15:Liberalism, Democracy and the Totalitarian challenge Flashcards
what kind of contest existed in the 1930s?
ideological
contest between liberal democracies and the emergent totalitarian states
-international prestige of dictators, seemed muscular and active compared to weak passive liberal democracy
how did Liberalism appear to observers?
like it was in a state of terminal decline
Evidence that democracy was in crisis
By 1941, there were only 11 functioning democracies
why was there considered to be a crisis of capitalism?
1929-33: unprecedented economic catastrophe
as interlinked national economies transferred the
depression from one country to another
social consequences of the crisis of capitalism
-Unemployment reached 25% (12 million in US and 8 million in Germany)
- most governments had inadequate social provisions
-85% of German Communist Party members came from the unemployed
political consequences of the crisis of democracy/capitalism
-12 Latin American governments fell between 1931 and 1933, 10 to military coups
-nationalist regimes to power in Japan (1931) and Germany (1933)
how did the Wall Street Crash lead to economic nationalism?
-it destroyed liberal economic systems of international interdependence
-states implemented systems of tariffs, quotas, currency exchange controls
what was autarky?
- a model of economic self-sufficiency where nations aspired to be free of dependence on foreign trade or imports
-popular with fascist/authoritarian regimes
What policy led to the election of FDR in 1932?
economic reform programme of the New Deal
3 Rs: Relief, Recovery and Reform
examples of New Deal public work programmes
122’000 buildings
164’000 miles of road
dams and hydroelectric power
criticisms of FDR
political criticisms
accused of “dictorial tendencies” and accusations of “creeping socialism”
was the new deal a success?
the US was back in recession by 1938
9 million Americans still unemployed by 1939
what were key elements to German economic recovery?
- Nazi recovery programme
-state supervised banks and finance
-Reich Food estate
-Public works
-strategic aspect to nazi economic recovery plans
what were the conflicting international ideologies in the 1930s?
- Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist Communism
- A reformed capitalism shorn of its faith in free
markets and based on a compromise with social
democracy and non-communist labour unions - Fascism/ Nazism
Summary of the Abyssinian Crisis
-3 October 1935: Italy invaded Abyssinia
-Collective security failure – no effective oil or
military sanctions were imposed on Italy
-Hoare-Laval Agreement: UK and France were
unwilling to alienate Italy (which they saw as a
possible ally against Nazi Germany)
-Collapse of Abyssinian resistance by March 1936
Events of the Manchurian crisis
-September 1931 Mukden Incident:
Japanese occupation of Manchuria
-December 1931 Lytton Commission was
set up, its October 1932 report, although
critical of Japan, was a largely symbolic
gesture of disapproval
why was the league ineffective in response to the Manchuria crisis?
-Collective security loopholes
-The USA not a League member
-Britain was unwilling to antagonize Japan
When did Germany leave the League?
1933
Hitler’s assaults on European security
Jan 1935: Saar plebiscite
March:german rearmament
June: Anglo-German Naval Agreement
March 1936:remilitarisation of the Rhineland
1936: German-Italian reconciliation
Describe the Sudetenland crisis
-September 1938: Hitler’s attention turned to
Czechoslovakia and war over the ethnically German
Sudetenland seemed inevitable
-The British fleet mobilized on 27 September
-29 September: British, German, Italian and French
leaders met in Munich
-Munich Agreement allowed for German occupation
of Sudetenland – Hitler’s “last territorial demand”
-“Peace in our time” – Chamberlain
-Annexation of the rest of Czechoslovakia followed in
March 1939 and Hitler now turned against Poland
Give two ways in which liberal internationalism was revived
January 1941: FDR’S ‘Four freedoms’ speech
14th August 1941: the Atlantic charter
what was the Atlantic Charter
set out the
principles on which Britain and the USA “base their
hopes for a better future for the world
