1.
Comparing and Contextualizing Totalitarianism, Analyzing the context of Totalitarianism
Read Primary Sources 19.1, 19.2 and 19.3 and answer the following:
How does Arendt's view of totalitarianism apply to the three subsequent documents? To which document does the term totalitarian seem most appropriate? To which does it apply least well?
What role do ordinary people play in supporting or resisting the regime in the final three documents?
Identify the nature and limits of state power in the final three documents.
2. Watch this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=-cwu4CZyr8oGipRe&v=SImUrz19TTo&feature=youtu.be
Complete the following worksheet
CHAPTER 19
Global Crisis,
1910–1939
Copyright © 2021, W. W. Norton & Company
The Great War (World War I) engulfs the globe, exhausts Europe, and promotes production and consumption on a mass scale.
The victors’ peace imposed on Germany produces resentment and economic instability, while Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations struggles to keep the peace.
European countries’ efforts to rebuild their economies after the Great War by cutting expenses and returning to the gold standard cause the Great Depression, whose severe repercussions reverberate globally.
Three strikingly different visions for building a better world compete: liberal democracy, authoritarianism, and anticolonialism.
Global Storyline
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What were the causes of World War I, and how did the war disrupt societies around the world?
In what ways did the development of modern, mass societies cause the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression? How were they affected by it?
What were the ideologies of liberal democracy, authoritarianism, and anticolonialism? How were they alike, and how were they different? How successful was each during this period?
In what ways did access to consumer goods and other aspects of mass society influence political conflict in Asia, Africa, and Latin America?
Focus Questions
Although most battles were fought on European soil, the Great War (1914–1918) was truly global and involved countless countries and soldiers across the world.
Battles were fought in East Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (after Ottoman entry)
Genocide became a new practice of war
Spread ideas of freedom, self-determination, and growing disillusionment with European rule
Great War and its impact
Prompted production and consumption on a massive scale, one of the striking features of economic modernity
New media of radio and film helped spread war propaganda
Harsh treaty after the war contributed to the Great Depression
Enflamed disputes about how to manage mass society and build a better world
Liberal democracy, authoritarianism, and anticolonialism competed for preeminence leading up to World War II.
Global Crisis, 1910–1939
From 1914 to 1918, the Great War devastated Europe. Although some battles were fought in East Asia and Africa, the entry of the Ottoman Empire made the conflict truly global. European forces included contingents from Africa and South Asia, while Ottoman forces brought together Turkish, Arab, Kurdish, Armenian and Caucasian soldiers.
The war brought brought civilians into the fray. The extermination of entire peoples became a new practice of war, exemplified especially by the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
The Great War shook the foundations of the European world. In the colonies, the war helped spread ideas of freedom, self-determination, and growing disillusionment with European rule. Europe’s claim to a “civilizing mission” had been thoroughly undermined.
The impact of the war touched many spheres of life around the world. Economically, it prompted a frenzy of production and consumption. In this sense, it helped catapult the world—or at least parts of it—into economic modernity. At the same time, punitive treaties and attempts to return to the gold standard laid the groundwork for the Great Depression.
Culturally, new media like radio and film helped shape national solidarity against the image of a common enemy. The war had stimulated the beginnings of mass culture.
Politically, the war gave rise to three different responses to the unprecedented problems of the twentieth century; liberal democracy, authoritarianism, and anticolonialism competed for preeminence. The tensions between these ideologies would soon boil over into another global war just a few decades later.
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The Great War made clear that the power of the state depended on the support of the people, shaking hierarchies of prewar society around the world.
Causes of the war were complex
Nationalist rivalries
Britain had been the preeminent power in the nineteenth century.
The German economy surpassed Britain, and Germany built a navy.
Rivalry between Great Britain and Germany led to the formation of rival alliances.
The Central Powers: Germany and Austria-Hungary
The Triple Entente (later the Allied Powers once Italy joined): Britain, France, and Russia
The war broke out after the assassination of the Archduke Franz-Ferdinand of Austria in 1914.
The Great War
The Great War drew masses of people into the service of the state. For four years, millions of soldiers from Europe and the colonies killed each other on battlefields all over the world. Mass participation in a national cause disturbed prewar social hierarchies, as people from different classes and segments of society cooperated for a common goal.
The causes of the war were complex. At the top of the list were nationalist rivalries. Britain had been the preeminent power in the nineteenth century, while its greatest rival was Russia. However, over the course of the century, the rise of Germany as a military and industrial power disturbed the balance of power in Europe. France and Russia had allied against Germany by the end of the century. Britain joined them in the early 1900s, forming the Triple Entente.
Meanwhile, Germany allied with the Austro-Hungarian Empire to counter the threat of the rival alliances.
The war began with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in 1914. The assassin was a young Serbian nationalist hoping for independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The assassination set off a chain reaction. The Austro-Hungarian emperor, backed by the Germans, took a firm stand against Serbian independence. Russia backed the Serbs, soon followed by the British and French. Although diplomats struggled to defuse the crisis, war soon broke out.
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The war became infamous for its duration and horrors.
Began with Austro-Hungarian bombardment of Serbian Belgrade
Atrocities against civilians
Stalemate
Following the First Battle of the Marne, a stalemate ensued.
Trenches on the Western Front went from the English Channel to the Alps.
Germans urged Ottomans to enter war
Encouraged sultan to proclaim an anticolonial jihad against the British, French, and Russians.
100 million Muslims lived under British colonial rule.
Life in the trenches
Extreme fear and futility
Boredom, dampness, vermin, disease
Battle Fronts, Stalemate, and Carnage (1 of 2)
Many people expected a swift end to the war. They were wrong. The war dragged on for four years, becoming infamous for the horrors of its fighting.
The war began with the Austro-Hungarian bombardment of Serbian Belgrade, followed by an invasion in which the Austro-Hungarian troops committed atrocities against civilians.
The first German offensive pushed deep into French territory, but stalled 30 miles outside of Paris. The rival powers dug trenches all along the Western Front from the English Channel to the Alps.
One German strategy to break the stalemate was to urge the Ottomans to join the war, encouraging the sultan to proclaim a jihad against the British, French, and Russians. At the time, 100 million Muslims lived under British rule. The Germans hoped that the Muslims living under the colonial rule of their rivals would rise up. However, the effect was merely to expand the global scope of the conflict.
Trench warfare combined extreme fear and futility. Soldiers were driven insane by the fear of having to charge into “no man’s land.” Life in the trenches was a mixture of panic attacks, bombardment, boredom, dampness, vermin and disease.
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Map 19.1 | World War I: The European and Middle Eastern Theaters
Map 19.1 | World War I: The European and Middle Eastern Theaters
Most of the fighting in World War I occurred in Europe. and most of it was concentrated across a few, agonizingly static fronts. Millions
of soldiers perished over relatively thin belts of land, which became pulverized lunar landscapes.
• Which countries had to fight a two-front war?
• Did the armies of the Central Powers or the Allies gain the most territory during the war?
• According to your reading, how did those territorial gains affect the war’s outcome?
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Introduction of poison gas (Ypres, 1915)
Offensive at Somme
600,000 British and French dead
500,000 Germans dead
No advantage gained
Russians advanced into Germany and Austria-Hungary from the east
Opening new fronts added to conflict
Middle East, Anatolia, Caucasus
Armenian genocide (1.5 million massacred or deported)
British, French, and Russians drafted plans to divide Ottoman Empire after war
Appealed to nationalism to break up multicultural and multireligious empire
Battle Fronts, Stalemate, and Carnage (2 of 2)
The war ground to a standstill. Although the Germans attempted to gain the advantage by introducing poison gas, their opponents quickly countered by using gas masks. In 1916, the British launched an offensive along the Somme River in France. After the battle, 600,000 British and French and 500,000 Germans were dead, but no significant advantage had been gained by either side.
Meanwhile, Russians had advanced into Germany and Austria-Hungary along the Eastern Front. New fronts opened in the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Caucasus between the Ottomans and European-led colonial forces. However, this only served to widen the conflict.
The Ottoman decision to ally with the Central Powers was fateful—not only for the integrity of the empire itself, but for the diverse peoples within it. In 1915–1916, when the war was going badly, Ottoman troops massacred more than 1 million ethnic Armenians. The Ottomans suspected that this entire group of people was collaborating with Russia to undermine the empire. Many consider this to be the world’s first genocide.
When the Ottomans declared war against the Allies, the British, French, and Russians began to plan how they would divide up the empire’s territories once it was defeated. The borders that were drawn after the war became the modern states of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine, which remained in existence into the twenty-first century. All sides appealed to nationalism to help break up the multicultural and multireligious empire.
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Scale, duration, and toll of war forced governments to enlist more and more men—70 million+ in total
Over half enlisted were killed, injured, taken prisoner, or unaccounted for
Mass mobilization changed expectations about the state.
States were forced to promise welfare, suffrage, pensions
Tens of thousands of women served in auxiliary units at or near the front.
Women replaced men in occupations on the home front.
Food shortages led women to rebel against the state for food for their children.
Postwar demands for women’s suffrage
Denmark (1915), Britain (1918), Germany (1918), United States (1920)
Anticolonial sentiment
Legacies of Mobilization
The astounding death toll forced unprecedented mobilization of the population. More than 70 million men fought during the war; in some cases far exceeding half of the male population between 15 and 49 years old. Over half of these men were killed, injured, taken prisoner, or went missing.
While mass mobilization led to death on an unprecedented scale, it also changed expectations about the state. To serve the war effort, states were forced to promise welfare, expanded suffrage, and pensions for widows and the wounded. Tens of thousands of women served on the front lines as doctors, nurses, and technicians. On the “home front,” women took over previously male occupations in factories. But women also put pressure on the state. The loss of so many millions of men to the war effort was domestically and economically disruptive. Many women were hard pressed to feed themselves and their families. These tensions manifested in bread riots and peaceful protests. Such pressure from the civilian population laid the foundations for social and political reform after the war.
In particular, demands for women’s suffrage were more successful after the war, with Denmark, Britain, Germany, and the United States granting women the right to vote.
Britain and France conscripted soldiers from their colonies: over 1 million Indians served in the Middle Eastern theater, while over 1 million Africans fought each other as representatives of European colonial powers. Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also sent more than 1 million men to fight for the empire in Europe. The war strengthened anticolonial sentiment in many of these areas.
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Map 19.2 | World War I: The Global Theater
Map 19.2 | World War I: The Global Theater
This map illustrates the ways in which World War I was a truly global conflict.
Which states outside Europe became involved?
Other than Europe, which continent experienced the most warfare?
Which parts of the world were spared the fighting, and why?
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The war destroyed empires, and the first to go was Romanov Russia.
In Russia's 1917 February Revolution, Tsar Nicholas II stepped down under pressure from his generals.
Some Russian parliamentary members created a provisional government.
Grassroots councils (soviets) sprung up in factories, garrisons, and towns.
In October 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, seized power.
Proclaimed a socialist revolution for the soviets to overtake the February “bourgeois” revolution
Soviet Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a peace treaty with the Germans, acknowledging German victory on the Eastern Front
The Bolsheviks relocated their government to Moscow and set up a dictatorship.
The Russian Revolution
The war both strengthened and destroyed empires. Although Britain and France gained territories, both the Ottoman and Russian Empires fell.
The first empire to fall was Romanov Russia. In the 1917 February Revolution, mass unrest wracked the capital at St. Petersburg. Generals in the Russian army believed that the instability was undermining the war effort against Germany. Hoping to restore stability, the generals pressured the tsar to step down.
In the political vacuum that appeared, some members of the Russian parliament created a provisional government. At the same time, grassroots councils called soviets appeared throughout the empire.
In October 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power. The Bolsheviks were a left-wing socialist party led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. They organized radicalized elements in the soviets and used their growing influence to proclaim a socialist revolution to overtake the February “bourgeois” revolution.
The new government signed a treaty with Germany, acknowledging German victory on the Eastern front, and relocated the capital to Moscow.
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The United States’ entry into the war in 1917 tipped the balance in favor of the Allies.
German soldiers faced hunger, influenza, imminent defeat, and potential civil war.
Kaiser Wilhelm II fled the country, and the German Empire became a republic.
Austria-Hungary dissolved into several new states.
The Ottoman Empire also collapsed.
The Fall of the Central Powers
The United States’ entry into the war in 1917 helped speed the collapse of the Central Powers. The United States was drawn into the war after German submarines sunk several American merchant ships. At the same time, news surfaced of German plans to ally with Mexico, causing the United States to declare war.
With American support, the Allies began to turn the tide of the war. At the same time, order began to disintegrate behind German lines. Facing hunger and influenza, German soldiers began to surrender or strike. Internal divisions within Germany were exacerbated by food shortages, putting it on the brink of civil war.
Ultimately, the Central Powers fell. The German kaiser fled into exile, and the last Habsburg emperor abdicated. The Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up into smaller states, and the Ottoman Empire’s territories were divided by the victors.
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European powers turned to the problem of creating a durable peace
The Treaty of Versailles
Punitive peace
Division of German Empire
Over objections from American president Woodrow Wilson, the treaty assigned to Germany sole blame for the war and forced it to pay reparations.
Wilson had hoped for a more harmonious and peaceful settlement based on the “self-determination of nations.”
League of Nations
The Peace Settlement and the Impact of the War
After the collapse of the Axis powers, Europeans turned to the problem of how to create a durable peace. Five peace conferences were convened to settle this question. The most important of these was the conference at Versailles. Delegates drew many of their ideas from President Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” which advocated that new state borders be drawn according to the “self-determination of nations” and that a League of Nations be established to negotiate future disputes.
However, the Treaty of Versailles also imposed punitive peace on Germany, engendering tensions that would be consequential for the rest of the twentieth century. The treaty assigned sole blame for the war to Germany and forced it to pay reparations. Parts of the German Empire were distributed among the victorious imperial powers.
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Nationalism and political turmoil
Wilson’s ideas for a League of Nations and national self-determination did see partial adherence in the peace treaty.
Self-determination was difficult in practice.
Emergence of new nation-states put 25 million into states as ethnic minorities
Self-determination didn’t apply beyond Europe
Throughout the world, colonial subjects applied Wilsonian ideas to their own struggles for national independence, to no avail.
Rebellions in Egypt and Syria
Massacre at Amritsar (India)
Protests in China
Arab rebellion against Ottomans
Balfour Declaration (1917)
Broken Promises and Political Turmoil
Although the war had ended, political conflict still raged at home between socialists, communists, fascists. Racial hatred and anti-Semitism flared.
Wilson’s notion of self-determination contributed to the turmoil. Wilson intended this principle to apply only to the peoples in the former empires of the Central Powers. But the idea was adapted by others, who thought it should apply to them as well. After the war, 60 million people found themselves inhabitants of new nation-states. But at the same time, 25 million people now lived in supposedly “national” states in which they in fact were ethnic minorities. This left them politically vulnerable and set the stage for ethnic strife.
Colonial subjects also challenged the narrow scope of the principle of self-determination. Rebellions emerged in Egypt and Syria, only to be met by suppression from the colonial powers. In India, British soldiers massacred a crowd of demonstrators in Amritsar, emboldening critics of colonial rule. In China, students protested the minor status given to their country at Versailles. In Iraq, a massive rebellion saw initial successes, only to be crushed by a force of 73,000 British soldiers, most of whom were Indian. An Arab rebellion against the Ottomans was undermined by alliances between European colonial powers. Arab nationalists were further angered by the Balfour Declaration, which declared British support for a homeland for Jews in Palestine.
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Map 19.3 | Outcomes of World War I in Europe, North Africa, and Some of the Middle East
Map 19.3 | Outcomes of World War I in Europe, North Africa, and Some of the Middle East
The political map of Europe and the Middle East changed greatly after the peace treaty of 1919.
• Comparing this map with Map 19.1, which shows the European and Middle Eastern theaters of war, identify the European countries that came into existence after the war.
• What happened to the Ottoman Empire, and what powers gained control over many territories of the Ottoman state?
• What states emerged from the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
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Map 19.4 | The Sykes-Picot Agreement
Map 19.4 | The Sykes-Picot Agreement
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was a secret pact negotiated between British diplomat Mark Sykes and French diplomat François
Georges-Picot in 1916. While the agreement reserved protectorates for the French in Syria and the British in Iraq, it also supported the
creation of a politically independent Arab state or confederation of Arab states under an Arab chief.
Why did the British and French governments want to divide up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire?
Compare the areas that were to be the Arab confederation (though dominated by the French and the British) with the map of ISIS that appears in Chapter 22 (Map 22.5). How similar are the territories in both maps?
Why do you think that Arabs in particular and Muslims in general believed that this agreement was antithetical to their wishes and contributions to the war effort and continues to this day to provide powerful grievances against the west?
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Mass culture
New forms of mass culture and entertainment were partially wartime products.
Propaganda campaigns attempted to mobilize entire populations through public lectures, theatrical productions, musical compositions, and censored newspapers.
Postwar mass culture was distinctive.
Differed from elite culture because it reflected tastes of working class with time and money for entertainment
Relied on new technologies, especially radio and film, to reach the entire population
Mass Society: Culture, Production, and Consumption
Major cultural shifts accompanied the Great War and the postwar period. One of these shifts was the making of a new mass culture. Even before the war, some states were engaging in reforms that broadened political communities—whether that meant increasing democratic political participation or authoritarian mobilization. The new media created the means to turn listeners and readers into integrated communities, helping to promote nationalism at a time of increasing rivalry.
New forms of culture that took shape during this period were in many ways products of the war effort. In order to mobilize societies for total war, states spread propaganda in the form of news, songs, and public lectures.
The mass culture that took shape during this period was distinctive. It differed from elite culture in that it reflected the tastes of working- and middle-class people, who increasingly had more money to spend on entertainment. At the same time, it used new technologies like the radio and film to put cultural products within the reach of the entire population.
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Radio
Entered golden age after World War I
In the 1920s, transmitters allowed stations to reach larger audiences with nationally syndicated programs.
Also mobilized the masses, especially in authoritarian regimes
Mussolini pioneered radio address to the nation
Authoritarian regimes could not exert full control over mass culture.
Film and advertising
Film also served political purposes.
Antiliberal governments taking the lead with propagandistic cinema
Soviet propaganda in the form of Hollywood-style musicals
Radio and film became big business, and advertising became a major industry, with commercials influencing consumers’ tastes.
American entertainment increasingly reached international audiences, and the world began to share mass-produced images and fantasies.
Radio, Film, and Advertising
Before the war, the impact of radio was minimal. Beginning in the 1920s, it entered a golden age. Once the technology enabled broadcasting to wide audiences, new masses of listeners could develop a sense of intimacy with newscasters and stars.
This new technology was an important tool for political mobilization. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini pioneered the radio address, which was later used to great affect by Soviet, Nazi, and Japanese governments. Although the radio was an important tool for disseminating state propaganda, authoritarian governments could never exert full control over the new mass culture. Despite state disapproval, jazz music was popular in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.
Like radio, film also served political purposes. Especially in authoritarian regimes, film enabled the spread of a new kind of propaganda, such as the Hollywood-style musicals produced in Soviet Russia. In market economies, radio and film became major industries. Product advertising grew alongside the new media, influencing consumer tastes on an unprecedented scale. During this time, American-produced entertainment reached an international audience, extending the reach of mass culture beyond the confines of the nation.
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The same factors that promoted mass culture also fed mass production and consumption.
War spurred the development of mass production techniques, in response to the modern world’s demands for greater volume, faster speed, reduced cost, and standardized output.
War reshuffled the world’s economic balance of power, with the United States an economic powerhouse.
United States: one-third of world’s industrial production in 1929
Mass Production and Mass Consumption
Mass culture and mass production developed together. The war relied on industrial production to reach an unprecedented leve