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AP Euro: Unit 16.9-16:12 - The Interwar Years

AP Euro: Unit 16.9-16:12 - The Interwar Years

GERMANY

The Weimar Government

  • The Weimar Republic took over after the Emperor stepped down from power.
  • Agreed to the Treaty of Versailles which most Germans thought unfair.
  • Reparations have made their lives hard, as Germany is expected to pay 132 billion marks (about 33 billion in US dollars), in yearly installments of 2.5 billion.
  • If Germany doesn’t make their payments, the Allies promise that they will occupy the Ruhr Valley of Germany until payments begin.  
  • Made first payment in 1921
  • Following year, Germany announces that it can’t pay all that is asked of them

The Weimar Republic

  • Because of this, the French occupy the Ruhr Valley (Germany’s biggest industrial center) and use the machines and mines themselves.
  • Expensive for the French, they don’t break even on this occupation and in fact, even lose money!
  • Takes hatred of the French to a whole new level as violence breaks out between French and Germans 
  • Weimar govt printing a little too much $ 
  • International pressure grows for France to stop its policy of forceful coercion and seek a better way towards recovery for both nations. 
  • An international commission is called to work on the problem

The Dawes Plan

  • Named after the US banker who chaired the commission.  1924
  • New terms are offered to Germany
  • Lessening reparations
  • Allowing them to build a military (but not in certain zones, and its size was limited)
  • Allowing them limited industrialization
  • Loans given to Germany by the US to help Germany recover (pre Great Depression)
  • Followed by the Treaty of Locarno 1925
  • Established and guaranteed borders between Germany and France
  • Germany joins the League of Nations in 1926
  • Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • This agreement between 63 nations pledged nations would “renounce war as an instrument of national policy”
  • League of Nations members pledged further to reduce arms to the lowest point consistent with national security

Arrival of the Great Depression

  • America’s Great Depression tanks everyone!
  • Americans had loaned Germany money to help recover, but the arrival of the Great Depression forces investors to pull this money out, sending Germany further into depression
  • They had to print more money (because reparations were paid in gold) in order to cover the massive debts
  • 1914: 1USD = 4.2GM
  • 1921:  1 USD = 130 Billion GM
  • We had the type of inflation we saw in France before the revolution, only about 100 times worse. 
  • 40 % of all people out of work
  • People DESPERATE for a change
  • Communism rises in popularity
  • Fascism also starts to become popular

Germany’s Got Problems

  • Angry and resentful, the German people longed for someone to end their suffering.  
  • They would find it in a disgruntled former WWI German Army corporal, named Adolf Hitler. 
  • He is the unifying member of what would become the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) which was on the rise

A Little Background

  • Son of an abusive Austrian official.
  • Dropped out of high school and moved to Vienna.
  • Wanted to be an artist.
  • Denied entry into the Imperial Art Academy twice.
  • Lived off of his dead father’s inheritance.
  • Listened to many Anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) speakers 

Hitler Background

  • WWI - moved to Munich, Germany and joined the Army. 
  • Was a runner and achieved the rank of corporal.
  • received two Iron Crosses for bravery. 
  • Feels cheated at Germany’s loss and blames the Weimar Republic, calls them the “November Traitors”
  • Hired as an internal spy by the Army
  • Hitler spies on then joins the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) 
  • Nazis mimic much of the ideas of Fascist Italy 
  • supported by the middle and lower middle class
  • Adopt the swastika, or hooked cross to tie his ideas to prehistory and the occult
  • Established the SA or Brown Shirts, Nazi thugs used to beat up foes (JUST LIKE THE BLACKSHIRTS IN ITALY!)
  • Inspired by Mussolini’s march on Rome, Hitler orders the Nazis to seize control of Munich, the plan fails (called the Beer Hall Putsch) 
  • Hitler catches national attention at his trial
  • Doesn’t apologize.  Explains he wants to return Germany to its former greatness, like Mussolini is doing in Italy
  • People see him as strong, standing up for the German people.
  • Hitler is sentence to 5 years in low security prison (only served 18 months)
  • Mein Kampf (My Struggle; written in Prison) set forth Hitler’s beliefs and goals:
  • Lebensraum: living space, Hitler called for an invasion of Russia to allow the German race to grow 
  • The twin evils: Communism and Judaism, and he stated that his aim was to eradicate both from the face of the earth
  • denouncement of the Versailles Treaty
  • Promise to rearm Germany in defiance of the treaty of Versailles 
  • Racial Purity: Aryans = “master race” those of Germanic descent, blond hair and blue eyes.  
  • Austrians are their natural allies (remember, he IS Austrian)
  • non-Aryans = “inferior or subhuman races” like Jews, Slavs, Poles, Homosexuals and Gypsies
  • Legal Revolution, work with the Right against the Left
  • 1932, Great Depression at its worst, 
  • Germany 30% unemployment (6 million)
  • Hitler’s Nazi Party won greatest # of seats in the government 
  • Hitler is named Chancellor (Prime Minister) in 1933
  • Launches a new public works program, puts thousands of Germans back to work
  • Building highways, planting forests, building families!
  • Begins to rearm Germany  in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles
  • 1933: Hoping to increase his number of seats in the Parliament, Hitler calls a new election.
  • Six days before the elections, the Reichstag (House of Parliament) is set on fire 
  • The Nazis blame the communists (many  historians think that the Nazi Brownshirts set the fire) and the Nazis win a greater majority.
  • Enabling Act 1934:  With a majority, Hitler asked to be given total control of the country for 4 years (only one deputy spoke out against it). 
  • Proclaimed that Germany had now become the Third Reich, or the third German Empire (1st Holy Roman, 2nd Bismarck’s)

Politics

  • Banned opposition parties and arrested opposition leaders
  • Fuhrerprinzip was the idea that the the party be absolutely single minded in achieving the leader’s vision (no discussion of ideas, just accept what you are told)
  • Created the SS (Hitler’s guards) led by Heinrich Himmler, who arrested and murdered hundreds, became another branch of the Army
  • Hitler ordered the killing of many Brown Shirt leaders (Ernst Röhm) in order to keep the Brownshirts in line & appease Army
  • Gestapo, or secret police used brutality and terror to keep people in line

Hitler Background

  • Banned Strikes and dissolved labor unions
  • Government control over businesses
  • Started many government jobs that put millions to work building public works (highways aka the autobahn, bridges, and weapons in violation of Versailles Treaty)
  • By 1936, unemployment had dropped from 6 million to 1.5 million! 
  • Ethnic Germans given state-sponsored vacations, keep workers happy
  • Hosted the 1936 Olympics (Jesse Owen steals his thunder)

Other Nazis/Programs

  • Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister
  • Propaganda = Press, radio, literature, paintings and films
  • Book Burning, great classics were burned because they did not agree with Hitler’s ideas
  • Churches were forbidden to criticize the Nazis
  • Hitler Youth (boys) and League of German (Girls)
  • Taught violence and struggle as part of life (Social Darwinism) 

Nazi Programs

  • Jews = 1% of Pop.
  • Blamed for all of Germany’s problems
  • Nuremberg Laws, started in 1933
  • denied Jews the right to vote
  • ban against mixed marriages
  • Kicked out of professional jobs
  • Boycott of all Jewish business
  • Kristallnacht
  • Nov 9, 1938, Night of the Broken Glass, 
  • Nazi mobs destroy thousands of Jewish homes and shops

Hitler Continues to Copy Mussolini

  • Hitler Youth (boys) League of German (Girls)
  • Schools teach a new version of history, and also incorporate Pro-German rhetoric and propaganda
  • Teach children to hate at an early age
  • Teach children to be obedient to the reich at an early age
  • Women removed from the workforce to have children, young girls encouraged to marry and start having kids of their own (rewards mothers who give birth often)
  • Military parades
  • Ridiculously huge rallies and public speeches. Glorify the state above all else

Eastern Europe

  • New nations created with the collapse of Austria, the Ottomans, and large areas of Russia gaining independence (next section).
  • Most put dictators in power (like Hitler and Mussolini) who play on nationalistic feelings of pride and renewal
  • These nations don’t work together.
  • These nations have severe racial divisions 
  • Serbs basically rule new Yugoslavia, but the Bosnians, and other Slavic groups want independence
  • In Czechoslovakia, the Czechs and Slovaks argue over who is in charge
  • Stronger nations around them see them as tempting targets for further empire building.

FRANCE

France has got problems...

  • German reparations (payments) helped a lot with France’s reconstruction.  
  • Socially, it's multiparty system - produced several consecutive unsuccessful coalition governments. 
  • England and America both didn’t honor their promise to forge a new alliance with France.  
  • France feels betrayed and alone in Europe
  • Germany’s reparations were lessened
  • Occupying the Rhineland was REALLY expensive
  • France wants to stabilize eastern Europe (the Little Entente of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) but this new alliance is weak
  • France develops (rightly) a sense of paranoia

Postwar Foreign Policy in France

  • Petrified that Germany would invade again, France made moves to prevent it from ever happening.
  • Built the Maginot Line: a series of mountain defenses (yes they BUILT mountains) on the border with Germany that served as a deterrent to German aggression. (note: Germany would invade the SAME way it did in WWI and just go AROUND the line into Belgium, rendering it useless)
  • Kept demanding war payments from Germany even after Great Britain warns them that this might create chaos in Germany and lead to something worse (which was correct)

RUSSIA

An Uneasy Peace with Russia

  • Russia had hoped for communist revolutions in the west after its successful overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and establishment of a communist nation.  
  • There were none
  • Westerners remained highly suspicious of Soviet Russia, but both sides settled into kind of a tense coexistence.
  • Russia had been weakened by the territory lost after WWI
  • Not only territory lost to Germans, several nations declare themselves to be independent of Russia (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc)
  • Not only lost territory, lost a huge % of its population

Stalin’s 5 Year Plans

  • To transform the Soviet Union into a world superpower, it would need to industrialize.
  • Put the control of businesses and industry under the direct control of the central government (Command Economy) so the government really controlled the most minute details of the economy
  • What to pay workers?
  • What are fair prices for goods?
  • Who has access to these goods?
  • What workers do what jobs?
  • Very different from a capitalist society where the market determines the answers to most of the questions listed above.
  • Stalin’s 5 year plans did produce some successful industries in Russia, but success was uneven
  • New infrastructure (roads, railroads, ect) was created
  • Some new industries were created, but success was rewarded with higher pay and other things that made this “classless” society pretty unequal
  • In order to meet production quotas, factories just churned out low quality goods
  • Luxury goods (cars, refrigerators, etc) were hard to find and only really affordable by the elites (again in this theoretically classless society)
  • Quality of life DOES IMPROVE for some workers, but there is still a large % of Russia not doing well.
  • Inefficient management of farms create food shortages

Inside Communist Russia

  • Food production would have to be reformed if Russia was going to feed itself. 
  • Stalin chose to do a government takeover of farms (seen below)
  • When wealthy farmers (Kulaks) tried to resist his collectivization (government takeover and management) of farms, he had them killed or deported to new work camps that were being erected in Siberia.
  • These labor camps (where ppl worked themselves to death) became the dumping ground for political prisoners and were called Gulags.  Stories of the horror there spread
  • Farms are now even more horribly mismanaged b/c no experienced farmers, MASSIVE famines and food shortages result.
  • What crops that did exist were seized by the government
  • Causes tremendous unhappiness

The Great Purge

  • Stalin was super suspicious of anyone who could in any way challenge his power.
  • Pitted his subordinates against one another.
  • They will be suspicious of one-another instead of being suspicious of Stalin
  • During an event known as “The Great Purge,” more than 8 million people were deported to the Russian Gulags
  • War heroes, Political Up-in comers, OLD COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERS, Writers and intellectuals, etc
  • Huge public “trials” for these people
  • Tons of state propaganda to control thought

Soviet Union Under Stalin

  • Even more collectivization of the Russian means of production.  
  • Farms, factories, ect. were taken by the party, run by the party, but “belonged” to the people,
  • Massive programs to industrialize Russia and bring them up to the standards set by Western European nations.
  • One of the greatest mass murderers in all history.  Ruthlessly eliminated any and all political opposition
  • Most western leaders did not like to deal with him

Prelude to WWII

  • After WWI, Western democracies (France, US, Britain) tried to pursue Wilson's goal of exhausting all diplomatic options before declaring war and preserving the peace as long as possible.
  • In the 1930's, several dictatorships emerged that would put Wilson's policy of peace to the test.

Japanese Appeasement

  • The Japanese, who already controlled the Korean Peninsula, invaded China in Manchuria in 1931 and annexing the territory it captured
  • The League of Nations officially condemned the move, but made no real move to stop the Japanese aggression. Thus began the policy of appeasement (giving into demands of the aggressor in order to keep the peace)
  • Japan simply withdrew from the LON as a result.
  • Japan would invade China again in 1937 and stole more Chinese territory in what became known as the Second Sino-Japanese war.
  • The LON would again do nothing to stop these territorial advances besides condemning the move publicly.

Italian Appeasement

  • Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia in 1935.  
  • It used horrific tactics like striking at civilians and attacking red cross hospitals during the fighting. 
  • Ethiopian president Haile Selassie pleaded to the LON for intervention.
  •  LON tried unsuccessfully to economically sanction Italy but did nothing.

German Appeasement

  • Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, built aircraft and submarines, and annexed the nation of Austria, all in violation of the terms of peace set at Versailles.
  • It would also invade and annex Czechoslovakia all without a shot being fired.

Spain Collapses

  • In 1936, Francisco Franco started a revolt that ultimately led to a Spanish Civil War.
  • Italy and Germany backed Franco, while the Soviet Union sent troops to fight alongside their opposition.
  • Hitler used this campaign as an excuse to test out his brand new air force and new form of fighting, Blitzkrieg! 
  • After a death toll of more than 500,000, Franco emerged victorious.  He set up a fascist regime based on the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini.

America’s Stab at Neutrality

  • America could see the way things were headed so they tried to adopt policies that would help them remain neutral in any upcoming war. (Neutrality Acts 1939)
  • Wouldn't sell weapons to nations at war
  • No travel for Americans to nations  at war.
  • Couldn't travel on ships owned by warring nations

Axis Powers Form

  • In September of 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed an alliance called the Axis Powers. 
  • They agreed to help each other stop the spread of Communism
  • They agreed to not get in each other's way of territorial expansion.

AP Euro: Unit 16.9-16:12 - The Interwar Years

GERMANY

The Weimar Government

  • The Weimar Republic took over after the Emperor stepped down from power.
  • Agreed to the Treaty of Versailles which most Germans thought unfair.
  • Reparations have made their lives hard, as Germany is expected to pay 132 billion marks (about 33 billion in US dollars), in yearly installments of 2.5 billion.
  • If Germany doesn’t make their payments, the Allies promise that they will occupy the Ruhr Valley of Germany until payments begin.  
  • Made first payment in 1921
  • Following year, Germany announces that it can’t pay all that is asked of them

The Weimar Republic

  • Because of this, the French occupy the Ruhr Valley (Germany’s biggest industrial center) and use the machines and mines themselves.
  • Expensive for the French, they don’t break even on this occupation and in fact, even lose money!
  • Takes hatred of the French to a whole new level as violence breaks out between French and Germans 
  • Weimar govt printing a little too much $ 
  • International pressure grows for France to stop its policy of forceful coercion and seek a better way towards recovery for both nations. 
  • An international commission is called to work on the problem

The Dawes Plan

  • Named after the US banker who chaired the commission.  1924
  • New terms are offered to Germany
  • Lessening reparations
  • Allowing them to build a military (but not in certain zones, and its size was limited)
  • Allowing them limited industrialization
  • Loans given to Germany by the US to help Germany recover (pre Great Depression)
  • Followed by the Treaty of Locarno 1925
  • Established and guaranteed borders between Germany and France
  • Germany joins the League of Nations in 1926
  • Kellogg-Briand Pact
  • This agreement between 63 nations pledged nations would “renounce war as an instrument of national policy”
  • League of Nations members pledged further to reduce arms to the lowest point consistent with national security

Arrival of the Great Depression

  • America’s Great Depression tanks everyone!
  • Americans had loaned Germany money to help recover, but the arrival of the Great Depression forces investors to pull this money out, sending Germany further into depression
  • They had to print more money (because reparations were paid in gold) in order to cover the massive debts
  • 1914: 1USD = 4.2GM
  • 1921:  1 USD = 130 Billion GM
  • We had the type of inflation we saw in France before the revolution, only about 100 times worse. 
  • 40 % of all people out of work
  • People DESPERATE for a change
  • Communism rises in popularity
  • Fascism also starts to become popular

Germany’s Got Problems

  • Angry and resentful, the German people longed for someone to end their suffering.  
  • They would find it in a disgruntled former WWI German Army corporal, named Adolf Hitler. 
  • He is the unifying member of what would become the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) which was on the rise

A Little Background

  • Son of an abusive Austrian official.
  • Dropped out of high school and moved to Vienna.
  • Wanted to be an artist.
  • Denied entry into the Imperial Art Academy twice.
  • Lived off of his dead father’s inheritance.
  • Listened to many Anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) speakers 

Hitler Background

  • WWI - moved to Munich, Germany and joined the Army. 
  • Was a runner and achieved the rank of corporal.
  • received two Iron Crosses for bravery. 
  • Feels cheated at Germany’s loss and blames the Weimar Republic, calls them the “November Traitors”
  • Hired as an internal spy by the Army
  • Hitler spies on then joins the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi) 
  • Nazis mimic much of the ideas of Fascist Italy 
  • supported by the middle and lower middle class
  • Adopt the swastika, or hooked cross to tie his ideas to prehistory and the occult
  • Established the SA or Brown Shirts, Nazi thugs used to beat up foes (JUST LIKE THE BLACKSHIRTS IN ITALY!)
  • Inspired by Mussolini’s march on Rome, Hitler orders the Nazis to seize control of Munich, the plan fails (called the Beer Hall Putsch) 
  • Hitler catches national attention at his trial
  • Doesn’t apologize.  Explains he wants to return Germany to its former greatness, like Mussolini is doing in Italy
  • People see him as strong, standing up for the German people.
  • Hitler is sentence to 5 years in low security prison (only served 18 months)
  • Mein Kampf (My Struggle; written in Prison) set forth Hitler’s beliefs and goals:
  • Lebensraum: living space, Hitler called for an invasion of Russia to allow the German race to grow 
  • The twin evils: Communism and Judaism, and he stated that his aim was to eradicate both from the face of the earth
  • denouncement of the Versailles Treaty
  • Promise to rearm Germany in defiance of the treaty of Versailles 
  • Racial Purity: Aryans = “master race” those of Germanic descent, blond hair and blue eyes.  
  • Austrians are their natural allies (remember, he IS Austrian)
  • non-Aryans = “inferior or subhuman races” like Jews, Slavs, Poles, Homosexuals and Gypsies
  • Legal Revolution, work with the Right against the Left
  • 1932, Great Depression at its worst, 
  • Germany 30% unemployment (6 million)
  • Hitler’s Nazi Party won greatest # of seats in the government 
  • Hitler is named Chancellor (Prime Minister) in 1933
  • Launches a new public works program, puts thousands of Germans back to work
  • Building highways, planting forests, building families!
  • Begins to rearm Germany  in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles
  • 1933: Hoping to increase his number of seats in the Parliament, Hitler calls a new election.
  • Six days before the elections, the Reichstag (House of Parliament) is set on fire 
  • The Nazis blame the communists (many  historians think that the Nazi Brownshirts set the fire) and the Nazis win a greater majority.
  • Enabling Act 1934:  With a majority, Hitler asked to be given total control of the country for 4 years (only one deputy spoke out against it). 
  • Proclaimed that Germany had now become the Third Reich, or the third German Empire (1st Holy Roman, 2nd Bismarck’s)

Politics

  • Banned opposition parties and arrested opposition leaders
  • Fuhrerprinzip was the idea that the the party be absolutely single minded in achieving the leader’s vision (no discussion of ideas, just accept what you are told)
  • Created the SS (Hitler’s guards) led by Heinrich Himmler, who arrested and murdered hundreds, became another branch of the Army
  • Hitler ordered the killing of many Brown Shirt leaders (Ernst Röhm) in order to keep the Brownshirts in line & appease Army
  • Gestapo, or secret police used brutality and terror to keep people in line

Hitler Background

  • Banned Strikes and dissolved labor unions
  • Government control over businesses
  • Started many government jobs that put millions to work building public works (highways aka the autobahn, bridges, and weapons in violation of Versailles Treaty)
  • By 1936, unemployment had dropped from 6 million to 1.5 million! 
  • Ethnic Germans given state-sponsored vacations, keep workers happy
  • Hosted the 1936 Olympics (Jesse Owen steals his thunder)

Other Nazis/Programs

  • Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, Propaganda Minister
  • Propaganda = Press, radio, literature, paintings and films
  • Book Burning, great classics were burned because they did not agree with Hitler’s ideas
  • Churches were forbidden to criticize the Nazis
  • Hitler Youth (boys) and League of German (Girls)
  • Taught violence and struggle as part of life (Social Darwinism) 

Nazi Programs

  • Jews = 1% of Pop.
  • Blamed for all of Germany’s problems
  • Nuremberg Laws, started in 1933
  • denied Jews the right to vote
  • ban against mixed marriages
  • Kicked out of professional jobs
  • Boycott of all Jewish business
  • Kristallnacht
  • Nov 9, 1938, Night of the Broken Glass, 
  • Nazi mobs destroy thousands of Jewish homes and shops

Hitler Continues to Copy Mussolini

  • Hitler Youth (boys) League of German (Girls)
  • Schools teach a new version of history, and also incorporate Pro-German rhetoric and propaganda
  • Teach children to hate at an early age
  • Teach children to be obedient to the reich at an early age
  • Women removed from the workforce to have children, young girls encouraged to marry and start having kids of their own (rewards mothers who give birth often)
  • Military parades
  • Ridiculously huge rallies and public speeches. Glorify the state above all else

Eastern Europe

  • New nations created with the collapse of Austria, the Ottomans, and large areas of Russia gaining independence (next section).
  • Most put dictators in power (like Hitler and Mussolini) who play on nationalistic feelings of pride and renewal
  • These nations don’t work together.
  • These nations have severe racial divisions 
  • Serbs basically rule new Yugoslavia, but the Bosnians, and other Slavic groups want independence
  • In Czechoslovakia, the Czechs and Slovaks argue over who is in charge
  • Stronger nations around them see them as tempting targets for further empire building.

FRANCE

France has got problems...

  • German reparations (payments) helped a lot with France’s reconstruction.  
  • Socially, it's multiparty system - produced several consecutive unsuccessful coalition governments. 
  • England and America both didn’t honor their promise to forge a new alliance with France.  
  • France feels betrayed and alone in Europe
  • Germany’s reparations were lessened
  • Occupying the Rhineland was REALLY expensive
  • France wants to stabilize eastern Europe (the Little Entente of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) but this new alliance is weak
  • France develops (rightly) a sense of paranoia

Postwar Foreign Policy in France

  • Petrified that Germany would invade again, France made moves to prevent it from ever happening.
  • Built the Maginot Line: a series of mountain defenses (yes they BUILT mountains) on the border with Germany that served as a deterrent to German aggression. (note: Germany would invade the SAME way it did in WWI and just go AROUND the line into Belgium, rendering it useless)
  • Kept demanding war payments from Germany even after Great Britain warns them that this might create chaos in Germany and lead to something worse (which was correct)

RUSSIA

An Uneasy Peace with Russia

  • Russia had hoped for communist revolutions in the west after its successful overthrow of the Romanov dynasty and establishment of a communist nation.  
  • There were none
  • Westerners remained highly suspicious of Soviet Russia, but both sides settled into kind of a tense coexistence.
  • Russia had been weakened by the territory lost after WWI
  • Not only territory lost to Germans, several nations declare themselves to be independent of Russia (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc)
  • Not only lost territory, lost a huge % of its population

Stalin’s 5 Year Plans

  • To transform the Soviet Union into a world superpower, it would need to industrialize.
  • Put the control of businesses and industry under the direct control of the central government (Command Economy) so the government really controlled the most minute details of the economy
  • What to pay workers?
  • What are fair prices for goods?
  • Who has access to these goods?
  • What workers do what jobs?
  • Very different from a capitalist society where the market determines the answers to most of the questions listed above.
  • Stalin’s 5 year plans did produce some successful industries in Russia, but success was uneven
  • New infrastructure (roads, railroads, ect) was created
  • Some new industries were created, but success was rewarded with higher pay and other things that made this “classless” society pretty unequal
  • In order to meet production quotas, factories just churned out low quality goods
  • Luxury goods (cars, refrigerators, etc) were hard to find and only really affordable by the elites (again in this theoretically classless society)
  • Quality of life DOES IMPROVE for some workers, but there is still a large % of Russia not doing well.
  • Inefficient management of farms create food shortages

Inside Communist Russia

  • Food production would have to be reformed if Russia was going to feed itself. 
  • Stalin chose to do a government takeover of farms (seen below)
  • When wealthy farmers (Kulaks) tried to resist his collectivization (government takeover and management) of farms, he had them killed or deported to new work camps that were being erected in Siberia.
  • These labor camps (where ppl worked themselves to death) became the dumping ground for political prisoners and were called Gulags.  Stories of the horror there spread
  • Farms are now even more horribly mismanaged b/c no experienced farmers, MASSIVE famines and food shortages result.
  • What crops that did exist were seized by the government
  • Causes tremendous unhappiness

The Great Purge

  • Stalin was super suspicious of anyone who could in any way challenge his power.
  • Pitted his subordinates against one another.
  • They will be suspicious of one-another instead of being suspicious of Stalin
  • During an event known as “The Great Purge,” more than 8 million people were deported to the Russian Gulags
  • War heroes, Political Up-in comers, OLD COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERS, Writers and intellectuals, etc
  • Huge public “trials” for these people
  • Tons of state propaganda to control thought

Soviet Union Under Stalin

  • Even more collectivization of the Russian means of production.  
  • Farms, factories, ect. were taken by the party, run by the party, but “belonged” to the people,
  • Massive programs to industrialize Russia and bring them up to the standards set by Western European nations.
  • One of the greatest mass murderers in all history.  Ruthlessly eliminated any and all political opposition
  • Most western leaders did not like to deal with him

Prelude to WWII

  • After WWI, Western democracies (France, US, Britain) tried to pursue Wilson's goal of exhausting all diplomatic options before declaring war and preserving the peace as long as possible.
  • In the 1930's, several dictatorships emerged that would put Wilson's policy of peace to the test.

Japanese Appeasement

  • The Japanese, who already controlled the Korean Peninsula, invaded China in Manchuria in 1931 and annexing the territory it captured
  • The League of Nations officially condemned the move, but made no real move to stop the Japanese aggression. Thus began the policy of appeasement (giving into demands of the aggressor in order to keep the peace)
  • Japan simply withdrew from the LON as a result.
  • Japan would invade China again in 1937 and stole more Chinese territory in what became known as the Second Sino-Japanese war.
  • The LON would again do nothing to stop these territorial advances besides condemning the move publicly.

Italian Appeasement

  • Italy invaded and annexed Ethiopia in 1935.  
  • It used horrific tactics like striking at civilians and attacking red cross hospitals during the fighting. 
  • Ethiopian president Haile Selassie pleaded to the LON for intervention.
  •  LON tried unsuccessfully to economically sanction Italy but did nothing.

German Appeasement

  • Germany remilitarized the Rhineland, built aircraft and submarines, and annexed the nation of Austria, all in violation of the terms of peace set at Versailles.
  • It would also invade and annex Czechoslovakia all without a shot being fired.

Spain Collapses

  • In 1936, Francisco Franco started a revolt that ultimately led to a Spanish Civil War.
  • Italy and Germany backed Franco, while the Soviet Union sent troops to fight alongside their opposition.
  • Hitler used this campaign as an excuse to test out his brand new air force and new form of fighting, Blitzkrieg! 
  • After a death toll of more than 500,000, Franco emerged victorious.  He set up a fascist regime based on the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini.

America’s Stab at Neutrality

  • America could see the way things were headed so they tried to adopt policies that would help them remain neutral in any upcoming war. (Neutrality Acts 1939)
  • Wouldn't sell weapons to nations at war
  • No travel for Americans to nations  at war.
  • Couldn't travel on ships owned by warring nations

Axis Powers Form

  • In September of 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan formed an alliance called the Axis Powers. 
  • They agreed to help each other stop the spread of Communism
  • They agreed to not get in each other's way of territorial expansion.