THREE DESTABILIZING FACTORS

• RUINED PRESIDENT’S WILSON’S HOPE FOR A NEW AND BETTER WORLD

• COMMUNIST TAKEOVER OF RUSSIA AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SOVIET UNION

• HARSH AND VINDICTIVE TERMS OF VERSAILLES PEACE TREATY LED TO RISE OF ADOLF HITLER IN GERMANY

• INCREASING AGGRESSIVENESS OF JAPAN AS IT TRIED TO CREATE AN EMPIRE IN ASIA

RUSSIA BEFORE WORLD WAR ONE

• RULED BY BRUTAL AND IGNORANT ROMANOV DYNASTY– Still justified rule with theory

of divine right• 80% OF 120 MILLION SUBJECTS

WERE SUBSISTENCE LEVEL PEASANTS– Uneducated, illiterate, and

terribly poor– Exploited by an arrogant and

privileged nobility• GOVERNMENT ATTEMPTED TO

KEEP WESTERN IDEAS OUT OF COUNTRY

PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION• REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

– Influenced by Western ideas– Mainly young nobles and middle

class university students– Small – not a mass movement during

the 19th century• 1905

– Provoked by Russia’s defeat and hardships of war

– Tsar saves throne by offering concessions

• Constitution• Civil liberties• Advisory assembly –Duma

– Once throne is safe, tsar breaks promises

MARTOV

VERA ZASULICH

BLOODY SUNDAY 1905

MARCH REVOLUTON 1917• World War I

– Dismal performance by Russia army• Short of supplies• Corrupt and incompetent officer

corps• Nicholas II massively incompetent

wartime leader– Civilian population suffers from

shortages• Spontaneous riots by angry women in

Petrograd leads to full-scale uprising– March 1917– Tsar forced to abdicate– Provisional Government installed –

headed by Alexander Kerensky

BOLSHEVIK TAKEOVER OF NOVEMBER 1917

• PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT LOSES SUPPORT DUE TO ITS EFFORT TO CONTINUE THE WAR

• BOLSHEVIKS BENEFIT– Led by V.I. Lenin– Marxist– Promote immediate withdrawal

from war• BOLSHEVIKS TAKE POWER

– November 1917– Engineered by Leon Trotsky– Seize all important buildings in

Petrograd– Over in one night; minimal

casualties

LENIN TROTSKY

BOLSHEVIK MEETING

TREATY OF BREST-LITOVSK– 25% of Russia

territory handed over to Germans

– Seem as “peace at any price” agreement

– Underground anti-Bolshevik movement forms

– Lenin creates CHEKA (secret police) to counter underground movement

CIVIL WAR• ALLIED INTERVENTION

– Angered by Bolshevik repudiation of Russian debt

– Included U.S., Great Britain, France, and Japan

• CIVIL WAR (1918-1921)– Whites (anti-Bolsheviks and Allies)– Red Army (led by Leon Trotsky)– Bolsheviks win against all odds

• PRICE OF VICTORY HIGH– Secret police reestablished– Suspected traitors executed without

trials– Freedoms of press and speech curtailed– Strict controls placed on the economy

STALIN• LENIN DIES IN 1924

• BEHIND-THE-SCENES POWER STRUGGLE FOR THREE YEARS

• ULTIMATE VICTOR IS JOSEF STALIN

• Ruthless and cunning• Extremely paranoid• Could only accept blind,

unquestioning obedience

STALIN’S RUSSIA• COLLECTIVE FARMS

– Small farms consolidated into large state-owned estates

– Former peasants become state employees

• FIVE-YEAR PLANS– All production controlled by

government

• PURGES– Designed to rid party and country of

anyone who questioned or might question Stalin’s authority

– 20 million people disappear into prisons and prison camps and are never seen alive again

VERSAILLES PEACE CONFERENCE 1919

• WILSON ARRIVES WITH HOPE TO ACHIEVE “PEACE WITHOUT VICTORY”

• ALLIES HAVE OTHER IDEAS

• PRODUCE HARSH AND VINDICTIVE TREATY

PROVISIONS OF THE TREATY

– Germany blamed for war and held responsible for all war-related damage

– Germany forced to pay reparations ($33 billion) and hand over resources to Allies

– Allies keep all German colonies

– German military reduced to token force

– New states created out of old Austrian and Ottoman empires

– League of Nations created (but U.S. does not join)

WEIMAR REPUBLIC• DEMOCRATIC REGIME WITH SERIOUS

PROBLEMS– Resentment over treatment by

Versailles Treaty– Political instability– Economic chaos

• Loss of resources• Horrible inflation (400% a day in

early 1920s• STABILITY RESTORED BY MID-1920S

– Economic stability restored with help of American loans and renegotiation of reparations

– Political stability restored

THE GREAT DEPRESSION• Started in United States

– American bankers forced to recall loans from Germany causing collapse of economy

• World-wide catastrophe– Millions of people unemployed– Millions lose homes,

businesses, and farms– Rates of suicide and mental

illness skyrocket– Leaders appeared helpless to

deal with crisis

FASCISM• Demagogues blamed democracy for

Europe’s problems• Right-wing demagogues more successful

because they had a model to point to –Benito MUSSOLINI– Took over Italy in 1922

• Fascism– Right-wing dictatorship– Disregards civil liberties– Enforces absolute obedience Destroys

democratic institutions– Glorifies military conquest– Identifies scapegoat as cause of the

nation’s problems

SUCCESS OF FASCISM

• TURN TO FASCISM WAS RESULT OF DISLOCATIONS OF WORLD WAR I, THE HARDSHIPS OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION, AND THE GENERAL FEELING THAT DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS WERE INCAPABLE OF DEALING WITH EUROPE’S PROBLEMS

RISE OF HITLER• UNSUCCESSFUL ARTIST AND

WORLD WAR ONE VETERAN• REALIZED GERMANS WANTED

TO SEE GERMANY GREAT AGAIN AND AVENGE VERSAILLES TREATY

• NATIONAL SOCIALISM – Name of party: National

Socialist Party (Nazi Party)– Discredited Weimar Republic– Organized “Brown Shirts” to

beat and intimidate opponents and critics

– Created scapegoat for Germany’s problems: the Jews

HITLER TAKES OVERJANUARY 1933

• Hitler increased his following in Germany by leaps and bounds– By 1932, Nazis held 230

seats in the Reichstag• More than any other

party• Hitler named prime minister in

January 1933– Immediately transformed

himself into all powerful dictator

– “der Fuhrer”

JAPAN • Japan transformed into

modern constitutional monarchy and industrial nation after 1863

• Roots of democracy did not run deep; still had blind reference for the military

• Had to import all vital industrial raw materials (oil, coal, iron) from abroad—especially from U.S.

JAPAN GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE

• Great Depression hits Japan hard• Many come to believe that military

expansion is only answer• Military attacks and takes over

Manchuria without civilian authorization in 1932

• Full-scale war erupts in China by 1937

• Civilian government falls in 1940 and control is taken by a military junta led by Tojo Hedeki

• Japan now firmly set on a policy of conquest in Asia