Term used to describe pessimism of U.S. and European thinkers
after the war
Postwar poetry and fiction reflected disillusionment with western
culture
Scholars--Oswald Spengler, Arnold Toynbee--lamented decline
of the west
Religious thought reflected uncertainty and pessimism
Karl Barth attacked liberal Christian theology embracing idea
of progress
Older concepts of original sin and human depravity revived
Attacks on the ideal of progress
Science tarnished by the technological horrors of World War
I
Most western societies granted suffrage to all men and women
Many intellectuals disillusioned with democracy
Conservatives decried "the rule of inferiors"
Revolutions in physics and psychology
Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, 1906
Space and time relative to the person measuring them
Implication: reality or truth merely a set of mental constructions
Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, 1927
Impossible to state the position and velocity of a subatomic
particle at same time
Atomic universe indeterminate; can only speak of probabilities
Challenged long-held assumptions about truth, cause and effect
Freud's psychoanalytic theory, 1896
Sought psychological causes of mental illness
Conflict between conscious and unconscious mental processes
Sexual repression frequent cause of neuroses
Freud's ideas shaped psychiatric profession, influenced literature
and arts
Experimentation in art and architecture
Modern painting: when photography can reproduce nature, why should
painting?
Painters like Pablo Picasso sought freedom of expression, emotional
expression
Borrowed from artistic traditions of Asia, Pacific, and Africa
No widely accepted standards of good or bad art
Modern architecture: the Bauhaus school started in Germany, 1920
An international style for twentieth-century urban buildings
Walter Gropius: form should follow function; combined engineering
and art
Simple shapes, steel frames, and walls of glass
International style dominated urban landscapes well after 1930s
Global depression
The Great Depression
The weaknesses of global economy
The tangled financial relationships: Germany and Austria borrowed
money from United States, used it to pay reparations to Allies,
who used the money to pay war debt to United States
1928 U.S. lenders withdrew capital from Europe; financial system
strained
Industrial innovations reduced demand for raw materials--rubber,
coal, cotton
Postwar agriculture depressed in Europe, United States, Canada,
Argentina, and Australia
The crash of 1929
U.S. economic boom prompted many to speculate, invest beyond
their means
Black Thursday (24 October 1929): stock prices dropped, investors
lost life savings
Lenders called in loans, forcing investors to keep selling
Economic contraction in U.S. economy and the world
Overproduction and reduced consumer demand
Widespread business failure and unemployment
By 1932 U.S. industrial production and national income dropped
by half
Germany and Japan unable to sell manufactured goods to purchase
fuel and food
Germany by 1932: 35 percent unemployment, 50 percent decrease
in industrial production
European industrial states and Japan unable to sell to United
States because of tariffs
Primary producing economies especially vulnerable
Export prices declined sharply after 1929: sugar, coffee, beef,
tin, nitrates, and so on
Latin American states enacted import tariffs that actually
helped domestic industry
Brazil under dictator Betulio Dornelles Vargas built up steel
and iron production
Impact on colonial Africa varied: exports hurt, but not local
markets
China not integrated into world economy, less affected
Philippines was a U.S. colony; its sugar production protected
by the United States
Economic nationalism favored over international cooperation
High tariffs, import quotas, and prohibitions to promote economic
self-sufficiency
U.S. trade restrictions provoked retaliation by other nations
International trade dropped 66 percent between 1929 and 1932
Despair and government action
Government policies to reduce female employment, especially of
married women
Great Depression caused enormous personal suffering
Millions struggled for food, clothing, and shelter
Marriage and birthrates declined, suicide increased
Intensified social divisions and class hatreds
John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath criticized U.S. policy
of "planned scarcity"
Economic experimentation
John M. Keynes challenged classical economic theory
Classic theory: capitalism self-correcting, operated best if
unregulated
Keynes argued the depression was a problem of inadequate demand,
not supply
Governments should play active role in stimulating economy,
consumer demand
The New Deal of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt anticipated
Keynes's ideas
After 1932, protected banking system, massive public works,
farm subsidies
Also, legislation established minimum wage, social security,
workers' unions
Military spending in WWII ultimately ended the depression in
United States
Challenges to the liberal order
Communism in Russia
Civil war, 1918-1920, between Bolsheviks and anticommunist forces,
or the Whites
The Red Terror: secret police arrested and killed two hundred
thousand suspected Whites
Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family,
June 1918
Despite some foreign support, the Whites were defeated by Red
Army in 1920
Perhaps ten million died during civil war
Lenin's "war communism" transformed economy
Policy included nationalizing banks, industry, and church holdings
Private trade abolished; peasants reduced production
By 1920, industrial output at one-tenth, agricultural at half
prewar levels
Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921
Reversed war communism, restored market economy
Returned small-scale industries to private ownership
Allowed peasants to sell their surplus at free market
Programs of electrification and technical schools were carried
out
Lenin died, 1924; bitter power struggle followed
Joseph Stalin (1879-1953)
"Man of steel": Georgian by birth, Russian nationalist by conviction
Stalin favored "socialism in one country," not international
socialism
Eliminated all rivals; by 1928, unchallenged dictator of Soviet
Union
First Five-Year Plan, 1928-1932, replaced Lenin's NEP
Set production quotas, central state planning of entire economy
Emphasized heavy industry at expense of consumer goods
Collectivization of agriculture
States seized private farms, created large collective farms
Believed to be more productive, to feed industrial workers
Collectivization strongly resisted by peasants, especially
the wealthier kulaks
Half of farms collectivized by 1931; three million peasants
killed or starved
As an alternative to capitalism during the depression, Soviet Union
offered full employment and cheap housing and food, but few luxuries
or consumer goods
The Great Purge, 1935-1938
Ruthless policy of collectivization led to doubts about Stalin's
administration
Stalin purged two-thirds of Central Committee members and more
than half of the army's high-ranking officers
By 1939, eight million people were in labor camps; three million
died during "cleansing"
The fascist alternative
Fascism: new political ideology of 1920s
Started in Italy, then Germany; also found in other countries
around the world
Fascism hostile to liberal democracies and to socialism and
communism
Sought subordination of individuals to the service of state
Emphasized an extreme form of nationalism, often expressed as racism
Veneration of the state, devotion to charismatic leaders
Militarism exalted, uniforms, parades
Italian fascism
Benito Mussolini, founder of Italian fascism, 1919
Armed fascist squads called Blackshirts terrorized socialists
After march on Rome, Mussolini invited by king to be prime
minister
The fascist state in Italy
All other political parties banned, Italy became a one-party
dictatorship
Supported by business, the party crushed labor unions, prohibited
strikes
Not aggressively anti-Semitic until after alliance with Hitler
in 1938
Germany's national socialism
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
Born in Austria, schooled in Vienna; hated Jews and Marxists
Moved to Munich and fought in German army in WWI
1921, joined obscure group, National Socialist German Workers
Party
The emergence of the Nazi party
1923: attempt to take over Weimar Republic failed; Hitler jailed
Released in 1924, he organized party for a legal takeover,
through elections
The struggle for power after 1929
National socialism enjoyed broad appeal, especially from lower-middle
class
Public lost faith in democracy: associated with defeat, depression,
inflation
1930-1932, Nazi party became the largest in parliament
1932, President Hindenburg offered Hitler the chancellorship
Rapid consolidation of power, 1933-1935
Nazis created one-party dictatorship; outlawed all other political
parties
Took over judiciary, civil service, military
Nazi ideology emphasized purity of race
Women praised as wives and mothers; were discouraged from working
Cult of motherhood: propaganda campaign to increase births
was unsuccessful
Nazi eugenics: deliberate policies to improve the quality of the
German "race"
Compulsory sterilization of undesirables: mentally ill, disabled
State-sponsored euthanasia of physically and mentally handicapped
Anti-Semitism central to Nazi ideology
1935, Nuremberg Laws deprived Jews of citizenship, outlawed
intermarriage
Jews economically isolated, lost jobs, assets, businesses
1938, Kristallnacht: official attacks on synagogues
and Jewish businesses
250,000 Jews fled to other countries; many others trapped
Struggles for national identity in Asia
India's quest for independence
Indian National Congress and Muslim League
After WWI, both organizations dedicated to achieving independence
Indian nationalists inspired by Wilson's fourteen Points and
the Russian Revolution
Frustrated by Paris Peace settlement: no independence for colonies
British responded to nationalistic movement with repressive
measures
Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), leader of Indian nationalism
Raised as a well-to-do Hindu, studied law in London
Spent twenty-five years in South Africa, embraced tolerance
and nonviolence
Developed technique of passive resistance, followed a simple
life
Became political and spiritual leader, called the Mahatma ("Great
Soul")
Opposed to caste system, especially the exclusion of untouchables
1920-1922, led Non-Cooperation Movement; 1930, Civil Disobedience
Movement
The India Act of 1937
1919 British massacre at Amritsar killed 379 demonstrators,
aroused public
Repression failed, so the British offered modified self-rule
through the India Act
Unsuccessful because India's six hundred princes refused to
support
Muslims would not cooperate, wanted an independent state
China's search for order
The republic, after 1911
1911 revolution did not establish a stable republic; China
fell into warlords' rule
Through unequal treaties, foreign states still controlled economy
of China
Growth of Chinese nationalism
Chinese intellectuals expected Paris Peace Conference to end
treaty system
Instead, Paris treaties approved Japanese expansion into China
May Fourth Movement: Chinese youths and intellectuals opposed
to imperialism
Some were attracted to Marxism and Leninism; CCP established
in 1921
CCP (Chinese Communist Party) and Guomindang (The Nationalist
Party)
CCP leader Mao Zedong advocated women's equality, socialism
Guomindang leader Sun Yat-sen favored democracy and nationalism
Two parties formed alliance, assisted by the Soviet Union,
against foreigners
Civil war after death of Sun Yat-sen, 1925
Led by Jiang Jieshi, both parties launched Northern Expedition
to reunify China
Successful, Jiang then turned on his communist allies
1934-1935, CCP retreated to Yan'an on the Long March, 6,215
miles
Mao emerged as the leader of CCP, developed Maoist ideology
Imperial Japan
Japan emerged from Great War as a world power
Participated in the League of Nations
Signed treaty with United States guaranteeing China's integrity
Japanese economy boosted by war: sold munitions to Allies
Prosperity short-lived; economy slumped during Great Depression
Labor unrest, demands for social reforms
Political conflict emerged between internationalists, supporters
of western-style capitalism, and nationalists, hostile to foreign
influences
The Mukden incident, 1931, in Manchuria
Chinese unification threatened Japanese interests in Manchuria
Japanese troops destroyed tracks on Japanese railroad, claimed
Chinese attack
Incident became pretext for Japanese attack against China
Military, acting without civilian authority, took all Manchuria
by 1932
