The Soviet Union (skip past the Great Depression and Rise of Fascism, in my version it’s on page 812)
The New Economic Policy
This was a modified version of the old capitalist system.
Peasants could now sell their produce openly, and some retail stores could operate under private ownership.
In 1922, Lenin and the Communists formally created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)
The Struggle for Power
Lenin’s death led to a struggle for power among the Politburo, which became the leading organ of the Communist Party.
There was a rivalry between Leon Trotsky, who wanted to end the NEP, and Joseph Stalin, whose role was party general secretary. He began to appointed some 10,000 regional secretaries, many of them his trusted followers.
The Stalinist Era (1929-1939)
His first five-year plan had the goal of transforming the Soviet Union into an industrial state.
Since so much investment went into heavy steel and industry, little investment went into housing, so the people lived in horrible conditions.
Stalin believed that the capital needed for industrial growth could be gained by creating agricultural surpluses through eliminating private farms and pushing people onto collective farms.
Many Kulaks, or wealthy farmers, were sent to prison camps.
Between 1936 and 1938, the most prominent Old Bolsheviks were put on trial and condemned to death.
Advocating for complete equality of rights for women, the Communists made divorce and abortion easy to obtain. After Stalin came to power, abortion was outlawed and divorced fathers that didn’t support their children were heavily fined.
To create new leaders, Stalin began a program to enable workers, peasants, and young Communists to receive higher education, especially degree.
Authoritarianism in Eastern Europe
After WWI, almost everywhere in Eastern Europe parliamentary governments soon gave way to authoritarian regimes. This is because:
Eastern European states had little tradition of liberalism or parliamentary politics and no substantial middle class to support them.
The states were largely rural and agrarian which meant much of the land was dominated by large landowners who feared the growth of agrarian peasant parties with their schemes for land redistribution
Ethnic conflicts threatened to tear these countries apart
Only Czechoslovakia, with its substantial middle class and strong industrial base, maintained its political democracy.
Dictatorship in the Iberian Peninsula
The Spanish Army, led by General Francisco Franco, revolted against the Spanish government and enacted a civil war that lasted three years.
The war consisted of the left (Republicans) versus the right (Nationalists, monarchy, military, and the Catholic Church).
Germany and Italy sent troops, weapons, and advisors to support Franco.
The Soviets send aid to the Republicans.
Franco’s government outlaws outlawed political opposition, favored large business and the Catholic clergy, and curtailed the media.
What new dimensions in mass culture and mass leisure emerged during the interwar years, and what role did these activities play in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union?
There were many years of mass culture and leisure. There was a creation of radio waves under the BBC, many films and movie theaters developed, "flapper" dancing and jazz music was created, radios increased the amount of influence, sporting events were created, mass tourism through plane travel, recreation agencies, and fashion through tours and cruises
What were the main cultural and intellectual trends in the interwar years?
there were many cultural and intellectual trends. Literature became violent and sad after the war, human beings were considered violent Women began to dress differently to expose their body. In art dadaism appeared (no use), surrealism appeared (imagination), and functionalism appeared (architecture and purpose). In music there was jazz, opera, drama to pot ray political messages, and atonal music. Carl Jung challenged Freud and physics under the uncertainty principle were created
His ideology was guided by the concept of lebensraum, which said that a nation’s power depended on the amount and kind of land it occupied.
Hitler was certain that only he had the ability to accomplish the goal of German imperial supremacy.
The “Diplomatic Revolution” (1933-1936)
Hitler knew that Britain and France wanted to avoid another war, and that if he could prevent the French from acting against him, he could remove restrictions placed on Germany.
He began rearmament by pretending that his intentions were peaceful.
France, Britain, and Italy condemned Hitler's rearmament, but no action was taken against him.
The British pursued a policy of appeasement , which was based on the idea that if European states satisfied the reasonable demands of dissatisfied powers, the latter would be content, and stability and peace would be achieved in Europe.
Then, in 1936 Hitler sent troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. France couldn’t act without British aid.
Hitler also gained new allies, including , who was angered at French and British opposition to his invasion of Ethiopia. In 1936, the two recognized their common political and economic interests in an agreement called the Anti-Comintern Pact. In addition, Germany and Japan agreed to maintain a common front against communism.
The Path to War in Europe (1937-1939)
Part of Hitler’s rearmament included plans for a new type of warfare called Blitzkrieg, or “lightning war”.
Hitler coerced the Austrian chancellor into putting a Nazi in charge of gov’t, who allowed German troops to occupy Austria. Later, Hitler formally annexed Austria.
Germany asked for autonomy in the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia that was home to 3 million Germans, which was allowed at the Munich Conference.
When Hitler set his sights on Poland, Britain and France began to make negotiations with the Soviet Union, who was powerful enough to contain Nazi aggression. However, Hitler negotiated his own non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, which gave him the freedom to attack Poland.
Once Hitler began his invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war.
The Path to War in Asia
The war in Asia arose from the ambitions of Japan, who was dealing with its own financial problems in the 1930s.
In September 1931, Japanese troops had seized control of Manchuria.
When clashes between Chinese and Japanese troops broke out, the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek allowed Japan to administer areas of North China.
The Japanese seized Nanking, raping and killing thousands of innocents in the process.
The Japanese could not take on the USSR on their own, so they set their sights to Southeast Asia to gain resources such as the oil of the Dutch East Indies, the rubber and tin of Malaya, and the rice of Burma and Indochina.
When the Japanese took military control of South Vietnam in July 1941, Americans responded by cutting off sales of vital scrap iron and oil from Japan. Japanese officials decided to preempt further American response by attacking the American naval fleet at Pearl Harbor.
Moving into Poland, German forces used panzer divisions, or armored columns, to break through Polish lines.
At the same time, Soviet forces attacked eastern Poland.
France built a series of concrete and steel fortifications—known as the Maginot—along its border with Germany.
Germany also took Norway and the Netherlands by force. Some Allied forces were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, but British organized a mass evacuation of Allied troops using small ships.
Germans and Mussolini invaded France, and Nazis occupied 3/5th of France, while the French hero of World War 1, Marshal Henri Pétain established an authoritarian regime called Vichy France.
Hitler then set his sights on Britain, and he determined that his defeat of them would only happen with massive air raids, which he orchestrated using the Luftwaffe, or Air Force. However, the British rebuilt their strength quickly, and by the end of September, Germany had lost the Battle of Britain.
Hitler believed that Britain would drop out of the war if the Soviet Union were smashed, and on June 22, 1941, Nazis began their invasion.
The War in Asia
In December 1941, the US declared war on Japan, which made Hitler declare war on the US.
Japan had taken over much of Southeast Asia, announcing it would free these regions of Western rule.
The Turning Point of the War (1942-1943)
The US was convinced by Britain and the USSR that the defeat of Germany was the first priority, so they increased quantity of trucks, planes, and other arms that it sent to the British and Soviets.
All three Allies agreed to fight the Axis powers until they surrendered unconditionally.
The tide of the war turned in 1942 when British forces stopped Germans in North Africa and forced Germans and Italian to surrender there. By 1943, new detection devices enabled the Allies to destroy increasing numbers of German submarines.
By Spring of 1943, Hitler realized he would not be able to defeat the USSR, especially after a German loss at Stalingrad.
As a result of the Battle of Midway in the Pacific, American troops established naval superiority in the Pacific.
The Last Years of the War
Since 1943, the Allies had planned a cross-channel invasion of France via Britain. General Eisenhower planned an invasion of the beaches of Normandy on June 6. This allowed 150,000 Allied troops to land on the beaches and push back the German defensive.
Meanwhile, Soviets began a relentless advance westward.
By January 1945 Hitler had moved into a bunker under Berlin, where he committed suicide on April 30, two days after Mussolini had been shot by partisan Italian forces. On May 7, Germany surrendered.
When President Truman concluded that American losses would be too heavy in an invasion of mainland Japan, he decided to drop the newly developed atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14.
Most of the German empire was not organized systematically or governed efficiently.
Hitler began to implement his racial program in eastern Europe shortly after the conquest of Poland.
Himmler argued that the destruction of Slavs was essential to the German empire.
Labor shortages in Germany led to Soviet prisoners of war becoming a major source of forced labor.
Resistance Movements
Active resisters committed acts of sabotage against German installations, assassinated German officials, and spied on Germans for the Allies.
In Yugoslavia, Josip Broz a.k.a. “Tito” led a band of guerrilla forces against Germans.
Women served as message carriers, planted bombs, and assassinated Nazi officers.
The White Rose movement arose in Germany and involved a group of students distributing pamphlets denouncing the Nazi regime.
The Holocaust
Anti-Semitism was a recurring theme in Nazism, even though Hitler toned down his rhetoric when he sought mass electoral victories.
At the beginning of 1939, Nazi policy focused on promoting the “emigration” of German Jews from Germany.
The SS was given responsibility for what the Nazis called the Final Solution to the “Jewish Problem”—the annihilation of the Jewish people.
The SS death squads rounded up Jews in villages, executed them, and buried them in mass graves.
Soon, the Nazis opted for the systematic annihilation in specifically built death camps.
About 30% of the arrivals at Auschwitz were sent to a labor camp; the remainder were sent to the gas chambers.
Virtually 90 percent of the Jewish populations of Poland, the Baltic countries, and Germany were exterminated.
Nazis were also responsible for the deliberate death of at least 9-10 million people, including Gypsies and Slavic peoples.
The New Order in Asia
Real power in most Southeast Asian countries rested with Japanese military authorities of each territory. These colonies were exploited for the benefit of the Japanese war machine.
Tens of thousands of Korean women were forced to serve as “comfort women” for Japanese troops.
In Britain, people contributed to the war effort in the following ways:
By the summer of 1944, fully 55% of the British people were in the armed forces or civilian “war work”
Most women under 40 years of age were called on to do war work of some kind (civil service and agriculture)
Manufacturing Tanks
Two out of every five people killed in WWII were Soviets.
Due to the need for mass mobilization, the USSR experienced another industrial revolution. They produced a significant number of tanks and artillery pieces, but experienced shortages in food and housing as a result.
Soviet women contributed as follows:
worked in factories, mines, and railroads
dug anti-tank ditches and work as air-raid wardens
served as snipers and aircrews in bomber squadrons
The impact of mobilization in the US was:
dramatic expansion of the American economy which brought an end to the Great Depression
old factories were converted from peacetime goods to war goods and new factories were built
massive amounts of government money also financed the new industries, such as chemicals and electronics
The mobilization of the American economy caused social problems as well, such as the breakdown of social mores in towns that quickly grow due to increased migration for jobs.
African Americans faced discrimination as many moved for formerly white neighborhoods in search of jobs in industry.
On the west coast, 110,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps for “security reasons.”
In Germany, Hitler did not implement total war because he feared a decline in morale at home.
In Japan, traditional habits about obedience encouraged citizens to sacrifice their resources for the national cause. This is seen with the volunteers who wanted to serve as suicide pilots, or kamikaze.
Front-Line Civilians: The Bombing of Cities
The Luftwaffe’s bombing of London did not produce that decline in morale that had been intended.
Once Americans entered the war, they began to focus their bombings of Germany on transportation facilities and war industries while the British continued to bomb German cities.
In New Mexico, Allied scientists built and tested the first atomic bomb by the summer of 1945. When Truman decided to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima, 140,000 of the 400,000 inhabitants were killed.
At least 21 million soldiers died, and 40 million civilians died.
The economies of the most belligerent countries were left in ruins.
The Impact of Technology
British physicists played a role in the development of the atomic bomb.
British mathematician Alan Turing designed a computer to break German code.
The Allied War Conferences
The “Big Three” met at Tehran in 1943 to decide the future course of the war.
They decided that eastern Europe would be liberated by the Soviet forces. They also agreed to a partition of Germany.
At the meeting at Yalta, Stalin wanted to create “spheres of influence” while Roosevelt wanted to return to self-determination.
The creation of the United Nations was a major American concern at Yalta.
German reparations were set at $20 billion. It was also agreed that there would be free elections in eastern Europe, but that those elections should be pro-Soviet.
Conflict continued when the US did not respond to Soviet request for aid to rebuild, and when Stalin engineered a coup and installed a new government under the Communist Petra Groza, called the “Little Stalin.”
At Potsdam, Stalin reiterated that he wanted military security through the presence of Communist states in Eastern Europe.
Emergence of the Cold War
In March 1946, Churchill announced that “an iron curtain” had “descended across the continent” [of Europe]. Stalin viewed this as a “call to war”.