AP World History Notes (Semester 2) PDF

Unit 7: How WW1 would be contextualized (DBQ, LEQ): -​ Before the time period (insert time period), the Serbs growing unruly, wanting more and more independence from Austria-Hungary as time passed. Stories of independence were famous in the West, with the American revolution serving as...

Unit 7: How WW1 would be contextualized (DBQ, LEQ): -​ Before the time period (insert time period), the Serbs growing unruly, wanting more and more independence from Austria-Hungary as time passed. Stories of independence were famous in the West, with the American revolution serving as a blueprint for revolutionary and radical activities. This led to the Black Hand assassinating Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary, setting forth a period of war on all fronts which would be later known as World War 1. (talk about nationalism, militarism, war, unrest) -​ Militarism: Militaries were getting stronger and more advanced. One would be the large cannon that could destroy towns with a single blow. -​ Alliance system: countries allied together, forming big groups that would be brought into war automatically. -​ Imperialism: The expansion of a country’s power through conquest, colonization, or military means. In this context, it resulted in (down below) -​ Nationalism: every country believing that they were the best. Led to lots of tensions. The growing need for independence and power from different ethnic groups. -​ Assassination: Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand (assassinated by Gavrilo Princip and the Black Hand) WW1: The Ultimatum: Austria-Hungary telling Serbia to condemn the “dangerous propaganda” toward Austria-Hungary or else they will go to war. -​ Serbia did not comply -​ The war started. The Schlieffen Plan: The central powers would go through Belgium and attack since there weren’t many enemy troops there. They didn’t want to go through Russia first because that would mean Germany bringing the fight to the Russian homeland where the Russian troops are stronger and more mobile. If they didn’t go through with the plan fast enough, the Russian troops would be able to mobilize against Germany. -​ Belgium decided to slow down Germany with their bunkers. -​ The “Big Berthas” were used to destroy the Belgium bunkers and defences. Erich Ludendorff 1.​ Propaganda for the allies 2.​ Belgium put a wrench in the Schlieffen plan 3.​ Ludendorff makes a name for himself 4.​ The display of huge guns that the world has never seen before This creates propaganda for the allies to join the war – they are more inclined to join Belgium, as Germany committed atrocities like murder, rape, they had big guns Fighting the Great War The Battle of the Frontiers This is considered to be the start of the real war – when Germany and France meet. Think of Belgium and Germany’s fight as the appetizer. The Battle of the Frontiers is a series of battles - it is hard to isolate single battles and events. The edge of the war Everyone was very rallied because the safety of France was at stake… “We must let ourselves be killed on the spot rather than retreat. No faltering can be tolerated today” – French leader Joseph Joffre French war strategy was to mobilize and concentrate the French troops in preparation for the war – resulted in disaster -​ In old times, dying in war was an honor. You fought bravely and died for your King or country, but now times are different. There is no honor or glory in WW1, let alone dying for it, but it took the sides awhile to figure this out  -​ Dying was kinda lame in WW1 because you stick your head out for 5 seconds and die By the end of August (Germany invaded Belgium on August 4th), the French Army had suffered 75,000 dead, of whom 27,000 were killed on 22nd August. French casualties for the first month of the war were 260,000, of which 140,000 occurred during the last four days of the Battle of the Frontiers. Trench Warfare -​ Trenches were made to avoid being in line with firing ranges. -​ Machine guns were common, so cover was needed among soldiers -​ The area between the trenches: no man's land. -​ Many accounts of horrible scenes. -​ Poison Gas: -​ Made to kill everything in its path -​ Chlorine gas, mustard gas. -​ Introduced by Germans to attack French -​ It burned the throat and caused chest pains. Battle of Verdun -​ Up until this point the German army and the French army were racing to the coast, looking for a place to flank their opponent -​ Germany decided to stop looking for a flank and invite the French into a death trap. -​ Germany was looking to capture the high ground at Verdun which is a city in North East France. They were going to do it with an artillery barrage. -​ High ground was advantageous because you could see your opponent -​ The German artillery fired 1,000,000 shells in just 10 hours. -​ This was intense - a shell could hit a tree and they might get hit back up in the air a few times before they even hit the ground -​ Four phases: -​ Phase 1: Unternehmen Gericht (Operation Judgement) -​ 10 hour artillery bombardment, long range guns -​ Phase 2: More German bombing -​ Phase three: More german bombing, but the French hold strong and not letting them pass -​ Phase 4: Even more bombing – the battle of the Somme starts during this phase taking away some German troops. Casualties on both -​ The German strategy was to inflict mass casualties on the French, a goal achieved against the Russians from 1914 to 1915, to weaken the French Army to the point of collapse. The Germans planned to use a large number of heavy and super-heavy guns to inflict a greater number of casualties than French artillery. -​ Battle of Attrition was intended – chip away at the opposition slowly -​ This battle broke the French’s morale. It really destroyed the french. -​ Casualties: -​ 377231 French and 337000 German casualties, with 162440 French dead and 143000 Germans dead, a total of 714231 casualties and an average of 70,000 a month -​ Falkenhayn The string in France has reached breaking point. A mass breakthrough which in any case is beyond our means is unnecessary. Without our reach there are objectives for the retention of which the French General Staff would be compelled to throw in every man they have. If they do so the forces of France will bleed to death -​ Battle of Somme -​ Attack River Somme, British and French -​ 750,000 men against Germans -​ Moved on No Mans Land, got destroyed by German -​ 58000 casualties in ONE DAY (1st of July) -​ First day of the battle was the worst day in the history of the British army  -​ Largest battle of WW1, bloodiest battle of all time -​ Included first appearance of tank -​ 600,000 German casualties -​ 432,000 British casualties -​ 200,000 French casualties -​ Other European countries joining the wars: -​ Russia now mobilized and have joined the war -​ Marshal Paul von Hindenburg was recognized for his efforts in the war -​ Italy switches sides multiple times: loses 40,000 casualties and 265000 were taken as prisoners -​ Ottoman empire joins the war: October 1914 -​ Oil was an prominent resource available in its territories and the significance of oil has started to increase (planes, tanks, cars, etc.) -​ Added people to Central Powers -​ Winston Churchill doesn’t like Indians -​ Leads ottoman empire towards Europe -​ Australian and New Zealand people join -​ Meant to fight ottoman -​ Lacked technology (satellite, phones, organization, etc.) -​ Killed by ottomans who were waiting for their arrival -​ European colonies and the war -​ They get colonies to fight in the war because they would become their own country. -​ They didn’t get their own country. -​ America gets into the war -​ Entry -​ Wilson is elected president in 1913, and as soon as he’s elected, he joins the war. -​ Germans, using their u-boots, sink the Lusitania - housing many supplies and citizens -​ Because some of the citizens were American, the Americans became enraged. -​ in 1916, Germans started to use Turnips as their main source of food. -​ The Germans figured out the hard way that you can’t live on Turnips, and tens of thousands of them started to die (children, and civilians). Ervil Lebaron 13 January 2025 WW1, IN COUNTRY -​ WW1 is the first example of “total war” -​ The entire country is dedicated to fighting the war - everyone was involved -​ Men, women and children were all working -​ Factories were taken over by governments, redirected to producing military equipment -​ Food was being rationed -​ Increase in casualties, food shortages, and lack of progress (of soldiers) made soldiers and civilians lose hope in the war -​ People are losing sight of their country’s cause - and people are just killing other people. WW1 ENDS -​ March 1918 -​ The Germans launched one last offensive against the allies - pushing the west back 40 miles. -​ America came and started fighting back -​ Germany was struggling, Austria-hungary was heading towards a collapse. Germany was searching for an armistice. -​ At 11AM on November 11, 1918 - the war ends. -​ Treated as surrenderers -​ Blamed for everything -​ 9.7 million military personnel and 10 million civilian deaths -​ More than twice that were seriously wounded -​ Economic impacts: restoration of buildings (rubble) was massive -​ Politics: russia revolution, austria-hungary collapse, ottoman empire collapsed, german collapse -​ Treaty of Versailles was signed stating germany was blamed for the war -​ Germany loses territory, military weakened -​ Allies demanded reparations from the Central Powers -​ Most historians agree this played a major role in causing WW2. -​ Hitler uses the idea that it wasn’t Germany’s fault that the war happened, and takes power of the country. -​ He blamed other countries and the Jews for causing the war. PRE-WW2 -​ Hell, Germany was very angry  -​ In the Colonies, they wanted their freedom, like they were promised by the British -​ Though, Italy didn’t get everything they were promised -​ Lest, Japan wanted to claim China but the West didn’t recognize -​ Especially, Russia was excluded and not happy -​ Randomly, look at the first words on this entire statement. -​ America could make and produce things extremely fast -​ They made 95 warships in one day RUSSIAN REVOLUTION -​ The Royal Family had lots of incest, which caused Tsarina Aleksandra, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria (and Tsar Nicholas II’s wife) to be a carrier of the haemophilia disease. -​ Haemophilia disease causes blood not to clot -​ She passes this to her son, Alexei, which threatens his life. She puts her faith and trust into the healer Rasputin, who was a scammer. -​ Royal Family (Romanoffs) did not want people to know Alexei had haemophilia because it might make them look weak. They had a reputation to uphold, being the oldest royal family in Russia’s history -​ -​ Rasputin and Tsar Nicholas meet on 1 November 1905 -​ He was summoned by Alexandra to pray for Alexei when he had a hemorrhage -​ He recovered the next morning (Wow!) -​ Hemorrhage in his thigh and groin, pain and fever. -​ After sending a telegram to Rasputin to pray, Alexei’s bleeding stopped the following day -​ Speculations included hypnosis or the lack of doctors interference meant Alexei recovered -​ Rasputin: -​ Siberian peasant, born 1861 -​ 1897: became a religious mystic -​ He gained the trust of Tsar and Tsarina, got a position called “lamplighter” in royal family -​ The Tsar and Tsarina from all accounts really loved each other and their son, unlike other royal marriages -​ Rasputin was very wild, promiscuous and got into lots of scandals. He was still unashamed of them, and believed that alcohol and sex was needed for salvation (he just really liked alcohol and sex) -​ He believed that he needed to do wrongs in order to right them -​ Squid Game????? -​ SQUID GAME????? -​ During this time period, the Tsarina (German) was in charge and Rasputin was giving her advice  -​ People did not like this because they were fighting the Germans, and Rasputin was a foreigner and a drunk -​ Rasputin’s Death 🙁 -​ A group of nobles led by Prince Felix and Grand Duke Dmitri concocted a plan to kill Rasputin -​ The recount of Felix is the only known version of his death -​ Invited Rasputin to his home, gave him food laced with cyanide. -​ Also drank wine (also poisoned) -​ The poison didn’t seem to be working. -​ Dmitri gives Felix a gun -​ Felix asks Rasputin to pray, Rasputin gets shot in the chest -​ They return to Rasputin’s home to make it look like he had made it back home. -​ Rasputin was alive, attacked Felix -​ Rasputin tried to escape, he was then shot in the back and his forehead -​ They wrapped the corpse in a blanket and dumped him in a freezing river -​ He said before he died “If I die or you desert me, you will lose your son and your crown within six months.” -​ The Romanoffs lost their son, their crown, and their lives within six months after this. The Russian Revolution and Soviet Communism -​ Russian Revolution occurred during WW1 in 1917 -​ WW1 was the catalyst for the Russian Revolution, and WW1 was going very badly for the Russians -​ Workers, wives of soldiers, men and woman took to the streets to express their outrage at the incompetence and privileges of the elites. -​ Demonstrations, published newspapers, and plotted revolution were all organized. -​ By early 1917, Tsar Nicholas II had lost all support and was forced to abdicate the throne -​ What followed more than 300 years of Romanov rule was a Provisional Government, led by major political figures from various parties -​ Russian Revolution had only just begun -​ Tsar’s abdication opened door for a massive social upheaval -​ Soldiers seeking an end to a terrible war deserted in substantial numbers -​ Workers seized control of their factories -​ Peasants distributed their landlords’ land amongst themselves and burned their manors -​ Non-Russian nationalists in Ukraine, Poland, Muslim Central Asia, and the Baltic Region demanded greater autonomy or even independence -​ This social revolution provided an environment where a small socialist party called the Bolsheviks were able to seize power by the end of 1917  -​ Led by a determined and charismatic leader, Lenin -​ Bolsheviks’ message was an end to the war, land for the peasants, workers’ control of factories, and self determination for non-Russian nationalities -​ Resonated with lots of people -​ A three year civil war followed where the Bolsheviks, now calling their party communist, battled lots of enemies -​ These enemies included tsarist officials, landlords, disaffected socialist, and regional nationalist forces, as well as troops from the US, Britain, France, Japan, who wanted to crush the fledgling communist regime -​ The Bolsheviks held on and reigned victorious over their opponents by 1921 -​ Renamed their country the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or Soviet Union) -​ Transformation began -​ For the next 25 years, the Soviet Union remained a communist island in a capitalist sea -​ Russian communists began the task of constructing a socialist society under the control of Joseph Stalin, the principal Soviet leader by the late 1920s -​ To communists, building socialism meant modernization and industrialization of a backward Russian society -​ They sought a socialist modernity with an emphasis on social equality and the promotion of cultural values of selflessness and collectivism -​ A political system thoroughly dominated by the Communist Party was generated -​ Top ranking party members enjoyed various privileges but were expected to be exemplars of socialism in the making by being disciplined, selfless, and utterly loyal to their country’s Marxist ideology -​ Deemed totalitarian by Western scholars -​ Other parties were forbidden -​ The state controlled almost the entire economy -​ Political authorities ensured that the arts, education and the media conformed to approved ways of thinking -​ Mass organizations for women, workers, students, and various professional groups operated under party control -​ Lacked independence that characterized civil society in the West -​ In rural areas, socialism meant the end of private ownership of land and collectivization of agriculture -​ Between 1928-1933, peasants were forced into large-scale collective farms -​ Farms were supposedly more productive and utilized modern agricultural machinery more efficiently than small family farms that emerged from revolution -​ Richer peasants known as kulaks were singled out for exclusion from the new collective farms -​ Some were killed, many were deported -​ Russian peasant villages were hit with a terrible famine, with 5 million deaths from starvation or malnutrition, believed to be intentional  -​ Cities had to be rapidly industrialized -​ Soviet approach to industrialization was different than capitalist West -​ Involved state ownership of property, -​ Centralized planning embodied in successive five year plans, -​ Priority to heavy industry, -​ Massive mobilization of the nation’s human and material resources, -​ and intrusive Communist Party control of the entire process -​ It worked for a time. During 1930s, capitalist world floundered amid the massive unemployment of the Great Depression -​ Meanwhile, USSR largely eliminated unemployment and constructed the foundations of an industrial society that proved itself in the victory over Nazi germany in WW2 -​ Improved literacy rates and educational opportunities, allowing far greater social mobility than ever before -​ Industrialization fostered rapid urbanization, countryside was exploited to provide resources for modern industry in the cities -​ A privileged bureaucratic and technological elite intent on pursuing their own careers were born -​ Despite totalitarian tendencies, communist society of the Soviet Union was laced with conflict -​ Under Stalin’s leadership, these conflicts erupted in a search for enemies that disfigured Soviet life terribly -​ Enemies included surviving remnants from the prerevolutionary elites and, surprisingly, high-ranking members and longtime supporters of the USSR -​ They had allegedly been corrupted by bourgeois ideas, as evidenced by their opposition to some of Stalin’s harsh policies -​ These people became “class enemies” who had betrayed the revolution -​ The Terror, or the Great Purges, happened in the late 1930s -​ “Class enemies” were arrested, and sentenced to death or long years in labor camps known as the gulag -​ They were put on “trial”, and were forced to confess their wrongdoings. These show trials published the menace that they posed to the country -​ Close to 1 million people were executed between 1936 and 1941 -​ An additional 4 to 5 million were sent to the gulag, where they were forced to work in horrendous conditions and appalling numbers CAPITALISM UNRAVELING: THE GREAT DEPRESSION -​ While the world’s first communist society was constructed, the capitalist world experienced the Great Depression -​ Began with an abrupt stock market crash in October 1929 and lasted for a decade -​ If WW1 represented political collapse of Europe, this economic catastrophe suggested that Western capitalism was likewise failing -​ Economic system unraveled, banks closed, people lost life savings, investment dried up, world trade dropped by 62% within a few years, and businesses contracted or closed -​ Unemployment soared everywhere, and in Germany and the US it reached 30% or more by 1932 -​ Economic breakdown began in the US -​ By the end of 1920s, its farms and factories were producing more goods than could be sold, either at home or abroad -​ A stock market frenzy had driven up stock prices to an unsustainable level -​ When economy collapsed in 1929, its ripple effects quickly impacted the industrialized economies of Europe, which were connected to the US through ties of trade, debt, and investment -​ Great Depression was globalized – countries or colonies tied to exporting one or two products were especially hard hit -​ Colonial Southeast Asia saw demand for rubber dramatically drop as automobile sales in Europe and the US were cut in half -​ Farmers in West African Gold Coast colony (Ghana today) who’s economic lives were dedicated to producing cocoa for the world market were badly hurt by the collapse of commodity pricese -​ Latin American countries saw the value of their exports cut by half, generating widespread unemployment -​ To combat these problems, governments sought to steer their economies away from exports towards producing for the internal market, a policy known as import substitution -​ In Mexico, the Depression revived principles of the Mexican Revolution, such as land reform, favoring Mexican workers against foreign interests, and nationalizing an oil industry dominated by American capital -​ Great Depression also challenged governments of industrialized capitalist countries -​ Caused people to look twice at the Soviet Union -​ No Western country opted for dictatorial socialism, but in Britain, France, and Scandinavia, a democratic socialism emerged -​ Sought greater regulation of the economy and a more equal distribution of wealth through peaceful means and electoral politics -​ Great Depression strengthened the power of the state -​ The US illustrated this trend as President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal (1933-1942) took shape, altering the relationship among government, the private economy, and individual citizens -​ Involved immediate programs of public spending (for dams, highways, bridges, and parks), -​ longer term reforms, such as the Social Security system,  -​ the minimum wage, -​ and various relief and welfare programs, support for labor unions, and subsidies for farmers. -​ A mounting number of government agencies marked a new degree of federal regulation and supervision of the economy -​ Ultimately, none of the New Deal’s programs worked well to end the Great Depression -​ Not until the massive government spending required by WW2 kicked in did economic disaster abate in the United States -​ Most successful efforts to cope with the Depression came from unlikely places - Nazi Germany and an increasingly militaristic Japan. Democracy Denied: The Authoritarian Alternative -​ Despite victory of the democratic powers in WW1, Britain, France, and the US, their political ideals and cultural values celebrating individual freedom came under sharp attack in the aftermath of WW1 -​ One challenge derived from Communism -​ In the 1920s and 1930s, however, more severe challenges came from highly authoritarian, intensely nationalistic, territorially aggressive, and ferociously anticommunist regimes, like Italy, Germany, and Japan. The Axis Powers. -​ Their common political goals of these three countries drew them together by 1936-1937 in an alliance directed against the Soviet Union and international communism -​ Their formal military alliance was solidified in 1940 -​ Within it, Germany and Japan clearly stand out, though differently, in terms of their impact on the larger patterns of world history -​ It was their efforts to “establish and maintain a new order of things” that generated the Second World War both in East Asia and in Europe European Fascism -​ Between 1919 and 1945, a new political ideology known as fascism found expression across parts of Europe. -​ While communists celebrated class conflict as the driving force of history, for fascists it was the conflict of nations -​ Fascism was intensely nationalistic, seeking to revitalize and purify the nation and to mobilize its people for some grand task -​ Praised violence against enemies as a renewing force in society, celebrated action rather than reflection, and placed their faith in a charismatic leader. (Trump?) -​ Fascists bitterly condemned individualism, liberalism, feminism, parliamentary democracy, and communism, which “divided and weakened the nation”.  -​ They were revolutionary in their determination to overthrow existing regimes–they were conservative or reactionary in their embrace of traditional values and their opposition to modern life -​ Facism appealed to aggrieved people everywhere – the numbers of fascists grew substantially following WW1. People felt the rise of socialism and communism and felt threatened -​ They lost faith in the capacity of liberal democracy and capitalism to create a good society and to protect their interests Italy -​ The fascist alternative took shape first in Italy – Italy had become unified only in 1870 and had not yet developed a thoroughly industrialized economy or a solidly democratic culture -​ WW1 gave rise to resentful, unemployed veterans, and to patriots who believed that Italy had not gained the territory it deserved from the Treaty of Versailles -​ In the aftermath of WW1, trade unions, peasant movements, and various communist parties threatened the established social order by going on strikes and seizing land -​ Benito Mussolini, a charismatic orator, stepped into this setting, and with the help of a private army of disillusioned veterans and jobless men known as the Black Shirts, Mussolini took power in 1922 amid considerable violence -​ He promised an alternative to communism, order in the streets, an end to bickering party-based politics, and the maintenance of the traditional social order -​ Mussolini believed that fascism was anticommunist and the opposite of socialism, and antidemocratic -​ His government suspended democracy and imprisoned, deported, or sometimes executed opponents. Italy’s fascist regime disbanded labor unions, peasant groups, and all opposing political parties -​ Fascists invoked various aspects of traditional Italian culture and life -​ Mussolini, although an atheist, embraced the Catholic culture of Italy in a series of agreements with the Church that made the Vatican a sovereign state and Catholicism Italy’s national religion -​ Women were portrayed in traditional domestic terms in fascism, with no hint of equality or liberation -​ Nationalists were delighted when Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, avenging the embarrassing defeat that Italians suffered at the hands of Ethiopians in 1896 -​ Mussolini and fascist believers believed that all of this was the beginning of a “new Roman Empire” that would revitalize Italian society and give it a global mission. Hitler and the Nazis -​ The German expression of European fascism took shape as the Nazi Party under the leadership of Adolf Hitler -​ Similar to Fascist Italy -​ Both had extreme nationalism, advocated the use of violence as a political tool, generated by a single-party dictatorship, were led by charismatic figures, hated parliamentary democracy and communism, and viewed war as a positive experience. -​ The circumstances that gave rise to Nazi movement were incredibly similar to Italy’s -​ In both, resentment about the Treaty of Versailles was widespread, especially among unemployed veterans -​ Fear of socialism or communism was prevalent among middle and upper class groups -​ The Great Depression provided the essential context for the victory of German fascism -​ German economy ground to a halt in the early 1930s, massive unemployment among workers and middle class -​ Everyone demanded decisive action from the state -​ The Nazi Party gained growing public support in this context -​ Expressed an intense German nationalism cast in terms of racial superiority, bitter hatred for Jews as an alien presence, passionate opposition to communism, a determination to rescue Germany from the humiliating requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, and a willingness to tackle the country’s economic problems -​ Resonated widely, enabling Nazis to win 37% of the vote in the election of 1932 -​ Hitler was installed as the chancellor of the German government, with the democratic regime giving way to the Third Reich -​ Once in power, political parties were outlawed, independent labor unions were ended, thousands of opponents were arrested, and the state controlled press and radio -​ Nazi control of Germany was consolidated -​ Hitler and the Nazis established control far more thoroughly than Mussolini -​ Hitler’s policies brought Germany out of the Depression, gaining support for him -​ These policies drove down the number of unemployed Germans from 6.2 million in 1932 to fewer than 500,000 in 1937 -​ Early years of Nazi rule were remembered as “a glimmer of hope” by millions -​ Hitler appealed to rural and traditional values that many Germans feared losing as their country modernized, contributing to Nazi popularity -​ Jews became the symbol of the urban, capitalist, and foreign influences that were undermining traditional German culture -​ Nazis reflected and reinforced anti-Semitism -​ Insistence on a racial revolution was a central feature of the Nazi program -​ Hitler implemented policies that increasingly restricted Jewish life -​ Soon Jews were excluded from universities, professional organizations, and civil employment  -​ The Nuremberg Laws (1935) ended German citizenship for Jews and forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Germans -​ On the night of November 9, 1938 (Kristallnacht), Nazis smashed and looted Jewish shops -​ Nazis were dedicated to rid Germany of its Jewish population, thus putting into effect the most radical element of Hitler’s program -​ It was not yet apparent that Holocaust would happen -​ Under Hitler’s rule, Nazis wanted to limit women largely to the home, removing them from the paid workforce -​ This contrasted with Soviet communism, which sought to enroll women in the country’s industrialization effort -​ To Hitler, the state was the natural domain of men, while the home was the realm of women -​ Italy and Germany alike promoted a cult of motherhood, glorifying and rewarding women who produced children for the state -​ Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy opposed abortion, contraception, family planning, and sex education for their association with feminist thinking -​ The Nazi phenomenon represented a rejection of core Western civilization values that had been there since the Enlightenment, like rationalism, tolerance, democracy, and equality -​ Nazis drew heavily on the “scientific racism” of the late nineteenth century and its linking of skull size and shape to human behavior and personality -​ By 1940, European political landscape had been altered dramatically, with countries rejecting the previously popular democratic approach Japanese Authoritarianism -​ Modern history of Japan paralleled that of Italy and Germany -​ Like Italy and Germany, Japan had a limited experience with democratic politics -​ During 1930s, Japan too moved toward authoritarian government and a denial democracy at home -​ However, unlike Italy and Germany, Japan’s participation in WW1 was limited, and its economy grew considerably compared to other countries going through WW1 and the Great Depression -​ After WW1, Japan was seen as an equal participant, allied with the winning side of democratic countries such as Britain, France, and the US -​ During 1920s, Japan was moving toward democratic politics and Western cultural values with the expansion of education, free expression of ideas, and greater gender equality -​ The Japanese were becoming global citizens and their country was becoming a province of the world as they participated in international culture -​ In said environment, the accumulated tensions of Japan’s modernizing and industrializing processes found expression -​ “Rice riots” in 1918 brought more than 1 million people to protest the rising price of rice  -​ People demanded reduction in rent -​ A growing women’s movement protested for suffrage and the end of legalized prostitution -​ For many people in the middle/upper classes, this was alarming, suggesting echoes of the Russian Revolution in 1917 -​ The Great Depression paved the way for harsher and more authoritarian action, hitting Japan hard -​ Shrinking world demand for silk impoverished millions of rural dwellers -​ Japan’s exports fell by half between 1929 and 1931, leaving many unemployed -​ Food was scarce, families had to sell their daughters to urban brothels, and money was so scarce that it could not be offered at funerals anymore -​ In these circumstances, the ability of parliamentary democracy and a capitalism to address Japan’s emergency was doubted -​ Radical Nationalism or the Revolutionary Right, a political movement, grew increasingly in Japan due to these conditions -​ Was especially appealing to younger army officers -​ The movement’s many organizations shared an extreme nationalism, hostility to parliamentary democracy, a commitment to leadership focused around the emperor, and dedication to foreign expansion -​ Organizations believed that political parties were corrupt, capitalists and aristocrats had no understanding of the masses, and the rulers neglected the long term interests of the nation, being only interested in winning the pleasure of foreign powers -​ In contrast to Italy and Germany, none of these right wing or fascist parties gained large support in Japan, and none of them were able to seize power -​ There was no charismatic leader as well -​ People arrested for political offenses were neither criminalized or exterminated, as in Germany, but instead had to renounce their errors and return to normal -​ Japan’s established institutions of government were strong, and traditional values were still there, preventing a widespread fascist movement from developing and taking control -​ In the 1930s, however, Japanese public life changed in ways that reflected right-wing nationalist thinking -​ The military came to exercise a more dominant role in Japanese political life, reflecting long-standing Japanese respect for the samurai warrior class -​ Censorship limited freedom of speech, and a state-controlled news agency was created, being the only source of news -​ Textbooks were implemented in schools that spoke badly of foreign countries and spoke highly of Japan, raising a new generation of nationalists -​ The state’s success in quickly bringing the country out of the Depression fostered popular support, getting out of the Depression faster and more fully than major Western powers -​ Although Japan during the 1930s shared some common features with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, it remained a less repressive and more pluralistic society  -​ Japanese intellectuals and writers had to contend with government censorship, but they retained some influence in Japan -​ Political prisoners were few and were not subjected to execution or deportation as in European fascist states -​ Japanese conceptions of their racial purity and uniqueness were directed against foreigners rather than an internal minority -​ Nonetheless, like Germany and Italy, Japan developed extensive imperial ambitions -​ Those projects of conquest and empire building collided with interests of established imperial powers such as the United States and Britain -​ This launched a second, and even more terrible, global war A Second World War, 1937 - 1945 -​ World War II was a genuinely global conflict with independent origins in both Asia and Europe -​ Dissatisfied states in both continents wanted to alter the international arrangements that had emerged from WW1 The Road to War in Asia -​ WW2 began in Asia before it occured in Europe -​ Japanese imperial ambitions grew stronger as military increased in strength, increasing nationalism -​ Rise of Chinese nationalism threatened Japan’s sphere of influence in Manchuria -​ Japanese military seized control of Manchuria in 1931 and established a puppet state -​ This action condemned by China, the United States, and the League of Nations -​ No effective military response -​ The condemnation prompted Japan to withdraw from the League of nations and in 1936 to align more closely with Germany and Italy -​ Relations with an increasingly nationalist China had deteriorated further, which led to a full-scale attack on China in 1937, marking the beginning of WW2 in Asia -​ With Japan’s war against China came with the view of Japanese people hardening -​ Japanese people felt isolated, surrounded, and threatened by Japan’s dependence on foreign and especially American sources of strategic goods -​ Increasing hostility against Japan in the US didn’t help -​ Thus, in 1940-1941, Japan extended its military operations to the French, British, Dutch, and American colonies of Southeast Asia – Malaya, Burma, Indonesia, Indochina, and the Philippines -​ Even though the Japanese presented themselves as liberators and modernizers, trying to free the colonies from European rule, Japanese rule exceeded in brutality even that of the Europeans  -​ A decisive step in the development of WW2 came in the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in December 1941 -​ Japan was reluctant, but felt it was necessary after negotiations to end American hostility to Japan’s empire-building enterprise proved fruitless and an American oil embargo was imposed on Japan in July 1941 -​ Attacked Pearl Harbor with planes, killed over 2400 people -​ Prompted US to declare war on Japan and enter WW2, pitting Germany, Italy, and Japan (Axis) against the US, Britain, and USSR (Allies) Pearl Harbor -​ At the beginning of the war, the US was trying to stay neutral -​ But then the Axis powers took control, and the US passed the Lend-Lease act -​ It offered defense to any country that the US deemed an ally -​ US started supplying Allies with resources -​ America controlled the Philippines and Hawaii, which unnerved Japan -​ Japan wanted to expand their country because they believed that parts of Asia needed to be freed from Europe -​ Hideki Tojo, the emperor of Japan, believed that the US was interfering -​ On 1941, Japan struck Pearl Harbor in Hawaii with a surprise attack, killing 2400 people and destroying battleships and cruisers -​ The attack prompted America to finally enter the war and wage war on Japan. Like WW1, Italy and Germany followed Nazi backstory -​ Nazi Germany was armed for war by Hitler as he also pursued territorial expansion, annexing Austria and the German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia -​ The British and French gave their reluctant blessings, hoping Hitler would avoid all out war -​ It didn’t lol. On September 1st 1939, Germany attacked Poland, triggering the Second World War in Europe as Britain and France declared war on Germany -​ Germany defeated France quickly, and launched a devastating air war against Britain and turned against the Soviet Union after previously having signed a treaty that secretly allowed both countries to expand as they wished. Soviet’s win and keep going Stalingrad/Leningrad -​ Stalingrad was a major turning point in the war. Marked the failure of Germany’s invasion and turned the Eastern front from a defensive battle to an offensive one -​ Stalingrad was not an important place to capture but it became important to avoid flanks from the Germans -​ Battle of Stalingrad is famous for close quarters fighting, relentless bombing and incredibly high casualties -​ 200,000 Germans were killed in this battle -​ USSR had 1129619 total casualties, with 478741 killed or missing -​ Bloodiest and fiercest battle of WW2 -​ Held importance because it had Stalin’s name  -​ Russians won this battle after a strategic counteroffensive by Soviet forces flanked and surrounded a large body of German troops D-day / V-day -​ D-day happened June 6th 1944 -​ Largest seaborne invasion in history -​ For context, France had been invaded and occupied by the Nazis since 1940. Allies wanted to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation. -​ Poland was also occupied -​ Used fake armies to trick the Nazis, and diverted German forces away from Normandy because they thought the allies would attack the Pas-de-calais region -​ Used misinformation and fake communications to sell the deal -​ In reality, they attacked 5 beaches on Normandy - Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword -​ The Germans were caught off guard, but recovered -​ Heavy resistance on both sides, but the Allies pulled through and won, marking the beginning of France’s liberation from Germany -​ Success of D-day was crucial in turning the tide towards the Allies Battle of the Bulge -​ Battle of the Bulge was Germany’s last big offensive push (16th December 1944 to 25th January 1945) -​ Low on resources, so they decided to invade in the Ardennes (France, Belgium, Luxembourg) to get more resources -​ Plan was to split allied forces in order to engulf them -​ The allies were taken off guard and suffered casualties, especially America, but they were able to hang on -​ Germans also suffered lots of casualties but they lost their air force and lots of tanks in the process -​ Allies on the West struck back, and encouraged Stalin to attack earlier than he planned to -​ The defeat in the German offensive and now being attacked from both sides is what caused Germany to finally lose Mussolini killed -​ Mussolini met with military failure after leading Italy into WW2 -​ Growing disapproval, fled country in April 1945 after Allies broke through the last German defences in Italy and partisan uprisings happened all across the country -​ Captured two days after him and his mistress fled on April 27th 1945 and executed following afternoon -​ Shot by Walter Audisio, an Italian partisan -​ Despised so much that their bodies were hanged and left for the public to beat and physically abuse Hitler suicide -​ By early 1945 Nazi Germany was on the verge of complete military collapse -​ Many Germans resented Hitler apart from fanatic Nazi supporters  -​ Hitler fled to the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin due to the USSR rapidly pushing into Germany, having taken Poland -​ Known as the Battle of Berlin -​ Hitler ordered a counterattack, but those orders were not fulfilled. Suffered a nervous attack, verbally abused his generals, and declared that the war was lost -​ He found out on April 29th that Mussolini and his lover had been executed -​ Strengthened his resolve to ensure that him and his wife, Eva Braun, would not be maken a public spectacle -​ Fed his dog a cyanide pill, his wife took a cyanide pill, and he shot himself Reasons for Allies’ Victory: -​ Hitler made some bad decisions, with his invasion of the Soviets being at the top -​ America was able to produce twice as much resources as the Axis Powers combined -​ Germany was fighting a war on too many fronts Consequences: The Outcomes of a Second Global Conflict -​ WW2 was the most destructive conflict in world history, with total deaths estimated at around 60 million. Six times that of WW1 -​ More than half of those casualties were civilians, death toll was boosted by new technologies of warfare and the blurring of the traditional line between civilian and military targets, as entire cities and whole populations came to be defined as the enemy -​ Casualties in the Soviet Union accounted for more than 40% of deaths in the war -​ China accounted for 15 million deaths after resisting against Japan and the Japanese response, which was killing every person and every animal in many villages. Women were sexually assaulted as well -​ The German bombing of British cities and the Allied firebombing of Japanese and German cities likewise reflected the the new morality of total war along with the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki -​ The war was brutal. -​ A further dimension of total war lay in governments’ efforts to mobilize their economies, their people, and their propaganda machines even more extensively than before. Colonial resources were harnessed once again -​ The British in particular made extensive use of colonial troops and laborers from India and Africa -​ Japan compelled several hundred thousand women from Korea, China, and elsewhere to serve the sexual needs of Japanese troops as so-called comfort women, who often accommodated twenty to thirty men a day -​ As in WW1, though on a much larger scale, the needs of the war drew huge numbers of women into both industry and the military -​ In the US, “Rosie the Riveter” represented those women who now took on heavy industrial jobs, which previously had been reserved for men -​ In the Soviet Union, women constituted of more than half of the industrial workforce by 1945 and almost completely dominated agricultural production  -​ Soviet women also participated in combat, with 100,000 of them winning military honors -​ The Holocaust was among the most haunting outcomes of the war -​ The outbreak of the war aided the Nazi dream of ridding Germany of its Jewish population -​ Brought millions of additional Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union under German control and triggered various schemes for a final solution to the Jewish question -​ Death camps that included Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor arose from this -​ 6 million Jews died in a technologically sophisticated form of mass murder that set a new standard for human depravity -​ Europe’s remaining Jews fled to Israel and gave urgency to the establishment of a modern Jewish nation in the ancient Jewish homeland -​ Angered many Arabs as some were displaced by the arrival of the Jews, fostering an enduring conflict in the Middle East -​ WW2 rearranged the architecture of world politics -​ Europe was impoverished, with its industrial infrastructure shattered, many of its great cities in ruins, and millions of its people homeless or displaced -​ Within a few years, Europe was divided with its western half operating willingly under an American security umbrella and the eastern half subject so Soviet control, but less willingly -​ It was clear that Europe’s dominance in world affairs was finished -​ The war weakened the will and ability of European powers to hold on to their colonies and embodied nationalist and anticolonial movements everywhere -​ The horrors of two world wars within a single generation prompted a renewed interest in international efforts to maintain the peace in a world of competing and sovereign states -​ The chief outcome was the United Nations, established in 1945 as a successor to the League of Nations -​ The UN proved more effective as a forum for international opinion than as a means of resolving the major conflicts of the postwar world, particularly the Soviet/American hostility during the cold war decades -​ The creation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in 1945 with the purpose of regulating the global economy and stimulating economic growth in the poorer nations was further evidence for a growing internationalism -​ The US emerged as a global superpower after WW2, being a major outcome of the Second World War and a chief reason for the remarkable recovery of a badly damaged and discredited Western civilization Communist Consolidation and Expansion: The Chinese Revolution -​ Another outcome of WW2 lay in the consolidation and extension of the communist world -​ Soviet victory over the Nazis gave immense credibility to the USSR and Stalin, with many of the atrocities he had committed being overlooked -​ Stalin insisted that Soviet security required “friendly” governments in the region to permanently end the threat of invasion from the West -​ Feared that large-scale American aid for Europe’s economic recovery was seeking to incorporate Eastern Europe into a Western and capitalist economic network -​ He acted to install fully communist governments, loyal to himself, in Poland, east Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria -​ Communism took root after WW2 in Asia -​ Following Japan’s defeat, its Korean colony was partitioned, with the northern half coming under Soviet and therefore communist control -​ In Vietnam, a locally based communist movement active since the mid 1920s under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh embodied btoh a socialist vision and Vietnamese nationalism -​ It battled Japanese, French, and later American invaders and established communist control in the northern half of the country first, then established it elsewhere in 1975 -​ The most striking expansion of communism occurred in China, where China’s Communist Party seized power in 1949. -​ Their victory came on the heels of war and domestic upheaval, as in Russia -​ But the Chinese Revolution of 1949 was different than Russia’s in the fact that it was a struggle of decades rather than a single year -​ Chinese imperialism system collapsed in 1911, and unlike Russia the ideas of Karl Marx were barely known -​ In 1921, a small Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded, aimed initially at organizing the country’s miniscule urban working class -​ Over the next twenty-eight years, that small party grew enormously, transforming its strategy and finding a charismatic leader in Mao Zedong -​ Engaged in an epic struggle with its opponents, fought the Japanese heroically, and in 1949 emerged victorious as the rulers of the world’s most populous country -​ Their victory was all the more surprising because the CCP’s opponents were much more formidable than the weak Provisional Government in Russia -​ They faced the Guomindang, which governed China after 1928 -​ It promoted a measure of modern developments in the decade that followed, but the impact of these achievements was limited largely to the cities, leaving the rural areas with most of China’s population still impoverished -​ Their base of support was also narrow, deriving from urban elites, rural landlords, and Western powers -​ Unlike the Bolsheviks, who found their primary audience among workers in Russia’s major cities, the CCP looked to the country’s peasant villages for support -​ However, Chinese peasants did not rise up spontaneously against their landlords as Russian peasants had  -​ Years of guerrilla warfare, experiments with land reform in areas under communist control and the creation of a communist military force to protect liberated areas slowly gained for the CCP a growing measure of respect and support among China’s peasants -​ In this process, Mao Zedong emerged as the party’s leader -​ In order to recruit women for the revolution, the CCP drew on a theoretical commitment to their liberation and in the areas under their control established a Marriage Law -​ It outlawed arranged or “purchased” marriages, made divorce easier, and gave women the right to vote and own property -​ Women’s associations enrolled hundreds of thousands of women and promoted literacy, fostered discussions of women’s issues, and much more -​ Resistance to such radical measures came, however, from more traditional rural villagers who the communist depended on. -​ This persuaded the party leaders to modify these measures, taking away many of the rights that women were just granted -​ Japan’s brutal invasion of China gave the CCP a decisive opening, for it destroyed Guomindang control over much of the country and showed the Guomindang’s dependence on conservative landlords -​ In contrast, the CCP stood their ground and fought back against the Japanese, offering a measure of security -​ In the areas it controlled, the CCP reduced rents, taxes, and interest payments for peasants, taught literacy to adults, and mobilized women for the struggle -​ The CCP gained a reputation for honesty that contrasted with the corruption of Guomindang officials, put down deep roots among the peasantry in a way that the Bolsheviks never did -​ While the Bolsheviks gained support by urging Russian withdrawal from the highly unpopular First World War, the CCP won support by aggressively pursuing the struggle against the Japanese -​ In 1949, 4 years after the war’s end, the Chinese communists swept to victory over the Guomindang, many of whose followers fled to Taiwan Milestones of the Past Century Recovering from the War -​ Europe was able to rebuild their industrial economies and revive their democratic political systems -​ Three factors help to explain this recovery -​ The apparent resiliency of an industrial society once it has been established - the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that enabled industrial societies to operate effectively remained intact -​ The most terribly damaged countries, like Germany, USSR, and Japan had largely recovered by 1960  -​ A second factor lay in the ability of the major Western European countries to integrate their recovering economies, putting aside nationalism for peace -​ Gave rise to the European Economic Community, whose members reduced tariffs. Developed into the EU and in 2002 twelve of its members adopted a common currency, the euro -​ A third lay in the US, which emerged as the dominant center of Western civilization after the war -​ The US was scared of communism spreading in Europe in such poor conditions and of another depression happening, so they decided to rebuild and reshape shattered European economies known as the Marshall Plan. -​ Between 1948 and the early 1970s, Western European economies grew rapidly, generating a widespread prosperity and improving living standards -​ America wanted to provide political and military security against the possibility of renewed German aggression and the prominent communist threat of the USSR -​ NATO was born, committing the US and its nuclear arsenal to the defense of Europe against the USSR, and anchored West Germany within the Western alliance -​ A similar process happened in American occupied Japan (between 1945 and 1952), reviving the country’s devastating but already industrialized economy -​ In the two decades following the occupation, Japan’s economy grew remarkably and it became an economic giant -​ However, a democratic constitution was imposed on Japan that made them dependent on the US for military security greatly. -​ The Soviet Union’s recovery occurred under very different conditions from that of Japan and Western Europe -​ The last years of Stalin’s rule (1945-1953) were extraordinarily harsh, with no tolerance for dissent of any kind -​ Resulted in a huge and growing convict labor force, which was a major source of cheap labor for the recovery effort -​ Favored heavy industry, agricultural production and military expenditure at the expense of basic consumer goods -​ Gained support by lowering the price of bread and other essentials -​ The Soviet Union benefited greatly from its seizure of industrial complexes, agricultural goods, materials, and gold from Germany, Poland, and elsewhere -​ Viewed as looting or plunder in the West, viewed as the spoils of war in USSR and justified the massive damage that was caused in the USSR Communism Chinese-Style -​ China was recovering from decades of civil war and from its struggle against Japanese imperialism -​ China’s revolution represented the real beginning of that country’s emergence from a century of humiliation and colonial rule to its return to a position of prominence -​ China’s implementation of socialism was vastly different than the Soviets  -​ In 1917 the Bolsheviks faced a hostile capitalist world alone, while Chinese communists had an established Soviet Union as a friendly northern neighbor and ally, having being established over thirty years after the USSR -​ Chinese revolutionaries had governed parts of their huge country for decades, gaining experience that the new Soviet rulers had lacked, because the latter had come to power so quickly -​ China faced even more daunting problems than did the USSR, with a greater population, a smaller industrial base, limited availability of agricultural land, and less developed education and transportation network -​ Chinese communists had to build a modern society from the ground up Building a Modern Society -​ China sought to follow the Soviet model of socialist modernization with important variations -​ In sharp contrast to the USSR, the collectivization of agriculture in China during the 1950s was a peaceful process -​ This was due to the close relationship between the CCP and the peasantry -​ China pushed collectivization even further than the Soviet Union did during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s -​ Was an effort to mobilize China’s enormous population for rapid development and to move toward a more fully communist society with a greater degree of social equality and collective living -​ The Great Leap Forward was Mao’s plan on how to make China a strong, nationalist industrialized country. The Soviet counterpart was the 5 Year Plan. Great Leap Forward was modeled after 5 Year Plan – very similar in their goals of becoming an industrialized society -​ It succeeded in promoting small scale industrialization in the rural areas and empowering them, they educated lots of people and was an immediate transition to full communism in the “people’s communes” rather than waiting for industrial development to provide the material basis for that transition. -​ However, a famine killed 30 million people during the Great Leap Forward between 1959 and 1962. -​ In the mid-1960s, Mao launched another campaign–the Cultural Revolution. He believed that the capitalist ideals had reached even the highest ranks of the CCP itself, and launched the Cultural Revolution to combat it -​ Mao Zedong had four goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China’s youths with a revolutionary experience; and to achieve policy changes so as to make the educational, health care, and cultural systems less elitist. -​ Through the Cultural Revolution, Mao was able to eliminate “enemies of the state” by mobilizing millions of young people who sought to attack local party and government  officials, teachers, intellectuals, factory managers, and others they defined as enemies. The KGB is another example, the Brown Shirts as well. A weapon of the state to control the people and attack any political opponents. East versus West: A Global Divide and a Cold War -​ The existence of communist regime launched a global conflict that restructured international life and touched the lives of almost everyone, particularly in the twentieth century’s second half -​ The rift had begun soon after the Russian Revolution–the new communist government became the source of fear and loathing in the Western capitalist world -​ Despite the common threat of Nazi Germany temporarily making unlikely allies of the Soviet Union, Britain, and the US, a few years after WW2 ended the rift erupted again -​ It would become known as the Cold War. The USSR and the US were the world’s major political and military power, but they represented sharply opposed views of history society, politics and international relations -​ Known as the Cold War because no actual fighting happened -​ Conflict seemed almost inevitable, as both sides felt they were riding the tides of historical progress Military Conflict and the Cold War -​ The arena of the Cold war was Eastern Europe initially -​ Soviet insistence on security and control clashed with American and British desires for open and democratic societies with ties to the capitalist world economy -​ NATO brought the US and various West European countries to defend themselves against the threat of Soviet aggression -​ In 1955, the Warsaw Pact joined the Soviet Union and East European communist countries in an alliance intended to provide a counterweight to NATO and prevent Western influence in the communist sphere -​ These alliances created a largely voluntary American sphere of influence in Western Europe and an imposed Soviet sphere in Eastern Europe -​ The heavily fortified border between Eastern and Western Europe came to be known as the Iron Curtain, bitterly dividing Europe -​ Despite tensions flaring across this dividing line (particularly in Berlin), no actual war occurred between the two sides -​ The extension of communism into Asia – China, Korea, and Vietnam – globalized the cold war and occasioned its most destructive and prolonged “hot wars”. -​ A North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950 led to both Chinese and American involvement in a bitter three year conflict (1950-1953) -​ Ended in an essential standoff that left the Korean peninsula still divided in the early twenty-first century.  -​ In Vietnam, military efforts by South Vietnamese communists and the already communist North Vietnamese government to unify their country prompted massive American intervention in the 1960s. -​ To American authorities, a communist victory would open the door to further communist expansion in Asia and beyond. -​ The Vietnamese were armed and supported by the Soviets and Chinese and willing to endure enormous losses -​ They beat the Americans, who were hobbled by growing protests at home. Vietnam united under communist control by 1975 -​ Another major military conflict of the cold war era occurred in Afghanistan where a Marxist party had taken power in 1978 -​ Soviet leaders were happy at this extension of communism on their southern border -​ However, radical land reforms and efforts to liberate Afghan movement alienated lots of Afghanis (because they were muslim) and led to mounting opposition movement -​ Fearing the overthrow of a new communist state and its replacement by Islamic radicals, Soviet forces intervened militarily and were soon caught in a brutal war -​ They could not win this war -​ For a full decade (1979-1989), that war was a “bleeding wound”, sustained in part by U.S aid to Afghan guerrillas -​ Under widespread international pressure, Soviet forces finally withdrew in 1989, and the Afghan communist regime soon collapsed -​ This incident can be compared to that of Vietnam, where both superpowers painfully experienced the limits of their power and defeat -​ The most haunting battle of the cold war era was one that never happened -​ In Cuba, a communist regime under Fidel Castro had emerged by early 1960s -​ American hostility to this nearby outpost of communism was intense -​ Prompted the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s successor after his death in 1953, to secretly deployed nuclear-tipped Soviet missiles to Cuba -​ He believed that this would deter further U.S action against Castro -​ The missiles were discovered in October 1962, and everyone was panicked as American forces blockaded the island and prepared for an invasion -​ A nuclear exchange between the superpowers seemed imminent, but that catastrophe was averted by a compromise between Khrushchev and JFK -​ Under its terms, the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba in exchange for an American promise to not invade the island -​ The promise was well kept and a communist regime persisted in Cuba well into the 21st century Nuclear Standoff and Third-World Rivalry -​ The Cuban missile crisis gave concrete expression to the most novel and dangerous dimension of the cold war - the arms race in nuclear weapons.  -​ Over the next 40 years the world moved from a mere handful of nuclear weapons to a global arsenal of close to 60,000 warheads -​ Delivery systems included submarines, bomber aircraft, and missiles that could rapidly propel numerous warheads across whole continents and oceans -​ The reason that no shooting war of any kind occurred between the two superpowers is the awareness that this power was destructive -​ A nuclear war would produce only losers and utter catastrophe -​ After the Cuban missile crisis, both sides carefully avoided further nuclear provocation -​ However, they continued to buildup their respective arsenals -​ Because the feared that a conventional war would escalate to the nuclear level, they implicitly agreed to sidestep any direct military confrontation at all -​ Both sides courted countries emerging from colonial rule -​ The USSR aided anticolonial and revolutionary movements in many places, including South Africa, Mozambique, Vietnam, and Cuba -​ The U.S intervened in Iran, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile, the Congo, and elsewhere in fears of communist penetration -​ Neither superpower was able to dominate its supposed allies, many of whom resisted the role of pawns in superpower rivalries The Cold War and the Superpowers -​ WW2 and the cold war provided the context for the emergence of the US as a global superpower -​ Much of that effort was driven by the perceived demands of the cold war, during which the US spearheaded the Western effort to contain a worldwide communist movement that seemed to be advancing -​ Sent soldiers abroad in 30 different countries, was a member of four regional defense alliances and an active participant in a fifth, was a member of 53 international organizations, and was furnishing military or economic aid to nearly 100 nations across the face of the globe -​ The US was clearly the world’s most productive economy after WW2 -​ Meanwhile on the communist side, the cold war was accompanied by turmoil within and among the various communist states -​ Stalin’s crimes became public in the mid 1950s, shocking many faithful communists -​ The Soviet Union and China found themselves sharply opposed because of territorial disputes, ideological differences, and rivalry for communist leadership -​ In 1960, the Soviet Union backed away from an earlier promise to provide China with the prototype of an atomic bomb and withdrew Soviet advisers and technicians who had been assisting Chinese development -​ By the late 1960s, China had developed a nuclear capacity on its own, and the two were at the brink of war, with Soviets threatening to nuclear bomb Chinese military targets -​ Despite its conflicts, communism remained a powerful global presence  -​ China was emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, while the USSR had matched U.S military might -​ Cuba remained a communist outpost in the West, with impressive achievements in education and health care for its people and a commitment to supporting revolutionary movements in Africa and Latin America -​ Communism triumphed in Vietnam, dealing a major setback to the U.S Towards Freedom: Struggles for Independence -​ From the 1940s through the early 1990s in Asia and Africa, a struggle for independence, or decolonization, was occuring, marking a dramatic change in the world’s political structure -​ Signaled the declining legitimacy of both empire and race as a credible basis for political or social life The End of Empire in World History -​ This vast process was the latest case of imperial dissolution, something that we saw with the Romans, Arabs, and Mongols -​ Fueled by mobilization of the masses around a nationalist ideology -​ Comparable to the earlier decolonization where the European colonies in the Americas had thrown off British, French, Spanish, or Portuguese in the 1800s -​ Like their earlier counterparts, the new nations of the mid-to-late twentieth century claimed an international status equivalent to that of their former rulers -​ However, the freedom struggles of the 20th century were very different because they asserted political independence and affirmed the vitality of their cultures -​ In 20th century, Austrian and Ottoman empires collapsed during WW1 -​ Russian Empire collapsed as well, although it was reassembled under USSR -​ WW2 ended the German and Japanese empires Toward Independence in Asia and Africa -​ Colonial rule had lost any credibility as a form of political order as the 20th century closed -​ One way the rapid collapse of European colonial empires and the emergence dozens of new nation-states would be fundamental contradictions in the colonial enterprise -​ The rhetoric of Christianity, Enlightenment thought, and material progress contrasted with the realities of racism, exploitation, and poverty -​ Values of European states became increasingly democratic -​ But why did the fatal flaw of European colonial rule lead to independence post WW2 rather than earlier or later? -​ “Conjuncture”: the coming together of several separate developments at a particular time, could explain this -​ The world wars had weakened Europe while discrediting any sense of European moral superiority -​ Both the US and the USSR opposed the older European colonial empires  -​ The UN provided a prestigious platform for which to conduct anticolonial agitation -​ In the colonies, European rulers depended on the cooperation of local elites and Western-educated men even more, making them vulnerable -​ People became more educated and insisted on independence. Everyone, men and women alike, were receptive to the message -​ Colonial rulers began to plan a new political relationship with their subjects -​ They wanted to maintain links with their colonies and retain profitable economic interests -​ They planned for decolonization, included gradual political reforms, invested in railroads, ports, and telegraph lines -​ It seemed like independence was granted by colonial rulers instead of gained or seized -​ These reforms only occurred under considerable pressure from mounting nationalist movements -​ The most prominent nationalist leaders became the “fathers” of their new countries -​ These include: -​ Gandhi and Nehru in India -​ Sukarno in Indonesia -​ Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam -​ Nkrumah in Ghana -​ Mandela in South Africa -​ The nationalist leadership involved recruiting a mass following -​ Millions of ordinary men and women joined Gandhi’s nonviolent campaigns in India -​ However, struggles for independence were rarely if ever cohesive movements of uniformly oppressed people -​ They were fragile alliances representing different classes, ethnic groups, religions, or regions -​ They struggled with one another over questions of leadership, power, strategy, ideology, and the distribution of material benefits -​ Sometimes even the relationship between nationalist leaders and their followers was fraught with tension -​ India’s independence movement is a compelling example of these divisions and controversies -​ Its leader, Gandhi, rejected modern industrialization as a goal for his country, while his chief lieutenant, Nehru, saw science, technology and industry as essential to India’s future -​ Not everyone accepted Gandhi’s nonviolence or his in inclusive vision for India -​ Some believed that Gandhi’s efforts to improve women’s positions were a distraction from the chief task of gaining independence -​ A serious threat to India’s unification was the growing divide between the country’s Hindu and Muslim population  -​ Muslims became scared that their voice could be swamped by numerically dominant Hindus -​ This fear was confirmed when Hindu politicians antagonized Muslims -​ The idea that the Muslim majority of India should have a separate political status formed -​ It would be called Pakistan -​ With great reluctance, Gandhi and the Congress Party agreed to separate as the British declared their intention to leave India after WW2 After Freedom -​ The former colonies and the already independent were confronted by the question of how would they be governed -​ Many people were competing for power, which was the formidable setting in which developing countries had to hammer out new political systems -​ Many types of political systems formed, like Communist Party control in China, Vietnam, and Cuba, multiparty democracy in India and South Africa, etc. -​ As colonial rule drew to a close, European authorities in many places attempted to transplant democratic institutions to colonies they had long governed authoritarianly. -​ They established legislatures, permitted elections, allowed political parties to operate, and anticipated the development of democracy -​ In India, a Western-style democracy, including regular elections, multiple parties, civil liberties, and peaceful changes in government was established and is still maintained. -​ Elsewhere, however, democracy proved a far more fragile transplant -​ Among the new states of Africa, few retained their democratic institutions beyond the initial post-independence decade -​ Many of the apparent popular political parties that had led the struggle for independence lost mass support and were swept away by military coups -​ Other states evolved into one party systems, and still others degenerated into corrupt personal tyrannies or “Big Man” dictatorships -​ Across much of Africa, economic disappointments, class resentments, and ethnic conflicts provided the context for numerous military takeovers -​ A similar wave of military interventions swept over Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, leaving Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and other countries governed at times by their military officers -​ The late twentieth century witnessed a remarkable political reversal, a globalization of democracy, that brought popular movements, multiparty elections, and new constitutions to many countries all around the world -​ Included the end of military and autocratic rule in Spain, Portugal, and Greece as well as the stunning rise of democratic movements, parties, and institutions amid the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe -​ The most extensive expression of this global reemergence of democracy lay in the developing countries  -​ By 2000, almost all Latin American countries had abandoned their military controlled regimes and returned to some form of democratic government -​ So did most African states previously ruled by soldiers, dictators, or single parties -​ In Asia, authoritarian regimes, some long established, gave way to more pluralistic and participatory political systems in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Iraq and Indonesia -​ What could explain this global pattern and its expression in the Global South in particular? -​ One factor was the untethering of the ideas of democracy and human rights from their Western origins -​ By the final quarter of the twentieth century, democracy increasingly was viewed as a universal political principle to which all could aspire -​ Democracy, like communism, feminism, modern science, and Christianity, was a Western import that took root in a globalizing world -​ Perhaps the most important internal factor favoring a revival of democracy lay in the failure of authoritarian governments to remedy disastrous economic situations, to raise standards of living, to provide jobs for the young, and to curb pervasive corruption -​ The oppressive and brutal behavior of repressive governments humiliated and outraged many -​ The growth of civil society with its numerous voluntary groups provided a social foundation, independent of the state, for demanding change -​ However, the consolidation of democratic practice was an uncertain and highly variable process -​ Some elected leaders, such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Recip Edrogan in Turkey, turned authoritarian once in office -​ Outright electoral fraud tainted democratic institutions in many places -​ Chinese authorities brutally crushed a democratic movement in 1989 -​ The Algerian military sponsored elections in 1992 and then abruptly canceled them when an Islamic party seemed poised to win -​ Nonetheless, this worldwide revival of democracy represented the globalization of what had been a Western idea and the continuation of the political experiments that had begun with independence The End of the Communist Era -​ The communist era came to an end far more peacefully than it had begun -​ Can be viewed as a drama in three acts -​ Act one was in China during the late 1970s after the death of Mao Zedong  -​ Over the next several decades, the CCP gradually abandoned everything that had been associated with Maoist communism, even as the party retained its political control of the country -​ Act Two took place in Eastern Europe in the “miracle year” of 1989 -​ Popular movements toppled despised communist governments one after another all across the region -​ Final act occurred in 1991 in the Soviet Union, 74 years after the communist era had begun -​ Reformist leader Mikhail Gorbachev had come to power in 1985 intending to revive and save Soviet socialism from its accumulated dysfunctions -​ These efforts only exacerbated the country’s many difficulties and it led to the political disintegration of the Soviet Union on Christmas Day 1991 -​ Behind these separate stories lay two general failures of the communist experiment, measured both by communists’ own standards and by those of the largest world -​ The first was economic -​ Despite their early successes, communist economies slowed down by the late 1970s and showed no signs of catching up to the capitalist economies -​ Soviet economy was stagnant – its citizens complained endlessly about the poor quality and declining availability of consumer goods -​ Very embarrassing because it was the proud boast of communism that they had found a better road to prosperity than their capitalist rivals -​ They had political and national security implications as well, for economic growth, even more than military capacity, was increasingly the measure of state power and widely expected among the general population as consumerism took hold around the world -​ The second was moral. -​ The horrors of Stalin’s Terror and the gulag, of Mao’s Cultural Revoltuion, of something approaching genocide in communist Cambodia – all of this wore away at communist claims to moral superiority over capitalism -​ Moreover, this erosion occurred as global political culture widely embraced democracy and human rights as the legacy of humankind -​ In both economic and moral terms, the communist path to the modern world was increasingly seen as a road to nowhere. Beyond Mao in China -​ In China the reform process took shape under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who emerged as China’s paramount leader in 1976 after the death of Mao -​ Deng’s dismantling of the country’s system of collectivized farming and a return to something close to small-scale private agriculture were dramatic  -​ Impoverished Chinese peasants liked this and pushed these ideas even further than the government had intended -​ Industrial reform proceeded more gradually -​ Managers of state enterprises were given greater authority and encouraged to act like private owners, making their own decisions and seeking profit -​ China opened itself to the world economy and welcomed foreign investment in special enterprise zones along the coast, where foreign capitalists recieved tax breaks and other inducements -​ The outcome of these reforms was stunning economic growth and a new prosperity for millions. -​ Better diet, lower mortality rates, declining poverty, massive urban construction, and surging exports–all of this accompanied China’s state-directed rejoining of the world economy and contributed to a much-improved life for its citizens -​ On the other hand, the country’s burgeoning economy also generated MASSIVE corruption among Chinese officials, sharp inequalities between the coast and the interior, a huge problem of urban overcrowding, terrible pollution in major cities, and periodic inflation as the state loosened its controls over the economy -​ Urban vices such as street crime, prostitution, gambling, drug addiction, and a criminal underworld surfaced again in China’s booming city -​ A largely capitalist economy had been restored, and by none other than the Communist Party itself -​ Mao’s worst fears had been realized as China took the capitalist road -​ Although the party was willing to abandon many communist economic policies, it was unwilling to relinquish its political monopoly or to promote democracy at the national level The Collapse of the Soviet Union -​ A parallel reform process unfolded quite differently in the USSR under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev -​ He wanted to tackle the country’s many problems – economic stagnation, a black market, public apathy, and cynicism about the party -​ His reform process paralleled aspects of the Chinese approach by: -​ freeing state enterprises from the heavy hand of government regulation, -​ permitting small-scale private businesses called cooperatives, -​ offering opportunities for private farming, -​ and cautiously welcoming foreign investment in joint enterprises -​ However, in cultural and political affairs, Gorbachev moved far beyond chinese reforms. -​ His policy of glasnost (openness) now permitted an unprecedented range of cultural and intellectual freedoms -​ Corruption, child abuse, crime, and homelessness were all exposed–he did not want to be secretive anymore -​ Censorship was gone -​ Soviet history was reexamined as revelations of Stalin’s crimes poured out of the media -​ Democratization and a new parliament with real powers chosen in competitive elections resurfaced -​ However, nothing worked out as Gorbachev had anticipated -​ It did not strengthen socialism and the USSR, but led to its further weakening and collapse -​ The USSR spun into a sharp decline as its planned economy was dismantled before a market-based system could occur -​ Inflation mounted, consumer goods were in short supply -​ Unlike Chinese peasants, few Soviet farmers were willing to risk the jump into private farming, and few foreign investors found the USSR a tempting place to do business -​ The new freedoms provoked demands that went far beyond what Gorbachev had intended -​ Democracy sprang to life, many of them seeking full multiparty democracy and a market-based economy -​ Independent labor unions emerged, and went on strike which was unheard of before -​ A multitude of nationalist movements used the new freedoms to insist on greater autonomy, or even independence, from the USSR -​ Gorbachev refused to use force to crush the protesters, contrasting with China -​ Gorbachev’s reforms had lit a fuse in the Soviet world, where communism had been imposed and maintained from outside -​ If the USSR could practice glasnost and hold competitive elections, why couldn’t Eastern Europe? -​ Background for the miracle year of 1989 -​ Massive demonstrations, last minute attempts at reforms, the breaching of the Berlin Wall, the surfacing of new political groups all overwhelmed the highly unpopular communist regimes of Europe -​ Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania’s communist regimes were swept away -​ This success emboldened nationalists and democrats in the Soviet Union