Interwar 15.1 - 15.3 Flashcards
(26 cards)
Depression
- a period of low economic activity and rising unemployment
Collective Bargaining
- the right of unions to negotiate with employers over wages and hours
- set up by unions after the Great Depression to give a 40 hour work week and minimum wage
Deficit Spending
- when a government pays out more money than it takes in through taxation and other revenues, thus going into debt
- “a teenager with an unlimited credit card and only an allowance from mom can’t pay the rent”
Uncertainty principle
- German physicist Werner Heisenberg’s theory put forth in 1927 that the behavior of subatomic particles is uncertain, suggesting that all physical laws governing the universe are based on uncertainty
- idea of uncertainty was a theme during the Interwar period
- challenged Newtonian physics and represented new worldview
What led to new problems in the years after World War I?
New problems in the years after WWI stemmed from unresolved peace treaties and economic instability caused by WWI. Firstly, the League of Nations was never officially ratified because of the U.S.’s lack of participation. Without the U.S. the League of Nations was ineffective. Further, the war put nations’ economies in trouble, only to be worsened by the cost of reparations. Financial issues turned into political issues, and some nations were forced to create or switch to new governments.
What triggered the Great Depression?
After WWI, Germany was issued to pay 132 billion German marks in reparations, causing the Germans to start printing out more money. But this caused the value of each German mark to drop drastically. In order to regrow the value of each mark, Germans started burning money and using it to light their stoves. The U.S. helped rebuild the German economy by contributing money and investing into it. However, as certain markets grew, it put others out of business. In the 1920s, as the U.S. stock market boomed, more investors took more money out of Germany to put into stocks. But then the stock market crashed. In France, there were also economic setbacks from the war as well as in Great Britain, which had to switch governments.
- stock market crash and financial panic
- farm crisis
- high tariffs and money debt
- monetary policy
- 1928 presidential election
- unequal distribution of wealth
- industry
- agriculture
- over production
How were farmers hit hard at the onset of the Great Depresssion?
One of the factors of the Great Depression were downturns in the economies. One of them being overproduction. The prices of farm products decreased significantly because of this. One of the crops to suffer economically was wheat.
Totalitarian State
- modern form of dictatorship where the government aims to control political, economic, social, intellectual, and cultural lives of citizens
- pushed for power of the central state
- led by a single leader and party
- the goal of conquering the minds and hearts of people was achieved through mass propaganda and modern communication
- natural rights are not respected
- good for the country, not the individual
dictator doesn’t need anyone’s approval to make decisions
How did the Great Depression affect people’s confidence in democracy?
People started to rely and have less confidence in democracy. They started to look more into conservatism, and simple solutions. The current democracy was doing a poor job in supporting and providing their needs.
- democratic governments raised tariffs on foreign goods, serious political effects
- depression led people to follow leaders who offered simple solutions in return for totalitarian rule
- democracy was not trusted; women’s suffrage voted for by early 1920s, but most women were delayed in voting rights (1940s - France and Italy, 1971 Switzerland)
Fascism
- political philosophy that puts the state above the individual and highlights the need for a strong central government ruled by a dictator
- in a fascist state, the government controls the people and gets rid of any enemies
- traditional social attitudes and controlled the media and used propaganda and organizations to achieve goals
Collectivization
- socialism
- agricultural system where private farms were eliminated and the government owned the land and the peasants who worked on it, as a result, peasants revolted by hoarding food and crops and slaughtering livestock leading to widespread famine
- the famine resulted in 10 million deaths between 1932 to 1933, so Stalin gave each farm worker one small privately-owned garden plot
Benito Mussolini
- in the 1920s, he set up the first European fascist movement in Italy and started his own political group the League of Combat - where fascism is from
- he threatened the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III, that fascists were going to walk on Rome if they were not granted power, he eventually gave in and the King made him prime minister, so Mussolini used his position to create a fascist dictatorship, and then made him head of government
- in 1926, the fascists outlawed all other political parties in Italy
How did Mussolini create a dictatorial state in Italy?
Josef Stalin
- member of the Politburo; general secretary; he used his position to gain control of the Communist Party
- in 1926, he removed the Bolsheviks and in 1927, removed rival Leon Trotsky from the party
- in 1928, he ended Lenin’s New Economic Policies and launched his own Five Year Plans to turn Russia from an agricultural country to an industrial one, focusing on military and capital goods; his plan quadrupling heavy machinery production and doubled oil production
Why did many Italian people find fascism acceptable?
How did Lenin’s New Economic Policy preserve and change Russia’s economic system?
How did Stalin gain and maintain power in the USSR?
What was the goal of authoritarian governments in the West?
Concentration camp
Nazi
Aryan
SS
Kristallnacht
What was the basis of Hitler’s ideas?
