15:Liberalism, Democracy and the Totalitarian challenge Flashcards

1
Q

what kind of contest existed in the 1930s?

A

ideological
contest between liberal democracies and the emergent totalitarian states
-international prestige of dictators, seemed muscular and active compared to weak passive liberal democracy

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2
Q

how did Liberalism appear to observers?

A

like it was in a state of terminal decline

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3
Q

Evidence that democracy was in crisis

A

By 1941, there were only 11 functioning democracies

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4
Q

why was there considered to be a crisis of capitalism?

A

1929-33: unprecedented economic catastrophe
as interlinked national economies transferred the
depression from one country to another

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5
Q

social consequences of the crisis of capitalism

A

-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

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6
Q

political consequences of the crisis of democracy/capitalism

A

-12 Latin American governments fell between 1931 and 1933, 10 to military coups
-nationalist regimes to power in Japan (1931) and Germany (1933)

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7
Q

how did the Wall Street Crash lead to economic nationalism?

A

-it destroyed liberal economic systems of international interdependence
-states implemented systems of tariffs, quotas, currency exchange controls

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8
Q

what was autarky?

A
  • a model of economic self-sufficiency where nations aspired to be free of dependence on foreign trade or imports
    -popular with fascist/authoritarian regimes
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9
Q

What policy led to the election of FDR in 1932?

A

economic reform programme of the New Deal
3 Rs: Relief, Recovery and Reform

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10
Q

examples of New Deal public work programmes

A

122’000 buildings
164’000 miles of road
dams and hydroelectric power

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11
Q

criticisms of FDR

A

political criticisms
accused of “dictorial tendencies” and accusations of “creeping socialism”

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12
Q

was the new deal a success?

A

the US was back in recession by 1938
9 million Americans still unemployed by 1939

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13
Q

what were key elements to German economic recovery?

A
  • Nazi recovery programme
    -state supervised banks and finance
    -Reich Food estate
    -Public works
    -strategic aspect to nazi economic recovery plans
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14
Q

what were the conflicting international ideologies in the 1930s?

A
  1. Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist Communism
  2. A reformed capitalism shorn of its faith in free
    markets and based on a compromise with social
    democracy and non-communist labour unions
  3. Fascism/ Nazism
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15
Q

Summary of the Abyssinian Crisis

A

-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

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16
Q

Events of the Manchurian crisis

A

-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

17
Q

why was the league ineffective in response to the Manchuria crisis?

A

-Collective security loopholes
-The USA not a League member
-Britain was unwilling to antagonize Japan

18
Q

When did Germany leave the League?

A

1933

19
Q

Hitler’s assaults on European security

A

Jan 1935: Saar plebiscite
March:german rearmament
June: Anglo-German Naval Agreement
March 1936:remilitarisation of the Rhineland
1936: German-Italian reconciliation

20
Q

Describe the Sudetenland crisis

A

-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

21
Q

Give two ways in which liberal internationalism was revived

A

January 1941: FDR’S ‘Four freedoms’ speech
14th August 1941: the Atlantic charter

22
Q

what was the Atlantic Charter

A

set out the
principles on which Britain and the USA “base their
hopes for a better future for the world