Unit 4 Vocab AP Euro

Triple Alliance

The alliance of Austria, Germany, and Italy. Italy left the alliance when war broke out in 1914 on the grounds that Austria had launched a war of aggression..

Triple Entente

The alliance of Great Britain, France, and Russia prior to and during the First World War.

Schlieffen Plan

Failed German plan calling for a lighting attack through neutral Belgium and a quick defeat of France before turning on Russia.

total war

A war in which distinctions between the soldiers on the battlefield and civilians at home are blurred, and where the government plans and controls economic and social life in order to supple the armies at the front with supplies and weapons.

trench warfare

A type of fighting used in World War I behind rows of trenches, mines, and barbed wire, the cost in lives was staggering and the gains in territory minimal.

February Revolution

Unplanned uprisings accompanied by violent street demonstrations begun in March 1917 (old calendar February) in Petrograd, Russia, that led to the abdication of the tsar and the establishment of a provisional government.

Petrograd Soviet

A huge, fluctuating mass meeting of two to three thousand workers, soldiers, and socialist intellectuals modeled on the revolutionary soviets of 1905.

Bolsheviks

Lenin’s radical, revolutionary arm of the Russian party of Marxisr socialism, which successfully installed a dictatorial socialist regime in Russia.

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

Peace treaty signed in March 1918 between the Central Powers and Russia that ended Russian participation in World War I and ceded Russian territories containing a third of the Russian Empire’s population to the Central Powers.

War Communism

The application of centralized state control during the Russian civil war, in which the Bolsheviks seized grain from peasants, introduced rationing, nationalized all banks and industry, and required everyone to work.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 peace settlement that ended war between Germany and the Allied powers.

Fourteen Points

Wilson’s 1918 peace proposal calling for open diplomacy, a reduction in armaments, freedom of commerce and trade, the establishment of the League of Nations, and national self-determination.

League of Nations

A permanent international organization, established during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, designed to protect member states from aggression and avert further wars.

national self-determination

The notion that peoples should be able to choose their own national governments through democratic majority-rule elections and live free from outside interference in nation-states with clearly defined borders.

war guilt clause

An article in the Treaty of Versailles that declared that Germany (with Austria) was solely responsible for the war and had to pay reparations equal to all civilian damages caused by the fighting.

mandate system

The plan to allow Britain and France to administer former Ottoman territories, put into place after the end of the First World War.

Balfour Declaration

A 1917 British statement that declared British support of a National Home Jewish People in Palestine.

Vladimir Lenin

Russian revolutionary and leader of the Bolsheviks.

Leon Trotsky

Russian revolutionary who led the Red Army.

Kaiser Wilheim II

German Emperor

Hindenburg

German general who established a military dictatorship.

George Clemenceau

Prime minister of France who demanded retribution from Germany.

President Wilson

American president who proposed the Fourteen Points.

Nicholas II

Last Romanov tsar of Russia.

logical positivism

A philosophy that sees meaning in only those beliefs that can be empirically proven, and that therefor rejects most of the concerns of traditional philosophy, from the existence of God to the meaning of happiness, as nonsense.

existentialism

A philosophy that stresses the meaninglessness of existence and the importance of the individual in searching for moral values in an uncertain world.

theory of special relativity

Albert Einstein’s theory that time and space are relative to the observer that only the speed of light remains constant.

id, ego, and superego

Freudian terms to describe the three parts of the self and the basis of human behavior, which Freud saw as basically irrational.

modernism

A label given to the artistic and cultural movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were typified by radical experimentation that challenged traditional forms of artistic expression.

functionalism

The principle that buildings, like industrial products, should serve as well as possible the purpose for which they were made, without excessive ornamentation.

Bauhaus

A German interdisciplinary school of fine and applied arts that brought together many leading modern architects, designers, and theatrical innovators.

Dadaism

An artistic movement of the 1920s and 1930s that attacked all accepted standards of art and behavior and delighted in outrageous conduct.

stream-of-consciousness technique

A literary technique, found in works by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and others, that uses interior monologue—a character’s thoughts and feelings as they occur—to explore the human psyche.

“modern girl”

Somewhat stereotypical image of the modern and independent working woman popular in the 1920s.

Dawes Plan

War reparations agreement that reduced Germany’s yearly payments, made payment dependent of economic prosperity, and granted large U.S. loans to promote recovery.

Great Depression

A worldwide economic depression from 1929 through 1939, unique in its severity and duration and with slow and uneven recovery.

Popular Front

A short-lived New Deal-inspired alliance in France led by Léon Blum that encouraged the union movement and launched a far-reaching program of social reform.

John Maynard Keynes

Economics guy?

Gustav Stresemann

persuaded the French to leave the Ruhr and changed the currency to the Rentenmark which helped solve hyperinflation.

Franklin Roosevelt

US President who campaigned the New Deal

James Joyce

Avant Garde novelist and poet.

Sigmund Freud

Psychologist! That one yeah the Id Ego Superego one

Nietzsche

Created nihilism.

totalitarianism

A radical dictatorship that exercises “total claims” over the beliefs and behavior of its citizens by taking control of the economic, social, intellectual, and cultural aspects of society.

fascism

A movement characterized by extreme, often expansionist nationalism; anti socialism; a dynamic leader; and glorification of war and the military.

eugenics

A pseudoscientific doctrine saying that selective breeding of human beings can improve the general characteristics of a national population, which helped inspire Nazi ideas about national unity and racial exclusion and ultimately contributed to the Holocaust.

five-year plan

A plan launched by Stalin in 1928, and termed the “revolution from above”, aimed at modernizing the Soviet Union and creating a new Communist society with new attitudes, new loyalties, and a new socialist humanity.

New Economic Policy (NEP)

Lenin’s 1921 policy to re-establish limited economic freedom in an attempt to rebuild agriculture and industry in the face of economic disintegration.

collectivization

The forcible consolidation of individual peasant farms into large state-controlled enterprises in the Soviet Union under Stalin.

kulaks

The better-off peasants who were stripped of land and livestock under Stalin and were generally not permitted to join collective farms; many of them starved or were deported to forced labor camps for “re-education”.

Black Shirts

Mussolini’s private militia that destroyed socialist newspapers, union halls, and the Socialist Party headquarters, eventually passing Socialists out of the city governments of northern Italy.

Lateran Agreement

A 1929 agreement that recognized the Vatican as an independent state, with Mussolini agreeing to give the church heavy financial support in return for public support from the pope.

National Socialism

A movement and political party driven by extreme nationalism and racism, led by Adolf Hitler; its adherents ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945 and forced Europe into Work War II.

Enabling Act

An act pushed though the Reichstag by the Navy’s that gave Hitler absolute dictatorial power for four years.

appeasement

The British policy towards Germany prior to World War II that aimed at granting Hitler’s territorial demands, including western Czechoslovakia, in order to avoid war.

New Order

Hitler’s program based on racial imperialism, which gave preferential treatment to the “Nordic” peoples; the French, an “ inferior” Latin people, occupied a middle position; and Slavs and Jews were treated harshly as “subhumans”.

Holocaust

The systematic effort of the Nazis to exterminate all European Jews and other groups deemed racially inferior during the Second World War.

Battle of Britain

Stalingrad

D-Day

Winston Churchill

Francisco Franco

Nevelle Chamberlain

Eisenhower

Cold War

The rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States that divided much of Europe into a Soviet-aligned Communist bloc and a U.S.-aligned capitalist bloc between 1945 and 1989.

displaced persons

Postwar refugees, including 13 million Germans, former Nazi prisoners and forced laborers, and orphaned children.

Truman Doctrine

America’s policy geared to containing communism to those countries already under Soviet control.

Marshall Plan

American plan for providing economic aid to western Europe to help it rebuild.

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON)

An economic organization of Communist states meant to help rebuild East Bloc countries under Soviet auspices.

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet military alliance of Western governements.

Warsaw Pact

Soviet-backed military alliance of East Bloc Communist countries in Europe.

economic miracle

Term contemporaries used to describe rapid economic growth, often based on the consumer sector, in post-World War II western Europe.

Christian Democrats

Center-right political parties that rose to power in western Europe after the Second World War.

Common Market

The European Economic Community, created by six western and central European countries in the West Bloc in 1957 as a part of a larger search for European unity.

Socialist Realism

Artistic movement that followed the dictates of Communist ideals, enforced by state control in the Soviet Union and East Bloc countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

de-Stalinization

The liberalization of the post-Stalin Soviet Union led by reformed Nikita Krushchev.

decolonization

The postwar reversal of Europe’s overseas expansion caused by the rising demand of the colonized peoples themselves, the declining power of European nations, and the freedoms promised by U.S. and Soviet ideas.

nonalignment

Policy of postcolonial governments to remain neutral in the Cold War and play both the United States and the Soviet Union for what they could get.

neocolonialism

A postcolonial system that perpetuates Western economic exploitation in former colonial territories.

guest worker programs

Government-run programs in western Europe designed to recruit labor for the booming postwar economy.

postcolonial migration

The postwar movement of People from former colonies and the developing world into Europe.

Ostpolitik

German for Chancellor Willy Brant’s new “Eastern policy”; West Germany‘s attempt in the 1970s to ease diplomatic tensions with East Germany, exemplifying the policies of détente.

détente

The progressive relaxation of Cold War tensions that emerged in the early 1970s.

Second Vatican Council

A meeting of Catholic leaders convened from 1962 to 1965 that initiated a number of reforms including the replacement of Latin with local languages in church services, designed to democratize the church and renew its appeal.

New Left

A 1960s counterculture movement that embraced updated forms of Marxism to challenge both Western capitalism and Soviet-style communism.

Brezhnev Doctrine

Doctrine created by Leonid Brezhnev that held that the Soviet Union had the right to intervene in any East Bloc country when necessary to preserve Communist rule.

OPEC

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

stagflation

Term coined in the early 1980s to describe the combination of low growth and high inflation that led to a worldwide recession.

postindustrial society

A society that relies on high-tech and service-oriented jobs.

neoliberalism

Philosophy of 1980s conservatives who argued for privatization of state-run industries and decreased government spending on social services.

privatization

The sale of state-managed industries such as transportation and communication networks to private owners; a key aspect of broader neoliberal economic reforms meant to control government spending, increase private profits, and foster economic growth, which were implemented in western Europe in response to the economic crisis of the 1970s.

developed socialism

A term used by Communist leaders to describe the socialist accomplishments of their societies, such as nationalized industry, collective agriculture, and extensive social welfare.

Solidarity

Independent Polish trade union that worked for workers’ rights and political reform throughout the 1980s.

perestroika

Economic restructuring and reform implemented by premier Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1985.

glosnost

Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s popular campaign for openness in government and the media.

Velvet Revolution

The term given to the relatively peaceful overthrow of communism in Czechoslovakia; the label came to signify the collapse of the East bloc in general in 1989 to 1990.