The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution

Czar Nicholas II was the Czar of Russia during World War I.

Czarina Alexandra and Rasputin were given power when Czar Nicholas II left for the war, because Nicholas II did not trust the Duma to run things while he was away.

The Czar and his family were executed.

The February Revolution occurred in 1917.

Following the February Revolution, Alexander Kerensky led Russia.

Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power due to the October Revolution.

Vladimir Lenin called his section of the Communist party the Bolsheviks, meaning "majority," for propaganda purposes, even though they were not actually the majority.

The Russian people hoped to gain peace, land, and bread from the revolution.

Leon Trotsky was the leader of the Red Army.

The Red Army defeated the White Army in the Civil War.

Postwar Democracies

Isolationism is the policy of avoiding involvement in world affairs.

Many Americans supported isolationism because they wanted to focus on domestic issues and avoid getting entangled in European conflicts.

The Red Scare was a period of intense fear of communism and other radical ideologies in the United States.

Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian immigrants and anarchists who were controversially convicted and executed for robbery and murder, reflecting the anti-immigrant and anti-radical sentiments of the time.

The Weimar Republic was the democratic government established in Germany after World War I.

It was unpopular due to hyperinflation, political instability, the burden of war reparations, and association with the Treaty of Versailles.

Adolf Hitler became a German "hero" by attempting to overthrow the government in the Beer Hall Putsch.

This made him popular because it demonstrated his willingness to take action and challenge the unpopular Weimar Republic.

Great Depression

The stock market crash of 1929 is cited as a key factor in leading to the Great Depression.

The speculative bubble, overvaluation of stocks, and margin buying contributed to the crash.

Indicators of the severity of the Depression include:

• Unemployment rates soared to 25% or higher.
• Industrial production declined sharply.
• Banks failed, leading to the loss of savings.
• Poverty and homelessness increased dramatically.

Causes of the Great Crash

"Margin" was the practice of buying stocks with borrowed money.

It led to the Depression because it inflated the stock market bubble and created a situation where many investors could not repay their loans when stock prices fell, triggering a domino effect of selling and further price declines.

Other causes of the crash:

• Overproduction of goods
• Unequal distribution of wealth
• Decreased international trade
• Stock speculation

Society Between the Wars

"Flappers" were young women who challenged traditional social norms by embracing shorter hairstyles, wearing shorter dresses, and engaging in more liberated behavior.

The temperance movement was a social movement that sought to ban the production and consumption of alcohol.

"The Jazz Singer" (1927) was the first "talkie" movie, revolutionizing the film industry.

The Ford Model T was inexpensive enough for the common man to afford.

• It was built by Henry Ford.
• An unintended side effect of the automobile becoming common was increased traffic congestion and pollution.

Salvador Dalí is associated with Surrealism.

The idea behind Surrealism was to explore the realm of dreams and the subconscious mind, creating illogical and often bizarre imagery.

René Magritte was another prominent Surrealist artist.

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that it is impossible to know both the position and momentum of a particle with perfect accuracy.

Schrödinger's Cat is a thought experiment illustrating the concept of quantum superposition, where a cat in a box is simultaneously both dead and alive until the box is opened and the state is observed.

Superposition is the principle that a quantum system can exist in multiple states at the same time.

Poor in the Great Depression

Rothman claims that American attitudes about poverty, emphasizing individual responsibility and the belief in upward mobility, helped them avoid political extremism because people believed they could improve their situation through hard work and perseverance.

The New Deal was a series of programs and reforms implemented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to combat the Great Depression.

Rise of Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state exercises complete control over all aspects of public and private life.

Benito Mussolini was the leader of Italy and the founder of Fascism.

Benito Mussolini led the Fascist Party.

Fascism is a political ideology that emphasizes nationalism, authoritarianism, and the suppression of opposition.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a conflict between the Republican government and the Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco.

• It became a proxy war between democracy and fascism, with various European powers supporting different sides.

Pablo Picasso's famous painting about the Spanish Civil War was "Guernica," depicting the bombing of a Basque town by German and Italian warplanes.

Totalitarianism in Germany & Japan

The Reichstag was the German parliament.

Hitler used the fire there to his advantage by blaming it on communists and using it as a pretext to seize greater power.

Hitler gained power through a combination of legal and illegal means, exploiting the political and economic instability of the Weimar Republic, using propaganda and intimidation, and gradually consolidating his authority.

Hitler's goals included:

• Establishing a racially pure German state.
• Expanding German territory.
• Eliminating Jews and other "undesirables."

The Third Reich was the name given to Nazi Germany under Hitler's rule.

Concentration camps were originally used for political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi regime.

Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) was a pogrom against Jews in Germany in November 1938, marked by widespread violence and destruction of Jewish property.

The Nuremberg Laws were a set of anti-Semitic laws enacted in Nazi Germany, depriving Jews of their citizenship and civil rights.

The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931.

Totalitarianism in the USSR

Joseph Stalin came to power after Lenin.

Collectivization was the policy of consolidating individual farms into large, state-controlled collective farms.

Results of collectivization:

• Widespread resistance from peasants.
• Forced famine, particularly in Ukraine.
• Decreased agricultural production.

A kulak was a wealthy peasant in the Soviet Union.

A gulag was a system of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union.

Political prisoners, dissidents, and other perceived enemies of the state were sent there.

The Great Purge was a period of political repression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s, characterized by mass arrests, executions, and forced labor.

Life for children in the USSR included:

• Indoctrination in communist ideology.
• Participation in youth organizations.
• Emphasis on loyalty to the state and Stalin.

Stalin had Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico in 1940.

Harvest of Sorrow

Dekulakization was the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class through violence, deportation, and confiscation of property.

Stalin claimed that economic production in the USSR was increasing and that collectivization was a success.

The two regions most affected by famine were Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

The Holodomor was the famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, caused by Stalin's forced collectivization policies and grain confiscation.

What happened in "the" Ukraine:

• Grain was forcibly taken from Ukrainian peasants, leading to mass starvation.
• Borders were sealed to prevent people from fleeing.
• It was distinctly different from Lenin's famine in that Lenin's famine was more a result of drought and general economic collapse resulting from World War One and the Russian Civil War. The Holodomor was a deliberate act of politically motivated genocide.

Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, died by suicide in 1932, reportedly due to disagreements with Stalin and disillusionment with his policies.

Depression in Africa

Some of the major impacts the Depression had on Africa:

• Decline in commodity prices.
• Reduced demand for African exports.
• Increased unemployment.
• Hardship for farmers and workers.

The Depression related to decolonization:

• It weakened the economies of European colonial powers.
• It fueled nationalist movements in Africa by exposing the vulnerabilities of colonial rule.
• The war also changed the balance of economic and military power in the world which made it more difficult for the colonial powers to maintain their hold on their colonies.