, but an alternative to socialism)

Tried to organize a coup in 1923

Got arrested, went to jail

Mein Kampf, 1924

Hitler’s Fascism

“As a State the German Reich shall include all Germans. Its task is not only to gather in and foster the most valuable sections of our people but to lead them slowly and surely to a dominant position in the world.”

“The State is only the vessel and the race is what it contains. The vessel can have a meaning only if it preserves and safeguards the contents. Otherwise it is worthless.”

Hitler über Deutschland

-January, 1933, becomes Chancellor

- Reichstag Fire, February 1933

- Enabling Act, March 1933

-Fürher und Reichskanzler, 1934

-Successful

• Successful:

German

economy

recovered

quickly in 1930s

FDR and the New Deal

• Roosevelt was elected in 1932 in the face of a deepening Depression.

• US unemployment was over 25% in 1932-33.

• FDR’s response was massive government intervention in the economy…

1) Banks regulated, FDIC introduced

2) CCC and other government agencies used to provide jobs.

3) Massive government investment in all sectors of the economy… a 1930s “bailout”

4) Social protections created like unemployment insurance and social security

Re-Thinking the Economy

• Laissez-Faire/Liberal economic theory called for no government involvement in economic regulation.

• Socialism called for complete government management of important sectors of the economy.

• Fascism called for government and corporate cooperation for the promotion of state/national interests.

• What is the New Deal? Embedded liberalism

Mussolini on War: War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energy and puts a stamp of nobility upon peoples who have the courage to meet it.

Japanese Pacific Empire

World War II

Military – 15,000,000Civilian- 45,000,000