Unit 11: The Interwar Period
World War I devastated Europe economically, politically, and socially. Great Britain and France blamed Germany for the conflict and imposed severe economic penalties and military restrictions on the German state. In Russia, Communist revolutionaries seized control of the government in 1917, consolidated power, and imposed Communist rule throughout Russia. Through brute force and starvation, Joseph Stalin would transform Russia from an agrarian state into a powerful industrial nation that would rival the industrial states of Western Europe. In Asia, Japanese leaders challenged the Western colonial powers by expanding their military with the goal of establishing colonies throughout Asia and the Pacific.
After the war, liberal democratic governments came to power in most of Western Europe. Women assumed their right to vote in many states, and workers began to unionize. However, the democratic governments in Germany and Italy were weak and ineffective. The Great Depression destroyed the German and Italian economies during the early 1930s, and voters elected more powerful leaders to guide them through the difficulties. Adolf Hitler's (1889–1845) Nazi Party gained power in Germany, while Benito Mussolin's (1883–1945) Fascist Party assumed control in Italy. These leaders promised renewed prosperity as they rebuilt their military forces to challenge the colonial powers of Great Britain and France. Meanwhile, in Asia, Japanese military forces landed in eastern China to occupy much of Manchuria.
In this unit, we explore the rise of communist, fascist, and totalitarian governments in Europe and Asia and how they fundamentally reshaped life in these nations during the 1920s and 1930s.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- analyze how Europe attempted to create a new political order after World War I;
- discuss the rise of the Soviet Union and its leadership;
- describe the Great Depression and the political effect it had in Europe; and
- analyze the postwar demand for greater rights both within foreign colonies and domestically.
11.1: Recovering from World War I
World War I was one of the most devastating conflicts up to that point in world history. Four empires fell apart because of the war, requiring a redrawing of Europe's map along national lines. Economies had to be rebuilt, and the threat of political instability because of the Bolshevik Revolution was genuine. For this reason, the victorious Allies had to construct a peace agreement that they hoped might create a stable Europe in the long term.
Read this text on the aftermath of World War I, the Treaty of Versailles (signed June 28, 1919), the economic conditions in Germany, and the war's effects on the economies of Europe, the United States, East Asia, and Latin America.
Read this to learn more about the European economy during this period, how it compared to the United States, and what political movements arose as a response to the economic conditions present on the continent.
Watch this video on internationalism. During the 1920s, politicians, scientists, veterans, activists, and everyday citizens sought to increase global connections to prevent the reoccurrence of another worldwide conflict. The League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, scientific conferences, trade unions, and Interpol were just some of these attempts. This video summarizes these changes and the history of internationalism.
Read this text to learn more about the after-effects of World War I.
The division of so many empires into new states fueled post-war nationalism. Learn more about it in this text.
11.2: The Formation of the Soviet Union
By the end of the civil war in 1920, the Bolsheviks had to build a new economic infrastructure for the new Soviet Union. In 1921, Lenin introduced his New Economic Policy (NEP), which created some stability and instituted limited free market policies, such as land ownership. However, Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) won the power struggle that followed Lenin's death in 1924. Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938), a supporter of the NEP, was expelled from the Politburo in 1929 and executed in 1938. Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 and exiled in 1929.
During the 1930s, Stalin nationalized the Soviet economy and reinstituted the authoritarian policies of "war communism" to create a command economy. He demanded laborers build the heavy industrial base that would create a modern industrialized economy, forced the peasants into mass collective farms, which led to millions of deaths during the Great Famine (1932–1933), and provoked a mass migration of millions of peasants to the Russian urban centers (1928–1932). By 1934, Stalin declared the revolution was over.
Read this text on the early years of the Soviet Union, Stalin's first Five Year Plan (1928–1932), and life in the Soviet Union under Stalin.
Read this article on the Soviet Union's First Five-Year Plan covering 1928 to 1932. The plan contained several economic goals designed to revolutionize agriculture and industry. Researchers estimate that Stalin's forced collectivization effort killed nearly 10 million people in the Soviet countryside (primarily in Ukraine) during the Soviet Famine of 1932–33. To eradicate "enemies of the working class," Stalin imprisoned more than a million people in the Gulag prison system and executed at least 700,000 individuals during the Great Purge between 1934 and 1939.
11.3: The Great Depression and Fascism
A worldwide economic depression and the burden of reparations devastated the German economy during the post-war period in the 1930s. Inflation skyrocketed, leading to mass poverty and starvation. Hitler and other nationalists were able to capitalize on the anger, resentment, and nationalism that the German people felt and directed toward the foreign countries who were demanding they pay the repressive reparations.
Read this text on the causes and effects of the Great Depression on the economies of industrialization and developing nations. This economic climate fueled popular interest in communism in Stalin's Soviet Union and fascism in Hitler's Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.
Read this text on fascism, an ideology that rebuked communism and liberal democracy, and proved attractive to people during the Great Depression. Its leaders seemed to offer a path out of economic chaos and political paralysis but did so by targeting minority groups. While the governments claimed to speak for the working classes, they allied themselves with big business and outlawed strikes and other forms of labor unrest.
11.4: Demands for Rights and Freedom
France and Britain emerged from World War I with larger empires than before, while Germany's overseas empire disappeared. However, the war had weakened European empires in many ways. It demonstrated their dependence on their colonies for many things, including troops. The support the colonies offered during the fighting was not reciprocated with greater respect or autonomy after the war. New demands for freedom emerged. A new sense of empowerment became a rallying cry heard around the world, even in countries that were not under foreign domination. Marginalized groups found new ways to protest and seek power.
During this era of new internationalism, many in Africa and Asia hoped the United States or Europe would listen and begin to offer them more freedom. In 1919, Ho Chi Minh, the future leader of the independent North Vietnam, wrote a petition to Woodrow Wilson asking for greater autonomy for Vietnam. Wilson never saw it. Read this petition to understand what Minh hoped to achieve and his demands.
Read this text on the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and the resistance to colonization in Africa and Asia.
British colonization had reorganized India's agricultural system to serve the needs of Great Britain, not India. In accordance with the mercantile system, the government forced Indians to buy their finished goods from Great Britain, which destroyed the local textile, metalwork, glass, and paper industries. This led to widespread poverty and famine.
Britain did not design India's famous railroad system to meet the needs of the local population during several periods of famine or connect population hubs to foster Indian commerce. Rather, it was built to export raw materials, such as grain, tea, and cotton, for British profit from the Indian fields to port cities to transport to Britain and other foreign trading posts.
In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) told the Indians they should no longer be subject to the British mercantile system, which harvested Indian natural resources and resold its manufactured goods (including salt) back to the Indians at an inflated price. He famously scooped a handful of mud and boiled it to extract the salt. He showed the Indians they could produce their own salt and other goods. They did not need to follow British practices anymore.
Unlike revolutions in Russia and France, the Indian Revolution was pacifist and based on civil protest and disobedience rather than violence. As you watch this documentary, consider Gandhi's larger impact on future movements, such as the civil rights movement Martin Luther King, Jr. led in the United States during the 1960s.
Read this text on expanding liberty and civil rights in Western Europe and the United States.
Unit 11 Assessment
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