Ch. 26 & 27 - Unit 8b: Interwar Years & WW|| Flashcards
Belief in Progress shattered
-Starting w/Scientific Rev. & into Enlightenment, science has solved many f our collective problems as human beings & so at turn of cen. we were basically on precipice of Utopian civilization
*WW| confirmed belief that humans were violent & irrational animals incapale of creating sane & rational world (NOT PROGRESSING)
–> shattering of belief in progress had started before WW| but mainly confined to artists & handful of elite folk
–> Great Depression & growth of fascist movements based on violence & degredation of individual rights added to uncertainty
New Physics
-Newton’s publishment of laws of physics thought to be triumphant b/c now we know how world works, nature governed by immutable laws that could never be changed, same when in early 19th cen. John Dalton articulated theory of atoms & how these bits of matter constituted basic building blocks of everything, so now we know how everything works & can focus on other things
–> In early & mid 20th cen. new scientists shattered all these allusions
-Albert Einstein: *Worked help us see time & space are not fixed realities at all, instead in his theory of relativity Einstein discovered time & space are actually relative to the observer
-Werner Heisenberg: *Built on work of previous physicists who has discovered atom was not in fact not the smallest unit of reality
–> Had discovered subatomic particles like electrons, but everyone believed electrons behaved predictably, but Heisenberg discovered the act of observing an electron w/light, changes the behavior of an electron
-Enrico Fermi & Niels Bohr: Both were amble to harness explosive power of splitting atoms & that discovery led to development of atomic bomb which killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese by end of WW|| & created ripe mess in international relations during Cold War
Psychology
-We like to think that we act according to our rational nature & calmly reason out what to do next when presented w/stimuli from world BUT then Sigmund Freud said no
–> He argued that under the surface human beings are completely irrational, instead of making decisions based on reasoned analysis , Freud argued that we actually behave mostly on unknown impulses deep within our psyche(?)
OVERALL: whether it was understanding of how the world worked or how us human beings work, emerging science of 20th cen was undermining all our beliefs of a certain & predictable universe
Society in 20th Cen
-Thanks to WW| a whole generation of those who came of age during war were saddled w/disillusionment
-Writer Gertudo Stein called them the Lost Generation
*all of a sudden they felt a dirft in a post-war culture, the values & morals that they had inherited from parents no longer seemed to work in the world that the war had created
–> Can see this especially in writings of Ernest Hemingway & F Scott Fitzgerald
-Additionally women experienced profound change in 20s
*Political & economic uncertainties paralleled by social insecurities –> WW| broke down traditional middle-class attitudes, women’s appearance changed (showed more of their skin & body, makeup, etc) new ideas abt sexuality
*Hundreds of thousands of women joined the military to serve in auxiliary positions like nurses & office workers
–> In addition b/c the men had to go off & fight the war, women took up domestic jobs as well, many of them in factories too world wars & this new found liberty outside the home led to rise in efforts of women to gain right to vote (slowly & surely it happened)
Expansion of Mass Culture & Leisure
-1920’s: *Roaring 20’s, exuberant pop culture, especially known for dance crazes (Josephine Baker = American dancer & singer, well known in europe too, wonderful symbol of popular “flapper” = unconventional & lively young woman of 1920’s)
*Jazz Age (spread thru-out Western world)
-Radios: *Prepared way for revolution in mass communications (Guglielmo Marion’s discovery of “wireless” radio waves, June 16 1920 = radio broadcast, concert, 4 mass audience attempted)
*US, Europe, Japan constructed permanent broadcasting facilities during 1921 & 22, mass production of radios began in 1926
*Politically used 2 reach masses, Nazi regime encouraged radio listening (urged manufacturers to produce cheap ones –> loudspeaker pillars 4 communal radio listening)
-Movies/Films: *Cinema = new form of entertainment 4 masses (present before as short movies in 1890’s)
*Increased size of audience & ability to radio & cinema = new dimensions, actors/actresses = public adoration or scrutiny
*Propaganda potential, encouraged by Joseph Goebbels (Propaganda minister) –> docs & films to spread Nazi message
-Mass Leisure: *More free time b/c of new work patterns after WW|
*Sports (professional)
*Tourism (aircraft use in WW| bettered planes but more for wealthy, trains buses & cars used too, paid vacations, tourism in colonies)
*Provided Fascist & Nazi regimes w/new ways to control their populations (Like Italian Dopolavoro who enabled the gov to provide recreational activities & supervise, or the Nazi “Kraft durch Freude” who’s work was to coordinate free time of working class by offering variety of leisure time activities
Art & Music
-GERMAN EXPRESSIONISTS: *World War I, had a devastating impact on a group of German Expressionist artists who focused on suffering & shattered lives caused by war
-THE DADA MOVEMENT: *Dadaism attempted to enshrine purposelessness of life, Revolted by insanity of life, Dadaists tried to give it expression by creating ‘‘anti-art.’
-SURREALISM: *sought a reality beyond material, sensible world & found it in world of unconscious thru portrayal of fantasies, dreams, or nightmares.
*Employing logic to portray illogical, Surrealists created disturbing & evocative images
-FUNCTIONALISM IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE: *Became more widespread in 1920s & 1930s, 1st conceived near end of 19th cen, functionalism meant that buildings, like products of machines, should be ‘‘functional’’ or useful, fulfilling purpose for which they were constructed
*Art and engineering were to be unified, & all unnecessary ornamentation was to be stripped away –> based on architects’ belief that art had a social function & could help create a new civilization
*Especially important in spread of functionalism was Bauhaus, School of art, architecture, & design, founded in 1919 at Weimar, Germany, by Berlin architect
Walter Gropius (1883–1969)
*Bauhaus teaching staff consisted of architects, artists, & designers who worked together to blend study of fine arts
(painting & sculpture) w/applied arts (printing, weaving, & furniture making)
*Gropius urged followers to foster new union of arts & crafts to create buildings &
objects of the future
-A POPULAR AUDIENCE: *Important to development of artistic expression between wars was search for a new popular audience. *To attract a wider audience, artists &
musicians began to involve themselves in new mass culture
-ART IN NAZI GERMANY AND THE SOVIET UNION: *Hitler & Nazis rejected modern art as ‘‘degenerate’’ or ‘‘Jewish’’ art, believed that they had laid foundation for a new & genuine German art, which would glorify the strong, the healthy, & the heroic—all supposedly attributes of the Aryan race
–> new German art was actually old
19th cen genre art w/emphasis on realistic
scenes of everyday life
–> After bold experimentalism of
1920s, Stalinist era imposed a stifling uniformity on artistic creativity, like German painting, Soviet painting was expected to focus on 19th cen pictorial style aimed at realistic presentation, Both new German art &
socialist realism were intended to inculcate social values useful to ruling regimes
-A NEW STYLE IN MUSIC: *Revolution in music parallel to revolution in art had begun w/work of Igor Stravinsky, but he still wrote music in a definite key
*Viennese composer Arnold Schönberg began to experiment w/radically new style by creating musical pieces in which tonality is completely abandoned, a system that he called atonal music –> Since use of traditional forms was virtually impossible in atonal, music, Schönberg created new system of composition, twelve-tone composition, which used scale of twelve notes independent of any tonal key
*Resistance to modern music was even greater than to modern painting, & atonal music
did not begin to win favor until after WW||
Causes of the Great Depression
-Treaty of Versailles = Germany pays reparations, & first year after WW| Germany paid what they owed, but they next year they were like “we’re broke lol!” so the Germany policy at that point was was to just print paper money like crazy which led to severe hyperinflation
*By 1984, realizing the German situation was deteriorating profoundly, an international commission cobbled together the Dawes Plan
–> Decreed Germany pay only reparations it could afford to pay
–> Invested metric buttload of U.S. $$ into Germany recovery
*As a result Europe experienced a season of upward recovery & prosperity
-Chief illustration of how good everyone was feeling = Signing of Kellogg Briand Pact which essentially renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy
(This is all context!!)
Causes of Great Depression
-War Debt: ALL major powers in war had borrowed $ to finance their participation & that became a significant economic burden
-Nationalistic Tariff Policies: Many nations placed high tariffs in place in order to protect their own domestic industries, but in cutting of the flow of free trade among nations, unemployment rose significantly
-Overproduction: Since WW| was a total war, many industries at any given state ramped up their production to meet demand for war-time necessities, but when war ended in 1918 farmed didn’t increase their production & thus saturated market w/goods for which there were no buyers (drove prices way down & caused sig economic suffering in farming industry b4 great economic collapse)
-Speculation: Problem that happened in US but soon had global implications, for most part 1920s were prosperous decade for US & as a result many ppl borrowed money to buy into stock market, practice known as speculation
U.S. Stock Market Crash
-Much of economic recovery & prosperity that Europe was experiencing from 19241929 was due to monetary investments from US
-There was already trouble in horizon in late 20s when American investors began diverting $ from European recovery & especially German recovery to invest in US stock market
-But then in October of 1929 for many interrelated reasons, US stock market crashed & when it didn’t rebound like everyone thought it would, the Great Depression officially began in US but since US all of a sudden lacked extra $ to invest in European recovery, it soon spread there too
-As economies collapsed across Europe unemployment rose significantly & by 1932 25% of labor force in GB was unable to find work & almost 40% of German workers could find no jobs (however these unemployment rates more skewed to male workers as women were more able to find work & lower-paying jobs than men –> in some cases led to a reversal of domestic gender roles that many men resented)
Responses to Great Depression
-Western democracies did their best to remedy their problems & one of the major economic innovations of this period came from british economist John Maynard Keynes
*Keynesian system of economics argued that government spending is the mechanism which will increase consumer demand & thus lift an economy out of depression (key to this system! Gov is responsible for spending money in order to correct economy regardless of budgets) also called the “New Deal”
–> This system did not take home in Gb but certainly did in US under Roosevelt (there federal gov spend a bunch of money to put Americans to work on gov projects) –> this was one new way of thinking abt gov involvement in economics in order to solve problem of Great Depression
-Another method to deal w/depression was thru Cooperative social action & this happened mainly in Scandinavian states
*In decades before WW|, socialist parties had gained an increasing amount of influence & in the years between war socialists came to power in Scandinavian states of Sweden, Norway, & Finland & these socialist governments created favorable conditions of development of cooperative enterprises (kind of mixture of communism & capitalism that sought to avoid pitfalls of either )
–> In addition to this Scandinavian states greatly expanded welfare state which was paid for by higher taxes & created social safety nets 4 citizens
-Political alliances also formed to respond to depression: *In GB National Gov was alliance between conservative & liberal parties (who had previously been bitter enemies, didn’t rlly stop hating each other but united to cooperate on solving unemployment problems & other national crises)
*Popular front in France, & few years following war France did better than anyone else but by 1932, effects of Great Depression hit them as well & into the economic & political chaos, leftist parties of France joined together & created popular front gov, in this gov there was mixture of socialists & champions of democracy but the one thing they could not agree on is that France could not be taken over by right wing folks who were advocating for fascist policies & although they popular front did make some gains, they ultimately failed to solve France’s economic crises & thus France was left vulnerable to deal w/Germany
-Political Repercussions: *Govs seemed powerless to deal w/crisis, classical liberal remedy for depression, deflationary policy of balanced budgets, which involved cutting costs by lowering wages & raising tariffs to exclude other countries’ goods from home markets, only served to worsen crisis & cause greater mass discontent
–> led to serious political repercussions, Increased gov activity in economy was one reaction, even in countries like US that had strong laissez-faire tradition
–> Another effect was renewed interest in Marxist doctrines, since Marx had predicted that capitalism would destroy itself thru overproduction, Communism took on
new popularity, especially among workers & intellectuals
*Finally,Great Depression increased attractiveness of simplistic dictatorial solutions, especially from new movement known as fascism, Everywhere in Europe, democracy
seemed on the defensive in 1930s
Europe after WWI– Economic Crisis
-High debt from WWI: *Countries borrowed money to fund war or pay for recovery at very high interest rates, now they have to pay that money back
-Depreciated currency & extremely high inflation
-Used protective tariffs to protect domestic economics (taxes on importing foreign goods)
-Countries involved in WWI unable to maintain trade relationships: *Disrupted global trade patterns (new competitors took over)
-US Great Depression: *US cuts off flow of capital to European countries after stock market crash in 1929
*Many EU countries had been dependent on US capital for investment, now what?
-Mass unemployment: *Poverty, decreased marriages, birth rates
-Internal tensions still high, democracies threatened w/extremist movements
Weimar Republic-Germany post WWI
-Weimar Republic: German government 1919-1933: *Kaiser Wilhelm II forced to abdicate near end of war
*Leadership struggles to put down rebellions within the country
*Forced to sign Treaty of Versailles (not popular)
-Massive economic issues: *Hyperinflation
*Unemployment
*Reparations payments
-Significant loss of territories: *13% of EU territory
–> Had 16% of coal & 48% of iron production
*10% of population (6.5-7 million)
-Some improvement by late 1920s, but then Great Depression
*People lost faith in republican government
*Not able to recover
The Rise of Extremism
Stalin in Russia: -Responsible for sending over a million political dissidents to forced labor camps called Gulags & had no qualms abt allowing torture to gain false confessions out of his enemies
-Took over power after death of Vladimir Lenin
-Immediately started working on securing his own power (not really about the party)
*Executions, arrests, indoctrination, etc.
*Intense industrialization program (at the expense of the people)
–> Five Year Plan: centrally controlled plan for industrial expansion (rapidly modernize/industrialize Soviet Union)
~During Lenin’s time, wealthy group of landowners called Kulaks emerged & emplyed peasants to work their land, Stalin however believed that such a class were nothing but dirty capitalists & had no place in Soviet Union –> implemented Forced collectivization of Russian agriculture, land taken away from these landowners & placed under authority of state (war on kulaks-wealthy peasants), happened in many places but most severe in Ukraine, which was Soviet Union’s most abundant producer of grain, since Ukranian Kulaks so deeply resented Stalin’s collectivization program & worked hard to resist & undermine it, Stalin responded w/policy that would lead to starvation & death of roughly 7 million ppl in Ukraine alone (dubbed the Holodomor which means death by hunger), Stalin literally cut off their food supply, tortured, executed any farmer who withheld food for themselves & blocked Ukrainians from leaving their region to buy bread elsewhere
~Growth of industrialization was staggering & consequences of 5 year plan were devastating to Russian ppl, millions of workers flooded into these new industrial centers & b/c Stalin wasn’t much interested in providing decent housing for them, they lived in squalid conditions & wages rapidly decreasing b/c Stalin told them, thru an elaborate propaganda campaign, they were working for progress of socialist Utopia promised in the revolution
*After first 5-year plan failed criticism against Stalin reached fever pitch & many in Communist party called for his removal, notably the luminary of Lenin’s regime Leon Trotsky
–> In response Stalin authorized the Great Purge = systematic removal of all Stalin’s enemies from the state which eventually filtered down to some Russian citizens as well, Purge carried out by Stalin’s secret police who imprisoned, tortured & executed those who disagreed w/Stalin
*Resulted in nearly 20 millions deaths (either from execution, arrests, or famine & destruction of crops)
*Soviet Union emerged in the 1930s as an industrial power
The rise of Fascism
-Fascism: a government system in which individuals are more loyal to the state (nation) or a common community than to themselves
*“Destroy the notion of the individual & instead push for a common community”
*extreme nationalism & racism (Aryan race in Germany) → extreme community identity (no individuality)
*Mussolini in Italy & Hilter in Nazi Germany
-Confidence in democracy faltering during Great Depression
-Fascism offered hope & a means to rebuild
-Favored strong, charismatic leaders
-Anti-socialist & communist (massive fear of spread of communism throughout Europe)
-Anti-Semitism (Jews often blamed for corruption of culture, economic issues, etc)
*Did not fit in the arch-nationalistic identity (racial anti-semitism)
Causes of Fascism
-Post WW| Bitterness: *B/c of immense need for wartime production, working class grew in power during war while middle class power & influence declines b/c of suffering of consumer industries
*Bitterness among gender roles, many women had gone to work while men fighting & appreciated their new found importance in work life , & once men came back they were expected to go back to housekeeping & they did not like that
-Rise of Communism: To many folks in Europe, communism especially in Russia, represented a fearful situation should it come to dominate other states in Europe
-Economic Instability: Great Depression!, Europeans felt strong insecurity & anxiety, so when strong fascist leaders style themselves as saviors from these conditions & put blame for those conditions in all the right places & tapped into powerful sense of victimization ppl felt, for many ppl they wanted such ruler
Development of Fascism
-Fascism = Political philosophy that emphasizes obedience to authoritarian leader & which leverages all resources of state to fulfill leader’s ambitions
Mussolini [Il Duce] in Italy
-Mussolini abandoned socialist ideas during *WWI in favor of fascist ideas
*Used violence, fear, terror to put down opposing threats (esp Socialists, communists)
–> Used the Blackshirts→ Mussolini police force
*Promised simple solutions to complex situations (jobs)
*October 1922 led March on Rome with 25,000 Blackshirts
*King Victor Emmanuel III does not quell the violence or chaos
*Mussolini invited to serve in coalition government
*By 1925, Mussolini seized dictatorial power
*Created single party, single leader system
–> Limited freedom of speech & press
–> Massive indoctrination efforts in schools & families (large families,
children learn loyalty to nation [& Mussolini] first)
*Economics=capitalism under state control, all business supported power of the state
-Totalitarian Tactics: *Used Modern tech & propaganda to spread his message to all Italians (glorified war, exposed dangers of democracy & communism, & demonstrated how Fascism was answer to political & economic instability of post WW|)
*Use of Secret Police which in Italy was known as Blackshirts (For Mussolini, violence was key)
