This is a take home history test. It has 25 questions about WW2 & an essay question. The essay question is composed of two questions. It doesn’t have to be a full essay, it just needs to be a paragraph or so & if you can apply specific details it will be perfect. You don’t have to use the test paper, you can use a word document & just put everything on there. The test can just be used for a guide.
Also provided the book, if you have access to the 6th edition that is fine as well.
I have to have this finished & emailed to my teacher by 11:59 tonight. Sorry for such short notice but he just uploaded it for us instead of uploading it yesterday.
6
HIS 150 Name_______________________________________________
Second Exam Section________________
Spring 2020
Instructions:
In this word document type in your name and section number above, underline or in some way note your multiple choice answer. If you can’t save the exam then just type 1-25 on a new word document and put the answer beside the number. As for the essay question, type the answer below the question or below your multiple choice answers. Due via email at 11:59pm March 30.
I. Multiple Choice: clearly circle the correct answer (each is worth 2 points).
1. The German mark became largely worthless as the result of
a. the British invasion of Prussia.
b. hyper- inflation in 1922-1923.
c. the assassination of William II.
d. the successful communist revolution in Germany.
e. Adolph Hitler’s seizure of power in Bavaria in 1923.
2. John Maynard Keynes
a. advocated a laissez-faire economic policy.
b. desired socialism rather than capitalism.
c. claimed that the government which governed least, governed best.
d. favored tariffs and balanced budgets.
e. argued that governments should resort to deficit spending in times of depression.
3. Full employment returned to the United States as the result of
a. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
b. the Second New Deal.
c. the Munich Agreement.
d. World War II.
e. the Cold War.
4. All of the following programs were part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal except
a. the Civilian Conservation Corps.
b. the Peace Corps.
c. Social Security.
d. the Works Progress Administration.
e. the Agricultural Adjustment Act.
5. Mohandas Gandhi
a. was educated as a lawyer in New Delhi.
b. represented Indian migrants in Dublin and Edinburgh.
c. a member of the New Party.
d. was a Muslim.
e. believed in satyagraha.
6. The major issue that divided Indian nationalists was which of the following:
a. the desire for immediate independence
b. The issue of participation in World War II
c. The desire of the Muslim League for a partition of British India
d. use of violence to drive Britain from India
e. the leadership of Gandhi
7. The father of modern Turkey was
a. T. E. Lawrence.
b. Mustapha Kemal (Ataturk).
c. Selim II.
d. Ibd Saud.
e. Abdul Hamid.
8. Ataturk attempted to
a. reconquer Mecca and Medina.
b. drive the Turks out of Asia Minor.
c. establish socialism in Turkey.
d. transform Turkey into a modern secular republic.
e. replace the Ottoman legal system with the Shari’ya (Islamic law).
9. The leading nationalist group in South Africa was which of the following?
a. South African Liberation Front
b. African National Congress
c. African Unity Organization
d. Afrikaner Party
e. Apartheid
10. In the Balfour Declaration the British promised
a. The creation of an Arab State
b. To establish a Jewish State in Palestine
c. Give independence to Egypt
d. To support the independence of Turkey
e. To divide the middle east with the French
11. According to the 1917 Mexican constitution, subsoil rights belong to
a. Foreign nationals.
b. The Mexican nation.
c. The Mexican peasantry.
d. U.S. oil companies.
e. The landowners.
12. Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922 after threatening to march on
a. the Vatican.
b. Florence.
c. Bologna.
d. Rome.
e. Berlin.
13. After the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Adolph Hitler decided to
a. overthrow the Weimar government by force, using his SA
b. return to Austria
c. use the SS to infiltrate the German army, and have the army depose the
Weimar government.
d. drop out of public sight and wait for something to happen.
e. attempt to come to power through constitutional means.
14. The Nazi party
a. had little success in becoming a mass political movement in the 1920s.
b. had some success in the 1920s, but grew significantly as the result of the
Great Depression.
c. was entirely a product of the economic crisis resulting in the Great
Depression
d. was unaffected by the Great Depression, as it had come to power before
it began.
e. allied itself with German communists in taking power in 1933.
15. The event that started World War II in Europe was
a. the German take-over of the Rhineland
b. the German take-over of Czechoslovakia
c. the German invasion of Poland
d. the German invasion of Italy
e. the German invasion of France
16. In September 1935, the new racial laws announced at Nuremberg to settle the “Jewish Question”
a. paved the way for Nazi mass demonstrations in the city of Nuremberg.
b. enabled Hitler to assume dictatorial power.
c. rearmed Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty.
d. excluded Jews from German citizenship and forbade marriage between
Jews and non-Jews.
e. sent leaders of the German communist party to concentration camps.
17. In Mein Kampf, Hitler declared that future German expansion must be to the
a. east, against Russia.
b. southeast, against Turkey.
c. west, against France and the Low Countries.
d. south, into Africa.
e. northwest, against Britain.
18. The 1936-1939 civil war that ended democracy in that country occurred in
a. France.
b. Austria.
c. Germany.
d. Italy.
e. Spain.
19. In the Asia the Japanese attacked what country in 1937 effectively beginning World War II in Asia?
a. French Indochina
b. Korea
c. China
d. Burma
e. Thailand
20. By the late 1930s, Nazi Germany’s chief fascist ally in Europe was
a. France
b. Spain.
c. Austria
d. Poland.
e. Italy
21. Which of the following countries became involved in the Spanish Civil War?
a. The United States and the Soviet Union
b. The Soviet Union, Germany, and Italy
c. The France, Britain, and Italy
d. The United States and Britain
e. Germany and Italy
22. The word which best describes the British and French response to Hitler’s demands at Munich is
a. containment.
b. passive resistance.
c. nonaggression.
d. appeasement.
e. armed resistance.
23. The United States entered World War II after which of the following events?
a. The German invasion of the Soviet Union
b. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
c. The German attacks on U.S. shipping in the Atlantic
d. The Japanese attack on the Philippines
e. The Japanese attack on China
24. The United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of
a. Hiroshima and Tokyo.
b. Osaka and Edo.
c. Nagoya and Nagasaki.
d. Tokyo and Osaka.
e. Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
25. The Holocaust did all of the following except
a. exterminate 90 percent of the Jewish population of Poland.
b. killed 2 out of every 3 European Jews.
c. built extermination camps to speed up the Final Solution.
d. persecuted only the Jews and left other groups alone.
e. formed special mobile military groups called Einsatzgruppen to kill Jews.
(Essay on the next page)
II. Essay: Answer the following question as completely as possible. Make sure you use specific examples to back up any generalizations you may make. Worth 50 points.
What actions, taken by Hitler in Europe and the Japanese in Asia, started World War II in Europe and Asia? Although the United States remained neutral until late 1941 how did the United States aid the nations (especially Britain) fighting Hitler once the war started?
CONTEMPORARY
WORLD HISTORY
Australia • Brazil • Japan • Korea • Mexico • Singapore • Spain • United Kingdom • United States
William J. Duiker
Th e Pennsylvania State University
F I F T H E D I T I O N
CONTEMPORARY
WORLD HISTORY
Printed in the United States of America
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William J. Duiker
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM J. DUIKER is liberal arts professor emeritus of East Asian studies at
Th e Pennsylvania State University. A former U.S. diplomat with service in Taiwan, South
Vietnam, and Washington, D.C., he received his doctorate in Far Eastern history from
Georgetown University in 1968, where his dissertation dealt with the Chinese educator and
reformer Cai Yuanpei. At Penn State, he has written extensively on the history of Vietnam and
modern China, including the highly acclaimed Th e Communist Road to Power in Vietnam
(revised edition, Westview Press, 1996), which was selected for a Choice Outstanding
Academic Book Award in 1982–1983 and 1996–1997. Other recent books are China and
Vietnam: Th e Roots of Conflict (Berkeley, 1987), Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a
Divided Vietnam (McGraw-Hill, 1995), and Ho Chi Minh (Hyperion, 2000), which was
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2001. He is the author, with colleague Jackson Spielvogel, of
World History (sixth edition, Wadsworth, 2010). While his research specialization is in the field
of nationalism and Asian revolutions, his intellectual interests are considerably more diverse.
He has traveled widely and has taught courses on the history of communism and non-Western
civilizations at Penn State, where he was awarded a Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding
Achievement in the spring of 1996.
TO MY DAUGHTER CLAIRE,
MAY YOUR SPIRIT SOAR, FREE AND CLEAR.
W.J.D.
BRIEF CONTENTS
DOCUMENTS xii
MAPS AND FEATURES xiii
PREFACE xiv
PART I
NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING 1
1 Th e Rise of Industrial Society in the West 2
2 Th e High Tide of Imperialism: Africa and Asia in an Era
of Western Dominance 26
3 Shadows over the Pacifi c: East Asia Under Challenge 47
PART II
CULTURES IN COLLISION 69
4 War and Revolution: World War I and Its Aft ermath 70
5 Nationalism, Revolution, and Dictatorship: Asia, the Middle
East, and Latin America from 1919 to 1939 95
6 Th e Crisis Deepens: Th e Outbreak of World War II 120
PART III
ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE 147
7 East and West in the Grip of the Cold War 148
8 Th e United States, Canada, and Latin America 168
9 Brave New World: Th e Rise and Fall of Communism
in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 190
10 Postwar Europe: On the Path to Unity? 209
11 Toward the Pacifi c Century? Japan and the
Little Tigers 229
PART IV
THIRD WORLD RISING 251
12 Th e East Is Red: China Under Communism 252
13 Nationalism Triumphant: Th e Emergence of Independent
States in South and Southeast Asia 271
14 Emerging Africa 290
15 Ferment in the Middle East 309
PART V
THE NEW MILLENNIUM 331
16 Constructing a New World Order 332
SUGGESTED READING 345
INDEX 352
vi
DOCUMENTS xii
MAPS AND FEATURES xiii
PREFACE xiv
PART I
NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING 1
1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL
SOCIETY IN THE WEST 2
Th e Industrial Revolution in Great Britain 2
Th e Spread of the Industrial Revolution 3
New Products and New Patterns 3
Toward a World Economy 6
Th e Structure of Mass Society 7
Social Structures 7
Changing Roles for Women 8
Reaction and Revolution: Th e Decline of the Old Order 10
Liberalism and Nationalism 10
Th e Unifi cation of Germany and Italy 12
Roots of Revolution in Russia 12
Th e Ottoman Empire and Nationalism in the Balkans 14
Liberalism Triumphant 14
Th e United States and Canada 15
Tradition and Change in Latin America 16
Th e Rise of the Socialist Movement 18
Th e Rise of Marxism 18
Capitalism in Transition 19
Toward the Modern Consciousness: Intellectual
and Cultural Developments 20
Developments in the Sciences: Th e Emergence
of a New Physics 20
Charles Darwin and the Th eory of Evolution 20
Sigmund Freud and the Emergence of Psychoanalysis 21
Literature and the Arts: Th e Culture of Modernity 22
FILM & HISTORY
Lust for Life (1956) 23
Conclusion 24
Chapter Notes 25
2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM:
AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA
OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 26
Th e Spread of Colonial Rule 26
Th e Myth of European Superiority 26
Th e Advent of Western Imperialism 27
Th e Colonial System 28
Th e Philosophy of Colonialism 29
India Under the British Raj 31
Th e Nature of British Rule 32
Th e Colonial Takeover of Southeast Asia 33
Th e Imposition of Colonial Rule 34
Colonial Regimes in Southeast Asia 36
Empire Building in Africa 38
Africa Before the Europeans 38
Th e Growing European Presence in West Africa 39
Imperialist Shadow over the Nile 40
Th e Scramble for Africa 40
FILM & HISTORY
Khartoum (1966) 41
Bantus, Boers, and British in South Africa 42
Colonialism in Africa 43
Conclusion 45
Chapter Notes 46
3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC:
EAST ASIA UNDER
CHALLENGE 47
China at Its Apex 47
Changeless China? 47
Traditional China in Decline 49
Opium and Rebellion 49
Th e Taiping Rebellion 50
Eff orts at Reform 51
Th e Climax of Imperialism in China 52
Th e Collapse of the Old Order 53
Chinese Society in Transition 56
Th e Impact of Western Imperialism 56
DETAILED CONTENTS
vii
Daily Life in Qing China 57
Th e Status of Women 57
Traditional Japan and the End of Isolation 58
A “Closed Country” 58
Th e Opening of Japan 58
Rich Country, Strong Army 59
Th e Transformation of Japanese Politics 59
Meiji Economics 60
Building a Modern Social Structure 61
Joining the Imperialist Club 61
Japanese Culture in Transition 63
Conclusion 64
Chapter Notes 65
Refl ection Part I 66
PART II
CULTURES IN COLLISION 69
4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD
WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 70
International Rivalry and the Coming of War 70
Crises in the Balkans, 1908–1913 71
Th e Road to World War I 72
Th e War 72
Illusions and Stalemate, 1914–1915 72
Th e Great Slaughter, 1916–1917 74
Th e Widening of the War 75
FILM & HISTORY
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 77
Th e Home Front: Th e Impact of Total War 78
Th e Last Year of the War 79
War and Revolution 79
Th e March Revolution in Russia 80
Th e Bolshevik Revolution 81
Th e Civil War 83
Seeking Eternal Peace 84
Th e Vision of Woodrow Wilson 84
Th e Peace Settlement 84
Th e Failure of the Peace 86
Th e Search for Security 86
No Return to Normalcy 87
Th e Great Depression 88
Socialism in One Country 89
Th e Advance to Socialism 90
Th e Search for a New Reality in the Arts 91
New Schools of Artistic Expression 91
Culture for the Masses 93
Conclusion 93
Chapter Notes 94
5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION,
AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA,
THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN
AMERICA FROM 1919 TO
1939 95
Th e Rise of Nationalism in Asia and Africa 95
Traditional Resistance: A Precursor to Nationalism 96
Modern Nationalism 97
Gandhi and the Indian National Congress 99
FILM & HISTORY
Gandhi (1982) 101
Nationalist Ferment in the Middle East 101
Nationalism and Revolution 106
Revolution in China 108
Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy: Th e New Culture
Movement 108
Th e Nanjing Republic 109
Social Change in Republican China 112
Japan Between the Wars 113
Experiment in Democracy 113
A Zaibatsu Economy 114
Shidehara Diplomacy 114
Nationalism and Dictatorship in Latin America 115
A Changing Economy 115
Th e Eff ects of Dependency 116
Latin American Culture 117
Conclusion 118
Chapter Notes 119
6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS:
THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD
WAR II 120
Th e Rise of Dictatorial Regimes 120
Th e Birth of Fascism 121
Hitler and Nazi Germany 121
Th e Spread of Authoritarianism in Europe 124
Th e Rise of Militarism in Japan 125
Th e Path to War in Europe 126
Stalin Seeks a United Front 126
Decision at Munich 127
Th e Path to War in Asia 127
A Monroe Doctrine for Asia 128
Tokyo’s “Southern Strategy” 129
viii Detailed Contents
Th e World at War 129
Th e War in Europe 129
Th e New Order in Europe 132
War Spreads in Asia 134
Th e New Order in Asia 135
Th e Turning Point of the War, 1942–1943 137
Th e Last Years of the War 138
Th e Peace Settlement 139
Th e Yalta Agreement 139
Confrontation at Potsdam 140
Th e War in the Pacifi c Ends 140
Th e Home Front: Th ree Examples 141
Th e Soviet Union 141
Th e United States 141
Japan 142
Conclusion 142
Chapter Notes 143
Refl ection Part II 144
PART III
ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE 147
7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP
OF THE COLD WAR 148
Th e Collapse of the Grand Alliance 148
Th e Iron Curtain Descends 148
Th e Truman Doctrine and the Beginnings of
Containment 149
Europe Divided 150
Cold War in Asia 153
Th e Chinese Civil War 153
Th e Korean War 155
Confl ict in Indochina 157
From Confrontation to Coexistence 158
Khrushchev and the Era of Peaceful Coexistence 158
Th e Cuban Missile Crisis and the Move Toward
Détente 160
Th e Sino-Soviet Dispute 160
Th e Second Indochina War 160
FILM & HISTORY
The Missiles of October (1973) 161
An Era of Equivalence 164
An End to Détente? 165
Countering the Evil Empire 166
Toward a New World Order 166
Conclusion 167
Chapter Notes 167
8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA,
AND LATIN AMERICA 168
Th e United States Since 1945 168
An Era of Prosperity and Social Commitment 169
America Shift s to the Right 172
Seizing the Political Center 173
Th e Changing Face of American Society 174
A Consumer Society, a Permissive Society 174
Th e Melting Pot in Action 174
Women and Society 175
Th e Environment 175
Cultural Trends 175
Th e World of Painting 176
New Concepts in Music and Architecture 176
New Trends in Literature 177
Popular Culture 177
Science and Technology 178
Canada: In the Shadow of Goliath 179
Democracy, Dictatorship, and Development in Latin
America Since 1945 180
An Era of Dependency 180
Nationalism and the Military: Th e Examples of Argentina
and Brazil 182
Th e Mexican Way 184
Th e Marxist Variant 185
Trends in Latin American Culture 187
Conclusion 188
Chapter Notes 189
9 BRAVE NEW WORLD: THE RISE
AND FALL OF COMMUNISM
IN THE SOVIET UNION AND
EASTERN EUROPE 190
Th e Postwar Soviet Union 190
From Stalin to Khrushchev 190
Th e Brezhnev Years, 1964–1982 193
Ferment in Eastern Europe 197
Unrest in Poland 197
Th e Hungarian Uprising 197
Th e Prague Spring 198
Culture and Society in the Soviet Bloc 199
Cultural Expression 200
Social Changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe 201
Th e Disintegration of the Soviet Empire 202
Th e Gorbachev Era 202
Detailed Contents ix
Eastern Europe: From Soviet Satellites to Sovereign
Nations 203
End of Empire 204
Th e New Russia: From Empire to Nation 204
Conclusion 207
Chapter Notes 208
10 POSTWAR EUROPE: ON THE
PATH TO UNITY? 209
Western Europe: Recovery and Renewal 209
Th e Triumph of Democracy in Postwar Europe 210
Th e Modern Welfare State: Th ree European
Models 212
France 212
West Germany 214
Great Britain 215
FILM & HISTORY
The Lives of Others (2006) 216
Western Europe: Th e Search for Unity 218
Th e Curtain Rises: Th e Creation of the Common
Market 218
Th e European Union 218
Th e Fall of the Iron Curtain 219
Europe Reunited 221
Aspects of Society in Postwar Europe 222
An Age of Affl uence 222
Expanding Roles for Women 224
Th e Environment and the Green Movements 225
Aspects of Culture in Postwar Europe 225
Conclusion 227
11 TOWARD THE PACIFIC
CENTURY? JAPAN AND THE
LITTLE TIGERS 229
Japan: Asian Giant 229
Th e Transformation of Modern Japan:
Politics and Government 231
Th e Economy 233
A Society in Transition 235
Religion and Culture 237
South Korea: A Peninsula Divided 239
Th e Korean Model 239
Th e Transition to Democracy 240
Taiwan: Th e Other China 240
Taiwan Under Nationalist Rule 241
Craft ing a Taiwanese Identity 242
Singapore and Hong Kong: Th e Littlest Tigers 243
On the Margins of Asia: Postwar Australia and New
Zealand 245
Conclusion 246
Chapter Notes 247
Refl ection Part III 248
PART IV
THIRD WORLD RISING 251
12 THE EAST IS RED: CHINA
UNDER COMMUNISM 252
China Under Mao Zedong 252
New Democracy 252
Th e Transition to Socialism 253
Th e Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 254
FILM & HISTORY
The Last Emperor (1987) 255
China Aft er Mao 256
Th e Four Modernizations 257
Incident at Tiananmen Square 257
Back to Confucius? 259
Serve the People: Chinese Society Under
Communism 261
Th e Politics of the Mass Line 261
Economics in Command 262
China: Th e New Industrial Powerhouse 264
Social Problems 264
China’s Changing Culture 267
Art and Music 268
Literature 268
Conclusion 269
Chapter Notes 270
13 NATIONALISM TRIUMPHANT:
THE EMERGENCE OF
INDEPENDENT STATES IN SOUTH
AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 271
South Asia 271
Th e End of the British Raj 271
Independent India 272
Th e Land of the Pure: Pakistan Since
Independence 275
Poverty and Pluralism in South Asia 276
South Asian Art and Literature Since
Independence 280
Gandhi’s Vision and the Future of India 280
x Detailed Contents
Southeast Asia 281
Th e End of the Colonial Era 281
In the Shadow of the Cold War 282
FILM & HISTORY
The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) 284
Recent Trends: On the Path to Development 285
Regional Confl ict and Cooperation: Th e Rise
of ASEAN 286
Daily Life: Town and Country in Contemporary
Southeast Asia 287
Cultural Trends 288
Conclusion: A Region in Flux 288
Chapter Notes 289
14 EMERGING AFRICA 290
Uhuru: Th e Struggle for Independence 291
Colonial Reforms 291
Th e Colonial Legacy 291
Th e Rise of Nationalism 292
Th e Era of Independence 293
Pan-Africanism and Nationalism: Th e Destiny
of Africa 293
Dream and Reality: Political and Economic Conditions
in Independent Africa 295
Th e Search for Solutions 297
Sowing the Seeds of Democracy 301
Continuity and Change in Modern African
Societies 301
Education 302
Urban and Rural Life 302
African Women 303
African Culture 304
Literature 304
Music 306
Conclusion: Gathered at the Beach 307
Chapter Notes 308
15 FERMENT IN THE MIDDLE
EAST 309
Crescent of Confl ict 309
Th e Question of Palestine 310
Nasser and Pan-Arabism 310
Th e Arab-Israeli Dispute 311
Revolution in Iran 314
Crisis in the Gulf 316
Politics and Society in the Contemporary
Middle East 318
Th e Economics of Oil 318
Th e Islamic Revival 320
Women and Islam 322
Contemporary Literature and Art in the Middle
East 324
National Literatures 325
Art and Music 326
Conclusion 326
Chapter Notes 327
Refl ection Part IV 328
PART V
THE NEW MILLENNIUM 331
16 CONSTRUCTING A NEW WORLD
ORDER 332
Aft er the Cold War: Th e End of History? 333
Contemporary Capitalism and Its Discontents 333
Europe: Speed Bumps on the Road to Unity 333
Th e United States: Capitalism Ascendant? 334
Asian Miracle or Asian Myth? 334
Eliminating Poverty 335
From the Industrial to the Technological Revolution 335
A Transvaluation of Values 336
Th e Family 336
Religion 337
Th e Role of Technology 337
Th e Impact of Capitalism 338
One World, One Environment 338
Th e Issue of Global Warming 339
Th e Population Debate 340
Global Village or Clash of Civilizations? 340
Th e Future of Liberal Democracy 341
Civilizations at War 341
Globalization: the Pros and the Cons 342
Th e Role of International Organizations 342
Th e Arts: Mirror of the Age 343
Chapter Notes 344
Suggested Reading 345
Index 352
Detailed Contents xi
DOCUMENTS
C H A P T E R 1
DISCIPLINE IN THE NEW FACTORIES 9
ESCAPING THE DOLL’S HOUSE 11
THE CLASSLESS SOCIETY 19
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION 21
C H A P T E R 2
WHITE MAN’S BURDEN, BLACK MAN’S SORROW 30
INDIAN IN BLOOD, ENGLISH IN TASTE AND
INTELLECT 33
THE EFFECTS OF DUTCH COLONIALISM IN JAVA 37
C H A P T E R 3
A LETTER OF ADVICE TO THE QUEEN 50
PROGRAM FOR A NEW CHINA 55
A PROGRAM FOR REFORM IN JAPAN 60
C H A P T E R 4
“YOU HAVE TO BEAR THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR
OR PEACE” 73
THE EXCITEMENT AND THE REALITY OF WAR 76
ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS! 81
C H A P T E R 5
THE DILEMMA OF THE INTELLECTUAL 98
MUSTAFA KEMAL’S CASE AGAINST THE
CALIPHATE 103
A CALL FOR REVOLT 110
C H A P T E R 6
THE MUNICH CONFERENCE 128
JAPAN’S JUSTIFICATION FOR EXPANSION 130
THE HOLOCAUST: THE CAMP COMMANDANT
AND THE CAMP VICTIMS 134
JAPAN’S PLAN FOR ASIA 137
C H A P T E R 7
WHO LOST CHINA? 156
A PLEA FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE 162
COMBATING THE AMERICANS 163
C H A P T E R 8
“I HAVE A DREAM” 171
CASTRO’S REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS 185
C H A P T E R 9
KHRUSHCHEV DENOUNCES STALIN 194
THE BREZHNEV DOCTRINE 199
C H A P T E R 1 0
THE GREAT WALL OF GERMANY 217
TOWARD A UNITED EUROPE 219
C H A P T E R 1 1
THE EMPEROR IS NOT DIVINE 230
GROWING UP IN JAPAN 236
RETURN TO THE MOTHERLAND 245
C H A P T E R 1 2
LAND REFORM IN ACTION 254
STUDENTS APPEAL FOR DEMOCRACY 258
VIEWS ON MARRIAGE 265
C H A P T E R 1 3
TWO VISIONS FOR INDIA 273
SAY NO TO MCDONALD’S AND KFC! 278
THE GOLDEN THROAT OF PRESIDENT SUKARNO 283
C H A P T E R 1 4
TOWARD AFRICAN UNITY 294
STEALING THE NATION’S RICHES 296
AN AFRICAN LAMENT 305
C H A P T E R 1 5
ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY 321
KEEPING THE CAMEL OUT OF THE TENT 324
xii
MAPS AND FEATURES
Map 1.1 Th e Industrial Regions of Europe at the end
of the Nineteenth Century 4
Map 1.2 Europe in 1871 13
Map 2.1 India Under British Rule, 1805–1931 32
Map 2.2 Colonial Southeast Asia 35
Spot Map Th e Spread of Islam in Africa 39
Spot Map Th e Suez Canal 40
Map 2.3 Africa in 1914 42
Map 2.4 Th e Struggle for Southern Africa 43
Map 3.1 Th e Qing Empire 48
Spot Map Area Under Taiping Rebellion Control 51
Map 3.2 Foreign Possessions and Spheres of Infl uence
About 1900 54
Map 3.3 Japanese Overseas Expansion During the
Meiji Era 62
Map 4.1 Europe in 1914 71
Map 4.2 World War I, 1914–1918 74
Spot Map German Possessions in Africa, 1914 75
Map 4.3 Territorial Changes in Europe and the Middle
East Aft er World War I 85
Spot Map British India Between the Wars 99
Spot Map Th e Middle East in 1923 102
Spot Map Iran Under the Pahlavi Dynasty 104
Map 5.1 Th e Northern Expedition and the
Long March 109
Map 5.2 Latin America in the First Half of the
Twentieth Century 116
Spot Map Central Europe in 1939 127
Spot Map Japanese Advances into China, 1931–1938 129
Map 6.1 World War II in Europe and North Africa 131
Map 6.2 World War II in Asia and the Pacifi c 136
Spot Map Eastern Europe in 1948 149
Spot Map Berlin at the Start of the Cold War 150
Map 7.1 Th e New European Alliance Systems During
the Cold War 152
Map 7.2 Th e Chinese Civil War 155
Spot Map Th e Korean Peninsula 157
Spot Map Indochina Aft er 1954 157
Map 7.3 Th e Global Cold War 158
Spot Map Northern Central America 166
Spot Map Quebec 180
Spot Map South America 180
Map 9.1 Th e Soviet Union 191
Spot Map Eastern Europe Under Communist Rule 197
Map 9.2 Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet
Union 205
Map 10.1 Territorial Changes in Europe Aft er World
War II 211
Map 10.2 European Union, 2009 220
Map 11.1 Modern Japan 232
Spot Map Th e Korean Peninsula Since 1953 239
Spot Map Modern Taiwan 241
Spot Map Th e Republic of Singapore 243
Spot Map Hong Kong 245
Map 12.1 Th e People’s Republic of China 260
Map 13.1 Modern South Asia 274
Map 13.2 Modern Southeast Asia 282
Map 14.1 Modern Africa 293
Map 15.1 Israel and Its Neighbors 312
Spot Map Iran 315
Map 15.2 Th e Modern Middle East 316
Spot Map Afghanistan 317
Spot Map Iraq 318
MAPS
FILM & HISTORY FEATURES
Lust for Life (1956) 23
Khartoum (1966) 41
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 77
Gandhi (1982) 101
The Missiles of October (1973) 161
The Lives of Others (2006) 216
The Last Emperor (1987) 255
The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) 284
xiii
PREFACE
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY was an era of paradox.
When it began, Western civilization was a patchwork of
squabbling states that bestrode the world like a colossus.
As the century came to an end, the West was prosperous
and increasingly united, yet there were signs global eco-
nomic and political hegemony was beginning to shift to
the East. Th e era of Western dominance had come to an
end. It had been an age marked by war and revolution but
also by rapid industrial growth and widespread economic
prosperity, a time of growing interdependence but also of
burgeoning ethnic and national consciousness, a period
that witnessed the rising power of science but also fervent
religiosity and growing doubts about the impact of tech-
nology on the human experience.
Contemporary World History (formerly titled Twentieth-
Century World History) attempts to chronicle the key
events in this revolutionary century and its aft ermath
while seeking to throw light on some of the underlying
issues that shaped the times. Did the beginning of a new
millennium mark the end of the long period of Western
dominance? If so, will recent decades of European and
American superiority be followed by a “Pacific century,”
with economic and political power shift ing to the nations
of eastern Asia? Will the end of the Cold War eventually
lead to a “new world order” marked by global cooperation,
or are we on the verge of an unstable era of ethnic and na-
tional conflict? Why was a time of unparalleled prosperity
and technological advance accompanied by deep pockets
of poverty and widespread doubts about the role of gov-
ernment and the capabilities of human reason? Although
this book does not promise final answers to such ques-
tions, it can provide a framework for analysis and a bet-
ter understanding of some of the salient issues of modern
times.
A number of decisions must be made by any author
who seeks to encompass in a single volume the history
of a turbulent century. First in importance is whether
to present the topic as an integrated whole or to focus
on individual cultures and societies. Th e world that we
live in today is in many respects an interdependent one
in terms of economics as well as culture and communi-
cations, a reality that is oft en expressed by the familiar
phrase “global village.” At the same time, the process of
globalization is by no means complete, as ethnic, reli-
gious, and regional diff erences continue to exist and to
shape the course of our times. Th e tenacity of these dif-
ferences is reflected not only in the rise of internecine
conflicts in such divergent areas as Africa, South Asia,
and eastern Europe but also in the emergence in re-
cent years of such regional organizations as the African
Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and
the European Union. Political leaders in various parts
of the world speak routinely (if sometimes wistfully)
of “Arab unity,” the “African road to socialism,” and the
“Confucian path to economic development.”
Th e issue also has practical implications. College stu-
dents today are oft en not well informed about the distinc-
tive character of civilizations such as China, India, and
sub-Saharan Africa. Without sufficient exposure to the
historical evolution of such societies, students will assume
all too readily that the peoples in these countries have had
historical experiences similar to their own and respond
to various stimuli in a fashion similar to those living in
western Europe or the United States. If it is a mistake to
ignore the forces that link us together, it is equally errone-
ous to underestimate the factors that continue to divide
us and to diff erentiate us into a world of diverse peoples.
My response to this challenge has been to seek a bal-
ance between a global and a regional approach. Some
chapters focus on issues that have a global impact, such
as the Industrial Revolution, the era of imperialism, and
the two world wars. Others center on individual regions
of the world, while singling out contrasts and compari-
sons that link them to the broader world community.
Th e book is divided into five parts. Th e first four parts
are each followed by a short section labeled “Reflection,”
which attempts to link events in a broad comparative and
global framework. Th e chapter in the fift h and final part
examines some of the common problems of our time—
including environmental pollution, the population explo-
sion, and spiritual malaise—and takes a cautious look into
the future to explore how such issues will evolve in the
twenty-first century.
Another issue that requires attention is how to bal-
ance the treatment of Western civilization with its coun-
terparts in Asia and Africa. Th e modern world is oft en
xiv
text that can be used as off ered, or customized by
importing personal lecture slides or other material.
Also included is ExamView, an easy-to-use assess-
ment and tutorial system that allows instructors
to create, deliver, and customize tests in minutes.
Instructors can build tests with as many as 250
questions using up to 12 question types, and using
ExamView’s complete word-processing capabilities,
they can enter an unlimited number of new questions
or edit existing ones.
• HistoryFinder—Th is searchable online database al-
lows instructors to quickly and easily download thou-
sands of assets, including art, photographs, maps,
primary sources, and audio/video clips. Each as-
set downloads directly into a Microsoft PowerPoint
slide, allowing instructors to easily create exciting
PowerPoint presentations for their classrooms.
• Companion Web Sites for Instructors and Students
(www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e)—
Th ese useful web sites provide chapter-by-chapter, text-
specifi c resources for both instructors and students.
Content for students includes interactive maps and time-
lines, tutorial quizzes, glossary, crossword puzzles, fl ash-
cards, critical thinking questions, web links, and internet
exercises. Instructors also have access to PowerPoint
slides of lecture outlines, plus the Instructor’s Manual,
which includes chapter outlines and summaries, sug-
gested lecture topics, discussion questions, suggested
student activities, and web links (access code required
for instructor resources).
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my appreciation to the reviewers
who have read individual chapters and provided me with
useful suggestions for improvement: Elizabeth Clark,
West Texas A&M University; Sandi Cooper, College of
Staten Island; Richard Grossman, De Paul University;
James Harrison, Siena College; Mary Louise Loe,
James Madison University; Jotham Parsons, Duquesne
University; Roger Ransom, University of California,
Riverside; Barbara Reeves-Ellington, Siena College; E.
Timothy Smith, Barry University; Stuart Smyth, State
University of New York, Albany; Gregory Vitarbo,
Meredith College.
Jackson Spielvogel, coauthor of our textbook World
History, has been kind enough to permit me to use some
of his sections in that book for the purposes of writ-
ing this one. Several of my other colleagues at Penn
State—including Kumkum Chatterjee, On-cho Ng, and
Arthur F. Goldschmidt—have provided me with valuable
viewed essentially as the history of Europe and the Western
Hemisphere, with other regions treated as appendages of
the industrial countries. It is certainly true that much of
the twentieth century was dominated by events in Europe
and North America, and in recognition of this fact, the
opening chapters focus primarily on issues related to the
rise of the West, including the Industrial Revolution and
the age of imperialism. In recent decades, however, other
parts of the world have assumed greater importance, thus
restoring a global balance that had existed prior to the
scientific and technological revolution that transformed
the West in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Later
chapters examine this phenomenon, according to regions
such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America the importance
that they merit today.
One fi nal feature of the book merits brief mention
here. Many textbooks on world history tend to simplify
the content of history courses by emphasizing an intel-
lectual or political perspective or, most recently, a social
perspective, oft en at the expense of providing sufficient
details in a chronological framework. Th is approach can
be confusing to students whose high school social stud-
ies programs have oft en neglected a systematic study of
world history. I have attempted to write a well-balanced
work in which political, economic, social, and cultural
history have been integrated into a chronologically or-
dered synthesis. In my judgment, a strong narrative, link-
ing key issues in a broad interpretive framework, is still
the most eff ective way to present the story of the past to
young minds.
To supplement the text, I have included a number of
boxed documents that illustrate key issues within each
chapter. A new feature, Film & History, presents a brief
analysis of the plot as well as the historical signifi cance,
value, and accuracy of eight fi lms, including such mov-
ies as Khartoum (1966), Gandhi (1982), Th e Last Emperor
(1987), and Th e Lives of Others (2006). Extensive maps
and illustrations, each positioned at the appropriate place
in the chapter, serve to deepen the reader’s understand-
ing of the text. “Spot maps” provide details not visible in
the larger maps. An annotated bibliography at the end of
the book reviews the most recent literature on each period
while referring also to some of the older “classic” works in
the field.
Th e following supplements are available:
• PowerLecture CD-ROM with ExamView®—Th is
dual platform, all-in-one multimedia instructor re-
source includes the Instructor’s Manual, Test Bank (in-
cludes essays, identifi cations, and multiple choice and
true/false questions), and Microsoft ® PowerPoint®
slides of both lecture outlines and images from the
Preface xv
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e)Š
Finally, I am eternally grateful to my wife, Yvonne
V. Duiker, Ph.D. Her research and her written contribu-
tions on art, architecture, literature, and music have added
sparkle to this book. Her presence at my side has added
immeasurable sparkle to my life.
William J. Duiker
Th e Pennsylvania State University
assistance in understanding parts of the world that are
beyond my own area of concentration. To Clark Baxter,
whose unfailing good humor, patience, and sage advice
have so oft en eased the trauma of textbook publishing, I
off er my heartfelt thanks. I am also grateful to Margaret
McAndrew Beasley and Lauren Wheelock for their assis-
tance in bringing this project to fruition, and to John Orr
of Orr Book Services for production.
xvi Preface
1
P A R T
I
NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Sheffield became one of England’s greatest manufacturing cities during the nineteenth century.
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THE TWENTIETH CENTURY was a turbulent era, marked by
two violent global conflicts, a bitter ideological struggle between two
dominant world powers, explosive developments in the realm of sci-
ence, and dramatic social change. When it began, the vast majority
of the world’s peoples lived on farms, and the horse was still the
most common means of transportation. As it ended, human beings
had trod on the moon and lived in a world increasingly defined by
urban sprawl and modern technology.
What had happened to bring about these momentous changes?
Although a world as complex as ours cannot be assigned a single
cause, a good candidate for consideration is the Industrial Revolu-
tion, which began on the British Isles at the end of the eighteenth
century and spread steadily throughout the world during the next
two hundred years. The Industrial Revolution was unquestionably
one of the most important factors in laying the foundation of the
modern world. It not only transformed the economic means of pro-
duction and distribution, but also altered the political systems, the
social institutions and values, and the intellectual and cultural life of
all the societies that it touched. The impact has been not only mas-
sive but controversial as well. Where proponents have alluded to the
enormous material and technological benefits that industrialization
has brought in its wake, critics have pointed out the high costs in-
volved, from growing economic inequality and environmental pollu-
tion to the dehumanization of everyday life. Already in the
nineteenth century, German philosopher Karl Marx charged that
factory labor had reduced workers to a mere ‘‘appendage of the
machine,’’ and the English writer Charles Dickens described in his
novels an urban environment of factories, smoke, and ashes that
seemed an apparition from Dante’s Hell.
2
CHAPTER 1
THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST
The Industrial Revolution
in Great Britain
Why the Industrial Revolution broke out in Great Britain
rather than in another part of the world has been a
subject for debate among historians for many decades.
Some observers point to cultural factors, such as the
Protestant ‘‘work ethic’’ that predisposed British citizens
to risk taking and the belief that material rewards in this
world were a sign of heavenly salvation to come
Be that as it may, a number of more tangible factors
certainly contributed to the rapid transformation of
eighteenth-century British society from a predominantly
agricultural to an industrial and commercial economy.
First, improvements in agriculture during the eighteenth
century had led to a significant increase in food pro-
duction. British agriculture could now feed more people
at lower prices with less labor; even ordinary British
families no longer had to use most of their income to buy
food, giving them the potential to purchase manufactured
goods. At the same time, a rapidly growing population in
the second half of the eighteenth century provided a pool
of surplus labor for the new factories of the emerging
British industrial sector.
A second factor was the rapid increase in national
wealth. Two centuries of expanding trade had provided
Britain with a ready supply of capital for investment in
the new industrial machines and the factories that were
required to house them. In addition to profits from trade,
Britain possessed an effective central bank and well-
developed, flexible credit facilities. Many early factory
owners were merchants and entrepreneurs who had
profited from the eighteenth-century cottage industry.
The country also possessed what might today be de-
scribed as a ‘‘modernization elite’’—individuals who were
interested in making profits if the opportunity presented
itself. In that objective, they were generally supported by
the government.
Third, Britain was richly supplied with important
mineral resources, such as coal and iron ore, needed in the
manufacturing process. Britain was also a small country,
and the relatively short distances made transportation
facilities readily accessible. In addition to nature’s provi-
sion of abundant rivers, from the mid-seventeenth century
onward, both private and public investment poured into
the construction of new roads, bridges, and canals. By
1780, roads, rivers, and canals linked the major industrial
centers of the north, the Midlands, London, and the
Atlantic coast.
Finally, foreign markets gave British industrialists a
ready outlet for their manufactured goods. British exports
quadrupled between 1660 and 1760. In the course of its
eighteenth-century wars and conquests (see Chapter 2),
Great Britain had developed a vast colonial empire at the
expense of its leading continental rivals, the Dutch Re-
public and France. These territories provided domestic
manufacturing with a source of cheap raw materials not
available in the British Isles.1
During the last decades of the century, technological
innovations, including the flying shuttle, the spinning
jenny, and the power loom, led to a significant increase in
production. The cotton textile industry achieved even
greater heights of productivity with the invention of the
steam engine, which proved invaluable to Britain’s Indus-
trial Revolution. The steam engine was a tireless source of
power and depended for fuel on a substance—namely,
coal—that seemed then to be available in unlimited quan-
tities. The success of the steam engine increased the de-
mand for coal and led to an expansion in coal production.
In turn, new processes using coal furthered the develop-
ment of an iron industry, the production of machinery,
and the invention of the railroad.
The Spread of the Industrial
Revolution
By the turn of the nineteenth century, industrialization
had begun to spread to the continent of Europe, where it
took a different path than had been followed in Great
Britain (see Map 1.1). Governments on the Continent
were accustomed to playing a major role in economic
affairs and continued to do so as the Industrial Revolution
got under way, subsidizing inventors, providing incentives
to factory owners, and improving the transportation
network. By 1850, a network of iron rails had spread
across much of western and central Europe, while water
routes were improved by the deepening and widening of
rivers and canals.
Across the Atlantic Ocean, the United States experi-
enced the first stages of its industrial revolution in the
first half of the nineteenth century. In 1800, America was
still a predominantly agrarian society, as six out of every
seven workers were farmers. Sixty years later, only half of
all workers were farmers, yet the total population had
grown from 5 to 30 million people, larger than Great
Britain itself.
The initial application of machinery to production
was accomplished by borrowing from Great Britain. Soon,
however, Americans began to equal or surpass British
technical achievements. The Harpers Ferry arsenal, for
example, built muskets with interchangeable parts. Be-
cause all the individual parts of a musket were identical
(for example, all triggers were the same), the final product
could be put together quickly and easily; this innovation
enabled Americans to avoid the more costly system in
which skilled craftsmen fitted together individual parts
made separately. The so-called American system reduced
costs and revolutionized production by saving labor, an
important consideration in a society that had few skilled
artisans.
Unlike Britain, the United States was a large country.
The lack of a good system of internal transportation
seemed to limit American economic development by
making the transport of goods prohibitively expensive.
This difficulty was gradually remedied, however. Thou-
sands of miles of roads and canals were built linking east
and west. The steamboat facilitated transportation on the
Great Lakes, Atlantic coastal waters, and rivers. Most
important of all in the development of an American
transportation system was the railroad. Beginning with
100 miles in 1830, more than 27,000 miles of railroad
track were laid in the next thirty years. This transporta-
tion revolution turned the United States into a single
massive market for the manufactured goods of the
Northeast, the early center of American industrialization,
and by 1860, the United States was well on its way to
being an industrial nation.
New Products and New Patterns
During the fifty years before the outbreak of World War I
in 1914, the Western world witnessed a dynamic age of
material prosperity. Thanks to new industries, new
sources of energy, and new technological achievements, a
second stage of the Industrial Revolution transformed the
human environment and led people to believe that their
material progress would improve world conditions and
solve all human problems.
The first major change in industrial development after
1870 was the substitution of steel for iron. Steel, an alloy
stronger and more malleable than iron, soon became an
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 3
essential component of the Industrial Revolution. New
methods for rolling and shaping steel made it useful in the
construction of lighter, smaller, and faster machines and
engines as well as for railways, shipbuilding, and arma-
ments. It also paved the way for the building of the first
skyscrapers, a development that would eventually transform
the shape of the cities of the West. In 1860, Great Britain,
France, Germany, and Belgium produced 125,000 tons of
steel; by 1913, the total was 32 million tons.
The Invention of Electricity Electricity was a major new
form of energy that proved to be of great value since it
D
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M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
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Sardinia
Sicily
Bal
ear
ic
Isl
an
ds
GREAT
BRITAIN
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
ITALY
FRANCE SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
NETHERLANDS
BELGIUM
RUSSIA
AUSTRIA-
HUNGARY
GREECE
NORWAY
SWEDEN
DENMARK
FINLAND
Madrid
Barcelona
Naples
Belgrade
Marseilles
Toulouse
Salerno
Laibach
Limoges
Nuremberg
Breslau
Saint-Etienne
Lisbon
Rome
Paris
London
Saint Petersburg
Moscow
Vienna
Berlin
Stockholm
Constantinople
O T T O M A N
E M P I R E
Steel
Engineering
Chemicals
Electrical industry
Lines completed by 1848
Area of main railroad
completed by1870
Other major lines
Railroad development Oil production
Industrial concentration:
Cities
Areas
Low-grade coal
High-grade coal
Iron ore deposits
Petroleum deposits
0 250 500 Miles
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
MAP 1.1 The Industrial Regions of Europe at the end of the Nineteenth Century. By
the end of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution—in steelmaking, electricity,
petroleum, and chemicals—had spurred substantial economic growth and prosperity in western
and central Europe; it also sparked economic and political competition between Great Britain
and Germany.
Q What parts of Europe not industrialized in 1850 had become industrialized in the
ensuing decades?
4 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
could be easily converted into other forms of energy, such
as heat, light, and motion, and moved relatively effort-
lessly through space by means of transmitting wires. The
first commercially practical generators of electric current
were not developed until the 1870s. By 1910, hydroelec-
tric power stations and coal-fired steam-generating plants
enabled entire districts to be tied into a single power
distribution system that provided a common source of
power for homes, shops, and industrial enterprises.
Electricity spawned a whole series of new products.
The invention of the incandescent filament lamp opened
homes and cities to illumination by electric lights. A
revolution in communications ensued when Alexander
Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876 and Guglielmo
Marconi sent the first radio waves across the Atlantic in
1901. Although most electricity was initially used for
lighting, it was eventually put to use in transportation. By
the 1880s, streetcars and subways had appeared in major
European cities. Electricity also transformed the factory.
Conveyor belts, cranes, machines, and machine tools could
all be powered by electricity and located anywhere.
The Internal Combustion Engine The development of
the internal combustion engine had a similar effect. The
processing of liquid fuels—petroleum and its distilled
derivatives—made possible the widespread use of the in-
ternal combustion engine as a source of power in trans-
portation. An oil-fired engine was made in 1897, and by
1902, the Hamburg-Amerika Line had switched from coal
to oil on its new ocean liners. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, some naval fleets had been converted
to oil burners as well.
The internal combustion engine gave rise to the au-
tomobile and the airplane. In 1900, world production
stood at 9,000 cars; by 1906, Americans had overtaken the
initial lead of the French. It was an American, Henry
Ford, who revolutionized the automotive industry with
the mass production of the Model T. By 1916, Ford’s
factories were producing 735,000 cars a year. In the
meantime, air transportation had emerged with the
Zeppelin airship in 1900. In 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North
Carolina, the Wright brothers made the first flight in a
fixed-wing plane powered by a gasoline engine. World
War I stimulated the aircraft industry, and in 1919 the
first regular passenger air service was established.
Trade and Manufacturing The growth of industrial
production depended on the development of markets for
the sale of manufactured goods. Competition for foreign
markets was keen, and by 1870, European countries were
increasingly compelled to focus on promoting domestic
demand. Between 1850 and 1900, real wages increased in
Britain by two-thirds and in Germany by one-third. A
decline in the cost of food combined with lower prices for
manufactured goods because of reduced production and
transportation costs made it easier for Europeans to buy
consumer products. In the cities, new methods for retail
distribution—in particular, the department store—were
used to expand sales of a whole new range of consumer
goods made possible by the development of the steel and
electric industries. The desire to own sewing machines,
clocks, bicycles, electric lights, and typewriters generated
a new consumer ethic that has since become a crucial part
of the modern economy.
Meanwhile, increased competition for foreign mar-
kets and the growing importance of domestic demand led
The Colossus of Paris. When it was completed for the Paris World’s
Fair in 1889, the Eiffel Tower became, at 1,056 feet, the tallest man-made
monument in the world. The colossus, which seemed to be rising from
the shadows of the city’s feudal past like some new technological giant,
symbolized the triumph of the Industrial Revolution and machine-age
capitalism, proclaiming the dawn of a new era possessing endless
possibilities and power. Constructed of wrought iron with more than two-
and-a-half million rivet holes, the structure was completed in two years
and was paid for entirely by the builder himself, the engineer Gustave
Eiffel. From the outset, the monument was wildly popular. Nearly two
million people lined up at the fair to visit this gravity-defying marvel.
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CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 5
to a reaction against the free trade that had characterized
the European economy between 1820 and 1870. By the
1870s, Europeans were returning to the practice of tariff
protection in order to guarantee domestic markets for the
products of their own industries. At the same time, cartels
were being formed to decrease competition internally.
In a cartel, independent enterprises worked together to
control prices and fix production quotas, thereby re-
straining the kind of competition that led to reduced
prices. Cartels were especially strong in Germany, where
banks moved to protect their investments by eliminating
the ‘‘anarchy of competition.’’ Founded in 1893, the
Rhenish-Westphalian Coal Syndicate controlled 98 percent
of Germany’s coal production by 1904.
The formation of cartels was paralleled by a move
toward ever-larger manufacturing plants, especially in
the iron and steel, machinery, heavy electric equipment,
and chemical industries. This growth in the size of in-
dustrial plants led to pressure for greater efficiency in
factory production at the same time that competition led
to demands for greater economy. The result was a desire
to streamline or rationalize production as much as
possible. The development of precision tools enabled
manufacturers to produce interchangeable parts, which
in turn led to the creation of the assembly line for pro-
duction. In the second half of the nineteenth century, it
was primarily used in manufacturing nonmilitary goods,
such as sewing machines, typewriters, bicycles, and fi-
nally, automobiles.
By 1900, much of western and central Europe had
entered a new era, characterized by rising industrial
production and material prosperity. Another part of
Europe, however, the little industrialized area to the
south and east, consisting of southern Italy, most of
Austria-Hungary, Spain, Portugal, the Balkan king-
doms, and Russia, was still largely agricultural and
relegated by industrial countries to the function of
providing food and raw materials. The presence of Ro-
manian oil, Greek olive oil, and Serbian pigs and prunes
in western Europe served as reminders of an economic
division in Europe that continued well into the twentieth
century.
Toward a World Economy
The economic developments of the late nineteenth cen-
tury, combined with the transportation revolution that
saw the growth of marine transport and railroads, fos-
tered a true world economy. By 1900, Europeans were
receiving beef and wool from Argentina and Australia,
coffee from Brazil, nitrates from Chile, iron ore from
Algeria, and sugar from Java. European capital was also
invested abroad to develop railways, mines, electric power
plants, and banks. High rates of return provided plenty of
incentive. Of course, foreign countries also provided
markets for the surplus manufactured goods of Europe.
With its capital, industries, and military might, Europe
dominated the world economy by the beginning of the
nineteenth century.
Trade among various regions of the world, of course,
had taken place for centuries. As early as the first millen-
nium C.E., China and the Roman Empire had exchanged
goods through intermediaries on both the maritime route
across the Indian Ocean and over the famous Silk Road
through the parched deserts of Central Asia. Trade across
the Eurasian supercontinent increased with the rise of the
The First Department Store. In the
middle of the nineteenth century, a new way
to promote the sale of manufactured goods
first appeared in Europe—the department
store. First of its kind was Au Bon marché,
founded by the onetime traveling salesman
Aristide Boucicaut in 1872. The store offered
a number of innovations, including free
entry, mail-order sales, and home delivery. It
also contained a cafeteria and a rest area for
its employees. Rebuilt as shown here in
1910, the store remains popular with
Parisian shoppers today.
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Arab empire in the Middle East in the ninth century and
then reached a peak during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, when the Mongol Empire stretched from the
shores of the Pacific to the borders of eastern Europe.
Trade routes also snaked across the Sahara to central and
western Africa and along the eastern coast from the Red
Sea to the island of Madagascar.
Not until the sixteenth century, however, was a truly
global economy created, a product of the circumnavi-
gation of the globe by the Portuguese adventurer Fer-
dinand Magellan and the voyages of exploration that
followed. With the establishment of contacts between
the Old World and the societies in the Western Hemi-
sphere, trade now literally spanned the globe. New crops
from the Americas, such as corn, potatoes, and manioc,
entered the world market and changed eating habits
and social patterns as far away as China. Tobacco from
the Americas and coffee and tea from the Orient became
the new craze in affluent circles in Europe and the
Middle East.
In the view of some contemporary historians, it was
this process that enabled a resurgent Europe to launch
the economic and technological advances that led to the
Industrial Revolution. According to historian Immanuel
Wallerstein, one of the leading proponents of this the-
ory, the Age of Exploration led to the creation of a new
‘‘world system’’ characterized by the emergence of global
trade networks dominated by the rising force of Euro-
pean capitalism. This commercial revolution, in fact,
operated much to the advantage of the European coun-
tries. Profits from the spice trade with eastern Asia, along
with gold and silver from the Americas, flowed into state
treasuries and the pockets of private traders in London,
Paris, and Amsterdam. The wealth and power of Europe
increased rapidly during this period, thus laying the
groundwork for the economic revolution of the nine-
teenth century.
The Structure of Mass Society
The new world created by the Industrial Revolution led to
the emergence of a mass society by the end of the nine-
teenth century. A mass society meant new forms of ex-
pression for the lower classes as they benefited from the
extension of voting rights, an improved standard of liv-
ing, and compulsory elementary education. But there was
a price to pay. Urbanization and rapid population growth
led to overcrowding in the burgeoning cities and in-
creasing public health problems. The development of
expanded means of communication resulted in the
emergence of new organizations that sought to manipu-
late and control the population for their own purposes.
A mass press, for example, swayed popular opinion by
flamboyant journalistic practices.
As the number and size of cities continued to
mushroom, governments by the 1880s came to the re-
luctant conclusion that private enterprise could not
solve the housing crisis. In 1890, a British housing law
empowered local town councils to construct cheap
housing for the working classes. London and Liverpool
were the first communities to take advantage of their
new powers. Similar activity had been set in motion in
Germany by 1900. Everywhere, however, these lukewarm
measures failed to do much to meet the real housing
needs of the working classes. Nevertheless, the need for
planning had been recognized, and in the 1920s, mu-
nicipal governments moved into housing construction
on a large scale. In housing, as in so many other areas of
life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
the liberal principle that the government that governs
least governs best (discussed later in this chapter) had
proved untrue. More and more, governments were
stepping into areas of activity that they would never have
touched earlier.
Social Structures
At the top of European society stood a wealthy elite,
constituting only 5 percent of the population but con-
trolling between 30 and 40 percent of its wealth. This
privileged minority was an amalgamation of the tradi-
tional landed aristocracy that had dominated European
society for centuries and the emerging upper middle class,
sometimes called the bourgeoisie. In the course of the
nineteenth century, aristocrats coalesced with the most
successful industrialists, bankers, and merchants to form
a new elite.
Increasingly, aristocrats and plutocrats fused as the
latter purchased landed estates to join the aristocrats in
the pleasures of country living while the aristocrats
bought lavish town houses for part-time urban life.
Common bonds were also created when the sons of
wealthy bourgeois families were admitted to the elite
schools dominated by the children of the aristocracy. This
educated elite assumed leadership roles in the govern-
ment and the armed forces. Marriage also served to unite
the two groups. Daughters of tycoons gained titles, and
aristocratic heirs gained new sources of cash. When the
American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt married the duke
of Marlborough, the new duchess brought £2 million
(approximately $10 million) to her husband.
A New Middle Class Below the upper class was a
middle level of the bourgeoisie that included pro-
fessionals in law, medicine, and the civil service as well as
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 7
moderately well-to-do industrialists and merchants. The
industrial expansion of the nineteenth century also added
new vocations to Western society such as business man-
agers, office workers, engineers, architects, accountants,
and chemists, who formed professional associations as the
symbols of their newfound importance. At the lower end
of the middle class were the small shopkeepers, traders,
manufacturers, and prosperous peasants. Their chief
preoccupation was the provision of goods and services for
the classes above them.
The moderately prosperous and successful members
of this new mass society shared a certain style of life, one
whose values tended to dominate much of nineteenth-
century society. They were especially active in preaching
their worldview to their children and to the upper and
lower classes of their society. This was especially evident
in Victorian Britain, often considered a model of middle-
class society. It was the European middle classes who
accepted and promulgated the importance of progress
and science. They believed in hard work, which they
viewed as the primary human good, open to everyone
and guaranteed to have positive results. They also be-
lieved in the good conduct associated with traditional
Christian morality.
Such values were often scorned at the time by
members of the economic and intellectual elite, and in
later years, it became commonplace for observers to
mock the Victorian era—the years of the long reign
of Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) in Great Britain—for
its vulgar materialism, its cultural philistinism, and its
conformist values. As the historian Peter Gay has re-
cently shown, however, this harsh portrayal of the
‘‘bourgeois’’ character of the age distorts the reality of
an era of complexity and contradiction, with diverse
forces interacting to lay the foundations of the modern
world.2
The Working Class The working classes constituted
almost 80 percent of the population of Europe. In rural
areas, many of these people were landholding peasants,
agricultural laborers, and sharecroppers, especially in
eastern Europe. Only about 10 percent of the British
population worked in agriculture, however; in Germany,
the figure was 25 percent.
There was no homogeneous urban working class. At
the top were skilled artisans in such traditional handicraft
trades as cabinetmaking, printing, and jewelry making.
The Industrial Revolution, however, also brought new
entrants into the group of highly skilled workers, in-
cluding machine-tool specialists, shipbuilders, and met-
alworkers. Many skilled workers attempted to pattern
themselves after the middle class by seeking good housing
and educating their children.
Semiskilled laborers, including such people as car-
penters, bricklayers, and many factory workers, earned
wages that were about two-thirds of those of highly
skilled workers (see the box on p. 9). At the bottom of the
hierarchy stood the largest group of workers, the un-
skilled laborers. They included day laborers, who worked
irregularly for very low wages, and large numbers of
domestic servants. One of every seven employed persons
in Great Britain in 1900 was a domestic servant.
Urban workers did experience a betterment in the
material conditions of their lives after 1870. A rise in
real wages, accompanied by a decline in many con-
sumer costs, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, made it
possible for workers to buy more than just food and
housing. Workers’ budgets now included money for
more clothes and even leisure at the same time that
strikes and labor agitation were winning ten-hour days
and Saturday afternoons off. The combination of more
income and more free time produced whole new pat-
terns of mass leisure.
Among the least attractive aspects of the era, how-
ever, was the widespread practice of child labor. Working
conditions for underage workers were often abysmal.
According to a report commissioned in 1832 to inquire
into the conditions for child factory workers in Great
Britain, children as young as six years of age began work
before dawn. Those who were drowsy or fell asleep were
tapped on the head, doused with cold water, strapped to a
chair, or flogged with a stick.
Changing Roles for Women
The position of women during the Industrial Revolution
was also changing. During much of the nineteenth cen-
tury, many women adhered to the ideal of femininity
popularized by writers and poets. Tennyson’s poem The
Princess expressed it well:
Man for the field and woman for the hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion.
The reality was somewhat different. Under the im-
pact of the Industrial Revolution, which created a wide
variety of service and white-collar jobs, women began to
accept employment as clerks, typists, secretaries, and
salesclerks. Compulsory education opened the door to
new opportunities in the medical and teaching pro-
fessions. In some countries in western Europe, women’s
legal rights increased. Still, most women remained con-
fined to their traditional roles of homemaking and
8 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
child rearing. The less fortunate were still compelled to
undertake marginal work at home as domestic servants or
as pieceworkers in sweatshops.
Many of these improvements occurred as the result of
the rise of Europe’s first feminist movement. The move-
ment had its origins in the social upheaval of the French
Revolution, when some women advocated equality for
women based on the doctrine of natural rights. In the
1830s, a number of women in the United States and
Europe sought improvements for women by focusing on
family and marriage law to strengthen the property rights
of wives and enhance their ability to secure a divorce (see
the box on p. 11). Later in the century, attention shifted
to the issue of equal political rights. Many feminists
believed that the right to vote was the key to all other
reforms to improve the position of women.
The British women’s movement was the most vocal
and active in Europe, but it was divided over tactics.
Moderates believed that women must demonstrate that
they would use political power responsibly if they wanted
Parliament to grant them the right to vote. Another group,
however, favored a more radical approach. Emmeline
Pankhurst (1858–1928) and her daughters, Christabel and
Sylvia, in 1903 founded the Women’s Social and Political
Union, which enrolled mostly middle- and upper-class
women. Pankhurst’s organization realized the value of the
media and used unusual publicity stunts to call attention to
its insistence on winning women the right to vote and other
DISCIPLINE IN THE NEW FACTORIES
Workers in the new factories of the Industrial Revolution
had been accustomed to a lifestyle free of overseers. Unlike
the cottage industry, where home-based workers spun thread
and wove cloth in their own rhythm and time, the factories
demanded a new, rigorous discipline geared to the require-
ments and operating hours of the machines. This selection is
taken from a set of rules for a factory in Berlin in 1844. They
were typical of company rules everywhere the factory system
had been established.
Factory Rules, Foundry and Engineering Works,
Royal Overseas Trading Company
In every large works, and in the coordination of any large number
of workmen, good order and harmony must be looked upon as the
fundamentals of success, and therefore the following rules shall be
strictly observed.
1. The normal working day begins at all seasons at 6 A.M. precisely
and ends, after the usual break of half an hour for breakfast, an
hour for dinner, and half an hour for tea, at 7 P.M., and it shall
be strictly observed. . . .
2. Workers arriving 2 minutes late shall lose half an hour’s wages;
whoever is more than 2 minutes late may not start work until
after the next break, or at least shall lose his wages until then.
Any disputes about the correct time shall be settled by the clock
mounted above the gatekeeper’s lodge. . . .
3. No workman, whether employed by time or piece, may leave be-
fore the end of the working day, without having first received
permission from the overseer and having given his name to the
gatekeeper. Omission of these two actions shall lead to a fine of
ten silver groschen payable to the sick fund.
4. Repeated irregular arrival at work shall lead to dismissal. This
shall also apply to those who are found idling by an official or
overseer, and refused to obey their order to resume work. . . .
6. No worker may leave his place of work otherwise than for rea-
sons connected with his work.
7. All conversation with fellow-workers is prohibited; if any worker
requires information about his work, he must turn to the over-
seer, or to the particular fellow-worker designated for the
purpose.
8. Smoking in the workshops or in the yard is prohibited during
working hours; anyone caught smoking shall be fined five silver
groschen for the sick fund for every such offense. . . .
10. Natural functions must be performed at the appropriate places,
and whoever is found soiling walls, fences, squares, etc., and
similarly, whoever is found washing his face and hands in the
workshop and not in the places assigned for the purpose, shall
be fined five silver groschen for the sick fund. . . .
12. It goes without saying that all overseers and officials of the firm
shall be obeyed without question, and shall be treated with due
deference. Disobedience will be punished by dismissal.
13. Immediate dismissal shall also be the fate of anyone found
drunk in any of the workshops. . . .
14. Every workman is obliged to report to his superiors any acts of
dishonesty or embezzlement on the part of his fellow workmen.
If he omits to do so, and it is shown after subsequent discovery
of a misdemeanor that he knew about it at the time, he shall be
liable to be taken to court as an accessory after the fact and the
wage due to him shall be retained as punishment.
Q How many of these regulations do you believe would be
acceptable to employers and employees in today’s labor
market? Why or why not?
SOURCE: From Documents of European Economic History by Sidney
Pollard and Colin Holmes (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968). Copyright
�C 1968 by S. Pollard and C. Holmes.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 9
demands. Its members pelted government officials with
eggs, chained themselves to lampposts, smashed the win-
dows of department stores on fashionable shopping streets,
burned railroad cars, and went on hunger strikes in jail.
Before World War I, demands for women’s rights
were being heard throughout Europe and the United
States, although only in Norway and some American
states as well as in Australia and New Zealand did women
actually receive the right to vote before 1914. It would
take the dramatic upheaval of World War I before male-
dominated governments capitulated on this basic issue.
Reaction and Revolution:
The Decline of the Old Order
While the Industrial Revolution shook the economic and
social foundations of European society, similar revolu-
tionary developments were reshaping the political map of
the Continent. These developments were the product of a
variety of factors, including not only the Industrial Rev-
olution itself but also the Renaissance, the Enlightenment,
and the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth
century. The influence of these new forces resulted in a
redefinition of political conditions in Europe. The con-
servative order—based on the principle of hereditary
monarchy and the existence of great multinational states
such as Russia, the Habsburg Empire, and the Ottoman
Empire—had emerged intact from the defeat of Napoleon
Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, but by mid-
century, it had come under attack along a wide front.
Arrayed against the conservative forces was a set of new
political ideas that began to come into their own in the
first half of the nineteenth century and continue to affect
the entire world today.
Liberalism and Nationalism
One of these new political ideas was liberalism. Liberalism
owed much to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth
century and the American and French Revolutions that
erupted at the end of that century, all of which pro-
claimed the autonomy of the individual against the power
of the state. Opinions diverged among people classified as
liberals—many of them members of the emerging middle
class—but all began with a common denominator, a
conviction that in both economic and political terms,
people should be as free from restraint as possible. Eco-
nomic liberalism, also known as classical economics, was
based on the tenet of laissez-faire—the belief that the state
should not interfere in the free play of natural economic
forces, especially supply and demand. Political liberalism
was based on the concept of a constitutional monarchy or
constitutional state, with limits on the powers of gov-
ernment and a written charter to protect the basic civil
rights of the people. Nineteenth-century liberals, however,
were not democrats in the modern sense. Although they
held that people were entitled to equal civil rights, the
right to vote and to hold office would be open only to
men who met certain property qualifications.
Nationalism was an even more powerful ideology for
change in the nineteenth century. The idea arose out of an
awareness of being part of a community that had com-
mon institutions, traditions, language, and customs. In
some cases, that sense of identity was based on shared
ethnic or linguistic characteristics. In others, it was a
consequence of a common commitment to a particular
religion or culture. Such a community came to be called a
‘‘nation,’’ and the primary political loyalty of individuals
would be to this ‘‘nation’’ rather than, as was the case in
much of Europe at that time, to a dynasty or a city-state
or some other political unit. Nationalism did not become
Cracks in the Glass Ceiling. Women were largely excluded from
male-dominated educational institutions in the United States before 1900.
Consequently, the demand for higher education for women led to the
establishment of women’s colleges, as well as specialized institutes and
medical schools. The Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in the city
of Philadelphia was the world’s first medical school created specifically for
women. In this 1911 photograph, we see an operation performed by women
surgeons as they instruct their students in the latest medical techniques.
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10 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
a popular force for change until the French Revolution, when
the concept arose that governments should coincide with
nationalities. Thus, a divided people such as the Germans
wanted national unity in a German nation-state with one
central government. Subject peoples, such as the Czechs
and the Hungarians, wanted national self-determination,
or the right to establish their own autonomy rather than
be subject to a German minority in a multinational state
such as the Habsburg Empire.
Liberalism and nationalism began to have an impact
on the European political scene in the 1830s, when a
revolt led by reformist forces installed a constitutional
monarchy in France, and nationalist uprisings, often
given active support by liberal forces, took place in
ESCAPING THE DOLL’S HOUSE
Although a majority of women probably followed the nineteenth-
century middle-class ideal of women as keepers of the house-
hold and nurturers of husband and children, an increasing num-
ber of women fought for the rights of women. This selection is
taken from Act III of Henrik lbsen’s A Doll’s House (1879), in
which the character Nora Palmer declares her independence
from her husband’s control over her life.
Henrik lbsen, A Doll’s House
NORA: (Pause) Does anything strike you as we sit here?
HELMER: What should strike me?
NORA: We’ve been married eight years: does it not strike you that this is
the first time we two, you and I, man and wife, have talked
together seriously?
HELMER: Seriously? What do you mean, seriously?
NORA: For eight whole years, and more—ever since the day we first
met—we have never exchanged one serious word about serious
things. . . .
HELMER: Why, my dearest Nora, what have you to do with serious
things?
NORA: There we have it! You have never understood me. I’ve had great
injustice done to me, Torvald; first by father, then by you.
HELMER: What! Your father and me? We, who have loved you more
than all the world?
NORA: (Shaking her head): You have never loved me. You just found it
amusing to think you were in love with me.
HELMER: Nora! What a thing to say!
NORA: Yes, it’s true, Torvald. When I was living at home with father, he
told me his opinions and mine were the same. If I had different
opinions, I said nothing about them, because he would not have
liked it. He used to call me his doll-child and played with me as I
played with my dolls. Then I came to live in your house.
HELMER: What a way to speak of our marriage!
NORA (Undisturbed): I mean that I passed from father’s hands into
yours. You arranged everything to your taste and I got the same
tastes as you; or pretended to—I don’t know which—both, per-
haps: sometimes one, sometimes the other. When I look back on
it now, I seem to have been living here like a beggar, on hand-
outs. I lived by performing tricks for you, Torvald. But that was
how you wanted it. You and father have done me a great wrong.
It is your fault that my life has come to naught.
HELMER: Why, Nora, how unreasonable and ungrateful! Haven’t you
been happy here?
NORA: No, never. I thought I was, but I never was.
HELMER: Not—not happy! . . .
NORA: I must stand quite alone if I am ever to know myself and my
surroundings; so I cannot stay with you.
HELMER: Nora! Nora!
NORA: I am going at once. I daresay [my friend] Christina will take me
in for tonight.
HELMER: You are mad! I shall not allow it! I forbid it!
NORA: It’s no use your forbidding me anything now. I shall take with
me only what belongs to me; from you I will accept nothing,
either now or later.
HELMER: This is madness!
NORA: Tomorrow I shall go home—I mean to what was my home.
It will be easier for me to find a job there.
HELMER: Oh, in your blind inexperience—
NORA: I must try to gain experience, Torvald.
HELMER: Forsake your home, your husband, your children! And you
don’t consider what the world will say.
NORA: I can’t pay attention to that. I only know that I must do it.
HELMER: This is monstrous! Can you forsake your holiest duties?
NORA: What do you consider my holiest duties?
HELMER: Need I tell you that? Your duties to your husband and
children.
NORA: I have other duties equally sacred.
HELMER: Impossible! What do you mean?
NORA: My duties toward myself.
HELMER: Before all else you are a wife and a mother.
NORA: That I no longer believe. Before all else I believe I am a human
being, just as much as you are—or at least that I should try to
become one. I know that most people agree with you, Torvald,
and that they say so in books. But I can no longer be satisfied
with what most people say and what is in books. I must think
things out for myself and try to get clear about them.
Q Why is Nora dissatisfied with her life in the ‘‘doll’s
house’’? What is her husband’s response?
SOURCE: From Wesley D. Camp, Roots of Western Civilization. Copyright �C
1988 McGraw-Hill Companies.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 11
Belgium (which was then attached to the Dutch Repub-
lic), in Italy, and in Poland (then part of the Russian
Empire). Only the Belgians were successful, as Russian
forces crushed the Poles’ attempt to liberate themselves
from foreign domination, while Austrian troops inter-
vened to uphold reactionary governments in a number of
Italian states.
In the spring of 1848, a new series of uprisings
against established authority broke out in several coun-
tries in central and western Europe. The most effective
was in France, where an uprising centered in Paris over-
threw the so-called bourgeois monarchy of King Louis
Philippe and briefly brought to power a new republic
composed of an alliance of workers, intellectuals, and
progressive representatives of the urban middle class.
The Unification of Germany and Italy
Within a few months, however, it became clear that op-
timism about the imminence of a new order in Europe
had not been justified. In France, the shaky alliance be-
tween workers and the urban bourgeoisie was ruptured
when workers’ groups and their representatives in the
government began to demand extensive social reforms to
provide guaranteed benefits to the poor. Moderates,
frightened by rising political tensions in Paris, resisted
such demands. Facing the specter of class war, the French
nation drew back and welcomed the rise to power of
Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the great Napoleon Bona-
parte. Within three years, he declared himself Emperor
Napoleon III. Elsewhere in Europe—in Germany, in the
Habsburg Empire, and in Italy—popular uprisings failed
to unseat autocratic monarchs and destroy the existing
political order.
But the rising force of nationalism was not to be
quenched. Nationalist sentiment, at first restricted pri-
marily to the small educated elite, began to spread among
the general population with the rise in literacy rates and
the increasing availability of books, journals, and news-
papers printed in the vernacular languages. Ordinary
Europeans, previously unconcerned about political affairs,
now became increasingly aware of the nationalist debate
and sometimes became involved in the political process.
Italy, long divided into separate kingdoms, was fi-
nally united in the early 1860s. Germany followed a few
years later. Unfortunately, the rise of nation-states in
central Europe did not herald the onset of liberal prin-
ciples or greater stability. To the contrary, it inaugurated
a period of heightened tensions as an increasingly ag-
gressive Germany began to dominate the politics of
Europe. In 1870, German Prime Minister Otto von
Bismarck (1815–1898) provoked a war with France.
After the latter’s defeat, a new German Empire was
declared in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles,
just outside Paris.
Many German liberals were initially delighted at the
unification of their country after centuries of division.
But they were soon to discover that the new German
Empire would not usher in a new era of peace and free-
dom. Under Prussian leadership, the new state quickly
proclaimed the superiority of authoritarian and milita-
ristic values and abandoned the principles of liberalism
and constitutional government. Nationalism had become
a two-edged sword, as advocates of a greater Germany
began to exert an impact on domestic politics.
Liberal principles made similarly little headway else-
where in central and eastern Europe. After the transfor-
mation of the Habsburg Empire into the dual monarchy
of Austria-Hungary in 1867, the Austrian part received a
constitution that theoretically recognized the equality of
the nationalities and established a parliamentary system
with the principle of ministerial responsibility.
But the problem of reconciling the interests of the
various nationalities remained a difficult one. The Ger-
man minority that governed Austria felt increasingly
threatened by the Czechs, Poles, and other Slavic groups
within the empire. The granting of universal male suf-
frage in 1907 served only to exacerbate the problem when
nationalities that had played no role in the government
now agitated in the parliament for autonomy. This led
prime ministers after 1900 to ignore the parliament and
rely increasingly on imperial emergency decrees to gov-
ern. On the eve of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire was far from solving its minorities problem. (See
Map 1.2 on p. 13.)
Roots of Revolution in Russia
To the east, in the vast Russian Empire, neither the In-
dustrial Revolution nor the European Enlightenment had
exerted much impact. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, Russia was overwhelmingly rural, agricultural,
and autocratic. The Russian tsar was still regarded as a
divine-right monarch with unlimited power, although the
physical extent of the empire made the claim impracti-
cable. For centuries, Russian farmers had groaned under
the yoke of an oppressive system that tied the peasants to
poverty conditions and the legal status of serfs under the
authority of their manor lord. An enlightened tsar, Al-
exander II (r. 1855–1881), had emancipated the serfs in
1861, but under conditions that left most Russian peas-
ants still poor and with little hope for social or economic
betterment. In desperation, the Russian peasants period-
ically lashed out at their oppressors in sporadic rebellions,
but all such uprisings were quelled with brutal efficiency
by the tsarist regime.
12 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
In western Europe, as we have seen, it was the urban
bourgeoisie that took the lead in the struggle for change.
In preindustrial Russia, the middle class was still small in
size and lacking in self-confidence. A few, however, had
traveled to the West and were determined to import
Western values and institutions into the backward Rus-
sian environment. At mid-century, a few progressive in-
tellectuals went out to the villages to arouse their rural
brethren to the need for change. Known as narodniks
(from the Russian term narod, for ‘‘people’’ or ‘‘nation’’),
they sought to energize the peasantry as a force for the
transformation of Russian society. Although many saw
the answer to Russian problems in the western European
model, others insisted on the uniqueness of the Russian
experience and sought to bring about a revitalization of
the country on the basis of the communal traditions of
the native village.
For the most part, such efforts achieved little. The
Russian peasant was resistant to change and suspicious of
outsiders. In desperation, some radicals turned to terrorism
Rhine R
.
Elbe R.
Oder R.
Volga R.
Danube R
.
Po R.
Ebro R.
Mediterranean Sea
Black Sea
Atlant ic
Ocean
North
Sea
Baltic
Sea
Arct ic Ocean
O
T
T O M
A N E M P I R E
Belgrade
A
l p
s
Taurus Mts
.
Bale
aric
Is
lan
ds
Pyrenees
FINLAND
GREECE
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
TUNISIA
ITALY
SPAIN
PORTUGAL
FRANCE
GREAT
BRITAIN
BELGIUM
NETHERLANDS
LUXEMBOURG
SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA
HUNGARY
SERBIA
MONTENEGRO
BESSA
R
A
B
IA
CRIMEA
DENMARK
GERMAN
EMPIRE
NORWAY
and
SWEDEN
RUSSIAN
EMPIRE
AUSTRIA-
HUNGARY
Athens
Naples
Rome
Venice
Tunis
Algiers
Tangier
Lisbon
Madrid
Marseilles
Paris
Munich
London
Kristiania Stockholm
Helsingfors
Saint Petersburg
Moscow
Kiev
Odessa
Sinope
Constantinople
Budapest
Vienna
Prague
Warsaw
Dresden
Berlin
Copenhagen
Sevastopol
CyprusCrete
Sicily
Sardinia
Corsica
German Empire
Austria-Hungary
Italy
France
Ottoman Empire
0 250 500 Miles
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
MAP 1.2 Europe in 1871. German unification in 1871 upset the balance of power that had
prevailed in Europe for more than half a century and eventually led to a restructuring of
European alliances. By 1907, Europe was divided into two opposing camps: the Triple Entente of
Great Britain, Russia, and France and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy.
Q Which of the countries identified on this map could be described as multinational
empires?
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 13
in the hope that assassinations of public officials would
spark tsarist repression, thus demonstrating the brutality of
the system and galvanizing popular anger. Chief among
such groups was the Narodnaya Volya (‘‘the People’s Will’’),
a terrorist organization that carried out the assassination of
Tsar Alexander II in 1881.
The assassination of Alexander II convinced his son
and successor, Alexander III (r. 1881–1894), that reform
had been a mistake, and he quickly returned to the re-
pressive measures of earlier tsars. When Alexander III
died, his weak son and successor, Nicholas II (r. 1894–
1917), began his rule armed with his father’s conviction
that the absolute power of the tsars should be preserved.
But it was too late, for conditions were changing.
Although industrialization came late to Russia, it pro-
gressed rapidly after 1890, especially with the assistance of
foreign investment. By 1900, Russia had become the fourth
largest producer of steel, behind the United States, Ger-
many, and Great Britain. At the same time, Russia was
turning out half of the world’s production of oil. Con-
ditions for the working class, however, were abysmal, and
opposition to the tsarist regime from workers, peasants,
and intellectuals finally exploded into revolt in 1905. Fac-
ing an exhausting war with Japan in Asia (see Chapter 3),
Tsar Nicholas reluctantly granted civil liberties and agreed
to create a legislative assembly, the Duma, elected directly
by a broad franchise. But real constitutional monarchy
proved short-lived. By 1907, the tsar had curtailed the
power of the Duma and fell back on the army and the
bureaucracy to rule Russia.
The Ottoman Empire and
Nationalism in the Balkans
Like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire
was threatened by the rising nationalist aspirations of its
subject peoples. Beginning in the fourteenth century, the
Ottoman Turks had expanded from their base in the
Anatolian peninsula into the Balkans, southern Russia, and
along the northern coast of Africa. Soon they controlled
the entire eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea. But by the
nineteenth century, despite state reform programs designed
to modernize the empire, increasing nationalism and in-
tervention of the European powers in Ottoman affairs
challenged the legitimacy of the Ottoman state.
Gradually, the emotional appeal of nationhood began
to make inroads among the various ethnic and linguistic
groups in southeastern Europe. In the course of the
nineteenth century, the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman
Empire began to gain their freedom, although the intense
rivalry in the region between Austria-Hungary and Russia
complicated the process. Serbia had already received a
large degree of autonomy in 1829, although it remained a
province of the Ottoman Empire until 1878. Greece be-
came an independent kingdom in 1830 after a successful
revolt. By the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, Russia re-
ceived a protectorate over the principalities of Moldavia
and Wallachia, but was forced to give them up after the
Crimean War. In 1861, they were merged into the state of
Romania. Not until Russia’s defeat of the Ottoman
Empire in 1878, however, was Romania recognized as
completely independent, along with Serbia at the same
time. Although freed from Turkish rule, Montenegro was
placed under an Austrian protectorate, and Bulgaria
achieved autonomous status under Russian protection.
The other Balkan territories of Bosnia and Herzegovina
were placed under Austrian protection; Austria could
occupy but not annex them. Despite these gains, the force
of Balkan nationalism was by no means stilled.
Meanwhile, other parts of the empire began to break
away from central control. In Egypt, the ambitious gov-
ernor Muhammad Ali declared the region’s autonomy
from Ottoman rule and initiated a series of reforms de-
signed to promote economic growth and government
efficiency. During the 1830s, he sought to improve agri-
cultural production and reform the educational system,
and he imported machinery and technicians from Europe
to carry out the first industrial revolution on African soil.
In the end, however, the effort failed, partly because
Egypt’s manufactures could not compete with those of
Europe and also because much of the profit from the
export of cash crops went into the hands of conservative
landlords.
Measures to promote industrialization elsewhere in
the empire had even less success. By mid-century, a small
industrial sector, built with equipment imported from
Europe, took shape, and a modern system of transport
and communications began to make its appearance. By
the end of the century, however, the results were meager,
and members of the empire’s small Westernized elite
became increasingly restive (see Chapter 5).
Liberalism Triumphant
In western Europe and North America, where an affluent
urban middle class represented a growing political force,
liberal principles experienced a better fate. By 1871, Great
Britain had a functioning two-party parliamentary system.
For fifty years, the Liberals and Conservatives alternated in
power at regular intervals. Both were dominated by a
coalition of aristocratic landowners frequently involved in
industrial and financial activities and upper-middle-class
businessmen. But both also saw the necessity of adopting
political reforms and competed in supporting legislation
that expanded the right to vote. Reform acts in 1867 and
14 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
1884 greatly expanded the number of adult males who
could vote, and by the end of World War I, all males over
twenty-one and women over thirty had that right.
The growth of trade unions and the emergence in
1900 of the Labour Party, which dedicated itself to
workers’ interests, put pressure on the Liberals, who
promoted a program of social welfare, to seek the support
of the workers. The National Insurance Act of 1911
provided benefits for workers in case of sickness or un-
employment, to be paid for by compulsory contributions
from workers, employers, and the state. Additional leg-
islation provided a small pension for those over seventy
and compensation for those injured in accidents at work.
A similar process was under way in France, where the
overthrow of Napoleon III’s Second Empire in 1870 led to
the creation of a republican form of government. France
failed, however, to develop a strong parliamentary system
on the British two-party model because the existence of a
dozen political parties forced the premier to depend on a
coalition of parties to stay in power. The Third Republic
was notorious for its changes of government. Between
1875 and 1914, there were no fewer than fifty cabinet
changes; during the same period, the British had eleven.
Nevertheless, the government’s moderation gradually
encouraged more and more middle-class and peasant
support, and by 1914, the Third Republic commanded
the loyalty of most French people.
By 1870, Italy had emerged as a geographically united
state with pretensions to great-power status. But sectional
differences (a poverty-stricken south and an industrializing
north) weakened any sense of community. Chronic tur-
moil between labor and industry undermined the social
fabric. The Italian government was unable to deal effec-
tively with these problems because of the extensive cor-
ruption among government officials and the lack of
stability created by ever-changing government coalitions.
Abroad, Italy’s pretensions to great-power status proved
equally hollow when Italy became the first European power
to lose a war to an African state, Ethiopia, a humiliation
that later led to the costly (but successful) attempt to
compensate by conquering Libya in 1911 and 1912.
The United States and Canada
Between 1860 and World War I, the United States made
the shift from an agrarian to a mighty industrial nation.
American heavy industry stood unchallenged in 1900. In
that year, the Carnegie Steel Company alone produced
more steel than Great Britain’s entire steel industry. In-
dustrialization also led to urbanization. While established
cities, such as New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, grew
even larger, other moderate-size cities, such as Pittsburgh,
grew by leaps and bounds because of industrialization
and the arrival of millions of immigrants from eastern
Europe. Whereas 20 percent of Americans lived in cities
in 1860, more than 40 percent did in 1900. One factor
underlying the change was a vast increase in agricultural
productivity, creating a food surplus that enabled millions
of Americans to move from the farm to the factory.
By 1900, the United States had become the world’s
richest nation and greatest industrial power. Less inclined
than their European counterparts to accept government
intervention as a means of redressing economic or social
ills, Americans experienced both the benefits and the
disadvantages of unfettered capitalism. In 1890, the
richest 9 percent of Americans owned an incredible 71
percent of all the wealth. Labor unrest over unsafe
working conditions, strict work discipline, and periodic
cycles of devastating unemployment led workers to or-
ganize. By the turn of the twentieth century, one national
organization, the American Federation of Labor, emerged
as labor’s dominant voice. Its lack of real power, however,
is reflected in its membership figures: in 1900, it consti-
tuted but 8.4 percent of the American industrial labor
force. And part of the U.S. labor force remained almost
entirely disenfranchised. Although the victory of the
North in the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery,
political, economic, and social opportunities for the Af-
rican American population remained limited, and racist
attitudes were widespread.
During the so-called Progressive Era after 1900, the
reform of many features of American life became a pri-
mary issue. At the state level, reforming governors sought
to achieve clean government by introducing elements of
direct democracy, such as direct primaries for selecting
nominees for public office. State governments also enacted
economic and social legislation, including laws that gov-
erned hours, wages, and working conditions, especially for
women and children. The realization that state laws were
ineffective in dealing with nationwide problems, however,
led to a progressive movement at the national level.
National progressivism was evident in the admin-
istrations of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Under Roosevelt (1901–1909), the Meat Inspection Act
and Pure Food and Drug Act provided for a limited de-
gree of federal regulation of corrupt industrial practices.
Roosevelt’s expressed principle, ‘‘We draw the line against
misconduct, not against wealth,’’ guaranteed that public
protection would have to be within limits tolerable to big
corporations. Wilson (1913–1921) was responsible for the
creation of a graduated federal income tax and the Fed-
eral Reserve System, which gave the federal government a
role in important economic decisions formerly made by
bankers. Like many European nations, the United States
was moving into policies that extended the functions of
the state.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 15
Canada, too, faced problems of national unity be-
tween 1870 and 1914. At the beginning of 1870, the
Dominion of Canada had only four provinces: Quebec,
Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. With the
addition of two more provinces in 1871—Manitoba and
British Columbia—the Dominion now extended from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. But real unity was difficult
to achieve because of the distrust between the English-
speaking and French-speaking peoples of Canada. For-
tunately for Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who became the
first French Canadian prime minister in 1896, was able to
reconcile Canada’s two major groups and resolve the issue
of separate schools for French Canadians. Laurier’s ad-
ministration also witnessed increased industrialization
and successfully encouraged immigrants from central and
eastern Europe to help populate Canada’s vast territories.
Tradition and Change in Latin America
In the three centuries following the arrival of Christopher
Columbus in the Western Hemisphere in 1492, Latin
America fell increasingly into the European orbit. Por-
tugal dominated Brazil, and Spain formed a vast empire
that included most of the remainder of South America as
well as Central America. Almost from the beginning, it
was a multicultural society composed of European set-
tlers, indigenous American Indians, immigrants from
Asia, and black slaves brought from Africa to work on the
sugar plantations and in other menial occupations. In-
termarriage among the three groups resulted in the cre-
ation of a diverse population with a less rigid view of race
than was the case in North America. Latin American
culture, as well, reflected a rich mixture of Iberian, Asian,
African, and Native American themes.
The Emergence of Independent States Until the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century, the various Latin
American societies were ruled by colonial officials ap-
pointed by monarchical governments in Europe. An ad-
ditional instrument of control was the Catholic church,
which undertook a major effort to Christianize the in-
digenous peoples and transform them into docile and
loyal subjects of the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. By
1800, however, local elites, mostly descendants of Euro-
peans who had become permanent inhabitants of the
Western Hemisphere, became increasingly affected by the
spirit of nationalism that had emerged after the Napo-
leonic era in Europe. During the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, under great leaders like Simón Bolı́var
of Venezuela and José de Saint Martı́n of Argentina, they
launched a series of revolts that led to the eviction of the
monarchical regimes and the formation of independent
states from Argentina and Chile in the south to Mexico in
Central America. Brazil received its independence from
Portugal in 1825.
Many of the new states were based on the adminis-
trative divisions that had been established by the Spanish
in the early colonial era. Although all shared the legacy of
Iberian culture brought to the Americas by the conquis-
tadors, the particular mix of European, African, and in-
digenous peoples resulted in distinctive characteristics for
each country.
One of the goals of the independence movement had
been to free the economies of Latin America from European
control and to exploit the riches of the continent for local
benefit. In fact, however, political independence did not
lead to a new era of prosperity for the people of Latin
America. Most of the powerful elites in the region earned
their wealth from the land and had few incentives to follow
the European model of promoting an industrial revolution.
As a result, the previous trade pattern persisted, with Latin
America exporting raw materials and foodstuffs (wheat
and sugar) as well as tobacco and hides in exchange for
manufactured goods from Europe and the United States.
Problems of Economic Dependence With economic
growth came a boom in foreign investment. Between
1870 and 1913, British investments—mostly in railroads,
mining, and public utilities—grew from £85 million to
£757 million, which constituted two-thirds of all foreign
investment in Latin America. By the end of the century,
the U.S. economic presence began to increase dramati-
cally. As Latin Americans struggled to create more bal-
anced economies after 1900, they concentrated on
creating a manufacturing base, notably by building tex-
tile, food-processing, and construction materials factories.
Nevertheless, the growth of the Latin American
economy came largely from the export of raw materials,
and economic modernization in Latin America simply
added to the growing dependence of the region on the
capitalist nations of the West. Modernization was basi-
cally a surface feature of Latin American society; past
patterns still largely prevailed. Rural elites dominated
their estates and their rural workers. Although slavery was
abolished by 1888, former slaves and their descendants
were still at the bottom of society. The Native Americans
remained poverty-stricken, debt servitude was still a way
of life, and the region remained economically dependent
on foreigners. Despite its economic growth, Latin
America was still sorely underdeveloped.
The surface prosperity that resulted from the emer-
gence of an export economy had both social and political
repercussions. One result socially was the modernization
of the elites, who grew determined to pursue their vision
of progress. Large landowners increasingly sought ways to
rationalize their production methods to make greater
16 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
profits. As a result, cattle ranchers in Argentina and
coffee barons in Brazil became more aggressive entre-
preneurs.
Another result of the new prosperity was the growth
of a small but increasingly visible middle class—lawyers,
merchants, shopkeepers, businessmen, schoolteachers,
professors, bureaucrats, and military officers. Living
mainly in the cities, these people sought education and
decent incomes and increasingly considered the United
States to be the model to emulate, especially in regard to
industrialization and education.
As Latin American export economies boomed, the
working class expanded, which in turn led to the growth
of labor unions, especially after 1914. Radical unions
often advocated the use of the general strike as an in-
strument for change. By and large, however, the gov-
erning elites succeeded in stifling the political influence
of the working class by restricting the right to vote. The
need for industrial labor also led Latin American
countries to encourage European immigrants. Between
1880 and 1914, three million Europeans, primarily
Italians and Spaniards, settled in Argentina. More than
100,000 Europeans, mostly Italian, Portuguese, and
Spanish, arrived in Brazil each year between 1891 and
1900.
Social and Political Changes As in Europe and the
United States, industrialization led to urbanization, evi-
dent in both the emergence of new cities and the rapid
growth of old ones. Buenos Aires (the ‘‘Paris of South
America’’) had 750,000 inhabitants by 1900 and two
million by 1914—one-fourth of Argentina’s population.
By that time, urban dwellers made up 53 percent of
Argentina’s population overall. Brazil and Chile also
witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of urban
dwellers.
Latin America also experienced a political transfor-
mation after 1870. Large landowners began to take a
more direct interest in national politics, sometimes ex-
pressed by a direct involvement in governing. In Argen-
tina and Chile, for example, landholding elites controlled
the governments, and although they produced con-
stitutions similar to those of the United States and Eu-
ropean countries, they were careful to ensure their power
by regulating voting rights.
In some countries, large landowners made use of
dictators to maintain the interests of the ruling elite.
Porfirio Dı́az, who ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1911, es-
tablished a conservative, centralized government with the
support of the army, foreign capitalists, large landowners,
and the Catholic church, all of whom benefited from their
alliance. But there were forces for change in Mexico that
sought to precipitate a true social revolution. Dı́az was
ousted from power in 1911, opening an extended era of
revolutionary unrest.
Elsewhere in the region, political instability led to
foreign intervention. In 1898, the United States sent
military forces in support of an independence move-
ment in Cuba, bringing an end to 400 years of Spanish
rule on the island. U.S. occupation forces then remained
for several years, despite growing opposition from the
local population. The United States also intervened
militarily in Nicaragua, Honduras, and the Dominican
Republic to restore law and order and protect U.S. eco-
nomic interests in the region, sparking cries of ‘‘Yankee
Imperialism.’’
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W
ill
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ui
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r
The Opera House at Manaus. The discovery
of rubber in the mid-nineteenth century was one of
the most significant events in the history of Brazil.
Derived from the sap of a tree native to the Amazon
River basin, rubber became the source of great wealth
for Brazilian plantation owners until the rubber boom
declined after 1900. The most visible symbol of ‘‘king
rubber’’ is the Opera House at Manaus, the largest
city on the Amazon. Built in 1896 in an opulent style
that included the profligate use of Italian marble, it
has recently been renovated and stands as a beacon of
promise for one of Latin America’s fastest growing
regions.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 17
The Rise of the Socialist
Movement
One of the less desirable consequences of the Industrial
Revolution was the yawning disparity in the distribution
of wealth. If industrialization brought increasing affluence
to an emerging middle class, to millions of others it
brought grinding hardship in the form of low-paying jobs
in mines or factories characterized by long working hours
under squalid conditions. The underlying cause was clear:
because of the rapid population growth taking place in
most industrializing societies in Europe, factory owners
remained largely free to hire labor on their own terms,
based on market forces.
Beginning in the last decades of the eighteenth
century, radical groups, inspired by the egalitarian ideals
of the French Revolution, began to seek the means to
rectify the problem. Some found the answer in intel-
lectual schemes that envisaged a classless society based
on the elimination of private property. Others prepared
for an armed revolt to overthrow the ruling order and
create a new society controlled by the working masses.
Still others began to form trade unions to fight for im-
proved working conditions and reasonable wages. Only
one group sought to combine all of these factors into a
comprehensive program to destroy the governing forces
and create a new egalitarian society based on the concept
of ‘‘scientific socialism.’’ The founder of that movement
was Karl Marx, a German Jew who had abandoned an
academic career in philosophy to take up radical political
activities in Paris.
The Rise of Marxism
Marxism made its first appearance in 1847 with the
publication of a short treatise, The Communist Manifesto,
written by Karl Marx (1818–1883) and his close collab-
orator, Friedrich Engels (1820–1895). In the Manifesto,
the two authors predicted the outbreak of a massive
uprising that would overthrow the existing ruling class
and bring to power a new revolutionary regime based on
their ideas (see the box on p. 19).
Karl Marx, son of a Jewish lawyer in the city of Trier,
in western Germany, had been trained in philosophy and
became an admirer of the German philosopher Georg
W. F. Hegel, who viewed history as an epic human
struggle to achieve unity with the ‘‘World Spirit.’’ Progress
toward that objective took place via a process—called the
Dialectic—by means of which the existing social reality
would be negated by contrasting forces, a clash that would
ultimately lead to synthesis in a new and higher reality. A
series of such abrupt changes would eventually lead to
final realization in an ideal society represented by the
triumph of the World Spirit.
Marx appropriated Hegel’s idea of the Dialectic, but
replaced his reference to a transcendent force with the
concept of an intense struggle between the owners of the
means of production and distribution and the oppressed
majority who labored on their behalf. During the feudal
era, landless serfs rose up to overthrow their manor lords,
giving birth to capitalism. In turn, Marx predicted, the
proletariat (the urban working class) would eventually
revolt against subhuman conditions to bring down the
capitalist order and establish a new classless society to be
called communism. The achievement of communist so-
cieties throughout the world would represent the final
stage of the Dialectic.
When revolutions broke out all over Europe in the
eventful year of 1848, Marx and Engels eagerly but mistak-
enly predicted that the uprisings would spread throughout
Europe and lead to a new revolutionary regime led by
workers, dispossessed bourgeois, and communists. When
that did not occur, Marx belatedly concluded that urban
merchants and peasants were too conservative to support
the workers and would oppose revolution once their own
immediate economic demands were satisfied. As for the
worker movement itself, it was clearly still too weak to
seize power and could not expect to achieve its own ob-
jectives until the workers had become politically more
sophisticated and better organized. In effect, revolution
would not take place in western Europe until capitalism
had ‘‘ripened,’’ leading to a concentration of capital in the
hands of a wealthy minority and an ‘‘epidemic of over-
production’’ because of inadequate purchasing power by
the impoverished lower classes. Then a large and in-
creasingly alienated proletariat could drive the capitalists
from power and bring about a classless utopia.
For the remainder of his life, Marx acted out the logic
of these conclusions. From his base in London, he un-
dertook a massive study of the dynamics of the capitalist
system, a project that resulted in the publication of the
first volume of his most famous work, Das Kapital
(‘‘Capital’’), in 1869. In the meantime, he attempted to
prepare for the future revolution by organizing the scat-
tered radical parties throughout Europe into a cohesive
revolutionary movement, called the International Work-
ingmen’s Association (usually known today as the First
International), that would be ready to rouse the workers
to action when the opportunity came.
Unity was short-lived. Although all members of the
First International shared a common distaste for the
capitalist system, some preferred to reform it from within
(many of the labor groups from Great Britain), whereas
others were convinced that only violent insurrection would
suffice to destroy the existing ruling class (Karl Marx and
18 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
the anarchists around Russian revolutionary Mikhail
Bakunin). Even the radicals could not agree. Marx be-
lieved that revolution could not succeed without a core
of committed communists to organize and lead the
masses; Bakunin contended that the general insurrection
should be a spontaneous uprising from below. In 1871,
the First International disintegrated.
Capitalism in Transition
While Marx was grappling with the problems of pre-
paring for the coming revolution, European society was
undergoing significant changes. The advanced capitalist
states such as Great Britain, France, and the Low
Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands)
were gradually evolving into mature, politically stable
societies in which Marx’s dire predictions were not being
borne out. His forecast of periodic economic crises was
correct enough, but his warnings of concentration of
capital and the impoverishment of labor were somewhat
wide of the mark, as capitalist societies began to elimi-
nate or at least reduce some of the more flagrant in-
equities apparent in the early stages of capitalist
development. These reforms occurred because workers
and their representatives had begun to use the demo-
cratic political process to their own advantage, orga-
nizing labor unions and political parties to improve
working conditions and enhance the role of workers in
THE CLASSLESS SOCIETY
In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
predicted the creation of a classless society as the end product
of the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In
this selection, they discuss the steps by which that classless
society would be reached.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,
The Communist Manifesto
We have seen . . . , that the first step in the revolution by the working
class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class. . . . The
proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all
capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of produc-
tion in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as
the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as
rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by
means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the
conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, there-
fore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but
which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, neces-
sitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoid-
able as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of
production.
These measures will of course be different in different
countries.
Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries, the following will
be pretty generally applicable:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of
land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance. . . .
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in
the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by
the State. . . .
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies,
especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; grad-
ual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a
more equable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of
children’s factory labor in its present form. . . .
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have dis-
appeared, and all production has been concentrated in the whole na-
tion, the public power will lose its political character. Political power,
properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for
oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bour-
geoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself
as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class,
and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production,
then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the condi-
tions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally,
and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class
antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free devel-
opment of each is the condition for the free development of all.
Q How did Marx and Engels define the proletariat? The
bourgeoisie? Why did Marxists come to believe that this distinc-
tion was paramount for understanding history? For shaping the
future?
SOURCE: From Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 19
the political system. Many of these political parties were
led by Marxists, who were learning that in the absence of
a social revolution to bring the masses to power, the
capitalist democratic system could be reformed from
within to improve the working and living conditions of
its constituents. In 1889, after Marx’s death, several such
parties (often labeled ‘‘social democratic’’ parties)
formed the Second International, dominated by re-
formist elements committed to achieving socialism
within the bounds of the Western parliamentary system.
Marx had also underestimated the degree to which
nationalism would appeal to workers in most European
countries. Marx had viewed nation and culture as false idols
diverting the interests of the oppressed from their true
concern, the struggle against the ruling class. In his view, the
proletariat would throw off its chains and unite in the sa-
cred cause of ‘‘internationalist’’ world revolution. In reality,
workers joined peasants and urban merchants in defending
the cause of the nation against its foreign enemies. A gen-
eration later, French workers would die in the trenches
defending France from workers across the German border.
A historian of the late nineteenth century might have
been forgiven for predicting that Marxism, as a revolu-
tionary ideology, was dead. To the east, however, in the
vast plains and steppes of central Russia, it was about to
be reborn (see Chapter 4).
Toward the Modern
Consciousness: Intellectual
and Cultural Developments
The physical changes that were taking place in societies
exposed to the Industrial Revolution were accompanied
by an equally significant transformation in the arena of
culture. Before 1914, most Westerners continued to be-
lieve in the values and ideals that had been generated by
the impact of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlight-
enment. The ability of human beings to improve them-
selves and achieve a better society seemed to be well
demonstrated by a rising standard of living, urban im-
provements, and mass education. Between 1870 and
1914, however, a dramatic transformation in the realm of
ideas and culture challenged many of these assumptions.
A new view of the physical universe, alternative views of
human nature, and radically innovative forms of literary
and artistic expression shattered old beliefs and opened
the way to a modern consciousness. Although the real
impact of many of these ideas was not felt until after
World War I, they served to provoke a sense of confusion
and anxiety before 1914 that would become even more
pronounced after the war.
Developments in the Sciences:
The Emergence of a New Physics
A prime example of this development took place in the
realm of physics. Throughout much of the nineteenth
century, Westerners adhered to the mechanical concep-
tion of the universe postulated by the classical physics of
Isaac Newton. In this perspective, the universe was a giant
machine in which time, space, and matter were objective
realities that existed independently of the parties ob-
serving them. Matter was thought to be composed of
indivisible, solid material bodies called atoms.
But these views began to be questioned at the end of
the nineteenth century. Some scientists had discovered
that certain elements such as radium and polonium
spontaneously gave off rays or radiation that apparently
came from within the atom itself. Atoms were therefore
not hard material bodies but small worlds containing
such subatomic particles as electrons and protons that
behaved in a seemingly random and inexplicable fashion.
Inquiry into the disintegrative process within atoms
became a central theme of the new physics.
Building on this work, in 1900, a Berlin physicist,
Max Planck (1858–1947), rejected the belief that a heated
body radiates energy in a steady stream but maintained
instead that it did so discontinuously, in irregular packets
of energy that he called ‘‘quanta.’’ The quantum theory
raised fundamental questions about the subatomic realm
of the atom. By 1900, the old view of atoms as the basic
building blocks of the material world was being seriously
questioned, and Newtonian physics was in trouble.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955), a German-born patent
officer working in Switzerland, pushed these new theories
of thermodynamics into new terrain. In 1905, Einstein
published a paper setting forth his theory of relativity.
According to relativity theory, space and time are not
absolute but relative to the observer, and both are inter-
woven into what Einstein called a four-dimensional
space-time continuum. Neither space nor time has an
existence independent of human experience. Moreover,
matter and energy reflect the relativity of time and space.
Einstein concluded that matter was nothing but another
form of energy. His epochal formula E = mc2—each par-
ticle of matter is equivalent to its mass times the square of
the velocity of light—was the key theory explaining the
vast energies contained within the atom. It led to the
atomic age.
Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution
Equally dramatic changes took place in the biological
sciences, where the British scientist Charles Darwin
(1809–1882) stunned the world in 1859 with the
20 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
publication of his book The Origin of Species. Drawing
from evidence obtained during a scientific expedition to
the Galapagos Islands, Darwin concluded that plants and
animals were not the product of divine creation but
evolved over time from earlier and simpler forms of life
through a process of natural selection. In the universal
struggle for existence, only the fittest species survived.
Later, Darwin provoked even more controversy by ap-
plying his theory of evolution to human beings. Specu-
lating that modern humans had evolved over millions of
years from primates and were thus not the unique crea-
tion of God but ‘‘a co-descendant with other mammals of
a common progenitor,’’ Darwin’s theory represented a
direct affront to the biblical interpretation of the creation
of man as described in the Book of Genesis (see the
box above). Critics mocked his ideas as demeaning to
human dignity and made scathing references to his own
forebears.
Sigmund Freud and the Emergence
of Psychoanalysis
Although poets and mystics had revealed a world of un-
conscious and irrational behavior, many scientifically
oriented intellectuals under the impact of Enlightenment
thought continued to believe that human beings re-
sponded to conscious motives in a rational fashion. But at
the end of the nineteenth century, Viennese doctor Sig-
mund Freud (1856–1939) put forth a series of theories
that undermined optimism about the rational nature of
the human mind. Freud’s thought, like the new physics,
added to the uncertainties of the age. His major ideas
were published in 1900 in The Interpretation of Dreams,
which laid the basic foundation for what came to be
known as psychoanalysis.
According to Freud, human behavior is strongly de-
termined by the unconscious—former experiences and
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
Darwin published his theory of organic evolution in 1859,
followed twelve years later by The Descent of Man, in which he
argued that human beings, like other animals, evolved from
lower forms of life. The theory provoked a firestorm of criticism,
especially from the clergy. One critic described Darwin’s theory
as a ‘‘brutal philosophy—to wit, there is no God, and the ape
is our Adam.’’
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
The main conclusion here arrived at, and now held by many natu-
ralists, who are well competent to form a sound judgment, is that
man is descended from some less highly organized form. The
grounds upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken,
for the close similarity between man and the lower animals in
embryonic development, as well as in innumerable points of
structure and constitution, both of high and of the most trifling
importance,—the rudiments which he retains, and the abnormal
reversions to which he is occasionally liable,—are facts which cannot
be disputed. They have long been known, but until recently they
told us nothing with respect to the origin of man. Now when
viewed by the light of our knowledge of the whole organic world,
their meaning is unmistakable. The great principle of evolution
stands up clear and firm, when these groups of facts are considered
in connection with others, such as the mutual affinities of the mem-
bers of the same group, their geographical distribution in past and
present times, and their geological succession. It is incredible that all
these facts should speak falsely. He who is not content to look, like
a savage, at the phenomena of nature as disconnected, cannot any
longer believe that man is the work of a separate act of creation.
He will be forced to admit that the close resemblance of the embryo
of man to that, for instance, of a dog—the construction of his skull,
limbs and whole frame on the same plan with that of other mam-
mals, independently of the uses to which the parts may be put—the
occasional reappearance of various structures, for instance of several
muscles, which man does not normally possess . . . —and a crowd of
analogous facts—all point in the plainest manner to the conclusion
that man is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common
progenitor. . . .
Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen,
though not through his own exertions, to the very summit of the
organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having
been aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a still higher
destiny in the distant future. But we are not here concerned with
hopes or fears, only with the truth as far as our reason permits us
to discover it; and I have given the evidence to the best of my ability.
We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all
his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased,
with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the
humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has pene-
trated into the movements and constitution of the solar system—with
all these exalted power—Man still bears in his bodily frame the indeli-
ble stamp of his lowly origin.
Q What evidence does the author cite to defend his theory
of evolution? What is the essence of the theory?
SOURCE: From Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (New York: Appleton,
1876), pp. 606–607, 619.
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 21
inner drives of which people are largely oblivious. To
explore the contents of the unconscious, Freud relied not
only on hypnosis but also on dreams, which were dressed
in an elaborate code that needed to be deciphered if the
contents were to be properly understood.
Why do some experiences whose influence persists in
controlling an individual’s life remain unconscious?
According to Freud, repression is a process by which
unsettling experiences are blotted from conscious aware-
ness but still continue to influence behavior because they
have become part of the unconscious. To explain how
repression works, Freud elaborated an intricate theory of
the inner life of human beings.
Although Freud’s theory has had numerous critics,
his insistence that a human being’s inner life is a battle-
ground of contending forces undermined the prevailing
belief in the power of reason and opened a new era of
psychoanalysis, by which a psychotherapist seeks to assist
a patient in probing deep into memory to retrace the
chain of repression back to its childhood origins, thus
bringing about a resolution of the inner psychic conflict.
Belief in the primacy of rational thought over the emo-
tions would never be the same.
Literature and the Arts:
The Culture of Modernity
The revolutions in physics and psychology were paralleled
by similar changes in literature and the arts. Throughout
much of the late nineteenth century, literature was
dominated by Naturalism. Naturalists accepted the ma-
terial world as real and believed that literature should be
realistic. By addressing social problems, writers could
contribute to an objective understanding of the world.
The novels of the French writer Émile Zola (1840–
1902) provide a good example of Naturalism. Against a
backdrop of the urban slums and coalfields of northern
France, Zola showed how alcoholism and different envi-
ronments affected people’s lives. The materialistic science
of his age had an important influence on Zola. He had
read Darwin’s Origin of Species and had been impressed
by its emphasis on the struggle for survival and the im-
portance of environment and heredity.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, however,
the belief that the task of literature was to represent ‘‘reality’’
had lost much of its meaning. By that time, the new
psychology and the new physics had made it evident that
many people were not sure what constituted reality
anyway. The same was true in the realm of art, where in
the late nineteenth century, painters were beginning to
respond to ongoing investigations into the nature of
optics and human perception by experimenting with
radical new techniques to represent the multiplicity of
reality. The changes that such cultural innovators pro-
duced have since been called Modernism.
The first to embark on the challenge were the Im-
pressionists. Originating in France in the 1870s, they re-
jected indoor painting and preferred to go out to the
countryside to paint nature directly. As Camille Pissarro
(1830–1903), one of the movement’s founders, expressed
it: ‘‘Don’t proceed according to rules and principles, but
paint what you observe and feel. Paint generously and
unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impres-
sion.’’ The most influential of the Impressionists was
Claude Monet (1840–1926), who painted several series of
canvases on the same object—such as haystacks, Rouen
Cathedral, and water lilies in the garden of his house on
the Seine River—in the hope of breaking down the es-
sential lines, planes, colors, and shadows of what the eye
observed. His paintings that deal with the interplay of
light and reflection on a water surface are considered to
be among the wonders of modern painting.
The growth of photography gave artists another
reason to reject visual realism. Invented in the 1830s,
photography became popular and widespread after
George Eastman created the first Kodak camera for the
mass market in 1888. What was the point of an artist’s
doing what the camera did better? Unlike the camera,
which could only mirror reality, artists could create re-
ality. As in literature, so also in modern art, individual
consciousness became the source of meaning. Between
the beginning of the new century and the outbreak of
World War I in 1914, this search for individual expres-
sion produced a great variety of painting schools—
including Expressionism and Cubism—that would have a
significant impact on the world of art for decades
to come.
In Expressionism, the artist employed an exagger-
ated use of colors and distorted shapes to achieve
emotional expression. Painters such as the Dutchman
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) and the Norwegian
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) were interested not in
capturing the optical play of light on a landscape but
in projecting their inner selves onto the hostile universe
around them. Who cannot be affected by the intensity
of van Gogh’s dazzling sunflowers or by the ominous
swirling stars above a church steeple in his Starry Night
(1890)?
Another important artist obsessed with finding a
new way to portray reality was the French painter Paul
Cézanne (1839–1906). Scorning the photographic dupli-
cation of a landscape, he sought to isolate the pulsating
structure beneath the surface. During the last years of
his life, he produced several paintings of Mont Saint
Victoire, located near Aix-en-Provence in the south of
France. Although each canvas differed in perspective,
22 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
composition, and color, they all reflect the same tech-
nique of reducing the landscape to virtual geometric slabs
of color to represent the interconnection of trees, earth,
tiled roofs, mountain, and sky.
Following Cézanne was the Spaniard Pablo Picasso
(1881–1973), one of the giants of twentieth-century
painting. Settling in Paris in 1904, he and the French
artist Georges Braque (1882–1963) collaborated in
founding Cubism, the first truly radical approach in rep-
resenting visual reality. To the Cubist, any perception of an
object was a composite of simultaneous and different
perspectives.
Modernism in the arts also revolutionized architec-
ture and architectural practices. A new principle known as
functionalism motivated this revolution by maintaining
that buildings, like the products of machines, should be
‘‘functional’’ or useful, fulfilling the purpose for which
they were constructed. Art and engineering were to be
unified, and all unnecessary ornamentation was to be
stripped away.
The United States was a leader in these pioneering
architectural designs. Unprecedented urban growth and
the absence of restrictive architectural traditions allowed
for new building methods, especially in the relatively new
city of Chicago. The Chicago school of the 1890s, led by
Louis H. Sullivan (1856–1924), used reinforced concrete,
steel frames, electric elevators, and sheet glass to build
skyscrapers virtually free of external ornamentation. One
of Sullivan’s most successful pupils was Frank Lloyd
Wright (1867–1959), who became known for innovative
FILM & HISTORY
LUST FOR LIFE (1956)
The 1956 film Lust for Life, based on author Irving
Stone’s novel of the same name, brilliantly portrays
the life of the nineteenth-century Dutch painter
Vincent van Gogh. Directed by Vincente Minnelli,
the film depicts the life and tortured career of one
of modern Europe’s greatest painters from his birth
in humble surroundings in 1853 to his tragic death
in France thirty-seven years later.
Vincent van Gogh was born the son of a Dutch
Reform minister in a small town in the southern
Netherlands. Lonely as a youth, he took up painting
as a means of releasing feelings that he found diffi-
cult to express in real life. After a failed career as
an art dealer in London, he turned to religion and
briefly served as a pastor in a poor coal mining com-
munity in Belgium. The lure of painting remained
strong, however, and in 1880 he returned to his
childhood home, where the canvases he produced
were imbued with the soft earth tones of the Dutch
countryside.
It was in France, however, where he discovered
the vibrant colors and highly personalized landscapes
that would characterize the painting style of his last years. Arriving
in Paris in 1886, he moved in with his brother Theo, himself an art
dealer of some renown, and began to mingle with fellow artists who
were transforming the art world during the heady days of Impres-
sionism. Eventually, he moved to the south of France, where the
sun-drenched landscapes of Provence provided him with the inspira-
tion for his greatest paintings. By then, unfortunately, his mental
problems had become acute. After spending several months in an
asylum, he died, apparently by his own hand, in 1890. Although
van Gogh founded no school and left no disciples, his paintings
remain highly popular today, well over a century after his death.
The consummate American actor Kirk Douglas played the title
role in the film with historical accuracy and dramatic intensity.
Van Gogh’s friend and collaborator Paul Gauguin—a respected
painter in his own right—was portrayed by Anthony Quinn, who
deservedly won an Oscar for his performance. Lust for Life provides
the viewer with a vivid sense of the European art world at a key
moment in its history.
Vincent van Gogh (Kirk Douglas) and Paul Gauguin (Anthony Quinn) in Provence.
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CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 23
designs in domestic architecture. Wright’s private houses,
built chiefly for wealthy patrons, featured geometric struc-
tures with long lines, overhanging roofs, and severe planes of
brick and stone. The interiors were open spaces and in-
cluded cathedral ceilings and built-in furniture and lighting
features. Wright pioneered the modern American house.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, develop-
ments in music paralleled those in painting. Expression-
ism in music was a Russian creation, the product of
composer Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) and the Ballet
Russe, the dance company of Sergei Diaghilev (1872–
1929). Together they revolutionized the world of music
with Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring. When it was
performed in Paris in 1913, the savage and primitive
sounds and beats of the music and dance caused a near
riot among an audience outraged at its audacity.
By the end of the nineteenth century, then, tradi-
tional forms of literary, artistic, and musical expression
were in a state of rapid retreat. Freed from conventional
tastes and responding to the intellectual and social rev-
olution that was getting under way throughout the
Western world, painters, writers, composers, and archi-
tects launched a variety of radical new ideas that would
revolutionize Western culture in coming decades.
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. In
this 1907 painting, the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso presents
reality from several perspectives simultaneously, using
geometric shapes to replace traditional forms, forcing the
viewer to re-create reality in his or her own mind. The
‘‘demoiselles,’’ referring to the prostitutes of a red-light
district in Barcelona, look directly at the viewer with
indifferent, even hostile
disdain. Picasso greatly
admired African masks (see
inset), with their power to
mediate between ourselves
and the spirit world. In this
painting, he borrows the
image of a mask as a
means of distorting reality
and expressing the
underlying role of violence
in human existence.
CONCLUSION
DURING THE COURSE OF THE NINETEENTH century, Western society
underwent a number of dramatic changes. Countries that were
predominantly agricultural in 1750 had by 1900 been transformed
into essentially industrial and urban societies. The amount of
material goods available to consumers had increased manyfold,
and machines were rapidly replacing labor-intensive methods of
production and distribution. The social changes were equally
striking. Human beings were becoming more mobile and enjoyed
more creature comforts than at any time since the Roman Empire.
A mass society, based on the principles of universal education,
limited government, and an expanding franchise, was in the process
of creation.
The Industrial Revolution had thus vastly expanded the
horizons and the potential of the human race. It had also broken
down many walls of aristocratic privilege and opened the door
to a new era based on merit. Yet the costs had been high.
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24 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
CHAPTER NOTES
1. For an argument that coal and the benefits of overseas empire
were key factors in the British head start to industrialization, see
Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the
Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton, 2000). The role
of coal in stimulating technological change is chronicled in Bar-
bara Freese, Coal: A Human History (New York, Perseus, 2003).
2. See Peter Gay, Pleasure Wars: The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria
to Freud (New York, 1998).
TIMELINE
1800 1825 1850 1875 1900
Europe Battle of Waterloo
(1815)
Russia
The Americas
Wars of independence
in Latin America
(1804–1824)
American
Civil War
(1861–1865)
Rule of Porfirio Díaz in Mexico
(1876–1911)
Emancipation of
Russian serfs
(1861)
Assassination of
Tsar Alexander II
(1881)
Creation of Third
Republicof France
(1870)
Revolutions
of 1848
Unification of
Germany and Italy
(1860–1871)
Industrial Revolution begins
in western Europe
Impressionism
Charles Darwin‘s
Origin of Species
(1859)
Karl Marx,
The Communist
Manifesto
(1847)
Sigmund Freud‘s
Interpretation of Dreams
(1900)
The distribution of wealth was as unequal as ever, and working and
living conditions for millions of Europeans had deteriorated. The
psychological impact of such rapid changes had also produced
feelings of anger, frustration, and alienation on the part of many
who lived through them. With the old certainties of religion and
science now increasingly under challenge, many faced the future
with doubt or foreboding.
Meanwhile, along the borders of Europe—in Russia, in the
Balkans, and in the vast Ottoman Empire—the Industrial Revolu-
tion had not yet made an impact or was just getting under way. Old
autocracies found themselves under increasing pressure from ethnic
minorities and other discontented subjects but continued to resist
pressure for reform. As the world prepared to enter a new century,
the stage was set for dramatic change.
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 1 THE RISE OF INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN THE WEST 25
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
IN 1877, THE YOUNG BRITISH EMPIRE builder Cecil
Rhodes drew up his last will and testament. He bequeathed his for-
tune, achieved as a diamond magnate in South Africa, to two of his
close friends and acquaintances. He also instructed them to use the
inheritance to form a secret society with the aim of bringing about
‘‘the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting
of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom . . . especially
the occupation of the whole continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the
valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia [Crete],
the whole of South America . . . the ultimate recovery of the United
States as an integral part of the British Empire . . . [and] finally the
foundation of so great a power to hereafter render wars impossible
and promote the best interests of humanity.’’1 A fervent supporter of
the British imperial vision, Rhodes actively promoted the extension
of British rule throughout the continent of Africa until his untimely
death in 1902.
26
CHAPTER 2
THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA
IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE
The Spread of Colonial Rule
Preposterous as his ideas seem to us today, they serve as
a graphic reminder of the hubris that characterized
the worldview of Rhodes and many of his European
contemporaries during the Age of Imperialism, as well as
the complex union of moral concern and vaulting ambi-
tion that motivated their actions on the world stage.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Western colonialism spread throughout much of the non-
Western world. Spurred by the demands of the Industrial
Revolution, a few powerful states—notably Great Britain,
France, Germany, Russia, and the United States—competed
avariciously for consumer markets and raw materials for
their expanding economies. By the end of the nineteenth
century, virtually all of the traditional societies in Asia and
Africa were under direct or indirect colonial rule.
The Myth of European Superiority
To many Western observers at the time, the ease of the
European conquest provided a clear affirmation of the
innate superiority of Western civilization to its counter-
parts elsewhere in the world. Influenced by the popular
theory of social Darwinism, which applied Charles Dar-
win’s theory of natural selection to the evolution of hu-
man societies (see Chapter 1 and ‘‘The Philosophy of
Colonialism’’ later in this chapter), historians in Europe
and the United States began to view world history es-
sentially as the story of the inexorable rise of the West,
from the glories of ancient Greece to the emergence of
modern Europe after the Enlightenment and the Indus-
trial Revolution. The extension of Western influence to
Africa and Asia, a process that began with the arrival of
European fleets in the Indian Ocean in the early sixteenth
century, was thus viewed as a reflection of Western
cultural superiority and represented a necessary step in
bringing civilization to the peoples of that area.
The truth, however, was quite different, for Western
global hegemony was a relatively recent phenomenon.
Prior to the age of Christopher Columbus, Europe was
only an isolated appendage of a much larger world system
of states stretching across the Eurasian landmass from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. The center of gravity in this
trade network was not in Europe or even in the Medi-
terranean Sea but much farther to the east, in the Persian
Gulf and in Central Asia. The most sophisticated and
technologically advanced region in the world was not
Europe but China, whose proud history could be traced
back several thousand years to the rise of the first Chinese
state in the Yellow River valley.
As for the transcontinental trade network that linked
Europe with the nations of the Middle East, South Asia,
and the Pacific basin, it had not been created by Portu-
guese and Spanish navigators but had already developed
under the Arab empire, which had its capital in Baghdad.
Later the Mongols took control of the land trade routes
during their conquest of much of the Eurasian super-
continent in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
During the long centuries of Arabic and Mongolian he-
gemony, the caravan routes and sea lanes stretching across
Eurasia and the Indian Ocean between China, Africa, and
Europe carried not only commercial goods but also ideas
and inventions such as the compass, printing, Arabic
numerals, and gunpowder. Inventions such as these,
many of them originating in China or India, would later
play a major role in the emergence of Europe as a major
player on the world’s stage. Only in the sixteenth century,
with the onset of the Age of Exploration, did Europe
become important in the process. For the next three
centuries, the ships of several European nations crossed
the seas in quest of the spices, silks, precious metals, and
porcelains of the Orient.
For the first time since the decline of the Roman
Empire, Europe now became a major player in the global
trade network. In a few cases, Europeans engaged in mil-
itary conquest as a means of seeking their objective. They
were aided by technological advances in shipbuilding and
weaponry that gave them a distinct advantage over their
rivals. During the eighteenth century, the islands of the
Indonesian archipelago were gradually brought under
Dutch colonial rule, and the British inexorably extended
their political hegemony over the South Asian subconti-
nent. Spain, Portugal, and later other nations of western
Europe divided up the Americas into separate colonial
territories. For the most part, however, European nations
were satisfied to trade with their Asian and African
counterparts from coastal enclaves that they had estab-
lished along the trade routes that threaded across the seas
from the ports along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean
Sea to their far-off destinations.
The Advent of Western Imperialism
In the nineteenth century, a new phase of Western ex-
pansion into Asia and Africa began. Whereas European
aims in the East before 1800 could be summed up in the
Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s famous phrase
‘‘Christians and spices,’’ in the early nineteenth century, a
new relationship took shape: European nations began to
view Asian and African societies as a source of industrial
raw materials and a market for Western manufactured
goods. No longer were Western gold and silver exchanged
for cloves, pepper, tea, silk, and porcelain. Now the pro-
digious output of European factories was sent to Africa
and Asia in return for oil, tin, rubber, and the other re-
sources needed to fuel the Western industrial machine.
The Impact of the Industrial Revolution The reason
for this change, of course, was the Industrial Revolution.
Now industrializing countries in the West needed vital
raw materials that were not available at home as well as a
reliable market for the goods produced in their factories.
The latter factor became increasingly crucial as capitalist
societies began to discover that their home markets could
not always absorb domestic output. When consumer
demand lagged, economic depression threatened.
As Western economic expansion into Asia and Africa
gathered strength during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, it became fashionable to call the process impe-
rialism. Although the term imperialism has many mean-
ings and can trace its linguistic heritage back to the glories
of ancient Rome, in this instance it referred to the efforts
of capitalist states in the West to seize markets, cheap raw
materials, and lucrative areas for capital investment be-
yond traditional Western countries. In this interpretation,
the primary motives behind the Western expansion were
economic. The best-known promoter of this view was the
British political economist John A. Hobson, who in 1902
published a major analysis, Imperialism: A Study. In this
influential book, Hobson maintained that modern impe-
rialism was a direct consequence of the modern industrial
economy. In his view, the industrialized states of the West
often produced more goods than could be absorbed by the
domestic market and thus had to export their manu-
factures to make a profit.
The issue was not simply an economic one, however,
since economic concerns were inevitably tinged with
political ones and with questions of national grandeur
and moral purpose as well. In nineteenth-century Europe,
economic wealth, national status, and political power
went hand in hand with the possession of a colonial
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 27
empire, at least in the minds of observers at the time. To
global strategists of the day, colonies brought tangible
benefits in the world of power politics as well as economic
profits, and many nations became involved in the pursuit
of colonies as much to gain advantage over their rivals as
to acquire territory for its own sake.
The relationship between colonialism and national
survival was expressed directly in a speech by the French
politician Jules Ferry in 1885. A policy of ‘‘containment or
abstinence,’’ he warned, would set France on ‘‘the broad
road to decadence’’ and initiate its decline into a ‘‘third-
or fourth-rate power.’’ British imperialists agreed. To Cecil
Rhodes, the extraction of material wealth from the col-
onies was only a secondary matter. ‘‘My ruling purpose,’’
he remarked, ‘‘is the extension of the British Empire.’’2
That British Empire, on which (as the saying went) ‘‘the
sun never set,’’ was the envy of its rivals and was viewed as
the primary source of British global dominance during
the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Tactics of Conquest With the change in European
motives for colonization came a corresponding shift in
tactics. Earlier, when their economic interests were more
limited, European states had generally been satisfied to
deal with existing independent states rather than attempt
to establish direct control over vast territories. There had
been exceptions where state power at the local level was
on the point of collapse (as in India),
where European economic interests were
especially intense (as in Latin America
and the East Indies), or where there was
no centralized authority (as in North
America and the Philippines). But for the
most part, the Western presence in Asia
and Africa had been limited to controlling
the regional trade network and establish-
ing a few footholds where the foreigners
could carry on trade and missionary
activity.
After 1800, the demands of industri-
alization in Europe created a new set of
dynamics. Maintaining access to industrial
raw materials, such as oil and rubber, and
setting up reliable markets for European
manufactured products required more
extensive control over colonial territories.
As competition for colonies increased, the
colonial powers sought to solidify their
hold over their territories to protect them
from attack by their rivals. During the last
two decades of the nineteenth century, the
quest for colonies became a scramble as all
the major European states, now joined by
the United States and Japan, engaged in a global land grab.
In many cases, economic interests were secondary to se-
curity concerns or national prestige. In Africa, for exam-
ple, the British engaged in a struggle with their rivals to
protect their interests in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea.
In Southeast Asia, the United States seized the Philippines
from Spain at least partly to keep them out of the hands of
the Japanese, and the French took over Indochina for fear
that it would otherwise be occupied by Germany, Japan,
or the United States.
By 1900, virtually all the societies of Africa and Asia
were either under full colonial rule or, as in the case of
China and the Ottoman Empire, on the point of virtual
collapse. Only a handful of states, such as Japan in East
Asia, Thailand in Southeast Asia, Afghanistan and Iran in
the Middle East, and mountainous Ethiopia in East Af-
rica, managed to escape internal disintegration or polit-
ical subjection to colonial rule. As the twentieth century
began, European hegemony over the ancient civilizations
of Asia and Africa seemed complete.
The Colonial System
Once they had control of most of the world, what did the
colonial powers do with it? As we have seen, their primary
objective was to exploit the natural resources of the
Gateway to India. Built in the Roman imperial style by the British to commemorate the
visit to India of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911, the Gateway of India was erected at the
water’s edge in the harbor of Bombay, India’s greatest port city. For thousands of British citizens
arriving in India, the Gateway of India was the first view of their new home and a symbol of the
power and majesty of the British raj. Only a few dozen yards away was the luxurious Taj Mahal
Hotel. Constructed in the popular Anglo-Indian style, it was built to house European visitors
upon their arrival in India.
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28 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
subject areas and to open up markets for manufactured
goods and capital investment from the mother country.
In some cases, that goal could be realized in cooperation
with local political elites, whose loyalty could be earned
(or purchased) by economic rewards or by confirming
them in their positions of authority and status in a new
colonial setting. Sometimes, however, this policy, known
as ‘‘indirect rule,’’ was not feasible because local leaders
refused to cooperate with their colonial masters or even
actively resisted the foreign conquest. In such cases, the
local elites were removed from power and replaced with a
new set of officials recruited from the mother country.
The distinction between direct and indirect rule was
not always clearly drawn, and many colonial powers
vacillated between the two approaches, sometimes in the
same colonial territory. The decision often had fateful
consequences for the peoples involved. Where colonial
powers encountered resistance and were forced to over-
throw local political elites, they often adopted policies
designed to eradicate the source of resistance and destroy
the traditional culture. Such policies often had corrosive
effects on the indigenous societies and provoked resent-
ment that not only marked the colonial relationship but
even affected relations after the restoration of national
independence. The bitter struggles after World War II in
Algeria, the Dutch East Indies, and Vietnam can be as-
cribed in part to that phenomenon.
The Philosophy of Colonialism
To justify their conquests, the colonial powers appealed,
in part, to the time-honored maxim of ‘‘might makes
right.’’ In a manner reminiscent of the Western attitude
toward the oil reserves in the Persian Gulf today, the
European powers viewed industrial resources as vital to
national survival and security and felt that no moral
justification was needed for any action to protect access to
them. By the end of the nineteenth century, that attitude
received pseudoscientific validity from the concept of
social Darwinism, which maintained that only societies
that moved aggressively to adapt to changing circum-
stances would survive and prosper in a world governed by
the Darwinist law of ‘‘survival of the fittest.’’
The White Man’s Burden Some people, however, were
uncomfortable with such a brutal view of the law of na-
ture and sought a moral justification that appeared to
benefit the victim. Here again, social Darwinism pointed
the way: since human societies, like living organisms,
must adapt to survive, the advanced nations of the West
were obliged to assist the backward peoples of Asia and
Africa so that they, too, could adjust to the challenges of
the modern world. Few expressed this view as graphically
as the English poet Rudyard Kipling, who called on the
Anglo-Saxon peoples (in particular, the United States) to
take up the ‘‘white man’s burden’’ in Asia (see the box on
p. 30).
Buttressed by such comforting theories, humane souls
in Western countries could ignore the brutal aspects of the
colonial process and persuade themselves that in the long
run, the results would be beneficial to both sides. Some,
like their antecedents in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, saw the issue primarily in religious terms.
During the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries by
the thousands went to Asia and Africa to bring the gospel
to the ‘‘heathen masses.’’ To others, the objective was the
more secular one of bringing the benefits of Western
democracy and capitalism to the tradition-ridden societies
of the Orient. Either way, sensitive Western minds could
console themselves with the belief that their governments
were bringing civilization to the primitive peoples of
the world. If commercial profit and national prestige
happened to be by-products of that effort, so much the
better. Few were as effective at making the case as the
silver-tongued French colonial official Albert Sarraut.
Conceding that colonialism was originally an ‘‘act of force’’
taken for material profit, he declared that the end result
would be a ‘‘better life on this planet’’ for conqueror and
conquered alike.
But what about the possibility that historically and
culturally, the societies of Asia and Africa were funda-
mentally different from those of the West and could not,
or would not, be persuaded to transform themselves
along Western lines? After all, even Kipling had remarked
that ‘‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain
shall meet.’’ Was the human condition universal, in which
case the Asian and African peoples could be transformed,
in the quaint American phrase for the subject Filipinos,
into ‘‘little brown Americans’’? Or were human beings so
shaped by their history and geographic environment that
their civilizations would inevitably remain distinctive
from those of the West? If so, a policy of cultural trans-
formation could not be expected to succeed.
Assimilation and Association In fact, colonial theory
never decided this issue one way or the other. The French,
who were most inclined to philosophize about the
problem, adopted the terms assimilation (which implied
an effort to transform colonial societies in the Western
image) and association (collaborating with local elites
while leaving local traditions alone) to describe the two
alternatives and then proceeded to vacillate between them.
French policy in Indochina, for example, began as one of
association but switched to assimilation under pressure
from liberal elements who felt that colonial powers owed
a debt to their subject peoples. But assimilation aroused
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 29
resentment among the local population, many of whom
opposed the destruction of their native traditions.
Most colonial powers were not as inclined to debate
the theory of colonialism as the French were. The United
States, in formulating a colonial policy for the Philip-
pines, adopted a strategy of assimilation in theory but was
not quick to put it into practice. The British refused to
entertain the possibility of assimilation and generally
treated their subject peoples as culturally and racially
distinctive (as Queen Victoria declared in 1858, her
government disclaimed ‘‘the right and desire to impose
Our conditions on Our subjects’’). Although some ob-
servers have ascribed this attitude to a sense of racial
superiority, not all agree. In his recent book Ornamen-
talism: How the British Saw Their Empire, historian David
Cannadine argues that the British simply attempted to
WHITE MAN’S BURDEN, BLACK MAN’S SORROW
One of the justifications for modern imperialism was the
notion that the allegedly ‘‘more advanced’’ white peoples had
the moral responsibility to raise ignorant native peoples to a
higher level of civilization. Few captured this notion better than
the British poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) in his famous
poem The White Man’s Burden. His appeal, directed to the
United States, became one of the most famous sets of verses
in the English-speaking world.
That sense of moral responsibility, however, was often mis-
placed or, even worse, laced with hypocrisy. All too often, the
consequences of imperial rule were detrimental to those living
under colonial authority. Few observers described the destruc-
tive effects of Western imperialism on the African people as
well as Edmund Morel, a British journalist whose book The
Black Man’s Burden, as well as a number of articles on the
subject written during the first decade of the twentieth century,
pointed out some of the more harmful aspects of colonialism
in the Belgian Congo.
Rudyard Kipling, The White Man’s Burden
Take up the White Man’s burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man’s burden—
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another’s profit,
And work another’s gain.
Take up the White Man’s burden—
The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
Edmund Morel, The Black Man’s Burden
It is [the Africans] who carry the ‘‘Black man’s burden.’’ They have not
withered away before the white man’s occupation. Indeed . . .Africa
has ultimately absorbed within itself every Caucasian and, for that
matter, every Semitic invader, too. In hewing out for himself a fixed
abode in Africa, the white man has massacred the African in heaps.
The African has survived, and it is well for the white settlers that
he has. . . .
What the partial occupation of his soil by the white man has
failed to do; what the mapping out of European political ‘‘spheres of
influence’’ has failed to do; what the Maxim and the rifle, the slave
gang, labour in the bowels of the earth and the lash, have failed to
do; what imported measles, smallpox and syphilis have failed to do;
whatever the overseas slave trade failed to do; the power of modern
capitalistic exploitation, assisted by modern engines of destruction,
may yet succeed in accomplishing.
For from the evils of the latter, scientifically applied and
enforced, there is no escape for the African. Its destructive effects
are not spasmodic; they are permanent. In its permanence resides
its fatal consequences. It kills not the body merely, but the soul. It
breaks the spirit. It attacks the African at every turn, from every
point of vantage. It wrecks his polity, uproots him from the land,
invades his family life, destroys his natural pursuits and occupations,
claims his whole time, enslaves him in his own home.
Q According to Kipling, why should Western nations take up
the ‘‘white man’s burden,’’ as indicated in this poem? What
was the ‘‘black man’s burden,’’ in the eyes of Edmund Morel?
SOURCES: From Rudyard Kipling, ‘‘The White Man’s Burden,’’ McClure’s
Magazine 12 (Feb. 1899). Edmund Morel, The Black Man’s Burden
(New York: Metro Books, 1972).
30 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
replicate their own hierarchical system, based on the in-
stitutions of monarchy and aristocracy, and apply it to the
peoples of the empire.
India Under the British Raj
The first of the major Asian civilizations to fall victim to
European predatory activities was India. An organized
society (commonly known today as the Harappan civili-
zation) had emerged in the Indus River valley in the
fourth and third millennia B.C.E. After the influx of Aryan
peoples across the Hindu Kush into the Indian subcon-
tinent around 1500 B.C.E., a new civilization based on
sedentary agriculture and a regional trade network
gradually emerged, with its central focus in the Ganges
River basin in north central India. The unity of the
subcontinent was first established by the empire of the
Mauryas in the third century B.C.E. Although the Mauryan
state eventually collapsed, it had laid the foundation for
the creation of a technologically advanced and prosperous
civilization, and its concept of political unity was later
reasserted by the Guptas, who ruled the region for nearly
two hundred years until they too were overthrown in
about 500 C.E. Under the Guptas, Hinduism, a religious
faith brought to the subcontinent by the Aryan people,
evolved into the dominant religion of the Indian people.
Beginning in the eleventh century, much of northern
India fell under the rule of Turkic-speaking people who
penetrated into the subcontinent from the northwest and
introduced the Islamic religion and civilization. Indian
society, however, was not entirely receptive to the new
faith. Where Islam was fiercely monotheistic, the Indian
cosmos was peopled with a multiplicity of deities, each
representing different aspects of an all-knowing world
spirit known as Brahma. While Islam was egalitarian, In-
dian society since early times had been divided into several
classes (known as varna, or ‘‘color’’), each historically
identified with a particular economic or social function—
priests, warriors, merchants, and farmers. Although such
functions had blurred over time, the system also possessed
a religious component that determined not only one’s
status in society but also one’s hope for heavenly salvation.
At the bottom of the social and religious scale were the
‘‘untouchables,’’ individuals who were assigned to carry
out the myriad ‘‘unclean’’ tasks in Indian society.
The Indian people did not belong to one of the
classes as individuals, but as part of a larger kinship group,
a system of extended families known in English as ‘‘castes.’’
Each caste was identified with a particular varna, creating
a highly stratified society in which social movement along
the scale was highly unusual; individuals thus lived their
entire lives within the boundaries of caste distinctions.
As Muslim officials scoured Indian society for potential
converts, it seems likely that conversions to Islam came
primarily from lower-ranked castes or from communities
outside the caste system, from those who saw the new
religion as an opportunity to better their situation in
society.
At the end of the fifteenth century, a powerful new
force penetrated the Indian subcontinent from the
mountains to the north. The Mughals, as they were
known, were a Turkic-speaking people whose founding
ruler Babur (1483–1530) traced his ancestral heritage back
to the great Mongol chieftain Genghis Khan. Although
foreigners and Muslims like many of their immediate
predecessors, the Mughals nevertheless brought India to a
level of political power and cultural achievement that in-
spired admiration and envy throughout the entire region.
The Mughal Empire reached the peak of its greatness
under the famed Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) and
maintained its vitality under a series of strong rulers for
another century. Then the dynasty began to weaken as
Hindu forces in southern India sought to challenge the
authority of the Mughal court in Delhi. This process of
fragmentation was probably hastened by the growing
presence of European traders, who began to establish
enclaves along the fringes of the subcontinent. Eventually,
the British and the French began to seize control of the
regional trade routes and to meddle in the internal politics
of the subcontinent. By the end of the eighteenth century,
nothing remained of the empire but a shell. Into the
vacuum left by its final decay stepped the British, who
used a combination of firepower and guile to consolidate
their power over the subcontinent, expanding from their
base areas along the coast into the interior. Some terri-
tories were taken over directly by the privately run East
India Company, which at that time was given authority to
administer Asian territories under British occupation,
while others were ruled indirectly through their local
maharajas (see Map. 2.1 on p. 32). British rule extended
northward as far as present-day Afghanistan, where British
fears of Russian expansionism led to a lengthy imperialist
rivalry that was popularly labeled ‘‘the Great Game.’’
British governance brought order and stability to a
society that had recently been wracked by civil war, as
various regions of India, notably in the south, had begun
to break away from central rule. Overall, however, the
Mughal era had been a time of relative peace and pros-
perity for India. Although industrial development was
still in its infancy, commerce and manufacturing flour-
ished. Foreign trade, in particular, thrived as Indian
goods, notably textiles, tropical food products, spices, and
precious stones, were exported in exchange for gold and
silver. Much of the foreign commerce was handled by
Arab traders, since many Indians, like their Mughal
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 31
rulers, did not care for travel by sea. Internal trade,
however, was dominated by large merchant castes, who
were also active in banking and handicrafts. Although
Indian peasants were required to pay heavy taxes, the
system was applied fairly, and when drought struck, taxes
were often reduced or even suspended altogether.
The Nature of British Rule
British rule in India led to a relatively honest and efficient
government that in many respects operated to the benefit of
the average Indian. For example, heightened attention was
given to education. Through the
efforts of the British administrator
and historian Lord Macaulay, a new
school system was established to
train the children of Indian elites,
and the British civil service exami-
nation was introduced (see the box
on p. 33).
British rule also brought an
end to some of the more inhu-
mane aspects of Indian tradition.
The practice of sati (cremation of
a widow on her husband’s funeral
pyre) was outlawed, and widows
were legally permitted to remarry.
The British also attempted to put
an end to the brigandage (known
as thuggee, which gave rise to the
English word thug) that had
plagued travelers in India since
time immemorial. Railroads, the
telegraph, and the postal service
were introduced to India shortly
after they appeared in Great Brit-
ain. A new penal code based on
the British model was adopted, and
health and sanitation conditions
were improved.
Agricultural Reforms But the
Indian people paid dearly for the
peace and stability brought by
the British raj (from the Indian
raja, or prince). Perhaps the most
flagrant cost was economic. In
rural areas, the British adopted the
existing zamindar system, accord-
ing to which local landlords were
authorized to collect taxes from
peasants and turn the taxes over to
the government. The British mis-
takenly anticipated that by continuing the system, they
would not only facilitate the collection of agricultural
taxes but also create a landed gentry that could, as in
Britain itself, become the conservative foundation of im-
perial rule. But the local gentry took advantage of their
authority to increase taxes and force the less fortunate
peasants to become tenants or lose their land entirely.
When rural unrest threatened, the government passed
legislation protecting farmers against eviction and unrea-
sonable rent increases, but this measure had little
effect outside the southern provinces, where it was origi-
nally enacted.
Arabian Sea
Bay of Bengal
In
du
s R
.
Ganges R.
Tista
R.
RAJPUTANA
UNITED
PROVINCES
BIHAR
AND
ORISSA
BENGAL
ASSAM
TIBET
CENTRAL
PROVINCES
BURMA
HYDERABAD
BOMBAY
MYSORE
CEYLON
(CROWN
COLONY)
CHINA
AFGHANISTAN
Karachi
Delhi
CawnporeLucknow
Varanasi
(Benares)
Patna
Calcutta
Bombay
Goa
Madras
Pondicherry
Cochin
PUNJAB
KASHMIR
AND
JAMMU
AmritsarLahore
SIND
Agra
0 250 500 Miles
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
Territory under direct British rule
Territories permanently administered
by government of India (mostly tribal)
States and territories under Indian
administration
Portuguese enclave
French enclave
Hindu-majority provinces
Muslim-majority provinces
Area of large Sikh population
MAP 2.1 India Under British Rule, 1805–1931. This map shows the different forms
of rule that the British applied in India under their control.
Q Where were the major cities of the subcontinent located, and under whose rule did
they fall?
32 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Manufacturing British colonialism was also remiss in
bringing modern science and technology to India. Some
limited forms of industrialization took place, notably in
the manufacturing of textiles and rope. The first textile
mill opened in 1856; seventy years later, there were eighty
mills in the city of Bombay alone. Nevertheless, the lack of
local capital and the advantages given to British imports
prevented the emergence of other vital new commercial
and manufacturing operations, and the introduction of
British textiles put thousands of Bengali women out of
work and severely damaged the village textile industry.
Foreign rule also had an effect on the psyche of the
Indian people. Although many British colonial officials
sincerely tried to improve the lot of the people under
their charge, the government made few efforts to intro-
duce democratic institutions and values to the Indian
people. Moreover, British arrogance and contempt for
native traditions cut deeply into the pride of many In-
dians, especially those of high caste who were accustomed
to a position of superior status in India.
By the end of the century, increasingly disillusioned
with the failure of the British to live up to their ‘‘civilizing
mission,’’ educated Indians began to clamor for a greater
role in the governance of their country, and in 1885 a new
organization designed to represent the interests of the
indigenous population—the Indian National Congress—
was born (see Chapter 5).
The Colonial Takeover
of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia had been one of the first destinations for
European fleets en route to the East. Lured by the riches
of the Spice Islands (at the eastern end of present-day
Indonesia), European adventurers sailed to the area in the
early sixteenth century in the hope of seizing control of
the spice trade from Arab and Indian merchants. A cen-
tury later, the trade was fast becoming a monopoly of the
Dutch, whose sturdy ships and ample supply of capital
gave them a significant advantage over their rivals.
Well before the arrival of the first Europeans, how-
ever, Southeast Asia had been an active participant in the
global trade network, purchasing textiles from India and
luxury goods from China in return for spices, precious
metals, and various tropical woods and herbs. Although
no single empire had ever controlled the region in the
manner of the Mauryas and the Mughals in India, several
powerful states had emerged in the region since the early
centuries of the first millennium C.E. Some, like Sailendra
INDIAN IN BLOOD, ENGLISH IN TASTE AND INTELLECT
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) was named a
member of the Supreme Council of India in the early 1830s.
In that capacity, he was responsible for drawing up a new edu-
cational policy for British subjects in the area. In his Minute on
Education, he considered the claims of English and various
local languages to become the vehicle for educational training
and decided in favor of the former. It is better, he argued, to
teach Indian elites about Western civilization so as ‘‘to form a
class who may be interpreters between us and the millions
whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and color,
but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.’’
Later Macaulay became a prominent historian.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Minute on Education
We have a fund to be employed as government shall direct for the
intellectual improvement of the people of this country. The simple
question is, what is the most useful way of employing it?
All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects
commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain
neither literary or scientific information, and are moreover so poor
and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it
will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. . . .
What, then, shall the language [of education] be? One half of
the Committee maintain that it should be the English. The other
half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanskrit. The whole ques-
tion seems to me to be, what language is the best worth knowing?
I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic—I have done
what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read
translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I
have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by
their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take
the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves.
I have never found one among them who could deny that a single
shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native litera-
ture of India and Arabia. . . .
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical in-
formation which has been collected from all the books written in
the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the
most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England.
Q How does the author of this document justify the teaching
of the English language in India? How might a critic respond?
SOURCE: Michael Edwards, A History of India: From the Earliest Times to the
Present Day (London: Thames & Hudson, 1961), pp. 261–265.
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 33
and Srivijaya in the Indonesian archipelago, were pri-
marily trading states. Others, like Vietnam, Angkor (in
present-day Cambodia), and the Burmese empire of Pa-
gan on the subcontinent, were predominantly agricul-
tural. Most had patterned their political systems and their
religious beliefs after those of the Indian subcontinent.
Vietnam was strongly influenced by China. Then, by the
thirteenth century, Islam began to make inroads into the
southern part of the region, promoted by Muslim mer-
chants from India and the Middle East who were active in
the spice trade.
In 1800, only two societies in Southeast Asia were
under effective colonial rule: the Spanish Philippines and
the Dutch East Indies. The British had been driven out of
the Spice Islands trade by the Dutch in the seventeenth
century and possessed only a small enclave on the
southern coast of the island of Sumatra and some terri-
tory on the Malayan peninsula. The French had actively
engaged in trade with states on the Asian mainland, but
their activity in the area was eventually reduced to a small
missionary effort run by the Society for Foreign Missions.
The only legacy of Portuguese expansion in the region
was the possession of half of the small island of Timor.
The remainder of the region continued to be governed by
indigenous rulers.
The Imposition of Colonial Rule
During the second half of the nineteenth century, how-
ever, European interest in Southeast Asia grew rapidly, and
by 1900, virtually the entire area was under colonial rule
(see Map 2.2). The process began after the end of the
Napoleonic Wars, when the British, by agreement with the
Dutch, abandoned their claims to territorial possessions in
the East Indies in return for a free hand in the Malayan
peninsula. In 1819, the colonial administrator Stamford
Raffles founded a new British colony on a small island at
the tip of the peninsula. Called Singapore (‘‘City of the
Lion’’), it had previously been used by Malay pirates to
raid ships passing through the Strait of Malacca. When the
invention of steam power enabled merchant ships to save
time and distance by passing through the strait rather than
sailing with the westerlies across the southern Indian
Ocean, Singapore became a major stopping point for
traffic to and from China and other commercial centers in
the region. In the meantime, the British had sought and
received the right to trade with the kingdom of Burma. A
few decades later, the British took over the entire country
and placed it under the colonial administration in India.
The British advance into Burma was watched ner-
vously in Paris, where French geopoliticians were ever
Cultural Influences—East and West. When Europeans moved into Asia in the nineteenth century,
some Asians began to imitate European customs for prestige or social advancement. Seen at the left, for
example, is a young Vietnamese during the 1920s dressed in Western sports clothes, learning to play tennis.
Sometimes, however, the cultural influence went the other way. At the right, an English nabob, as European
residents in India were often called, apes the manner of an Indian aristocrat, complete with harem and hookah,
the Indian water pipe. The paintings on the wall, however, are in the European style.
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34 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
MAP 2.2 Colonial Southeast
Asia. European colonial rule spread
into Southeast Asia between the
sixteenth century and the end of the
nineteenth.
Q What was the significance of
Malacca? View an animated
version of this map or related
maps at the World History
Resource Center, at www.cengage
.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
Government Hill in Singapore. After occupying the island of Singapore early in the nineteenth century,
the British turned what was once a pirate lair located at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca into one of the
most important commercial seaports in Asia. By the end of the century, Singapore was home to a rich mixture
of peoples, both European and Asian. This painting by a British artist in the mid-nineteenth century graphically
displays the multiracial character of the colony as strollers of various ethnic backgrounds share space on
Government Hill, with the busy harbor in the background. Almost all colonial port cities became melting pots
of people from various parts of the world. Many of the immigrants served as merchants, urban laborers, and
craftsmen in the new imperial marketplace.
VIETNAM
(1859)
LAOS
(1893)
CAMBODIA
(1863)
THAILAND
BURMA
(1826)
MALAYA
(1786)
SINGAPORE
(1819)
SARAWAK
(1888)
BRUNEI
(1888) NORTH BORNEO
(1888)
INDONESIA (early 1600s)
TIMOR (1566)
PHILIPPINES
(Spain, 1521;
United
States, 1898)
MALACCA
(Port., 1511)
CHINA
NEW
GUINEA
Portuguese
Spanish and American
Dutch
British
French
Not colonized
Date of initial claim
or control
(1895)
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 1,000 1,500 Kilometers
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CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM:A FRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 35
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
anxious about British operations in Asia and Africa. The
French still maintained a clandestine missionary organi-
zation in Vietnam despite harsh persecution by the local
authorities, who viewed Christianity as a threat to tradi-
tional Confucian principles and internal stability. But
Vietnamese efforts to prohibit Christian missionary ac-
tivities were hindered by the internal rivalries that had
earlier divided the country into two separate and mutu-
ally hostile goverments in the north and south.
In 1857, the French government decided to compel
the Vietnamese to accept French protection to prevent the
British from obtaining a monopoly of trade in South
China. A naval attack launched a year later was not a total
success, but the French eventually forced the Vietnamese
court to cede territories in the southern part of the
country. A generation later, French rule was extended over
the remainder of Vietnam. By the end of the century,
French seizure of neighboring Cambodia and Laos had led
to the creation of the French-ruled Indochinese Union.
With the French conquest of Indochina, Thailand—
then known as Siam—was the only remaining indepen-
dent state on the Southeast Asian mainland. During the
last quarter of the century, British and French rivalry
threatened to place the Thai, too, under colonial rule. But
under the astute leadership of two remarkable rulers,
King Mongkut (familiar to millions in the West as the
monarch—played by actor Yul Brynner—in the 1956 film
The King and I) and his son King Chulalongkorn, the
Thai sought to introduce Western learning and maintain
relations with the major European powers without un-
dermining internal stability or inviting an imperialist
attack. In 1896, the British and the French agreed to
preserve Thailand as an independent buffer zone between
their possessions in Southeast Asia.
The final piece of the colonial edifice in Southeast
Asia was put in place in 1898, when U.S. naval forces
under Commodore George Dewey defeated the Spanish
fleet in Manila Bay by the island of Luzon in the Spanish
Philippines. Since gaining independence in the late
eighteenth century, the United States had always consid-
ered itself to be an anticolonialist nation, and in 1823
President James Monroe enunciated the so-called Monroe
Doctrine, warning European powers to refrain from re-
storing their colonial presence in the Western Hemi-
sphere. But by the end of the century, many Americans
believed that the United States was itself ready to expand
abroad. The Pacific islands were the scene of great-power
competition and witnessed the entry of the United States
on the imperialist stage. Eastern Samoa became the first
important American colony; the Hawaiian Islands were
the next to fall. Soon after Americans had made Pearl
Harbor into a naval station in 1887, American settlers
gained control of the sugar industry on the islands. When
Hawaiian natives tried to reassert their authority, the U.S.
Marines were brought in to ‘‘protect’’ American lives.
Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898 during
the era of American nationalistic fervor generated by the
Spanish-American War, which broke out after an explo-
sion damaged a U.S. battleship anchored at Havana on
the Spanish-held island of Cuba.
The defeat of Spain encouraged Americans to extend
their empire by acquiring Puerto Rico, Guam, and the
Philippine Islands. President William McKinley agonized
over the fate of the latter but ultimately decided that the
moral thing to do was to turn the islands into an Amer-
ican colony to prevent them from falling into the hands of
the Japanese. In fact, the Americans (like the Spanish
before them) found the islands convenient as a jumping-
off point for the China trade (see Chapter 3).
Not all Filipinos were pleased to be placed under U.S.
tutelage. Led by Emilio Aguinaldo, guerrilla forces fought
bitterly against U.S. troops to establish their indepen-
dence from both Spain and the United States. But
America’s first war against guerrillas in Asia was a success,
and the resistance collapsed in 1901. President McKinley
had his stepping-stone to the rich markets of China.
Colonial Regimes in Southeast Asia
In Southeast Asia, economic profit was the immediate
and primary aim of the colonial enterprise. For that
purpose, colonial powers tried wherever possible to work
with local elites to facilitate the exploitation of natural
resources. Indirect rule reduced the cost of training Eu-
ropean administrators and had a less corrosive impact on
the local culture.
Colonial Administration In the Dutch East Indies, for
example, officials of the Dutch East India Company
(VOC) entrusted local administration to the indigenous
landed aristocracy, known as the priyayi. The priyayi
maintained law and order and collected taxes in return
for a payment from the Company (see the box on p. 37).
The British followed a similar practice in Malaya. While
establishing direct rule over areas of crucial importance,
such as the commercial centers of Singapore and Malacca
and the island of Penang, the British signed agreements
with local Muslim rulers to maintain princely power in
the interior of the peninsula.
In some instances, however, local resistance to the
colonial conquest made such a policy impossible. In
Burma, faced with staunch opposition from the monarchy
and other traditionalist forces, the British abolished the
monarchy and administered the country directly through
their colonial government in India. In Indochina, the
French used both direct and indirect means. They imposed
36 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
direct rule on the southern provinces in the Mekong delta,
which had been ceded to France as a colony after the first
war in 1858–1860. The northern parts of the country,
seized in the 1880s, were governed as a protectorate, with
the emperor retaining titular authority from his palace in
Hué. The French adopted a similar policy in Cambodia
and Laos, where local rulers were left in charge with French
advisers to counsel them. Even the Dutch were eventually
forced into a more direct approach. When the develop-
ment of plantation agriculture and the extraction of oil in
Sumatra made effective exploitation of local resources
more complicated, they dispensed with indirect rule and
tightened their administrative control over the archipelago.
Whatever method was used, colonial regimes in
Southeast Asia, as elsewhere, were slow to create demo-
cratic institutions. The first legislative councils and as-
semblies were composed almost exclusively of European
residents in the colonies. The first representatives from
the indigenous population were wealthy and conservative
in their political views. When Southeast Asians began
to complain, colonial officials gradually and reluctantly
began to broaden the franchise, but even such liberal
thinkers as Albert Sarraut advised patience in awaiting the
full benefits of colonial policy. ‘‘I will treat you like my
younger brothers,’’ he promised, ‘‘but do not forget that I
am the older brother. I will slowly give you the dignity of
humanity.’’3
Economic Development Colonial powers were equally
reluctant to shoulder the ‘‘white man’s burden’’ in the area
of economic development. As we have seen, their primary
goals were to secure a source of cheap raw materials and
to maintain markets for manufactured goods. So colonial
policy concentrated on the export of raw materials—
teakwood from Burma; rubber and tin from Malaya;
spices, tea, coffee, and palm oil from the East Indies; and
sugar and copra from the Philippines.
In some Southeast Asian colonial societies, a measure
of industrial development did take place to meet the
needs of the European population and local elites. Major
manufacturing cities, including Rangoon in lower Burma,
Batavia on the island of Java, and Saigon in French
THE EFFECTS OF DUTCH COLONIALISM IN JAVA
E. Douwes Dekker was a Dutch colonial official who served
in the East Indies for nearly twenty years. In 1860, he pub-
lished a critique of the Dutch colonial system that had an
impact in the Netherlands similar to that of Harriet Beecher
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in the United States. In the follow-
ing excerpt from his book Max Havelaar, or Coffee Auctions
of the Dutch Trading Company, Dekker described the system
as it was applied on the island of Java, in the Indonesian
archipelago.
E. Douwes Dekker, Max Havelaar
The Javanese is by nature a husbandman; the ground whereon he is
born, which gives much for little labor, allures him to it, and, above
all things, he devotes his whole heart and soul to the cultivating of
his rice fields, in which he is very clever. He grows up in the midst
of his sawahs [rice fields] . . . ; when still very young, he accompanies
his father to the field, where he helps him in his labor with plow
and spade, in construction dams and drains to irrigate his fields; he
counts his years by harvests; he estimates time by the color of the
blades in his field; he is at home amongst the companions who cut
paddy with him; he chooses his wife amongst the girls of the dessah
[village], who every evening tread the rice with joyous songs. The
possession of a few buffaloes for plowing is the ideal of his dreams.
The cultivation of rice is in Java what the vintage is in the Rhine
provinces and the south of France. But there came foreigners from
the West, who made themselves masters of the country. They wished
to profit by the fertility of the soil, and ordered the native to devote
a part of his time and labor to the cultivation of other things which
should produce higher profits in the markets of Europe. To persuade
the lower orders to do so, they had only to follow a very simple pol-
icy. The Javanese obeys his chiefs; to win the chiefs, it was only nec-
essary to give them a part of the gain,—and success was complete.
To be convinced of the success of that policy we need only con-
sider the immense quantity of Javanese products sold in Holland; and
we shall also be convinced of its injustice, for, if anybody should ask
if the husbandman himself gets a reward in proportion to that quan-
tity, then I must give a negative answer. The government compels
him to cultivate certain products on his ground; it punishes him if he
sells what he has produced to any purchaser but itself; and it fixes the
price actually paid. The expenses of transport to Europe through a
privileged trading company are high; the money paid to the chiefs for
encouragement increases the prime cost; and because the entire trade
must produce profit, that profit cannot be got in any other way than
by paying the Javanese just enough to keep him from starving, which
would lessen the producing power of the nation.
Q According to the author, what was the impact of Dutch
policies on the lives of Javanese peasants? Why is he
critical of such policies?
SOURCE: The World of Southeast Asia: Selected Historical Readings, Harry
J. Benda and John A. Larkin, eds. Copyright �C 1967 by Harper & Row,
Publishers. Used with permission of the author.
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 37
Indochina, grew rapidly. Although the local middle class
benefited in various ways from the Western presence,
most industrial and commercial establishments were
owned and managed by Europeans or, in some cases, by
Indian or Chinese merchants who had long been active in
the area. In Saigon, for example, even the manufacture of
nuoc mam, the traditional Vietnamese fish sauce, was
under Chinese ownership. Most urban residents were
coolies (laborers), factory workers, or rickshaw drivers or
eked out a living in family shops as they had during the
traditional era.
Rural Policies Despite the growth of an urban econ-
omy, the vast majority of people in the colonial societies
continued to farm the land. Many continued to live by
subsistence agriculture, but the colonial policy of em-
phasizing cash crops for export also led to the creation of
a form of plantation agriculture in which peasants were
recruited to work as wage laborers on rubber and tea
plantations owned by Europeans. To maintain a com-
petitive edge, the plantation owners kept the wages of
their workers at the poverty level. Many plantation
workers were ‘‘shanghaied’’ (the English term originated
from the practice of recruiting laborers, often from the
docks and streets of Shanghai, by the use of force, alcohol,
drugs, or other unscrupulous means) to work on plan-
tations, where conditions were often so inhumane that
thousands died. High taxes, enacted by colonial govern-
ments to pay for administrative costs or improvements in
the local infrastructure, were a heavy burden for poor
peasants.
The situation was made even more difficult by the
steady growth of the population. Peasants in Asia had
always had large families on the assumption that a high
proportion of their children would die in infancy. But
improved sanitation and medical treatment resulted in
lower rates of infant mortality and a staggering increase in
population. The population of the island of Java, for
example, increased from about a million in the precolo-
nial era to about 40 million at the end of the nineteenth
century. Under these conditions, the rural areas could no
longer support the growing populations, and many young
people fled to the cities to seek jobs in factories or shops.
The migratory pattern gave rise to squatter settlements in
the suburbs of the major cities.
Imperialism in the Balance As in India, colonial rule
did bring some benefits to Southeast Asia. It led to the
beginnings of a modern economic infrastructure, and
development of an export market helped create an en-
trepreneurial class in rural areas. On the outer islands of
the Dutch East Indies (such as Borneo and Sumatra),
for example, small growers of rubber, palm oil, coffee,
tea, and spices began to share in the profits of the
colonial enterprise.
A balanced assessment of the colonial legacy in
Southeast Asia must take into account that the early stages
of industrialization are difficult in any society. Even in
western Europe, industrialization led to the creation of an
impoverished and powerless proletariat, urban slums, and
displaced peasants driven from the land. In much of
Europe, however, the bulk of the population eventually
enjoyed better material conditions as the profits from
manufacturing and plantation agriculture were reinvested
in the national economy and gave rise to increased con-
sumer demand. In contrast, in Southeast Asia, most of the
profits were repatriated to the colonial mother country,
while displaced peasants fleeing to cities such as Rangoon,
Batavia, and Saigon found little opportunity for employ-
ment. Many were left with seasonal employment, with one
foot on the farm and one in the factory. The old world was
being destroyed, and the new had yet to be born.
Empire Building in Africa
The last of the equatorial regions of the world to be
placed under European colonial rule was the continent of
Africa. European navigators had first established contacts
with Africans south of the Sahara during the late fifteenth
century, when Portuguese fleets sailed down the Atlantic
coast on their way to the Indian Ocean. During the next
three centuries, Europeans established port facilities along
the coasts of East and West Africa to facilitate their trade
with areas farther to the east and to engage in limited
commercial relations with African societies. Eventually,
the slave trade took on predominant importance, and
several million unfortunate Africans were loaded onto
slave ships destined for the Americas. For a variety of
reasons, however, Europeans made little effort to pene-
trate the vast continent and were generally content to deal
with African intermediaries along the coast to maintain
their trading relationship. The Western psyche developed
a deeply ingrained image of ‘‘darkest Africa’’—a continent
without a history, its people living out their days bereft of
any cultural contact with the outside world.
Africa Before the Europeans
As with most generalizations, there was a glimmer of
truth in the Western image of sub-Saharan Africa as a
region outside the mainstream of civilization on the
Eurasian landmass. Although Africa was the original
seedbed of humankind and the site of much of its early
evolutionary experience, the desiccation of the Sahara
during the fourth and third millennia B.C.E. had erected
38 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
a major obstacle to communications between the peo-
ples south of the desert and societies elsewhere in the
world. The barrier was never total, however. From an-
cient times, caravans crossed the Sahara from the Niger
River basin to the shores of the Mediterranean carrying
gold and other tropical products in exchange for salt,
textile goods, and other manufactured articles from the
north. By the seventh century C.E., several prosperous
trading societies, whose renown reached as far as me-
dieval Europe and the Middle East, had begun to arise
in the savanna belt in West Africa.
One crucial consequence of this new trade network
was the introduction of Islam to the peoples of the region.
Arab armies sweeping westward along the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea had already brought the message of
the Prophet Muhammad as far as Morocco and the Iberian
peninsula. Soon, Islamic religion and culture began to
cross the Sahara in
the baggage of Mus-
limmerchants. Along
with the Qur’an,
Islam’s holy book,
the new faith intro-
duced its African
converts to a new
code of law and
ethics—the Shari’a—
and to the Prophet’s
uncompromising
message of the equal-
ity of all in the eyes
of God. The city of
Timbuktu, on the
banks of the Niger River, soon became a major center of
Islamic scholarship and schools providing education in
the Arabic language.
Farther to the east, the Sahara posed no obstacle to
communication beyond the seas. The long eastern coast
of the African continent had played a role in the trade
network of the Indian Ocean since the time of the
pharaohs along the Nile. Ships from India, the Persian
Gulf, and as far away as China made regular visits to the
East African ports of Kilwa, Malindi, and Sofala,
bringing textiles, metal goods, and luxury articles in
return for gold, ivory, and various tropical products
from Africa. With the settlement of Arab traders along
the eastern coast, the entire region developed a new
synthetic culture (known as Swahili) combining ele-
ments of Arabic and indigenous cultures. Although the
Portuguese briefly seized or destroyed most of the
trading ports along the eastern coast, by the eighteenth
century the Europeans had been driven out and local
authority was restored.
The Growing European Presence in West Africa
By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the slave
trade was in a state of decline. One reason was the
growing sense of outrage in Europe over the purchase,
sale, and exploitation of human beings. Traffic in slaves
by Dutch merchants effectively came to an end in 1795
and by Danes in 1803. A few years later, the slave trade
was declared illegal in both Great Britain and the
United States. The British began to apply pressure on
other nations to follow suit, and most did so after the
end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, leaving only
Portugal and Spain as practitioners of the trade south
of the equator. Meanwhile, the demand for slaves began
to decline in the Western Hemisphere, and by the
1880s, slavery had been abolished in all major countries
of the world.
The decline of the slave trade in the Atlantic during
the first half of the nineteenth century, however, did not
lead to an overall reduction in the European presence in
West Africa. On the contrary, European interest in what
was sometimes called ‘‘legitimate trade’’ in natural re-
sources increased. Exports of peanuts, timber, hides, and
palm oil increased substantially during the first decades
of the century, and imports of textile goods and other
manufactured products also rose.
Stimulated by growing commercial interests in the
area, European governments began to push for a more
permanent presence along the coast. During the first
decades of the nineteenth century, the British established
settlements along the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana)
and in Sierra Leone, where they attempted to set up ag-
ricultural plantations for freed slaves who had returned
from the Western Hemisphere or had been liberated by
British ships while en route to the Americas. A similar
haven for ex-slaves was developed with the assistance of
the United States in Liberia. The French occupied the area
around the Senegal River near Cape Verde, where they
attempted to develop peanut plantations.
The growing European presence in West Africa led to
tensions with African governments in the area. British
efforts to increase trade with Ashanti, in the area of the
present-day state of Ghana, led to conflict in the 1820s.
British influence in the area intensified in later decades.
Most African states, especially those with a fairly high
degree of political integration, were able to maintain their
independence from this creeping European encroach-
ment, called ‘‘informal empire’’ by some historians, but
eventually, the British stepped in and annexed the Ashanti
kingdom as the first British colony of the Gold Coast in
1874. At about the same time, the British extended an
informal protectorate over warring tribal groups in the
Niger delta.
At lan t i c
Ocean
ARABIA
AFRICA
MADAGASCAR
Kilwa
CairoMarrakech
Ni
ge
r R
.
Gao
Co
ng
o
R.
The Spread of Islam in Africa
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 39
Imperialist Shadow over the Nile
A similar process was under way in the Nile valley. Ever
since the voyages of the Portuguese explorers at the
close of the fifteenth century, European trade with
the East had been carried on almost exclusively by the
route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern
tip of Africa. But from the outset, there was some in-
terest in shortening the route by digging a canal east
of Cairo, where only a low, swampy isthmus separated
the Mediterranean
from the Red Sea.
The Ottoman Turks,
who controlled the
area, had consid-
ered constructing a
canal in the six-
teenth century, but
nothing was accom-
plished until 1854,
when the French
entrepreneur Ferdi-
nand de Lesseps
signed a contract to
begin construction
of the canal. The
completed project
brought little immediate benefit to Egypt, however,
which under the vigorous rule of the Ottoman official
Muhammad Ali was attempting to adopt reforms on
the European model. The costs of construction im-
posed a major debt on the Egyptian government and
forced a growing level of dependence on foreign fi-
nancial support. When an army revolt against the in-
creasing foreign influence broke out in 1881, the
British stepped in to protect their investment (they
had bought Egypt’s canal company shares in 1875) and
set up an informal protectorate that would last until
World War I.
The weakening of Turkish rule in the Nile valley had
a parallel farther along the Mediterranean coast to the
west, where autonomous regions had begun to emerge
under local viceroys in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. In
1830, the French, on the pretext of reducing the threat of
piracy to European shipping in the Mediterranean, seized
the area surrounding Algiers and annexed it to the
kingdom of France. By the mid-1850s, more than 150,000
Europeans had settled in the fertile region adjacent to the
coast, though Berber resistance continued in the desert to
the south. In 1881, the French imposed a protectorate on
neighboring Tunisia. Only Tripoli and Cyrenaica (Otto-
man provinces that make up modern-day Libya)
remained under Turkish rule until the Italians took them
in 1911–1912.
The Scramble for Africa
At the beginning of the 1880s,
most of Africa was still indepen-
dent. European rule was still lim-
ited to the fringes of the continent,
and a few areas, such as Egypt,
lower Nigeria, Senegal, and Mo-
zambique, were under various
forms of loose protectorate. But
the trends were ominous, as the
pace of European penetration was
accelerating and the constraints
that had limited European rapa-
ciousness were fast disappearing.
The scramble began in the
mid-1880s, when several European
states engaged in what today would
be called a feeding frenzy. All
sought to seize a piece of African
territory before the carcass had
been picked clean. By 1900, virtu-
ally the entire the continent had
been placed under one form or
SINAI
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The Opening of the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which connected the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea for the first time, was constructed under the direction of the French promoter Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Still in use today, the canal is Egypt’s greatest revenue producer. This sketch shows the ceremonial passage
of the first ships through the canal upon its completion in 1869.
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40 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
another of European rule (see Map 2.3 on p. 42). The
British had consolidated their authority over the Nile
valley and seized additional territories in East Africa. The
French retaliated by advancing eastward from Senegal into
the central Sahara, where they eventually came eyeball to
eyeball with the British in the Nile valley. They also oc-
cupied the island of Madagascar and other coastal terri-
tories in West and Central Africa. In between, the Germans
claimed the hinterland opposite Zanzibar, as well as coastal
strips in West and Southwest Africa north of the Cape, and
King Leopold II of Belgium claimed the Congo.
The Motives What had happened to spark the sudden
imperialist hysteria that brought an end to African inde-
pendence? Economic interests in the narrow sense were
not at stake as they had been in South and Southeast Asia:
the level of trade between Europe and Africa was simply
not sufficient to justify the risks and the expense of con-
quest. Clearly, one factor was the growing rivalry among
imperialist powers. European leaders might be provoked
into an imperialist takeover not by economic consid-
erations but by the fear that another state might do so,
leaving them at a disadvantage.
Another consideration might be called the ‘‘missionary
factor,’’ as European religious interests lobbied with their
governments for a colonial takeover to facilitate their ef-
forts to convert the African population to Christianity. In
fact, considerable moral complacency was inherent in the
process. The concept of the ‘‘white man’s burden’’ per-
suaded many that it was in the interests of the African
people to be introduced more rapidly to the benefits of
Western civilization. Even the highly respected Scottish
FILM & HISTORY
KHARTOUM (1966)
The tragic mission of General Charles ‘‘Chinese’’ Gordon
to Khartoum in 1884 was one of the most dramatic news
stories of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Gordon
was already renowned in his native Great Britain for his
successful efforts to bring an end to the practice of slavery
in North Africa. He had also attracted attention for helping
the Manchu Empire suppress the Taiping Rebellion in
China in the 1860s (see Chapter 3), hence his nickname.
The Khartoum affair not only marked the tragic culmina-
tion of his storied career but also symbolized in broader
terms the epic struggle in Britain between advocates and
opponents of imperial expansion. The battle for Khartoum
thus became an object lesson in modern British history.
Proponents of British imperial expansion argued that
the country must assert its power in the Nile River valley to
protect the Suez Canal as its main trade route to the East.
Critics argued that imperial overreach would inevitably entan-
gle the country in unwinnable wars in far-off places. The film
Khartoum, produced in London in 1966, dramatically cap-
tures the ferocity of the battle for the Nile as well as its signif-
icance for the future of the British Empire. General Gordon, stoically
played by the American actor Charlton Heston, is a devout Christian
who has devoted his life to carrying out the moral imperative of im-
perialism in the continent of Africa. When peace in the Sudan (then a
British protectorate in the upper Nile River valley) is threatened by
the forces of radical Islam led by the Muslim mystic Muhammad
Ahmad—known as the Mahdi—Gordon leads a mission to Khartoum
under orders to prevent catastrophe there. But Prime Minister William
Ewart Gladstone, admirably portrayed by the great British actor Sir
Ralph Richardson, fears that Gordon’s messianic desire to save the
Sudan will entrap his government in an unwinnable war; he thus
orders Gordon to lead an evacuation of the city. The most fascinating
character in the film is the Mahdi himself (played brilliantly by Sir
Laurence Olivier), who firmly believes that he has a sacred mandate
to carry the Prophet’s words to the global Muslim community.
The conclusion of the film, set in the breathtaking beauty of
the Nile River valley, takes place as the clash of wills reaches a cli-
max in the battle for control of Khartoum. Although the film’s por-
trayal of a face-to-face meeting between Gordon and the Mahdi is
not based on fact, the narrative serves as an object lesson on the
dangers of imperial overreach and as an eerie foretaste of the clash
between militant Islam and Christendom in our own day.
General Charles Gordon (Charlton Heston) astride his camel in Khartoum, Sudan.
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CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 41
missionary David Livingstone had become convinced that
missionary work and economic development had to go
hand in hand, pleading to his fellow Europeans to intro-
duce the ‘‘three Cs’’ (Christianity, commerce, and civiliza-
tion) to the continent. How much easier such a task would
be if African peoples were under benevolent European rule!
There were more prosaic reasons as well. Advances in
Western technology and European superiority in firearms
made it easier than ever for a small European force to
defeat superior numbers. Furthermore, life expectancy for
Europeans living in Africa had im-
proved. With the discovery that
quinine (extracted from the bark of
the cinchona tree) could provide
partial immunity from the ravages of
malaria, the mortality rate for Euro-
peans living in Africa dropped dra-
matically in the 1840s. By the end of
the century, European residents in
tropical Africa faced only slightly
higher risks of death by disease than
individuals living in Europe.
The Berlin Conference As rivalry
among the competing powers heat-
ed up, a conference was convened at
Berlin in 1884 to avert war and re-
duce tensions among European na-
tions competing for the spoils of
Africa. It proved reasonably suc-
cessful at achieving the first objec-
tive but less so at the second. During
the next few years, African territories
were annexed without provoking a
major confrontation between West-
ern powers, but in the late 1890s,
Britain and France reached the brink
of conflict at Fashoda, a small town
on the Nile River in the Sudan. The
French had been advancing eastward
across the Sahara with the trans-
parent objective of controlling the
regions around the upper Nile. In
1898, British and Egyptian troops
seized the Sudan and then marched
southward to head off the French.
After a tense face-off between units
of the two European countries at
Fashoda, the French government
backed down, and British authority
over the area was secured. Except
for Djibouti, a tiny portion of the
Somali coast, the French were re-
stricted to equatorial Africa.
Bantus, Boers, and British in South Africa
Nowhere in Africa did the European presence grow more
rapidly than in the south. During the eighteenth century,
Dutch settlers from the Cape Colony began to migrate
eastward into territory inhabited by local Khoisan- and
Bantu-speaking peoples, the latter of whom had recently
entered the area from the north. Internecine warfare among
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Possessions, 1914
Spain
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France
Germany
Italy
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0 750 1,500 Miles
0 750 1,500 2,250 Kilometeeteerrss
MAP 2.3 Africa in 1914. By the beginning of 1900, virtually all of Africa was under
some form of European rule. The territorial divisions established by colonial powers on
the continent of Africa on the eve of World War I are shown here.
Q Which European countries possessed the most colonies in Africa? Why did Ethiopia
remain independent? View an animated version of this map or related maps at
the World History Resource Center, at www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
42 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
the Bantus had largely depopulated the region, facilitating
occupation of the land by the Boers, the Afrikaans-speaking
farmers descended from the original Dutch settlers in the
seventeenth century. But in the early nineteenth century, a
Bantu people called the Zulus, under the talented ruler
Shaka, counterattacked, setting off a series of wars between
the Europeans and the Zulus. Eventually, Shaka was over-
thrown, and the Boers continued their advance northeast-
ward during the so-called Great Trek of the mid-1830s (see
Map 2.4 above). By 1865, the total European population of
the area had risen to nearly 200,000 people.
The Boers’ eastward migration was provoked in part
by the British seizure of the Cape from the Dutch during
the Napoleonic Wars. The British government was gener-
ally more sympathetic to the rights of the local African
population than were the Afrikaners, many of whom saw
white superiority as ordained by God and fled from British
rule to control their own destiny. Eventually, the Boers
formed their own independent republics, the Orange Free
State and the South African Republic (usually
known as Transvaal). Much of the African pop-
ulation in these areas was confined to reserves.
The Boer War The discovery of gold and dia-
monds in the Transvaal complicated the situation.
Clashes between the Afrikaans population and
foreign (mainly British) miners and developers led
to an attempt by Cecil Rhodes, prime minister of
the Cape Colony and a prominent entrepreneur in
the area, to subvert the Transvaal and bring it
under British rule. In 1899, the so-called Boer War
broke out between Britain and the Transvaal,
which was backed by the Orange Free State.
Guerrilla resistance by the Boers was fierce, but the
vastly superior forces of the British were able to
prevail by 1902. To compensate the defeated Af-
rikaans population for the loss of independence,
the British government agreed that only whites
would vote in the now essentially self-governing
colony. The Boers were placated, but the brutali-
ties committed during the war (the British intro-
duced an institution later to be known as the
concentration camp) created bitterness on both
sides that continued to fester for decades.
Colonialism in Africa
As we have seen, European economic interests
were more limited in Africa than elsewhere. With
economic concerns relatively limited except for
isolated areas, such as gold mines in the Transvaal
and copper deposits in the Belgian Congo, interest
in Africa declined, and most European govern-
ments settled down to govern their new territories with the
least effort and expense possible. In many cases, they
pursued a form of indirect rule reminiscent of the British
approach to the princely states in the Indian peninsula. The
British, with their tradition of decentralized government at
home, were especially prone to adopt this approach.
Indirect Rule Nigeria offers a typical example of British
indirect rule. British officials operated at the central level,
but local authority was assigned to native chiefs, with
British district officers serving as intermediaries with the
central administration. Where a local aristocracy did not
exist, the British assigned administrative responsibility to
clan heads from communities in the vicinity. The local
authorities were expected to maintain law and order and
to collect taxes from the native population. As a general
rule, indigenous customs were left undisturbed; a dual
legal system was instituted that applied African laws to
Africans and European laws to foreigners.
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CAPE COLONY
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Annexed by
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Annexed by
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Great Trek (Boer migration)
Boer republics
0 250 500 Miles
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
MAP 2.4 The Struggle for Southern Africa. Shown here is the
expansion of European settlers from the Cape Colony into adjacent areas
of southern Africa in the nineteenth century. The arrows indicate the
routes taken by the Afrikaans-speaking Boers.
Q Who were the Boers, and why did they migrate eastward?
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 43
One advantage of such an administrative system was
that it did not severely disrupt local customs and in-
stitutions. In fact, however, it had several undesirable
consequences. In the first place, it was essentially a fraud
because all major decisions were made by the British
administrators while the native authorities served pri-
marily as the means of enforcing decisions. Moreover,
indirect rule served to perpetuate the autocratic system
that often existed prior to colonial takeover. It was official
policy to inculcate respect for authority in areas under
British rule, and there was a natural tendency to view the
local aristocracy as the African equivalent of the tradi-
tional British ruling class. Such a policy provided few
opportunities for ambitious and talented young Africans
from outside the traditional elite and thus sowed the
seeds for class tensions after the restoration of indepen-
dence in the twentieth century.
The situation was somewhat different in East Africa,
especially in Kenya, which had a relatively large European
population attracted by the temperate climate in the central
highlands. The local government had encouraged Euro-
peans to migrate to the area as a means of promoting
economic development and encouraging financial self-suf-
ficiency. To attract them, fertile farmlands in the central
highlands were reserved for European settlement while, as
in South Africa, specified reserve lands were set aside for
Africans. The presence of a privileged European minority
had an impact on Kenya’s political
development. The European settlers
actively sought self-government
and dominion status similar to that
granted to such former British
possessions as Canada and Austra-
lia. The British government, how-
ever, was not willing to run the risk
of provoking racial tensions with
the African majority and agreed
only to establish separate govern-
ment organs for the European and
African populations.
The situation in South Africa,
of course, was unique, not only
because of the high percentage of
European settlers but also because
of the division between English-
speaking and Afrikaans elements
within the European population.
In 1910, the British agreed to the
creation of the independent Union
of South Africa, which combined
the old Cape Colony and Natal
with the two Boer republics. The
new union adopted a representa-
tive government, but only for the European population.
The African reserves of Basutoland (now Lesotho),
Bechuanaland (now Botswana), and Swaziland were sub-
ordinated directly to the crown. The union was now free
to manage its own domestic affairs and possessed con-
siderable autonomy in foreign relations. Remaining areas
south of the Zambezi River, eventually divided into the
territories of Northern and Southern Rhodesia, were also
placed under British rule. British immigration into
Southern Rhodesia was extensive, and in 1922, after a
popular referendum, it became a crown colony.
Direct Rule Most other European nations governed their
African possessions through a form of direct rule. The
prototype was the French system, which reflected the cen-
tralized administrative system introduced in France by
Napoleon. As in the British colonies, at the top of the
pyramid was a French official, usually known as a governor-
general, who was appointed from Paris and governed with
the aid of a bureaucracy in the capital city. At the provincial
level, French commissioners were assigned to deal with local
administrators, but the latter were required to be conver-
sant in French and could be transferred to a new position at
the needs of the central government.
The French ideal was to assimilate their African
subjects into French culture rather than preserving their
native traditions. Africans were eligible to run for office
Revere the Conquering Heroes. European colonial officials were quick to place themselves at the
top of the political and social hierarchy in their conquered territories. Here British officials accept the
submission of the Ashanti king and queen, according to African custom, in 1896.
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44 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
and to serve in the French National Assembly, and a few
were appointed to high positions in the colonial admin-
istration. Such policies reflected the relative absence of
racist attitudes in French society as well as the French
conviction of the superiority of Gallic culture and their
revolutionary belief in the universality of human nature.
After World War I, European colonial policy in Africa
entered a new and more formal phase. The colonial ad-
ministrative network extended into outlying areas, where it
was represented by a district official and defended by a
small native army under European command. Colonial
governments paid more attention to improving social
services, including education, medicine, sanitation, and
communications. The colonial system was now viewed
more formally as a moral and social responsibility, a ‘‘sacred
trust’’ to be maintained by the civilized countries until the
Africans became capable of self-government. Governments
placed more emphasis on economic development and the
exploitation of natural resources to provide the colonies
with the means of achieving self-sufficiency. More Africans
were now serving in colonial administrations, though rel-
atively few were in positions of responsibility. At the same
time, race consciousness probably increased during this
period. Segregated clubs, schools, and churches were es-
tablished as more European officials brought their wives
with them and began to raise families in the colonies.
More directly affected by the colonial presence than
the small African elite were ordinary Africans, who were
subjected to countless indignities reminiscent of Western
practices in Asia. While the institution of slavery was
discouraged in much of the continent, African workers
were routinely exposed to unbelievably harsh conditions
as they were put to use as manual laborers to promote the
cause of imperialism.
Women in Colonial Africa Colonial rule had a mixed
impact on the rights and status of women in Africa.
Sexual relationships changed profoundly during the co-
lonial era, sometimes in ways that could justly be de-
scribed as beneficial. Colonial governments attempted to
put an end to forced marriage, bodily mutilation such as
clitoridectomy, and polygamy. Missionaries introduced
women to Western education and encouraged them to
organize to defend their interests.
But the colonial system had some unfavorable con-
sequences as well. African women had traditionally
benefited from the prestige of matrilineal systems and
were empowered by their traditional role as the primary
agricultural producers in their community. Under colo-
nialism, European settlers not only took the best land for
themselves but also, in introducing new agricultural
techniques, tended to deal exclusively with males, en-
couraging the latter to develop lucrative cash crops, while
women were restricted to traditional farming methods.
Whereas African men applied chemical fertilizer to the
fields, women continued to use manure. While men be-
gan to use bicycles, and eventually trucks, to transport
goods, women still carried their goods on their heads, a
practice that continues today. In British colonies, Victo-
rian attitudes of female subordination led to restrictions
on women’s freedom, and positions in government that
they had formerly held were now closed to them.
CONCLUSION
BY THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY, virtually all of Africa and a good
part of South and Southeast Asia were under some form of colonial
rule. With the advent of the Age of Imperialism, a global economy
was finally established, and the domination of Western civilization
over those of Africa and Asia appeared to be complete.
Defenders of colonialism argue that the system was a necessary
if sometimes painful stage in the evolution of human societies.
Although its immediate consequences were admittedly sometimes
unfortunate, Western imperialism was ultimately beneficial to
colonial powers and subjects alike because it created the conditions
for global economic development and the universal application of
democratic institutions. Critics, however, charge that the Western
colonial powers were driven by an insatiable lust for profits. They
dismiss the Western civilizing mission as a fig leaf to cover naked
greed and reject the notion that imperialism played a salutary role
in hastening the adjustment of traditional societies to the demands
of industrial civilization. Rather, it locked them in what many social
scientists today describe as a ‘‘dependency relationship’’ with their
colonial masters. ‘‘Why is Africa (or for that matter Latin America
and much of Asia) so poor?’’ asked one recent Western critique of
imperialism. ‘‘The answer is very brief: we have made it poor.’’4
Between these two irreconcilable views, where does the truth lie?
It is difficult to provide a simple answer to this question, as the
colonial record varied from country to country. In some cases, the
colonial experience was probably beneficial in introducing Western
technology, values, and democratic institutions into traditional
societies. In other cases, as with the plantation system, the results were
clearly destructive. As its defenders are quick to point out, colonialism
often laid the foundation for preindustrial societies to play an active
and rewarding role in the global economic marketplace. If, as the
historian William McNeill believes, the introduction of new
technology through cross-cultural encounters is the driving force of
change in world history, then Western imperialism, whatever its faults,
served a useful purpose in opening the door to such change.
Still, the critics have a point. Although colonialism did introduce
the peoples of Asia and Africa to new technology and the expanding
CH A P T E R 2 THE HIGH TIDE OF IMPERIALISM: AFRICA AND ASIA IN AN ERA OF WESTERN DOMINANCE 45
CHAPTER NOTES
1. J. G. Lockhart and C. M. Woodehouse, Rhodes: The Colossus of
Southern Africa (New York, 1953), pp. 69–70.
2. The quotations are from Henri Brunschwig, French Colonialism,
1871–1914 (London, 1961), p. 80.
3. Quoted in Louis Roubaud, Vietnam: La Tragédie Indochinoise
(Paris, 1926), p. 80.
4. Quoted in Tony Smith, The Pattern of Imperialism: The United
States, Great Britain and the Late-Industrializing World Since
1815 (Cambridge, England, 1981), p. 81.
TIMELINE
1800 1820 1840 1860 1880 1900
Africa
Slave trade
declared illegal
in Great Britain
(1807)
French seize
Algeria
(1830)
Asia
Completion of
Suez Canal
(1869)
Berlin
Conference
on Africa
(1884)
Stamford Raffles founds Singapore
(1819)
French attack Vietnam
(1858)
Spanish-American War
(1898)
French and British agree to neutralize Thailand
(1896)
Boer War
(1899–1902)
First textile mill opened in India
(1856)
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
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economic marketplace, it was unnecessarily brutal in its application
and all too often failed to realize the exalted claims and objectives of
its promoters. Existing economic networks—often potentially valuable
as a foundation for later economic development—were ruthlessly
swept aside in the interests of providing markets for Western
manufactured goods. Potential sources of native industrialization were
nipped in the bud to avoid competition for factories in Amsterdam,
London, Pittsburgh, or Manchester. Training in Western democratic
ideals and practices was ignored out of fear that the recipients might
use them as weapons against the ruling authorities.
The fundamental weakness of colonialism, then, was that it
was ultimately based on the self-interests of the citizens of the
colonial powers. Where those interests collided with the needs of
the colonial peoples, the former always triumphed. Much the same
might be said about earlier periods in history, when Assyrians,
Arabs, Mongols, and Chinese turned their conquests to their own
profit. Where modern imperialism differed was in its tendency
to clothe naked self-interest in the cloak of moral obligation.
However sincerely the David Livingstones, Albert Sarrauts, and
William McKinleys of the world were convinced of the rightness
of their civilizing mission, the ultimate result was to deprive the
colonial peoples of the right to make their own choices about their
destiny.
In general, the peoples of Latin America were able to avoid some
of the worst consequences of the era of Western imperialism by virtue
of having won their independence from colonial control during the
nineteenth century. As we have seen in Chapter 1, however, some
imperialist nations continued to exert their influence over regional
economies through their dominant position in local export markets.
When those interests were threatened, as occurred frequently in
Central America and the Caribbean, imperialist governments—and
especially the United States—were not shy about employing military
force to protect them. Eventually, this form of ‘‘informal empire’’
would come to be known as neo-colonialism, provoking sharp
criticism from commentators in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
In one area of Asia, the spreading tide of imperialism did not
result in the establishment of formal Western colonial control. In
East Asia, the traditional societies of China and Japan were buffeted
by the winds of Western expansionism during the nineteenth
century but successfully resisted foreign conquest. In the next
chapter, we will see how they managed this and how they fared
in their encounter with the West.
46 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
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47
IN AUGUST 1793, a British ambassadorial mission led by Lord
Macartney arrived at the North Chinese port of Dagu and embarked
on the road to Beijing. His caravan, which included six hundred
cases filled with presents for the emperor, bore flags and banners
provided by the Chinese that proclaimed in Chinese characters
‘‘Ambassador bearing tribute from the country of England.’’ Upon
his arrival in the capital, Macartney refused his hosts’ demand that
he perform the kowtow, a traditional symbol of submission to the
emperor. Eventually, the dispute over protocol was resolved with a
compromise: Macartney agreed to bend on one knee, a courtesy that
he displayed to his own sovereign.
In other respects, however, the mission was a failure, for China
rejected the British request for an increase in trade between the two
countries, and Macartney left Beijing in October with nothing to
show for his efforts. It would not be until half a century later that
the ruling Qing dynasty—at the point of a gun—agreed to the British
demand for an expansion of commercial ties.
Historians have often viewed the failure of the Macartney mis-
sion as a reflection of the disdain of Chinese rulers toward their
counterparts in other countries and their serene confidence in the
superiority of Chinese civilization in a world inhabited by barbar-
ians. But in retrospect, it is clear that the imperial concern over the
aggressive behavior of the European barbarians was justified, for in
the decades immediately following the abortive Macartney mission
to Beijing, China faced a growing challenge not only from the esca-
lating power and ambitions of the West but also from its own grow-
ing internal weaknesses. Backed by European guns, European
merchants and missionaries pressed insistently for the right to carry
out their activities in China and the neighboring islands of Japan.
Despite their initial reluctance, the Chinese and Japanese govern-
ments were eventually forced to open their doors to the foreigners,
whose presence and threat to the local way of life escalated rapidly
during the final years of the nineteenth century.
CHAPTER 3
SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC:
EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE
China at Its Apex
In 1800, the Qing or Manchu dynasty (1644–1911) ap-
peared to be at the height of its power. The Manchus, a
seminomadic people whose original homeland was north
of the Great Wall, had invaded North China in the mid-
seventeenth century and conquered the tottering Ming
dynasty in 1644. Under the rule of two great emperors,
Kangxi (1661–1722) and Qianlong (1736–1795), China
had then experienced a long period of peace and pros-
perity. Its borders were secure, and its culture and intel-
lectual achievements were the envy of the world. Its rulers,
hidden behind the walls of the Forbidden City in Beijing,
had every reason to describe their patrimony as the
Central Kingdom, China’s historical name for itself. But a
little over a century later, humiliated and harassed by the
black ships and big guns of the Western powers, the Qing
dynasty, the last in a series that had endured for more than
two thousand years, collapsed in the dust (see Map 3.1).
Changeless China?
Historians once assumed that the primary reason for the
rapid decline and fall of the Manchu dynasty was the in-
tense pressure applied to a proud but somewhat compla-
cent traditional society by the modern West. There is
indeed some truth in that allegation. On the surface, China
had long appeared to be an unchanging society patterned
after the Confucian vision of a Golden Age in the remote
past. This, in fact, was the image presented by China’s
rulers, who referred constantly to tradition as a model for
imperial institutions and cultural values. That tradition
was based firmly on a set of principles that were identified
with the ancient philosopher Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.)
and emphasized such qualities as obedience, hard work,
rule by merit, and the subordination of the individual to
the interests of the community. Such principles, which had
emerged out of the conditions of a continental society
based on agriculture as the primary source of national
wealth, had formed the basis for Chinese political and
social institutions and values since the early years of the
great Han dynasty in the second century B.C.E.
When European ships first began to arrive off the
coast of China in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
they brought with them revolutionary new ideas and
values that were strikingly at variance with those of im-
perial China. China’s rulers soon came to recognize the
nature of the threat represented by European missionaries
and merchants and attempted to expel the former while
restricting the latter to a limited presence in the southern
coastal city of Canton. For the next two centuries, China
was, at least in intent, an essentially closed society.
It was the hope of influential figures at the imperial
court in Beijing that by expelling the barbarians, they
could protect the purity of Chinese civilization from the
virus of foreign ideas. Their effort to freeze time was
fruitless, however, for in reality, Chinese society was al-
ready beginning to change under their feet—and changing
rather rapidly. Although few observers may have been
aware of it at the time, by the beginning of the Manchu
era in the seventeenth century, Confucian precepts were
becoming increasingly irrelevant in a society that was
becoming ever more complex.
Changes in Rural Areas Nowhere was change more
evident than in the economic sector. During the early
modern period, China was still a predominantly agricul-
tural society, as it had been throughout recorded history.
Aral
Sea
Lake
Balkhash
Lake
Baikal
Bay of
Bengal
South
China
Sea
East
China
Sea
Sea of
Japan
Pacific
Ocean
Ganges R.
In
du
s R
.
M
ekong
R.
Yangtze R.
Yellow R.
Urumchi
Himalaya Mts.
Altai
Mts.
Pam
ir M
ts.
SAKHALIN
(1853–1875)
(acquired by
Russia,
1858–1860)
KOREA JAPAN
TAIWAN
(FORMOSA)
RYUKYU
IS.
INDIA
BURMA
THAILAND
VIETNAM
CAMBODIA PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
TIBET
MANCHURIA
R U S S I A N E M P I R E
(acquired 1600s–1800s)
XINJIANG
MONGOLIA
KAZAKHSTAN
HINDU
KUSH
LAOS
Nanjing
Hong Kong
(Br. 1842)
Macao
(Port.)
Canton
Beijing
Tianjin
Chefoo
Port Arthur
Dairen
Vladivostok
Mukden
Lanzhou
Changsha
Wuhan
Amoy
Taipei
Fuzhou
Gobi Desert
Chinese sphere of influence, 1775
Chinese Empire, 1911
Sometime tributary states to China
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 1,000 1,500 Kilometers
MAP 3.1 The Qing Empire. Shown here is the Qing Empire at the height of its power
in the late eighteenth century, together with its shrunken boundaries at the moment of its
dissolution in 1911.
Q Where are China’s tributary states on the map? View an animated version of this
map or related maps at the World History Resource Center, at www.cengage.com/history/
duiker/contempworld5e
48 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
Nearly 85 percent of the people were farmers. In the south,
the main crop was rice; in the north, it was wheat or dry
crops. But even though China had few urban centers, the
population was beginning to increase rapidly. Thanks to a
long era of peace and stability, the introduction of new
crops from the Americas, and the cultivation of new, fast-
ripening strains of rice, the Chinese population doubled
between the time of the early Qing and the end of the
eighteenth century. And it continued to grow during the
nineteenth century, reaching the unprecedented level of
400 million by 1900.
Of course, this population increase meant much greater
pressure on the land, smaller farms, and an ever-thinner
margin of safety in case of climatic disaster. The imperial
court had attempted to deal with the problem by a variety
of means—most notably by preventing the concentration
of land in the hands of wealthy landowners—but by the
end of the eighteenth century, almost all the land that
could be irrigated was already under cultivation, and the
problems of rural hunger and landlessness became in-
creasingly serious. Not surprisingly, economic hardship
quickly translated into rural unrest.
Seeds of Industrialization Another change that took
place during the early modern period in China was the
steady growth of manufacturing and commerce. Trade and
manufacturing had existed in China since early times, but
they had been limited by a number of factors, including
social prejudice, official restrictions, and state monopolies
on mining and on the production of such commodities as
alcohol and salt. Now, taking advantage of the long era of
peace and prosperity, merchants and manufacturers began
to expand their operations beyond their immediate prov-
inces. Trade in silk, metal and wood products, porcelain,
cotton goods, and cash crops such as cotton and tobacco
developed rapidly, and commercial networks began to
operate on a regional and sometimes even a national basis.
With the expansion of trade came an extension of
commercial contacts and guild organizations nationwide.
Merchants began establishing guilds in cities and market
towns throughout the country to provide legal protec-
tion, an opportunity to do business, and food and
lodging for merchants from particular provinces. Foreign
trade also expanded, with Chinese merchants, mainly
from the coastal provinces of the south, setting up ex-
tensive contacts with countries in Southeast Asia. In
many instances, the contacts in Southeast Asia were
themselves Chinese who had settled in the area during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Some historians have suggested that this rise in in-
dustrial and commercial activity would, under other
circumstances, have led to an indigenous industrial rev-
olution and the emergence of a capitalist society such as
that taking shape in Europe. The significance of these
changes should not be exaggerated, however. In fact, there
were some key differences between China and western
Europe that would have impeded the emergence of cap-
italism in China. In the first place, although industrial
production in China was on the rise, it was still based
almost entirely on traditional methods of production.
China had no uniform system of weights and measures,
and the banking system was still primitive by European
standards. The use of paper money, invented by the
Chinese centuries earlier, was still relatively limited. There
were few paved roads, and the Grand Canal, long the
most efficient means of carrying goods between the north
and the south, was silting up. As a result, merchants had
to rely more and more on the coastal route, where they
faced increasing competition from foreign shipping.
There were other, more deep-seated differences as
well. The bourgeois class in China was not as independent
as its European counterpart. Reflecting an ancient pref-
erence for agriculture over manufacturing and trade, the
state levied heavy taxes on manufacturing and commerce
while attempting to keep agricultural taxes low. Such
attitudes were still shared by key groups in the popula-
tion. Although much money could be made in com-
merce, most merchants who accumulated wealth used it
to buy their way into the ranks of the landed gentry. The
most that can really be said, then, is that during the Qing
dynasty, China was beginning to undergo major eco-
nomic and social changes that might have led, in due
time, to the emergence of an industrialized society.
Traditional China in Decline
When Western pressure on the Manchu Empire began to
increase during the early nineteenth century, it served to
exacerbate the existing strains in Chinese society. By 1800,
the trade relationship that restricted Western merchants
to a small commercial outlet at Canton was no longer ac-
ceptable to the British, who chafed at the growing trade
imbalance resulting from a growing appetite for Chinese
tea. Their solution was opium. A product more addictive
than tea, opium was grown under company sponsorship in
northeastern India and then shipped directly to the Chinese
market. Soon demand for the product in South China
became insatiable, despite an official prohibition on its use.
Bullion now flowed out of the Chinese imperial treasury
into the pockets of British merchants and officials.
Opium and Rebellion
When the Chinese attempted to prohibit the opium
trade, the British declared war (see the box on p. 50).
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 49
The Opium War lasted three years (1839–1842) and
graphically demonstrated the superiority of British
firepower and military tactics to those of the Chinese.
China sued for peace and, in the Treaty of Nanjing,
agreed to open five coastal ports to British trade, limit
tariffs on imported British goods, grant extraterritorial
rights to British citizens in China, and pay a substantial
indemnity to cover the British costs of the war. Beijing
also agreed to cede the island of Hong Kong (dismissed
by a senior British official as a ‘‘barren rock’’) to Great
Britain. Nothing was said in the treaty about the opium
trade.
Although the Opium War has traditionally been
considered the beginning of modern Chinese history, it is
unlikely that many Chinese at the time would have seen it
that way. This was not the first time that a ruling dynasty
had been forced to make concessions to foreigners, and
the opening of five coastal ports to the British hardly
constituted a serious threat to the security of the empire.
Although a few concerned Chinese argued that the court
should learn more about European civilization to find the
secret of British success, others contended that China had
nothing to learn from the barbarians and that borrowing
foreign ways would undercut the purity of Confucian
civilization.
The Taiping Rebellion
The Manchus attempted to deal with the problem in the
traditional way of playing the foreigners off against each
other. Concessions granted to the British were offered to
other Western nations, including the United States, and
soon thriving foreign concession areas were operating in
treaty ports along the southern Chinese coast from
Canton in the south to Shanghai, a bustling new port on
a tributary of the Yangtze, in the center.
50 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
In the meantime, the Qing court’s failure to deal with
pressing internal economic problems led to a major peas-
ant revolt that shook the foundations of the empire. On the
surface, the so-called Taiping Rebellion owed something to
the Western incursion; the leader of the uprising, Hong
Xiuquan, a failed candidate for the civil service examina-
tion, was a Christian convert who viewed himself as a
younger brother of Jesus Christ and hoped to establish
what he referred to as a ‘‘Heavenly Kingdom of Supreme
Peace’’ in China. Its ranks swelled by impoverished peas-
ants and other discontented elements throughout the
southern provinces, the Taiping Rebellion swept north-
ward, seizing the Yangtze River port of
Nanjing in March 1853. The revolt
continued for ten more years but
gradually lost momentum, and in 1864,
the Qing, though weakened, retook
Nanjing and destroyed the remnants of
the rebel force. The rebellion had cost
the lives of millions of Chinese.
One reason for the dynasty’s fail-
ure to deal effectively with internal
unrest was its continuing difficulties
with the Western imperialists. In 1856,
the British and the French, still smart-
ing from trade restrictions and limi-
tations on their missionary activities,
launched a new series of attacks
against China and seized the
capital of Beijing in 1860. In
the ensuing Treaty of Tianjin,
the Qing agreed to humiliating
new concessions: legalization of
the opium trade, the opening
of additional ports to foreign
trade, and cession of the pen-
insula of Kowloon (opposite
the island of Hong Kong) to
the British.
Efforts at Reform
By the late 1870s, the old dy-
nasty was well on the road to
internal disintegration. In fend-
ing off the Taiping Rebellion,
the Manchus had been com-
pelled to rely for support on
armed forces under regional
command. After quelling the
revolt, many of these regional
commanders refused to disband
their units and, with the support
of the local gentry, continued to collect local taxes for their
own use. The dreaded pattern of imperial breakdown, so
familiar in Chinese history, was beginning to appear once
again.
In their weakened state, the Qing rulers finally be-
gan to listen to the appeals of reform-minded officials,
who called for a new policy of ‘‘self-strengthening,’’
under which Western technology would be adopted
while Confucian principles and institutions were main-
tained intact. This policy, popularly known by its slogan
‘‘East for essence, West for practical use,’’ remained the
guiding standard for Chinese foreign and domestic
policy for decades. Some people even
called for reforms in education and in
China’s hallowed political institutions.
Pointing to the power and prosperity
of Great Britain, the journalist Wang
Tao (1828–1897) remarked, ‘‘The real
strength of England . . . lies in the fact
that there is a sympathetic under-
standing between the governing and
the governed, a close relationship be-
tween the ruler and the people. . . . My
observation is that the daily domestic
political life of England actually em-
bodies the traditional ideals of our
ancient Golden Age.’’1 Such democratic
The Opium War. The Opium War, waged between China and Great Britain between 1839 and 1842, was
China’s first conflict with a European power. Lacking modern military technology, the Chinese suffered a
humiliating defeat. In this painting, heavily armed British steamships destroy unwieldy Chinese junks along
the Chinese coast. China’s humiliation at sea was a legacy of its rulers’ lack of interest in maritime matters
since the middle of the fifteenth century, when Chinese junks were among the most advanced sailing ships
in the world.
East
China
Sea
Grand Canal
Yang
tze
R.C H I N A
Taiwan
Nanjing
Xiamen
Shanghai
200 Miles
300 Kilometers0
0
Area Under Taiping Rebellion Control
� c
Th
e
A
rt
A
rc
hi
ve
/E
ile
en
Tw
ee
dy
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 51
ideas were too radical for most moderate reformers,
however. One of the leading court officials of the day,
Zhang Zhidong (Chang Chih-tung), countered:
The doctrine of people’s rights will bring us not a single
benefit but a hundred evils. Are we going to establish a
parliament? . . . Even supposing the confused and clamorous
people are assembled in one house, for every one of them
who is clear-sighted, there will be a hundred others whose
vision is beclouded; they will converse at random and talk as
if in a dream—what use will it be?2
For the time being, Zhang Zhidong’s arguments won
the day. During the last quarter of the century, the Man-
chus attempted to modernize their military establishment
and build up an industrial base without disturbing the
essential elements of traditional Chinese civilization. Rail-
roads, weapons arsenals, and shipyards were built, but the
value system remained essentially unchanged.
The Climax of Imperialism in China
In the end, the results spoke for themselves. During the
last two decades of the nineteenth century, the European
penetration of China, both political and military, in-
tensified. At the outer edges of the Qing Empire, rapa-
cious imperialists began to bite off territory. The Gobi
Desert north of the Great Wall, Chinese Central Asia
(known in Chinese as Xinjiang), and Tibet, all inhabited
by non-Chinese peoples and never fully assimilated into
the Chinese Empire, were now gradually removed totally
from Beijing’s control. In the north and northwest, the
main beneficiary was Russia, which took advantage of
the dynasty’s weakness to force the cession of territories
north of the Amur River in Siberia. In Tibet, competi-
tion between Russia and Great Britain prevented either
power from seizing the territory outright but at the
same time enabled Tibetan authorities to revive local
autonomy never recognized by the Chinese. On the
southern borders of the empire, British and French
advances in mainland Southeast Asia removed Burma
and Vietnam from their traditional vassal relationship
with the Manchu court.
Even more ominous developments were taking place
in the Chinese heartland, where European economic
penetration led to the creation of so-called spheres of in-
fluence dominated by diverse foreign powers. Although the
imperial court retained theoretical sovereignty throughout
the country, in practice its political, economic, and ad-
ministrative influence beyond the region of the capital was
increasingly circumscribed.
The breakup of the Manchu dynasty accelerated
during the last five years of the nineteenth century. In
1894, the Qing went to war with Japan over Japanese
incursions into the Korean peninsula, which threatened
China’s long-held suzerainty over the area (see ‘‘Joining
the Imperialist Club’’ later in this chapter). To the surprise
of many observers, the Chinese were roundly defeated,
confirming to some critics the devastating failure of the
policy of self-strengthening by halfway measures.
More humiliation came in 1897, when Germany, a
new entrant in the race for spoils in East Asia, used the
pretext of the murder of two German missionaries by
Chinese rioters to demand the cession of territories in the
Shandong peninsula. The approval of this demand by the
imperial court set off a scramble for territory by other
interested powers. Russia now demanded the Liaodong
peninsula with its ice-free harbor at Port Arthur, and
Great Britain weighed in with a request for a coaling
station in northern China.
The latest scramble for territory had taken place at a
time of internal crisis in China. In the spring of 1898, an
outspoken advocate of reform, the progressive Confucian
scholar Kang Youwei, won the support of the young
emperor Guangxu for a comprehensive reform program
patterned after recent changes initiated in Japan. Without
change, Kang argued, China would perish. During the
next several weeks, the emperor issued edicts calling for
major political, administrative, and educational reforms.
Not surprisingly, Kang’s ideas for reform were opposed by
many conservatives, who saw little advantage to copying
the West. Most important, the new program was opposed
by the emperor’s aunt, the Empress Dowager Cixi, the
real source of power at court. Cixi had begun her political
career as a concubine to an earlier emperor. After his
death, she became a dominant force at court and in 1878
placed her infant nephew, the future emperor Guangxu,
on the throne. For two decades, she ruled in his name as
regent. Cixi interpreted Guangxu’s action as a British-
supported effort to reduce her influence at court. With
the aid of conservatives in the army, she arrested and
executed several of the reformers and had the emperor
incarcerated in the palace. Kang Youwei succeeded in
fleeing abroad. With Cixi’s palace coup, the so-called One
Hundred Days of reform came to an end.
Opening the Door to China During the next two years,
foreign pressure on the dynasty intensified (see Map 3.2
on p. 54). With encouragement from the British, who
hoped to avert a total collapse of the Manchu Empire,
U.S. Secretary of State John Hay presented the other
imperialist powers with a proposal to ensure equal eco-
nomic access to the China market for all nations. Hay also
suggested that all powers join together to guarantee the
territorial and administrative integrity of the Chinese
Empire. When none of the other governments flatly op-
posed the idea, Hay issued a second note declaring that all
52 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
major nations with economic interests in China had
agreed to an ‘‘Open Door’’ policy in China.
Though probably motivated more by a U.S. desire for
open markets than by a benevolent wish to protect China,
the Open Door policy did have the practical effect of re-
ducing the imperialist hysteria over access to the China
market. That hysteria—the product of decades of mythol-
ogizing among Western commercial interests about the
‘‘400 million’’ Chinese customers—had accelerated at the
end of the century as fears over China’s imminent col-
lapse increased. The ‘‘gentlemen’s agreement’’ about the
Open Door (it was not a treaty but merely a pious and
nonbinding expression of intent) served to diminish
fears in Britain, France, Germany, and Russia that other
powers would take advantage of China’s weakness to
dominate the China market.
The Boxer Rebellion In the long run, then, the Open
Door was a positive step that brought a measure of sanity
to the imperialist meddling in East Asia. Unfortunately, it
came too late to stop the domestic explosion known as the
Boxer Rebellion. The Boxers, so called because of the
physical exercises they performed, were members of a se-
cret society operating primarily in rural areas in North
China. Provoked by a damaging drought and high levels of
unemployment caused in part by foreign economic activity
(the introduction of railroads and steamships, for example,
undercut the livelihood of boatworkers who traditionally
carried merchandise on the rivers and canals), the Boxers
attacked foreign residents and besieged the foreign legation
quarter in Beijing until the foreigners were rescued by an
international expeditionary force in the late summer of
1900. As punishment, the foreign troops destroyed a
number of temples in the capital suburbs, and the Chinese
government was compelled to pay a heavy indemnity to the
foreign governments involved in suppressing the uprising.
The Collapse of the Old Order
During the next few years, the old dynasty tried desper-
ately to reform itself. The empress dowager, who had long
resisted change, now embraced a number of reforms in
education, administration, and the legal system. The
venerable civil service examination system, based on
knowledge of the Confucian classics, was replaced by a
new educational system patterned after the Western
model. In 1905, a commission was formed to study
constitutional changes, and over the next few years, leg-
islative assemblies were established at the provincial level.
Elections for a national assembly were held in 1910.
The Empress Dowager’s Navy. Historians have often interpreted the stone pavilion shown here as a
symbol of the Qing dynasty’s inability to comprehend the nature of the threat to its survival. At the command
of Empress Dowager Cixi, funds meant to strengthen the Chinese navy against external threats were used instead
to construct this stone pleasure boat on the shore of a lake at the Summer Palace west of Beijing. Today the
lake is a popular place for Chinese tourists.
� c
W
ill
ia
m
J.
D
ui
ke
r
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 53
Such moves helped shore up the dynasty temporarily,
but history shows that the most dangerous period for an
authoritarian system is when it begins to reform itself,
because change breeds instability and performance rarely
matches rising expectations. Such was the case in China.
The emerging new provincial elite, composed of mer-
chants, professionals, and reform-minded gentry, soon
became impatient with the slow pace of political change
and were disillusioned to find that the new assemblies
were intended to be primarily advisory rather than leg-
islative. The government also alienated influential ele-
ments by financing railway development projects through
lucrative contracts to foreign firms rather than by turning
to local investors. The reforms also had little meaning for
peasants, artisans, miners, and transportation workers,
whose living conditions were being eroded by rising taxes
and official venality. Rising rural unrest, as yet poorly
organized and often centered on
secret societies such as the Boxers,
was an ominous sign of deep-
seated resentment to which the
dynasty would not, or could not,
respond.
The Rise of Sun Yat-sen To
China’s reformist elite, such signs
of social unrest were a threat to be
avoided; to its tiny revolutionary
movement, they were a harbinger
of promise. The first physical
manifestations of future revolution
appeared during the last decade of
the nineteenth century with the
formation of the Revive China
Society by the young radical Sun
Yat-sen (1866–1925). Born to a
peasant family in a village south
of Canton, Sun was educated in
Hawaii and returned to China to
practice medicine. Soon he turned
his full attention to the ills of
Chinese society, leading bands of
radicals in small-scale insurrections
to attract attention.
At first, Sun’s efforts yielded
few positive results other than
creating a symbol of resistance and
the new century’s first revolution-
ary martyrs. But at a convention
in Tokyo in 1905, Sun managed to
unite radical groups from across
China in the so-called Revolu-
tionary Alliance (Tongmenghui).
The new organization’s program was based on Sun’s
Three People’s Principles: nationalism (meaning primar-
ily the destruction of Manchu rule over China), democ-
racy, and ‘‘people’s livelihood’’ (a program to improve
social and economic conditions; see the box on p. 55).
Although the new organization was small and relatively
inexperienced, it benefited from rising popular discontent
with the failure of Manchu reforms to improve con-
ditions in China.
The 1911 Revolution In October 1911, followers of
Sun Yat-sen launched an uprising in the industrial center
of Wuhan, in central China. With Sun traveling in the
United States, the insurrection lacked leadership, but the
decrepit government’s inability to react quickly encour-
aged political forces at the provincial level to take mea-
sures into their own hands. The dynasty was now in a
Yang
tze
R.
Yel
low
R.
Amu
r R
.
South
China Sea
Pacific
Ocean
Sea of
Japan
SH
AN
DO
NG Tokyo
Vladivostok
Seoul
Beijing
Tianjin
Port Arthur (Russ.)
Weihaiwei (Br.)
Qingdao
(Ger.)
Nanjing Shanghai
Ningpo
Fuzhou
Amoy
Canton
Macao (Port.)
Guangzhouwan
(Fr.)
R
y u
k
y
u
I s
.
Hong
Kong
(Br.)
Pescadores Is.
Sakhalin
THAILAND
BURMA
INDIA
TIBET
CHINA
MONGOLIA
RUSSIA
MANCHURIA
SIBERIA
KOREA
JAPAN
TAIWAN
(FORMOSA)
PHILIPPINE
ISLANDSFR.
INDO-
CHINA
YUNNAN
M
AR
IT
IM
E
PR
O
V
.
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 1,000 1,500 Kilometers
Russian
Japanese
British
German
French
Italian
Spheres of Influence
MAP 3.2 Foreign Possessions and Spheres of Influence About 1900. At the end
of the nineteenth century, China was being carved up like a melon by foreign imperialist
powers.
Q Which of the areas marked on the map were removed from Chinese control during
the nineteenth century? View an animated version of this map or related maps at
the World History Resource Center, at www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
54 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
state of virtual collapse: the dowager empress had died in
1908, one day after her nephew Guangxu; the throne was
now occupied by the infant Puyi, the son of Guangxu’s
younger brother. Sun’s party, however, had neither the
military strength nor the political base necessary to seize
the initiative and was forced to turn to a representative of
the old order, General Yuan Shikai. A prominent figure in
military circles since the beginning of the century, Yuan
had been placed in charge of the imperial forces sent to
suppress the rebellion, but now he abandoned the Man-
chus and acted on his own behalf. In negotiations with
representatives of Sun Yat-sen’s party (Sun himself had
arrived in China in January 1912), he agreed to serve as
president of a new Chinese republic. The old dynasty and
the age-old system it had attempted to preserve were no
more.
Propagandists for Sun Yat-sen’s party have often
portrayed the events of 1911 as a glorious revolution that
brought two thousand years of imperial tradition to an
end. But a true revolution does not just destroy an old
order; it also brings new political and social forces into
power and creates new institutions and values that pro-
vide a new framework for a changing society. In this
sense, the 1911 revolution did not live up to its name. Sun
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 55
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
and his followers were unable to consolidate their gains.
The Revolutionary Alliance found the bulk of its support
in an emerging urban middle class and set forth a pro-
gram based generally on Western liberal democratic
principles. That class and that program had provided the
foundation for the capitalist democratic revolutions in
western Europe and North America in the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, but the bourgeois class in China
was too small to form the basis for a new post-Confucian
political order. The vast majority of the Chinese people
still lived on the land. Sun had hoped to win their support
with a land reform program that relied on fiscal in-
centives to persuade landlords to sell excess lands to their
tenants, but few peasants had participated in the 1911
revolution. In effect, then, the events of 1911 were less a
revolution than a collapse of the old order. Undermined
by imperialism and its own internal weaknesses, the old
dynasty had come to an abrupt end before new political
and social forces were ready to fill the vacuum.
What China had experienced was part of a historical
process that was bringing down traditional empires across
the globe, both in regions threatened by Western impe-
rialism and in Europe itself, where tsarist Russia, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire all
came to an end within a few years of the collapse of the
Qing (see Chapters 4 and 5). The circumstances of their
demise were not all the same, but all four regimes shared
the responsibility for their common fate because they had
failed to meet the challenges posed by the times. All had
responded to the forces of industrialization and popular
participation in the political process with hesitation and
reluctance, and their attempts at reform were too little
and too late. All paid the supreme price for their folly.
Chinese Society in Transition
The growing Western presence in China during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries provided the
imperial government with an opportunity to benefit from
the situation. The results, however, were meager. Although
foreign concession areas in the coastal cities provided a
conduit for the importation of Western technology and
modern manufacturing methods, the Chinese borrowed
less than they might have. Foreign manufacturing enter-
prises could not legally operate in China until the last
decade of the nineteenth century, and their methods had
little influence beyond the concession areas. Chinese ef-
forts to imitate Western methods, notably in shipbuilding
and weapons manufacture, were dominated by the gov-
ernment and often suffered from mismanagement.
Equally serious problems persisted in the country-
side. The rapid increase in population had led to smaller
plots and growing numbers of tenant farmers. Whether
per capita consumption of food was on the decline is
not clear from the available evidence, but apparently,
rice as a staple of the diet was increasingly being re-
placed by less nutritious foods. Some farmers benefited
from switching to commercial agriculture to supply the
markets of the growing coastal cities. The shift entailed a
sizable investment, however, and many farmers went so
deeply into debt that they eventually lost their land. At
the same time, the traditional patron-client relationship
was frayed as landlords moved to the cities to take ad-
vantage of the glittering urban lifestyle introduced by
the West.
The Impact of Western Imperialism
The advent of the imperialist era in the second half of the
nineteenth century thus came in a society already facing
serious problems. Whether the Western intrusion was
beneficial or harmful is debated to this day. The Western
presence undoubtedly accelerated the development of the
Chinese economy in some ways: the introduction of
modern means of production, transport, and communi-
cations; the expansion of an export market; and the steady
integration of the Chinese market into the nineteenth-
century global economy. To many Westerners at the time,
it was self-evident that such changes would ultimately
benefit the Chinese people. Critics retorted that Western
imperialism actually hindered the process of structural
change in preindustrial societies because it thwarted the
rise of a local industrial and commercial sector so as to
maintain colonies and semicolonies as a market for
Western manufactured goods and a source of cheap labor
and materials. If the West had not intervened, some ar-
gued, China would have found its own road to becoming
an advanced industrial society.
Many historians today would say that the con-
sequences of the encounter with the West were too
complex for simplistic explanations. By shaking China
out of its traditional mind-set, Western imperialism
accelerated the process of change that had begun in the
late Ming and early Qing periods and forced the Chinese
to adopt new ways of thinking and acting. At the same
time, China paid a heavy price in the destruction of its
local industry, while many of the profits from new in-
dustries flowed abroad. Although an industrial revolu-
tion is a painful process whenever and wherever it
occurs, the Chinese found the experience doubly painful
because it was foisted on China from the outside.
Whatever benefits it may have offered, imperialism
created serious distortions in the local economy that
resulted in massive changes in Chinese society during
the twentieth century.
56 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Daily Life in Qing China
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, daily life for
most Chinese was not substantially different from what it
had been for centuries. Most were farmers, living in mil-
lions of villages in rice fields and on hillsides throughout
the countryside. Their lives were governed by the harvest
cycle, village custom, and family ritual. Their roles in
society were firmly fixed by the time-honored principles of
Confucian social ethics. Male children, at least the more
fortunate ones, were educated in the Confucian classics,
while females remained in the home or in the fields. All
children were expected to obey their parents, wives to
submit to their husbands.
A visitor to China a hundred years later would have
seen a very different society, although still recognizably
Chinese. Change was most striking in the coastal cities,
where the educated and affluent had been visibly af-
fected by the growing Western cultural presence. Con-
fucian social institutions and behavioral norms were
declining rapidly in influence, while those of Europe and
North America were ascendant. Change was much less
noticeable in the countryside, but even there, the cus-
tomary bonds had been dangerously frayed by the rap-
idly changing times.
Some of the change can be traced to the educational
system. During the nineteenth century, the importance of
a Confucian education steadily declined because up to
half of the degree holders had purchased their degrees.
After 1906, when the government abolished the civil
service examinations, a Confucian education ceased to be
the key to a successful career, and Western-style education
became more desirable. The old dynasty attempted to
modernize by establishing an educational system on the
Western model with universal education at the elemen-
tary level. Such plans had some effect in the cities, where
public schools, missionary schools, and other private
institutions educated a new generation of Chinese with
little knowledge of or respect for the past.
The Status of Women
The status of women was also in transition. During the
mid-Qing era, women were still expected to remain in the
home. Their status as useless sex objects was painfully
symbolized by the practice of foot binding, a custom that
had probably originated among court entertainers in the
eighth century and later spread to the common people.
By the mid-nineteenth century, more than half of all adult
women probably had bound feet.
During the second half of the nineteenth century,
signs of change began to appear. Women began to seek
employment in factories—notably in the cotton mills
and in the silk industry, established in Shanghai in the
1890s. Some women were active in dissident activities,
such as the Taiping Rebellion and the Boxer movement,
and a few fought beside men in the 1911 revolution. Qiu
Jin, a well-known female revolutionary, wrote a mani-
festo calling for women’s liberation and then organized a
revolt against the Manchu government, only to be cap-
tured and executed at the age of thirty-two in 1907.
By the end of the century, educational opportunities
for women appeared for the first time. Christian mis-
sionaries began to open girls’ schools, mainly in the for-
eign concession areas. Although only a relatively small
number of women were educated in these schools, they
had a significant impact on Chinese society as progressive
intellectuals began to argue that ignorant women pro-
duced ignorant children. In 1905, the court announced its
intention to open public schools for girls, but few such
schools ever materialized. The government also began to
take steps to discourage the practice of foot binding,
initially with only minimal success.
Women with Bound Feet. To provide the best possible marriage for
their daughters, upper-class families began to perform foot binding during
the Song dynasty. Eventually, the practice spread to all social classes in
China. Although small feet were supposed to denote a woman of leisure,
most Chinese women with bound feet were in the labor force, working
mainly in textiles and handicrafts to supplement the family income.
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CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 57
Traditional Japan and
the End of Isolation
While Chinese rulers were coping with the dual problems
of external threat and internal instability, similar devel-
opments were taking place in Japan. An agricultural so-
ciety like its powerful neighbor, Japan had borrowed
extensively from Chinese civilization for more than a
millennium; its political institutions, religious beliefs, and
cultural achievements all bore the clear imprint of the
Chinese model. Nevertheless, throughout the centuries,
the Japanese were able to retain not only their political
independence but also their cultural uniqueness and had
created a distinct civilization.
One reason for the historical differences between
China and Japan is that China is a large continental
country and Japan a small island nation. Proud of their
own considerable cultural achievements and their domi-
nant position throughout the region, the Chinese have
traditionally been reluctant to dilute the purity of their
culture with foreign innovations. Often subject to inva-
sion by nomadic peoples from the north, the Chinese
viewed culture rather than race as a symbol of their sense
of identity. By contrast, the island character of Japan
probably had the effect of strengthening the Japanese
sense of ethnic and cultural distinctiveness. Although the
Japanese self-image of ethnic homogeneity may not be
entirely justified, it enabled them to import ideas from
abroad without the risk of destroying the uniqueness of
their own culture.
As a result, although the Japanese borrowed liberally
from China over the centuries, they turned Chinese ideas
and institutions to their own uses. In contrast to China,
where a centralized political system was viewed as crucial
to protect the vast country from foreign conquest or in-
ternal fractionalization, a decentralized political system
reminiscent of the feudal system in medieval Europe held
sway in Japan under the hegemony of a powerful military
leader, or shogun, who ruled with varying degrees of ef-
fectiveness in the name of the hereditary emperor. This
system lasted until the early seventeenth century, when a
strong shogunate called the Tokugawa rose to power after
a protracted civil war. The Tokugawa managed to revitalize
the traditional system in a somewhat more centralized
form that enabled it to survive for another 250 years.
A ‘‘Closed Country’’
One of the many factors involved in the rise of the To-
kugawa was the impending collapse of the old system.
Another was contact with the West, which had begun with
the arrival of Portuguese ships in Japanese ports in the
middle of the sixteenth century. Japan initially opened its
doors eagerly to European trade and missionary activity,
but later Japanese elites became concerned about the
corrosive effects of Western ideas and practices and at-
tempted to evict the foreigners. For the next two centuries,
the Tokugawa adopted a policy of ‘‘closed country’’ (to use
the contemporary Japanese phrase) to keep out foreign
ideas and protect native values and institutions. In spite of
such efforts, however, Japanese society was changing from
within, and by the early nineteenth century it was quite
different from what it had been two centuries earlier.
Traditional institutions and the feudal aristocratic system
were under increasing strain, not only from the emergence
of a new merchant class but also from the centralizing
tendencies of the powerful shogunate.
Some historians have noted strong parallels between
Tokugawa Japan and early modern Europe, which devel-
oped centralized empires and a strong merchant class at
the same time. Certainly, there were signs that the sho-
gunate system was becoming less effective. Factionalism
and corruption plagued the central bureaucracy. Feudal
lords in the countryside (known as daimyo, or ‘‘great
names’’) reacted to increasing economic pressures by in-
tensifying their exactions from the peasants who farmed
their manor holdings and by engaging in manufacturing
and commercial pursuits, such as the sale of textiles, for-
estry products, and sake (Japanese rice wine). As peasants
were whipsawed by rising manorial exactions and a series
of poor harvests caused by bad weather, rural unrest swept
the countryside.
Japan, then, was ripe for change. Some historians
maintain that the country was poised to experience an
industrial revolution under the stimulus of internal con-
ditions. As in China, the resumption of contacts with the
West in the middle of the nineteenth century rendered
the question somewhat academic. To the Western pow-
ers, the continued isolation of Japanese society was an
affront and a challenge. Driven by growing rivalry among
themselves and convinced by their own propaganda and
the ideology of world capitalism that the expansion of
trade on a global basis would benefit all nations, Western
nations began to approach Japan in the hope of opening
up the country to foreign economic interests.
The Opening of Japan
The first to succeed was the United States. American
whalers and clipper ships following the northern route
across the Pacific needed a fueling station before com-
pleting their long journey to China and other ports in the
area. The efforts to pry the Japanese out of their cloistered
existence in the 1830s and 1840s failed, but the Americans
persisted. In the summer of 1853, an American fleet of
58 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
four warships under Commodore Matthew C. Perry ar-
rived in Edo Bay (now Tokyo Bay) with a letter from
President Millard Fillmore addressed to the shogun. A
few months later, Japan agreed to the Treaty of Kanagawa,
providing for the opening of two ports and the estab-
lishment of a U.S. consulate on Japanese soil. In 1858,
U.S. Consul Townsend Harris signed a more elaborate
commercial treaty calling for the opening of several ports
to U.S. trade and residence, an exchange of ministers, and
extraterritorial privileges for U.S. residents in Japan. The
Japanese soon signed similar treaties with several Euro-
pean nations.
The decision to open relations with the Western
barbarians was highly unpopular in some quarters, par-
ticularly in regions distant from the shogunate head-
quarters in Edo. Resistance was especially strong in two of
the key outside daimyo territories in the south, Satsuma
and Choshu, both of which had strong military tradi-
tions. In 1863, the ‘‘Sat-Cho’’ alliance forced the hapless
shogun to promise to bring relations with the West to an
end, but the rebellious groups soon disclosed their own
weakness. When Choshu troops fired on Western ships in
the Strait of Shimonoseki, the Westerners fired back and
destroyed the Choshu fortifications. The incident con-
vinced the rebellious samurai (‘‘retainers,’’ the traditional
warrior class) of the need to strengthen their own military
and intensified their unwillingness to give in to the West.
Having strengthened their influence at the imperial court
in Kyoto, they demanded the resignation of the shogun
and the restoration of the power of the emperor. In
January 1868, rebel armies attacked the shogun’s palace in
Kyoto and proclaimed the restored authority of the em-
peror. After a few weeks, resistance collapsed, and the
venerable shogunate system was brought to an end.
Rich Country, Strong Army
Although the victory of the Sat-Cho faction over the
shogunate appeared on the surface to be a struggle be-
tween advocates of tradition and proponents of concili-
ation toward the West, in fact the new leadership soon
realized that Japan must change to survive and embarked
on a policy of comprehensive reform that would lay the
foundations of a modern industrial nation within a
generation. The symbol of the new era was the young
emperor himself, who had taken the reign name Meiji
(‘‘enlightened rule’’) on ascending the throne after the
death of his father in 1867. Although the post-Tokugawa
period was termed a ‘‘restoration,’’ the Meiji ruler was
controlled by the new leadership, just as the shogun had
controlled his predecessors. In tacit recognition of the real
source of political power, the new capital was located at
Edo, which was renamed Tokyo (‘‘Eastern Capital’’), and
the imperial court was moved to the shogun’s palace in
the center of the city.
The Transformation of Japanese Politics
Once in power, the new leaders launched a comprehen-
sive reform of Japanese political, social, economic, and
cultural institutions and values. They moved first to
abolish the remnants of the old order and strengthen
their executive power. To undercut the power of the
daimyo, hereditary privileges were abolished in 1871, and
the great lords lost title to their lands. As compensation,
they were named governors of the territories formerly
under their control. The samurai received a lump-sum
payment to replace their traditional stipends but were
forbidden to wear the sword, the symbol of their hered-
itary status.
The abolition of the legal underpinnings of the To-
kugawa system permitted the Meiji modernizers to em-
bark on the creation of a modern political system based
on the Western model. In the Charter Oath of 1868, the
new leaders promised to create a new deliberative as-
sembly within the framework of continued imperial rule
(see the box on p. 60). Although senior positions in the
new government were given to the daimyo, the key posts
were dominated by modernizing samurai, known as the
genro, from the Sat-Cho clique.
During the next two decades, the Meiji government
undertook a systematic study of Western political
systems. A constitutional commission under Prince Ito
Hirobumi traveled to several Western countries, including
Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and the United States, to
study their political institutions. As the process evolved, a
number of factions appeared, each representing different
ideas. The most prominent were the Liberals, who favored
political reform on the Western liberal democratic model,
and the Progressives, who called for a division of power
between the legislative and executive branches, with a
slight nod to the latter. There was also an imperial party
that advocated the retention of supreme authority in the
hands of the emperor.
The Meiji Constitution During the 1870s and 1880s,
these factions competed for preeminence. In the end, the
Progressives emerged victorious. The Meiji constitution,
adopted in 1890, vested authority in the executive branch,
although the imperialist faction was pacified by the
statement that the constitution was the gift of the em-
peror. Members of the cabinet were to be handpicked by
the Meiji oligarchs. The upper house of parliament was to
be appointed and have equal legislative powers with the
lower house, called the Diet, whose members would be
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 59
elected. The core ideology of the state was called the ko-
kutai (national polity), which embodied (although in very
imprecise form) the concept of the uniqueness of the
Japanese system based on the supreme authority of the
emperor.
The result was a system that was democratic in form
but despotic in practice, modern in external appearance
but still recognizably traditional in that power remained
in the hands of a ruling oligarchy. The system permitted
the traditional ruling class to retain its influence and
economic power while acquiescing in the emergence of a
new set of institutions and values.
Meiji Economics
With the end of the daimyo domains, the government
needed to establish a new system of land ownership that
would transform the mass of the rural population from
indentured serfs into citizens. To do so, it enacted a land
reform program that redefined the domain lands as the
private property of the tillers while compensating the
previous owner with government bonds. One reason for
the new policy was that the government needed operating
revenues. At the time, public funds came mainly from
customs duties, which were limited by agreement with the
foreign powers to 5 percent of the value of the product.
To remedy the problem, the Meiji leaders added a new
agriculture tax, which was set at an annual rate of 3 percent
of the estimated value of the land. The new tax proved to
be a lucrative and dependable source of income for the
government, but it was quite onerous for the farmers, who
had previously paid a fixed percentage of their harvest to
the landowner. As a result, in bad years, many taxpaying
peasants were unable to pay their taxes and were forced to
sell their lands to wealthy neighbors. Eventually, the gov-
ernment reduced the tax to 2.5 percent of the land value.
Still, by the end of the century, about 40 percent of all
farmers were tenants.
Launching the Industrial Revolution With its budget
needs secured, the government turned to the promotion
of industry. A small but growing industrial economy had
already existed under the Tokugawa. In its early stages,
manufacturing in Japan had been the exclusive respon-
sibility of an artisan caste, who often worked for the local
daimyo. Eventually, these artisans began to expand their
activities, hiring workers and borrowing capital from
merchants. By the end of the seventeenth century,
manufacturing centers had developed in Japan’s growing
cities, such as Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka. According to one
historian, by 1700, Japan already had four cities with a
population over 100,000 and was one of the most ur-
banized societies in the world.
Japan’s industrial sector received a massive stimulus
from the Meiji Restoration. The government provided
financial subsidies to needy industries, imported foreign
advisers, improved transport and communications, and
established a universal system of education emphasizing
applied science. In contrast to China, Japan was able to
achieve results with minimum reliance on foreign capital.
Although the first railroad—built in 1872—was under-
written by a loan from Great Britain, future projects were
60 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
all financed locally. Foreign-currency holdings came
largely from tea and silk, which were exported in signif-
icant quantities during the latter half of the nineteenth
century.
During the late Meiji era, Japan’s industrial sector
began to grow. Besides tea and silk, other key industries
were weaponry, shipbuilding, and sake. From the start,
the distinctive feature of the Meiji model was the intimate
relationship between government and private business in
terms of operations and regulations. Once an individual
enterprise or industry was on its feet (or sometimes,
when it had ceased to make a profit), it was turned over
entirely to private ownership, although the government
often continued to play some role even after its direct
involvement in management was terminated.
Also noteworthy is the effect that the Meiji reforms
had on rural areas. As we have seen, the new land tax
provided the government with funds to subsidize the
industrial sector, but it imposed severe hardship on the
rural population, many of whom abandoned their farms
and fled to the cities in search of jobs. This influx of
people in turn benefited Japanese industry by providing
an abundant source of cheap labor. As in early modern
Europe, the industrial revolution in Japan was built on
the strong backs of the long-suffering peasantry.
Building a Modern Social Structure
The Meiji Restoration also transformed several other feudal
institutions. A key focus of their attention was the army.
The Sat-Cho reformers had been struck by the weakness
of the Japanese armed forces in clashes with the Western
powers and embarked on a major program to create a
modern military force that could compete in a Darwinist
world governed by the survival of the fittest. The old
feudal army based on the traditional warrior class was
abolished, and an imperial army based on universal con-
scription was formed in 1871. The army also played an
important role in Japanese society, becoming a means of
upward mobility for many rural males.
Education Education also underwent major changes.
The Meiji leaders recognized the need for universal edu-
cation, including instruction in modern technology. After
a few years of experimenting, they adopted the American
model of a three-tiered system culminating in a series of
universities and specialized institutes. In the meantime,
they sent bright students to study abroad and brought
foreign specialists to Japan to teach in their new schools.
Much of the content of the new system was Western in
inspiration. Yet its ethical foundations had a distinctly
Confucian orientation, emphasizing such values as filial
piety and loyalty to the emperor.
The Role of Women The Meiji reforms also had an
impact on the role of women in Japan. In the traditional
era, women were constrained by the ‘‘three obediences’’
imposed on their gender: child to father, wife to husband,
and widow to son. Husbands could easily obtain a di-
vorce, but wives could not (one regulation allegedly de-
creed that a husband could divorce his spouse if she
drank too much tea or talked too much). Marriages were
arranged, and the average age of marriage for females was
sixteen years. Females did not share inheritance rights
with males, and few received any education outside the
family.
By the end of the nineteenth century, women were
beginning to play a crucial role in their nation’s effort to
modernize. Urged by their parents to augment the family
income as well as by the government to fulfill their patri-
otic duty, young girls were sent en masse to work in textile
mills. From 1894 to 1912, women represented 60 percent
of the Japanese labor force. Thanks to them, by 1914,
Japan was the world’s leading exporter of silk and domi-
nated cotton manufacturing. If it had not been for the
export revenues earned from textile exports, Japan might
not have been able to develop its heavy industry and
military prowess without an infusion of foreign capital.
Japanese women received few rewards, however, for
their contribution to the nation. In 1900, new regulations
prohibited women from joining political organizations or
attending public meetings. Beginning in 1905, a group
of independent-minded women petitioned the Japanese
parliament to rescind this restriction, but it was not
repealed until 1922.
Joining the Imperialist Club
Japan’s rapid advance was viewed with proprietary pride
and admiration by sympathetic observers around the
world. Unfortunately, the Japanese did not just imitate the
domestic policies of their Western mentors; they also
emulated the latter’s aggressive approach to foreign affairs.
That they adopted this course is perhaps not surprising. In
their own minds, the Japanese were particularly vulnerable
in the world economic arena. Their territory was small,
lacking in resources, and densely populated, and they had
no natural outlet for expansion. To observant Japanese,
the lessons of history were clear. Western nations had
amassed wealth and power not only because of their
democratic systems and high level of education but also
because of their colonies, which provided them with
sources of raw materials, cheap labor, and markets for
their manufactured products.
Traditionally, Japan had not been an expansionist
country. The Japanese had generally been satisfied to re-
main on their home islands and had even deliberately
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 61
isolated themselves from their neighbors during the To-
kugawa era. Perhaps the most notable exception was a
short-lived attempt at the end of the sixteenth century to
extend Japanese control over the Korean peninsula.
The Japanese began their program of territorial ex-
pansion (see Map 3.3) close to home. In 1874, they
claimed compensation from China for fifty-four sailors
from the Ryukyu Islands who had been killed by abo-
rigines on the island of Taiwan and sent a Japanese fleet to
Taiwan to punish the perpetrators. When the Qing dy-
nasty evaded responsibility for the incident while agreeing
to pay an indemnity to Japan to cover the cost of the
expedition, it weakened its claim to ownership of the
island of Taiwan. Japan was then able to claim suzerainty
over the Ryukyu Islands, long tributary to the Chinese
Empire. Two years later, Japanese naval pressure forced
the opening of Korean ports to Japanese commerce.
During the 1880s, as Meiji leaders began to mod-
ernize their military forces along Western lines, Sino-
Japanese rivalry over Korea intensified. In 1894, China
and Japan intervened on opposite sides of an internal
rebellion in Korea. When hostilities broke out between
the two powers, Japanese ships destroyed the Chinese fleet
and seized the Manchurian city of Port Arthur. In the
Treaty of Shimonoseki, the Manchus were forced to rec-
ognize the independence of Korea and to cede Taiwan and
the Liaodong peninsula, with its strategic naval base at
Port Arthur, to Japan.
Amur R. R U S S I A
MANCHURIA
TAIWAN
(FORMOSA)
1895
KARAFUTO
1905
KOREA
1908
FUJIAN
SHANDONG
SAKHALIN
SOUTH MANCHUR
IA
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UK
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IS
. 1
87
2
KU
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IS
. 1
87
5
JAP
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Paci fic
Ocean
Sea
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Str
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s o
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su
sh
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IN
A
Qingdao
Changchun
Amoy
Port Arthur
Liaodong
Peninsula
Japan’s possessions at
the end of 1875
Territorial acquisitions,
1894–1914
Spheres of Japanese
influence in 1918
0 250 500 Miles
0 500 1,000 Kilometers
MAP 3.3 Japanese Overseas Expansion During the Meiji
Era. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Japan ventured
beyond its home islands and became an imperialist power. The extent
of Japanese colonial expansion through World War I is shown here.
Q Which parts of Imperial China were now under Japanese
influence?
Total Humiliation. Whereas China had persevered in hiding behind the grandeur of its past, Japan had
embraced the West, modernizing itself politically, militarily, and culturally. China’s humiliation at the hands of
its newly imperialist neighbor is evident in this scene, where the differences in dress and body posture of the
officials negotiating the treaty after the war reflect China’s disastrous 1895 defeat by the Japanese.
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62 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
Shortly thereafter, under pressure from the European
powers, the Japanese returned the Liaodong peninsula to
China, but in the early twentieth century, they returned to
the offensive. Rivalry with Russia over influence in Korea led
to increasingly strained relations between the two countries.
In 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian
naval base at Port Arthur, which Russia had taken from
China in 1898. The Japanese armed forces were weaker, but
Russia faced difficult logistical problems along its new Trans-
Siberian Railway and severe political instability at home. In
1905, after Japanese warships sank almost the entire Russian
fleet off the coast of Korea, the Russians agreed to a hu-
miliating peace, ceding the strategically located Liaodong
peninsula back to Japan, along with southern Sakhalin and
the Kurile Islands. Russia also agreed to abandon its political
and economic influence in Korea and southern Manchuria,
which now came increasingly under Japanese control. The
Japanese victory stunned the world, including the colonial
peoples of Southeast Asia, who now began to realize that
Europeans were not necessarily invincible.
During the next few years, the Japanese consolidated
their position in northeastern Asia, annexing Korea in
1908 as an integral part of Japan. When the Koreans
protested the seizure, Japanese reprisals resulted in thou-
sands of deaths. The United States was the first nation to
recognize the annexation in return for Tokyo’s declaration
of respect for U.S. authority in the Philippines. In 1908,
the two countries reached an agreement in which the
United States recognized Japanese interests in the region
in return for Japanese acceptance of the principles of the
Open Door. But mutual suspicion between the two
countries was growing, sparked in part by U.S. efforts to
restrict immigration from all Asian countries. President
Theodore Roosevelt, who mediated the Russo-Japanese
War, had aroused the anger of many Japanese by turning
down a Japanese demand for reparations from Russia. In
turn, some Americans began to fear the ‘‘yellow peril,’’
manifested by Japanese expansion in East Asia.
Japanese Culture in Transition
The wave of Western technology and ideas that entered
Japan in the second half of the nineteenth century greatly
altered the shape of traditional Japanese culture. Literature
in particular was affected as European models eclipsed the
repetitive and frivolous tales of the Tokugawa era. Dazzled
by this ‘‘new’’ literature, Japanese authors began translat-
ing and imitating the imported models. Experimenting
with Western verse, Japanese poets were at first influenced
primarily by the British but eventually adopted such
French styles as Symbolism, Dadaism, and Surrealism,
although some traditional poetry was still composed.
The Ginza in Downtown Tokyo. This 1877 wood-block print shows the Ginza, a major commercial
thoroughfare in downtown Tokyo, with modern brick buildings, rickshaws, and a horse-drawn streetcar. The
centerpiece and focus of public attention is a new electric streetlight. In combining traditional form with modern
content, this painting symbolizes the unique ability of the Japanese to borrow ideas from abroad while
preserving much of the essence of their traditional culture.
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CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 63
As the Japanese invited technicians, engineers, ar-
chitects, and artists from Europe and the United States to
teach their ‘‘modern’’ skills to a generation of eager stu-
dents, the Meiji era became a time of massive con-
sumption of Western artistic techniques and styles.
Japanese architects and artists created huge buildings of
steel and reinforced concrete adorned with Greek col-
umns and cupolas, oil paintings reflecting the European
concern with depth perception and shading, and bronze
sculptures of secular subjects.
Cultural exchange also went the other way as Japanese
arts and crafts, porcelains, textiles, fans, folding screens,
and wood-block prints became the vogue in Europe and
North America. Japanese art influenced Western painters
such as Vincent van Gogh, Edgar Degas, and James Whistler,
who experimented with flatter compositional perspectives
and unusual poses. Japanese gardens, with their exquisite
attention to the positioning of rocks and falling water,
became especially popular.
After the initial period of mass absorption of Western
art, a national reaction occurred at the end of the nine-
teenth century as many artists returned to pre-Meiji
techniques. In 1889, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (today
the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music)
was founded to promote traditional Japanese art. Over the
next several decades, Japanese art underwent a dynamic
resurgence, reflecting the nation’s emergence as a pros-
perous and powerful state. While some Japanese artists
attempted to synthesize native and foreign techniques,
others returned to past artistic traditions for inspiration.
TIMELINE
1830 1850 1870 1890 1910
China
Manchus suppress
Taiping Rebellion
(1864)
Japan
Sun Yat-sen’s forces overthrow Manchu dynasty
(1911)
Opium War
(1839–1842)
Abolition of feudalism in Japan
(1871)
Sino-Japanese War
(1894–1895)
Russo-Japanese War
(1904–1905)
One Hundred Days reform
(1898)
Collapse of Tokugawa shogunate
(1868)
Meiji constitution
adopted
(1890)
Commodore Perry
in Tokyo Bay
(1853)
CONCLUSION
THE MEIJI RESTORATION was one of the great success stories of modern
times. Not only did the Meiji leaders put Japan firmly on the path
to economic and political development, but they also managed to
remove the unequal treaty provisions that had been imposed at
mid-century. Japanese achievements are especially impressive
when compared with the difficulties experienced by China, which
was not only unable to effect significant changes in its traditional
society but had not even reached a consensus on the need for
doing so. Japan’s achievements more closely resemble those of
Europe, but whereas the West needed a century and a half to
achieve a significant level of industrial development, the Japanese
achieved it in forty years.
The differences between the Japanese and Chinese responses
to the West have sparked considerable debate among students of
comparative history. Some have argued that Japan’s success was
partly due to good fortune; lacking abundant natural resources,
it was exposed to less pressure from the West than many of its
neighbors. That argument, however, is not very persuasive, since it
does not explain why nations under considerably less pressure, such
as Laos and Nepal, did not advance even more quickly.
One possible explanation has already been suggested: Japan’s
unique geographic position in Asia. China, a continental nation
with a heterogeneous ethnic composition, was distinguished from
its neighbors by its Confucian culture. By contrast, Japan was an
island nation, ethnically and linguistically homogeneous, that had
never been conquered. Unlike the Chinese, the Japanese had little to
fear from cultural change in terms of its effect on their national
identity. If Confucian culture, with all its accouterments, was what
defined the Chinese gentleman, his Japanese counterpart, in the
familiar image, could discard his sword and kimono and don a
64 P A R T I NEW WORLD IN THE MAKING
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Quoted in Ssu-yu Teng and John K. Fairbank, eds., China’s
Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923
(New York, 1970), p. 140.
2. Ibid., p. 167.
modern military uniform or a Western business suit and still feel
comfortable in both worlds.
Whatever the case, the Meiji Restoration was possible
because aristocratic and capitalist elements managed to work
together in a common effort to achieve national wealth and
power. The nature of the Japanese value system, with its emphasis
on practicality and military achievement, may also have
contributed. Finally, the Meiji benefited from the fact that the
pace of urbanization and commercial and industrial development
had already begun to quicken under the Tokugawa. Japan, it has
been said, was ripe for change, and nothing could have been more
suitable as an antidote for the collapsing old system than the
Western emphasis on wealth and power. It was a classic example
of challenge and response.
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 3 SHADOWS OVER THE PACIFIC: EAST ASIA UNDER CHALLENGE 65
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
66
THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY witnessed two ma-
jor developments: the Industrial Revolution and European
domination of the world. Of these two factors, the first was
clearly themore important, for it created the conditions for
the latter. It was, of course, the major industrial powers—
Great Britain, France, and later Germany, Japan, and the
United States—that took the lead in building large colonial
empires. European nations that did not achieve a high level
of industrial development, such as Spain and Portugal,
declined in importance as colonial powers.
Why some societies were able to master the challenge of
industrialization and others were not has been a matter of
considerable scholarly debate. Some observers have found
the answer in the cultural characteristics of individual soci-
eties, such as the Protestant work ethic in parts of Europe or
the tradition of social discipline and class hierarchy in Japan.
According to historianDavid Landes, cultural differences are
the key reason the Industrial Revolution first took place in
Europe rather than elsewhere in the world. While admitting
that other factors, such as climate and the presence of natural
resources, played a role in the process, what is most impor-
tant, he maintains in his provocative book The Wealth and
Poverty of Nations, are ‘‘work, thrift, honesty, patience, and
tenacity,’’ all characteristics that are present to a greater or
lesser degree in European civilization. Other societies were
entangled in a ‘‘web of tradition’’ comprised of political au-
thoritarianism, religious prejudice, and a suspicion of ma-
terialwealth. Thus, they failed to overcomeobstacles to rapid
economic development. Only Japan, with its own tradition
of emphasis on hard work, self-sacrifice, and high achieve-
ment, succeeded in emulating the European experience.
Other scholars criticize Landes’s approach as Euro-
centric and marked by lamentable ignorance of the dynamic
forces at work in the non-Western world. In their view,
other more practical considerations may have played an
equally important role in determining society’s winners and
losers, such as the lack of an urban market for agricultural
goods in China (which reduced the landowners’ incentives
to introduce mechanized farming) or the relative absence of
a foreign threat in Japan (which provided increased op-
portunities for local investment). In the view of some the-
orists of the ‘‘world systems’’ school, it was in fact as a result
of the successes achieved during the early stages of
European expansion during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries that major European powers amassed the capital,
developed the experience, and built the trade networks that
would later fuel the Industrial Revolution. In that inter-
pretation, vigorously argued by the sociologist Andre
Gunder Frank, the latter event is less important as the
driving force of the modern age than the period—marked
by Western military conquest and the degradation of many
non-Western peoples—that immediately preceded it.
It is clear that neither side possesses a monopoly of
truth in this debate. Although culture clearly matters,
other factors, such as climate, geography, the quality of
political leadership, and what has been called ‘‘social
capital’’ (such as the strength of the civil society), are also
important. On the other hand, the argument that impe-
rialism is the main culprit cannot explain why some
previously colonial societies have succeeded in mounting
the ladder of economic success so much more successfully
than others. What is increasingly clear is that there is no
single answer, or solution, to the question.
Whatever the ultimate causes, the advent of the In-
dustrial Age had a number of lasting consequences for the
world at large. On the one hand, the material wealth of those
nations that successfully passed through the process in-
creased significantly. In many cases, the creation of advanced
industrial societies strengthened democratic institutions
and led to a higher standard of living for the majority of the
population. The spread of technology and trade outside of
Europe created the basis for a new international economic
order based on the global exchange of goods.
On the other hand, as we have seen, not all the
consequences of the Industrial Revolution were beneficial.
In the industrializing societies themselves, rapid economic
change often led to resentment over the vast disparities in
the distribution of wealth and a sense of rootlessness and
alienation among much of the population. Some societies
were able to manage these problems with some degree of
success, but others experienced a breakdown of social
values and the rise of widespread political instability.
Industrialization also had destabilizing consequences on
the global scene. Rising economic competition among the
industrial powers was a major contributor to heightened
international competition in the world.
Elsewhere in Europe, old empires found it increas-
ingly difficult to respond to new problems. The Ottoman
REFLECTION PART I
67
Empire appeared helpless to curb unrest in the Balkans.
In Imperial Russia, internal tensions became too much
for the traditional landholding elites to handle, leading to
significant political and social unrest in the first decade of
the twentieth century. In Austria-Hungary, deep-seated
ethnic and class antagonisms remained under the surface
but reached a point where they might eventually threaten
the survival of that multinational state.
In the meantime, the Industrial Revolution was creating
the technological means by which the West would achieve
domination ofmuch of the rest of the world by the end of the
nineteenth century. Europeans had begun to explore the
world in the fifteenth century, but even as late as 1870, they
had not yet completely penetrated North America, South
America, andAustralia. In Asia andAfrica, with a few notable
exceptions, theWestern presencewas limited to trading posts.
Between 1870 and 1914, Western civilization expanded into
the rest of the Americas and Australia, while most of Africa
and Asia was divided into European colonies or spheres of
influence. Two major factors explain this remarkable ex-
pansion: the need by Europe’s industrializing economies for
rawmaterials and newmarkets for their products outside the
continent and the strengthening of imperialist powers made
possible by the West’s technological advances.
Population trends were also a factor. The European
population increased dramatically between 1850 and 1910,
rising from 270 million to 460 million. Although agricultural
and industrial prosperity supported an increase in the Eu-
ropean population, it could not do so indefinitely, especially
in areas that had little industry and severe rural overpopu-
lation. Some of the excess labor from underdeveloped areas
migrated to the industrial regions of Europe. By 1913, for
example, more than 400,000 Poles were working in the
heavily industrialized Ruhr region of western Germany. But
the industrialized regions of Europe could not absorb the
entire surplus population of the agricultural regions. A
booming American economy after 1898 and cheap shipping
fares after 1900 led to mass emigration from southern and
eastern Europe to North America at the beginning of the
twentieth century. In 1880, on average, around half a million
people departed annually from Europe, but between 1906
and 1910, their numbers increased to 1.3 million, many of
them from southern and eastern Europe. Altogether, be-
tween 1846 and 1932, probably 60 million Europeans left
Europe, half of them bound for the United States and most
of the rest for Canada or Latin America.
Beginning in the 1880s, European states began an in-
tense scramble foroverseas territory. This ‘‘new imperialism,’’
as some have called it, led Europeans to carve up Asia and
Africa. Imperialismwas not really a new phenomenon. Since
the Crusades of theMiddle Ages and the overseas expansion
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Europeans
established colonies inNorth andSouthAmerica and trading
posts around Africa and the Indian Ocean, Europeans had
shown a marked proclivity for the domination of less tech-
nologically oriented, non-European peoples. Nevertheless,
the imperialism of the late nineteenth century was different
from that of earlier periods. First, it occurred after a period in
which Europeans had reacted against imperial expansion.
Between 1775 and 1875, European states actually lost more
colonial territory than they acquired asmany Europeans had
come to regard colonies as expensive anduseless. Second, the
new imperialismwas more rapid and resulted in greater and
deeper penetrations into non-European societies. Finally,
most of the new imperialismwas directed toward Africa and
Asia, two regions that had been largely ignored until then.
The new imperialism had a dramatic effect on Africa
and Asia as European powers competed for control of
these two continents. In contrast, Latin America was able
to achieve political independence from its colonial rulers
in the course of the nineteenth century and embark on
the process of building new nations. Like the Ottoman
Empire, however, Latin America remained subject to
commercial penetration by Western merchants.
Another part of the world that escaped total domi-
nation by the West was East Asia, where China and Japan
were able to maintain at least the semblance of national
independence during the height of the Western onslaught
at the end of the nineteenth century. For China, once the
most advanced country in the world, survival was very
much in doubt for many decades as the waves of Western
political, military, and economic influence lapped at the
edges of the Chinese Empire and appeared on the verge of
dividing up the Chinese heartland into separate spheres
of influence. Only Japan responded with vigor and ef-
fectiveness, launching a comprehensive reform program
that by the end of the century had transformed the island
nation into an emerging member of the imperialist club.
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69
P A R T
II
CULTURES IN COLLISION
Japanese troops enter the Chinese city of Nanjing.
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AS THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY DAWNED, the magnifi-
cent promise offered by recent scientific advances and the flowering
of the Industrial Revolution appeared about to be fulfilled. Few
expressed this mood of optimism better than the renowned British
historian Arnold Toynbee. In a retrospective look at the opening of
a tumultuous century written many years later, Toynbee remarked:
[We had expected] that life throughout the world would become
more rational, more humane, and more democratic and that,
slowly, but surely, political democracy would produce greater so-
cial justice. We had also expected that the progress of science
and technology would make mankind richer, and that this in-
creasing wealth would gradually spread from a minority to a ma-
jority. We had expected that all this would happen peacefully. In
fact we thought that mankind’s course was set for an earthly
paradise.1
Such bright hopes about the future of humankind were sadly mis-
placed. In the summer of 1914, simmering rivalries between the
major imperialist powers erupted into full-scale war, causing exten-
sive physical destruction and the deaths of millions. Several venera-
ble empires across the continent of Europe were in a state of
collapse, and the rising power of nationalism appeared unstoppable.
The Great War, as it was then labeled, was to be an eerie prelude to
a tumultuous century marked by widespread violence and dramatic
change.
70
CHAPTER 4
WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I
AND ITS AFTERMATH
International Rivalry
and the Coming of War
Between 1871 and 1914, Europeans experienced a long
period of peace as the great powers managed to achieve a
fragile balance of power in an effort to avert a re-creation
of the destructive forces unleashed during the Napoleonic
era. But rivalries among the major world powers contin-
ued, and even intensified, leading to a series of crises that
might have erupted into a general war. Some of these
crises, as we have seen in Chapters 2 and 3, took place
outside Europe, as the imperialist nations scuffled for
advantage in the race for new colonial territories. But the
main focus of European statesmen remained on Europe
itself, where the emergence of Germany as the most
powerful state on the Continent threatened to upset the
fragile balance of power that had been established at the
Congress of Vienna in 1815. Fearful of a possible anti-
German alliance between France and Russia, German
Chancellor Otto von Bismarck signed a defensive treaty
with Austria in 1879. Three years later, the alliance was
enlarged to include Italy, which was angry with the French
over conflicting colonial ambitions in North Africa. The
so-called Triple Alliance of 1882 committed the three
powers to support the existing political and social order
while maintaining a defensive alliance against France.
While Bismarck was chancellor, German policy had
been essentially cautious, as he sought to prevent rival
powers from conspiring against Berlin. But in 1890 Em-
peror William II dismissed the ‘‘iron chancellor’’ from
office and embarked on a more aggressive foreign policy
dedicated to providing Germany with its rightful ‘‘place in
the sun.’’ As Bismarck had feared, France and Russia re-
sponded by concluding a military alliance in 1894. By
1907, a loose confederation of Great Britain, France, and
Russia—known as the Triple Entente—stood opposed to
the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and
Italy. Europe was divided into two opposing camps that
became more and more inflexible and unwilling to
compromise. The stage was set for war.
Crises in the Balkans, 1908–1913
In such an environment, where potentially hostile coun-
tries are locked in an awkward balance of power, it often
takes only a spark to set off a firestorm. Such was the case
in 1908, when a major European crisis began to emerge in
the Balkans, where the decline of Ottoman power had
turned the region into a tinderbox of ethnic and religious
tensions.
The Bosnian crisis of 1908–1909
began a chain of events that eventu-
ally spun out of control. Since the
Russian victory over the Turks in
1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina had
been under the protection of Austria,
but in 1908, Austria took the drastic
step of annexing the two Slavic-
speaking territories. Serbia was out-
raged at this action because it dashed
the Serbs’ hopes of creating a large
kingdom that would include most of
the southern Slavs. But this possibil-
ity was precisely why the Austrians
had annexed Bosnia and Herzego-
vina. The creation of a large Serbia
would be a threat to the unity of their
empire, with its large Slavic popula-
tion. The Russians, desiring to in-
crease their own authority in the
Balkans, supported the Serbs, who
then prepared for war against Austria.
At this point, William II demanded
that the Russians accept Austria’s
annexation of Bosnia and Herzego-
vina or face war with Germany.
Weakened from their defeat in the
Russo-Japanese War in 1904–1905,
the Russians backed down but pri-
vately vowed revenge.
The crisis intensified in 1912
when Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro,
and Greece organized the Balkan
League and defeated the Turks in the
First Balkan War. When the victori-
ous allies were unable to agree on
how to divide the conquered Turkish
provinces in the area, a second con-
flict erupted in 1913. Greece, Serbia,
Romania, and the Ottoman Empire attacked and defeated
Bulgaria, which was left with only a small part of Mace-
donia. Most of the rest was divided between Serbia and
Greece. Yet Serbia’s aspirations remained unfulfilled. The
two Balkan wars left the inhabitants embittered and cre-
ated more tensions among the great powers.
By now Austria-Hungary was convinced that Serbia
was a mortal threat to its empire and must at some point
be crushed. Meanwhile, the French and Russian govern-
ments renewed their alliance as Britain drew closer to
France. By the beginning of 1914, two armed camps
viewed each other with suspicion. The European ‘‘age of
progress’’ was about to come to an inglorious and bloody
end (see Map 4.1).
Ebro
R.
Seine R.
Rhine
R
.
Danube
R.
Dnieper R.
Po R.
North
Sea
Black
Sea
Atlantic
Ocean
Bal
tic
Se
a
M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a
Corsica
Sardinia
Sicily
Crete
Stockholm
London
Paris
Madrid
Rome
Oslo
Zürich
Berlin
Bucharest
Sofia
Athens
ConstantinopleTirana
Sarajevo
Amsterdam
Brussels
Vienna
GREAT BRITAIN
FRANCE
SPAIN
ITALY
BELGIUM
NETHERLANDS
SWITZERLAND
DENMARK
NORWAY
SWEDEN
GERMANY
AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
ROMANIA
SERBIA
BOSNIA
MONTENEGRO
ALBANIA
GREECE
A F R I C A
OTTOMAN
EMPIRE
BULGARIA
RUSSIA
Balearic I
sla
nd
s
Moscow
Saint Petersburg
Copenhagen
Belgrade
Triple Entente
Triple Alliance
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
0 250 500 Miles
MAP 4.1 Europe in 1914. By 1914, two alliances dominated Europe: the Triple
Entente of Britain, France, and Russia and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-
Hungary, and Italy. Russia sought to bolster fellow Slavs in Serbia, whereas Austria-
Hungary was intent on increasing its power in the Balkans and thwarting Serbia’s
ambitions. Thus, the Balkans became the flash point for World War I.
Q Which nonaligned nations were positioned between the two alliances? View
an animated version of this map or related maps at www.cengage.com/history/duiker/
contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 71
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
The Road to World War I
On June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austrian throne,
Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophia, were
assassinated in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo. The assassi-
nation was carried out by a Bosnian activist who worked
for the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist organization
dedicated to the creation of a pan-Slavic kingdom.
Although the Austrian government had no proof the
Serbian government had been directly involved in the
archduke’s assassination, it saw an opportunity to ‘‘render
Serbia innocuous once and for all by a display of force,’’ as
the Austrian foreign minister put it. Austrian leaders
sought the backing of their German allies, who gave their
assurance that Austria-Hungary could rely on Germany’s
‘‘full support,’’ even if ‘‘matters went to the length of a war
between Austria-Hungary and Russia.’’
On July 23, Austrian leaders issued an ultimatum to
Serbia in which they made such extreme demands that
Serbia felt it had little choice but to reject some of them
to preserve its sovereignty. Austria then declared war on
Serbia on July 28. Still smarting from its humiliation in
the Bosnian crisis of 1908, Russia was determined to
support Serbia’s cause. On July 28, Tsar Nicholas II or-
dered a partial mobilization of the Russian army against
Austria (see the box on p. 73). The Russian general staff
informed the tsar that their mobilization plans were
based on a war against both Germany and Austria si-
multaneously. They could not execute a partial mobili-
zation without creating chaos in the army. Consequently,
the Russian government ordered a full mobilization on
July 29, knowing that the Germans would consider this
an act of war against them. Germany responded by de-
manding that the Russians halt their mobilization within
twelve hours. When the Russians ignored the ultimatum,
Germany declared war on Russia on August 1.
The Schlieffen Plan Under the guidance of General
Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of staff from 1891 to 1905, the
German general staff had devised a military plan based on
the assumption of a two-front war with France and Russia,
which had formed a military alliance in 1894. The
Schlieffen Plan called for only a minimal troop deployment
against Russia. Most of the German army would execute a
rapid invasion of France before Russia could become ef-
fective in the east or the British could cross the English
Channel to help France. To achieve this rapid invasion, the
Germans would advance through neutral Belgium, with its
level coastal plain, where the army could move faster than
on the rougher terrain to the southeast. After the planned
quick defeat of the French, the German army would then
redeploy to the east against Russia. Under the Schlieffen
Plan, Germany could not mobilize its troops solely against
Russia; therefore, on August 2, Germany issued an ulti-
matum to Belgium demanding the right of German troops
to pass through Belgian territory and, on August 3, declared
war on France. On August 4, Great Britain declared war on
Germany, officially in response to this violation of Belgian
neutrality but in fact because of Britain’s desire to maintain
its world power. As one British diplomat argued, if
Germany and Austria were to win the war, ‘‘What would be
the position of a friendless England?’’ Thus, by August 4, all
the great powers of Europe were at war.
The War
Before 1914, many political leaders had become con-
vinced that war involved so many political and economic
risks that it was not worth fighting. Others believed that
‘‘rational’’ diplomats could control any situation and
prevent the outbreak of war. At the beginning of August
1914, both of these prewar illusions were shattered, but
the new illusions that replaced them soon proved to be
equally foolish.
Illusions and Stalemate, 1914–1915
Europeans went to war in 1914 with remarkable enthu-
siasm. Government propaganda had been successful in
stirring up national antagonisms before the war. Now, in
August 1914, the urgent pleas of governments for defense
against aggressors fell on receptive ears in every belliger-
ent nation. Most people seemed genuinely convinced that
their nation’s cause was just. A new set of illusions also
fed the enthusiasm for war. In August 1914, almost
everyone believed that because of the risk of damage to
the regional economy, the war would be over in a few
weeks. People were reminded that all European wars since
1815 had in fact ended in a matter of weeks. Both the
soldiers who exuberantly boarded the trains for the war
front in August 1914 and the jubilant citizens who
bombarded them with flowers as they departed believed
that the warriors would be home by Christmas.
German hopes for a quick end to the war rested on
a military gamble. The Schlieffen Plan had called for
the German army to make a vast encircling movement
through Belgium into northern France that would sweep
around Paris and encircle most of the French army. But
the high command had not heeded Schlieffen’s advice
to place sufficient numbers of troops on the western sa-
lient near the English Channel to guarantee success, and
the German advance was halted only 20 miles from Paris
at the First Battle of the Marne (September 6–10).
The war quickly turned into a stalemate as neither the
Germans nor the French could dislodge the other from
the trenches they had begun to dig for shelter. Two lines
72 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
of trenches soon extended from the English Channel to
the frontiers of Switzerland (see Map 4.2 on p. 74). The
Western Front had become bogged down in a trench
warfare that kept both sides immobilized in virtually the
same positions for four years.
The War in the East In contrast to the west, the war in
the east was marked by much more mobility, although the
cost in lives was equally enormous. At the beginning of
the war, the Russian army moved into eastern Germany
but was decisively defeated at the battles of Tannenberg
‘‘YOU HAVE TO BEAR THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WAR OR PEACE’’
After Austria declared war on Serbia on July 28, 1914, Russian
support of Serbia and German support of Austria threatened to
escalate the conflict in the Balkans into a wider war. As we can
see in these last-minute telegrams between the Russians and
Germans (known as the ‘‘Willy-Nicky letters’’), the rigidity of the
military war plans on both sides made it difficult to avoid a
confrontation once the process got under way.
Communications Between Berlin and Saint Petersburg
on the Eve of World War I
Emperor William II to Tsar Nicholas II,
July 28, 10:45 P.M.
I have heard with the greatest anxiety of the impression which is
caused by the action of Austria-Hungary against Servia [Serbia]. The
inscrupulous agitation which has been going on for years in Servia
has led to the revolting crime of which Archduke Franz Ferdinand
has become a victim. . . . Doubtless You will agree with me that
both of us, You as well as I, and all other sovereigns, have a com-
mon interest to insist that all those who are responsible for this
horrible murder shall suffer their deserved punishment. . . .
Your most sincere and devoted friend and cousin
(Signed) WILHELM
Tsar Nicholas II to Emperor William II,
July 29, 1 P.M.
I am glad that you are back in Germany. In this serious moment I
ask You earnestly to help me. An ignominious war has been declared
against a weak country and in Russia the indignation which I fully
share is tremendous. I fear that very soon I shall be unable to resist
the pressure exercised upon me and that I shall be forced to take
measures which will lead to war. To prevent a calamity as a European
war would be, I urge You in the name of our old friendship to do all
in Your power to restrain Your ally from going too far.
(Signed) NICOLAS
Emperor William II to Tsar Nicholas II,
July 29, 6:30 P.M.
I have received Your telegram and I share Your desire for the conser-
vation of peace. However: I cannot—as I told You in my first
telegram—consider the action of Austria-Hungary as an ‘‘ignomini-
ous war.’’ Austria-Hungary knows from experience that the promises
of Servia as long as they are merely on paper are entirely unre-
liable. . . . I believe that a direct understanding Is possible and
desirable between Your Government and Vienna, an understanding
which—as I have already telegraphed You—my Government endeav-
ors to aid with all possible effort. Naturally military measures by
Russia, which might be construed as a menace by Austria-Hungary,
would accelerate a calamity which both of us desire to avoid and
would undermine my position as mediator which—upon Your ap-
peal to my friendship and aid—I willingly accepted.
(Signed) WILHELM
Emperor William II to Tsar Nicholas II,
July 30, 1 A.M.
My Ambassador has instructions to direct the attention of Your Gov-
ernment to the dangers and serious consequences of a mobilization.
I have told You the same in my last telegram. Austria-Hungary has
mobilized only against Servia, and only a part of her army. If Russia,
as seems to be the case, according to Your advice and that of Your
Government, mobilizes against Austria-Hungary, the part of the me-
diator with which You have entrusted me in such friendly manner
and which I have accepted upon Your express desire, is threatened if
not made impossible. The entire weight of decision now rests upon
Your shoulders; You have to bear the responsibility for war or peace.
(Signed) WILHELM
German Chancellor to German Ambassador
at Saint Petersburg, July 31, URGENT
In spite of negotiations still pending and although we have up to
this hour made no preparations for mobilization, Russia has mobi-
lized her entire army and navy, hence also against us. On account of
these Russian measures, we have been forced, for the safety of the
country, to proclaim the threatening state of war, which does not
yet imply mobilization. Mobilization, however, is bound to follow if
Russia does not stop every measure of war against us and against
Austria-Hungary within 12 hours, and notifies us definitely to this
effect. Please to communicate this at once to M. Sazonoff and wire
hour of communication.
Q Based on these letters, what was the chief issue that led
to the outbreak of war? Was Emperor William II correct when he
told Tsar Nicholas II that the latter would ‘‘have to bear the
responsibility for war or peace’’?
SOURCE: The Western World: From 1700, Vol. II, by W. E. Adams, R. B.
Barlow, G. R. Kleinfeld, and R. D. Smith (Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1968),
pp. 421–442.
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 73
on August 30 and the Masurian Lakes on September 15.
The Russians were no longer a threat to German territory.
The Austrians, Germany’s allies, fared less well ini-
tially. After they were defeated by the Russians in Galicia
and thrown out of Serbia as well, the Germans came to
their aid. A German-Austrian army defeated and routed
the Russian army in Galicia and pushed the Russians back
300 miles into their own territory. Russian casualties
stood at 2.5 million killed, captured, or wounded; the
Russians had almost been knocked out of the war. Buoyed
by their success, the Germans and Austrians, joined by the
Bulgarians in September 1915, attacked and eliminated
Serbia from the war.
The Great Slaughter, 1916–1917
The successes in the east enabled the Germans to move
back to the offensive in the west. The early trenches dug
in 1914 had by now become elaborate systems of defense.
Both lines of trenches were protected by barbed-
wire entanglements 3 to 5 feet high and 30 yards wide,
concrete machine-gun nests, and mortar batteries,
NETHERLANDS
GREAT
BRITAIN
BELGIUM
FRANCE
LUX.
AntwerpLondon
Le
Havre
Versailles
Paris
Arras
Brussels Cologne
Coblenz
Frankfurt
Luxembourg
Nancy
Calais
Ypres
Verdun
Stockholm
Moscow
Kiev
Brest-Litovsk
Tannenberg
Masurian Lakes
Prague
Vienna
Budapest
Belgrade
Sofia
Corsica
Sardinia
Bucharest
Constantinople
Warsaw
Salonika
Saint Petersburg
GERMAN
EMPIRE
AUSTRIA-
HUNGARYSWITZERLAND
SERBIA
MONTE-
NEGRO
ALBANIA
GREECE
BULGARIA
ROMANIA
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
RUSSIA
SWEDEN
ITALY
GALICIA
TRANSYLVANIA
(UKRAINE)
(BOSNIA)
(EAST
PRUSSIA)
Gallipoli
Danube R
.
R.
Dnieper
R.Dniester
R.
B l a c k S e a
Balt
ic
Se
a
Dardanelles Bosporus
Carpathian Mts.
North
Sea
Po R.
Al
ps
Seine R.
D
on
German advances
Allied advances
Regions of national
states
(BOSNIA)
Battle site, 1914
Russian advances, 1914–1916
Deepest German penetration
Brest-Litovsk boundary, 1918
Eastern Front: Western Front:
Farthest German advance, September 1914
German offensive, March–July 1918
Winter, 1914–1915
Armistice line
0 200 400 Miles
0 200 400 600 Kilometers
MAP 4.2 World War I, 1914–1918. This map shows how greatly the Western and Eastern
Fronts of World War I differed. After initial German gains in the west, the war became bogged
down in trench warfare, with little change in the battle lines throughout the war. The Eastern
Front was marked by considerable mobility, with battle lines shifting by hundreds of miles.
Q How do you explain the difference in the two fronts? View an animated version
of this map or related maps at www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
74 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
supported farther back by heavy artillery. Troops lived
in holes in the ground, separated from the enemy by a
no-man’s land.
The unexpected development of trench warfare baf-
fled military leaders who had been trained to fight wars of
movement and maneuver. Taking advantage of the recent
American invention of the Caterpillar tractor, the British
introduced tanks on the Western Front in 1915, but their
effectiveness in breaking through enemy defenses was not
demonstrated. The only plan generals could devise was to
attempt a breakthrough by throwing masses of men
against enemy lines that had first been battered by artil-
lery barrages. Periodically, the high command on either
side would order an offensive that would begin with an
artillery barrage to flatten the enemy’s barbed wire and
leave the enemy in a state of shock. After ‘‘softening up’’
the enemy in this fashion, a mass of soldiers would climb
out of their trenches with fixed bayonets and hope to
work their way toward the opposing trenches. The attacks
rarely worked, as the machine gun put hordes of men
advancing unprotected across open fields at a severe
disadvantage. In 1916 and 1917, millions of young men
were sacrificed in the search for the elusive breakthrough.
In ten months at Verdun, 700,000 men lost their lives over
a few miles of terrain.
Warfare in the trenches of the Western Front pro-
duced unimaginable horrors. Battlefields were hellish
landscapes of barbed wire, shell holes, mud, and injured
and dying men (see the box on p. 76). The introduction
of poison gas in 1915 produced new forms of injuries, but
the first aerial battles were a rare sideshow and gave no
hint of the horrors to come with air warfare in the future.
Soldiers in the trenches also lived with the persistent
presence of death. Since combat went on for months, sol-
diers had to carry on in the midst of countless bodies of
dead men or the remains of men dismembered by artillery
barrages. Many soldiers remembered the stench of decom-
posing bodies and the swarms of rats that grew fat in the
trenches. At one point, battlefield conditions became so bad
that units of the French army broke out in open mutiny.
The high command responded by
carrying out the widespread execution
of suspected ringleaders.
The Widening of the War
As another response to the stalemate
on the Western Front, both sides
looked for new allies who might
provide a winning advantage. The
Ottoman Empire, hoping to drive
the British from Egypt, had already
come into the war on Germany’s side
in August 1914. Russia, Great Britain, and France de-
clared war on the Ottoman Empire in November. Al-
though the Allies attempted to open a Balkan front by
landing forces at Gallipoli, southwest of Constantinople,
in April 1915, the campaign was a disaster. The Italians
also entered the war on the Allied side after France and
Britain promised to further their acquisition of Austrian
territory.
By 1917, the war that had originated in Europe had
truly become a world conflict. In the Middle East, the
dashing but eccentric British adventurer T. E. Lawrence,
popularly known as Lawrence of
Arabia (1888–1935), incited Arab
princes to revolt against their Otto-
man overlords in 1917. In 1918,
British forces from Egypt destroyed
the rest of the Ottoman Empire in the
Middle East. For these campaigns, the
British mobilized forces from India,
Australia, and New Zealand. The Al-
lies also took advantage of Germany’s
preoccupations in Europe and lack of
naval strength to seize German colo-
nies in Africa. Japan seized a number
The Horrors of War. The slaughter of millions of men in the trenches
of World War I created unimaginable horrors for the participants. For the
sake of survival, many soldiers learned to harden themselves against the
stench of decomposing bodies and the sight of bodies horribly dismembered
by artillery barrages.
KENYA
BELGIAN
CONGO
CAMEROONS
TOGOLAND
ANGOLA
SOUTH WEST
AFRICA
SOUTH
AFRICA
MADAGASCAR
MOZAMBIQUE
SOUTHERN
RHODESIA
NORTHERN
RHODESIA
GERMAN
EAST
AFRICA
Niger
R.
R.
Atlantic
Ocean
Indian
Ocean
Zambezi
Congo
N
ile
German Possessions in Africa, 1914
� c
G
et
ty
Im
ag
es
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 75
of German-held islands in the Pacific, and Australia took
over German New Guinea (see Chapter 5).
The Yanks Are Comin’ Most important to the Allied
cause was the entry of the United States into the war.
At first, the United States tried to remain neutral, but
that became more difficult as the war dragged on. The
immediate cause of U.S. involvement grew out of the
naval conflict between Germany and Great Britain. Brit-
ain used its superior naval power to maximum effect by
imposing a naval blockade on Germany. Germany retal-
iated with a counterblockade enforced by the use of un-
restricted submarine warfare. Strong U.S. protests over
the German sinking of passenger liners—especially the
THE EXCITEMENT AND THE REALITY OF WAR
The incredible outpouring of patriotic enthusiasm that greeted
the declaration of war at the beginning of August 1914 in many
European countries demonstrated the power that nationalistic
feeling had attained at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Many Europeans seemingly believed that the war had given them
a higher purpose, a renewed dedication to the greatness of their
nation. That sense of enthusiasm was captured by the Austrian
writer Stefan Zweig in his book The World of Yesterday.
The reality of war was entirely different. Soldiers who had
left for the front in August 1914 in the belief that they would be
home by Christmas found themselves shivering and dying in the
vast networks along the battlefront. Few expressed the horror
of trench warfare as well as the German writer Erich Maria Re-
marque in his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front, first
published in a German newspaper in 1928.
Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday
The next morning I was in Austria. In every station placards had
been put up announcing general mobilization. The trains were filled
with fresh recruits, banners were flying, music sounded, and in
Vienna I found the entire city in a tumult. . . . There were parades
in the street, flags, ribbons, and music burst forth everywhere,
young recruits were marching triumphantly, their faces lighting up
at the cheering. . . .
And to be truthful, I must acknowledge that there was a majes-
tic, rapturous, and even seductive something in this first outbreak of
the people from which one could escape only with difficulty. And in
spite of all my hatred and aversion for war, I should not like to have
missed the memory of those days. As never before, thousands and
hundreds of thousands felt what they should have felt in peace time,
that they belonged together.
What did the great mass know of war in 1914, after nearly half
a century of peace? They did not know war, they had hardly given it
a thought. It had become legendary, and distance had made it seem
romantic and heroic. They still saw it in the perspective of their
school readers and of paintings in museums; brilliant cavalry attacks
in glittering uniforms, the fatal shot always straight through the
heart, the entire campaign a resounding march of victory—‘‘We’ll be
home at Christmas,’’ the recruits shouted laughingly to their moth-
ers in August of 1914. . . . A rapid excursion into the romantic, a
wild, manly adventure—that is how the war of 1914 was painted in
the imagination of the simple man, and the younger people were
honestly afraid that they might miss this most wonderful and excit-
ing experience of their lives; that is why they hurried and thronged
to the colors, and that is why they shouted and sang in the trains
that carried them to the slaughter; wildly and feverishly the red
wave of blood coursed through the veins of the entire nation.
Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
We wake up in the middle of the night. The earth booms. Heavy
fire is falling on us. We crouch into corners. . . . Every man is aware
of the heavy shells tearing down the parapet, rooting up the em-
bankment and demolishing the upper layers of concrete. . . . Already
by morning a few of the recruits are green and vomiting. . . .
No one would believe that in this howling waste there could
still be men, but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the
trench, and fifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position
and barking.
[Finally the attack begins.]
The wire-entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some
obstacle. We see the storm-troops coming. . . . We recognize the dis-
torted faces, the smooth helmets: they are French. They have already
suffered heavily when they reach the remnants of the barbed wire
entanglements.
I see one of them, his face upturned, fall into a wire cradle. His
body collapses, his hands remain suspended as thought he were
praying. Then his body drops clear away and only his hands with
the stumps of his arms, shot off, now hang in the wire.
Q Why, according to author Stefan Zweig, did so many Euro-
peans welcome the outbreak of war in 1914? Why had they so
badly underestimated the cost?
SOURCES: From The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, translated by
Helmut Ripperger. Translation copyright 1943 by the Viking Press, Inc. All
Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. Im Westen nichts
Neues, copyright 1928 by Ullstein A. G.; copyright renewed �C 1956 by Erich
Maria Remarque. All Quiet on the Western Front, copyright 1929, 1930 by
Little, Brown and Company. Copyright renewed �C 1957, 1958 by Erich
Maria Remarque. All Rights Reserved.
76 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
British ship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, in which more
than one hundred Americans lost their lives—forced the
German government to suspend unrestricted submarine
warfare in September 1915 to avoid further antagonizing
the Americans.
In January 1917, however, eager to break the deadlock
in the war, German naval officers convinced Emperor
William II that the renewed use of unrestricted submarine
warfare could starve the British into submission within
five months, certainly before the Americans could act. To
distract the Wilson administration in case it should decide
to enter the war on the side of the Allied powers, German
Foreign Minister Alfred von Zimmerman secretly en-
couraged the Mexican government to launch a military
attack to recover territories lost to the United States in the
American Southwest.
Berlin’s decision to return to unrestricted submarine
warfare, combined with outrage in Washington over
the Zimmerman telegram (which had been decoded by
the British and provided to U.S. diplomats in London),
finally brought the United States into the war on April 6,
1917. Although American troops did not arrive in Europe
FILM & HISTORY
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
The Middle East was somewhat of a backwater dur-
ing the First World War, but the region produced
one of the great romantic heroes of that conflict.
T. E. Lawrence, a British army officer popularly known
as Lawrence of Arabia, organized Arab tribesmen and
led them in battle against the Ottoman Turks, who
had become allies of the Central Powers during the
war. Although the military significance of Lawrence’s
exploits was limited, their long-term implications for
the region were enormous. During the peace negotia-
tions that followed the German surrender in November
1918, most Ottoman possessions in the Middle East
were replaced by several British and French mandates,
while the Arabian peninsula embarked on the road to
independence under the tribal chieftain Ibn Saud. The
political implications of that settlement remain of
importance down to our own day.
The movie Lawrence of Arabia, directed by the
great British filmmaker David Lean, is a fact-based
account of the Middle Eastern campaign that won
seven Oscars and made an instant star of actor Peter
O’Toole—who played the eccentric Lawrence with
mesmerizing perfection. Although the film, produced
in 1962, is over three hours in length, the photography and the act-
ing are both superb, and Lean’s deft portrayal of the behavior and
the motives of all participants makes it essential viewing for those
interested in comprehending the complex roots of the current situa-
tion in the Middle East.
British objectives, as voiced by the British general Viscount
Edmund Allenby (played by the veteran actor Jack Hawkins), were
unabashedly military in nature—use Arab unrest in the region as a
means of taking Turkey out of the war. Arab leaders such as Prince
Faisal—languidly played by the consummate actor Alec Guinness—
openly sought their independence from Turkish rule, but initially
appeared hopelessly divided among themselves. It was Major
Lawrence who provided the spark and the determination to knit
together a coalition of Arab forces capable of winning crucial vic-
tories in the final year of the war. Faisal himself would eventually
be chosen by the British to become the king of the artificial state
of Iraq.
Lawrence himself remains an enigma—in the movie as in real
life. Combining a fervent idealism about the Arab cause with an
overweening sense of self-promotion, he played to the end an am-
biguous role in the geopolitics of the Middle East. Disenchanted
with the shape of the postwar peace settlement, he eventually re-
moved himself from the public eye and died in a tragic motorcycle
accident in 1935.
T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole in white) at the head of the Arabian tribes.
C
ol
um
bi
a/
Th
e
K
ob
al
C
ol
le
ct
io
n
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 77
in large numbers until 1918, U.S. entry into the war gave
the Allied Powers a badly needed psychological boost. The
year 1917 was not a good year for them. Allied offensives
on the Western Front were disastrously defeated. The
Italian armies were smashed in October, and in November
1917, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (discussed later
in this chapter) led to Russia’s withdrawal from the war,
leaving Germany free to concentrate entirely on the
Western Front.
The Home Front: The Impact of Total War
As the war dragged on, conditions on the home front be-
came a matter of concern for all the participants. The
prolongation of the war had transformed it into a total
conflict that affected the lives of all citizens, however remote
they might be from the battlefields. The need to organize
masses of men and matériel for years of combat (Germany
alone had 5.5 million men in active units in 1916) led to
increased centralization of government powers, economic
regimentation, and manipulation of public opinion to keep
the war effort going.
Because the war was expected to be short, little
thought had been given to economic problems and long-
term wartime needs. Governments had to respond
quickly, however, when the war machines failed to achieve
their knockout blows and made ever-greater demands for
men and matériel. The extension of government power
was a logical outgrowth of these needs. Most European
countries had already devised some system of mass con-
scription or military draft. It was now carried to un-
precedented heights as countries mobilized tens of
millions of young men for that elusive breakthrough to
victory. Even countries that continued to rely on volun-
teers (Great Britain had the largest volunteer army in
modern history—one million men—in 1914 and 1915)
were forced to resort to conscription, especially to ensure
that skilled laborers did not enlist but remained in fac-
tories that were important to the production of muni-
tions. In the meantime, thousands of laborers were
shipped in from the colonies to work on farms and in
factories as replacements for Europeans mobilized to
serve on the battlefield.
Throughout Europe, wartime governments expanded
their powers over their economies. Free market capital-
istic systems were temporarily shelved as governments
experimented with price, wage, and rent controls; the
rationing of food supplies and matériel; the regulation of
imports and exports; and the nationalization of trans-
portation systems and industries. Some governments
even moved toward compulsory employment. In effect, to
mobilize the entire resources of the nation for the war
effort, European countries had moved toward planned
economies directed by government agencies. Under total
war mobilization, the distinction between soldiers at war
and civilians at home was narrowed. As U.S. President
Woodrow Wilson expressed it, the men and women ‘‘who
remain to till the soil and man the factories are no less a
part of the army than the men beneath the battle flags.’’
Morale Problems As the Great War dragged on and
both casualties and privations worsened, internal dissat-
isfaction replaced the patriotic enthusiasm that had
marked the early stages of the conflict. By 1916, there were
numerous signs that civilian morale was beginning to
crack under the pressure of total war. War governments,
however, fought back against the growing opposition to
the war, as even parliamentary regimes resorted to an
expansion of police powers to stifle internal dissent. At the
very beginning of the war, the British Parliament passed
the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), which allowed the
public authorities to arrest dissenters as traitors. The act
was later extended to authorize public officials to censor
newspapers by deleting objectionable material and even to
suspend newspaper publication. In France, government
authorities had initially been lenient about public oppo-
sition to the war, but by 1917, they began to fear that open
opposition to the war might weaken the French will to
fight. When Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) became
premier near the end of 1917, the lenient French policies
came to an end, and basic civil liberties were suppressed
for the duration of the war. When a former premier
publicly advocated a negotiated peace, Clemenceau’s
government had him sentenced to prison for two years for
treason.
Wartime governments made active use of propaganda
to arouse enthusiasm for the war. The British and French,
for example, exaggerated German atrocities in Belgium
and found that their citizens were only too willing to
believe these accounts. But as the war dragged on and
morale sagged, governments were forced to devise new
techniques for stimulating declining enthusiasm. In one
British recruiting poster, for example, a small daughter
asked her father, ‘‘Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great
War?’’ while her younger brother played with toy soldiers
and a cannon.
Total war had a significant impact on European so-
ciety, most visibly by bringing an end to unemployment.
The withdrawal of millions of men from the labor market
to fight, combined with the heightened demand for
wartime products, led to jobs for everyone able to work.
Women in World War I The war also created new roles
for women. Because so many men went off to fight at the
front, women were called on to take over jobs and re-
sponsibilities that had not been available to them before.
78 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Overall, the number of women employed in Britain who
held new jobs or replaced men rose by 1,345,000. Women
were also now employed in jobs that had been considered
‘‘beyond the capacity of women.’’ These included such
occupations as chimney sweeps, truck drivers, farm la-
borers, and factory workers in heavy industry. By 1918,
some 38 percent of the workers in the Krupp armaments
factories in Germany were women.
While male workers expressed concern that the em-
ployment of females at lower wages would depress their
own wages, women began to demand equal pay legisla-
tion. A law passed by the French government in July 1915
established a minimum wage for women homeworkers in
textiles, an industry that had grown dramatically thanks
to the demand for military uniforms. Later in 1917, the
government decreed that men and women should receive
equal rates for piecework. Despite the noticeable increase
in women’s wages that resulted from government regu-
lations, women’s industrial wages still were not equal to
men’s wages by the end of the war.
Even worse, women’s place in the workforce was far
from secure. At the end of the war, governments moved
quickly to remove women from the jobs they had en-
couraged them to take earlier. By 1919, there were 650,000
unemployed women in Britain, and wages for women who
were still employed were lowered. The work benefits for
women from World War I seemed to be short-lived as
demobilized men returned to the job market.
Nevertheless, in some countries, the role played by
women in the wartime economy did have a positive im-
pact on the women’s movement for social and political
emancipation. The most obvious gain was the right to
vote, granted to women in Britain in January 1918 and in
Germany and Austria immediately after the war. Con-
temporary media, however, tended to focus on the more
noticeable, yet in some ways more superficial, social
emancipation of upper- and middle-class women. In
ever-larger numbers, these young women took jobs, had
their own apartments, and showed their new indepen-
dence by smoking in public and wearing shorter dresses,
cosmetics, and new hairstyles.
The Last Year of the War
For Germany, the withdrawal of the Russians from the
war in March 1918 offered renewed hope for a favorable
end to the war. The victory over Russia persuaded Erich
von Ludendorff (1865–1937), who guided German mili-
tary operations, and most German leaders to make one
final military gamble—a grand offensive in the west to
break the military stalemate. The German attack was
launched in March and lasted into July, but an Allied
counterattack, supported by the arrival of 140,000 fresh
American troops, defeated the Germans at the Second
Battle of the Marne on July 18. Ludendorff ’s gamble had
failed. With the arrival of two million more American
troops on the Continent, Allied forces began to advance
steadily toward Germany.
On September 29, 1918, General Ludendorff in-
formed German leaders that the war was lost and de-
manded that the government sue for peace at once. When
German officials discovered that the Allies were unwilling
to make peace with the autocratic imperial government,
reforms were instituted to create a liberal government.
But these constitutional reforms came too late for the
exhausted and angry German people. On November 3,
naval units in Kiel mutinied, and within days, councils of
workers and soldiers were forming throughout northern
Germany and taking over civilian and military admin-
istrations. William II, capitulating to public pressure,
abdicated on November 9, and the Socialists under
Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925) announced the establish-
ment of a republic. Two days later, on November 11,
1918, the new German government agreed to an armi-
stice. The war was over.
The final tally of casualties from the war was ap-
palling. Nearly 10 million soldiers were dead, including
5 million on the Allied side and 3.5 million from the
Central Powers (as Germany and its allies were known).
Civilian deaths were nearly as high. France, which had
borne much of the burden of the war, suffered nearly two
million deaths, including one out of every four males
between 18 and 30 years of age.
War and Revolution
In the summer of 1914, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia had
almost appeared to welcome the prospect of a European
war. It seemed to him that such a conflict would unite his
subjects at a time when his empire was passing through a
period of rapid social change and political unrest. The
imperial government had survived the popular demon-
strations that erupted during the Russo-Japanese War of
1904–1905, but the tsar had been forced to grant a series
of reforms in a desperate effort to restore political sta-
bility and forestall the collapse of the traditional system
(see Chapter 1).
As it turned out, the onset of war served not to revive
the Russian monarchy, but rather—as is so often the case
with decrepit empires undergoing dramatic change—to
undermine its already fragile foundations. World War I
broke the trajectory of Russia’s economic growth and set
the stage for the final collapse of the old order. After
stirring victories in the early stages of the war, news from
the battlefield turned increasingly grim as poorly armed
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 79
Russian solders were slaughtered by the modern armies of
the German emperor. Between 1914 and 1916, two
million Russian soldiers were killed, and another four to
six million were wounded or captured. The conscription
of peasants from the countryside caused food prices to rise
and led to periodic bread shortages in the major cities.
Workers grew increasingly restive at the wartime schedule
of long hours with low pay and joined army deserters in
angry marches through the capital of Saint Petersburg
(now for patriotic reasons renamed Petrograd).
It was a classic scenario for revolution—discontent in
the big cities fueled by mutinous troops streaming home
from the battlefield and a rising level of lawlessness in
rural areas as angry peasants seized land and burned the
manor houses of the wealthy. Even the urban middle
class, always a bellwether on the political scene, grew
impatient with the economic crisis and the bad news
from the front and began to question the competence of
the tsar and his advisers. In March 1917 (late February
according to the old style Julian calendar still in use in
Russia), government troops fired at demonstrators in the
streets of the capital and killed several. An angry mob
marched to the Duma, where restive delegates demanded
the resignation of the tsar’s cabinet.
The March Revolution in Russia
Nicholas II, whose character combined the fatal qualities
of stupidity and stubbornness, had never wanted to share
the supreme power he had inherited with the throne.
After a brief period of hesitation, he abdicated, leaving a
vacuum that was quickly seized by leading elements in the
Duma, who formed a provisional government to steer
Russia through the crisis. On the left, reformist and
radical political parties—including the Social Revolu-
tionaries (the legal successors of the outlawed terrorist
organization Narodnaya Volya) and the Russian Social
Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), the only orthodox
Marxist party active in Russia—cooperated in creating a
shadow government called the Saint Petersburg Soviet. It
supported the provisional government in pursuing the
war but attempted to compel it to grant economic and
social reforms that would benefit the masses.
The uprising of March 1917 had forced the collapse
of the monarchy but showed little promise of solving the
deeper problems that had led Russia to the brink of civil
war. As the crisis continued, radical members of the
RSDLP began to hope that a real social revolution was at
hand.
Marxism had made its first appearance in the Russian
environment in the 1880s. Early Marxists, aware of the
primitive conditions in their country, askedKarlMarx himself
for advice. The Russian proletariat was oppressed—indeed,
brutalized—but small in numbers and unsophisticated.
Could agrarian Russia make the transition to socialism
without an intervening stage of capitalism? Marx, who
always showed more flexibility than the rigid determin-
ism of his system suggested, replied that it was possible
that Russia could avoid the capitalist stage by building
on the communal traditions of the Russian village, known
as the mir.
But as Russian Marxism evolved, its leaders turned
more toward Marxist orthodoxy. Founding member
George Plekhanov saw signs in the early stages of its in-
dustrial revolution that Russia would follow the classic
pattern. In 1898, the RSDLP held its first congress.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks During the last decade of the
nineteenth century, a new force entered the Russian
Marxist movement in the figure of Vladimir Ulyanov,
later to be known as Lenin (1870–1924). Initially radi-
calized by the execution of his older brother for terrorism
in 1886, he became a revolutionary and a member of
Plekhanov’s RSDLP. Like Plekhanov, Lenin believed in the
revolution, but he was a man in a hurry. Whereas Ple-
khanov wanted to prepare patiently for revolution by
education and mass work, Lenin wanted to build up the
party rapidly as a vanguard instrument to galvanize the
masses and spur the workers to revolt. In a pamphlet
titledWhat Is to Be Done? he proposed the transformation
of the RSDLP into a compact and highly disciplined
group of professional revolutionaries that would not
merely ride the crest of the revolutionary wave but would
unleash the storm clouds of revolt.
At the Second National Congress of the RSDLP, held
in 1903 in Brussels and London, Lenin’s ideas were sup-
ported by a majority of the delegates (thus the historical
term Bolsheviks, or ‘‘majorityites,’’ for his followers). His
victory was short-lived, however, and for the next decade,
Lenin, living in exile, was a brooding figure on the fringe
of the Russian revolutionary movement, which was now
dominated by the Mensheviks (‘‘minorityites’’), who op-
posed Lenin’s single-minded pursuit of violent revolu-
tion. Scoffing at his more cautious rivals, Lenin declared
that revolution was ‘‘a tough business,’’ and could not be
waged ‘‘wearing white gloves and with clean hands.’’2
From his residence in exile in Switzerland, Lenin
heard the news of the collapse of the tsarist monarchy and
decided to return to Russia. The German government
thoughtfully provided him and his followers with a sealed
railroad car to travel through Germany, undoubtedly in
the hope that his presence would promote instability in
Russia. On his arrival in Petrograd in April 1917, Lenin
laid out a program for his followers: all power to the
soviets (locally elected government councils), an end to
the war, and the distribution of land to poor peasants.
80 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
But Lenin’s April Theses (see the box above) were too
radical even for his fellow Bolsheviks, and his demands
were ignored by other leaders, who continued to coop-
erate with the provisional government while attempting
to push it to the left. His one-time mentor Plekhanov
remarked that Lenin’s plans for a general uprising were
‘‘delirious.’’
The Bolshevik Revolution
During the summer, the crisis worsened, and in July, riots
by workers and soldiers in the capital led the provisional
government to outlaw the Bolsheviks and call for Lenin’s
arrest. The ‘‘July Days,’’ raising the threat of disorder and
class war, aroused the fears of conservatives and split
the fragile political consensus within the provisional
government. In September, General Lavr Kornilov, com-
mander in chief of Russian imperial forces, launched
a coup d’état to seize power from Alexander Kerensky,
now the dominant figure in the provisional government.
The revolt was put down with the help of so-called Red
Guard units, formed by the Bolsheviks within army
regiments in the capital area (these troops would later be
regarded as the first units of the Red Army), but Lenin
now sensed the weakness of the provisional government
and persuaded his colleagues to prepare for revolt. On
the night of November 7 (October 25 old style), forces
under the command of Lenin’s lieutenant, Leon Trotsky
(1879–1940), seized key installations in the capital area,
while other units loyal to the Bolsheviks, including mu-
tinous sailors from the battleship Aurora stationed nearby
on the Neva River, stormed the Winter Palace, where
supporters of the provisional government were quickly
overwhelmed. Alexander Kerensky was forced to flee from
Russia in disguise.
The following morning, at a national congress of
delegates from soviet organizations throughout the
country, the Bolsheviks declared a new socialist order.
Moderate elements from the Menshevik faction and the
Social Revolutionary Party protested the illegality of the
ALL POWER TO THE SOVIETS!
On his return to Petrograd in April 1917, the revolutionary
Marxist Vladimir Lenin issued a series of proposals designed to
overthrow the provisional government and bring his Bolshevik
Party to power in Russia. At the time his April Theses were de-
livered, his ideas appeared to be too radical, even for his clos-
est followers. But the Bolsheviks’ simple slogan of ‘‘Peace,
Land, and Bread’’ soon began to gain traction on the streets of
the capital. By the end of the year, Lenin’s compelling vision
had been realized, and the world would never be the same
again.
Lenin’s April Theses, 1917
1. The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that
the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—
which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and orga-
nisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the
bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the
hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the
peasants. . . .
This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt
ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among un-
precedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awak-
ened to political life. . . .
2. No support for the Provisional Government: the utter falsity
of all the promises should be made clear, particularly of those
relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in
place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding ‘‘demand’’ that
this government of capitalists should cease to be an imperialist
government.
The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’
Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government,
and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to
the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic
and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an expla-
nation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.
As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of
criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach
the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the
Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome
their mistakes by experience.
Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be
disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ and
Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Dep-
uties of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on each
of the large estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines
[about 270 to 810 acres], according to local and other condi-
tions, and to the decisions of the local bodies) under the con-
trol of the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies and for
the public account.
Q What were the key provisions of Lenin’s April Theses? To
what degree were they carried out?
SOURCE: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, 4th ed. (Moscow: Progress, 1964),
Vol. XXIV, pp. 21–24.
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 81
Bolshevik action and left the conference hall in anger.
They were derided by Trotsky, who proclaimed that they
were relegated ‘‘to the dustbin of history.’’
With the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917,
Lenin was now in command. His power was tenuous and
extended only from the capital to a few of the larger cities,
such as Moscow and Kiev, that had waged their own
insurrections. There were, in fact, few Bolsheviks in rural
areas, where most peasants supported the moderate leftist
Social Revolutionaries. On the fringes of the Russian
Empire, restive minorities prepared to take advantage of
the anarchy to seize their own independence, while
‘‘White Russian’’ supporters of the monarchy began rais-
ing armies to destroy the ‘‘Red menace’’ in Petrograd.
Lenin was in power, but for how long?
The Bolshevik Revolution in Retrospect The Russian
Revolution of 1917 has been the subject of vigorous de-
bate by scholars and students of world affairs. Could it
have been avoided if the provisional government had
provided more effective leadership, or was it inevitable?
Did Lenin stifle Russia’s halting progress toward a
Western-style capitalist democracy, or was the Bolshevik
victory preordained by the autocratic conditions and lack
of democratic traditions in Imperial Russia? Such
questions have no simple answers, but some hy-
potheses are possible. The weakness of the mod-
erate government created by the March Revolution
was probably predictable, given the political inex-
perience of the urban middle class and the deep
divisions within the ruling coalition over issues of
peace and war. On the other hand, it seems highly
unlikely that the Bolsheviks would have possessed
the self-confidence to act without the presence of
their leader, Vladimir Lenin, who employed his
strength of will to urge his colleagues almost single-
handedly to make their bid for power. The 1917
revolt in Russia is often cited as a cardinal example
of the role that a single individual can sometimes
have on the course of history. Without Lenin, it
would probably have been left to the army to in-
tervene in an effort to maintain law and order, as
would happen so often elsewhere during the tur-
bulent twentieth century.
In any event, the Bolshevik Revolution was a
momentous development for Russia and for the
entire world. Not only did it present Western
capitalist societies with a brazen new challenge to
their global supremacy, but it also demonstrated
that Lenin’s concept of revolution, carried through
The Battleship Aurora. In November 1917, Red Army units seized the city of
Petrograd and carried out Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution. One of the most dramatic
events in the uprising took place on the Aurora, a Russian battleship docked on the
Neva River in the heart of the city. As Red Army forces rose up throughout the city,
rebellious sailors from the Aurora overthrew their officers and joined the Bolsheviks in
storming the nearby Imperial Palace. It was a decisive event in bringing about the
surrender of the provisional government under Alexander Kerensky. After World War II,
when Soviet leaders sought to promote patriotic symbols to bolster flagging ideological
fervor, the old warship was turned into a tourist site—a virtual ‘‘Valley Forge on the
Neva’’—where it remains today as a reminder of a revolutionary era.
Lenin Addresses a Crowd. Vladimir Lenin was the driving force
behind the success of the Bolsheviks in seizing power in Russia and
creating the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Here Lenin is seen
addressing a rally in Moscow in 1917.
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82 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
at the will of a determined minority of revolutionary
activists ‘‘in the interests of the masses,’’ could succeed in
a society going through the difficult early stages of the
Industrial Revolution. It was a repudiation of orthodox
‘‘late Marxism’’ and a return to Marx’s pre-1848 vision of
a multiclass revolt leading rapidly from a capitalist to a
proletarian takeover (see Chapter 1). It was, in short, a
lesson that would not be ignored by radical intellectuals
throughout the world, as we shall see in the chapter to
follow.
The Civil War
The Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd (soon to be
renamed Leningrad after Lenin’s death in 1924) was only
the first, and not necessarily the most difficult, stage in
the Russian Revolution. Although the Bolshevik slogan of
‘‘Peace, Land, and Bread’’ had earned considerable appeal
among workers, petty merchants, and soldiers in the vi-
cinity of the capital and other major cities, the party—
only fifty thousand strong in November—had little re-
presentation in the rural areas, where the moderate leftist
Social Revolutionary Party received majority support
from the peasants. On the fringes of the Russian Empire,
ethnic minority groups took advantage of the confusion
in Petrograd to launch movements to restore their own
independence or achieve a position of autonomy within
the Russian state. In the meantime, supporters of the
deposed Romanov dynasty and other political opponents
of the Bolsheviks, known as White Russians, attempted to
mobilize support to drive the Bolsheviks out of the capital
and reverse the verdict of ‘‘Red October.’’ And beyond all
that, the war with Germany continued.
Lenin was aware of these problems and hoped that a
wave of socialist revolutions in the economically advanced
countries of central and western Europe would bring the
world war to an end and usher in a new age of peace,
socialism, and growing economic prosperity. In the
meantime, his first priority was to consolidate the rule of
the working class and its party vanguard (now to be re-
named the Communist Party) in Russia. The first step was
to set up a new order in Petrograd to replace the provi-
sional government that itself had been created after the
March Revolution. For lack of a better alternative, outlying
areas were simply informed of the change in government—
a ‘‘revolution by telegraph,’’ as Leon Trotsky termed it.
Then Lenin moved to create new organs of proletarian
power, setting up the Council of People’s Commissars (the
word ‘‘commissar,’’ Lenin remarked ‘‘smells of revolution’’)
to serve as a provisional government. Lenin was unwilling
to share power with moderate leftists who had resisted the
Bolshevik coup in November, and he created security
forces (popularly called the Cheka, or ‘‘extraordinary
commission’’), which imprisoned and brutally executed
opponents of the new regime. In January 1918, the Con-
stituent Assembly, which had been elected on the basis of
plans established by the previous government, convened in
Petrograd. Composed primarily of delegates from the So-
cial Revolutionary Party and other parties opposed to the
Bolsheviks, it showed itself critical of the new regime and
was immediately abolished.
Lenin was determined to prevent the Romanov
family from becoming a rallying cry for opponents of the
new Bolshevik regime. In the spring of 1918, the former
tsar and his family were placed under guard in Ekater-
inburg, a small mining town in the Ural Mountains. On
the night of July 16, the entire family was murdered on
Lenin’s order. The bodies were dropped into a nearby mine
shaft. For decades, rumors persisted that one of Nicholas
II’s daughters, Anastasia, had survived execution.
In foreign affairs, Lenin’s first major decision was to
seek peace with Germany in order to permit the new
government to focus its efforts on the growing threat
posed by White Russian forces within the country. In
March 1918, a peace settlement with Germany was
reached at Brest-Litovsk, although at enormous cost.
Soviet Russia lost nearly one-fourth of the territory and
one-third of the population of the prewar Russian Em-
pire. In retrospect, however, Lenin’s controversial decision
to accept a punitive peace may have been a stroke of
genius, for it gained time for the regime to build up its
internal strength and defeat its many adversaries in the
Russian Civil War (1918–1920).
Indeed, the odds of success for a Bolshevik victory
must have seemed dim in the immediate aftermath of the
seizure of power. Lenin himself initially predicted that
defeat was likely in the absence of successful revolutionary
outbreaks elsewhere in Europe. Support for the Bol-
sheviks in Russia was limited, and the regime antagonized
farmers by its harsh measures used to obtain provisions
for the troops. Although Leon Trotsky showed traces of
genius in organizing the Red Army, he was forced to
station trusted lieutenants as ‘‘political commissars’’ in
army units to guarantee the loyalty of his commanders.
In the end, Lenin’s gamble that the Russian people
were desperate enough to embrace radical change paid
off. The White Russian forces were larger than those of
the Red Army; they were supported by armed contingents
sent by Great Britain, France, and the United States to
assist in the extinction of the ‘‘Red menace’’; but they were
also rent by factionalism and hindered by the tendency of
opposition leaders to fight ‘‘red terror’’ with ‘‘white ter-
ror’’ and to return conquered land to the original land-
owners, thus driving many peasants to support the Soviet
regime. By 1920, the civil war was over, and Soviet power
was secure.
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 83
Seeking Eternal Peace
In January 1919, the delegations of twenty-seven victo-
rious Allied nations gathered at the Palace of Versailles
near Paris to conclude a final settlement of the Great War.
Some delegates believed that this conference would avoid
the mistakes made at Vienna in 1815 by aristocrats who
rearranged the map of Europe to meet the selfish desires
of the great powers. Harold Nicolson, one of the British
delegates, expressed what he believed this conference
would achieve instead: ‘‘We were journeying to Paris not
merely to liquidate the war, but to found a New Order in
Europe. We were preparing not Peace only, but Eternal
Peace. There was about us the halo of some divine
mission. . . . For we were bent on doing great, permanent
and noble things.’’3
The Vision of Woodrow Wilson
National expectations, however, made Nicolson’s quest
for ‘‘eternal peace’’ a difficult one. Over the years, the
reasons for fighting World War I had been transformed
from selfish national interests to idealistic principles. No
one expressed the latter better than Woodrow Wilson.
The American president outlined to the U.S. Congress
‘‘Fourteen Points’’ that he believed justified the enormous
military struggle then being waged. Later, Wilson spelled
out additional steps for a truly just and lasting peace.
Wilson’s proposals included ‘‘open covenants of peace,
openly arrived at’’ instead of secret diplomacy; the re-
duction of national armaments to a ‘‘point consistent
with domestic safety’’; and the self-determination of
people so that ‘‘all well-defined national aspirations shall
be accorded the utmost satisfaction.’’ Wilson character-
ized World War I as a people’s war waged against ‘‘ab-
solutism and militarism,’’ two scourges of liberty that
could only be eliminated by creating democratic gov-
ernments and a ‘‘general association of nations’’ that
would guarantee ‘‘political independence and territorial
integrity to great and small states alike.’’ As the spokes-
man for a new world order based on democracy and
international cooperation, Wilson was enthusiastically
cheered by many Europeans when he arrived in Europe
for the peace conference.
Wilson soon found, however, that other states at the
conference were guided by considerably more pragmatic
motives. The secret treaties and agreements that had been
made before and during the war could not be totally ig-
nored, even if they did conflict with Wilson’s principle of
self-determination. National interests also complicated
the deliberations of the conference. David Lloyd George
(1863–1945), prime minister of Great Britain, had won a
decisive electoral victory in December 1918 on a platform
of making the Germans pay for this dreadful war.
France’s approach to peace was determined primarily
by considerations of national security. To Georges
Clemenceau, the feisty French premier who had led his
country to victory, the French people had borne the brunt
of German aggression and deserved security against any
possible future attack. Clemenceau wanted a demilita-
rized Germany, vast reparations to pay for the costs of the
war, and a separate Rhineland as a buffer state between
France and Germany—demands that Wilson viewed as
vindictive and contrary to the principle of national self-
determination. The Europeans, he once complained to a
colleague, just want to ‘‘divide the swag.’’4
Although twenty-seven nations were represented at
the Paris Peace Conference, the most important decisions
were made by Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George.
Italy was considered one of the so-called Big Four powers
but played a much less important role than the other
three countries. Germany was not invited to attend, and
Russia could not because it was embroiled in civil war.
Forming the League of Nations In view of the many
conflicting demands at Versailles, it was inevitable that
the Big Three would quarrel. Wilson was determined to
create a League of Nations to prevent future wars.
Clemenceau and Lloyd George were equally determined
to punish Germany. In the end, only compromise made it
possible to achieve a peace settlement. On January 25,
1919, the conference adopted the principle of the League
of Nations (the details of its structure were left for later
sessions); Wilson willingly agreed to make compromises
on territorial arrangements to guarantee the League’s
establishment, believing that a functioning League could
later rectify bad arrangements. Clemenceau also com-
promised to obtain some guarantees for French security.
He renounced France’s desire for a separate Rhineland
and instead accepted a defensive alliance with Great
Britain and the United States, both of which pledged to
help France if it were attacked by Germany.
The Peace Settlement
The final peace settlement at Paris consisted of five
separate treaties with the defeated nations—Germany,
Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The Treaty of
Versailles with Germany, signed on June 28, 1919, was by
far the most important one. The Germans considered it a
harsh peace and were particularly unhappy with Article
231, the so-called war guilt clause, which declared Ger-
many (and Austria) responsible for starting the war and
ordered Germany to pay reparations for all the damage
84 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
to which the Allied governments and their people had
been subjected as a result of the war ‘‘imposed upon them
by the aggression of Germany and her allies.’’
The military and territorial provisions of the treaty
also rankled the Germans, although they were by no
means as harsh as the Germans claimed. Germany had to
lower its army to 100,000 men, reduce its navy, and
eliminate its air force. German territorial losses included
the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France and sections
of Prussia to the new Polish state. German land west and
as far as 30 miles east of the Rhine was established as a
demilitarized zone and stripped of all armaments or
fortifications to serve as a barrier to any future German
military moves westward against France. Outraged by the
‘‘dictated peace,’’ the new German government com-
plained but accepted the treaty.
The separate peace treaties made with the other
Central Powers extensively redrew the map of eastern
Europe (see Map 4.3). Many of these changes merely
ratified what the war had already accomplished. Both
Germany and Russia lost considerable territory in eastern
Europe; the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared alto-
gether. New nation-states emerged from the lands of these
three empires: Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Po-
land, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Territorial
rearrangements were also made in the Balkans. Romania
acquired additional lands from Russia, Hungary, and
Bulgaria. Serbia formed the nucleus of a new South Slav
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Sicily
Cyprus
TRANSCAUCASIA
AZERBAIJA
N
AR
ME
NIA
KURDISTAN
MESOPOTAM
IA
By Russia
By Germany
By Ottoman Empire
By Bulgaria
By Austria-Hungary
Lost immediately after World War I
0 300 600 Miles
0 300 600 900 Kilometers
MAP 4.3 Territorial Changes in Europe and the Middle East After World War I. The
victorious Allies met in Paris to determine the shape and nature of postwar Europe. At the
urging of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, many nationalist aspirations of former imperial
subjects were realized with the creation of several new countries from the prewar territory
of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire.
Q What new countries emerged in Europe and the Middle East?
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 85
state, called Yugoslavia, which combined Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes. The Ottoman Empire was also broken up,
remaking the map of the Middle East (see Chapter 5).
Although the Paris Peace Conference was supposedly
guided by the principle of self-determination, the mix-
tures of peoples in eastern Europe made it impossible to
draw boundaries along neat ethnic lines. Compromises
had to be made, sometimes to satisfy the national interest
of the victors. France, for example, had lost Russia as its
major ally on Germany’s eastern border and wanted to
strengthen and expand Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugosla-
via, and Romania as much as possible so that those states
could serve as barriers against Germany and Communist
Russia. As a result of compromises, virtually every eastern
European state was left with a minorities problem that
could lead to future conflicts. Germans in Poland; Hun-
garians, Poles, and Germans in Czechoslovakia; and the
combination of Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians,
and Albanians in Yugoslavia all became sources of later
conflict. Moreover, the new map of eastern Europe was
based on the temporary collapse of power in both
Germany and Russia. As neither country accepted the new
eastern frontiers, it seemed only a matter of time before a
resurgent Germany or Russia would seek to make changes.
In retrospect, the fear expressed by U.S. Secretary of State
Robert Lansing that the principle of self-determination
aroused hopes that ‘‘can never be realized’’ seems all too
justified.
A Punitive Peace? Within twenty years after the signing
of the peace treaties, Europe was again engaged in deadly
conflict. Some historians have suggested that the cause was
the punitive nature of the peace terms imposed on the
defeated powers, provoking anger that would lead to the
rise of revanchist sentiment in Germany and Austria.
Others maintain that the cause was less in the structure of
the Versailles Treaty than in its lack of enforcement. Suc-
cessful enforcement of the peace necessitated the active
involvement of its principal architects, especially in help-
ing the new German state develop a peaceful and demo-
cratic republic. By the end of 1919, however, the United
States was already retreating into isolationism. The failure
of the U.S. Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles meant
that the United States never joined the League of Nations.
The Senate also rejected Wilson’s proposal for a defensive
alliance with Great Britain and France.
The Failure of the Peace
In the years following the end of the war, many people
hoped that Europe and the world were about to enter a
new era of international peace, economic growth, and
political democracy. In all of these areas, the optimistic
hopes of the 1920s failed to be realized.
The Search for Security
The peace settlement at the end of World War I had tried
to fulfill the nineteenth-century dream of nationalism by
creating new boundaries and new states. From the outset,
however, the settlement had left nations unhappy. Con-
flicts over disputed border regions between Germany and
Poland, Poland and Lithuania, Poland and Czechoslova-
kia, Austria and Hungary, and Italy and Yugoslavia poi-
soned mutual relations in eastern Europe for years. Many
Germans viewed the peace of Versailles as a dictated peace
and vowed to seek its revision.
To its supporters, the League of Nations was the place
to resolve such problems. The League, however, proved
ineffectual in maintaining the peace. The failure of the
United States to join the League (partially a consequence
of public disillusionment with disputes at the Versailles
conference) undermined the effectiveness of the League
right from the start. Moreover, the League could use only
economic sanctions to halt aggression. The French at-
tempt to strengthen the League’s effectiveness as an in-
strument of collective security by creating a peacekeeping
force was rejected by nations that feared giving up any of
their sovereignty to a larger international body.
France Goes It Alone The weakness of the League of
Nations and the failure of both the United States and Great
Britain to honor their promise of a defensive military al-
liance with France led the latter to insist on a strict en-
forcement of the Treaty of Versailles. This tough policy
toward Germany began with the issue of reparations—the
payments that the Germans were supposed to make to
compensate for the ‘‘damage done to the civilian popula-
tion of the Allied and Associated Powers and to their
property,’’ as the treaty asserted. In April 1921, the Allied
Reparations Commission settled on a sum of 132 billion
marks ($33 billion) for German reparations, payable in
annual installments of 2.5 billion (gold) marks. Allied
threats to occupy the Ruhr valley, Germany’s chief indus-
trial and mining center, induced the new German republic
to accept the reparations settlement and to make its first
payment in 1921. By the following year, however, facing
rising inflation, domestic turmoil, and lack of revenues
because of low tax rates, the German government an-
nounced that it was unable to pay more. Outraged by what
they considered to be Germany’s violation of one aspect of
the peace settlement, the French government sent troops to
occupy the Ruhr valley. If the Germans would not pay
reparations, the French would collect reparations in kind
by operating and using the Ruhr mines and factories.
86 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
French occupation of the Ruhr seriously undermined
the fragile German economy. The German government
adopted a policy of passive resistance to French occu-
pation that was largely financed by printing more paper
money, thus intensifying the inflationary pressures that
had already begun at the end of the war. The German
mark became worthless. Economic disaster fueled polit-
ical upheavals as Communists staged uprisings in Octo-
ber and Adolf Hitler’s band of Nazis attempted to seize
power in Munich in 1923. The following year, a new
conference of experts was convened to reassess the rep-
arations problem.
Solving the Reparations Problem The formation of
liberal-socialist governments in both Great Britain and
France opened the door to conciliatory approaches to
Germany and the reparations problem. At the same time,
a new German government led by Gustav Stresemann
(1878–1929) ended the policy of passive resistance and
committed Germany to carry out the provisions of the
Versailles Treaty while seeking a new settlement of the
reparations question.
In August 1924, an international commission pro-
duced a new plan for reparations. Named the Dawes Plan
after the American banker who chaired the commission,
it reduced reparations and stabilized Germany’s payments
on the basis of its ability to pay. The Dawes Plan also
granted an initial $200 million loan for German recovery,
which opened the door to heavy American investments in
Europe that helped create a new era of European pros-
perity between 1924 and 1929.
The Spirit of Locarno A new approach to European
diplomacy accompanied the new economic stability. A
spirit of international cooperation was fostered by the
foreign ministers of Germany and France, Gustav Stre-
semann and Aristide Briand (1862–1932), who concluded
the Treaty of Locarno in 1925. This treaty guaranteed
Germany’s new western borders with France and Bel-
gium. Although Germany’s new eastern borders with
Poland were conspicuously absent from the agreement,
the Locarno pact was viewed by many as the beginning of
a new era of European peace. On the day after the pact
was concluded, the headline in the New York Times read
‘‘France and Germany Ban War Forever,’’ and the London
Times declared ‘‘Peace at Last.’’5
Germany’s entry into the League of Nations in March
1926 soon reinforced the atmosphere of conciliation en-
gendered at Locarno. Two years later, similar optimistic
attitudes prevailed in the Kellogg-Briand Pact, drafted by
U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French For-
eign Minister Briand. Sixty-three nations signed this
accord, in which they pledged ‘‘to renounce war as an
instrument of national policy.’’ Nothing was said, how-
ever, about what would be done if anyone violated the
treaty.
The spirit of Locarno was based on little real sub-
stance. Germany lacked the military power to alter its
western borders even if it wanted to. Pious promises to
renounce war without mechanisms to enforce them were
virtually worthless. And the issue of disarmament soon
proved that paper promises could not bring nations to
cut back on their weapons. The League of Nations Cov-
enant had recommended the ‘‘reduction of national ar-
maments to the lowest point consistent with national
safety.’’ Numerous disarmament conferences, however,
failed to achieve anything substantial as states proved
unwilling to trust their security to anyone but their own
military forces. By the time the World Disarmament
Conference finally met in Geneva in 1932, the issue was
already dead.
No Return to Normalcy
According to Woodrow Wilson, World War I had been
fought ‘‘to make the world safe for democracy.’’ In 1919,
there seemed to be some justification for his claim. Four
major European states and a host of minor ones had
functioning political democracies. In a number of states,
universal male suffrage had even been replaced by uni-
versal suffrage as male politicians rewarded women for
their contributions to World War I by granting them the
right to vote (except in Italy, Switzerland, France, and
Spain, where women had to wait until the end of World
War II). In the 1920s, Europe seemed to be returning to
the political trends of the prewar era—the broadening of
parliamentary regimes and the fostering of individual
liberties. But it was not an easy process; four years of total
war and four years of postwar turmoil made ‘‘return to
normalcy,’’ in the words of Warren G. Harding, Wilson’s
successor as president, both difficult and troublesome.
After World War I, Great Britain went through a
period of painful readjustment and serious economic
difficulties. During the war, Britain had lost many of the
markets for its industrial products, especially to the
United States and Japan. The postwar decline of such
staple industries as coal, steel, and textiles led to a rise in
unemployment, which reached the two million mark in
1921. Britain experienced renewed prosperity between
1925 and 1929, but it proved relatively superficial. British
exports in the 1920s never compensated for the overseas
investments lost during the war, and even in these pur-
portedly prosperous years, unemployment remained at a
startling 10 percent. Coal miners were especially affected
by the decline of the antiquated and inefficient British
coal mines, which also suffered from a world glut of coal.
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 87
After the defeat of Germany and the demobilization
of the German army, France became the strongest power
on the European continent. Its biggest problem involved
the reconstruction of the devastated areas of northern and
eastern France. But neither the conservative National Bloc
government nor a government coalition of leftist parties
(the Cartel of the Left) seemed capable of solving France’s
financial problems between 1921 and 1926. The failure of
the Cartel of the Left led to the return of the conservative
Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934), whose government
from 1926 to 1929 stabilized the French economy by
means of a substantial increase in taxes during a period of
relative prosperity.
When the German Empire came to an end with
Germany’s defeat in World War I, a democratic state known
as the Weimar Republic was established. From its begin-
nings, the new republic was plagued by a series of problems.
It had no truly outstanding political leaders, and those who
were relatively able—including Friedrich Ebert, who served as
president, and Gustav Stresemann, the foreign minister and
chancellor—died in the 1920s.When Ebert died in 1925, Paul
von Hindenburg (1847–1934), a World War I military hero,
was elected president. Hindenburg was a traditional military
officer, a monarchist in sentiment, who at heart was not in
favor of the republic. The young republic also suffered
politically from attempted uprisings and attacks from both
the left and the right.
The Weimar Republic also faced serious economic
difficulties. Germany experienced runaway inflation in 1922
and 1923, with grave social effects. Widows, orphans, the
elderly, army officers, teachers, civil servants, and others
who lived on fixed incomes all watched their monthly sti-
pends become worthless or their lifetime savings disappear.
Their economic losses increasingly pushed the middle class
to the young German Communist Party or to rightist
parties that were equally hostile to the republic.
The Great Depression
After World War I, most European states hoped to re-
turn to the liberal ideal of a market economy largely free
of state intervention. But the war had vastly strength-
ened business cartels and labor unions, making some
government regulation of these powerful organizations
necessary. At the same time, reparations and war debts
had severely distorted the postwar international econ-
omy, making the prosperity that did occur between
1924 and 1929 at best a fragile one and the dream of
returning to a self-regulating market economy merely
an illusion. What destroyed the concept altogether was
the Great Depression.
Two factors played a major role in the coming of the
Great Depression: a downturn in European economies
and an international financial crisis created by the col-
lapse of the American stock market in 1929. Already in
the mid-1920s, global prices for agricultural goods were
beginning to decline rapidly as a result of the overpro-
duction of basic commodities, such as wheat. In 1925,
states in central and eastern Europe began to impose
tariffs to close their markets to other countries’ goods.
And an increase in the use of oil and hydroelectricity led
to a slump in the coal industry.
Much of the European prosperity in the mid-1920s
was built on U.S. bank loans to Germany, but in 1928
and 1929, American investors began to pull money out of
Germany to invest in the booming New York stock
market. When that market crashed in October 1929,
panicky American investors withdrew even more of their
funds from Germany and other European markets. The
withdrawal of funds seriously weakened the banks of
Germany and other central European states. The Credit-
Anstalt, Vienna’s most prestigious bank, collapsed on
May 31, 1931. By that time, trade was slowing down,
industrialists were cutting back production, and unem-
ployment was increasing as the ripple effects of interna-
tional bank failures had a devastating impact on domestic
economies.
Repercussions in Europe Economic downturns were
by no means a new phenomenon in European history,
but the Great Depression was exceptionally severe and
had immediate political repercussions. In Great Britain,
the Labour Party, now the largest in the country, failed to
resolve the crisis (at one point in the early 1930s, one
British worker in four was unemployed) and fell from
power in 1931. A new government dominated by the
Conservatives took office and soon claimed credit for
lifting the country out of the worst stages of the depres-
sion, primarily by using the traditional policies of bal-
anced budgets and protective tariffs. British politicians
largely ignored the new ideas of a Cambridge economist,
John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946), whose 1936 General
Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money took issue
with the traditional view that depressions should be left
to work themselves out through the self-regulatory
mechanisms of a free economy. Keynes argued that un-
employment stemmed not from overproduction but from
a decline in consumer demand, which could be increased
by public works, financed if necessary through deficit
spending to stimulate production. Such policies, however,
could be accomplished only by government intervention
in the economy, a measure that British political leaders
were unwilling to undertake.
France did not suffer from the effects of the Great
Depression as soon as other countries because it was a
protected market and a majority of French industrial
88 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
plants were small enterprises. Consequently, France did
not begin to face the crisis until 1931, but then it quickly
led to political repercussions. During a nineteen-month
period from 1932 to 1933, six different cabinets were
formed as France faced political chaos.
The European nation that suffered the most damage
from the depression was probably Germany. Unemploy-
ment increased to over four million by the end of 1930.
For many Germans, who had already suffered through
difficult times in the early 1920s, the democratic experi-
ment represented by the Weimar Republic had become a
nightmare. Some reacted by turning to Marxism because
Karl Marx had long predicted that capitalism would de-
stroy itself through overproduction. As in several other
European countries, communism took on a new popu-
larity, especially with workers and intellectuals. But in
Germany, the real beneficiary of the Great Depression was
Adolf Hitler, whose Nazi Party came to power in 1933.
Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal After Germany,
no Western nation was more affected by the Great De-
pression than the United States. The full force of the
depression had struck the United States by 1932. In that
year, industrial production fell to 50 percent of what it
had been in 1929. By 1933, there were 15 million un-
employed. Under these circumstances, Democrat Franklin
Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) was able to win a landslide
victory in the presidential election of 1932. Following the
example of the American experience during World War I,
his administration pursued a Keynesian policy of active
government intervention in the economy that came to be
known as the New Deal.
Initially, the New Deal attempted to restore pros-
perity by creating the National Recovery Administration
(NRA), which required government, labor, and industrial
leaders to work out regulations for each industry. De-
clared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935,
the NRAwas soon superseded by other efforts collectively
known as the Second New Deal. Its programs included
the Works Progress Administration (WPA), established in
1935, which employed between two and three million
people building bridges, roads, post offices, airports, and
other public works. The Roosevelt administration was
also responsible for new social legislation that launched
the American welfare state. In 1935, the Social Security
Act created a system of old-age pensions and unem-
ployment insurance. At the same time, the National La-
bor Relations Act of 1935 encouraged the rapid growth of
labor unions.
The New Deal undoubtedly provided some social
reform measures and may even have averted social revo-
lution in the United States; it did not, however, solve the
unemployment problems created by the Great Depression.
In May 1937, during what was considered a period of
recovery, American unemployment still stood at 7 million;
a recession the following year increased that number to
11 million. Only World War II and the subsequent growth
of armaments industries brought American workers back
to full employment.
Socialism in One Country
With their victory over the White Russians in 1920, Soviet
leaders now could turn for the first time to the chal-
lenging task of building the first socialist society in a
world dominated by their capitalist enemies. In his
writings, Karl Marx had said little about the nature of the
final communist utopia or how to get there. He had
Brother, Can You Spare a Job? The Great Depression devastated the
world economy and led to a dramatic rise in unemployment throughout the
industrialized world. In the United States, manufacturing centers like Chicago,
Cleveland, and Detroit were especially hard hit as consumer demand for
appliances and automobiles plummeted throughout the decade of the 1930s.
In this poignant photograph taken in 1930, an unemployed worker in Detroit
pleads for a job at the height of the depression. Unfortunately, full recovery
would not come until many years later.
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CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 89
spoken briefly of a transitional phase, variously known as
‘‘raw communism’’ or ‘‘socialism,’’ that would precede the
final stage of communism. During this phase, the Com-
munist Party would establish a ‘‘dictatorship of the pro-
letariat’’ to rid society of the capitalist oppressors, set up
the institutions of the new order, and indoctrinate the
population in the communist ethic. In recognition of the
fact that traces of ‘‘bourgeois thinking’’ would remain
among the population, profit incentives would be used to
encourage productivity (in the slogan of Marxism, pay-
ment would be on the basis of ‘‘work’’ rather than solely
on ‘‘need’’), but major industries would be nationalized
and private landholdings eliminated. After seizing power
in 1917, however, the Bolsheviks were too preoccupied
with survival to give much attention to the future nature
of Soviet society. ‘‘War communism’’—involving the gov-
ernment seizure of major industries, utilities, and sources
of raw materials and the requisition of grain from private
farmers—was, by Lenin’s own admission, just a makeshift
policy to permit the regime to mobilize resources for the
civil war.
The New Economic Policy In 1920, it was time to adopt
a more coherent approach. The realities were sobering.
Soviet Russia was not an advanced capitalist society in the
Marxist image, blessed with modern technology and an
impoverished and politically aware underclass imbued
with the desire to advance to socialism. It was poor and
primarily agrarian, and its small but growing industrial
sector had been ravaged by years of war. Under the cir-
cumstances, Lenin called for caution. He won his party’s
approval for a moderate program of social and economic
development known as the New Economic Policy, or
NEP. The program was based on a combination of cap-
italist and socialist techniques designed to increase pro-
duction through the use of profit incentives while at the
same time promoting the concept of socialist ownership
and maintaining firm party control over the political
system and the overall direction of the economy. The
‘‘commanding heights’’ of the Soviet economy (heavy
industry, banking, utilities, and foreign trade) remained
in the hands of the state, while private industry and
commerce were allowed to operate at the lower levels. The
forced requisition of grain, which had caused serious
unrest among the peasantry, was replaced by a tax, and
land remained firmly in private hands. The theoretical
justification for the program was that Soviet Russia now
needed to go through its own ‘‘capitalist stage’’ (albeit
under the control of the party) before beginning the
difficult transition to socialism.
As an economic strategy, the NEP succeeded bril-
liantly. During the early and mid-1920s, the Soviet econ-
omy recovered rapidly from the doldrums of war and civil
war. A more lax hand over the affairs of state allowed a
modest degree of free expression of opinion within the
ranks of the party and in Soviet society at large. Under the
surface, however, trouble loomed. Lenin had been in-
creasingly disabled by a bullet lodged in his neck from an
attempted assassination, and he began to lose his grip over
a fractious party. Even before his death in 1924, potential
successors had begun to scuffle for precedence in the
struggle to assume his position as party leader, the most
influential position in the state. The main candidates were
Leon Trotsky and a rising young figure from the state of
Georgia, Joseph Djugashvili, better known by his revolu-
tionary name, Stalin (1879–1953). Lenin had misgivings
about all the candidates hoping to succeed him and sug-
gested that a collective leadership best represented the in-
terests of the party and the revolution. After his death in
1924, however, factional struggle among the leading figures
in the party intensified. Although in some respects it was a
pure power struggle, it did have policy ramifications as
party factions debated about the NEP and its impact on
the future of the Russian Revolution.
At first, the various factions were relatively evenly
balanced, but Stalin proved adept at using his position as
general secretary of the party to outmaneuver his rivals.
By portraying himself as a centrist opposed to the ex-
treme positions of his ‘‘leftist’’ (too radical in pursuit of
revolutionary goals) or ‘‘rightist’’ (too prone to adopt
moderate positions contrary to Marxist principles) rivals,
he gradually concentrated power in his own hands.
In the meantime, the relatively moderate policies of the
NEP continued to operate as the party and the state vocally
encouraged the Soviet people, in a very un-Marxist manner,
to enrich themselves. Capital investment and technological
assistance from Western capitalist countries were actively
welcomed. An observer at the time might reasonably have
concluded that the Marxist vision of a world characterized
by class struggle had become a dead letter.
The Advance to Socialism
Stalin had previously joined with the moderate members
of the party to defend the NEP against Trotsky, whose ‘‘left
opposition’’ wanted a more rapid advance toward social-
ism. Trotsky, who had become one of Stalin’s chief critics,
was expelled from the party in 1927. Then, in 1928, Stalin
reversed course: he now claimed that the NEP had ach-
ieved its purpose and called for a rapid advance to socialist
forms of ownership. Beginning in 1929, a series of new
programs changed the face of Soviet society. Private cap-
italism in manufacturing and trade was virtually abol-
ished, and state control over the economy was extended.
The first of a series of five-year plans was launched
to promote rapid ‘‘socialist industrialization,’’ and in a
90 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
massive effort to strengthen the state’s hold over the ag-
ricultural economy, all private farmers were herded onto
collective farms.
The bitter campaign to collectivize the countryside
aroused the antagonism of many peasants and led to a
decline in food production and in some areas to mass
starvation. It also further divided the Communist Party and
led to a massive purge of party members at all levels who
opposed Stalin’s effort to achieve rapid economic growth
and the socialization of Russian society. A series of brutal
purge trials eliminated thousands of ‘‘Old Bolsheviks’’
(people who had joined the party before the 1917 Revo-
lution) and resulted in the conviction and death of many of
Stalin’s chief rivals. Trotsky, driven into exile, was dis-
patched by Stalin’s assassin in 1940. Of the delegates who
attended the National Congress of the CPSU (Communist
Party of the Soviet Union) in 1934, fully 70 percent had
been executed by the time of the National Congress in 1939.
The Legacy of Stalinism By the late 1930s, as the last of
the great purge trials came to an end, the Russian Rev-
olution had been in existence for more than two decades.
It had achieved some successes. Stalin’s policy of forced
industrialization had led to rapid growth in the industrial
sector, surpassing in many respects what had been ach-
ieved in the capitalist years prior to World War I. Between
1918 and 1937, steel production increased from 4 to
18 million tons per year, and hard coal output went from
36 to 128 million tons. New industrial cities sprang up
overnight in the Urals and Siberia. The Russian people in
general were probably better clothed, better fed, and
better educated than they had ever been before. The cost
had been enormous, however. Millions had died by bullet
or starvation. Thousands, perhaps millions, languished
in Stalin’s concentration camps. The remainder of the
population lived in a society now officially described as
socialist, under the watchful eye of a man who had risen
almost to the rank of a deity, the great leader of the Soviet
Union, Joseph Stalin.
The impact of Joseph Stalin on Soviet society in one
decade had been enormous. If Lenin had brought the
party to power and nursed it through the difficult years of
the civil war, it was Stalin, above all, who had mapped out
the path to economic modernization and socialist trans-
formation. To many foreign critics of the regime, the
Stalinist terror and autocracy were an inevitable conse-
quence of the concept of the vanguard party and the
centralized state built by Lenin. Others traced Stalinism
back to Marx. It was he, after all, who had formulated the
idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which now
provided ideological justification for the Stalinist autoc-
racy. Still others found the ultimate cause in the Russian
political culture, which had been characterized by autocracy
since the emergence of Russian society from Mongol con-
trol in the fifteenth century.
Was Stalinism an inevitable outcome of Marxist-
Leninist doctrine and practice? Or as the last Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev later claimed, were Stalin’s crimes
‘‘alien to the nature of socialism’’ and a departure from the
course charted by Lenin before his death? Certainly, Lenin
had not envisaged a party dominated by a figure who
became even larger than the organization itself and who,
in the 1930s, almost destroyed the party. On the other
hand, recent evidence shows that Lenin was capable of
brutally suppressing perceived enemies of the revolution
in a way that is reminiscent in manner, if not in scope, of
Stalin’s actions. In a 1922 letter to a colleague, he declared
that after the NEP had served its purpose, ‘‘we shall return
to the terror, and to economic terror.’’6
It is also true that the state created by Lenin provided
the conditions for a single-minded leader like Stalin to
rise to absolute power. The great danger that neither
Marx nor Lenin had foreseen had come to pass: the party
itself, the vanguard organization leading the way into the
utopian future, had become corrupted.
The Search for a New Reality
in the Arts
The mass destruction brought on by World War I pre-
cipitated a general disillusionment with Western civiliza-
tion on the part of artists and writers throughout Europe.
Avant-garde art, which had sought to discover alternative
techniques to portray reality, now gained broader accep-
tance as Europeans began to abandon classical traditions
in an attempt to come to grips with the anxieties of the
new age.
New Schools of Artistic Expression
A number of the artistic styles that gained popularity
during the 1920s originated during the war in neutral
Switzerland, where alienated intellectuals congregated at
cafés to decry the insanity of the age and to exchange
ideas on how to create a new and better world. One such
group was the Dadaists, who sought to destroy the past
with a vengeance, proclaiming their right to complete
freedom of expression in art.
A flagrant example of Dada’s revolutionary approach
to art was the decision by French artist Marcel Duchamp
(1887–1968) to enter a porcelain urinal in a 1917 art
exhibit held in New York City. By signing it and giving it a
title, Duchamp proclaimed that he had transformed the
urinal into a work of art. Duchamp’s Ready-Mades (as
such art would henceforth be labeled) declared that
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 91
whatever the artist proclaimed to be art was art. Duchamp’s
liberating concept served to open the floodgates of the
art world, obliging the entire twentieth century to swim
in this free-flowing, exuberant, exploratory, and often
frightening torrent.
Probing the Subconscious While Dadaism flourished
in Germany during the Weimar era, a school of Surrealism
was established in Paris to liberate the total human expe-
rience from the restraints of the rational world. By using the
subconscious, Surrealists hoped to resurrect the whole
personality and reveal a submerged and illusive reality.
Normally unrelated objects and people were juxtaposed in
dreamlike and frequently violent paintings that were in-
tended to shock the viewer into approaching reality from a
totally fresh perspective. Most famous of the Surrealists was
the Spaniard Salvadore Dalı́ (1904–1989), who subverted
the sense of reality in his painting by using near photo-
graphic detail in presenting a fantastic and irrational world.
Yet another modernist movement born on the eve of
World War I was Abstract, or Nonobjective, painting. As
one of its founders, Swiss artist Paul Klee (1879–1940),
observed, ‘‘the more fearful this world
becomes, . . . themore art becomes abstract.’’7 Two
of the movement’s principal founders, Wassily
Kandinsky (1866–1944) and Piet Mondrian
(1872–1944), were followers of Theosophy, a re-
ligion that promised the triumph of the spirit in a
new millennium. Since they viewed matter as an
obstacle to salvation, the art of the new age would
totally abandon all reference to thematerial world.
Only abstraction, in the form of colorful forms
and geometric shapes floating in space, could
express the bliss and spiritual beauty of this ter-
restrial paradise.
A Musical Revolution Just as artists began to
experiment with revolutionary ways to represent
reality in painting, musicians searched for new
revolutionary sounds. Austrian composer Arnold
Schoenberg (1874–1951) rejected the traditional
tonal system based on the harmonic triad that had
dominated Western music since the Renaissance.
To free theWestern ear from traditional harmonic
progression, Schoenberg substituted a radically
new ‘‘atonal’’ system in which each piece estab-
lished its own individual set of relationships and
structure. In 1923, he devised a twelve-tone sys-
tem in which he placed the twelve pitches of the
chromatic scale found on the piano in a set se-
quence for a musical composition. The ordering
of these twelve tones was to be repeated
throughout the piece, for all instrumental parts,
constituting its melody and harmony. Even today, such
atonal music seems inaccessible and incomprehensible to
the uninitiated. Yet Schoenberg, perhaps more than any
other modern composer, influenced the development of
twentieth-century music.
Modernism in Architecture Other fields of artistic
creativity, including sculpture, ballet, and architecture,
also reflected these new directions. In Germany, a group of
imaginative architects called the Bauhaus School created
what is widely known as the international school, which
soon became the dominant school of modern architec-
ture. Led by the famous German architect Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe (1881–1969), the internationalists promoted
a new functional and unadorned style (Mies was widely
known for observing that ‘‘less is more’’) characterized by
high-rise towers of steel and glass that were reproduced
endlessly throughout the second half of the century all
around the world.
For many postwar architects, the past was the enemy
of the future. In 1925, the famous French architect Le
Corbusier (1877–1965) advocated razing much of the old
Black Lines No. 189, 1913 (oil on canvas), Wassily Kandinsky. Abstract
painting was a renunciation of the material world and a glorification of the spiritual
realm. Deeming it no longer necessary to represent objects and people, artists chose
to express their emotions solely through color and abstract form. In this painting by
Kandinsky, we rejoice in the springlike swirling splashes of color of the artist’s abstract
world.
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92 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
city of Paris, to be replaced by modern towers of glass. In
his plan, which called for neat apartment complexes
separated by immaculate areas of grass, there was no
room for people, pets, or nature. Fortunately, it was re-
jected by municipal authorities.
Culture for the Masses
During the postwar era, writers followed artists and archi-
tects in rejecting traditional forms in order to explore the
subconscious. In his novel Ulysses, published in 1922, Irish
author James Joyce (1882–1941) invented the ‘‘stream of
consciousness’’ technique to portray the lives of ordinary
people through the use of inner monologue. Joyce’s tech-
nique exerted a powerful influence on literature for the
remainder of the century. Some American writers, such
as Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), Theodore Dreiser
(1871–1945), and Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), reflected the
rising influence of mass journalism in a new style designed
to ‘‘tell it like it is.’’ Such writers sought to report the ‘‘whole
truth’’ in an effort to attain the authenticity of modern
photography.
For much of the Western world, however, the best
way to find (or escape) reality was in the field of mass
entertainment. The 1930s represented the heyday of the
Hollywood studio system, which in the single year of
1937 turned out nearly six hundred feature films. Sup-
plementing the movies were cheap paperbacks and radio,
which brought sports, soap operas, and popular music to
the mass of the population. The radio was a great social
leveler, speaking to all classes with the same voice. Such
new technological wonders offered diversion even to the
poor while helping to define the twentieth century as the
era of the common people.
CONCLUSION
WORLD WAR I SHATTERED the image of a progressive and rational
society in early-twentieth-century Europe. The widespread de-
struction and the deaths of millions of people undermined the
Enlightenment belief in human progress. New propaganda
techniques had manipulated entire populations into sustaining their
involvement in a meaningless slaughter.
Who was responsible for the carnage? To the victorious Allied
leaders, it was their defeated former adversaries, on whom they
imposed harsh terms at the Versailles Peace Conference at the end of
the war. In later years, however, some historians placed the blame
on Russia for its decision to order full military mobilization in
response to events taking place in the Balkans.
Perhaps, however, the real culprit was the system itself. In the
first half of the nineteenth century, liberals had maintained that the
organization of European states along national lines would lead to a
peaceful Europe based on a sense of international fraternity. They
had been very wrong. The system of nation-states that began to
emerge in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century led
not to cooperation but to competition. Governments that exercised
restraint to avoid war wound up being publicly humiliated; those
that went to the brink of war to maintain their national interests
were often praised for having preserved national honor. As British
historian John Keegan has noted, for European statesmen in the
early twentieth century, ‘‘the fear of not meeting a challenge was
greater than the fear of war.’’ In either case, by 1914, the major
European states had come to believe that their allies were important
and that their security depended on supporting those allies, even
when they took foolish risks.
The growth of nationalism in the nineteenth century had yet
another serious consequence. Not all ethnic groups had achieved
the goal of nationhood. Slavic minorities in the Balkans and the
polyglot Austro-Hungarian Empire, for example, still dreamed of
creating their own national states. So did the Irish in the British
Empire and the Poles in the Russian Empire, not to speak of the
subject peoples living in colonial areas elsewhere around the globe.
To a close observer of the global scene, the future must have looked
ominous.
To make matters worse, the very industrial and technological
innovations that brought the prospect of increased material
prosperity for millions also led to the manufacture of new weapons
of mass destruction such as long-range artillery, the tank, poison
gas, and the airplane that would make war a more terrible prospect
for those involved, whether military or civilian. If war did come, it
would be highly destructive.
Victorious world leaders gathering at Versailles hoped to forge
a peace settlement that would say good-bye to all that. But as it
turned out, the turmoil wrought by World War I seemed to open
the door to even greater insecurity. Revolutions in Russia and the
Middle East dismembered old empires and created new states that
gave rise to unexpected problems. Expectations that Europe and the
world would return to normalcy were soon dashed by the failure to
achieve a lasting peace, economic collapse, and the rise of
authoritarian governments that not only restricted individual
freedoms but sought even greater control over the lives of their
subjects, manipulating and guiding their people to achieve the goals
of their totalitarian regimes.
Finally, World War I brought an end to the age of European
hegemony over world affairs. By virtually demolishing their own
civilization on the battlegrounds of Europe in World War I,
Europeans inadvertently encouraged the subject peoples of their
vast colonial empires to initiate movements for national indepen-
dence. In the next chapter, we examine some of those movements.
CH A P T E R 4 WAR AND REVOLUTION: WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH 93
CHAPTER NOTES
1. A. Toynbee, Surviving the Future (New York, 1971), pp. 10–107.
2. Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: A New Biography (New York, 1994),
p. 22.
3. Harold Nicolson, Peacemaking, 1919 (Boston and New York,
1933), pp. 31–32.
4. Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the
World (New York, 2001), p. 103.
5. Quoted in Robert Paxton, Europe in the Twentieth Century,
2d ed. (San Diego, 1985), p. 237.
6. Volkogonov, Lenin, p. 3.
7. Quoted in Nikos Stangos, Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism
to Postmodernism, 3d ed. (London, 1994), p. 44.
TIMELINE
1915 1920 1925 1930
Europe
Battle of
Verdun
(1916)
Paris Peace Conference
(1919)
Russia
United States
United States enters the war
(1917)
Dawes Plan
(1924)
The New Deal
(1930s)
Treaty of Locarno
(1925)
Great Depression begins
(1929)
Bolshevik Revolution
(1917)
Civil war in Russia
(1918–1920)
Germany enters League
of Nations
(1926)
Assassination of Archduke
Francis Ferdinand
(1914)
Stalin establishes
dictatorship in Russia
(1928–1929)
Lenin’s New Economic Policy
(1921)
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
94 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
95
IN 1930, MOHANDAS GANDHI, the sixty-one-year-old leader
of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence from British
rule, began a march to the sea with seventy-eight followers. Their
destination was Dandi, a coastal town some 240 miles away. The
group covered about 12 miles a day. As they went, Gandhi preached
his doctrine of nonviolent resistance to British rule in every village
he passed through: ‘‘Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citi-
zen. He dare not give it up without ceasing to be a man.’’ By the
time he reached Dandi, twenty-four days later, his small group had
become an army of thousands. On arrival, Gandhi picked up a
pinch of salt from the sand. All along the coast, thousands did like-
wise, openly breaking British laws that prohibited Indians from mak-
ing their own salt. The British had long profited from their
monopoly on the making and sale of salt, an item much in demand
in a tropical country. By their simple acts of disobedience, Gandhi
and the Indian people had taken a bold step on their long march to
independence.
The salt march was but one of many nonviolent activities that
Mohandas Gandhi undertook between World War I and World War II
to win India’s goal of national independence from British rule.
World War I had not only deeply affected the lives of Europeans but
also undermined the prestige of Western civilization in the minds of
many observers in the rest of the world. When Europeans devastated
their own civilization on the battlefields of Europe, the subject peo-
ples of their vast colonial empires were quick to understand what it
meant. In Africa and Asia, movements for national independence
began to take shape. Some were inspired by the nationalist and lib-
eral movements of the West, while others began to look toward the
new Marxist model provided by the victory of the Communists in
Soviet Russia, who soon worked to spread their revolutionary vision
to African and Asian societies. In the Middle East, World War I
ended the rule of the Ottoman Empire and led to the creation of
new states, some of which adopted Western features. For some Latin
American countries, traditional elites remained in power, but in
others, the fascist dictatorships of Italy and Germany provided mod-
els for change.
CHAPTER 5
NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP:
ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA
FROM 1919 TO 1939
The Rise of Nationalism
in Asia and Africa
Although the West had emerged from World War I rela-
tively intact, its political and social foundations and its
self-confidence had been severely undermined by the ex-
perience. Within Europe, doubts about the future viability
of Western civilization were widespread, especially among
the intellectual elite. These doubts were quick to reach the
attention of perceptive observers in Asia and Africa and
contributed to a rising tide of unrest against Western
political domination throughout the colonial and semi-
colonial world. That unrest took a variety of forms but
was most notably displayed in increasing worker activism,
rural protest, and a rising sense of national fervor among
anticolonialist intellectuals. Where independent states had
successfully resisted the Western onslaught, the discontent
fostered by the war and later by the Great Depression led
to a loss of confidence in democratic institutions and the
rise of political dictatorships.
As we have seen (see Chapter 1), nationalism refers to
a state of mind rising out of an awareness of being part of
a community that possesses common institutions, tradi-
tions, language, and customs. Unfortunately, even today
few nations in the world meet such criteria. Most modern
states contain a variety of ethnic, religious, and linguistic
communities, each with its own sense of cultural and
national identity. How does nationalism differ from
tribal, religious, linguistic, or other forms of affiliation?
Should every group that resists assimilation into a larger
cultural unity be called nationalist?
Such questions complicate the study of nationalism
and make agreement on a definition elusive. They create a
particular dilemma in discussing Asia and Africa, where
most societies are deeply divided by ethnic, linguistic, and
religious differences and the very concept of nationalism
is a foreign phenomenon imported from the West. Prior
to the colonial era, most traditional societies in Africa and
Asia were unified on the basis of religious beliefs, com-
munity loyalties, or devotion to hereditary monarchies.
Individuals in some countries identified themselves as
members of a particular national group, while others
viewed themselves as subjects of a king, members of a
caste, or adherents of a particular religion.
The advent of European colonialism brought the
consciousness of modern nationhood to many societies in
Asia and Africa. The creation of colonies with defined
borders and a powerful central government weakened
local ties and reoriented individuals’ sense of political
identity. The introduction of Western ideas of citizenship
and representative government engendered a new sense of
participation in the affairs of government. At the same
time, the appearance of a new elite class based not on
hereditary privilege or religious sanction but on alleged
racial or cultural superiority aroused a shared sense of
resentment among the subject peoples who felt a com-
mon commitment to the creation of an independent
society. By the first quarter of the twentieth century,
political movements dedicated to the overthrow of colo-
nial rule had arisen throughout much of the non-Western
world.
Nationalist movements in Asia and Africa, then, were
a product of colonialism and, in a sense, a reaction to it.
But a sense of nationhood does not emerge full-blown in
a society. It begins among a few members of the educated
elite (most commonly among articulate professionals
such as lawyers, teachers, journalists, and doctors) and
spreads gradually to the mass of the population. Only
then has a true sense of nationhood been created.
Traditional Resistance: A Precursor
to Nationalism
If we view the concept of nationalism as a process by which
people in a given society gradually become aware of them-
selves as members of a particular nation, with its own cul-
ture and aspirations, then it is reasonable to seek the
beginnings of modern nationalism in Asia and Africa in the
initial resistance by the indigenous peoples to the colonial
conquest itself. Although essentially motivated by the desire
to defend traditional institutions, such movements reflected
an early awareness of nationhood in that they sought to
protect the homeland from the invader. Thus, traditional
resistance to colonial conquestmay logically be viewed as the
first stage in the development of modern nationalism.
Such resistance took various forms. For the most
part, it was led by the existing ruling class. In the Ashanti
kingdom in West Africa and in Burma and Vietnam in
Southeast Asia, the resistance to Western domination was
initially directed by the imperial courts. In some cases,
however, traditionalist elements continued to oppose
foreign conquest even after resistance had collapsed at the
center. In Japan, conservative elites opposed the decision
of the Tokugawa shogunate in Tokyo to accommodate the
Western presence and launched an abortive movement to
defeat the foreigners and restore Japan to its previous
policy of isolation (see Chapter 3). In India, Tipu Sultan
resisted the British in the Deccan plateau region of central
India after the collapse of the Mughal dynasty. Similarly,
after the decrepit monarchy in Vietnam had bowed to
French pressure and agreed to the concession of territory
in the south and the establishment of a French protec-
torate over the remainder of the country, a number of
civilian and military officials set up an organization called
Can Vuong (literally, ‘‘Save the King’’) and continued
their resistance without imperial sanction.
The Sepoy Rebellion Sometimes traditional resistance
had a religious basis, as in the Sudan, where a revolt
against the growing British presence in the Nile River
valley had strong Islamic overtones, although it was ini-
tially provoked by Turkish misrule in Egypt. More sig-
nificant was the famous Sepoy Rebellion of 1857 in India.
The sepoys (derived from the Turkish word for ‘‘horse-
man’’ or ‘‘soldier’’) were native troops hired by the East
India Company to protect British interests in the region.
Unrest within Indian units of the colonial army had been
common since early in the century, when it had been
sparked by economic issues, religious sensitivities, or
nascent anticolonial sentiment. Such attitudes intensified
in the mid-1850s when the British instituted a new policy
of shipping Indian troops abroad—a practice that exposed
Hindus to pollution by foreign cultures. In 1857, tension
erupted when the British adopted the new Enfield rifle for
use by sepoy infantrymen. The new weapon was a muzzle-
loader that used paper cartridges covered with animal fat
and lard; the cartridge had to be bitten off, but doing so
violated strictures against high-caste Hindus’ eating ani-
mal products and Muslim prohibitions against eating
pork. Protests among sepoy units in northern India
turned into a full-scale rebellion, supported by uprisings
in rural districts in various parts of the country. But the
revolt lacked clear goals, and rivalries between Hindus
and Muslims and discord among leaders within each
community prevented coordination of operations. Al-
though Indian troops often fought bravely and out-
numbered the British by 240,000 to 40,000, they were
poorly organized, and the British forces (supplemented in
many cases by sepoy troops) suppressed the rebellion.
Still, the revolt frightened the British and led to a
number of major reforms. The proportion of native
troops relative to those from Great Britain was reduced,
96 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
and precedence was given to ethnic groups likely to be
loyal to the British, such as the Sikhs of Punjab and the
Gurkhas, an upland people from Nepal in the Himalaya
Mountains. To avoid religious conflicts, ethnic groups
were spread throughout the service rather than assigned
to special units. The British also decided to suppress the
final remnants of the hapless Mughal dynasty, which had
supported the rebellion, and place the governance of India
directly under the British Crown.
As noted earlier, such forms of resistance cannot
properly be called nationalist because they were essen-
tially attempts to protect or restore traditional society and
its institutions and were not motivated by the desire to
create a nation in the modern sense of the word. In any
event, such movements rarely met with success. Peasants
armed with pikes and spears were no match for Western
armies possessing the most terrifying weapons then
known to human society, including the Gatling gun, the
first rapid-fire weapon and the precursor of the modern
machine gun.
Modern Nationalism
The first stage of resistance to the West in Asia and Africa
must have confirmed many Westerners’ conviction that
colonial peoples lacked both the strength and the know-how
to create modern states and govern their own destinies.
In fact, however, the process was just beginning. The
next phase began to take shape at the beginning of the
twentieth century and was the product of the convergence
of several factors. The primary sources of anticolonialist
sentiment were found in a new class of Westernized in-
tellectuals in the urban centers created by colonial rule. In
many cases, this new urban middle class, composed of
merchants, petty functionaries, clerks, students, and pro-
fessionals, had been educated in Western-style schools. A
few had spent time in the West. In either case, they were
the first generation of Asians and Africans to possess more
than a rudimentary understanding of the institutions and
values of the modern West.
The Paradox of Nationalism The results were para-
doxical. On the one hand, this new class admired Western
culture and sometimes harbored a deep sense of contempt
for traditional ways. On the other hand, many strongly
resented the gap between ideal and reality, theory and
practice, in colonial policy. Although Western political
thought exalted democracy, equality, and individual free-
dom, these values were generally not applied in the colo-
nies. Democratic institutions were primitive or nonexistent,
and colonial subjects usually had access to only the most
menial positions in the colonial bureaucracy.
Equally important, the economic prosperity of the
West was only imperfectly reflected in the colonies. Nor-
mally, middle-class Asians did not suffer in the same
manner as impoverished peasants or menial workers on
sugar or rubber plantations, but they, too, had complaints.
They usually qualified only for menial jobs in the govern-
ment or business. Even when employed, their salaries were
normally lower than those of Europeans in similar occu-
pations. The superiority of the Europeans over the natives
was expressed in a variety of ways, including ‘‘whites only’’
clubs and the forms of language used to address colonial
subjects. For example, Europeans would characteristically
use the familiar form of direct address (normally used by
adults to children) when talking to members of the local
population in their own language.
Out of this mixture of hopes and resentments
emerged the first stirrings of modern nationalism in Asia
and Africa. During the first quarter of the twentieth cen-
tury, in colonial and semicolonial societies across the entire
arc of Asia from the Suez Canal to the shores of the Pacific
Ocean, educated native peoples began to organize political
parties and movements seeking reforms or the end of
foreign rule and the restoration of independence.
At first, many of the leaders of these movements did
not focus clearly on the idea of nationhood but tried to
defend the economic interests or religious beliefs of the
native population. In Burma, for example, the first ex-
pression of modern nationalism came from students at
the University of Rangoon, who formed an organization
to protest against official persecution of the Buddhist
religion and British lack of respect for local religious
traditions. Calling themselves Thakin (a polite term in the
Burmese language meaning ‘‘lord’’ or ‘‘master,’’ thus em-
phasizing their demand for the right to rule themselves),
they protested against British arrogance and failure to
observe local customs in Buddhist temples (visitors are
expected to remove their footwear in a temple, a custom
that was widely ignored by Europeans in colonial Burma).
Eventually, however, they began to focus specifically on
the issue of national independence.
A similar movement arose in the Dutch East Indies,
where the first quasi-political organization dedicated to
the creation of a modern Indonesia, the Sarekat Islam
(Islamic Association), began as a self-help society among
Muslim merchants to fight against domination of the local
economy by Chinese interests. Eventually, activist ele-
ments began to realize that the source of the problem was
not the Chinese merchants but the colonial presence, and
in the 1920s, Sarekat Islam was transformed into a new
organization—the Nationalist Party of Indonesia (PNI)—
that focused on the issue of national independence. Like
the Thakins in Burma, this party would eventually lead the
country to independence after World War II.
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 97
Independence or Modernization? The Nationalist
Quandary Building a new nation, however, requires
more than a shared sense of grievances against the foreign
invader. By what means was independence to be ach-
ieved? Should independence or modernization be the first
priority? What kind of political and economic system
should be adopted once colonial rule had been over-
thrown? What national or cultural concept should be
adopted as the symbol of the new nation, and which
institutions and values should be preserved from the past?
Questions such as these triggered lively and some-
times acrimonious debates among patriotic elements
throughout the colonial world. If national independence
was the desired end, how could it be achieved? Could the
Westerners be persuaded to leave by nonviolent measures,
or would force be required? If the Western presence could
be beneficial in terms of introducing much-needed re-
forms in traditional societies, then a gradualist approach
made sense. On the other hand, if the colonial regime was
viewed as an impediment to social and political change,
then the first priority, in the minds of many, was to bring
it to an end.
Another problem was how to adopt modern Western
ideas and institutions while preserving the essential values
that defined the indigenous culture. One of the reasons for
using traditional values was to provide ideological sym-
bols that the common people could understand. If the
desired end was national independence, then the new
political parties needed to enlist the mass of the popula-
tion in the common struggle. But how could peasants,
plantation workers, fishermen, and shepherds be made to
understand complicated and unfamiliar concepts like de-
mocracy, industrialization, and nationhood? The problem
was often one of communication, for most urban in-
tellectuals had little in common with the teeming popu-
lation in the countryside. As the Indonesian intellectual
Sutan Sjahrir lamented, many Westernized intellectuals
had more in common with their colonial rulers than
with the native population in the rural villages (see the
box above).
THE DILEMMA OF THE INTELLECTUAL
Sutan Sjahrir (1909–1966) was a prominent leader of the
Indonesian nationalist movement who briefly served as prime
minister of the Republic of Indonesia in the 1950s. Like many
Western-educated Asian intellectuals, he was tortured by the re-
alization that by education and outlook he was closer to his co-
lonial masters—in his case, the Dutch—than to his own
people. He wrote the following passage in a letter to his wife in
1935 and later included it in his book Out of Exile.
Sutan Sjahrir, Out of Exile
Am I perhaps estranged from my people? . . .Why are the things that
contain beauty for them and arouse their gentler emotions only sense-
less and displeasing for me? In reality, the spiritual gap between my
people and me is certainly no greater than that between an intellectual
in Holland . . . and the undeveloped people of Holland. . . . The differ-
ence is rather . . . that the intellectual in Holland does not feel this gap
because there is a portion—even a fairly large portion—of his own peo-
ple on approximately the same intellectual level as himself. . . .
This is what we lack here. Not only is the number of intellec-
tuals in this country smaller in proportion to the total population—
in fact, very much smaller—but in addition, the few who are here do
not constitute any single entity in spiritual outlook, or in any spiri-
tual life or single culture whatsoever. . . . It is for them so much
more difficult than for the intellectuals in Holland. In Holland they
build—both consciously and unconsciously—on what is already
there. . . . Even if they oppose it, they do so as a method of applica-
tion or as a starting point.
In our country this is not the case. Here there has been no
spiritual or cultural life, and no intellectual progress for centuries.
There are the much-praised Eastern art forms but what are these ex-
cept bare rudiments from a feudal culture that cannot possibly pro-
vide a dynamic fulcrum for people of the twentieth century? . . .Our
spiritual needs are needs of the twentieth century; our problems and
our views are of the twentieth century. Our inclination is no longer
toward the mystical, but toward reality, clarity, and objectivity. . . .
We intellectuals here are much closer to Europe or America
than we are to the Borobudur or Mahabharata or to the primitive
Islamic culture of Java and Sumatra. . . .
So, it seems, the problem stands in principle. It is seldom put
forth by us in this light, and instead most of us search unconsciously
for a synthesis that will leave us internally tranquil. We want to have
both Western science and Eastern philosophy, the Eastern ‘‘spirit,’’ in
the culture. But what is this Eastern spirit? It is, they say, the sense
of the higher, of spirituality, of the eternal and religious, as opposed
to the materialism of the West. I have heard this countless times, but
it has never convinced me.
Q Why does the author feel estranged from his native culture?
What is his answer to the challenges faced by his country in
coming to terms with the modern world?
SOURCE: From The World of Southeast Asia: Selected Historical Readings,
Harry J. Benda and John A. Larkin, eds. Copyright �C 1967 by Harper &
Row, Publishers.
98 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Gandhi and the Indian National Congress
Nowhere in the colonial world were these issues debated
more vigorously than in India. Before the Sepoy Rebellion,
Indian consciousness had focused primarily on the question
of religious identity. But in the latter half of the nineteenth
century, a stronger sense of national consciousness began to
arise, provoked by the conservative policies and racial ar-
rogance of the British colonial authorities.
The first Indian nationalists were almost invariably
upper class and educated. Many of them were from urban
areas such as Bombay, Madras, and
Calcutta. Some were trained in law
and were members of the civil service.
At first, many tended to prefer reform
to revolution and accepted the idea
that India needed modernization be-
fore it could handle the problems of
independence. An exponent of this
view was Gopal Gokhale (1866–
1915), a moderate nationalist who
hoped that he could convince the
British to bring about needed reforms
in Indian society. Gokhale and other
like-minded reformists did have some
effect. In the 1880s, the government
launched a series of reforms intro-
ducing a measure of self-government for the first time. All
too often, however, such efforts were sabotaged by local
British officials.
The Indian National Congress The slow pace of reform
convinced many Indian nationalists that relying on Brit-
ish benevolence was futile. In 1885, a small group of In-
dians met in Bombay to form the Indian National
Congress (INC). They hoped to speak for all India, but
most were high-caste English-trained Hindus. Like their
reformist predecessors, members of the INC did not de-
mand immediate independence and accepted the need for
reforms to end traditional abuses like child marriage and
sati (see Chapter 2). At the same time, they called for an
Indian share in the governing process and more spending
on economic development and less on military cam-
paigns along the frontier.
The British responded with a few concessions, such
as accepting the principle of elective Indian participation
on government councils, but in general, change was gla-
cially slow. As impatient members of the INC became
disillusioned, radical leaders such as Balwantrao Tilak
(1856–1920) openly criticized the British while defending
traditional customs like child marriage to solicit support
from conservative elements within the local population.
Tilak’s activities split the INC between moderates and
radicals, and he and his followers formed the New Party,
which called for the use of terrorism and violence to
achieve national independence. Tilak was eventually
convicted of sedition.
The INC also had difficulty reconciling religious
differences within its ranks. The stated goal of the INC
was to seek self-determination for all Indians regardless of
class or religious affiliation, but many of its leaders were
Hindu and inevitably reflected Hindu concerns. By the
first decade of the twentieth century, Muslims began to
call for the creation of a separate Muslim League to
represent the interests of the millions
of Muslims in Indian society.
India’s ‘‘Great Soul,’’ Mohandas
Gandhi In 1915, the return of a
young Hindu lawyer from South Africa
transformed the movement and gal-
vanized India’s struggle for indepen-
dence and identity. Mohandas Gandhi
was born in 1869 in Gujarat, in west-
ern India, the son of a government
minister. In the late nineteenth cen-
tury, he studied in London and be-
came a lawyer. In 1893, he went to
South Africa to work in a law firm
serving Indian émigrés working as la-
borers there. He soon became aware of the racial preju-
dice and exploitation experienced by Indians living in the
territory and tried to organize them to protest their living
conditions.
Nonviolent Resistance On his return to India, Gandhi
immediately became active in the independence move-
ment. Using his experience in South Africa, he set up a
movement based on nonviolent resistance (the Indian
term was satyagraha, ‘‘hold fast to the truth’’) to try to
force the British to improve the lot of the poor and grant
independence to India. Gandhi was particularly con-
cerned about the plight of the millions of ‘‘untouchables’’
(the lowest social class in traditional India), whom he
called harijans, or ‘‘children of God.’’ When the British
attempted to suppress dissent, he called on his followers
to refuse to obey British regulations. He began to man-
ufacture his own clothes (dressing in a simple dhoti made
of coarse homespun cotton) and adopted the spinning
wheel as a symbol of Indian resistance to imports of
British textiles.
Gandhi, now increasingly known as India’s ‘‘Great
Soul’’ (Mahatma), organized mass protests to achieve his
aims, but in 1919, they got out of hand and led to British
reprisals. British troops killed hundreds of unarmed
protesters in the enclosed square in the city of Amritsar in
Arabian
Sea
Bay of
Bengal
In
du
s R
.
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TIBET
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Delhi
Calcutta
Bombay
Goa
Madras
Pondicherry
KASHMIR
AND
JAMMU
Amritsar
Lahore
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0 375 750 Kilometers
British India Between the Wars
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 99
northwestern India. When the protests spread, Gandhi
was horrified at the violence and briefly retreated from
active politics. Nevertheless, he was arrested for his role in
the protests and spent several years in prison.
Gandhi combined his anticolonial activities with an
appeal to the spiritual instincts of all Indians. Though
born and raised a Hindu, he possessed a universalist
approach to the idea of God that transcended individual
religion, although it was shaped by the historical themes
of Hindu religious belief. At a speech given in London in
September 1931, he expressed his view of the nature of
God as ‘‘an indefinable mysterious power that pervades
everything . . . , an unseen power which makes itself felt
and yet defies all proof.’’
In 1921, the British passed the Government of India
Act to expand the role of Indians in the governing process
and transform the heretofore advisory Legislative Council
into a bicameral parliament, two-thirds of whose mem-
bers would be elected. Similar bodies were created at the
provincial level. In a stroke, five million Indians were
enfranchised. But such reforms were no longer enough
for many members of the INC, which under its new
leader, Motilal Nehru, wanted to push aggressively for full
independence. The British exacerbated the situation by
increasing the salt tax and prohibiting the Indian people
from manufacturing or harvesting their own salt. On
release from prison, Gandhi resumed his policy of civil
disobedience by openly joining several dozen supporters
in a 240-mile walk to the sea, where he picked up a lump
of salt and urged Indians to ignore the law. Gandhi and
many other members of the INC were arrested.
New Leaders, New Problems In the 1930s, a new fig-
ure entered the movement in the person of Jawaharlal
Nehru (1889–1964), son of the INC leader Motilal Nehru.
Educated in the law in Great Britain and a brahmin
(member of the highest social class) by birth, Nehru
personified the new Anglo-Indian politician: secular, ra-
tional, upper class, and intellectual. In fact, he appeared
to be everything that Gandhi was not. With his emer-
gence, the independence movement embarked on dual
paths: religious and secular, native and Western, tradi-
tional and modern. The dichotomous character of the
INC leadership may well have strengthened the move-
ment by bringing together the two primary impulses
behind the desire for independence: elite nationalism and
Masters and Disciples. When the founders of nationalist movements passed
leadership over to their successors, the result was often a change in the strategy and
tactics of the organizations. When Jawaharlal Nehru (left photo, on the left) replaced
Mahatma Gandhi (wearing a simple Indian dhoti rather than the Western dress
favored by his colleagues) as leader of the Indian National Congress, the movement
adopted a more secular posture. In China, Chiang Kai-shek (right photo, standing)
took Sun Yat-sen’s Nationalist Party in a more conservative direction after Sun’s
death in 1925.
Q How would you compare these four leaders in terms of their roles in
furthering political change in their respective countries?
A
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100 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
the primal force of Indian traditionalism. But it por-
tended trouble for the nation’s new leadership in defining
India’s future path in the contemporary world. In the
meantime, Muslim discontent with Hindu dominance
over the INC was increasing. In 1940, the Muslim League
called for the creation of a separate Muslim state, to be
known as Pakistan (‘‘Land of the Pure’’), in the northwest.
As communal strife between Hindus and Muslims in-
creased, many Indians came to realize with sorrow (and
some British colonialists with satisfaction) that British
rule was all that stood between peace and civil war.
Nationalist Ferment in the Middle East
In the Middle East, as in Europe, World War I hastened
the collapse of old empires. The Ottoman Empire, which
had dominated the eastern Mediterranean since the sei-
zure of Constantinople in 1453, had been growing
steadily weaker since the end of the eighteenth century,
troubled by rising governmental corruption, a decline in
the effectiveness of the sultans, and the loss of consider-
able territory in the Balkans and southwestern Russia. In
North Africa, Ottoman authority, tenuous at best, had
disintegrated in the nineteenth century, enabling the
French to seize Algeria and Tunisia and the British to
establish a protectorate over the Nile River valley.
The Ottoman Empire in Transition Reformist elements
in Istanbul (as Constantinople was officially renamed in
1930), to be sure, had tried to resist the decline. The first
efforts had taken place in the eighteenth century, when
Westernizing forces, concerned at the shrinkage of the
FILM & HISTORY
GANDHI (1982)
To many of his contemporaries, Mohandas Gandhi—the
Mahatma, or ‘‘great soul’’—was the conscience of India.
Son of a senior Indian official from the state of Gujarat,
he trained as a lawyer at University College in London.
Gandhi first encountered the face of racial discrimina-
tion when he sought to provide legal assistance to Indian
laborers living under the apartheid regime in South Af-
rica. On his return to India in 1915, he rapidly emerged
as a fierce critic of British colonial rule over his country.
His message of satyagraha—embodying the idea of a
steadfast but nonviolent resistance to the injustice and
inhumanity inherent in the colonial enterprise—inspired
millions of his compatriots in their long struggle for na-
tional independence. It also earned the admiration and
praise of sympathetic observers around the world. His
death by assassination at the hands of a Hindu fanatic in
1948 shocked the world.
Time, however, has somewhat dimmed his mes-
sage. Gandhi’s vision of a future India was symbolized
by the spinning wheel—he rejected the industrial age
and material pursuits in favor of the simple pleasures of the traditional
Indian village. However, since achieving independence, India has fol-
lowed the path laid out by Gandhi’s friend and colleague Jawaharlal
Nehru, of national wealth and power. Gandhi’s appeal for religious tol-
erance and mutual respect at home gave way rapidly to the reality of a
bloody conflict between Hindus and Muslims that has not yet been
eradicated in our own day. On the global stage, his vision of world
peace and brotherly love has been similarly ignored, first during the
Cold War and more recently by the ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ between
Western countries and the forces of militant Islam.
It was at least partly in an effort to revive and perpetuate the
message of the Mahatma that in 1982 the British filmmaker Richard
Attenborough produced the film Gandhi. Epic in its length and
scope, the film seeks to present a faithful rendition of the life of its
subject, from his introduction to apartheid in South Africa at the
turn of the century to his tragic death after World War II. Actor Ben
Kingsley, son of an Indian father and an English mother, plays the
title role with intensity and conviction. The film was widely praised
and earned eight Academy Awards, including one for Kingsley as
Best Actor.
Jawaharlal Nehru (Roshan Seth), Mahatma Gandhi (Ben Kingsley), and Mohammad Ali Jinnah
(Alyque Padamsee) confer before the partition of India into Hindu and Muslim states.
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CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 101
empire, had tried to modernize the army. One energetic
sultan, Selim III (r. 1789–1807), tried to establish a ‘‘new
order’’ that would streamline both the civilian and mili-
tary bureaucracies, but conservative elements in the em-
peror’s private guard, alarmed at the potential loss of
their power, revolted and brought the experiment to an
end. Further efforts during the first half of the nineteenth
century were somewhat more successful and resulted in a
series of bureaucratic, military, and educational reforms.
New roads were built, the power of local landlords was
reduced, and an Imperial Rescript issued in 1856 granted
equal rights to all subjects of the empire, whatever their
religious preference. In the 1870s, a new generation of
reformers seized power in Istanbul and pushed through a
constitution aimed at forming a legislative assembly that
would represent all the peoples in the state. But the sultan
they placed on the throne, Abdulhamid (r. 1876–1909),
suspended the new charter and attempted to rule by
traditional authoritarian means.
The ‘‘Young Turks’’ By the end of the nineteenth
century, the defunct 1876 constitution had become a
symbol of change for reformist elements, now grouped
together under the common name Young Turks. In 1908,
Young Turk elements forced the sultan to restore the
constitution, and he was removed from power the fol-
lowing year.
But the Young Turks had appeared at a moment of
extreme fragility for the empire. Internal rebellions,
combined with Austrian annexations of Ottoman terri-
tories in the Balkans, undermined support for the new
government and provoked the army to step in. With most
minorities from the old empire now removed from
Turkish authority, many ethnic Turks began to embrace a
new concept of a Turkish state based on all residents of
Turkish nationality.
The final blow to the old empire came in World War I,
when the Ottoman government al-
lied with Germany in the hope of
driving the British from Egypt and
restoring Ottoman rule over the
Nile valley. In response, the British
declared an official protectorate over
Egypt and, aided by the efforts of
the dashing if eccentric British ad-
venturer T. E. Lawrence (popularly
known as Lawrence of Arabia),
sought to undermine Ottoman rule
in the Arabian peninsula by en-
couraging Arab nationalists there. In
1916, the local governor of Mecca,
encouraged by the British, declared
Arabia independent from Ottoman
rule, while British troops, advancing from Egypt, seized
Palestine. In October 1918, having suffered more than
300,000 casualties during the war, the Ottoman Empire
negotiated an armistice with the Allied Powers.
During the next two years, Allied diplomats wres-
tled with how to deal with the remnants of the defeated
Ottoman Empire. In 1916, the British and the French
had reached a secret agreement to divide up the non-
Turkish areas of the empire between themselves. This
did not sit well with Woodrow Wilson, who opposed
the outright annexation of colonial territories by the
victorious Allies. Ultimately, the latter agreed to estab-
lish these territories as mandates under the new League
of Nations. Mesopotamia and Palestine were assigned to
the British, while Syria was given to the French. The
Arabian peninsula was dealt with separately, and even-
tually received its independence as the kingdom of
Saudi Arabia in 1932 (see below).
Other aspects of the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920,
were even more controversial. Western portions of the
Anatolian peninsula were to be occupied by the Greeks in
preparation for a future plebiscite to determine the future
of the area. Armenia—where the local Christian popula-
tion had been brutally mistreated by the Turks—was to
receive its independence. A proposal for an independent
Kurdistan (the Kurds were a non-Arab Muslim people
living in mountainous areas throughout the region) was
left unresolved.
Mustafa Kemal and the Modernization of Turkey The
impending collapse of the Ottoman Empire energized key
elements in Turkey under the leadership of war hero
Colonel Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938), who had com-
manded Turkish forces in their heroic defense of the
Dardanelles against a British invasion during World War I.
Now he resigned from the army and convoked a national
congress that called for the creation of an elected gov-
ernment and the preservation of the
remaining territories of the old em-
pire in a new republic of Turkey.
Establishing the new capital at An-
kara, Kemal’s forces drove the Greeks
from the Anatolian peninsula and
seized Kurdish lands to the east, thus
bringing an end to the dream of an
independent Kurdistan. The Allies
agreed to sign a new Treaty of Lau-
sanne, incorporating these changes.
Armenian leaders, still bitter at their
mistreatment at the hands of the
Turks, decided to join the Soviet
Union. In 1923, the last of the
Ottoman sultans fled the country,
Caspian
Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Jerusalem
Beirut
Constantinople
Ankara
Cairo
Damascus Baghdad
PERSIA
TURKEY
IRAQ
SYRIA
TRANS-
JORDAN
EGYPT
PALESTINE
LEBANON
SAUDI
ARABIA
KUWAIT
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French mandates
British mandates
The Middle East in 1923
102 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
which was now declared a Turkish republic. The Ottoman
Empire had finally come to an end.
During the next few years, President Mustafa Kemal
(now popularly known as Atatürk, or ‘‘Father Turk’’) at-
tempted to transform Turkey into a modern secular re-
public. The trappings of a democratic system were put in
place, centered on the elected Grand National Assembly,
but the president was relatively intolerant of opposition
and harshly suppressed critics of his rule. Turkish na-
tionalism was emphasized, and the Turkish language, now
written in the Roman alphabet, was shorn of many of its
Arabic elements. Popular education was emphasized,
old aristocratic titles like pasha and bey were abolished,
and all Turkish citizens were given family names in the
European style.
Atatürk also took steps to modernize the economy,
overseeing the establishment of a light industrial sector
producing textiles, glass, paper, and cement and insti-
tuting a five-year plan on the Soviet model to provide for
state direction over the economy. Atatürk was no admirer
of Soviet communism, however, and the Turkish econ-
omy can be better described as a form of state capitalism.
He also encouraged the modernization of the agricultural
sector through the establishment of training institutions
and model farms, but such reforms had relatively little
effect on the nation’s predominantly conservative rural
population.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Atatürk’s re-
form program was his attempt to limit the power of the
Islamic religion and transform Turkey into a secular state.
The caliphate (according to which the Ottoman sultan
was recognized as the temporal leader of the global Is-
lamic community) was formally abolished in 1924, and
the Shari’a (Islamic law) was replaced by a revised version
of the Swiss law code (see the box above). The fez (the
brimless cap worn by Turkish Muslims) was abolished as
a form of headdress, and women were discouraged from
wearing the veil in the traditional Islamic custom.
Women received the right to vote in 1934 and were legally
guaranteed equal rights with men in all aspects of mar-
riage and inheritance. Education and the professions were
now open to citizens of both genders, and some women
even began to take part in politics. All citizens were given
the right to convert to another religion at will.
The legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was enormous.
Although not all of his reforms were widely accepted in
practice, especially by devout Muslims, most of the
changes that he introduced were retained after his death
MUSTAFA KEMAL’S CASE AGAINST THE CALIPHATE
As part of his plan to transform Turkey into a modern society,
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk proposed bringing an end to the caliph-
ate, which had been in the hands of Ottoman sultans since the
formation of the empire. In the following passage from a
speech to the National Assembly, he gives his reasons.
Atatürk’s Speech to the Assembly, October 1924
The monarch designated under the title of Caliph was to guide the
affairs of [all] Muslim peoples and to secure the execution of the
religious prescriptions which would best correspond to their worldly
interests. He was to defend the rights of all Muslims and concentrate
all the affairs of the Muslim world in his hands with effective
authority.
The sovereign entitled Caliph was to maintain justice among
the three hundred million Muslims on the terrestrial globe, to
safeguard the rights of these peoples, to prevent any event that
could encroach upon order and security, and confront every at-
tack which the Muslims would be called upon to encounter from
the side of other nations. It was to be part of his attributes to
preserve by all means the welfare and spiritual development of
Islam. . . .
If the Caliph and Caliphate, as they maintained, were to be
invested with a dignity embracing the whole of Islam, ought they
not to have realized in all justice that a crushing burden would be
imposed on Turkey, on her existence; her entire resources and all
her forces would be placed at the disposal of the Caliph? . . .
For centuries our nation was guided under the influence of
these erroneous ideas. But what has been the result of it? Everywhere
they have lost millions of men. ‘‘Do you know,’’ I asked, ‘‘how many
sons of Anatolia have perished in the scorching deserts of the
Yemen? Do you know the losses we have suffered in holding Syria
and Egypt and in maintaining our position in Africa? And do you
see what has come out of it? Do you know?
‘‘Those who favor the idea of placing the means at the disposal
of the Caliph to brave the whole world and the power to administer
the affairs of the whole of Islam must not appeal to the population
of Anatolia alone but to the great Muslim agglomerations which are
eight or ten times as rich in men.
‘‘New Turkey, the people of New Turkey, have no reason to
think of anything else but their own existence and their own welfare.
She has nothing more to give away to others.’’
Q When and why was the caliphate system first established?
Why does Mustafa Kemal believe that it no longer meets the
needs of the Turkish people?
SOURCE: From Atatürk’s Speech to the Assembly, pp. 432–433. A speech
delivered by Ghazi Mustafa Kemal, President of the Turkish Republic,
October 1924.
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 103
in 1938. In virtually every respect, the Turkish republic
was the product of his determined efforts to create a
modern nation, a Turkish version of the ‘‘revolution from
above’’ in Meiji Japan.
Modernization in Iran In the meantime, a similar pro-
cess was under way in Persia. Under the Qajar dynasty
(1794–1925), the country had not been
very successful in resisting Russian ad-
vances in the Caucasus or a growing
European presence farther south. To
secure themselves from foreign influ-
ence, the Qajars moved the capital from
Tabriz to Tehran, in a mountainous
area just south of the Caspian Sea.
During the mid-nineteenth century,
one modernizing shah attempted to
introduce political and economic re-
forms but was impeded by resistance
from tribal and religious forces. The
majority of Persians were Shi’ites, one
of the two main branches of Islam (as opposed to Sunni
Muslims, who predominated in most of the Muslim
world). Both Sunnis and Shi’ites adhered to the funda-
mental principles of Islam, including the ‘‘Five Pillars of
Islam’’: belief in Allah and Muhammad as his prophet;
prayer five times a day and public prayer on Friday at
midday to worship Allah; observation of the holy month
of Ramadan, including fasting from dawn to sunset;
making a pilgrimage, if possible, to Mecca at least once in
one’s lifetime; and giving alms (zakat) to the poor and
unfortunate. The Shi’ites, however, had broken with the
mainstream Sunni form of Islam over leadership issues
not long after the death of Muhammad and adopted a
more strict interpretation of the Muslim faith.
Eventually, the growing foreign presence led to the
rise of an indigenous nationalist movement. Its efforts
were largely directed against Russian advances in the
northwest and growing European influence in the small
modern industrial sector, the profits from which left the
country or disappeared into the hands of the dynasty’s
ruling elite. Supported actively by Shi’ite religious leaders,
opposition to the regime rose steadily among both
peasants and merchants in the cities, and in 1906, popular
pressures forced the reigning shah to grant a constitution
on the Western model.
As in the Ottoman Empire and Qing China, however,
the modernizers had moved before their power base was
secure. With the support of the Russians and the British,
the shah was able to retain control, and the two foreign
powers began to divide the country into separate spheres
of influence. One reason for the growing foreign presence
in Persia was the discovery of oil reserves in the southern
part of the country in 1908. Within a few years, oil ex-
ports increased rapidly, with the bulk of the profits going
into the pockets of British investors.
In 1921, a Persian army officer by the name of Reza
Khan (1878–1944) led a mutiny that seized power in
Tehran. The new ruler’s original intention had been to
establish a republic, but resistance from traditional forces
impeded his efforts, and in 1925, the
new Pahlavi dynasty, with Reza Khan
as shah, replaced the now defunct
Qajar dynasty. During the next few
years, Reza Khan attempted to follow
the example of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
in Turkey, introducing a number of
reforms to strengthen the central gov-
ernment, modernize the civilian and
military bureaucracy, and establish a
modern economic infrastructure.
Unlike Atatürk, Reza Khan did
not attempt to destroy the power of
Islamic beliefs, but he did encourage
the establishment of a Western-style educational system
and forbade women to wear the veil in public. To
strengthen the sense of nationalism and reduce the power
of Islam, he restored the country’s ancient name, Iran,
and attempted to popularize the symbols and beliefs of
pre-Islamic times. Like his Qajar predecessors, however,
Reza Khan was hindered by strong foreign influence.
When the Soviet Union and Great Britain decided to send
troops into the country during World War II, he resigned
in protest and died three years later.
Nation Building in Iraq One consequence of the col-
lapse of the Ottoman Empire was the emergence of a new
political entity along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, once
the heartland of ancient empires. Lacking defensible
borders and sharply divided along ethnic and religious
lines—a Shi’ite majority in rural areas was balanced by a
vocal Sunni minority in the cities and a largely Kurdish
population in the northern mountains—the region had
been under Ottoman rule since the seventeenth century.
With the advent of World War I, the lowland area from
Baghdad southward to the Persian Gulf was occupied by
British forces, who hoped to protect oil-producing re-
gions in neighboring Iran from a German takeover.
In 1920, the country was placed under British control
as the mandate of Iraq under the League of Nations. Civil
unrest and growing anti-Western sentiment rapidly dis-
pelled any possible plans for the emergence of an inde-
pendent government, and in 1921, after the suppression
of resistance forces, the country became a monarchy
under the titular authority of King Faisal, a resistance
leader during World War I and a descendant of the
Caspian
Sea
I R A N
Tehran
SOVIET UNION
Persian
Gulf
T
U
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K
E
Y
SAUDI
ARABIA
Tabriz
IRAQ
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300 Miles0
0 500 Kilometers
Iran Under the Pahlavi Dynasty
104 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Prophet Muhammad. Faisal relied for support primarily
on the politically more sophisticated urban Sunni pop-
ulation, although they represented less than a quarter of
the population. The discovery of oil near Kirkuk in 1927
increased the value of the area to the British, who granted
formal independence to the country in 1932, although
British advisers retained a strong influence over the fragile
government.
The Rise of Arab Nationalism As we have seen, the
Arab uprising during World War I helped bring about
the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Actually, unrest
against Ottoman rule had existed in the Arabian pen-
insula since the eighteenth century, when the Wahhabi
revolt attempted to purge the outside influences and
cleanse Islam of corrupt practices that had developed in
past centuries. The revolt was eventually suppressed, but
the influence of the Wahhabi movement persisted, re-
vitalized in part by resistance to the centralizing and
modernizing efforts of reformist elements in the nine-
teenth century.
World War I offered an opportunity for the Arabs to
throw off the shackles of Ottoman rule—but what would
replace them? The Arabs were not a nation but an idea, a
loose collection of peoples who often do not see eye to eye
on what constitutes their community. Disagreement over
what it means to be an Arab has plagued generations of
political leaders who have sought unsuccessfully to knit
together the disparate peoples of the region into a single
Arab nation.
When the Arab leaders in Mecca declared their in-
dependence from Ottoman rule in 1916, they had hoped
for British support, but they were sorely disappointed
when much of the area was placed under British or
French authority as mandates of the League of Nations.
To add salt to the wound, the French had created a new
state of Lebanon along the coastal regions of their man-
date of Syria to place the Christian peoples there under a
Christian administration.
In the early 1920s, a leader of the Wahhabi move-
ment, Ibn Saud (1880–1953), united Arab tribes in the
northern part of the Arabian peninsula and drove out the
remnants of Ottoman rule. Ibn Saud was a descendant of
the family that had led the Wahhabi revolt in the eigh-
teenth century. Devout and gifted, he won broad support
among Arab tribal peoples and established the kingdom
of Saudi Arabia throughout much of the peninsula
in 1932.
At first, his new kingdom, consisting essentially of the
vast wastes of central Arabia, was desperately poor. Its
financial resources were limited to the income from
Muslim pilgrims visiting the holy sites in Mecca and
Medina. But during the 1930s, American companies
began to explore for oil, and in 1938, Standard Oil made a
successful strike at Dahran, on the Persian Gulf. Soon an
Arabian-American oil conglomerate, popularly called
Aramco, was established, and the isolated kingdom was
suddenly inundated by Western oilmen and untold
wealth.
The Issue of Palestine The land of Palestine—once the
home of the Jews but now inhabited primarily by Muslim
Arabs and a few thousand Christians—became a separate
mandate and immediately became a thorny problem for
the British. In 1897, the Austrian-born journalist Theodor
Herzl (1860–1904) had convened an international con-
ference in Basel, Switzerland, which led to the creation of
the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The aim of the
organization was to create a homeland for the Jewish
people—long dispersed widely throughout Europe, North
Africa, and the Middle East—in Palestine, which was then
under Ottoman rule.
Over the next decade, Jewish immigration into Pal-
estine increased with WZO support. By the outbreak of
World War I, about 85,000 Jews lived in Palestine, rep-
resenting about 15 percent of the total population. In
1917, responding to appeals from the British chemist
Chaim Weizmann, British Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur
Balfour issued a declaration saying Palestine was to be a
national home for the Jews. The Balfour Declaration,
which was later confirmed by the League of Nations, was
ambiguous on the legal status of the territory and
promised that the decision would not undermine the
rights of the non-Jewish peoples currently living in the
area. But Arab nationalists were incensed. How could a
national home for the Jewish people be established in a
territory where the majority of the population was
Muslim?
In the meantime, more Jewish settlers began to arrive
in Palestine in response to the promises made in the
Balfour Declaration. As tensions between the new arrivals
and existing Muslim residents began to escalate, the
British tried to restrict Jewish immigration into the ter-
ritory while Arab voices rejected the concept of a separate
state. In a bid to relieve Arab sensitivities, Great Britain
created the separate emirate of Trans-Jordan out of the
eastern portion of Palestine. After World War II, it would
become the independent kingdom of Jordan. The stage
was set for the conflicts that would take place in the re-
gion after World War II.
The British in Egypt Great Britain had maintained a
loose protectorate over Egypt since the middle of the
nineteenth century, although the area remained nomi-
nally under Ottoman rule. London formalized its pro-
tectorate in 1914 to protect the Suez Canal and the Nile
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 105
River valley from possible seizure by the Central Powers.
After the war, however, nationalist elements became res-
tive and formed the Wafd Party, a secular organization
dedicated to the creation of an independent Egypt based
on the principles of representative government. The Wafd
received the support of many middle-class Egyptians
who, like Kemal Atatürk in Turkey, hoped to meld Islamic
practices with the secular tradition of the modern West.
This modernist form of Islam did not have broad appeal
outside the cosmopolitan centers, however, and in 1928
the Muslim cleric Hasan al-Bana organized the Muslim
Brotherhood, which demanded strict adherence to the
traditional teachings of the Prophet, as set forth in the
Qur’an. The Brotherhood rejected Western ways and
sought to create a new Egypt based firmly on the precepts
of the Shari’a. By the 1930s, the organization had up to
one million members.
Nationalism and Revolution
Before the Russian Revolution, to most observers in Asia,
Westernization meant the capitalist democratic civiliza-
tion of western Europe and the United States, not the
doctrine of social revolution developed by Karl Marx.
Until 1917, Marxism was regarded as a utopian idea
rather than a concrete system of government. Moreover,
Marxism appeared to have little relevance to conditions in
Asia. Marxist doctrine, after all, de-
clared that a communist society could
arise only from the ashes of an ad-
vanced capitalism that had already
passed through the stage of industrial
revolution. From the perspective of
Marxist historical analysis, most soci-
eties in Asia were still at the feudal
stage of development; they lacked the
economic conditions and political
awareness to achieve a socialist revo-
lution that would bring the working
class to power. Finally, the Marxist
view of nationalism and religion had
little appeal to many patriotic in-
tellectuals in the non-Western world.
Marx believed that nationhood and
religion were essentially false ideas that
diverted the attention of the oppressed
masses from the critical issues of class
struggle and, in his phrase, the ex-
ploitation of one person by another.
Instead, Marx stressed the importance
of an ‘‘internationalist’’ outlook based
on class consciousness and the even-
tual creation of a classless society with
no artificial divisions based on culture, nation, or
religion.
Lenin and the East The situation began to change after
the Russian Revolution in 1917. The rise to power of
Lenin’s Bolsheviks demonstrated that a revolutionary
party espousing Marxist principles could overturn a
corrupt, outdated system and launch a new experiment
dedicated to ending human inequality and achieving a
paradise on earth. In 1920, Lenin proposed a new rev-
olutionary strategy designed to relate Marxist doctrine
and practice to non-Western societies. His reasons were
not entirely altruistic. Soviet Russia, surrounded by
capitalist powers, desperately needed allies in its struggle
to survive in a hostile world. To Lenin, the anticolonial
movements emerging in North Africa, Asia, and the
Middle East after World War I were natural allies of the
beleaguered new regime in Moscow. Lenin was con-
vinced that only the ability of the imperialist powers to
find markets, raw materials, and sources of capital in-
vestment in the non-Western world kept capitalism alive.
If the tentacles of capitalist influence in Asia and Africa
could be severed, imperialism itself would ultimately
weaken and collapse.
Establishing such an alliance was not easy, however.
Most nationalist leaders in colonial countries belonged to
the urban middle class, and many abhorred the idea of a
European Jewish Refugees. After the 1917 Balfour Declaration promised a Jewish homeland
in Palestine, increasing numbers of European Jews emigrated there. Their goal was to build a new
life in a Jewish land. Like the refugees aboard this ship, they celebrated as they reached their new
homeland. The sign reads ‘‘Keep the gates open, we are not the last’’—a reference to British efforts
to slow the pace of Jewish immigration in response to protests by Muslim residents.
� c
G
et
ty
Im
ag
es
106 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
comprehensive revolution to create a totally egalitarian
society. In addition, others still adhered to traditional
religious beliefs and were opposed to the atheistic prin-
ciples of classical Marxism.
Since it was unrealistic to expect bourgeois support
for social revolution, Lenin sought a compromise by
which Communist parties could be organized among the
working classes in the preindustrial societies of Asia and
Africa. These parties would then forge informal alliances
with existing middle-class nationalist parties to struggle
against the remnants of the traditional ruling class and
Western imperialism. Such an alliance, of course, could
not be permanent because many bourgeois nationalists in
Asia and Africa would reject an egalitarian, classless so-
ciety. Once the imperialists had been overthrown, there-
fore, the Communist parties would turn against their
erstwhile nationalist partners to seize power on their own
and carry out the socialist revolution. Lenin thus pro-
posed a two-stage revolution: an initial ‘‘national demo-
cratic’’ stage followed by a ‘‘proletarian socialist’’ stage.
Lenin’s strategy became a major element in Soviet
foreign policy in the 1920s. Soviet agents fanned out
across the world to carry Marxism beyond the boundaries
of industrial Europe. The primary instrument of this ef-
fort was the Communist International, or Comintern for
short. Formed in 1919 at Lenin’s prodding, the Comin-
tern was a worldwide organization of Communist parties
dedicated to the advancement of world revolution. At its
headquarters in Moscow, agents from around the world
were trained in the precepts of world communism and
then sent back to their own countries to form Marxist
parties and promote the cause of social revolution. By the
end of the 1920s, almost every colonial or semicolonial
society in Asia had a party based on Marxist principles.
The Soviets had less success in the Middle East, where
Marxist ideology appealed mainly to minorities such as
Jews and Armenians in the cities, or in sub-Saharan Africa,
where Soviet strategists in any case did not feel conditions
were sufficiently advanced for the creation of Communist
organizations.
The Appeal of Communism According to Marxist
doctrine, the rank and file of Communist parties should
be urban workers alienated from capitalist society by
inhumane working conditions. In practice, many of the
leading elements even in European Communist parties
tended to be intellectuals or members of the lower middle
class (in Marxist parlance, the ‘‘petty bourgeoisie’’). That
phenomenon was even more apparent in the non-Western
world. Some were probably drawn into the movement for
patriotic reasons and saw Marxist doctrine as a new and
more effective means of modernizing their societies and
removing the power of exploitative colonialism. Others
were attracted by the utopian dream of a classless society.
For those who had lost their faith in traditional religion,
it often served as a new secular ideology, dealing not with
the hereafter but with the here and now. All who joined
found it a stirring message of release from oppression and
a practical strategy for the liberation of their society from
colonial rule. The young Ho Chi Minh, later to become
the founder of the Vietnamese Communist Party, was
quick to see the importance of Lenin’s revolutionary
strategy for his own country:
There were political terms difficult to understand in this the-
sis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could
grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-
sightedness, and confidence it instilled in me! I was overjoyed
to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted aloud
as if addressing large crowds: ‘‘Dear martyrs, compatriots!
This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!’’1
Of course, the new doctrine’s appeal was not the
same in all non-Western societies. In Confucian societies
such as China and Vietnam, where traditional belief
systems had been badly discredited by their failure to
counter the Western challenge, communism had an im-
mediate impact and rapidly became a major factor in the
anticolonial movement. In Buddhist and Muslim socie-
ties, where traditional religion remained strong and ac-
tually became a cohesive factor within the resistance
movement, communism had less success and was forced
to adapt to local conditions to survive.
Sometimes, as in Malaya (where the sense of na-
tionhood was weak) or Thailand (which, alone in
Southeast Asia, had not fallen under colonial rule), sup-
port for the local Communist Party came from minority
groups such as the overseas Chinese community. To
maximize their appeal and minimize potential conflict
with traditional ideas, Communist parties frequently at-
tempted to adjust Marxist doctrine to indigenous values
and institutions. In the Middle East, for example, the
Ba’ath Party in Syria adopted a hybrid socialism com-
bining Marxism with Arab nationalism. In Africa, radical
intellectuals talked vaguely of a uniquely ‘‘African road to
socialism.’’
The degree to which these parties were successful in
establishing alliances with existing nationalist parties also
varied from place to place. In some instances, the local
Communists were briefly able to establish a cooperative
relationship with bourgeois parties in the struggle against
Western imperialism. In the Dutch East Indies, the Indo-
nesian Communist Party (known as the PKI) allied with
the middle-class nationalist group Sarekat Islam but later
broke loose in an effort to organize its own mass movement
among the poor peasants. Similar problems were encoun-
tered in French Indochina, where Vietnamese Communists
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 107
organized by the Moscow-trained revolutionary Ho Chi
Minh sought to cooperate with bourgeois nationalist parties
against the colonial regime. In 1928, all such efforts were
abandoned when the Comintern, reacting to Chiang Kai-
shek’s betrayal of the alliance with the Chinese Communist
Party (see the next section), declared that Communist parties
should restrict their recruiting efforts to the most revolu-
tionary elements in society—notably, the urban in-
tellectuals and the working class. Harassed by colonial
authorities and saddled with strategic directions from
Moscow that often had little relevance to local conditions,
Communist parties in most colonial societies had little
success in the 1930s and failed to build a secure base of
support among the mass of the population.
Revolution in China
Overall, revolutionary Marxism had its greatest impact in
China, where a group of young radicals, including several
faculty and staff members from prestigious Beijing Uni-
versity, founded the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in
1921. The rise of the CCP was a consequence of the failed
revolution of 1911. When political forces are too weak or
divided to consolidate their power during a period of
instability, the military usually steps in to fill the vacuum.
In China, Sun Yat-sen and his colleagues had accepted
General Yuan Shikai as president of the new Chinese re-
public in 1911 because they lacked the military force to
compete with his control over the army. Moreover, many
feared, perhaps rightly, that if the revolt lapsed into chaos,
the Western powers would intervene and the last shreds of
Chinese sovereignty would be lost. But some had mis-
givings about Yuan’s intentions. As one remarked in a
letter to a friend, ‘‘We don’t know whether he will be a
George Washington or a Napoleon.’’
In fact, he was neither. Showing little comprehension
of the new ideas sweeping into China from the West,
Yuan ruled in a traditional manner, reviving Confucian
rituals and institutions and eventually trying to found a
new imperial dynasty. Yuan’s dictatorial inclinations led to
clashes with Sun’s party, now renamed the Guomindang
(Kuomintang), or Nationalist Party. When Yuan dissolved
the new parliament, the Nationalists launched a rebellion.
When it failed, Sun Yat-sen fled to Japan.
Yuan was strong enough to brush off the challenge
from the revolutionary forces but not to turn back the
clock of history. He died in 1916 (apparently of natural
causes) and was succeeded by one of his military sub-
ordinates. For the next several years, China slipped into
anarchy as the power of the central government dis-
integrated and military warlords seized power in the
provinces.
Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy:
The New Culture Movement
Although the failure of the 1911 revolution was a clear
sign that China was not yet ready for radical change,
discontent with existing conditions continued to rise in
various sectors of Chinese society. The most vocal pro-
tests came from radical elements who opposed Yuan
Shikai’s conservative agenda but were now convinced that
political change could not take place until the Chinese
people were more familiar with trends in the outside
world. Braving the displeasure of Yuan Shikai and his
successors, progressive intellectuals at Beijing University
launched the New Culture Movement, aimed at abolish-
ing the remnants of the old system and introducing
Western values and institutions into China. Using the
classrooms of China’s most prestigious university as well
as the pages of newly established progressive magazines
and newspapers, they presented the Chinese people with a
heady mix of new ideas, from the philosophy of Friedrich
Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell to the educational views
of the American John Dewey and the feminist plays of
Henrik Ibsen. As such ideas flooded into China, they
stirred up a new generation of educated Chinese youth,
who chanted ‘‘Down with Confucius and sons’’ and talked
of a new era dominated by ‘‘Mr. Sai’’ (Mr. Science) and
‘‘Mr. De’’ (Mr. Democracy). No one was a greater de-
fender of free thought and speech than the chancellor of
Beijing University, Cai Yuanpei:
So far as theoretical ideas are concerned, I follow the princi-
ples of ‘‘freedom of thought’’ and an attitude of broad toler-
ance in accordance with the practice of universities the world
over. . . . Regardless of what school of thought a person may
adhere to, so long as that person’s ideas are justified and
conform to reason and have not been passed by through the
process of natural selection, although there may be contro-
versy, such ideas have a right to be presented.2
The problem was that appeals for American-style
democracy and women’s liberation had little relevance to
Chinese peasants, most of whom were still illiterate and
concerned above all with survival. Consequently, the New
Culture Movement did not win widespread support
outside the urban areas. It certainly earned the distrust of
conservative military officers, one of whom threatened to
lob artillery shells into Beijing University to destroy the
poisonous new ideas and their advocates.
Discontent among intellectuals, however, was soon
joined by the rising chorus of public protest against Japan’s
efforts to expand its influence on the mainland. During the
first decade of the twentieth century, Japan had taken ad-
vantage of the Qing’s decline to extend its domination over
Manchuria and Korea (see Chapter 3). In 1915, the
108 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Japanese government insisted that Yuan Shikai
accept a series of twenty-one demands that
would have given Japan a virtual protectorate
over the Chinese government and economy.
Yuan was able to fend off the most far-reaching
Japanese demands by arousing popular outrage
in China, but at the Paris Peace Conference four
years later, Japan received Germany’s sphere of
influence in Shandong Province as a reward for
its support of the Allied cause in World War I.
On hearing the news that the Chinese govern-
ment had accepted the decision, on May 4, 1919,
patriotic students, supported by other sectors of
the urban population, demonstrated in Beijing
and other major cities of the country. Although
this May Fourth Movement did not result in a
reversal of the decision to award Shandong to
Japan, it did alert a substantial part of the
politically literate population to the threat to
national survival and the incompetence of the
warlord government.
By 1920, central authority had almost
ceased to exist in China. Two political forces
now began to emerge as competitors for the
right to bring order to the chaos of the early
republican era. One was Sun Yat-sen’s Nation-
alist Party. Driven from the political arena seven
years earlier by Yuan Shikai, the party now re-
established itself on the mainland by making an
alliance with the warlord ruler of Guangdong
Province in South China. From Canton, Sun
sought international assistance to carry out his
national revolution. The other was the Chinese Commu-
nist Party. Following Lenin’s strategy, the CCP sought to
link up with the more experienced Nationalists. Sun Yat-
sen needed the expertise and the diplomatic support that
the Soviet Union could provide because his anti-imperi-
alist rhetoric had alienated many Western powers. In 1923,
the two parties formed an alliance to oppose the warlords
and drive the imperialist powers out of China.
For three years, with the assistance of a Comintern
mission in Canton, the two parties submerged their
mutual suspicions and mobilized and trained a revolu-
tionary army to march north and seize control over
China. The so-called Northern Expedition began in the
summer of 1926 (see Map 5.1). By the following spring,
revolutionary forces were in control of all Chinese terri-
tory south of the Yangtze River, including the major river
ports of Wuhan and Shanghai. But tensions between the
two parties now surfaced. Sun Yat-sen had died of cancer
in 1925 and was succeeded as head of the Nationalist
Party by his military subordinate, Chiang Kai-shek
(1887–1975). Chiang feigned support for the alliance
with the Communists but actually planned to destroy
them. In April 1927, he struck against the Communists
and their supporters in Shanghai, killing thousands. The
CCP responded by encouraging revolts in central China
and Canton, but the uprisings were defeated and their
leaders were killed or forced into hiding.
The Nanjing Republic
In 1928, Chiang Kai-shek founded a new Republic of China
at Nanjing, and over the next three years, he managed to
reunify China by a combination of military operations and
inducements (known as ‘‘silver bullets’’) to various north-
ern warlords to join his movement. One of his key targets
was warlord Zhang Zuolin, who controlled Manchuria
under the tutelage of Japan. When Zhang allegedly agreed
to throw in his lot with the Nationalists, the Japanese had
him assassinated by placing a bomb under his train as he
was returning to Manchuria. The Japanese hoped that
Zhang Zuolin’s son and successor, Zhang Xueliang, would
be more cooperative, but they had miscalculated. Promised
South
China
Sea
Paci f ic
Ocean
Sea of
Japan
Yan
gtz
e R
.
Yel
low
R
.
MONGOLIA
GUANGDONG
SHANDONG
TAIWAN
HUNAN JIANGXI
MANCHURIA
JAPAN
Shanghai
Nanjing
Beijing
Wuhan
Yan’an
Xian
Canton
Northern Expedition, 1926–1928
Long March, 1934–1935
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 250 500 750 Kilometers
MAP 5.1 The Northern Expedition and the Long March. This map
shows the routes taken by the combined Nationalist-Communist forces
during the Northern Expedition of 1926–1928. The thinner arrow indicates
the route taken by Communist units during the Long March led by Mao
Zedong.
Q Where did Mao establish his new headquarters? Why? View an
animated version of this map or related maps at www.cengage.com/history/
duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 109
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
a major role in Chiang Kai-shek’s government, Zhang be-
gan instead to integrate Manchuria politically and eco-
nomically into the Nanjing republic.
Chiang Kai-shek saw the Japanese as a serious threat
to Chinese national aspirations but considered them less
dangerous than the Communists. (He once remarked to
an American reporter that ‘‘the Japanese are a disease of
the skin, but the Communists are a disease of the heart.’’)
After the Shanghai massacre of April 1927, most of the
Communist leaders went into hiding in the city, where
they attempted to revive the movement in its traditional
base among the urban working class. Shanghai was a rich
recruiting ground for the party. A city of millionaires,
paupers, prostitutes, gamblers, and adventurers, it had led
one pious Christian missionary to comment, ‘‘If God lets
Shanghai endure, He owes an apology to Sodom and
Gomorrah.’’3 Some party members, however, led by the
young Communist organizer Mao Zedong (1893–1976),
fled to the hilly areas south of the Yangtze River.
Unlike most other CCP leaders, Mao was convinced
that the Chinese revolution must be based not on workers
in the big cities but on the impoverished peasants in the
countryside. The son of a prosperous farmer, Mao had
helped organize a peasant movement in South China
during the early 1920s and then served as an agitator in
rural villages in his native province of Hunan during the
Northern Expedition in the fall of 1926. At that time, he
wrote a famous report to the party leadership suggesting
that the CCP support peasant demands for a land revo-
lution. But his superiors refused, fearing that adopting
excessively radical policies would destroy the alliance with
the Nationalists (see the box above).
After the spring of 1927, the CCP-Nationalist alliance
ceased to exist. Chiang Kai-shek attempted to root the
Communists out of their urban base in Shanghai. He
succeeded in 1931, when most party leaders were forced
to flee Shanghai for Mao’s rural redoubt in the rugged
hills of Jiangxi Province. Three years later, using their
A CALL FOR REVOLT
In the fall of 1926, Nationalist and Communist forces moved
north from Canton on their Northern Expedition in an effort to
defeat the warlords. The young Communist Mao Zedong accom-
panied revolutionary troops into his home province of Hunan,
where he submitted a report to the CCP Central Committee call-
ing for a massive peasant revolt against the ruling order. The
report shows his confidence that peasants could play an active
role in the Chinese revolution despite the skepticism of many
of his colleagues.
Mao Zedong, ‘‘The Peasant Movement in Hunan’’
During my recent visit to Hunan I made a firsthand investigation of
conditions. . . . In a very short time, . . . several hundred million
peasants will rise like a mighty storm, . . . a force so swift and violent
that no power, however great, will be able to hold it back. They will
smash all the trammels that bind them and rush forward along the
road to liberation. They will sweep all the imperialists, warlords,
corrupt officials, local tyrants, and evil gentry into their graves.
Every revolutionary party and every revolutionary comrade will be
put to the test, to be accepted or rejected as they decide. There are
three alternatives. To march at their head and lead them? To trail
behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way
and oppose them? Every Chinese is free to choose, but events will
force you to make the choice quickly.
The main targets of attack by the peasants are the local tyrants,
the evil gentry and the lawless landlords, but in passing they also hit
out against patriarchal ideas and institutions, against the corrupt offi-
cials in the cities and against bad practices and customs in the rural
areas. . . . As a result, the privileges which the feudal landlords enjoyed
for thousands of years are being shattered to pieces. . . . With the col-
lapse of the power of the landlords, the peasant associations have now
become the sole organs of authority, and the popular slogan ‘‘All
power to the peasant associations’’ has become a reality.
The peasants’ revolt disturbed the gentry’s sweet dreams. When
the news from the countryside reached the cities, it caused immedi-
ate uproar among the gentry. . . . From the middle social strata up-
wards to the Kuomintang right-wingers, there was not a single
person who did not sum up the whole business in the phrase, ‘‘It’s
terrible!’’ . . .Even quite progressive people said, ‘‘Though terrible, it
is inevitable in a revolution.’’ In short, nobody could altogether deny
the word ‘‘terrible.’’ But . . . the fact is that the great peasant masses
have risen to fulfill their historic mission. . . . What the peasants are
doing is absolutely right; what they are doing is fine! ‘‘It’s fine!’’ is
the theory of the peasants and of all other revolutionaries. Every
revolutionary comrade should know that the national revolution
requires a great change in the countryside. The Revolution of 1911
did not bring about this change, hence its failure. This change is
now taking place, and it is an important factor for the completion
of the revolution. Every revolutionary comrade must support it, or
he will be taking the stand of counterrevolution.
Q Why does Mao Zedong believe that rural peasants could
help bring about a social revolution in China? How does his
vision compare with the reality of the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia?
SOURCE: From Selected Works of Mao Tse-Tung (London: Lawrence and
Wishart, Ltd., 1954), vol. 1, pp. 21–23.
110 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
superior military strength, Chiang’s troops surrounded
the Communist base, inducing Mao’s young People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) to abandon its guerrilla lair and
embark on the famous Long March, an arduous journey
of thousands of miles on foot through mountains,
marshes, and deserts to the small provincial town of
Yan’an 200 miles north of the modern-day city of Xian in
the dusty hills of North China. Of the ninety thousand
who embarked on the journey in October 1934, only ten
thousand arrived in Yan’an a year later. Contemporary
observers must have thought that the Communist threat
to the Nanjing regime had been averted forever.
Meanwhile, Chiang Kai-shek was trying to build a
new nation. When the Nanjing republic was established
in 1928, Chiang publicly declared his commitment to Sun
Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles. In a program an-
nounced in 1918, Sun had written about the all-important
second stage of ‘‘political tutelage’’:
As a schoolboy must have good teachers and helpful friends,
so the Chinese people, being for the first time under republi-
can rule, must have a farsighted revolutionary government for
their training. This calls for the period of political tutelage,
which is a necessary transitional stage from monarchy to re-
publicanism. Without this, disorder will be unavoidable.4
In keeping with Sun’s program, Chiang announced a
period of political indoctrination to prepare the Chinese
people for a final stage of con-
stitutional government. In the
meantime, the Nationalists would
use their dictatorial power to carry
out a land reform program and
modernize the urban industrial
sector.
But it would take more than
paper plans to create a new
China. Years of neglect and civil
war had severely frayed the po-
litical, economic, and social fab-
ric of the nation. There were
faint signs of an impending in-
dustrial revolution in the major
urban centers, but most of the
people in the countryside, drained
by warlord exactions and civil
strife, were still grindingly poor
and overwhelmingly illiterate. A
Westernized middle class had be-
gun to emerge in the cities and
formed much of the natural con-
stituency of the Nanjing govern-
ment. But this new Westernized
elite, preoccupied with bourgeois
values of individual advancement and material accumula-
tion, had few links with the peasants in the countryside or
the rickshaw drivers ‘‘running in this world of suffering,’’ in
the poignant words of a Chinese poet. In an expressive
phrase, some critics dismissed Chiang Kai-shek and his chief
followers as ‘‘banana Chinese’’—yellow on the outside, white
on the inside.
Blending East and West Chiang was aware of the
difficulty of introducing exotic foreign ideas into a so-
ciety still culturally conservative. While building a
modern industrial sector and rejecting what he consid-
ered the excessive individualism and material greed of
Western capitalism, Chiang sought to propagate tradi-
tional Confucian values of hard work, obedience, and
moral integrity through the officially promoted New Life
Movement, sponsored by his Wellesley-educated wife,
Mei-ling Soong.
Unfortunately for Chiang, Confucian ideas—at least
in their institutional form—had been widely discredited
by the failure of the traditional system to solve China’s
growing problems. Critics noted, as well, that Chiang’s
government did not practice what it preached. Much of
the national wealth was in the hands of the so-called four
families, composed of senior officials and close sub-
ordinates of the ruling elite. Lacking the political sensi-
tivity of Sun Yat-sen and fearing Communist influence,
Mao Zedong on the Long March. In 1934, the Communist leader Mao Zedong led his bedraggled
forces on the famous Long March from southern China to a new location at Yan’an, in the hills just south of
the Gobi Desert. The epic journey has ever since been celebrated as a symbol of the party’s willingness to
sacrifice for the revolutionary cause. In the photo shown here, Mao sits astride a white horse as he
accompanies his followers on the march. Reportedly, he was the only participant allowed to ride a horse en
route to Yan’an.
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CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 111
Chiang repressed all opposition and censored free ex-
pression, thereby alienating many intellectuals and po-
litical moderates.
Promoting Economic Development With only a ten-
uous hold over the vast countryside (the Nanjing republic
had total control over a handful of provinces in the
Yangtze valley), Chiang Kai-shek’s government had little
more success in promoting economic development. Al-
though mechanization was gradually beginning to replace
manual labor in a number of traditional industries (no-
tably in the manufacture of textile goods), about 75
percent of all industrial production was still craft pro-
duced in the mid-1930s. Then again, traditional Chinese
exports, such as silk and tea, were hard-hit by the Great
Depression. With military expenses consuming about half
the national budget, distressingly little was devoted to
economic development. During the decade of precarious
peace following the Northern Expedition, industrial
growth averaged only about 1 percent annually.
One of Sun Yat-sen’s most prominent proposals was to
redistribute land to poor peasants in the countryside.
Whether overall per capita consumption declined during
the early decades of the century is unclear, but there is no
doubt that Chinese farmers were often victimized by high
taxes imposed by local warlords and the endemic political
and social conflict that marked the period. A land reform
program was enacted in 1930, but it had little effect. Since
the urban middle class and the landed gentry were Chiang
Kai-shek’s natural political constituency, he shunned pro-
grams that would lead to a radical redistribution of wealth.
Social Change in Republican China
The transformation of the old order that had commenced at
the end of the Qing era continued into the period of the
early Chinese republic. By 1915, the assault on the old
system and values by educated youth was intense. The main
focus of the attack was the Confucian concept of the family—
in particular, filial piety and the subordination of women.
Young people called for the right to choose their own
mates and their own careers. Women began to demand
rights and opportunities equal to those enjoyed by men.
More broadly, progressives called for an end to the
concept of duty to the community and praised the Western
individualist ethos. The prime spokesman for such views
was the popular writer Lu Xun, whose short stories criti-
cized the Confucian concept of family as a ‘‘man-eating’’
system that degraded humanity. In a famous short story
titled ‘‘Diary of a Madman,’’ the protagonist remarks:
I remember when I was four or five years old, sitting in the
cool of the hall, my brother told me that if a man’s parents
were ill, he should cut off a piece of his flesh and boil it for
them if he wanted to be considered a good son. I have only
just realized that I have been living all these years in a place
where for four thousand years they have been eating human
flesh.5
Such criticisms did have some beneficial results.
During the early republic, the tyranny of the old family
system began to decline, at least in urban areas, under the
impact of economic changes and the urgings of the New
Culture intellectuals. Women, long consigned to an in-
ferior place in the Confucian world order, began to escape
their cloistered existence and seek education and em-
ployment alongside their male contemporaries. Free
choice in marriage and a more relaxed attitude toward sex
became commonplace among affluent families in the
cities, where the teenage children of Westernized elites
aped the clothing, social habits, and musical tastes of their
contemporaries in Europe and the United States.
But as a rule, the new consciousness of individualism
and women’s rights that marked the early republican era
in the major cities did not penetrate to the villages, where
traditional attitudes and customs held sway. Arranged
marriages continued to be the rule rather than the ex-
ception, and concubinage remained common. According
to a survey taken in the 1930s, well over two-thirds of the
marriages, even among urban couples, had been arranged
by their parents; in one rural area, only 3 of 170 villagers
interviewed had heard of the idea of ‘‘modern marriage.’’
Even the tradition of binding the feet of female children
continued despite efforts by the Nationalist government
to eradicate the practice.
Down with Confucius and Sons Nowhere was the
struggle between traditional and modern more visible
than in the field of culture. Beginning with the New
Culture era during the early years of the first Chinese
republic, radical reformists criticized traditional culture as
the symbol and instrument of feudal oppression that
must be entirely eradicated to create a new China that
could stand on its feet with dignity in the modern world.
For many reformers, that new culture must be based
on that of the modern West. During the 1920s and 1930s,
Western literature and art became popular in China, es-
pecially among the urban middle class. Traditional cul-
ture continued to prevail among more conservative
elements of the population, and some intellectuals argued
for the creation of a new art that would synthesize the
best of Chinese and foreign culture. But the most creative
artists were interested in imitating foreign trends, whereas
traditionalists were more concerned with preservation.
Literature in particular was influenced by foreign ideas
as Western genres like the novel and the short story at-
tracted a growing audience. Although most Chinese novels
112 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
written after World War I dealt with Chinese subjects, they
reflected the Western tendency toward social realism and
often dealt with the new Westernized middle class (Mao
Dun’sMidnight, for example, describes the changing mores
of Shanghai’s urban elites) or the disintegration of the
traditional Confucian family. Most of China’s modern
authors displayed a clear contempt for the past.
Japan Between the Wars
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Japan had
made steady progress toward the creation of an advanced
society on the Western model. Economic and social re-
forms launched during the Meiji era led to increasing
prosperity and the development of a modern industrial
and commercial sector. Although the political system still
retained many authoritarian characteristics, optimists had
reason to hope that Japan was on the road to becoming a
full-fledged democracy.
Experiment in Democracy
During the first quarter of the twentieth century, the
Japanese political system appeared to evolve significantly
toward the Western democratic model. Political parties
expanded their popular following
and became increasingly com-
petitive, while individual pressure
groups such as labor unions be-
gan to appear in Japanese society,
along with an independent press
and a bill of rights. The influence
of the old ruling oligarchy, the
genro, had not yet been signifi-
cantly challenged, however, nor
had that of its ideological foun-
dation, which focused on na-
tional wealth and power.
The fragile flower of demo-
cratic institutions was able to
survive throughout the 1920s.
During that period, the military
budget was reduced, and a suf-
frage bill enacted in 1925 granted
the vote to all Japanese adult
males. Women remained disen-
franchised, but women’s associa-
tions gained increased visibility
during the 1920s, and women
became active in the labor move-
ment and in campaigns for vari-
ous social reforms.
But the era was also marked by growing social
turmoil, and two opposing forces within the system
were gearing up to challenge the prevailing wisdom.
On the left, a Marxist labor movement, which reflected
the tensions within the working class and the increas-
ing radicalism among the rural poor, began to take
shape in the early 1920s in response to growing eco-
nomic difficulties. Attempts to suppress labor dis-
turbances led to further radicalization. On the right,
ultranationalist groups called for a rejection of Western
models of development and a more militant approach
to realizing national objectives. In 1919, radical na-
tionalist Kita Ikki called for a military takeover and the
establishment of a new system bearing a strong resem-
blance to what would later be called fascism in Europe
(see Chapter 6).
This cultural conflict between old and new, native and
foreign, was reflected in literature. Japanese self-confidence
had been restored after the victories over China and
Russia, and launched an age of cultural creativity in the
early twentieth century. Fascination with Western litera-
ture gave birth to a striking new genre called the ‘‘I novel.’’
Defying traditional Japanese reticence, some authors
reveled in self-exposure with confessions of their inner-
most thoughts. Others found release in the ‘‘proletarian lit-
erature’’ movement of the early 1920s. Inspired by Soviet
The Great Tokyo Earthquake. On September 1, 1923, a massive earthquake struck the central
Japanese island of Honshu, causing over 130,000 deaths and virtually demolishing the capital city of Tokyo.
While the quake was a national tragedy, it also came to symbolize the ingenuity of the Japanese people,
whose efforts led to a rapid reconstruction of the city in a new and more modern style. That unity of
national purpose would be demonstrated again a quarter of a century later in Japan’s swift recovery from
the devastation of World War II.
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CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 113
literary examples, these authors wanted literature to serve
socialist goals in order to improve the lives of the working
class. Finally, some Japanese writers blended Western
psychology with Japanese sensibility in exquisite novels
reeking of nostalgia for the old Japan. One well-known
example is Junichiro Tanizaki’s Some Prefer Nettles, pub-
lished in 1929, which delicately juxtaposes the positive
aspects of traditional and modern Japan. By the early
1930s, however, military censorship increasingly inhibited
literary expression.
A Zaibatsu Economy
Japan also continued to make impressive progress in
economic development. Spurred by rising domestic de-
mand as well as a continued high rate of government
investment in the economy, the production of raw ma-
terials tripled between 1900 and 1930, and industrial
production increased more than twelvefold. Much of the
increase went into the export market, and Western
manufacturers began to complain about the rising com-
petition for markets from the Japanese.
As often happens, rapid industrialization was ac-
companied by some hardship and rising social tensions. A
characteristic of the Meiji model was the concentration of
various manufacturing processes within a single enter-
prise, the so-called zaibatsu, or financial clique. Some of
these firms were existing merchant companies that had
the capital and the foresight to move into new areas of
opportunity. Others were formed by enterprising samu-
rai, who used their status and experience in management
to good account in a new environment. Whatever their
origins, these firms gradually developed, often with offi-
cial encouragement, into large conglomerates that con-
trolled a major segment of the Japanese industrial sector.
According to one source, by 1937, the four largest zaibatsu
(Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, and Yasuda) controlled
21 percent of the banking industry, 26 percent of mining,
35 percent of shipbuilding, 38 percent of commercial
shipping, andmore than 60 percent of papermanufacturing
and insurance.
This concentration of power and wealth in the
hands of a few major industrial combines resulted in
the emergence of a form of dual economy: on the one
hand, a modern industry characterized by up-to-date
methods and massive government subsidies and, on the
other, a traditional manufacturing sector characterized
by conservative methods and small-scale production
techniques.
Concentration of wealth also led to growing eco-
nomic inequalities. As we have seen, economic growth
had been achieved at the expense of the peasants, many of
whom fled to the cities to escape rural poverty. That labor
surplus benefited the industrial sector, but the urban
proletariat was still poorly paid and ill-housed. Rampant
inflation in the price of rice led to food riots shortly after
World War I. A rapid increase in population (the total
population of the Japanese islands increased from an
estimated 43 million in 1900 to 73 million in 1940) led to
food shortages and the threat of rising unemployment.
Intense competition and the global recession in the early
1920s led to a greater concentration of industry and a
perceptible rise in urban radicalism, marked by the ap-
pearance of a Marxist labor movement. In the meantime,
those left on the farm continued to suffer. As late as the
beginning of World War II, an estimated half of all Jap-
anese farmers were tenants.
Shidehara Diplomacy
A final problem for Japanese leaders in the post-Meiji era
was the familiar capitalist dilemma of finding sources of
raw materials and foreign markets for the nation’s man-
ufactured goods. Until World War I, Japan had dealt with
the problem by seizing territories such as Taiwan, Korea,
and southern Manchuria and transforming them into
colonies or protectorates of the growing Japanese Empire.
That policy had succeeded brilliantly, but it had also
begun to arouse the concern and, in some cases, the
hostility of the Western nations. China was also becoming
apprehensive; as we have seen, Japanese demands for
Shandong Province at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919
aroused massive protests in major Chinese cities.
The United States was especially concerned about
Japanese aggressiveness. Although the United States had
been less active than some European states in pursuing
colonies in the Pacific, it had a strong interest in keeping
the area open for U.S. commercial activities. American
anxiety about Tokyo’s twenty-one demands on China in
1915 led to a new agreement in 1917, which essentially
repeated the compromise provisions of the agreement
reached nine years earlier.
In 1922, in Washington, D.C., the United States
convened a major conference of nations with interests in
the Pacific to discuss problems of regional security. The
Washington Conference led to agreements on several is-
sues, but the major accomplishment was the conclusion
of a nine-power treaty recognizing the territorial integrity
of China and the Open Door. The other participants
induced Japan to accept these provisions by accepting its
special position in Manchuria.
During the remainder of the 1920s, Japanese gov-
ernments attempted to play by the rules laid down at the
Washington Conference. Known as Shidehara diplomacy,
after the foreign minister (and later prime minister) who
attempted to carry it out, this policy sought to use
114 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
diplomatic and economic means to realize Japanese in-
terests in Asia. But this approach came under severe
pressure as Japanese industrialists began to move into
new areas of opportunity, such as heavy industry,
chemicals, mining, and the manufacturing of appliances
and automobiles. Because such industries desperately
needed resources not found in abundance locally, the
Japanese government came under increasing pressure to
find new sources abroad.
The Rise of Militant Nationalism Throughout the
1920s, Japan sought to operate within a cooperative
framework with other nations. In the early 1930s, however,
with the onset of the Great Depression and growing ten-
sions in the international arena, nationalist forces rose to
dominance in the Japanese government. These elements, a
mixture of military officers and ultranationalist politicians,
were convinced that the diplomacy of the 1920s had failed
and advocated a more aggressive approach to protecting
national interests in a brutal and competitive world. We
shall discuss the factors involved and the impact of these
developments on the international scene in the next
chapter.
Nationalism and Dictatorship
in Latin America
Although the nations of Latin America played little role
in World War I, that conflict nevertheless exerted an
impact on the region, especially on its economy. By the
end of the following decade, the region was also strongly
influenced by another event of global proportions—the
Great Depression.
A Changing Economy
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the economy of
Latin America was based largely on the export of food-
stuffs and raw materials. Some countries were compelled
to rely on the export earnings of only one or two prod-
ucts. Argentina, for example, relied on the sale of beef and
wheat; Chile exported nitrates and copper; Brazil and the
Caribbean nations sold sugar; and the Central American
states relied on the export of bananas. Such exports
brought large profits to a few, but for the majority of the
population, the returns were meager.
During World War I, the export of some products,
such as Chilean nitrates (used to produce explosives),
increased dramatically. In general, however, the war led
to a decline in European investment in Latin America
and a rise in the U.S. role in the local economies. That
process was accelerated in the early years of the twentieth
century when the United States intervened in Latin
American politics to undertake construction of the
Panama Canal, which dramatically reduced the time
and distance needed for ships to pass between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The Role of the Yankee Dollar By the late 1920s, the
United States had replaced Great Britain as the foremost
source of foreign investment in Latin America. Unlike the
British, however, U.S. investors placed funds directly into
production enterprises, causing large segments of the
area’s export industry to fall into American hands. A
number of Central American states, for example, were
popularly labeled ‘‘banana republics’’ because of the
power and influence of the U.S.-owned United Fruit
Company. American firms also dominated the copper
mining industry in Chile and Peru and the oil industry in
Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia.
Increasing economic power served to reinforce the
traditionally high level of U.S. political influence in Latin
America, especially in Central America, a region that
many Americans considered vital to U.S. national secu-
rity. American troops occupied parts of both Nicaragua
and Honduras to put down unrest or protect U.S. in-
terests there. The growing U.S. presence in the region
provoked hostility among Latin Americans, who resented
their dependent relationship on the United States, which
they viewed as an aggressive imperialist power. Some
charged that Washington worked, sometimes through
U.S. military intervention, to keep ruthless dictators, such
as Juan Vicente Gómez of Venezuela and Fulgencio Ba-
tista of Cuba, in power to preserve U.S. economic influ-
ence. In a bid to improve relations with Latin American
countries, President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 pro-
mulgated the Good Neighbor Policy, which rejected the
use of U.S. military force in the region. To underscore his
sincerity, Roosevelt ordered the withdrawal of U.S. ma-
rines from the island nation of Haiti in 1936. For the first
time in thirty years, there were no U.S. occupation troops
in Latin America.
Because so many Latin American nations depended
for their livelihood on the export of raw materials and
food products, the Great Depression of the 1930s was a
disaster for the region. The total value of Latin American
exports in 1930 was almost 50 percent below the figure
for the previous five years. Spurred by the decline in
foreign revenues, Latin American governments began to
encourage the development of new industries to reduce
dependence on imports. In some cases—the steel industry
in Chile and Brazil, the oil industry in Argentina and
Mexico—government investment made up for the absence
of local sources of capital.
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 115
The Effects of Dependency
During the late nineteenth cen-
tury, most governments in Latin
America had been dominated by
landed or military elites, who
governed by the blatant use of
military force. This trend con-
tinued during the 1930s as do-
mestic instability caused by the
effects of the Great Depression
led to the creation of military
dictatorships throughout the re-
gion, especially in Argentina and
Brazil and, to a lesser degree, in
Mexico—three countries that to-
gether possessed more than half
of the land and wealth of Latin
America (see Map 5.2).
Argentina Autocratic rule by an
elite minority often had disastrous
effects. The government of Ar-
gentina, controlled by landowners
who had benefited from the export
of beef and wheat, was slow to
recognize the need to establish a
local industrial base. In 1916, Hi-
pólito Irigoyen (1852–1933), head
of the Radical Party, was elected
president on a program to im-
prove conditions for the middle
and lower classes. Little was ach-
ieved, however, as the party be-
came increasingly corrupt and
drew closer to the large land-
owners. In 1930, the army over-
threw Irigoyen’s government and
reestablished the power of the
landed class. But its effort to re-
turn to the past and suppress the
growing influence of labor unions
failed, and in 1946, General Juan
Perón—claiming the support of the
descamisados (‘‘shirtless ones’’)—
seized sole power (see Chapter 8).
Brazil Brazil followed a similar path. In 1889, the army
overthrew the Brazilian monarchy, installed by Portugal
decades before, and established a republic. But it was
dominated by landed elites, many of whom had grown
wealthy through their ownership of coffee plantations. By
1900, three-quarters of the world’s coffee was grown in
Brazil. As in Argentina, the ruling oligarchy ignored the
importance of establishing an urban industrial base. When
the Great Depression ravaged profits from coffee exports, a
wealthy rancher, Getúlio Vargas (1883–1954), seized power
and served as president from 1930 to 1945. At first, Vargas
sought to appease workers by declaring an eight-hour day
and a minimum wage, but influenced by the apparent
success of fascist regimes in Europe, he ruled by increasingly
autocratic means and relied on a police force that used
torture to silence his opponents. His industrial policy was
South
Atlantic
Ocean
South
Pacific
Ocean
North
Atlantic
Ocean
Ca
ribbea
n Sea
Rio de
Janeiro
Falkland
Islands (U.K.)
South Georgia
Island (U.K.)
Buenos
Aires
Santiago
Montevideo
Quito
Bogotá
Caracas
Lima
Asunción
La Paz
BRAZIL
BOLIVIA
PERU
COLOMBIA
GUATEMALA
EL SALVADOR
PANAMA
COSTA
RICA
NICARAGUA
HONDURAS
BRITISH HONDURAS
MEXICO
ECUADOR
VENEZUELA
PARAGUAY
CHILE
ARGENTINA
URUGUAY
FRENCH
GUIANA
BRITISH
GUIANA
DUTCH
GUIANA
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 1,000 1,500 Kilometers
MAP 5.2 Latin America in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Shown here are
the boundaries dividing the countries of Latin America after the independence movements
of the nineteenth century.
Q Which areas remained under European rule?
116 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
successful, however, and by the end of World War II, Brazil
had become Latin America’s major industrial power. In
1945, the army, concerned that Vargas was turning increas-
ingly to leftist elements for support, forced him to resign.
Mexico In the early years of the twentieth century,
Mexico was in a state of turbulence. Under the rule of the
longtime dictator Porfirio Dı́az (see Chapter 1), the real
wages of the working class had declined. Moreover, 95
percent of the rural population owned no land, and about
a thousand families ruled almost all of Mexico. Much of
the manufacturing sector, and most of the important
export industries, was in the hands of foreign owners.
As was the case with the Russian Revolution of 1917
(see Chapter 4), the first rumblings of discontent ap-
peared among members of the intellectual elite, who in
the early years of the new century began to agitate for
political reforms to introduce representative government.
They also favored the adoption of measures to improve
the lot of the urban and rural poor.
In the meantime, violent protests erupted in the
countryside. In the poverty-stricken state of Chiapas, the
rebel leader Emiliano Zapata (1879–1919) aroused land-
less peasants, who began seizing the haciendas of wealthy
landowners. Eventually, Zapata (later made famous to
U.S. audiences by the 1952 film Viva Zapata, starring
Marlon Brando) was able to set up a local revolutionary
regime under his own leadership. In the state of Chi-
huahua, farther to the north, the bandit leader Pancho
Villa (1878–1923) terrorized the local power structure and
on occasion even crossed the border to launch raids on
small towns inside the United States.
The growing specter of rural revolt caused great con-
cern among the Mexican power elite, and in 1910 Dı́az was
forced to resign in favor of the reformist politician Fran-
cisco Madero (1873–1913). The latter sought to carry out a
program of political reform but, as with his counterpart
Alexander Kerensky in Russia (see Chapter 4), he was
unable to keep pace with the rapid change taking place
throughout the country. In 1913, Madero was deposed and
assassinated by one of Dı́az’ military subordinates.
For the next several years, Zapata and Pancho Villa
continued to be important political forces in Mexico,
publicly advocating measures to redress the economic
grievances of the poor. But neither had a broad grasp of
the challenges facing the country, and power eventually
gravitated to a more moderate group of reformists around
the Constitutionalist Party. The latter was intent on
breaking the power of the great landed families and
powerful U.S. corporations, but without engaging in
radical land reform or the nationalization of property.
After a bloody conflict that cost the lives of thousands, the
moderates were able to consolidate power, and in 1917 the
party promulgated a new constitution that established a
strong presidency, initiated land reform policies, estab-
lished limits on foreign investment, and set an agenda for
social welfare programs. The United States had resisted
many of these measures, but eventually saw the wisdom of
providing recognition to a government that had success-
fully avoided the hazards of a vast social revolution.
In 1920, Constitutionalist leader Alvaro Obregón
assumed the presidency and began to carry out a reform
program. But real change did not take place until the
presidency of General Lazaro Cárdenas (1895–1970) in
1934. Cárdenas won wide popularity among the peasants
by ordering the redistribution of 44 million acres of land
controlled by landed elites. He also seized control of the
oil industry, which had hitherto been dominated by
major U.S. oil companies. Alluding to the Good Neighbor
Policy, President Roosevelt refused to intervene, and
eventually Mexico agreed to compensate U.S. oil com-
panies for their lost property. It then set up PEMEX, a
governmental organization, to run the oil industry. By
now, the revolution was democratic in name only, as the
official political party, known as the Institutional Revo-
lutionary Party (PRI), controlled the levers of power
throughout society. Every six years, for more than half a
century, PRI presidential candidates automatically suc-
ceeded each other in office.
Latin American Culture
The first half of the twentieth century witnessed a dramatic
increase in literary activity in Latin America, a result in part
of its ambivalent relationship with Europe and the United
States. Many authors, while experimenting with imported
modernist styles, felt compelled to proclaim Latin Amer-
ica’s unique identity through the adoption of native themes
and social issues. In The Underdogs (1915), for example,
Mariano Azuela (1873–1952) presented a sympathetic but
not uncritical portrait of the Mexican Revolution as his
country entered an era of unsettling change.
In their determination to commend Latin America’s
distinctive characteristics, some writers extolled the
promise of the region’s vast virgin lands and the diversity of
its peoples. In Don Segundo Sombra, published in 1926,
Ricardo Guiraldes (1886–1927) celebrated the life of the
ideal gaucho (cowboy), defining Argentina’s hope and
strength through the enlightened management of its fertile
earth. Likewise, in Dona Barbara, Rómulo Gallegos (1884–
1969) wrote in a similar vein about his native Venezuela.
Other authors pursued the theme of solitude and detach-
ment, a product of the region’s physical separation from the
rest of the world.
Latin American artists followed their literary coun-
terparts in joining the Modernist movement in Europe,
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 117
yet they too were eager to promote the emergence of a
new regional and national essence. In Mexico, where the
government provided financial support for painting mu-
rals on public buildings, the artist Diego Rivera (1886–
1957) began to produce a monumental style of mural art
that served two purposes: to illustrate the national past by
portraying Aztec legends and folk customs and to pop-
ularize a political message in favor of realizing the social
goals of the Mexican Revolution. His wife, Frida Kahlo
(1907–1954), incorporated Surrealist whimsy in her own
paintings, many of which were portraits of herself and her
family.
Struggle for the Banner. Like Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896–1974) painted on public
buildings large murals that celebrated the Mexican Revolution and the workers’ and peasants’ struggle for
freedom. Beginning in the 1930s, Siqueiros expressed sympathy for the exploited and downtrodden peoples of
Mexico in dramatic frescoes such as this one. He painted similar murals in Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil and
was once expelled from the United States, where his political art and views were considered too radical.
CONCLUSION
THE TURMOIL BROUGHT ABOUT by World War I not only resulted in the
destruction of several of the major Western empires and a redrawing
of the map of Europe but also opened the door to political and
social upheavals elsewhere in the world. In the Middle East, the
decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire led to the creation of the
secular republic of Turkey and several other new states carved out of
the carcass of the old empire.
Other parts of Asia also witnessed the rise of movements for
national independence. In India, Gandhi and his campaign of civil
disobedience played a crucial role in his country’s bid to be free
of British rule. China waged its own dramatic struggle to establish
a modern nation as two dynamic political organizations—the
Nationalists and the Communists—competed for legitimacy as
the rightful heirs of the old order. Japan continued to follow its
own path to modernization, which, although successful from
an economic point of view, took a menacing turn during
the 1930s.
The nations of Latin America faced their own economic
problems because of their dependence on exports. Increasing U.S.
investments in Latin America contributed to growing hostility
against the powerful neighbor to the north. The Great Depression
forced the region to begin developing new industries, but it also led
to the rise of authoritarian governments, some of them modeled
after the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany.
By demolishing the remnants of their old civilization on the
battlefields of World War I, Europeans had inadvertently encour-
aged the subject peoples of their vast colonial empires to begin their
own movements for national independence. The process was by no
means completed in the two decades following the Treaty of
Versailles, but the bonds of imperial rule had been severely strained.
Once Europeans began to weaken themselves in the even more
destructive conflict of World War II, the hopes of colonial peoples
for national independence and freedom could at last be realized.
It is to that devastating world conflict that we now turn.
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118 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Quoted in M. Gettleman, ed., Vietnam: History, Documents, and
Opinion on a Major World Crisis (New York, 1965.), p. 32.
2. Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei, ‘‘Ta Lin Ch’in-nan Han,’’ in Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei
Hsien-sheng Ch’uan-chi [Collected Works of Mr. Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei]
(Taipei, 1968), pp. 1057–1058.
3. Quoted in Nicholas Rowland Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire:
Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s
(Hanover, N.H., 1991), p. 16.
4. Quoted in William Theodore de Bary et al., eds., Sources of
Chinese Tradition (New York, 1963), p. 783.
5. Lu Xun, ‘‘Diary of a Madman,’’ in Selected Works of Lu Hsun
(Beijing, 1957), vol. 1, p. 20.
TIMELINE
1920 1925 1930 1935 1940
Middle East
Asia
Latin America
Reza Khan seizes power in Iran
(1921)
Formation of Chinese Communist Party
(1921)
Northern Expedition in China
(1926–1928)
Era of Shidehara
diplomacy in Japan
(1924–1927)
Gandhi’s march to the sea
(1930)
Formation of the Comintern
(1919)
Long March
(1934–1935)
Good Neighbor Policy
(1936)
Vargas comes to
power in Brazil
(1930)
Military seizes power
in Argentina
(1930)
New constitution
in Mexico
(1917)
Creation of Nanjing republic
(1928)
Atatürk establishes Republic of Turkey
(1923)
Balfour Declaration
on Palestine
(1917)
Ibn Saud establishes Saudi Arabia
(1932)
Iraq receives independence
(1932)
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 5 NATIONALISM, REVOLUTION, AND DICTATORSHIP: ASIA, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND LATIN AMERICA 119
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
IN SEPTEMBER 1931, acting on the pretext that Chinese troops
had attacked a Japanese railway near the northern Chinese city of
Mukden, Japanese military units stationed in the area seized control
throughout Manchuria. Although Japanese military authorities in
Manchuria announced that China had provoked the action, the
‘‘Mukden incident,’’ as it was called, had actually been carried out by
Japanese saboteurs. Eventually, worldwide protests against the Japanese
action led the League of Nations to send an investigative commission
to Manchuria. When the commission issued a report condemning the
seizure, Japan angrily withdrew from the League. Over the next several
years, the Japanese consolidated their hold on Manchuria, renaming
it Manchukuo and placing it under the titular authority of former
Chinese emperor and now Japanese puppet, Pu Yi.
Although no one knew it at the time, the Mukden incident
would later be singled out by some observers as the opening shot of
World War II. The failure of the League of Nations to take decisive
action sent a strong signal to Japan and other potentially aggressive
states that they might seek their objectives without the risk of united
opposition by the major world powers. Despite its agonizing efforts
to build a system of peace and stability that would prevent future
wars, the League had failed to resolve the challenges of the postwar
era, and the world was once again about to slide inexorably into a
new global conflict.
120
CHAPTER 6
THE CRISIS DEEPENS:
THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II
The Rise of Dictatorial Regimes
In Europe, the first clear step to war took place two years
later. On February 3, 1933, only four days after he had been
appointed chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler met secretly
with Germany’s leading generals. He revealed to them his
desire to remove the ‘‘cancer of democracy,’’ create a new
authoritarian leadership, and forge a new domestic unity.
His foreign policy objectives were equally striking. Since
Germany’s living space was too small for its people, Hitler
said, Germany must rearm and prepare for ‘‘the conquest of
new living space in the east and its ruthless Germanization.’’
From the outset, Adolf Hitler had a clear vision of his goals,
and their implementation meant another war.
There was thus a close relationship between the rise
of dictatorial regimes in the 1930s and the coming of
World War II. The apparent triumph of liberal democracy
in 1919 had proven to be extremely short-lived. By 1939,
only two major states in Europe, France and Great Brit-
ain, remained democratic. Italy and Germany had in-
stalled fascist regimes, and the Soviet Union under Joseph
Stalin was a repressive dictatorial state. A host of other
European states, and Latin American countries as well,
adopted authoritarian systems, while a militarist regime
in Japan moved that country down the path to war.
Dictatorships, of course, were hardly a new phe-
nomenon as a means of governing human societies, but
the type of political system that emerged after World War I
did exhibit some ominous new characteristics. The
modern ‘‘totalitarian’’ state, as it is sometimes labeled,
transcended the ideal of passive obedience expected in a
traditional dictatorship or authoritarian monarchy. It
required the active loyalty and commitment of all its
citizens to the regime and its goals, and used modern
mass propaganda techniques and high-speed communi-
cations to conquer citizens’ minds and hearts. That
control had a purpose: the active involvement of the
masses in the achievement of the regime’s goals, whether
they be war, a classless utopia, or a thousand-year Reich.
The modern totalitarian state—whether of the right
(as in Germany) or of the left (as in the Soviet Union)—
was to be led by a single leader and a single party. It
ruthlessly rejected the liberal ideal of limited government
power and constitutional guarantees of individual free-
doms. Indeed, individual freedom was to be subordinated
to the collective will of the masses, organized and deter-
mined for them by a leader or leaders. Modern technology
also gave totalitarian states the ability to use unprece-
dented police powers to impose their wishes on their
subjects.
What explains the emergence of this frightening new
form of government at a time when the Enlightenment
and the Industrial Revolution had offered such a bright
perspective on the improvement of the human condition?
According to the philosopher Hannah Arendt, in her
renowned study, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951),
the totalitarian state was a direct product of the modern
age. At a time when traditional sources of identity, such as
religion and the local community, were in a state of de-
cline, alienated intellectuals found fertile ground for their
radical ideas among rootless peoples deprived of their
communal instincts and their traditional faiths by the
corrosive effects of the Industrial Age.
The Birth of Fascism
In the early 1920s, in the wake of economic turmoil,
political disorder, and the general insecurity and fear
stemming from World War I, Benito Mussolini (1883–
1945) burst upon the Italian scene with the first Fascist
movement in Europe. Mussolini began his political career
as a socialist but was expelled from the Socialist Party
after supporting Italy’s entry into World War I, a position
contrary to the socialist principle of ardent neutrality in
imperialist wars. In 1919, Mussolini established a new
political group, the Fascio di Combattimento, or League of
Combat. It received little attention in the parliamentary
elections of 1919, but Italy’s three major political parties
were unable to form an effective governmental coalition.
When socialists began to speak of the need for revolution,
provoking worker strikes and a general climate of class
violence, alarmed conservatives turned to the Fascists,
who formed armed squads to attack socialist offices and
newspapers. By 1922, Mussolini’s nationalist rhetoric and
ability to play to middle-class fears of radicalism, revo-
lution, and disorder were attracting ever more adherents.
On October 29, 1922, after Mussolini and the Fascists
threatened to march on Rome if they were not given
power, King Victor Emmanuel III (r. 1900–1946) capit-
ulated and made Mussolini prime minister of Italy.
By 1926, Mussolini had established the institutional
framework for his Fascist dictatorship. Press laws gave the
government the right to suspend any publication that
fostered disrespect for the Catholic church, the monarchy,
or the state. The prime minister was made ‘‘head of
government’’ with the power to legislate by decree. A
police law empowered the police to arrest and confine
anybody for both nonpolitical and political crimes
without due process of law. In 1926, all anti-Fascist par-
ties were outlawed. By the end of 1926, Mussolini ruled
Italy as Il Duce, the leader.
Mussolini left no doubt of his intentions. Fascism, he
said, ‘‘is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and
unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength
to the whole life of the people.’’1 His regime attempted to
mold Italians into a single-minded community by devel-
oping Fascist organizations. By 1939, about two-thirds of
the population between eight and eighteen had been en-
rolled in some kind of Fascist youth group. Activities for
these groups included Saturday afternoon marching drills
and calisthenics, seaside and mountain summer camps,
and youth contests. Beginning in the 1930s, all young men
were given some kind of premilitary exercises to develop
discipline and provide training for war.
Mussolini hoped to create a new Italian: hardwork-
ing, physically fit, disciplined, intellectually sharp, and
martially inclined. In practice, the Fascists largely re-
inforced traditional social attitudes, as is evident in their
policies toward women. The Fascists portrayed the family
as the pillar of the state and women as the foundation of
the family. ‘‘Woman into the home’’ became the Fascist
slogan. Women were to be homemakers and baby pro-
ducers, ‘‘their natural and fundamental mission in life,’’
according to Mussolini, who viewed population growth as
an indicator of national strength. A practical consider-
ation also underlay the Fascist attitude toward women:
working women would compete with males for jobs in
the depression economy of the 1930s. Eliminating women
from the market reduced male unemployment.
Hitler and Nazi Germany
As Mussolini began to lay the foundations of his Fascist
state in Italy, a young admirer was harboring similar
dreams in Germany. Born on April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler
was the son of an Austrian customs official. He had done
poorly in secondary school and eventually made his way
to Vienna to become an artist. Through careful obser-
vation of the political scene, Hitler became an avid Ger-
man nationalist who learned from his experience in mass
politics in Austria how political parties could use pro-
paganda and terror effectively. But it was only after World
War I, during which he had served as a soldier on the
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 121
Western Front, that Hitler became actively involved in
politics. By then, he had become convinced that the cause
of German defeat had been the Jews, for whom he now
developed a fervent hatred.
The Roots of Anti-Semitism Anti-Semitism, of course,
was not new to European civilization. Since the Middle
Ages, Jews had been portrayed as the murderers of Christ
and were often subjected to mob violence and official
persecution. Their rights were restricted, and they were
physically separated from Christians in residential quar-
ters known as ghettos. By the nineteenth century, as a
result of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French
Revolution, Jews were increasingly granted legal equality
in many European countries. Nevertheless, Jews were not
completely accepted, and this ambivalence was apparent
throughout Europe.
Nowhere in Europe did Jews play a more active role
in society than in Germany and the German-speaking
areas of Austria-Hungary. During the nineteenth century,
many Jews in both countries had left the ghettoes where
they had previously been restricted and become assimi-
lated into the surrounding Christian population. Some
entered what had previously been the closed world of
politics and the professions. Many Jews became successful
as bankers, lawyers, scientists, scholars, journalists, and
stage performers. In 1880, for example, Jews made up
10 percent of the population of Vienna but accounted for
39 percent of its medical students and 23 percent of its
law students.
All too often, such achievements provoked envy and
distrust. During the last two decades of the nineteenth
century, conservatives in Germany and Austria founded
parties that used dislike of Jews to win the votes of tra-
ditional lower-middle-class groups who felt threatened by
changing times. Such parties also played on the rising
sentiment of racism in German society. Spurred by social
Darwinian ideas that nations, like the human species,
were engaged in a brutal struggle for survival, rabid
German nationalists promoted the concept of the Volk
(nation, people, or race) as an underlying idea in German
history since the medieval era. Portraying the German
people as the successors of the pure ‘‘Aryan’’ race, the true
and original creators of Western culture, nationalist
groups called for Germany to take the lead in a desperate
struggle to fight for European civilization and save it from
the destructive assaults of such allegedly lower races as
Jews, blacks, and Asians.
Hitler’s Rise to Power, 1919–1933 At the end of
World War I, Hitler joined the obscure German Workers’
Party, one of a number of radical nationalist parties in
Munich. By the summer of 1921, he had assumed total
control over the party, which he renamed the National
Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP), or Nazi for
short. Hitler worked assiduously to develop the party into
a mass political movement with flags, party badges,
uniforms, its own newspaper, and its own police force or
party militia known as the SA—the Sturmabteilung, or
Storm Troops. The SA added an element of force and
terror to the growing Nazi movement. Hitler’s own ora-
torical skills as well as his populist message were largely
responsible for attracting an increasing number of
followers.
In November 1923, Hitler staged an armed uprising
against the government in Munich, but the so-called Beer
Hall Putsch was quickly crushed, and Hitler was sen-
tenced to prison. During his brief stay in jail, he wrote
Mein Kampf (My Struggle), an autobiographical account
of his movement and its underlying ideology. Virulent
German nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anticommu-
nism were linked together by a social Darwinian theory of
struggle that stressed the right of superior nations to
Lebensraum (‘‘living space’’) through expansion and the
right of superior individuals to secure authoritarian lead-
ership over the masses.
After his release from prison, Hitler reorganized the
Nazi Party and expanded it to all parts of Germany, in-
creasing its size from 27,000 members in 1925 to 178,000
by the end of 1929. Especially noticeable was the youth-
fulness of the regional, district, and branch leaders of the
Nazi organization. Many young Germans were fiercely
committed to Hitler because he gave them the promise of
a new life.
By 1932, the Nazi Party had 800,000 members and
had become the largest party in the Reichstag, the Ger-
man parliament. No doubt, Germany’s economic diffi-
culties were a crucial factor in the Nazis’ rise to power.
Unemployment rose dramatically, from 4.35 million in
1931 to 6 million by the winter of 1932. The economic
and psychological impact of the Great Depression made
extremist parties more attractive. But Hitler claimed to
stand above politics and promised to create a new Ger-
many free of class differences and party infighting. His
appeal to national pride, national honor, and traditional
militarism struck chords of emotion in his listeners, and
the raw energy projected by his Nazi Party contrasted
sharply with the apparent ineptitude emanating from its
democratic rivals.
Increasingly, the conservative elites of Germany—the
industrial magnates, landed aristocrats, military estab-
lishment, and higher bureaucrats—came to see Hitler as
the man who had the mass support to establish an au-
thoritarian regime that would save Germany from a
Communist takeover. Under pressure, President Paul von
122 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Hindenburg agreed to allow Hitler to become chancellor
on January 30, 1933, and form a new government.
Within two months, Hitler had laid the foundations
for the Nazis’ complete control over Germany. On Feb-
ruary 27, he convinced Hindenburg to issue a decree
suspending all basic rights for the full duration of the
emergency—declared after a mysterious fire destroyed the
Reichstag building in downtown Berlin—thus enabling
the Nazis to arrest and imprison anyone without redress.
The crowning step in Hitler’s ‘‘legal’’ seizure of power
came on March 23, when the Reichstag passed the En-
abling Act by a two-thirds vote. This legislation, which
empowered the government to dispense with constitu-
tional forms for four years while it issued laws that dealt
with the country’s problems, provided the legal basis for
Hitler’s subsequent acts. In effect, Hitler became a dic-
tator appointed by the parliamentary body itself.
With their new source of power, the Nazis acted
quickly to consolidate their control. The civil service was
purged of Jews and democratic elements, concentration
camps were established for opponents of the new regime,
trade unions were dissolved, and all political parties ex-
cept the Nazis were abolished. When Hindenburg died on
August 2, 1934, the office of Reich president was abol-
ished, and Hitler became sole ruler of Germany. Public
officials and soldiers were all required to take a personal
oath of loyalty to Hitler as the ‘‘Führer (leader) of the
German Reich and people,’’ while
Nazi Storm Troops rampaged
through German cities harassing
and beating Jews and other
‘‘undesirables.’’
The Nazi State, 1933–1939
Having smashed the Weimar Re-
public, Hitler now turned to his
larger objective, the creation of an
Aryan racial state that would
dominate Europe and possibly the
world for generations to come. The
Nazis pursued the vision of this
totalitarian state in a variety of
ways. Most dramatic were the mass
demonstrations and spectacles em-
ployed to integrate the German
nation into a collective fellowship
and to mobilize it as an instrument
for Hitler’s policies. In the eco-
nomic sphere, the Nazis pursued
the use of public works projects and
‘‘pump-priming’’ grants to private
construction firms to foster em-
ployment and end the depression.
But there is little doubt that rearmament contributed far
more to solving the unemployment problem. Unemploy-
ment, which had stood at 6 million in 1932, dropped to 2.6
million in 1934 and less than 500,000 in 1937. The regime
claimed full credit for solving Germany’s economic woes,
although much of the success must be ascribed to decisions
made at the initiative of local officials. Hitler himself had
little interest in either economics or administration, and his
prestige undoubtedly benefited enormously from sponta-
neous efforts undertaken throughout the country by his
followers.
For its enemies, the Nazi totalitarian state had its
instruments of terror and repression. Especially impor-
tant was the SS (Schutzstaffel, or ‘‘protection echelon’’).
Originally created as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, the SS,
under the direction of Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945),
came to control all of the regular and secret police forces.
Himmler and the SS functioned on the basis of two
principles, ideology and terror, and would eventually play
a major role in the execution squads and death camps for
the extermination of the Jews.
Other institutions, including the Catholic and Prot-
estant churches, primary and secondary schools, and
universities, were also brought under the control of the
state. Nazi professional organizations and leagues were
formed for civil servants, teachers, women, farmers,
doctors, and lawyers, and youth organizations—the Hitler
The Nazi Mass Spectacle. Hitler and the Nazis made clever use of mass spectacles to rally the
German people behind the Nazi regime. These mass demonstrations evoked intense enthusiasm, as is
evident in this photograph of Hitler arriving at the Bückeberg near Hamelin for the Harvest Festival in
1937. Almost one million people were present for the celebration.
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CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 123
Jugend (Hitler Youth) and its female counterpart, the
Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Maidens)—
were given special attention.
The Nazi attitude toward women was largely deter-
mined by ideological considerations. Women played a
crucial role in the Aryan racial state as bearers of the chil-
dren who would ensure the triumph of the Aryan race. To
the Nazis, the differences between men and women were
quite natural. Men were warriors and political leaders, while
women were destined to be wives and mothers. Certain
professions, including university teaching, medicine, and
law, were considered inappropriate for women, especially
married women. Instead, the Nazis encouraged women to
pursue professional occupations that had direct practical
application, such as social work and nursing. In addition to
restrictive legislation against females, the Nazi regime
pushed its campaign against working women with such
poster slogans as ‘‘Get hold of pots and pans and broom
and you’ll sooner find a groom!’’
From the beginning, the Nazi Party reflected the
strong anti-Semitic beliefs of Adolf Hitler. Many of the
early attacks on Jews, however, were essentially sponta-
neous in character. The regime quickly took note, and in
September 1935, the Nazis announced new racial laws at
the annual party rally in Nuremberg. These Nuremberg
laws excluded German Jews from German citizenship and
forbade marriages and extramarital relations between
Jews and German citizens. But a more violent phase of
anti-Jewish activity was initiated on November 9–10,
1938, the infamous Kristallnacht, or night of shattered
glass. The assassination of a German diplomat in Paris
became the excuse for a Nazi-led destructive rampage
against the Jews, in which synagogues were burned, seven
thousand Jewish businesses were destroyed, and at least
one hundred Jews were killed. Moreover, twenty thou-
sand Jewish males were rounded up and sent to con-
centration camps. Jews were now barred from all public
buildings and prohibited from owning, managing, or
working in any retail store. Finally, under the direction
of the SS, Jews were encouraged to ‘‘emigrate from
Germany.’’ Many countries, however, refused to accept
them. Hitler would soon turn to more gruesome measures.
The Spread of Authoritarianism in Europe
Nowhere had the map of Europe been more drastically al-
tered byWorldWar I than in eastern Europe. The new states
of Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia adopted
parliamentary systems, and the preexisting kingdoms of
Romania and Bulgaria gained new parliamentary con-
stitutions in 1920. Greece became a republic in 1924. Hun-
gary’s government was parliamentary in form but controlled
by its landed aristocrats. Thus, at the beginning of the 1920s,
the future of political democracy seemed promising. Yet al-
most everywhere in eastern Europe, parliamentary govern-
ments soon gave way to authoritarian regimes.
Several problems helped create this situation. Eastern
European states had little tradition of liberalism or par-
liamentary politics and no substantial middle class to
support them. Then, too, these states were largely rural
and agrarian. Many of the peasants were largely illiterate,
and much of the land was still dominated by large
landowners who feared the growth of agrarian peasant
parties with their schemes for land redistribution. Ethnic
conflicts also threatened to tear these countries apart.
Fearful of land reform, Communist agrarian upheaval,
and ethnic conflict, powerful landowners, the churches,
and even some members of the small middle class looked
to authoritarian governments to maintain the old system.
Only Czechoslovakia, with its substantial middle class,
liberal tradition, and strong industrial base, maintained
its political democracy.
The Führer Makes History! One common characteristic of modern
totalitarian movements is their effort to mold all citizens from their earliest
years into obedient servants of the state. In Nazi Germany, the vehicle
responsible for training young minds was the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth).
In this photograph, Adolf Hitler inspects members of the organization at a
ceremony held sometime during the 1930s. On graduation, each member
took an oath: ‘‘I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the
savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my
life for him, so help me God.’’
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124 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
In Spain, democracy also failed to survive. Fearful of
the rising influence of left-wing elements in the govern-
ment, in July 1936 Spanish military forces led by General
Francisco Franco (1892–1975) launched a brutal and
bloody civil war that lasted three years. Foreign inter-
vention complicated the situation. Franco’s forces were
aided by arms, money, and men from Italy and Germany,
while the government was assisted by forty thousand
foreign volunteers and trucks, planes, tanks, and military
advisers from the Soviet Union. After Franco’s forces
captured Madrid on March 28, 1939, the Spanish Civil
War finally came to an end. General Franco soon estab-
lished a dictatorship that favored large landowners,
businessmen, and the Catholic clergy.
The Rise of Militarism in Japan
The rise of militant forces in Japan resulted not from a
seizure of power by a new political party but from the
growing influence of such elements at the top of the
political hierarchy. During the 1920s, a multiparty system
based on democratic practices appeared to be emerging.
Two relatively moderate political parties, the Minseito
and the Seiyukai, dominated the Diet and took turns
providing executive leadership in the cabinet. Radical
elements existed at each end of the political spectrum, but
neither militant nationalists nor violent revolutionaries
appeared to present a threat to the stability of the system.
In fact, the political system was probably weaker than
it seemed at the time. Both of the major parties were
deeply dependent on campaign contributions from pow-
erful corporations (the zaibatsu), and conservative forces
connected to the military or the old landed aristocracy
were still highly influential behind the scenes. As in the
Weimar Republic in Germany during the same period,
the actual power base of moderate political forces was
weak, and politicians unwittingly undermined the fra-
gility of the system by engaging in bitter attacks on each
other.
Political tensions in Japan increased in 1928 when
Zhang Xueliang, son and successor of the Japanese pup-
pet Marshall Zhang Zuolin (see Chapter 5), resisted
Japanese threats and decided to integrate Manchuria into
the Nanjing republic. ‘‘You forget,’’ he told one Japanese
official, ‘‘that I am Chinese.’’2 Appeals from Tokyo to
Washington for a U.S. effort to restrain Chiang Kai-shek
were rebuffed.
Already suffering from the decline of its business
interests on the mainland, after 1929 Japan began to feel
the impact of the Great Depression when the United
States and major European nations raised their tariff rates
against Japanese imports in a desperate effort to protect
local businesses and jobs. The value of Japanese exports
dropped by 50 percent from 1929 to 1931, and wages
dropped nearly as much. Hardest hit were the farmers as
the price of rice and other staple food crops plummeted.
At the same time, militant nationalists, outraged at
Japan’s loss of influence in Manchuria, began to argue
that the Shidehara policy of peaceful cooperation with
other nations in maintaining the existing international
economic order had been a failure. It was undoubtedly
that vision that had motivated the military coup d’état
launched in Mukden in the early fall of 1931.
During the early 1930s, civilian cabinets sought to
cope with the economic challenges presented by the Great
Depression. By abandoning the gold standard, Prime
Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was able to lower the price of
Japanese goods on the world market, and exports climbed
back to earlier levels. But the political parties were no
longer able to stem the growing influence of militant
nationalist elements. Despite its doubts about the wisdom
of the Mukden incident, the cabinet was too divided to
disavow it, and military officers in Manchuria increas-
ingly acted on their own initiative.
In May 1932, Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated by
right-wing extremists. He was succeeded by a moderate,
Admiral Saito Makoto, but ultranationalist patriotic so-
cieties began to terrorize opponents, assassinating busi-
nessmen and public figures identified with the policy of
conciliation toward the outside world. Some, like the
publicist Kita Ikki, were convinced that the parliamentary
system had been corrupted by materialism and Western
values and should be replaced by a system that would
return to traditional Japanese values and imperial au-
thority. His message, ‘‘Asia for the Asians,’’ had not won
widespread support during the relatively prosperous
1920s but increased in popularity after the Great De-
pression, which convinced many Japanese that capitalism
was unsuitable for Japan.
During the mid-1930s, the influence of the military
and extreme nationalists over the government steadily
increased. Minorities and left-wing elements were perse-
cuted, and moderates were intimidated into silence.
Terrorists tried for their part in assassination attempts
portrayed themselves as selfless patriots and received light
sentences. Japan continued to hold national elections, and
moderate candidates continued to receive substantial
popular support, but the cabinets were dominated by the
military or advocates of Japanese expansionism. In Feb-
ruary 1936, junior officers in the army led a coup in the
capital city of Tokyo, briefly occupying the Diet building
and other key government installations and assassinating
several members of the cabinet. The ringleaders were
quickly tried and convicted of treason, but widespread
sympathy for the defendants strengthened the influence
of the military in the halls of power even further.
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 125
The Path to War in Europe
When Hitler became chancellor on January 30, 1933,
Germany’s situation in Europe seemed weak. The Versailles
Treaty had created a demilitarized zone on Germany’s
western border that would allow the French to move into
the heavily industrialized parts of Germany in the event of
war. To Germany’s east, the smaller states, such as Poland
and Czechoslovakia, had defensive treaties with France.
The Versailles Treaty had also limited Germany’s army to
100,000 troops with no air force and only a small navy.
Posing as a man of peace in his public speeches, Hitler
emphasized that Germany wished only to revise the unfair
provisions of Versailles by peaceful means and occupy
Germany’s rightful place among the European states. On
March 9, 1935, he announced the creation of a new air
force and, one week later, the introduction of a military
draft that would expand Germany’s army (the Wehrmacht)
from 100,000 to 550,000 troops. France, Great Britain, and
Italy condemned Germany’s unilateral repudiation of the
Versailles Treaty but took no concrete action.
On March 7, 1936, buoyed by his conviction that the
Western democracies had no intention of using force to
maintain the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler sent German
troops into the demilitarized Rhineland. Under the
treaty, the French had the right to use force against any
violation of the demilitarized Rhineland. But France
would not act without British support, and the British
viewed the occupation of German territory by German
troops as a reasonable action by a dissatisfied power. The
London Times, reflecting the war-weariness that had
gripped much of the European public since the end of the
Great War, noted that the Germans were only ‘‘going into
their own back garden.’’
Meanwhile, Hitler gained new allies. In October 1935,
Mussolini committed Fascist Italy to imperial expansion
by invading Ethiopia. Angered by French and British
opposition to his invasion, Mussolini welcomed Hitler’s
support and began to draw closer to the German dictator
he had once called a buffoon. The joint intervention of
Germany and Italy on behalf of General Franco in the
Spanish Civil War in 1936 also drew the two nations closer
together. In October 1936, Mussolini and Hitler con-
cluded an agreement that recognized their common po-
litical and economic interests. One month later, Germany
and Japan concluded the Anti-Comintern Pact and agreed
to maintain a common front against communism.
Stalin Seeks a United Front
From behind the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow,
Joseph Stalin undoubtedly observed the effects of the
Great Depression with a measure of satisfaction. During
the early 1920s, once it became clear that the capitalist
states in Europe had managed to survive without so-
cialist revolutions, Stalin decided to improve relations
with the outside world as a means of obtaining capital
and technological assistance in promoting economic
growth in the Soviet Union. But Lenin had predicted
that after a brief period of stability in Europe, a new
crisis brought on by overproduction and intense com-
petition was likely to occur in the capitalist world. That,
he added, would mark the beginning of the next wave
of revolution. In the meantime, he declared, ‘‘We will
give the capitalists the shovels with which to bury
themselves.’’
To Stalin, the onset of the Great Depression was a
signal that the next era of turbulence in the capitalist
world was at hand, and during the early 1930s, Soviet
foreign policy returned to the themes of class struggle and
social revolution. When the influence of the Nazi Party
reached significant proportions in the early 1930s, Stalin
viewed it as a pathological form of capitalism and ordered
the Communist Party in Germany not to support the
fragile Weimar Republic. Hitler would quickly fall, he
reasoned, leading to a Communist takeover.
By 1935, Stalin became uneasily aware that Hitler was
not only securely in power in Berlin but also represented
a serious threat to the Soviet Union. That summer, at a
major meeting of the Communist International held in
Moscow, Soviet officials announced a shift in policy. The
Soviet Union would now seek to form a united front with
capitalist democratic nations throughout the world against
the common danger of Nazism and fascism. Communist
parties in capitalist countries and in colonial areas were
instructed to cooperate with ‘‘peace-loving democratic
forces’’ in forming coalition governments called Popular
Fronts.
In most capitalist countries, Stalin’s move was greeted
with suspicion, but in France, a coalition of leftist parties—
Communists, Socialists, and Radicals—fearful that rightists
intended to seize power, formed a Popular Front gov-
ernment in June 1936. The new government succeeded in
launching a program for workers that some called the
French New Deal. It included the right of collective bar-
gaining, a forty-hour workweek, two-week paid vacations,
and minimum wages. But such policies failed to solve the
problems of the depression, and although it survived until
1938, the Front was for all intents and purposes dead
before then. Moscow signed a defensive treaty with France
and reached an agreement with three non-Communist
states in eastern Europe (Czechoslovakia, Romania, and
Yugoslavia), but talks with Great Britain achieved little
result. The Soviet Union, rebuffed by London and disap-
pointed by Paris, feared that it might be forced to face
Hitler alone.
126 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Decision at Munich
By the end of 1936, the Treaty of Versailles had been vir-
tually scrapped, and Germany had erased much of the
stigma of defeat. Hitler, whose foreign policy successes had
earned him much public acclaim, was convinced that nei-
ther the French nor the British would provide much op-
position to his plans and decided in 1938 to move on
Austria, where pro-German sentiment was strong. By
threatening Austria with invasion, Hitler coerced the Aus-
trian chancellor into putting Austrian Nazis in charge of the
government. The new government
promptly invited German troops to
enter Austria and assist in maintain-
ing law and order. One day later, on
March 13, 1938, Hitler formally an-
nexed Austria to Germany.
The annexation of Austria, which
had not raised objections in other
European capitals, put Germany in
position for Hitler’s next objective—
the destruction of Czechoslovakia.
Although the latter was quite pre-
pared to defend itself and was well
supported by pacts with France and
the Soviet Union, Hitler believed that
its allies would not use force to defend
it against a German attack.
He was right again. On Septem-
ber 15, 1938, Hitler demanded the
cession to Germany of the Sudeten-
land (an area in western Czechoslo-
vakia that was inhabited largely by
ethnic Germans) and expressed his
willingness to risk ‘‘world war’’ to
achieve his objective. Instead of ob-
jecting, the British, French, Germans, and Italians—at a
hastily arranged conference at Munich—reached an agree-
ment that essentially met all of Hitler’s demands. German
troops were allowed to occupy the Sudetenland as the
Czechs, abandoned by their Western allies as well as by the
Soviet Union, stood by helplessly. The Munich Conference
was the high point ofWestern appeasement of Hitler. British
Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returned to England
from Munich boasting that the agreement meant ‘‘peace in
our time.’’ Hitler had promised Chamberlain that he had
made his last demand (see the box on p. 128).
In fact, Munich confirmed Hitler’s perception that the
Western democracies were weak and would not fight.
Increasingly, he was convinced of his own infallibility and
had by no means been satisfied at Munich. In March 1939,
Hitler occupied the Czech lands (Bohemia and Moravia),
and the Slovaks, with his encouragement, declared their
independence of the Czechs and set up the German
puppet state of Slovakia. On the evening of March 15,
1939, Hitler triumphantly declared in Prague that he
would be known as the greatest German of them all.
At last, the Western states reacted vigorously to the
Nazi threat. Hitler’s naked aggression had made it clear that
his promises were utterly worthless. When he began to
demand the return to Germany of Danzig (which had been
made a free city by the Treaty of Versailles to serve as a
seaport for Poland), Britain recognized the danger and
offered to protect Poland in the event of war. Both France
and Britain realized that they needed
Soviet help to contain Nazi aggres-
sion and began political and military
negotiations with Stalin. Their dis-
trust of Soviet communism, how-
ever, made an alliance unlikely.
Meanwhile, Hitler pressed on in
the belief that Britain and France
would not go to war over Poland. To
preclude an alliance between the
western European states and the So-
viet Union, which would create the
danger of a two-front war, Hitler,
ever the opportunist, approached
Stalin, who had given up hope of any
alliance with Britain and France. The
announcement on August 23, 1939,
of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression
Pact shocked the world. The treaty
with the Soviet Union gave Hitler the
freedom he sought, and on Septem-
ber 1, German forces invaded Po-
land. A secret protocol divided up
the nation of Poland between the
two signatories. Two days later,
Britain and France declared war on Germany. Europe was
again at war.
The Path to War in Asia
In the years immediately following the Japanese seizure of
Manchuria in the fall of 1931, Japanese military forces began
to expand gradually into North China. Using the tactics of
military intimidation and diplomatic bullying rather than
all-out attack, Japanese military authorities began to carve
out a new ‘‘sphere of influence’’ south of the Great Wall.
Not all politicians in Tokyo agreed with this aggres-
sive policy—the young Emperor Hirohito, who had suc-
ceeded to the throne in 1926, was initially nervous about
possible international repercussions—but right-wing ter-
rorists assassinated some of its key critics and intimidated
others into silence. The United States refused to recognize
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CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 127
the Japanese takeover of Manchuria, which Secretary of
State Henry L. Stimson declared an act of ‘‘international
outlawry,’’ but was unwilling to threaten the use of force.
Instead, the Americans attempted to appease Japan in the
hope of encouraging moderate forces in Japanese society.
As one senior U.S. diplomat with long experience in Asia
warned in a memorandum to the president:
Utter defeat of Japan would be no blessing to the Far East
or to the world. It would merely create a new set of stresses,
and substitute for Japan the USSR—as the successor to Imperial
Russia—as a contestant (and at least an equally unscrupulous
and dangerous one) for the mastery of the East. Nobody except
perhaps Russia would gain from our victory in such a war.3
For the moment, the prime victim of Japanese ag-
gression was China. Nevertheless, Chiang Kai-shek at-
tempted to avoid a confrontation with Japan so that he
could deal with what he considered the greater threat
from the Communists. When clashes between Chinese
and Japanese troops broke out, he sought to appease the
Japanese by granting them the authority to administer
areas in North China. But, as the Japanese moved steadily
southward, popular protests in Chinese cities against
Japanese aggression intensified. In December 1936,
Chiang was briefly kidnapped by military forces com-
manded by General Zhang Xueliang, who compelled him
to end his military efforts against the Communists in
Yan’an and form a new united front against the Japanese.
After Chinese and Japanese forces clashed at Marco Polo
Bridge, south of Beijing, in July 1937, China refused to
apologize, and hostilities spread.
A Monroe Doctrine for Asia
Japan had not planned to declare war on China, but
neither side would compromise, and the 1937 incident
THE MUNICH CONFERENCE
At the Munich Conference, the leaders of France and Great
Britain capitulated to Hitler’s demands on Czechoslovakia.
When British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain defended his
actions at Munich as necessary for peace, another British
statesman, Winston Churchill, characterized the settlement at
Munich as ‘‘a disaster of the first magnitude.’’ After World
War II, political figures in western Europe and the United
States would cite the example of appeasement at Munich to
encourage vigorous resistance to expansionism by the Soviet
Union.
Winston Churchill, Speech to the House of Commons
(October 5, 1938)
I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget
but which must nevertheless be stated, namely, that we have sus-
tained a total and unmitigated defeat, and that France has suffered
even more than we have. . . . The utmost my right honorable Friend
the Prime Minister . . . has been able to gain for Czechoslovakia and
in the matters which were in dispute has been that the German dic-
tator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has been con-
tent to have them served to him course by course. . . . And I will say
this, that I believe the Czechs, left to themselves and told they were
going to get no help from the Western Powers, would have been
able to make better terms than they have got. . . .
We are in the presence of a disaster of the first magnitude
which has befallen Great Britain and France. Do not let us blind
ourselves to that. . . .
And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the begin-
ning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of
a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a
supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again
and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
Neville Chamberlain, Speech to the House of Commons
(October 6, 1938)
That is my answer to those who say that we should have told Ger-
many weeks ago that, if her army crossed the border of Czechoslova-
kia, we should be at war with her. We had no treaty obligations and
no legal obligations to Czechoslovakia. . . . When we were convinced,
as we became convinced, that nothing any longer would keep the
Sudetenland within the Czechoslovakian State, we urged the Czech
Government as strongly as we could to agree to the cession of terri-
tory, and to agree promptly. . . . It was a hard decision for anyone
who loved his country to take, but to accuse us of having by that
advice betrayed the Czechoslovakian State is simply preposterous.
What we did was save her from annihilation and give her a chance
of new life as a new State, which involves the loss of territory and
fortifications, but may perhaps enable her to enjoy in the future and
develop a national existence under a neutrality and security compa-
rable to that which we see in Switzerland today. Therefore, I think
the Government deserves the approval of this House for their con-
duct of affairs in this recent crisis, which has saved Czechoslovakia
from destruction and Europe from Armageddon.
Q What were the opposing views of Churchill and Chamberlain
on how to respond to Hitler’s demands at Munich? Do these
arguments have any wider relevance for other world crises?
SOURCES: Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (London: His
Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1938), vol. 339, pp. 361–369; Neville Cham-
berlain, In Search of Peace (New York: Putnam, 1939), pp. 215, 217.
128 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
eventually turned into a major conflict. The Japanese
advanced up the Yangtze valley and seized the Chinese
capital of Nanjing, raping and killing thousands of in-
nocent civilians in the process. This horrendous slaughter,
the full enormity of which only emerged many years after
the end of the war, aroused a deep-seated anger against
Japan among the Chinese people that continues even
today to affect relations between the two countries.
But Chiang Kai-shek refused to capitulate and moved
his government upriver to Hankou.
When the Japanese seized that city, he
moved on to Chungking, in remote
Sichuan Province. Japanese strategists
had hoped to force Chiang to join a
Japanese-dominated New Order in
East Asia, comprising Japan, Man-
churia, and China. Now they estab-
lished a puppet regime inNanjing that
would cooperatewith Japan in driving
Western influence out of East Asia.
Tokyo hoped eventually to seize Soviet
Siberia, rich in resources, and to create
a new ‘‘Monroe Doctrine for Asia’’
under which Japan would guide its
Asian neighbors on the path to de-
velopment and prosperity (see the box on p. 130). After all,
who better to instruct Asian societies onmodernization than
the one Asian country that had already achieved it?
Tokyo’s ‘‘Southern Strategy’’
During the late 1930s, Japan began to cooperate with Nazi
Germany on a plan to launch a joint attack on the Soviet
Union and divide up its resources between them. But
when Germany surprised Tokyo by signing a nonaggres-
sion pact with the Soviets in August 1939, Japanese
strategists were compelled to reevaluate their long-term
objectives. Japan was not strong enough to defeat the
Soviet Union alone, as a small but bitter border war along
the Siberian frontier near Manchukuo had amply dem-
onstrated. So the Japanese began to shift their gaze
southward to the vast resources of Southeast Asia—the oil
of the Dutch East Indies, the rubber and tin of Malaya,
and the rice of Burma and Indochina.
A move southward, of course, would risk war with
the European colonial powers and the United States.
Japan’s attack on China in the summer of 1937 had
already aroused strong criticism abroad, particularly
from the United States, where President Franklin D.
Roosevelt threatened to ‘‘quarantine’’ the aggressors
after Japanese military units bombed an American
naval ship operating in China. Public fear of involve-
ment forced the president to draw back, but when
Japan suddenly demanded the right to occupy airfields
and exploit economic resources in French Indochina in
the summer of 1940, the United States warned the
Japanese that it would impose economic sanctions
unless Japan withdrew from the area and returned to its
borders of 1931.
Tokyo viewed the U.S. threat of retaliation as an ob-
stacle to its long-term objectives. Japan badly needed
liquid fuel and scrap iron from the United States. Should
they be cut off, Japan would have to
find them elsewhere. The Japanese
were thus caught in a vise. To obtain
guaranteed access to the natural
resources that were necessary to fuel
the Japanese military machine, Ja-
pan must risk being cut off from its
current source of the raw materials
that would be needed in case of a
conflict. After much debate, the
Japanese decided to launch a sur-
prise attack on U.S. and European
colonies in Southeast Asia in the
hope of a quick victory that would
evict the United States from the
region.
The World at War
Using the tactics of Blitzkrieg, or ‘‘lightning war,’’ Hitler
stunned Europe with the speed and efficiency of the
German attack on Poland. Panzer divisions (a panzer
division was a strike force of about three hundred tanks
and accompanying forces and supplies), supported by
airplanes, broke quickly through Polish lines and en-
circled the bewildered Polish troops, whose courageous
cavalry units were no match for the mechanized forces of
their adversary. Conventional infantry units then moved
in to hold the newly conquered territory. Within four
weeks, Poland had surrendered. On September 28, 1939,
Germany and the Soviet Union officially divided Poland
between them.
The War in Europe
Although Hitler was apparently surprised when France
and Britain declared war on September 3, he was confi-
dent of ultimate victory. After a winter of waiting (called
the ‘‘phony war’’), on April 9, 1940, Germany launched a
Blitzkrieg against Denmark and Norway. One month
later, the Germans attacked the Netherlands, Belgium,
and France. German panzer divisions broke through the
weak French defensive positions in the Ardennes forest
MANCHURIA
NanjingHankou
Chungking
Shanghai
Beijing
Japanese Advances into China, 1931–1938
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 129
and raced across northern France, splitting the Allied
armies and trapping French troops and the entire British
army on the beaches of Dunkirk. Only by heroic efforts
did the British succeed in a gigantic evacuation of 330,000
Allied (mostly British) troops. The French capitulated on
June 22. German armies occupied about three-fifths of
France while the French hero of World War I, Marshal
Philippe Pétain (1856–1951), established a puppet regime
(known as Vichy France) over the remainder. Germany
was now in control of western and central Europe (see
Map 6.1). Britain had still not been defeated, but it was
reeling, and a new wartime cabinet under Prime Minister
Winston Churchill debated whether to seek a negotiated
peace settlement. Churchill, who doubted that Hitler
could be trusted, was opposed.
The Battle of Britain As Hitler realized, an amphibious
invasion of Britain could succeed only if Germany gained
control of the air. In early August 1940, the Luftwaffe
(German air force) launched a major offensive against
British air and naval bases, harbors, communication
centers, and war industries. The British fought back
doggedly, supported by an effective radar system that gave
them early warning of German attacks. Nevertheless, the
British air force suffered critical losses and was probably
saved by Hitler’s change in strategy. In September, in
retaliation for a British air attack on Berlin, Hitler ordered
a shift from military targets to massive bombing of cities
to break British morale. The British rebuilt their air
strength quickly and were soon inflicting major losses on
Luftwaffe bombers. By the end of September, Germany
130 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
had lost the Battle of Britain, and the invasion of the
British Isles had to be abandoned.
At this point, Hitler pursued a new strategy, which
would involve the use of Italian troops to capture Egypt and
the Suez Canal, thus closing the Mediterranean to British
ships and thereby shutting off Britain’s supply of oil. This
strategy failed when the British routed the Italian army.
Although Hitler then sent German troops to the North
African theater of war, his primary concern lay elsewhere;
he had already reached the decision to fulfill his longtime
obsession with the acquisition of territory in the east. In
Mein Kampf, Hitler had declared that future German
expansion must lie in the east, in the vast plains of
southern Russia.
Corsica
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ROMANIA
London
Berlin
Warsaw
Danzig
Paris
Rome
Algiers
Casablanca
Tunis
Yalta
Stalingrad
Leningrad
Murmansk
Dunkirk
Gibraltar
Alexandria
Tehran
Kursk
El
Alamein
NORWAY
SWEDEN
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PORTUGAL
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ALBANIA
LIBYA
ALGERIA
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MOROCCO
SPANISH
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TRANSJORDAN
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UKRAINE
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tic
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0 300 600 Miles
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German-Italian Axis, 1939
Axis satellites and allies, 1941
Axis conquests, 1939–1942
Allied powers and areas
under Allied control
Neutral nations
Axis offensives, 1939–1942
Farthest Axis advance, 1941–1942
Allied offensives, 1942–1945
Soviet annexations, 1939–1940
World War II: Europe and Africa
MAP 6.1 World War II in Europe and North Africa. With its fast and effective military,
Germany quickly overwhelmed much of western Europe. However, Hitler overestimated his
country’s capabilities and underestimated those of his foes. By late 1942, his invasion of the
Soviet Union was failing, and the United States had become a major factor in the war. The
Allies successfully invaded Italy in 1943 and France in 1944.
Q Which countries were neutral, and how did geography help make their neutrality an
option? View an animated version of this map or related maps at www.cengage.com/
history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 131
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
The Russian Campaign Hitler was now convinced that
Britain was remaining in the war only because it expected
Soviet support. If the Soviet Union were smashed, Brit-
ain’s last hope would be eliminated. Moreover, the Ger-
man general staff was convinced that the Soviet Union,
whose military leadership had been decimated by Stalin’s
purge trials, could be defeated quickly and decisively. The
invasion of the Soviet Union was scheduled for spring
1941 but was delayed because of problems in the Balkans.
Mussolini’s disastrous invasion of Greece in October 1940
exposed Italian forces to attack from British air bases in
that country. To secure their Balkan flank, German troops
seized both Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941. Hitler
had already obtained the political cooperation of Hun-
gary, Bulgaria, and Romania. Now reassured, Hitler or-
dered an invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941,
in the belief that the Soviets could still be decisively de-
feated before winter set in. It was a fateful miscalculation.
The massive attack stretched out along an 1,800-mile
front. German troops, supported by powerful panzer units,
advanced rapidly, capturing two million Russian soldiers.
By November, one German army group had swept through
Ukraine and a second was besieging Leningrad; a third
approached within 25 miles of Moscow, the Russian cap-
ital. An early winter and unexpected Soviet resistance,
however, brought a halt to the German advance. For the
first time in the war, German armies had been stopped. A
counterattack in December 1941 by Soviet army units
newly supplied with U.S. weapons came as an ominous
ending to the year for the Germans. ‘‘We knew we were in
trouble,’’ one German war veteran remarked to me many
years later, ‘‘when we became aware that many Russian
soldiers were armed with American rifles.’’
The New Order in Europe
After the German victories in Europe, Nazi propagandists
created glowing images of a new European order based on
the equality of all nations in an integrated economic
community. The reality was rather different. Hitler saw
the Europe he had conquered simply as subject to Ger-
man domination. Only the Germans, he once said, ‘‘can
really organize Europe.’’
The Nazi empire, which at its greatest extent stretched
across continental Europe from the English Channel in the
west to the outskirts of Moscow in the east, was organized
in two different ways. Some areas, such as western Poland,
were annexed and transformed into German provinces.
Most of occupied Europe, however, was administered in-
directly by German officials with the assistance of col-
laborationist regimes.
Racial considerations played an important role in
how conquered peoples were treated. German civil
administrations were established in Norway, Denmark,
and the Netherlands because the Nazis considered their
peoples to be Aryan, or racially akin to the Germans, and
hence worthy of more lenient treatment. Latin peoples,
such as the occupied French, were given military ad-
ministrations. All the occupied territories were ruthlessly
exploited for material goods and manpower for Ger-
many’s labor needs.
Because the conquered lands in the east contained
the living space for German expansion and were popu-
lated in Nazi eyes by racially inferior Slavic peoples, Nazi
administration there was considerably more ruthless.
Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, was put in charge
of German resettlement plans in the region. His task was
to replace the indigenous population with Germans, a
policy first applied to the new German provinces created
in western Poland. One million Poles were uprooted and
dumped in southern Poland. Hundreds of thousands of
ethnic Germans (descendants of Germans who had mi-
grated years earlier from Germany to different parts of
southern and eastern Europe) were encouraged to colo-
nize designated areas in Poland. By 1942, two million
ethnic Germans had been settled in Poland.
The invasion of the Soviet Union inflated Nazi vi-
sions of German colonization in the east. Hitler spoke to
his intimate circle of a colossal project of social engi-
neering after the war, in which Poles, Ukrainians, and
Russians would become slave labor while German peas-
ants settled on the abandoned lands and Germanized
them. Nazis involved in this kind of planning were well
aware of the human costs. Himmler told a gathering of SS
officers that the destruction of 30 million Slavs was a
prerequisite for German plans in the east. ‘‘Whether na-
tions live in prosperity or starve to death interests me
only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture.
Otherwise it is of no interest.’’4
Labor shortages in Germany led to a policy of ruthless
mobilization of foreign labor. After the invasion of the
Soviet Union, the four million Russian prisoners of war
captured by the Germans, along with more than two
million workers conscripted in France, became a major
source of manpower. In 1942, a special office was created
to recruit labor for German farms and industries. By the
summer of 1944, seven million foreign workers had been
shipped to Germany, constituting 20 percent of Germany’s
labor force. At the same time, another seven million
workers were supplying forced labor in their own coun-
tries on farms, in industries, and even in military camps.
The Holocaust No aspect of the Nazi new order was
more tragic than the deliberate attempt to exterminate the
Jewish people of Europe. By the beginning of 1939, Nazi
policy focused on promoting the ‘‘emigration’’ of German
132 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
Jews from Germany. Once the war began in September
1939, the so-called Jewish problem took on new di-
mensions. For a while, there was discussion of the Mada-
gascar Plan—a mass shipment of Jews to the African island
of Madagascar. When war contingencies made this plan
impracticable, an even more drastic policy was conceived.
The SS was given responsibility for what the Nazis
called the Final Solution to the Jewish problem—the an-
nihilation of the Jewish people. Reinhard Heydrich
(1904–1942), head of the SS’s Security Service, was given
administrative responsibility for the Final Solution. After
the defeat of Poland, Heydrich ordered his special strike
forces (Einsatzgruppen) to round up all Polish Jews and
concentrate them in ghettos established in a number of
Polish cities.
In June 1941, the Einsatzgruppen were given new re-
sponsibilities as mobile killing units. These death squads
followed the regular army’s advance into the Soviet
Union. Their job was to round up Jews in the villages
and execute and bury them in mass graves, often giant
pits dug by the victims themselves before they were
shot. Such constant killing produced morale problems
among the SS executioners. During a visit to Minsk in the
Soviet Union, Himmler tried to build morale by pointing
out that
he would not like it if Germans did such a thing gladly. But
their conscience was in no way impaired, for they were sol-
diers who had to carry out every order unconditionally. He
alone had responsibility before God and Hitler for everything
that was happening, . . . and he was acting from a deep un-
derstanding of the necessity for this operation.5
Although it has been estimated that as many as one
million Jews were killed by the Einsatzgruppen, this ap-
proach to solving the Jewish problem was soon perceived
as inadequate. Instead, the Nazis opted for the systematic
annihilation of the European Jewish population in spe-
cially built death camps. Jews from occupied countries
would be rounded up, packed like cattle into freight
trains, and shipped to Poland, where six extermination
centers were built for this purpose. The largest and most
famous was Auschwitz-Birkenau. Zyklon B (the com-
mercial name for hydrogen cyanide) was selected as the
most effective gas for quickly killing large numbers of
people in gas chambers designed to look like shower
rooms to facilitate the cooperation of the victims.
By the spring of 1942, the death camps were in op-
eration. Although initial priority was given to the elimi-
nation of the ghettos in Poland, Jews were soon also being
shipped from France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and
eventually from Greece and Hungary. Despite desperate
military needs, the Final Solution had priority in using
railroad cars to transport Jews to the death camps.
About 30 percent of the arrivals at Auschwitz were
sent to a labor camp, and the remainder went to the gas
chambers. After they had been gassed, the bodies were
burned in crematoria. The victims’ goods and even their
bodies were used for economic gain. Women’s hair was
cut off, collected, and turned into mattresses or cloth.
Some inmates were also subjected to cruel and painful
‘‘medical’’ experiments. The Germans killed between five
and six million Jews, more than three million of them in
the death camps. Virtually 90 percent of the Jewish
populations of Poland, the Baltic countries, and Germany
were exterminated. Overall, the Holocaust was responsi-
ble for the death of nearly two of every three European
Jews (see the box on p. 134).
The Nazis were also responsible for the death by
shooting, starvation, or overwork of at least another nine
to ten million people. Because the Nazis considered the
Gypsies (like the Jews) an alien race, they were system-
atically rounded up for extermination. About 40 percent
of Europe’s one million Gypsies were killed in the death
camps. The leading elements of the Slavic peoples—the
The Holocaust: An Image from Buchenwald. When Allied
troops began to occupy Nazi concentration camps in Germany, Austria,
and Poland at the end of World War II, they were stunned by the horrific
scenes of inhumanity that they observed there: ovens still filled with the
charred remains of prisoners; piles of bodies rotting in uncovered graves;
emaciated survivors who greeted the troops with vacant eyes and
frequently died within hours or days of their liberation. Sometimes,
however, the most poignant images were deceptively simple, though
frightening in their connotations—piles of shoes, of eyeglasses, or even
of children’s toys, all left by the victims of the Nazi terror. Shown here is
a pile of thousands of wedding rings found in a cave near the camp at
Buchenwald.
A
P
Im
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es
/U
S
A
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or
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CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 133
clergy, intelligentsia, civil leaders, judges, and lawyers—
were also arrested and executed. Probably an additional
four million Poles, Ukrainians, and Belorussians lost their
lives in the concentration camps or as slave laborers for
Nazi Germany, and at least three to four million Soviet
prisoners of war were killed in captivity. The Nazis also
singled out homosexuals for persecution, and thousands
lost their lives in concentration camps.
War Spreads in Asia
On December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based aircraft at-
tacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian
Islands. The same day, other units launched assaults on the
Philippines and began advancing toward the British colony
of Malaya. Shortly thereafter, Japanese forces seized the
British island of Singapore, invaded the Dutch East Indies,
and occupied a number of islands in the Pacific Ocean. In
some cases, as on the Bataan peninsula and the island of
Corregidor in the Philippines, resistance was fierce, but by
the spring of 1942, almost all of Southeast Asia and much
of the western Pacific had fallen into Japanese hands.
Placing the entire region under Japanese tutelage, Japan
announced its intention to liberate Southeast Asia from
Western rule. For the moment, however, Tokyo needed the
resources of the region for its war machine and placed its
conquests under its rule on a wartime footing.
Japanese leaders had hoped that their strike at American
bases would destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet and persuade the
Roosevelt administration to accept Japanese domination
of the Pacific. The American people, in the eyes of Japanese
leaders, had been made soft by material indulgence. But
the Japanese had miscalculated. The attack on Pearl Har-
bor galvanized American opinion and won broad support
for Roosevelt’s war policy. The United States now joined
with European nations and the embattled peoples of Na-
tionalist China in a combined effort to defeat Japan’s plan
to achieve hegemony in the Pacific.
THE HOLOCAUST: THE CAMP COMMANDANT AND THE CAMP VICTIMS
The systematic annihilation of millions of men, women, and
children in extermination camps makes the Holocaust one of
the most horrifying events in history. The first document is
taken from an account by Rudolf Höss, commandant of the ex-
termination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the second docu-
ment, a French doctor explains what happened to the victims
at one of the crematoria described by Höss.
Commandant Höss Describes the Equipment
The two large crematoria, Nos. I and II, were built during the winter
of 1942–43. . . . They each . . . could cremate c. 2,000 corpses within
twenty-four hours. . . . Crematoria I and II both had underground
undressing and gassing rooms which could be completely ventilated.
The corpses were brought up to the ovens on the floor above by lift.
The gas chambers could hold c. 3,000 people.
The firm of Topf had calculated that the two smaller cremato-
ria, III and IV, would each be able to cremate 1,500 corpses within
twenty-four hours. However, owing to the wartime shortage of
materials, the builders were obliged to economize and so the
undressing rooms and gassing rooms were built above ground and
the ovens were of a less solid construction. But it soon became ap-
parent that the flimsy construction of these two four-retort ovens
was not up to the demands made on it. No. III ceased operating al-
together after a short time and later was no longer used. No. IV had
to be repeatedly shut down since after a short period in operation
of 4–6 weeks, the ovens and chimneys had burnt out. The victims
of the gassing were mainly burnt in pits behind crematorium IV.
The largest number of people gassed and cremated within
twenty-four hours was somewhat over 9,000.
A French Doctor Describes the Victims
It is mid-day, when a long line of women, children, and old people
enter the yard. The senior official in charge . . . climbs on a bench to
tell them that they are going to have a bath and that afterward they
will get a drink of hot coffee. They all undress in the yard. . . . The
doors are opened and an indescribable jostling begins. The first peo-
ple to enter the gas chamber begin to draw back. They sense the
death which awaits them. The SS men put an end to this pushing
and shoving with blows from their rifle butts beating the heads of
the horrified women who are desperately hugging their children.
The massive oak double doors are shut. For two endless minutes
one can hear banging on the walls and screams which are no longer
human. And then—not a sound. Five minutes later the doors are
opened. The corpses, squashed together and distorted, fall out
like a waterfall. . . . The bodies which are still warm pass through
the hands of the hairdresser who cuts their hair and the dentist who
pulls out their gold teeth. One more transport has just been pro-
cessed through No. IV crematorium.
Q What equipment does Höss describe? What process does
the French doctor describe? It there any sympathy for the vic-
tims in either account? Why or why not? How could such a horri-
fying procedure have been allowed to be put into action?
SOURCES: From Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Ru-
dolph Hoss, Cleveland World Publishing Company. From Nazism: A
History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, Vol. II by J. Noakes and
G. Pridham. Copyright �C 1988 by Department of History and Archaeology,
University of Exeter.
134 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
U.S. Strategy in the Pacific On December 11, 1941,
four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
Germany declared war on the United States. Confronted
with the reality of a two-front war, President Roosevelt
decided that because of the overwhelming superiority of
the Wehrmacht in Europe, the war effort in that theater
should receive priority over the conflict with Japan in the
Pacific. Accordingly, U.S. war strategists drafted plans to
make maximum use of their new ally in China. An ex-
perienced U.S. military commander, Lieutenant General
Joseph Stilwell, was appointed as Roosevelt’s special ad-
viser to Chiang Kai-shek. His objective was to train
Chinese Nationalist forces in preparation for an Allied
advance through mainland China toward the Japanese
islands. By the fall of 1942, Allied forces were beginning to
gather for offensive operations into South China from
Burma, while U.S. cargo planes continued to fly ‘‘over the
hump’’ through the Himalaya Mountains to supply the
Chinese government in Chungking with desperately
needed war supplies.
In the meantime, the tide of battle began to turn in
the Pacific. In the Battle of the Coral Sea in early May
1942, U.S. naval forces stopped the Japanese advance in
the Dutch East Indies and temporarily relieved Australia
of the threat of invasion. On June 4, American carrier
planes destroyed all four of the attacking Japanese aircraft
carriers near Midway Island and established U.S. naval
superiority in the Pacific, even though almost all of the
American planes were shot down in the encounter. Farther
to the south, U.S. troops under the command of General
Douglas MacArthur launched their own campaign (dubbed
‘‘island hopping’’) by invading the Japanese-held island of
New Guinea, at the eastern end of the Dutch East Indies.
After a series of bitter engagements in the Solomon Islands
from August to November 1942, Japanese fortunes in the
area began to fade (see Map 6.2).
The New Order in Asia
Once their military takeover was completed, Japanese
policy in the occupied areas of Asia became essentially
defensive, as Japan hoped to use its new possessions to
meet its burgeoning needs for raw materials, such as tin,
oil, and rubber, as well as an outlet for Japanese manu-
factured goods. To provide an organizational structure for
a new Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a Ministry
for Great East Asia, staffed by civilians, was established in
Tokyo in October 1942 to handle relations between Japan
and the conquered territories (see the box on p. 137).
Asia for the Asians? The Japanese conquest of South-
east Asia had been accomplished under the slogan ‘‘Asia for
the Asians,’’ and many Japanese sincerely believed that their
government was bringing about the liberation of the
Southeast Asian peoples from European colonial rule.
Japanese officials in the occupied territories made contact
with nationalist elements and promised that independent
governments would be established under Japanese tutelage.
Such governments were eventually set up in Burma, the
Dutch East Indies, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
In fact, however, real power rested with the Japanese
military authorities in each territory, and the local Japa-
nese military command was directly subordinated to the
Army General Staff in Tokyo. The economic resources of
the colonies were exploited for the benefit of the Japanese
war machine, while natives were recruited to serve in local
military units or conscripted to work on public works
projects. In some cases, the people living in the occupied
areas were subjected to severe hardships. In Indochina,
for example, forced requisitions of rice by the local Jap-
anese authorities for shipment abroad created a food
shortage that caused the starvation of more than a million
Vietnamese in 1944 and 1945.
The Japanese planned to implant a new moral and
social order as well as a new political and economic order
in the occupied areas. Occupation policy stressed tradi-
tional values such as obedience, community spirit, filial
piety, and discipline that reflected the prevailing political
and cultural bias in Japan, while supposedly Western
values such as materialism, liberalism, and individualism
were strongly discouraged. To promote the creation of this
new order, occupation authorities gave particular support
to local religious organizations but discouraged the for-
mation of formal political parties.
At first, many Southeast Asian nationalists took Jap-
anese promises at face value and agreed to cooperate with
their new masters. In Burma, an independent government
was established in 1943 and subsequently declared war on
the Allies. But as the exploitative nature of Japanese oc-
cupation policies became increasingly clear, sentiment
turned against the new order. Japanese officials sometimes
unwittingly provoked resentment by their arrogance and
contempt for local customs. In the Dutch East Indies, for
example, Indonesians were required to bow in the direc-
tion of Tokyo and recognize the divinity of the Japanese
emperor, practices that were repugnant to Muslims. In
Burma, Buddhist pagodas were sometimes used as military
latrines. A generation later, many male Vietnamese still
expressed anger at the memory of being severely punished
by Japanese officials for urinating in public.
Like German soldiers in occupied Europe, Japanese
military forces often had little respect for the lives of their
subject peoples and viewed the Geneva Convention
governing the treatment of prisoners of war as little more
than a fabrication of the Western countries to tie the
hands of their adversaries. In their conquest of northern
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 135
and central China, the Japanese freely used poison gas
and biological weapons, leading to the deaths of millions
of Chinese citizens. The Japanese occupation of the
onetime Chinese capital of Nanjing was especially brutal.
In what has become notorious as the ‘‘Nanjing incident,’’
they spent several days killing, raping, and looting the
local population.
Japanese soldiers were also savage in their treatment
of Koreans. Almost 800,000 Koreans were sent overseas,
most of them as forced laborers, to Japan. Tens of
thousands of Korean women were forced to be ‘‘comfort
women’’ (prostitutes) for Japanese troops. In construction
projects to help their war effort, the Japanese also made
extensive use of labor forces composed of both prisoners
of war and local peoples. In building the Burma-Thailand
railway in 1943, for example, the Japanese used 61,000
Australian, British, and Dutch prisoners of war and al-
most 300,000 workers from Burma, Malaya, Thailand,
and the Dutch East Indies. An inadequate diet and ap-
palling work conditions in an unhealthy climate led to the
deaths of 12,000 Allied prisoners of war and 90,000 native
workers by the time the railway was completed. A graphic
Aleutia
n Is
lan
ds
ALASKA
MANCHUKUO
(MANCHURIA)
Kamchatka
IWO JIMA
MIDWAY
HAWAIIAN
ISLANDS
GUADALCANAL
TINIAN
OKINAWA
ATTU
Solomon
Islands
Marshall Islands
Saipan
Guam
Bonin Islands
Mariana Islands
Ku
ril
e I
sla
nd
s
Ry
uk
u I
sla
nd
s
Caroline Islands
Sakhalin
Pa c i f i c
O c e a n
Ind ian
Ocean Coral
Sea
SOVIET UNION
INDIA
BURMA
THAILAND
FRENCH
INDOCHINA
AUSTRALIA
PHILIPPINE
ISLANDS
KOREA
MONGOLIA
CHINA
CANADA
JAPAN
MALAYA
BORNEO
NEW
GUINEA
D
U
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C
H
E A S T I N D I
E S
Tokyo
Nagasaki
Hiroshima
Chungking
Nanjing
Bataan
Mukden
Singapore
Hong
Kong
Pearl
Harbor
Anchorage
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 1,000 1,500 Kilometers
Allied powers and areas
under Allied control
Japanese Empire, 1937
Japanese conquests, 1937–1944
Japanese satellite areas, 1941
Farthest Japanese advance
Allied offensives, 1942–1945
Japanese offensives, 1942–1945
Main bombing routes
Naval battles
World War II: Asia and the Pacific
MAP 6.2 World War II in Asia and the Pacific. In 1937, Japan invaded northern China,
beginning its effort to create the ‘‘Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’’ Further expansion
induced America to end iron and oil sales to Japan. Deciding that war with the United States
was inevitable, Japan engineered a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.
Q Why was control of the islands in the western Pacific of great importance both to the
Japanese and to the Allies? View an animated version of this map or related maps
at www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
136 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
portrayal of such conditions was later presented in the
award-winning movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai.
Such Japanese behavior created a dilemma for many
nationalists, who had no desire to see the return of the
colonial powers. Some turned against the Japanese, and
others lapsed into inactivity. Indonesian patriots tried to
have it both ways, feigning support for Japan while at-
tempting to sabotage the Japanese administration. In
Indochina, Ho Chi Minh’s Indochinese Communist Party
established contacts with American military units in
South China and agreed to provide information on Jap-
anese troop movements and rescue downed American
fliers in the area. In Malaya, where Japanese treatment of
ethnic Chinese residents was especially harsh, many
joined a guerrilla movement against the occupying forces.
By the end of the war, little support remained in the re-
gion for the erstwhile ‘‘liberators.’’
The Turning Point of the War, 1942–1943
The entry of the United States into the war created a co-
alition, called the Grand Alliance, that ultimately defeated
the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan). Nevertheless,
the three major Allies—Britain, the United States, and the
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 137
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
Soviet Union—had to overcome mutual distrust before
they could operate as an effective alliance. In a bid to allay
Stalin’s suspicion of U.S. intentions, President Roosevelt
declared that the defeat of Germany should be the first
priority of the alliance. The United States, under its Lend-
Lease program, also sent large amounts of military aid,
including $50 billion worth of trucks, planes, and other
arms, to the Soviet Union. In 1943, the Allies agreed
to fight until the Axis Powers surrendered uncondition-
ally. This had the effect of making it nearly impossible
for Hitler to divide his foes. On the other hand, it likely
discouraged dissident Germans and Japanese from over-
throwing their governments to arrange a negotiated
peace.
Victory, however, was only a vision for the distant
future in the minds of Allied leaders at the beginning of
1942. As Japanese forces advanced into Southeast Asia
and the Pacific after crippling the American naval fleet at
Pearl Harbor, Axis forces continued the war in Europe
against Britain and the Soviet Union. Reinforcements in
North Africa enabled the Afrika Korps under General
Erwin Rommel to break through the British defenses in
Egypt and advance toward Alexandria. In the spring of
1942, a renewed German offensive in the Soviet Union led
to the capture of the entire Crimean peninsula, causing
Hitler to boast that in two years, German divisions would
be on the Indian border.
The Battle of Stalingrad By that fall, however, the war
had begun to turn against the Germans. In North Africa,
British forces stopped Rommel’s troops at El Alamein in
the summer of 1942 and then forced them back across the
desert. In November, U.S. forces landed in French North
Africa and forced the German and Italian troops to sur-
render in May 1943. Allied war strategists drew up plans
for an invasion of Italy, on the ‘‘soft underbelly’’ of Europe.
But the true turning point of the war undoubtedly
occurred on the Eastern Front, where the German armed
forces suffered 80 percent of their casualties during the
entire war. After capturing the Crimea, Hitler’s generals
wanted him to concentrate on the Caucasus and its oil
fields, but Hitler decided that Stalingrad, a major indus-
trial center on the Volga, should be taken as well. Ac-
cordingly, German forces advancing in the southern
Soviet Union were divided. After three months of bitter
fighting, German troops occupied the city of Stalingrad,
but Soviet troops in the area, using a strategy of encir-
clement, now counterattacked. Besieged from all sides,
the Germans were forced to surrender on February 2,
1943. The entire German Sixth Army of 300,000 men was
lost, with the survivors sent off to prison camps. Soviet
casualties were estimated at nearly one million, more than
the United States lost in the entire war. By spring, long
before Allied troops landed on the European continent,
even Hitler knew that the Germans would not defeat the
Soviet Union. The Wehrmacht was now in full retreat all
across the Eastern Front.
The Last Years of the War
By the beginning of 1943, the tide of battle had begun to
turn against the Axis. On July 10, the Allies crossed the
Mediterranean and carried the war to Italy. After taking
Sicily, Allied troops began the invasion of mainland Italy
in September. Following the ouster and arrest of Mus-
solini, a new Italian government offered to surrender to
Allied forces. But the Germans, in a daring raid, liberated
Mussolini and set him up as the head of a puppet German
state in northern Italy while German troops occupied
much of Italy. The new defensive lines established by the
Germans in the hills south of Rome were so effective that
the Allied advance up the Italian peninsula was slow and
marked by heavy casualties. Rome finally fell on June 4,
1944. By that time, the Italian war had assumed a sec-
ondary role as the Allies opened their long-awaited sec-
ond front in western Europe.
Operation Overlord Since the autumn of 1943, under
considerable pressure from Stalin, the Allies had been
planning a cross-channel invasion of France (known as
Operation Overlord) from Great Britain. Under the di-
rection of U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–
1969), five assault divisions landed on the Normandy
beaches on June 6, 1944, in history’s greatest naval inva-
sion. An initially indecisive German response enabled the
Allied forces to establish a beachhead, although casualties
were heavy. Within three months, they had landed two
million men and a half-million vehicles that pushed in-
land and broke through the German defensive lines. Some
of those were French troops loyal to the Free French leader
General Charles de Gaulle.
After the breakout, Allied troops moved south and
east, liberating Paris by the end of August. By March
1945, they had crossed the Rhine and advanced into
Germany. The Allied advance northward through Bel-
gium encountered greater resistance, as German troops
launched a desperate counterattack known as the Battle
of the Bulge. The operation involved the introduction
of a new generation of ‘‘King Tiger’’ tanks more pow-
erful than anything the Allied forces could array against
them. The Allies weathered the German attack, how-
ever, and in late April, they finally linked up with Soviet
units at the Elbe River.
Advance in the East The Soviets had come a long way
since the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943. In the summer
138 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
of 1943, Hitler gambled on taking the offensive by
making use of the first generation of ‘‘Tiger’’ tanks. At the
Battle of Kursk (July 5–12), the greatest engagement of
World War II, involving competing forces numbering
over 3.5 million men, the Soviets soundly defeated the
German forces. Soviet forces, now supplied with their
own ‘‘T-34’’ heavy tanks, began a relentless advance west-
ward. The Soviets reoccupied Ukraine by the end of 1943,
lifted the siege of Leningrad, and moved into the Baltic
states by the beginning of 1944. Advancing along a
northern front, Soviet troops occupied Warsaw in January
1945 and entered Berlin in April. Meanwhile, Soviet
troops along a southern front swept through Hungary,
Romania, and Bulgaria.
In January 1945, Hitler moved into a bunker 55 feet
under Berlin to direct the final stages of the war. He
committed suicide on April 30, two days after Mussolini
was shot by partisan Italian forces. On May 7, German
commanders surrendered. The war in Europe was over.
The Peace Settlement
In November 1943, Stalin, Roo-
sevelt, and Churchill, the leaders
of the Grand Alliance, met at
Tehran (the capital of Iran) to
decide the future course of the
war. Their major strategic deci-
sion involved approval for an
American-British invasion of the
Continent through France, which
they scheduled for the spring of
1944. The acceptance of this plan
had important consequences. It
meant that Soviet and British-
American forces would meet in
defeated Germany along a north-
south dividing line and that
eastern Europe would most likely
be liberated by Soviet forces. The
Allies also agreed to a partition of
postwar Germany until denazifi-
cation could take place. Roosevelt
privately assured Stalin that So-
viet borders in Europe would be
moved westward to compensate
for the loss of territories belong-
ing to the old Russian Empire
after World War I. Poland would
receive lands in eastern Germany
to make up for territory lost in
the east to the Soviet Union.
The Yalta Agreement
In February 1945, the three Allied leaders met once more
at Yalta, on the Crimean peninsula of the Soviet Union.
Since the defeat of Germany was a foregone conclusion,
much of the attention focused on the war in the Pacific. At
Tehran, Roosevelt had sought Soviet military help against
Japan, and Stalin had assured him that Soviet forces would
be in a position to enter the Pacific war three months
after the close of the conflict in Europe. At Yalta, FDR
reopened the subject. Development of the atomic bomb
was not yet assured, and U.S. military planners feared the
possibility of heavy casualties in amphibious assaults on
the Japanese home islands. Roosevelt therefore agreed to
Stalin’s price for military assistance against Japan: pos-
session of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, as well as two
warm-water ports and railroad rights in Manchuria.
The creation of a newUnitedNations to replace the now
discredited League of Nations was a major U.S. concern at
Yalta. Roosevelt hoped to ensure the participation of the Big
Three Powers in a postwar international organization before
difficult issues divided them into hostile camps. After a
The Victorious Allied Leaders at Yalta. Even before World War II ended, the leaders of the Big
Three of the Grand Alliance—Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin (shown seated from left to right)—met in
wartime conferences to plan the final assault on Germany and negotiate the outlines of the postwar settlement.
At the Yalta meeting (February 5–11, 1945), the three leaders concentrated on postwar issues. The American
president, visibly weary at Yalta, died two months later. He would later be accused of selling out U.S. interests
to Stalin at the conference.
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CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 139
number of compromises, both Churchill and Stalin accepted
Roosevelt’s plans for theUnitedNations organization and set
the first meeting for San Francisco in April 1945.
The issues of Germany and eastern Europe were
treated less decisively and with considerable acrimony.
The Big Three reaffirmed that Germany must surrender
unconditionally and created four occupation zones.
German reparations were set at $20 billion. A compro-
mise was also worked out in regard to Poland. Stalin
agreed to free elections in the future to determine a new
government. But the issue of free elections in eastern
Europe would ultimately cause a serious rift between the
Soviets and the Americans as well as a source of political
controversy in the United States. The Allied leaders
agreed on an ambiguous statement that eastern Euro-
pean governments would be freely elected but were also
supposed to be friendly to the Soviet Union. This at-
tempt to reconcile the irreconcilable was doomed to
failure and would eventually provoke harsh criticism of
Roosevelt’s performance at Yalta from his critics in the
United States. For his part, FDR was determined to avoid
the poisonous feelings left by the Treaty of Versailles after
World War I and hoped to win Stalin’s confidence as a
means of maintaining the Grand Alliance at the close of
the war.
Confrontation at Potsdam
Even before the next conference at Potsdam, Germany,
took place in July 1945, Western relations with the Soviets
had begun to deteriorate rapidly. The Grand Alliance had
been one of necessity in which ideological incompatibility
had been subordinated to the pragmatic concerns of the
war. The Allied Powers’ only common aim was the defeat
of Nazism. Once this aim had been all but accomplished,
the many differences that antagonized East-West relations
came to the surface.
The Potsdam Conference of July 1945, the last Allied
conference of World War II, consequently began under a
cloud of mistrust. Roosevelt had died on April 12 and had
been succeeded as president by Harry S. Truman. During
the conference, Truman received word that the atomic
bomb had been successfully tested. Some historians have
argued that this knowledge stiffened Truman’s resolve
against the Soviets. Whatever the reasons, there was a new
coldness in the relations between the Soviets and the
Americans. At Potsdam, Truman demanded free elections
throughout eastern Europe. After a bitterly fought and
devastating war, however, Stalin sought absolute military
security, which in his view could be ensured only by the
presence of Communist states in eastern Europe. Free
elections might result in governments hostile to the Soviet
Union. By the middle of 1945, only an invasion by
Western forces could undo developments in eastern Eu-
rope, and in the immediate aftermath of the world’s most
destructive conflict, few people favored such a policy. But
the stage was set for a new confrontation, this time be-
tween the two major victors of World War II.
The War in the Pacific Ends
During the spring and early summer of 1945, the war in
Asia continued, although with a significant change in
approach. Allied war planners had initially hoped to focus
their main effort on an advance through China with the
aid of Chinese Nationalist forces trained and equipped by
the United States. But Roosevelt became disappointed
with Chiang Kai-shek’s failure to take the offensive
against Japanese forces in China and eventually approved
Kamikaze! As the war in the Pacific neared an end in the summer of
1945, U.S. troops invaded the island of Okinawa, not far from the Japanese
mainland. In desperation, Tokyo adopted a new tactic to stave off certain
defeat, ordering the launching of suicidal attacks on U.S. warships operating in
Japanese coastal waters. Volunteer pilots, many of them quite young and
operating small planes specifically designed to strike directly at enemy targets,
caused enormous damage to U.S. naval vessels in the final weeks of the war.
The term kamikaze (meaning ‘‘divine wind’’) was applied to these attacks, in
memory of the ‘‘divine wind’’—or massive typhoon—that destroyed a Mongol
fleet as it sought to invade Japan in the thirteenth century. Shown here, a
kamikaze plane is about to strike the U.S. battleship Missouri.
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140 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
a new strategy to strike toward the Japanese home islands
directly across the Pacific. This ‘‘island-hopping’’ ap-
proach took an increasing toll on enemy resources, es-
pecially at sea and in the air. Meanwhile, new U.S. long-
range B-29 bombers unleashed a wave of destruction on
all major cities in the Japanese homeland.
As Allied forces drew inexorably closer to the main
Japanese islands in the summer of 1945, President Harry
Truman, who had succeeded to the presidency on the
death of Franklin Roosevelt in April, had an excruciat-
ingly difficult decision to make. Should he use atomic
weapons (at the time, only two bombs were available, and
their effectiveness had not been demonstrated) to bring
the war to an end without the necessity of an Allied in-
vasion of the Japanese homeland? The invasion of the
island of Okinawa in April had resulted in thousands of
casualties on both sides, with many Japanese troops
committing suicide rather than surrendering to enemy
forces.
After an intensive debate within the administration,
Truman approved the use of America’s new superweapon.
The first bomb was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on
August 6. Truman then called on Japan to surrender or
expect a ‘‘rain of ruin from the air.’’ When the Japanese
did not respond, a second bomb was dropped on Naga-
saki three days later. The destruction in Hiroshima was
incredible. Of 76,000 buildings near the center of the
explosion, 70,000 were flattened, and 140,000 of the city’s
400,000 inhabitants died by the end of 1945. By the end
of 1950, another 50,000 had perished from the effects of
radiation. The dropping of the first atomic bomb intro-
duced the world to the nuclear age.
The nuclear attack on Japan, combined with the news
that Soviet forces had launched an attack on Japanese-
held areas in Manchuria, did have its intended effect,
however. Japan surrendered unconditionally on August 14.
World War II, in which 17 million combatants died in
battle and almost 20 million civilians perished as well, was
finally over.
In the years following the end of the war, Truman’s
decision to approve the use of nuclear weapons to compel
Japan to surrender was harshly criticized, not only for
causing thousands of civilian casualties but also for in-
troducing a frightening new weapon that could threaten
the survival of the human race. Some have even charged
that Truman’s real purpose in ordering the nuclear strikes
was to intimidate the Soviet Union. Defenders of the
decision argue that the human costs of invading the
Japanese home islands would have been infinitely higher
had the bombs not been dropped and that the Soviet
Union would have had ample time to consolidate its
control over Manchuria and command a larger role in the
postwar occupation of Japan.
The Home Front: Three Examples
WorldWar IIwas evenmore of a globalwar thanWorldWar I.
Fighting was much more widespread, economic mobili-
zation was more extensive, and so was the mobilization of
women. And the number of civilians killed was far higher:
almost 20 million were killed by bombing raids, mass ex-
termination policies, and attacks by invading armies.
The Soviet Union
The home fronts of the major belligerents varied with the
local circumstances. World War II had an enormous im-
pact on the Soviet Union. Two of every five people killed in
World War II were Soviet citizens. Leningrad experienced
nine hundred days of siege, during which its inhabitants
became so desperate for food that they ate dogs, cats, and
mice. As the German army made its rapid advance into
Soviet territory, the factories in the western part of the
Soviet Union were dismantled and shipped to the interior—
to the Urals, western Siberia, and the Volga region.
Soviet women played a major role in the war effort.
Women and girls worked in industries, mines, and rail-
roads. Overall, the number of women working in industry
increased by almost 60 percent. Soviet women were also
expected to dig antitank ditches and work as air-raid
wardens. Finally, the Soviet Union was the only country to
use women as combatants in World War II. Soviet women
functioned as snipers and also as air crews in bomber
squadrons. The female pilots who helped defeat the Ger-
mans at Stalingrad were known as the ‘‘Night Witches.’’
The United States
The home front in the United States was quite different
from those of its chief wartime allies, largely because the
United States faced no threat of war on its own territory.
Although the economy and labor force were slow to
mobilize, the United States eventually became the arsenal
of the Allied Powers, producing the military equipment
they needed. At the height of war production in 1943, the
nation was constructing six ships a day and $6 billion
worth of war-related goods a month. Much of this in-
dustrial labor was done by American women, who, despite
some public opposition, willingly took jobs in factories to
replace husbands and brothers who had gone off to war.
The mobilization of the U.S. economy caused social
problems. The construction of new factories created
boomtowns where thousands came to work but then faced
shortages of housing, health facilities, and schools. More
than onemillion African Americans migrated from the rural
South to the industrial cities of the North andWest, looking
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 141
for jobs in industry. The presence of African Americans in
areas where they had not been present before led to racial
tensions and sometimes even race riots.
Japanese Americans were treated especially shabbily.
On the West Coast, 110,000 Japanese Americans, 65 per-
cent of them born in the United States, were removed to
camps encircled by barbed wire and made to take loyalty
oaths. Although public officials claimed that this policy
was necessary for security reasons, no similar treatment of
German Americans or Italian Americans ever took place.
Eventually, President Roosevelt agreed to alleviate the
situation for Japanese Americans, and by 1943, one-third
of those interned had been released from the camps to
work in factories or enter military service.
Japan
In Japan, society had been put on a wartime footing even
before the attack on Pearl Harbor. A conscription law was
passed in 1938, and economic resources were placed
under strict government control. Two years later, all po-
litical parties were merged into the so-called Imperial
Rule Assistance Association. Labor unions were dissolved,
and education and culture were purged of all ‘‘corrupt’’
Western ideas in favor of traditional values emphasizing
the divinity of the emperor and the higher spirituality of
Japanese civilization. During the war, individual rights
were severely curtailed as the entire population was har-
nessed to the needs of the war effort.
Japan was reluctant, however, to mobilize women on
behalf of the war effort. General Hideki Tojo, prime
minister from 1941 to 1944, opposed female employ-
ment, arguing that ‘‘the weakening of the family system
would be the weakening of the nation. . . . We are able to
do our duties only because we have wives and mothers at
home.’’6 Female employment increased during the war,
but only in areas, such as the textile industry and farming,
where women traditionally worked. Instead of using women
tomeet labor shortages, the Japanese government brought in
Korean and Chinese laborers.
TIMELINE
1925 1930 1935 1940 1945
Europe
Mussolini creates Fascist
dictatorship in Italy
(1926)
Hitler comes to power
in Germany
(1933)
Japan
Fall of
France
(1940)
Battle of
Stalingrad
(1943)
Yalta
Conference
(1945)
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor
(1941)
The Holocaust
(1940–1945)
Atomic bomb
dropped on
Hiroshima
(1945)
Japan seizes Manchuria
(1931)
Sino-Japanese War begins
(1937)
CONCLUSION
WORLD WAR II WAS THE MOST DEVASTATING total war in human history.
Germany, Italy, and Japan had been utterly defeated. Tens of
millions of people—soldiers and civilians—had been killed in only
six years. Soviet losses during the war have been estimated as high as
50 million.7 In Asia and Europe, cities had been reduced to rubble,
and millions of people faced starvation as once fertile lands stood
neglected or wasted. Untold millions of people had become
refugees.
What were the underlying causes of the war? One direct cause
was the effort by two rising capitalist powers, Germany and Japan,
to make up for their relatively late arrival on the scene by carving
out their own global empires. Key elements in both countries had
142 P A R T I I CULTURES IN COLLISION
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Benito Mussolini, ‘‘The Doctrine of Fascism,’’ in Italian Fascisms
from Pareto to Gentile, ed. Adrian Lyttleton (London, 1973), p. 42.
2. Cited in Jonathon Fenby, Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Generalissimo
and the Nation He Lost (New York, 2003), p. 180.
3. John Van Antwerp MacMurray, quoted in Arthur Waldron, How
the Peace Was Lost: The 1935 Memorandum: ‘‘Developments Af-
fecting American Policy in the Far East’’ (Stanford, Calif., 1992), p. 5.
4. International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals
(Nuremberg, 1947–1949), vol. 22, p. 480.
5. Quoted in Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews,
rev. ed. (New York, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 332–333.
6. Quoted in John Campbell, The Experience of World War II (New
York, 1989), p. 143.
7. Cited in B. Schwarz, ‘‘A Job for Rewrite: Stalin’s War,’’ New York
Times, February 2, 2004.
resented the agreements reached after the end of World War I that
divided the world in a manner favorable to their rivals and hoped to
overturn them at the earliest opportunity. Neither Germany nor
Japan possessed a strong tradition of political pluralism; to the
contrary, in both countries, the legacy of a feudal past marked by
a strong military tradition still wielded great influence over the
political system and the mind-set of the entire population. It is
no surprise that under the impact of the Great Depression, the
effects of which were severe in both countries, fragile democratic
institutions were soon overwhelmed by militant forces determined
to enhance national wealth and power.
Not all totalitarian states were inherently aggressive during the
interwar era. The Soviet Union—although certainly unhappy with
the results of the postwar peace treaties—was preoccupied with
domestic problems, and Stalin seemed content to await the next
crisis in the capitalist marketplace before seeking actively to
overthrow what Communists called the yoke of world imperialism.
Whatever the causes of World War II and its controversial
conclusion, the consequences were soon to be evident. European
hegemony over the world was at an end, and two new superpowers
on the fringes of traditional Western civilization had emerged to
take their place in the world. Even before the last battles had been
fought, the United States and the Soviet Union had arrived at
different visions of the postwar world. No sooner had the war ended
than their differences gave rise to a new and potentially even more
devastating conflict: the Cold War. Bright hopes that the peace
agreements would usher in a new era of peace and democracy
would be severely tested in coming years.
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 6 THE CRISIS DEEPENS: THE OUTBREAK OF WORLD WAR II 143
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
144
BY 1945, THE ERA OF EUROPEAN HEGEMONY in
world affairs was over. As World War I was followed by
revolutions, the Great Depression, the mass murder ma-
chines of totalitarian regimes, and the destructiveness of
World War II, it appeared that the nations at the heart of
traditional Western civilization would no longer serve as
the main arbiters of world affairs. In their place, two new
superpowers from outside the heartland of Europe—the
United States and the Soviet Union—took control of their
destinies. Moreover, the imperialist European states no
longer had the energy or the wealth to maintain their co-
lonial empires after the war. With the decline of the Old
World, a new era of global relationships was about to begin.
What were the underlying causes of the astounding
spectacle of self-destruction that engaged the European
powers in two bloody internecine conflicts within a period
of less than a quarter of a century? One factor was the rise
of the spirit of nationalism. In the first half of the nine-
teenth century, nationalism in Europe was closely identified
with liberals, who maintained that unified, independent
nation-states could best preserve individual rights.
After the unification of Italy and Germany in 1871,
however, nationalism became loud and chauvinistic, es-
pecially in regions of Europe where democratic traditions
were not yet well established. As one exponent expressed it,
‘‘A true nationalist places his country above everything’’; he
believes in the ‘‘exclusive pursuit of national policies’’ and
‘‘the steady increase in national power—for a nation de-
clines when it loses military might.’’ It was sentiments such
as these that resulted in bitter disputes and civil strife in a
number of countries and contributed to the competition
among nations that eventually erupted into world war.
Nationalism was also inherently divisive in its polit-
ical ramifications. Most European countries consisted of a
patchwork of different ethnic, linguistic, and religious
communities, a product of centuries of migration, war, and
dynastic alliances. How could a system of stable nation-
states, each based on a single national community, ever
emerge from such a bewildering amalgam of cultures and
peoples? The peace treaties signed after the Great War re-
placed one set of territorial boundaries with another, but
hardly resolved the underlying problem—the unending
competition for resources and living space within the
confines of a crowded continent.
Another factor that contributed to the violence of the
early twentieth century was the Industrial Revolution.
Technology transformed the nature of war itself. New
weapons of mass destruction created the potential for a
new kind of warfare that reached beyond the battlefield
into the very heartland of the enemy’s territory, while the
concept of nationalism transformed war from the sport of
kings to a matter of national honor and commitment.
Since the French Revolution when the government in Paris
had mobilized the entire country to fight against the forces
that opposed the revolution, governments had relied on
mass conscription to defend the national cause while their
engines of destruction reached far into enemy territory to
destroy the industrial base and undermine the will to
fight. This trend was amply demonstrated in the two
world wars of the twentieth century. Each was a product of
antagonisms that had been unleashed by economic com-
petition and growing national consciousness. Each re-
sulted in a level of destruction that severely damaged the
material foundations and eroded the popular spirit of the
participants, the victors as well as the vanquished.
In the end, then, industrial power and the driving force
of nationalism, the very factors that had created the con-
ditions for European global dominance, contained the seeds
for the decline of that dominance. These seeds germinated
during the 1930s, when the Great Depression sharpened
international competition and mutual antagonisms, and
then sprouted in the ensuing conflict, which embraced the
entire globe. By the time World War II came to an end, the
once-powerful countries of Europe were exhausted, leaving
the door ajar not only for the emergence of the United
States and the Soviet Union to global dominance but also
for the collapse of the European colonial empires.
If in Europe the dominant challenge of the era had
been to come to terms with the impact of the Industrial
Revolution, in the rest of the world it was undoubtedly
the sheer fact of Western imperialism. By the end of the
nineteenth century, European powers, along with their
rivals in Japan and the United States, had achieved po-
litical mastery over virtually the entire remainder of the
world. While the overall effect of imperialism on the
subject peoples is still open to debate, it seems clear that
for much of the population in colonial areas, Western
domination was rarely beneficial and often destructive.
REFLECTION PART II
145
Although a limited number of merchants, large land-
owners, and traditional hereditary elites undoubtedly
prospered under the umbrella of the expanding imperi-
alist economic order, the majority of people, urban and
rural alike, suffered considerable hardship as a result of
the policies adopted by their foreign rulers. The effects of
the Industrial Revolution on the poor had been felt in
Europe, too, but there the pain was eased somewhat by
the fact that the industrial era had laid the foundations
for future technological advances and material abun-
dance. In the colonial territories, the importation of
modern technology was limited, while most of the profits
from manufacturing and commerce fled abroad. For too
many, the ‘‘white man’s burden’’ was shifted to the shoulders
of the colonial peoples.
In response, the latter turned to another European
import, the spirit of nationalism. Some European histor-
ians of the phenomenon have argued that the spirit of
nationalism was an artificial flower in much of the non-
Western world, where allegiance was more often directed
to the local community, the kinship group, or a religious
faith. Even if that contention is justified—and the examples
of Japan, Vietnam, and Thailand appear to suggest the
opposite—the concept of nationalism served a useful role
in many countries in Asia and Africa, where it provided
colonial peoples with a sense of common purpose that
later proved vital in knitting together diverse elements in
their societies to oppose colonial regimes and create the
conditions for future independent states. At first, such
movements achieved relatively little success, but they be-
gan to gather momentum in the second quarter of the
twentieth century, when full-fledged nationalist move-
ments began to appear throughout the colonial world to
lead their people in the struggle for independence.
Another idea that gained currency in colonial areas
was that of democracy. As a rule, colonial regimes did not
make a serious attempt to introduce democratic in-
stitutions to their subject populations out of concern that
such institutions would inevitably undermine colonial
authority. Nevertheless, Western notions of representative
government and individual freedom had their advocates
in colonial areas well before the end of the nineteenth
century. Later, countless Asians and Africans were ex-
posed to such ideas in schools set up by the colonial
regime or in the course of travel to Europe or the United
States. Most of the nationalist parties founded in colonial
territories espoused democratic principles and attempted
to apply them when they took power after the restoration
of independence.
As we shall see later, in most instances, such pro-
grams were premature. For the most part, the experiment
with democracy in postwar African and Asian societies
was brief. But the popularity of democratic ideals among
educated elites in colonial societies was a clear indication
of democracy’s universal appeal and a sign that it would
become a meaningful part of the political debate after the
dismantling of the colonial regimes. The idea of the na-
tion, composed of free, educated, and politically active
citizens, was now widely accepted throughout much of
the non-Western world.
Chapter 2 attempted to draw up a balance sheet on the
era of Western imperialism, and the arguments presented
in the conclusion of that chapter do not need to be re-
peated here. What is clear is that if there were any lasting
benefits for the colonial peoples related to the era of im-
perialism, they have to be seen in terms of their potential
rather than their immediate effects. The spread of Euro-
pean power throughout the world took place at a time of
spectacular achievements in the realm of science and
technology as well as economics. Advances in health and
sanitation, engineering, transportation, communications,
and the food sciences began to enrich the human experi-
ence inways that never before seemed possible. And although
most of the immediate benefits from these developments
accrued to the imperialist countries themselves, they car-
ried the promise of an ultimate transformation of tradi-
tional societies throughout the globe in ways that are even
today as yet unforeseen. For countless millions of peoples
who suffered through the colonial era, of course, that may
be poor consolation indeed.
The final judgment on the age of European domi-
nance, then, is mixed. It was a time of unfulfilled expect-
ations, of altruism and greed, of bright promise and tragic
failure. The fact is that human beings had learned how to
master some of the forces of nature before they had learned
how to order relations among themselves or temper their
own natures for the common good. The consequences were
painful, for European and non-European peoples alike.
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147
P A R T
III
ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
Nixon lectures Soviet Communist Party chief Nikita Khrushchev on the technology of the U.S. kitchen.
A
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Our meeting here in the Crimea has reaffirmed our
common determination to maintain and strengthen in the peace
to come that unity of purpose and of action which has made
victory possible and certain for the United Nations in this war.
We believe that this is a sacred obligation which our Govern-
ments owe to our peoples and to all the peoples of the world.1
With these ringing words, drafted at the Yalta Conference in Febru-
ary 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Marshal Joseph Stalin,
and Prime Minister Winston Churchill affirmed their common hope
that the Grand Alliance, which had brought their countries to vic-
tory in World War II, could be sustained in the postwar era. Only
through the continuing and growing cooperation and understanding
among the three victorious allies, the statement asserted, could a se-
cure and lasting peace be realized that, in the words of the Atlantic
Charter, would ‘‘afford assurance that all the men in all the lands
may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.’’
Roosevelt hoped that the decisions reached at Yalta would pro-
vide the basis for a stable peace in the postwar era. Allied occupa-
tion forces—American, British, and French in the west and Soviet
in the east—were to bring about the end of Axis administration
and the holding of free elections to form democratic governments
throughout Europe. To foster an attitude of mutual trust and to
end the suspicions that had marked relations between the capitalist
world and the Soviet Union prior to World War II, Roosevelt tried
to reassure Stalin that Moscow’s legitimate territorial aspirations and
genuine security needs would be adequately met in a durable peace
settlement.
It was not to be. Within months after the German surrender,
the attitude of mutual trust among the victorious allies—if it had
ever existed—rapidly disintegrated, and the dream of a stable peace
was replaced by the specter of a nuclear holocaust. As the Cold War
conflict between Moscow and Washington intensified, Europe was
divided into two armed camps, and the two superpowers, glaring at
each other across a deep ideological divide, held the survival of the
entire world in their hands.
148
CHAPTER 7
EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR
The Collapse of the Grand Alliance
The problem started in Europe. At the end of the war,
Soviet military forces occupied all of Eastern Europe and
the Balkans (except for Greece, Albania, and Yugoslavia),
while U.S. and other Allied forces completed their occu-
pation of the western part of the Continent. Roosevelt had
assumed that free elections administered by ‘‘democratic
and peace-loving forces’’ would lead to the creation of
democratic governments responsive to the aspirations of
the local population. But it soon became clear that Mos-
cow and Washington differed in their interpretations of
the Yalta agreement. When Soviet occupation authorities
turned their attention to forming a new Polish govern-
ment in Warsaw, Stalin refused to accept the legitimacy of
the Polish government in exile—headquartered in London
during the war, it was composed primarily of repre-
sentatives of the landed aristocracy who harbored a deep
distrust of the Soviets—and instead installed a government
composed of Communists who had spent the war in
Moscow. Roosevelt complained to Stalin but, preoccupied
with other problems, he eventually agreed to a compro-
mise solution whereby two members of the exile govern-
ment in London were included in a new regime
dominated by the Communists. A week later, Roosevelt
was dead of a cerebral hemorrhage, leaving the challenge
to a new U.S. president, Harry Truman (1884–1972), who
lacked experience in foreign affairs.
The Iron Curtain Descends
Similar developments took place elsewhere in Eastern
Europe as all of the states occupied by Soviet troops be-
came part of Moscow’s sphere of influence. Coalitions of
all political parties (except fascist or right-wing parties)
were formed to run the government, but within a year
or two, the Communist parties in
these coalitions had assumed the
lion’s share of power. The next step
was the creation of one-party Com-
munist governments. The timetables
for these takeovers varied from
country to country, but between
1945 and 1947, Communist gov-
ernments became firmly entrenched
in East Germany, Bulgaria, Romania,
Poland, and Hungary. In Czecho-
slovakia, with its strong tradition of
democratic institutions, the Com-
munists did not achieve their goals
until 1948. In the elections of 1946,
the Communist Party became the
largest party but was forced to share control of the
government with non-Communist rivals. When it ap-
peared that the latter might win new elections early in
1948, the Communists seized control of the government
on February 25. All other parties were dissolved, and
Communist leader Klement Gottwald became the new
president of Czechoslovakia.
Yugoslavia was a notable exception to the pattern of
growing Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. The
Communist Party there had led resistance to the Nazis
during the war and easily took over power when the war
ended. Josip Broz, known as Tito (1892–1980), the
leader of the Communist resistance movement, ap-
peared to be a loyal Stalinist. After the war, however, he
moved toward the establishment of an independent
Communist state in Yugoslavia. Stalin hoped to take
control of Yugoslavia, just as he had done in other
Eastern European countries. But Tito refused to capit-
ulate to Stalin’s demands and gained the support of the
people (and some sympathy in the West) by portraying
the struggle as one of Yugoslav national freedom. In
1958, the Yugoslav party congress asserted that Yugoslav
Communists did not see themselves as deviating from
communism, only from Stalinism. They considered
their more decentralized economic and political system,
in which workers could manage themselves and local
communes could exercise some political power, closer
to the Marxist-Leninist ideal.
To Stalin (who had once boasted, ‘‘I will shake my
little finger, and there will be no more Tito’’), the cre-
ation of pliant pro-Soviet regimes throughout Eastern
Europe may simply have represented his interpretation
of the Yalta peace agreement and a reward for sacrifices
suffered during the war while satisfying Moscow’s as-
pirations for a buffer zone against the capitalist West.
Recent evidence suggests that Stalin did not decide to
tighten Communist control over the new Eastern
European governments until U.S.
actions—notably the promulgation of
the Marshall Plan (see below)—
threatened to undermine Soviet au-
thority in the region. If the Soviet
leader had any intention of promoting
future Communist revolutions in
Western Europe—and there is some
indication that he did—in his mind
such developments would have to
await the appearance of a new capi-
talist crisis a decade or more into the
future. As Stalin undoubtedly recalled,
Lenin had always maintained that
revolutions come in waves.
The Truman Doctrine and the Beginnings
of Containment
In the United States, the Soviet takeover of Eastern Eu-
rope represented an ominous development that threat-
ened Roosevelt’s vision of a durable peace. Public
suspicion of Soviet intentions grew rapidly, especially
among the millions of Americans who still had relatives
living in Eastern Europe. Winston Churchill was quick to
put such fears into words. In a highly publicized speech
given to an American audience at Westminster College in
Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, the former British
prime minister declared that an ‘‘Iron Curtain’’ had ‘‘de-
scended across the continent,’’ dividing Germany and
Europe itself into two hostile camps. Stalin responded by
branding Churchill’s speech a ‘‘call to war with the Soviet
Union.’’ But he need not have worried. Although public
opinion in the United States placed increasing pressure
on Washington to devise an effective strategy to counter
Soviet advances abroad, the American people were in no
mood for another war.
The first threat of a U.S.-Soviet confrontation took
place in the Middle East. During World War II, British
and Soviet troops had been stationed in Iran to prevent
Axis occupation of the rich oil fields in that country.
Both nations had promised to withdraw their forces after
the war, but at the end of 1945, there were ominous signs
that Moscow might attempt to use its troops as a bar-
gaining chip to annex Iran’s northern territories—known
as Azerbaijan—to the USSR. When the government of
Iran, with strong U.S. support, threatened to take the
issue to the United Nations, the Soviet Union backed
down and removed its forces from that country in the
spring of 1946.
A civil war in Greece created another potential arena
for confrontation between the superpowers and an op-
portunity for the Truman administration to take a stand.
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Eastern Europe in 1948
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 149
Communist guerrilla forces supported by Tito’s Yugoslavia
had taken up arms against the pro-Western government in
Athens. Great Britain had initially assumed primary re-
sponsibility for promoting postwar reconstruction in the
eastern Mediterranean, but in 1947, continued postwar
economic problems caused the British to withdraw from
the active role they had been playing in both Greece and
Turkey. U.S. President Harry Truman, alarmed by British
weakness and the possibility of Soviet expansion into the
eastern Mediterranean, responded with the Truman Doc-
trine, which said in essence that the United States would
provide money to countries that claimed they were
threatened by Communist expansion. If the Soviets were
not stopped in Greece, the Truman argument ran, then the
United States would have to face the spread of commu-
nism throughout the free world. As Dean Acheson, the
American secretary of state, explained, ‘‘Like apples in a
barrel infected by disease, the corruption of Greece would
infect Iran and all the East . . . likewise Africa . . . Italy . . .
France. . . . Not since Rome and Carthage has there been
such a polarization of power on this earth.’’2
The Marshall Plan The U.S. suspicion that Moscow
was actively supporting the insurgent movement in
Greece was inaccurate. Stalin was apparently unhappy
with Tito’s promoting of the conflict, not only because it
suggested that the latter was attempting to create his own
sphere of influence in the Balkans but also because it
risked provoking a direct confrontation between the
Soviet Union and the United States. The proclamation of
the Truman Doctrine was soon followed in June 1947 by
the European Recovery Program, better known as the
Marshall Plan. Intended to rebuild prosperity and sta-
bility, this program included $13 billion for the eco-
nomic recovery of war-torn Europe. Underlying the
program was the belief that Communist aggression
fed off economic turmoil. General George C. Marshall
noted in a speech at Harvard, ‘‘Our policy is not directed
against any country or doctrine but against hunger,
poverty, desperation and chaos.’’3
From the Soviet perspective, the
Marshall Plan was nothing less than
capitalist imperialism, a thinly veiled
attempt to buy the support of the
smaller European countries, which
in return would be expected to
submit to economic exploitation by
the United States. The White House
indicated that the Marshall Plan was
open to the Soviet Union and its
Eastern European satellite states, but
they refused to participate. The So-
viets, however, were in no position
to compete financially with the United States and could
do little to counter the Marshall Plan except to tighten
their control in Eastern Europe.
Europe Divided
By 1947, the split in Europe between East and West had
become a fact of life. At the end of World War II, the
United States had favored a quick end to its commitments
in Europe. But U.S. fears of Soviet aims caused the United
States to play an increasingly important role in European
affairs. In an article in Foreign Affairs in July 1947, George
Kennan, a well-known U.S. diplomat with much knowl-
edge of Soviet affairs, advocated a policy of containment
against further aggressive Soviet moves. Kennan favored the
‘‘adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series
of constantly shifting geographical and political points,
corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet pol-
icy.’’ After the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, contain-
ment of the Soviet Union became formal U.S. policy.
The fate of Germany had become a source of heated
contention between East and West. Besides denazification
and the partitioning of Germany (and Berlin) into four
occupied zones, the Allied Powers had agreed on little with
regard to the conquered nation. Even denazification pro-
ceeded differently in the various zones of occupation. The
Americans and British proceeded methodically—the British
had tried two million cases by 1948—while the Soviets went
after major criminals and allowed lesser officials to go free.
The Soviet Union, hardest hit by the war, took reparations
from Germany in the form of booty. The technology-
starved Soviets dismantled and removed to Russia 380
factories from the western zones of Berlin before trans-
ferring their control to the Western powers. By the summer
of 1946, two hundred chemical, paper, and textile factories
in the East German zone had likewise been shipped to
the Soviet Union. At the same time, the German Com-
munist Party was reestablished under the control of Walter
Ulbricht (1893–1973) and was soon in charge of the po-
litical reconstruction of the Soviet zone in eastern Germany.
The Berlin Blockade Although the
foreign ministers of the four occupying
powers (the United States, the Soviet
Union, Great Britain, and France) kept
meeting in an attempt to arrive at a
final peace treaty with Germany, they
grew further and further apart. At
the same time, the British, French,
and Americans gradually began to
merge their zones economically and by
February 1948 were making plans for
unification of these sectors and the
FRENCH
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Berlin at the Start of the Cold War
150 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
formation of a national government. The Soviet Union
responded with a blockade of West Berlin that prevented
all traffic from entering the city’s three western zones
through Soviet-controlled territory in East Germany. The
Soviets hoped to force the Western powers to stop the
creation of a separate West German state, which threat-
ened Stalin’s plan to create a reunified Germany that could
eventually be placed under Soviet control.
The Western powers faced a dilemma. Direct military
confrontation seemed dangerous, and no one wished to
risk World War III. Therefore, an attempt to break through
the blockade with tanks and trucks was ruled out. The
solution was the Berlin Airlift: supplies for the city’s in-
habitants were brought in by plane. At its peak, the airlift
flew 13,000 tons of supplies daily into Berlin. The Soviets,
who also wanted to avoid war, did not interfere and finally
lifted the blockade in May 1949. The blockade of Berlin had
severely increased tensions between the United States and
the Soviet Union and confirmed the separation of Germany
into two states. The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
was formally created from the three Western zones in
September 1949, and a month later, the separate German
Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in East Ger-
many. Berlin remained a divided city and the source of
much contention between East and West.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact The search for security in
the new world of the Cold War also led to the formation
of military alliances. The North Atlantic Treaty Organi-
zation (NATO) was formed in April 1949 when Belgium,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Britain, Italy,
Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Iceland signed a treaty
with the United States and Canada (see Map 7.1). All the
powers agreed to provide mutual assistance if any one of
them was attacked. A few years later, West Germany,
Greece, and Turkey joined the alliance.
The Eastern European states soon followed suit. In
1949, they formed the Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (COMECON) for economic cooperation.
Then, in 1955, Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East
Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet
Union organized a formal military alliance, the Warsaw
Pact. Once again, Europe was tragically divided into
hostile alliance systems.
A City Divided. In 1948, U.S. planes airlifted supplies into Berlin to break the blockade that Soviet troops
had imposed to isolate the city. Shown here is ‘‘Checkpoint Charlie’’ (a crossing point between the Western
and Soviet zones of Berlin) just as Soviet roadblocks are about to be removed. The banner at the entrance to
the Soviet sector reads, ironically, ‘‘The sector of freedom greets the fighters for freedom and right of the
Western sectors.’’
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CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 151
Who Started the Cold War? By the end of the 1950s,
then, the dream of a stable peace in Europe had been
obliterated. There has been considerable historical debate
over who bears the most responsibility for starting what
would henceforth be called the Cold War. In the 1950s,
most scholars in the West assumed that the bulk of the
blame must fall on the shoulders of Joseph Stalin, whose
determination to impose Soviet rule on the countries of
Eastern Europe snuffed out hopes for freedom and self-
determination there and aroused justifiable fears of
Communist expansion in the Western democracies.
During the next decade, however, a new school of revi-
sionist historians—influenced in part by their hostility to
aggressive U.S. policies to prevent a Communist victory
in Southeast Asia—began to argue that the fault lay pri-
marily in Washington, where President Truman and his
Mediterranean
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SOVIET UNION
0 300 600 Miles
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Missile bases: NATO
Troops: U.S.
Nuclear bombers: U.S.
Naval port: U.S.
Fleet: U.S.
Nuclear missile submarines: U.S.
United States/NATO Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact
Missile bases: Warsaw Pact
Troops: Soviet
Nuclear bombers: Soviet
Naval port: Soviet
Fleet: Soviet
Nuclear missile submarines: Soviet
NATO member
Non-NATO ally
Warsaw Pact member
Unrest/revolt in
Eastern Europe
MAP 7.1 The New European Alliance Systems During the Cold War. This map shows
postwar Europe as it was divided during the Cold War into two contending power blocs, the
NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact. Major military and naval bases are indicated by symbols
on the map.
Q Where on the map was the so-called Iron Curtain?
152 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
anti-Communist advisers abandoned the precepts of Yalta
and sought to encircle the Soviet Union with a tier of
pliant U.S. client states.
More recently, many historians have adopted a more
nuanced view, noting that both the United States and the
Soviet Union took steps at the end of World War II that
were unwise or might have been avoided. Both nations,
however, were working within a framework conditioned
by the past. Ultimately, the rivalry between the two su-
perpowers stemmed from their different historical per-
spectives and their irreconcilable political ambitions.
Intense competition for political and military supremacy
had long been a regular feature of Western civilization.
The United States and the Soviet Union were the heirs of
that European tradition of power politics, and it should
not come as a surprise that two such different systems
would seek to extend their way of life to the rest of the
world. Because of its need to feel secure on its western
border, the Soviet Union was not prepared to give up
the advantages it had gained in Eastern Europe from
Germany’s defeat. But neither were Western leaders pre-
pared to accept without protest the establishment of a
system of Soviet satellites that not only threatened the
security of Western Europe but also deeply offended
Western sensibilities because of its blatant disregard of the
Western concept of human rights.
This does not necessarily mean that both sides bear
equal responsibility for starting the Cold War. Some re-
visionist historians have claimed that the U.S. doctrine of
containment, combined with its temporary monopoly of
nuclear weapons, was a provocative action that aroused
Stalin’s suspicions and drove Moscow into a position of
hostility to the West. This charge lacks credibility. As
information from the Soviet archives and other sources
has become available, it is increasingly clear that Stalin’s
suspicions of the West were rooted in his Marxist-Leninist
worldview and long predated Washington’s enunciation
of the doctrine of containment. As his foreign minister,
Vyacheslav Molotov, once remarked, Soviet policy was
inherently aggressive and would be triggered whenever
the opportunity offered. Although Stalin apparently had
no master plan to advance Soviet power into Western
Europe, he was probably prepared to make every effort to
do so once the next revolutionary wave appeared on the
horizon. Western leaders were fully justified in reacting to
this possibility by strengthening their own lines of de-
fense. On the other hand, it has been argued—by no less
than George Kennan himself—that in deciding to respond
to the Soviet challenge in a primarily military manner,
Western leaders overreacted to the situation and virtually
guaranteed that the Cold War would be transformed into
an arms race that could quite conceivably result in a new
and uniquely destructive war.
Cold War in Asia
The Cold War was somewhat slower to make its ap-
pearance in Asia. At Yalta, Stalin formally agreed to enter
the Pacific war against Japan three months after the close
of the conflict with Germany. As a reward for Soviet
participation in the struggle against Japan, Roosevelt
promised that Moscow would be granted ‘‘preeminent
interests’’ in Manchuria (interests reminiscent of those
possessed by Imperial Russia prior to its defeat by Japan
in 1904–1905) and the establishment of a Soviet naval
base at Port Arthur. In return, Stalin promised to sign a
treaty of alliance with the Republic of China, thus im-
plicitly committing the Soviet Union not to provide the
Chinese Communists with support in a possible future
civil war. Although many observers would later question
Stalin’s sincerity in making such a commitment to the
vocally anti-Communist Chiang Kai-shek, in Moscow the
decision probably had a logic of its own. Stalin had no
particular liking for the independent-minded Mao Ze-
dong (he once derisively labeled the Chinese leader a
‘‘radish Communist’’—red on the outside and white on
the inside) and did not anticipate a victory by the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) in the eventuality of a civil war
in China. Only an agreement with Chiang Kai-shek could
provide the Soviet Union with a strategically vital eco-
nomic and political presence in North China.
Despite these commitments, Allied agreements soon
broke down, and the region was sucked into the vortex
of the Cold War by the end of the decade. The root of
the problem lay in the underlying weakness of Chiang
Kai-shek’s regime, which threatened to create a political
vacuum in East Asia that both Moscow and Washington
would be tempted to fill.
The Chinese Civil War
As World War II came to an end in the Pacific, relations
between the government of Chiang Kai-shek in China
and its powerful U.S. ally had become frayed. Although
Roosevelt had hoped that China would be the keystone of
his plan for peace and stability in Asia after the war, he
eventually became disillusioned with the corruption of
Chiang’s government and his unwillingness to risk his
forces against the Japanese (Chiang hoped to save them
for use against the Communists after the war in the
Pacific ended), and China became a backwater as the war
came to a close. Nevertheless, U.S. military and economic
aid to China had been substantial, and at war’s end, the
Truman administration still hoped that it could rely on
Chiang to support U.S. postwar goals in the region.
While Chiang Kai-shek wrestled with Japanese ag-
gression and problems of postwar reconstruction, the
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 153
Communists were building up their liberated
base in North China. An alliance with Chiang
in December 1936 had relieved them from the
threat of immediate attack from the south,
although Chiang was chronically suspicious of
the Communists and stationed troops near
Xian to prevent them from infiltrating areas
under his control.
He had good reason to fear for the future.
During the war, the Communists patiently
penetrated Japanese lines and built up their
strength in North China. To enlarge their
political base, they carried out a ‘‘mass line’’
policy designed to win broad popular support
by reducing land rents and confiscating the
lands of wealthy landlords. By the end of
World War II, according to Communist esti-
mates, 20 to 30 million Chinese were living
under their administration, and their People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) included nearly one
million troops.
As the war came to an end, world atten-
tion began to focus on the prospects for re-
newed civil strife in China. Members of a U.S.
liaison team stationed in Yan’an during the last
months of the war were impressed by the
performance of the Communists, and some
recommended that the United States should
support them or at least remain neutral in a
possible conflict between Communists and
Nationalists for control of China. The Truman
administration, though skeptical of Chiang’s ability to
forge a strong and prosperous country, was increasingly
concerned over the spread of communism in Europe and
tried to find a peaceful solution through the formation of
a coalition government of all parties in China.
The effort failed. By 1946, full-scale war between the
Nationalist government, now reinstalled in Nanjing, and
the Communists resumed. The Communists, having
taken advantage of the Soviet occupation of Manchuria in
the last days of the war, occupied rural areas in the region
and laid siege to Nationalist garrisons hastily established
there. Now Chiang Kai-shek’s errors came home to roost.
In the countryside, millions of peasants, attracted to the
Communists by promises of land and social justice,
flocked to serve in the PLA. In the cities, middle-class
Chinese, who were normally hostile to communism, were
alienated by Chiang’s brutal suppression of all dissent and
his government’s inability to slow the ruinous rate of
inflation or solve the economic problems it caused. With
morale dropping, Chiang’s troops began to defect to the
Communists. Sometimes whole divisions, officers as well
as ordinary soldiers, changed sides. By 1948, the PLA was
advancing south out of Manchuria and had encircled
Beijing (see Map 7.2). Communist troops took the old
imperial capital, crossed the Yangtze the following spring,
and occupied the commercial hub of Shanghai. During
the next few months, Chiang’s government and two
million of his followers fled to Taiwan, which the Japanese
had returned to Chinese control after World War II.
The Truman administration reacted to the spread of
Communist power in China with acute discomfort.
Washington had no desire to see a Communist govern-
ment on the mainland, but it had little confidence in
Chiang Kai-shek’s ability to realize Roosevelt’s dream of a
strong, united, and prosperous China. In December 1946,
President Truman’s emissary, General George C. Marshall,
sought and received permission from the White House to
abandon his mission, arguing that neither side was co-
operating in the effort. During the next two years, the
United States gave limited military support to the Nan-
jing regime but refused to commit U.S. power to guar-
antee its survival. The administration’s hands-off policy
deeply angered many in Congress, who charged that the
White House was ‘‘soft on communism’’ and declared
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong Exchange a Toast. After World War II, the
United States sent General George C. Marshall to China in an effort to prevent civil war
between Chiang Kai-shek’s government and the Communists. Marshall’s initial success was
symbolized by this toast between Chiang (at the right) and Mao. But suspicion ran too
deep, and soon conflict ensued, leading to a Communist victory in 1949. Chiang’s
government retreated to the island of Taiwan.
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154 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
further that Roosevelt had betrayed Chiang at Yalta by
granting privileges in Manchuria to the Soviets. In their
view, Soviet troops had hindered the dispatch of Chiang’s
forces to the area and provided the PLA with weapons to
use against their rivals.
In later years, evidence accumulated that the Soviet
Union had given little assistance to the CCP in its struggle
against the Nanjing regime. In fact, Stalin periodically
advised Mao against undertaking the effort. Although
Communist forces undoubtedly received some assistance
from Soviet occupation troops in Manchuria, the un-
derlying reasons for their victory stemmed from con-
ditions inside China, not from the intervention of outside
powers. So indeed argued the Truman administration,
when in 1949 it issued a White Paper that placed most of
the blame for the debacle at the feet of the Chiang Kai-
shek regime (see the box on p. 156).
Many Americans, however, did not agree. The
Communist victory on the mainland of China injected
Asia directly into American politics as an integral element
of the Cold War. During the spring of 1950, under
pressure from Congress and public opinion to define U.S.
interests in Asia, the Truman administration adopted a
new national security policy (known as NSC-68) that
implied that the United States would take
whatever steps were necessary to stem the fur-
ther expansion of communism in the region.
Containment had come to East Asia.
The Korean War
Communist leaders in China, from their new
capital at Beijing, hoped that their accession to
power in 1949 would bring about an era of
peace in the region and permit their new gov-
ernment to concentrate on domestic goals. But
the desire for peace was tempered by their de-
termination to erase a century of humiliation at
the hands of imperialist powers and to restore
the traditional outer frontiers of the empire. In
addition to recovering territories that had been
part of the Manchu Empire, such as Manchuria,
Taiwan, and Tibet, the Chinese leaders also
hoped to restore Chinese influence in former
tributary areas such as Korea and Vietnam.
It soon became clear that these two goals
were not always compatible. Negotiations be-
tween Mao Zedong and Stalin held in Moscow
in early 1950 led to the signing of a mutual se-
curity treaty and Soviet recognition of Chinese
sovereignty over Manchuria and Xinjiang (the
desolate lands north of Tibet that were known as
Chinese Turkestan because many of the peoples
in the area were of Turkish origin), although the Soviets
retained a measure of economic influence in both areas.
Chinese troops occupied Tibet in 1950 and brought it
under Chinese administration for the first time in more
than a century. But in Korea and Taiwan, China’s efforts to
re-create the imperial buffer zone threatened to provoke
new conflicts with foreign powers.
The problem of Taiwan was a consequence of the Cold
War. As the civil war in China came to an end, the Truman
administration appeared determined to avoid entanglement
in China’s internal affairs and indicated that it would not
seek to prevent a Communist takeover of the island, now
occupied by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China. But as
tensions between the United States and the new Chinese
government escalated during the winter of 1949–1950, in-
fluential figures in the United States began to argue that
Taiwan was crucial to U.S. defense strategy in the Pacific.
The outbreak of war in Korea also helped bring the
Cold War to East Asia. As we have seen in Chapter 3,
Korea, long a Chinese tributary, was annexed into the
Japanese Empire in 1908 and remained there until 1945.
The removal of Korea from Japanese control had been one
of the stated objectives of the Allies in World War II, and
on the eve of Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Soviet
MONGOLIA
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MAP 7.2 The Chinese Civil War. After the close of the Pacific war in
1945, the Nationalist government and the Chinese Communists fought a
bitter civil war that ended with a victory by the latter in 1949. The path
of Communist advance is displayed on the map.
Q Where did Chiang Kai-shek’s government retreat to after its defeat?
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 155
Union and the United States agreed to divide the country
into two separate occupation zones at the 38th parallel.
They originally planned to hold national elections after the
restoration of peace to reunify Korea under an indepen-
dent government. But as U.S.-Soviet relations deteriorated,
two separate governments emerged in Korea, Communist
in the north and anti-Communist in the south.
Tensions between the two governments ran high along
the dividing line, and on June 25, 1950, with Stalin’s ap-
parently reluctant approval, North Korean troops invaded
the south. The Truman administration immediately or-
dered U.S. naval and air forces to support South Korea,
and the United Nations Security Council (with the Soviet
delegate absent to protest the failure of the UN to assign
China’s seat to the new government in Beijing) passed a
resolution calling on member nations to jointly resist the
invasion in line with the security provisions in the United
Nations Charter. By September, UN forces under the
command of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur marched
northward across the 38th parallel with the aim of unifying
Korea under a single non-Communist government.
President Truman worried that by approaching the
Chinese border at the Yalu River, the UN troops—the ma-
jority of whom came from the United States—could trigger
Chinese intervention but was assured by MacArthur that
China would not respond. In November, however, Chinese
‘‘volunteer’’ forces intervened on the side of North Korea and
drove the UN troops southward in disarray. A static defense
line was eventually established near the original dividing line
at the 38th parallel, although the war continued.
To many Americans, the Chinese intervention in Korea
was clear evidence that China intended to promote
WHO LOST CHINA?
In 1949, with China about to fall under the control of the Commu-
nists, President Harry Truman instructed the State Department
to prepare a White Paper explaining why the U.S. policy of seeking
to avoid a Communist victory in China had failed. The authors of
the White Paper concluded that responsibility lay at the door of
Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and that there was
nothing the United States could have reasonably done to alter the
result. Most China observers today would accept that assess-
ment, but it did little at the time to deflect criticism of the admin-
istration for selling out the interests of the U.S. ally in China.
U.S. State Department White Paper on China, 1949
When peace came the United States was confronted with three pos-
sible alternatives in China: (1) it could have pulled out lock, stock,
and barrel; (2) it could have intervened militarily on a major scale
to assist the Nationalists to destroy the Communists; (3) it could,
while assisting the Nationalists to assert their authority over as
much of China as possible, endeavor to avoid a civil war by working
for a compromise between the two sides.
The first alternative would, and I believe American public opin-
ion at the time so felt, have represented an abandonment of our
international responsibilities and of our traditional policy of friend-
ship for China before we had made a determined effort to be
of assistance. The second alternative policy, while it may look attrac-
tive theoretically, in retrospect, was wholly impracticable. The
Nationalists had been unable to destroy the Communists during
the ten years before the war. Now after the war the Nationalists
were . . . weakened, demoralized, and unpopular. They had quickly
dissipated their popular support and prestige in the areas liberated
from the Japanese by the conduct of their civil and military officials.
The Communists on the other hand were much stronger than
they had ever been and were in control of most of North China.
Because of the ineffectiveness of the Nationalist forces, which was
later to be tragically demonstrated, the Communists probably could
have been dislodged only by American arms. It is obvious that the
American people would not have sanctioned such a colossal com-
mitment of our armies in 1945 or later. We therefore came to the
third alternative policy whereunder we faced the facts of the situa-
tion and attempted to assist in working out a modus vivendi which
would avert civil war but nevertheless preserve and even increase the
influence of the National Government. . . .
The distrust of the leaders of both the Nationalist and Commu-
nist Parties for each other proved too deep-seated to permit final
agreement, notwithstanding temporary truces and apparently prom-
ising negotiations. The Nationalists, furthermore, embarked in 1946
on an overambitious military campaign in the face of warnings by
General Marshall that it not only would fail but would plunge
China into economic chaos and eventually destroy the National
Government. . . .
The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result
of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the government of
the United States. Nothing that this country did or could have done
within the reasonable limits of its capabilities could have changed that
result; nothing that was left undone by this country has contributed to
it. It was the product of internal Chinese forces, forces which this
country tried to influence but could not. A decision was arrived at
within China, if only a decision by default.
Q How do the authors of the White Paper explain the Commu-
nist victory in China? What actions do they think might have
prevented it?
SOURCE: United States Relations with China (Washington, D.C.: U.S.
Department of State, 1949), pp. xv–xvi.
156 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
communism throughout Asia, and re-
cent evidence does suggest that Mao
Zedong, convinced that a revolutionary
wave was on the rise in Asia, argued to
his colleagues that they should not fear a
confrontation with the United States on
the Korean peninsula. China’s decision to
enter the war was probably also moti-
vated by the fear that hostile U.S. forces
might be stationed on the Chinese
frontier and perhaps even launch an at-
tack across the border. MacArthur in-
tensified such fears by calling publicly for
air attacks, possibly including nuclear
weapons, on Manchurian cities in prep-
aration for an attack on Communist
China. In any case, the outbreak of the
Korean War was particularly unfortunate
for China. Immediately after the invasion, President Tru-
man dispatched the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait
to prevent a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Even
more unfortunate, the invasion hardened Western attitudes
against the new Chinese government and led to China’s
isolation from the major capitalist powers for two decades.
As a result, China was cut off from all forms of economic
and technological assistance and was forced to rely almost
entirely on the Soviet Union.
Conflict in Indochina
A cease-fire agreement brought the hos-
tilities in Korea to an end in July 1953,
and China signaled its desire to live in
peaceful coexistence with other indepen-
dent countries in the region. But a rela-
tively minor conflict in French Indochina,
on Beijing’s southern flank, now began to
intensify. The struggle had begun after
World War II, when Ho Chi Minh’s In-
dochinese Communist Party, at the head
of a multiparty nationalist alliance called
the Vietminh Front, seized power in
northern and central Vietnam after the
surrender of Imperial Japan. After abor-
tive negotiations between Ho’s govern-
ment and the French over a proposed
‘‘free state’’ of Vietnam under French tu-
telage, war broke out in December 1946.
French forces occupied the cities and the
densely populated lowlands, while the
Vietminh took refuge in the mountains.
For three years, the Vietminh waged
a ‘‘people’s war’’ of national liberation
from colonial rule, gradually increas-
ing in size and effectiveness. At the
time, however, the conflict in Indo-
china attracted relatively little atten-
tion from world leaders, who viewed
events there as only one aspect of the
transition to independence of colo-
nialized territories in postwar Asia.
The Truman administration was un-
easy about Ho’s long-time credentials
as a Soviet agent, but was equally re-
luctant to anger anticolonialist ele-
ments in the area by intervening on
behalf of the French. Moscow had
even less interest in the region. Stalin—
still hoping to see the Communist Party
come to power in Paris—ignored Ho’s
request for recognition of his move-
ment as the legitimate representative of the national in-
terests of the Vietnamese people.
But what had begun as an anticolonial struggle by the
Vietminh Front against the French became entangled in the
Cold War after the CCP came to power in China. In early
1950, Beijing began to provide military assistance to the
Vietminh to burnish its revolutionary credentials and pro-
tect its own borders from hostile forces. The Truman ad-
ministration, increasingly concerned that a revolutionary
‘‘red tide’’ was sweeping through the region, decided to
provide financial and technical assistance
to the French, while pressuring them to
prepare for an eventual transition to in-
dependent non-Communist govern-
ments in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
With casualties mounting and the
French public tired of fighting the seem-
ingly endless ‘‘dirtywar’’ in Indochina, the
French agreed to a peace settlement with
the Vietminh at the Geneva Conference
in 1954. Vietnam was temporarily di-
vided into a northern Communist half
(known as the Democratic Republic of
VietnamorDRV) and a non-Communist
southern half based in Saigon (eventually
to be known as the Republic of Vietnam).
Elections were to be held in two years to
create a unified government. Cambodia
and Laos were both declared independent
under neutral governments. French
forces, which had suffered a major defeat
at the hands of Vietminh troops at the
Battle of Dien Bien Phu in the spring of
1954, were withdrawn from all three
countries.
Kwangju
Inchon
Seoul
38th Parallel
Pusan
Panmunjom
Pyongyang
Ko
rea
St
ra
itYellow
Sea
Korea
Bay
Sea
of
Japan
CHINA
NORTH
KOREA
SOUTH
KOREA
JAPAN
Yal
u R
.
Tu
me
n R
.
0 100 200 Miles
0 100 200 300 Kilometers
Cease-fire line
The Korean Peninsula
THAILAND
DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC OF
VIETNAM
REPUBLIC
OF VIETNAM
CAMBODIA
CHINA
Hanoi
Dien Bien
Phu
Saigon
Demilitarized
Zone
LAOS
Hué
0 100 200 Miles
0 200 400 Kilometers
Indochina After 1954
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 157
China had played an active role in bringing about the
agreement and clearly hoped that a settlement would lead
to a reduction of tensions in the area, but subsequent
efforts to bring about improved relations between China
and the United States foundered on the issue of Taiwan.
In the fall of 1954, the United States signed a mutual
security treaty with the Republic of China guaranteeing
U.S. military support in case of an invasion of Taiwan.
When Beijing demanded U.S. withdrawal from Taiwan as
the price for improved relations, diplomatic talks between
the two countries collapsed.
From Confrontation to Coexistence
The 1950s opened with the world teetering on the edge of
a nuclear holocaust. The Soviet Union had detonated its
first nuclear device in 1949, and the two blocs—capitalist
and socialist—viewed each other across an ideological
divide that grew increasingly bitter with each passing
year. Yet as the decade drew to a close, a measure of sanity
crept into the Cold War, and the leaders of the major
world powers began to seek ways to coexist in an in-
creasingly unstable world (see Map 7.3).
Khrushchev and the Era of Peaceful Coexistence
The first clear sign of change occurred after Stalin’s
death in early 1953. His successor, Georgy Malenkov
(1902–1988), hoped to improve relations with the
Western powers to reduce defense expenditures and
shift government spending to growing consumer needs.
During his campaign to replace Malenkov two years
later, Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971) appealed to
powerful pressure groups in the party Politburo (the
governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union) by calling for higher defense expenditures, but
Paci fic
Ocean
Atlant ic
Ocean
Indian
Ocean
See
Map 7.1
S O V I E T U N I O N
PAKISTAN
ISRAEL
GREENLAND
ICELAND
UNITED
STATES
CANADA
HAWAIIAN
ISLANDS
GUATEMALA
EL SALVADOR
NICARAGUA
PANAMA
CANAL ZONE
HONDURAS
PUERTO
RICOCUBA
AZORES
ANGOLA
(Cuban)
ETHIOPIA
SOMALIA
LIBYA
EGYPT
YEMEN
SOCOTRA
OMAN
IRAQ
SYRIA
TURKEY
AFGHANISTAN
CHINA
MONGOLIA
N. KOREA
S. KOREA JAPAN
OKINAWA
TAIWAN
VIETNAM
THAILAND
SRI
LANKA
SINGAPORE
PHILIPPINES
DIEGO
GARCIA
AUSTRALIA
IRAN
0 1,500 3,000 Miles
0 1,500 3,000 4,500 Kilometers
Missile bases
Troops
Nuclear bombers
Naval port
Fleet
Nuclear missile submarine
United States/Allies Soviet Union/AlliesChinese
MAP 7.3 The Global Cold War. This map indicates the location of major military bases
and missile sites possessed by the contending power blocs throughout the world at the height
of the Cold War.
Q Which continents are the most heavily armed?
158 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
once in power, he resumed his predecessor’s efforts to
reduce tensions with the West and improve the living
standards of the Soviet people.
In an adroit public relations touch, Khrushchev pub-
licized Moscow’s appeal for a new policy of ‘‘peaceful co-
existence’’ with the West. In 1955, he surprisingly agreed to
negotiate an end to the postwar occupation of Austria by
the victorious allies and allow the creation of a neutral
country with strong cultural and economic ties with the
West. He also called for a reduction in defense expenditures
and reduced the size of the Soviet armed forces.
At first, Washington was suspicious of Khrushchev’s
motives, especially after the Soviet crackdown inHungary in
the fall of 1956 (see Chapter 9), an event that sharply in-
creased ColdWar tensions on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
The Berlin Crisis A new crisis over Berlin added to the
tension. The Soviets had launched their first intercontinental
ballisticmissile (ICBM) in August 1957, arousingU.S. fears—
fueled by a partisan political debate—of a ‘‘missile gap’’ be-
tween the United States and the Soviet Union. Khrushchev
attempted to take advantage of the U.S. frenzy over missiles
to solve the problem of West Berlin, which had remained a
‘‘Western island’’ of prosperity inside the relatively poverty-
stricken state of East Germany. Many East Germans sought
to escape toWest Germany by fleeing throughWest Berlin—a
serious blot on the credibility of the GDR and a potential
source of instability in East-West relations. In November
1958, Khrushchev announced that unless the West removed
its forces from West Berlin within
six months, he would turn over
control of the access routes to the
EastGermans.Unwilling to accept an
ultimatum that would have aban-
doned West Berlin to the Commu-
nists, President Eisenhower and the
West stood firm, and Khrushchev
eventually backed down.
The Spirit of Camp David De-
spite such periodic crises in East-
West relations, there were tanta-
lizing signs that an era of true
peaceful coexistence between the
two power blocs could be ach-
ieved. In the late 1950s, the United
States and the Soviet Union initi-
ated a cultural exchange program,
helping the peoples of one bloc
to become acquainted with the
nature of life in the other. While
the Kirov Ballet appeared at thea-
ters in the United States, Benny
Goodman and the film of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side
Story played in Moscow. In 1958, Nikita Khrushchev
visited the United States and had a brief but friendly en-
counter with President Eisenhower at Camp David, his
presidential retreat in northern Maryland. Predictions of
improved future relations led reporters to laud ‘‘the spirit
of Camp David.’’
Yet Khrushchev could rarely avoid the temptation to
gain an advantage over the United States in the compe-
tition for influence throughout the world, and this re-
sulted in an unstable relationship that prevented a lasting
accommodation between the two superpowers. West
Berlin was an area of persistent tension (a boil on the foot
of the United States, Khrushchev derisively termed it),
and in January 1961, just as newly elected president John
F. Kennedy (1917–1963) came into office, Moscow
threatened once again to turn over responsibility for ac-
cess routes to the East German government.
Moscow also took every opportunity to promote its
interests in the Third World, as the countries of Asia,
Africa, and Latin America were now popularly called.
Unlike Stalin, Khrushchev viewed the dismantling of co-
lonial regimes in the area as a potential advantage for the
Soviet Union and sought especially to exploit anti-
American sentiment in Latin America. When neutralist
leaders like Nehru in India, Tito in Yugoslavia, and Su-
karno in Indonesia founded the Non-Aligned Movement
in 1955 as a means of providing an alternative to the two
major power blocs, Khrushchev openly sought alliances
The Kitchen Debate. During the late 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union sought to defuse
Cold War tensions by encouraging cultural exchanges between the two countries. On one occasion, U.S.
Vice President Richard M. Nixon visited Moscow in conjunction with the arrival of an exhibit to introduce
U.S. culture and society to the Soviet people. Here Nixon lectures Soviet party chief Nikita Khrushchev on
the technology of the U.S. kitchen. On the other side of Nixon is future Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev
(at the far right).
A
P
Im
ag
es
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 159
with strategically important neutralist countries like India,
Indonesia, Cuba, and Egypt at a time when Washington’s
ability to influence events at the United Nations had
begun to wane.
In January 1961, just as Kennedy assumed the presi-
dency, Khrushchev unnerved the new president at an in-
formal summit meeting in Vienna by declaring that
Moscowwould provide active support to national liberation
movements throughout the world. There were rising fears in
Washington of Soviet meddling in such sensitive trouble
spots as Southeast Asia, Central Africa, and the Caribbean.
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Move
Toward Détente
The Cold War confrontation between the United States
and the Soviet Union reached frightening levels during the
Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1959, a left-wing revolutionary
named Fidel Castro (b. 1927) overthrew the Cuban dic-
tator Fulgencio Batista and established a Soviet-supported
totalitarian regime. As tensions increased between the new
government in Havana and the United States, the Ei-
senhower administration broke relations with Cuba and
drafted plans to overthrow Castro, who reacted by draw-
ing closer to Moscow.
Soon after taking office in early 1961, Kennedy ap-
proved a plan to support an invasion of Cuba by anti-
Castro exiles. But the attempt to land in the Bay of Pigs in
southern Cuba was an utter failure. At Castro’s request,
the Soviet Union then decided to place nuclear missiles in
Cuba. The Kennedy administration was not prepared to
allow nuclear weapons within such close striking distance
of the American mainland, although the United States
had placed nuclear weapons in Turkey within easy range
of the Soviet Union, a fact that Khrushchev was quick to
point out. When U.S. intelligence discovered that a Soviet
fleet carrying missiles was heading to Cuba, Kennedy
decided to dispatch U.S. warships into the Atlantic to
prevent the fleet from reaching its destination.
This approach to the problem was risky but had the
benefit of delaying confrontation and giving the two sides
time to find a peaceful solution. After a tense stand-off
during which the two countries came frighteningly close to
a direct nuclear confrontation (the Soviet missiles already
in Cuba, it turned out, were operational), Khrushchev fi-
nally sent a conciliatory letter to Kennedy agreeing to turn
back the fleet if Kennedy pledged not to invade Cuba. In a
secret concession not revealed until many years later, the
latter also promised to dismantle U.S. missiles in Turkey.
To the world, however (and to an angry Castro), it ap-
peared that Kennedy had bested Khrushchev. ‘‘We were
eyeball to eyeball,’’ noted U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
‘‘and they blinked.’’
The intense feeling that the world might have been
annihilated in a few days had a profound influence on
both sides. A communication hotline between Moscow
and Washington was installed in 1963 to expedite rapid
communication between the two superpowers in time of
crisis. In the same year, the two powers agreed to ban
nuclear tests in the atmosphere, a step that served to
lessen the tensions between the two nations.
The Sino-Soviet Dispute
Nikita Khrushchev had launched his slogan of peaceful
coexistence as a means of improving relations with the
capitalist powers; ironically, one result of the campaign
was to undermine Moscow’s ties with its close ally China.
During Stalin’s lifetime Beijing had accepted the Soviet
Union as the official leader of the socialist camp. After
Stalin’s death, however, relations began to deteriorate. Part
of the reason may have been Mao Zedong’s contention
that he, as the most experienced Marxist leader, should
now be acknowledged as the most authoritative voice
within the socialist community. But another determining
factor was that just as Soviet policies were moving toward
moderation, China’s were becoming more radical.
Several other issues were involved, including territorial
disputes and China’s unhappiness with limited Soviet
economic assistance. But the key sources of disagreement
involved ideology and the Cold War. Chinese leaders were
convinced that the successes of the Soviet space program
confirmed that the socialists were now technologically
superior to the capitalists (the East wind, trumpeted the
Chinese official press, had now triumphed over the West
wind), and they urged Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to
go on the offensive to promote world revolution. Specifi-
cally, China wanted Soviet assistance in retaking Taiwan
from Chiang Kai-shek. But Khrushchev was trying to
improve relations with the West and rejected Chinese de-
mands for support against Taiwan (see the box on p. 162).
By the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Union had begun
to remove its advisers from China, and in 1961, the dis-
pute broke into the open. Increasingly isolated, China
voiced its hostility to what Mao described as the ‘‘urban
industrialized countries’’ (which included the Soviet
Union) and portrayed itself as the leader of the ‘‘rural
underdeveloped countries’’ of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America in a global struggle against imperialist oppres-
sion. In effect, China had applied Mao’s famous concept
of people’s war in an international framework.
The Second Indochina War
The Eisenhower administration had opposed the peace
settlement at Geneva in 1954, which divided Vietnam
160 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
temporarily into two separate regroupment zones, spe-
cifically because the provision for future national elec-
tions opened up the possibility of placing the entire
country under Communist rule. But President Ei-
senhower had been unwilling to introduce U.S. military
forces to continue the conflict without the full support of
the British and the French, who preferred to seek a ne-
gotiated settlement. In the end, Washington promised not
to break the provisions of the agreement but refused to
commit itself to the results.
During the next several months, the United States
began to provide aid to a new government in South
Vietnam. Under the leadership of the anti-Communist
politician Ngo Dinh Diem, the Saigon regime began to
root out dissidents while refusing to hold the national
elections called for by the Geneva Accords. It was widely
anticipated, even in Washington, that the Communists
would win such elections. In 1959, Ho Chi Minh, de-
spairing of the peaceful unification of the country under
Communist rule, returned to a policy of revolutionary
war in the south. Late the following year, a broad political
organization that was designed to win the support of a
wide spectrum of the population was founded in an
isolated part of South Vietnam. Known as the National
Liberation Front, or NLF, it was under firm leadership
from Communist leaders in North Vietnam (see the box
on p. 163).
By 1963, South Vietnam was on the verge of col-
lapse. Diem’s autocratic methods and inattention to se-
vere economic inequality had alienated much of the
population, and NLF armed forces, popularly known as
the Viet Cong (Vietnamese Communists), had expanded
their influence throughout much of the country. In the
fall of 1963, with the approval of the Kennedy admin-
istration, South Vietnamese military officers overthrew
the Diem regime. But factionalism kept the new military
leadership from reinvigorating the struggle against the
insurgent forces, and by early 1965, the Viet Cong, their
FILM & HISTORY
THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER (1973)
Never has the world been closer to nuclear holocaust than in the
month of October 1962, when U.S. and Soviet leaders found them-
selves in direct confrontation over
Nikita Khrushchev’s decision to intro-
duce Soviet missiles into Cuba, just
90 miles from the coast of the United
States. When President John F.
Kennedy announced that U.S. warships
would intercept Soviet freighters des-
tined for Cuban ports, the two coun-
tries teetered on the verge of war. Only
after protracted and delicate negotia-
tions was the threat defused. The con-
frontation sobered leaders on both
sides of the Iron Curtain and led to
the signing of the first test ban treaty
as well as the opening of a hotline be-
tween Moscow and Washington.
The Missiles of October, a made-
for-TV film produced in 1973, is a
tense political drama that is all the
more riveting because it is based on
fact. Although it is less well known
than the more recent movie Thirteen
Days, released in 2000, it is in many
ways more persuasive, and the acting is
demonstrably superior. The film stars
William Devane as John F. Kennedy and Martin Sheen as his younger
brother Robert. Based in part on Robert Kennedy’s book Thirteen Days
(New York, 1969), a personal account of the
crisis that was published shortly after his as-
sassination in 1968, the film traces the tense
discussions that took place in the White
House as the president’s key advisers debated
how to respond to the Soviet challenge. Pres-
ident Kennedy remains cool as he reins in
his more bellicose advisers to bring about a
compromise solution that successfully avoids
the seemingly virtual certainty of a nuclear
confrontation with Moscow.
Because the film is based on the recol-
lections of Robert Kennedy, it presents a fa-
vorable portrait of his brother’s handling of
the crisis, as might be expected, and the
somewhat triumphalist attitude at the end
of the film is perhaps a bit exaggerated.
But Khrushchev’s colleagues in the Kremlin
and his Cuban ally, Fidel Castro, viewed
the U.S.-Soviet agreement as a humiliation
for Moscow that nevertheless set the two
global superpowers on the road to a more
durable and peaceful relationship. It was
one Cold War story that had a happy
ending.
John Kennedy (William Devane, seated) and Robert
Kennedy (Martin Sheen) confer with advisers.
� c
Ev
er
et
t
C
ol
le
ct
io
n
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 161
ranks now swelled by military units infiltrating from
North Vietnam, were on the verge of seizing control of
the entire country. In desperation, President Lyndon
Johnson (1908–1973) decided to launch bombing raids
on the north and send U.S. combat troops to South
Vietnam to prevent a total defeat for the anti-Communist
government in Saigon.
The Role of China Chinese leaders observed the
gradual escalation of the conflict in South Vietnam with
mixed feelings. They were undoubtedly pleased to have
a firm Communist ally—and indeed one that had in so
many ways followed the path of Mao Zedong—just
beyond their southern frontier. Yet they could not relish
the possibility that renewed bloodshed in South Viet-
nam might enmesh China in a new conflict with the
United States. Nor could they have welcomed the
specter of a powerful and ambitious united Vietnam
that might wish to extend its influence throughout
mainland Southeast Asia, which Beijing considered its
own backyard.
Chinese leaders therefore tiptoed delicately through
the minefield of the Indochina conflict, seeking to main-
tain good relations with their ally in Hanoi while avoiding
a confrontation with the United States. As the war esca-
lated in 1964 and 1965, Beijing publicly announced that
the Chinese people would give their full support to their
fraternal comrades seeking national liberation in South
Vietnam but privately assured Washington that China
would not directly enter the conflict unless U.S. forces
threatened its southern border. Beijing also refused to
cooperate fully with Moscow in shipping Soviet goods to
North Vietnam through Chinese territory.
Despite its dismay at the lack of full support from
China, the Communist government in North Vietnam
responded to U.S. escalation by infiltrating more of its
own regular force troops into the south, and by 1968, the
war was a virtual stalemate. The Communists were not
A PLEA FOR PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
The Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin had contended that war between
the socialist and imperialist camps was inevitable because the
imperialists would never give up without a fight. That assumption
had probably guided the thoughts of Joseph Stalin, who told col-
leagues shortly after World War II that a new war would break out
in fifteen to twenty years. But Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrush-
chev, feared that a new world conflict could result in a nuclear ho-
locaust and contended that the two sides must learn to coexist,
although peaceful competition would continue. In this speech
given in Beijing in 1959, Khrushchev attempted to persuade the
Chinese to accept his views. But Chinese leaders argued that the
‘‘imperialist nature’’ of the United States would never change and
warned that they would not accept any peace agreement in which
they had no part.
Khrushchev’s Speech to the Chinese, 1959
Comrades! Socialism brings to the people peace—that greatest bless-
ing. The greater the strength of the camp of socialism grows, the
greater will be its possibilities for successfully defending the cause of
peace on this earth. The forces of socialism are already so great that
real possibilities are being created for excluding war as a means of
solving international disputes. . . .
When I spoke with President Eisenhower—and I have just
returned from the United States of America—I got the impression
that the President of the U.S.A.—and not a few people support
him—understands the need to relax international tension. . . .
There is only one way of preserving peace—that is the road
of peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems. The
question stands thus: either peaceful coexistence or war with its
catastrophic consequences. Now, with the present relation of forces
between socialism and capitalism being in favor of socialism, he
who would continue the ‘‘cold war’’ is moving towards his own
destruction. . . .
Already in the first years of the Soviet power the great Lenin
defined the general line of our foreign policy as being directed to-
wards the peaceful coexistence of states with different social systems.
For a long time, the ruling circles of the Western Powers rejected
these truly humane principles. Nevertheless the principles of peaceful
coexistence made their way into the hearts of the vast majority of
mankind. . . .
It is not at all because capitalism is still strong that the socialist
countries speak out against war, and for peaceful coexistence. No,
we have no need of war at all. If the people do not want it, even
such a noble and progressive system as socialism cannot be imposed
by force of arms. The socialist countries therefore, while carrying
through a consistently peace-loving policy, concentrate their efforts
on peaceful construction; they fire the hearts of men by the force
of their example in building socialism, and thus lead them to follow
in their footsteps. The question of when this or that country will
take the path to socialism is decided by its own people. This, for us,
is the holy of holies.
Q Why does Nikita Khrushchev feel that a conflict between the
socialist and the capitalist camps is no longer inevitable, as
Lenin had predicted?
SOURCE: From G. F. Hudson et al., eds., The Sino-Soviet Dispute (New York:
Frederick Praeger, 1961), pp. 61–63, cited in Peking Review, no. 40, 1959.
162 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
strong enough to overthrow the Saigon regime, whose
weakness was shielded by the presence of half a million
U.S. troops, but President Johnson was reluctant to engage
in all-out war on North Vietnam for fear of provoking a
global nuclear conflict. In the fall, after the Communist-
led Tet offensive shook the fragile stability of the Saigon
regime and aroused heightened antiwar protests in the
United States, peace negotiations began in Paris.
The Road to Peace Richard Nixon (1913–1994) came
into the White House in 1969 on a pledge to bring an hon-
orable end to the Vietnam War. With U.S. public opinion
COMBATING THE AMERICANS
In December 1960, the National Liberation Front of South Viet-
nam, or NLF, was born. Composed of political and social leaders
opposed to the anti-Communist government of Ngo Dinh Diem in
South Vietnam, it operated under the direction of the Vietnam
Workers’ Party in North Vietnam and served as the formal repre-
sentative of revolutionary forces in the south throughout the re-
mainder of the Vietnam War. When, in the spring of 1965,
President Lyndon Johnson began to dispatch U.S. combat troops
to Vietnam to prevent a Communist victory there, the NLF issued
the following declaration.
Statement of the National Liberation
Front of South Vietnam
American imperialist aggression against South Vietnam and interfer-
ence in its internal affairs have now continued for more than ten
years. More American troops and supplies, including missile units,
Marines, B-57 strategic bombers, and mercenaries from South
Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, Malaysia, etc., have been
brought to South Vietnam. . . .
The Saigon puppet regime, paid servant of the United States, is
guilty of the most heinous crimes. These despicable traitors, these
boot-lickers of American imperialism, have brought the enemy into
our country. They have brought to South Vietnam armed forces of
the United States and its satellites to kill our compatriots, occupy
and ravage our sacred soil and enslave our people.
The Vietnamese, the peoples of all Indo-China and Southeast
Asia, supporters of peace and justice in every part of the world,
have raised their voice in angry protest against this criminal unpro-
voked aggression of the United States imperialists.
In the present extremely grave situation, the South Vietnam
National Liberation Front considers it necessary to proclaim anew
its firm and unswerving determination to resist the U.S. imperialists
and fight for the salvation of our country. . . . [It] will continue to
rely chiefly on its own forces and potentialities, but it is prepared to
accept any assistance, moral and material, including arms and other
military equipment, from all the socialist countries, from nationalist
countries, from international organizations, and from the peace-
loving peoples of the world.
Q How does the NLF justify its claim to represent the legitimate
aspirations of the people of South Vietnam? Do you agree with
its argument?
SOURCE: ‘‘Statement of the National Liberation Front of South
Vietnam,’’ New Times (March 27, 1965), pp. 36–40.
A Birthday Celebration. Unlike his
predecessor Joseph Stalin, Soviet leader
Nikita Khrushchev made a serious effort to
establish alliances with newly emerging
nations in the Third World. The centerpiece
of that policy was maintaining a close
relationship with the People’s Republic of
China. In this photograph, Khrushchev
attends a banquet to celebrate the tenth
anniversary of the founding of the PRC. On
the right, the Vietnamese revolutionary
leader Ho Chi Minh prepares to propose a
toast for the occasion.
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CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 163
sharply divided on the issue, he began to withdraw U.S.
troops while continuing to hold peace talks in Paris. But
the centerpiece of his strategy was to improve relations
with China and thus undercut Chinese support for the
North Vietnamese war effort. During the 1960s, relations
between Moscow and Beijing had reached a point of
extreme tension, and thousands of troops were stationed
on both sides of their long common frontier. To intim-
idate their Communist rivals, Soviet sources dropped
the hint that they might decide to launch a preemptive
strike to destroy Chinese nuclear facilities in Xinjiang.
Sensing an opportunity to split the onetime allies, Nixon
sent his emissary Henry Kissinger on a secret trip to
China. Responding to the latter’s assurances that the
United States was determined to withdraw from Indo-
china and hoped to improve relations with the mainland
regime, Chinese leaders invited President Nixon to visit
China in early 1972.
Incensed at the apparent betrayal by their close allies,
in January 1973 North Vietnamese leaders signed a peace
treaty in Paris calling for the removal of all U.S. forces
from South Vietnam. In return, the Communists agreed
to seek a political settlement of their differences with the
Saigon regime. But negotiations between north and south
over the political settlement soon broke down, and in
early 1975, convinced that Washington would not inter-
vene, the Communists resumed the offensive. At the end
of April, under a massive assault by North Vietnamese
military forces, the South Vietnamese government sur-
rendered. A year later, the country was unified under
Communist rule.
Why had the United States lost the Vietnam War?
Many Americans argued that by not taking the war di-
rectly to North Vietnam, the White House had forced the
U.S. armed forces to fight ‘‘with one hand tied behind
their backs.’’ Others retorted that the United States should
not have gotten involved in a struggle for national liber-
ation in the first place. Dean Rusk, secretary of state
during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, de-
clared many years later that U.S. political leaders had
underestimated the determination of the enemy and
overestimated the patience of the American people. Per-
haps, too, they had overestimated the ability of the Saigon
government to take charge of its own destiny.
The Communist victory in Vietnam was
a humiliation for the United States, but its
strategic impact was limited because of the
new relationship with China. During the
next decade, Sino-American relations con-
tinued to improve. In 1979, diplomatic ties
were established between the two countries
under an arrangement whereby the United
States renounced its mutual security treaty
with the Republic of China in return for a
pledge from China to seek reunification with
Taiwan by peaceful means. By the end of the
1970s, China and the United States had
forged a ‘‘strategic relationship’’ in which
each would cooperate with the other against
the common threat of Soviet ‘‘hegemonism’’
(as China described Soviet policy) in Asia.
An Era of Equivalence
The Johnson administration sent U.S. combat
troops to South Vietnam in 1965 in an effort to
prevent the expansion of communism in
Southeast Asia.Washington’s primary concern,
however, was not Moscow but Beijing. By the
mid-1960s, U.S. officials viewed the Soviet
Union as an essentially conservative power,
more concernedwith protecting its vast empire
than with expanding its borders. In fact, U.S.
policy makers periodically sought Soviet
A Bridge Across the Cold War Divide. In January 1972, U.S. President Richard
Nixon startled the world by visiting mainland China and beginning the long process of
restoring normal relations between the two countries. Despite Nixon’s reputation as a devout
anti-Communist, the visit was a success as the two sides agreed to put aside their most bitter
differences in an effort to reduce tensions in Asia. Here Nixon and Chinese leader Mao
Zedong exchange a historic handshake in Beijing.
A
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164 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
assistance in achieving a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam
War. As long as Khrushchev was in power, they found a
receptive ear inMoscow. Khrushchev had sternly advised the
North Vietnamese against a resumption of revolutionary
war in South Vietnam.
After October 1964, when Khrushchev was replaced
by a new leadership headed by party chief Leonid
Brezhnev (1906–1982) and Prime Minister Alexei Kosy-
gin (1904–1980), Soviet attitudes about Vietnam became
more ambivalent. On the one hand, the new Soviet
leadership had no desire to see the Vietnam conflict
poison relations between the great powers. On the other
hand, Moscow was anxious to demonstrate its support
for the North Vietnamese to deflect Chinese charges that
the Soviet Union had betrayed the interests of the op-
pressed peoples of the world. As a result, Soviet officials
voiced sympathy for the U.S. predicament in Vietnam but
put no pressure on their allies to bring an end to the war.
Indeed, the Soviets became Hanoi’s main supplier of
advanced military equipment in the final years of the war.
Still, Brezhnev and Kosygin continued to pursue the
Khrushchev line of peaceful coexistence with the West and
adopted a generally cautious posture in foreign affairs. By
the early 1970s, a new age in Soviet-American relations
had emerged, often referred to by the French term détente,
meaning a reduction of tensions between the two sides.
One symbol of the new relationship was the Anti-Ballistic
Missile (ABM) Treaty, often called SALT I (for Strategic
Arms Limitation Talks), signed in 1972, in which the two
nations agreed to limit their missile systems.
Washington’s objective in pursuing such a treaty was to
make it unprofitable for either superpower to believe that it
could win a nuclear exchange by launching a preemptive
strike against the other. U.S. officials believed that a policy of
‘‘equivalence,’’ in which there was a roughly equal power
balance on each side, was the best way to avoid a nuclear
confrontation. Détente was pursued in other ways as well.
When President Nixon took office in 1969, he sought to
increase trade and cultural contacts with the Soviet Union.
His purpose was to set up a series of ‘‘linkages’’ in U.S.-Soviet
relations that would persuade Moscow of the economic and
social benefits of maintaining good relations with the West.
A symbol of that new relationship was the Helsinki
Accords of 1975. Signed by theUnited States, Canada, and all
European nations on both sides of the Iron Curtain, these
accords recognized all borders inCentral and Eastern Europe
established since the end of World War II, thereby formally
acknowledging for the first time the Soviet sphere of influ-
ence. The Helsinki Accords also committed the signatory
powers to recognize and protect the human rights of their
citizens, a clear effort by the Western states to improve the
performance of the Soviet Union and its allies in that area.
An End to Détente?
Protection of human rights became one of the major for-
eign policy goals of the next U.S. president, Jimmy Carter
(b. 1924). Ironically, just at the point when U.S. involve-
ment in Vietnam came to an end and relations with China
began to improve, the mood in U.S.-Soviet relations began
to sour, for several reasons.
Renewed Tensions in the Third World Some Ameri-
cans had become increasingly concerned about aggressive
new tendencies in Soviet foreign policy. The first indication
came in Africa. Soviet influence was on the rise in Somalia,
across the Red Sea in South Yemen, and later in Ethiopia.
Soviet involvement was also on the increase in southern
Africa, where an insurgent movement supported by Cuban
troops came to power in Angola, once a colony of Por-
tugal. Then, in 1979, Soviet troops were sent to neigh-
boring Afghanistan to protect a newly installed Marxist
regime facing rising internal resistance from fundamen-
talist Muslims. Some observers suspected that the Soviet
advance into hitherto neutral Afghanistan was to extend
Soviet power into the oil fields of the Persian Gulf. To deter
such a possibility, the White House promulgated the
Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States would
use its military power, if necessary, to safeguard Western
access to the oil reserves in the Middle East. In fact, sources
in Moscow later disclosed that the Soviet advance into
Afghanistan had little to do with a strategic drive toward
the Persian Gulf but represented an effort to take advan-
tage of the recent disarray in U.S. foreign policy in the
aftermath of defeat in Vietnam to increase Soviet influence
in a sensitive region increasingly beset with Islamic fervor.
Soviet officials feared that the wave of Islamic activism
could spread to the Muslim populations in the Soviet re-
publics in central Asia and were confident that the United
States was too distracted by the ‘‘Vietnam syndrome’’ (the
public fear of U.S. involvement in another Vietnam-type
conflict) to respond.
Other factors contributed to the growing suspicion of
the Soviet Union in the United States. During the era of
détente, Washington officials had assumed that Moscow
accepted the U.S. doctrine of equivalence—the idea that both
sides possessed sufficient strength to destroy the other in the
event of a surprise attack. By the end of the decade, however,
some U.S. defense analysts began to charge that the Soviets
were seeking strategic superiority in nuclear weapons and
argued for a substantial increase in U.S. defense spending.
Such charges, combined with evidence of Soviet efforts in
Africa and the Middle East and reports of the persecution
of Jews and dissidents in the Soviet Union, helped under-
mine public support for détente in the United States.
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 165
These changing attitudes were reflected in the failure of
the Carter administration to obtain congressional approval
of a new arms limitation agreement (SALT II) signed with
the Soviet Union in 1979.
Countering the Evil Empire
The early years of the administration of President Ronald
Reagan (1911–2004) witnessed a return to the harsh
rhetoric, if not all of the harsh practices, of the Cold War.
President Reagan’s anti-Communist credentials were well
known. In a speech given shortly after his election in
1980, he referred to the Soviet Union as an ‘‘evil empire’’
and frequently voiced his suspicion of its motives in
foreign affairs. In an effort to eliminate perceived Soviet
advantages in strategic weaponry, the White House be-
gan a military buildup that stimulated a renewed arms
race. In 1982, the Reagan administration introduced the
nuclear-tipped cruise missile, whose ability to fly at low
altitudes made it difficult to detect by enemy radar.
Reagan also became an ardent exponent of the Strategic
Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed ‘‘Star Wars.’’ Its
purposes were to create a space shield that could destroy
incoming missiles and to force Moscow into an arms race
that it could not hope to win.
The Reagan administration also adopted a more activ-
ist, if not confrontational, stance in the Third World. That
attitude was most directly demonstrated
in Central America, where the revolu-
tionary Sandinista regime had come to
power inNicaraguawith the overthrowof
the Somoza dictatorship in 1979. Charg-
ing that the Sandinista regime was sup-
porting a guerrilla insurgency movement
in nearby El Salvador, the Reagan ad-
ministration began to provide material
aid to the government in El Salvador
while simultaneously applying pressure
on the Sandinistas by giving support to an
anti-Communist guerrilla movement
(called the Contras) in Nicaragua. The
administration’s Central American policy
caused considerable controversy in Congress, and critics
charged that growing U.S. involvement there could lead to a
repeat of the nation’s bitter experience in Vietnam.
By providing military support to the anti-Soviet in-
surgents in Afghanistan, the White House helped main-
tain a Vietnam-like war in Afghanistan that would embed
the Soviet Union in its own quagmire. Like the Vietnam
War, the conflict in Afghanistan resulted in heavy casu-
alties and demonstrated that the influence of a super-
power was limited in the face of strong nationalist,
guerrilla-type opposition.
Toward a New World Order
In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was elected secretary of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow. During
Brezhnev’s last years and the brief tenures of his two
successors (see Chapter 9), the Soviet Union had entered
an era of serious economic decline, and the dynamic new
party chief was well aware that drastic changes would be
needed to rekindle the dreams that had inspired the
Bolshevik Revolution. During the next few years, he
launched a program of restructuring (perestroika) to re-
vitalize the Soviet system. As part of that program, he set
out to improve relations with the United States and the
rest of the capitalist world. When he met with President
Reagan in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, the two
leaders agreed to set aside their ideological differences.
Gorbachev’s desperate effort to rescue the Soviet Union
from collapse was too little and too late. In 1991, the Soviet
Union, so long an apparently permanent fixture on the
global scene, suddenly disintegrated. In its place arose several
new nations from the ashes of the Soviet Empire.Meanwhile,
the string of Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe broke loose
from Moscow’s grip and declared their independence from
Communist rule. The era of the Cold War was over.
The end of the Cold War lulled many observers into
the seductive vision of a new world order that would be
characterized by peaceful cooperation and increasing
prosperity. Sadly, such hopes have not
been realized. A bitter civil war in the
Balkans in the mid-1990s graphically
demonstrated that old fault lines of
national and ethnic hostility still di-
vided the post–Cold War world. Else-
where, bloody ethnic and religious
disputes broke out in Africa and the
Middle East. Then, on September 11,
2001, the world entered a dangerous
new era when terrorists attacked the
nerve centers of U.S. power in New
York City and Washington, D.C., in-
augurating a new round of tension
between the West and the forces of
militant Islam. These events will be discussed in greater
detail in the chapters that follow.
Beyond these immediate problems, other issues clamor
for attention. Environmental pollution and the threat of
global warming, the widening gap between rich and poor
nations, and growing tensions caused by the migration of
peoples all present a threat to political stability and the pur-
suit of happiness. Today, the task of guaranteeing the survival
of the human race appears to be equally as challenging as it
was during the era of theColdWar—and evenmore complex.
We will return to these issues in the final chapter.
MEXICO
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COSTA RICA
HONDURAS
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Northern Central America
166 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Department of State Bulletin, February 11, 1945, p. 213.
2. Quoted in Joseph M. Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, February 21–June 5,
1947, 2d ed. (New York, 1964), pp. 140–141.
3. Quoted in Walter Laqueur, Europe in Our Time (New York,
1992), p. 111.
TIMELINE
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985
Europe
Yalta
Conference
(1945)
NATO
formed
(1949)
Marshall
Plan
(1947)
Warsaw Pact
created
(1955)
The Americas
Asia
SALT pact signed
(1972)
Geneva Conference
ends conflict in Indochina
(1954)
Civil war
in China
(1946–1949)
Korean War
(1950–1953)
Sino-Soviet dispute
breaks into open
(1961)
Communists seize power
in South Vietnam
(1975)
Nixon visits China
(1972)
U.S. sends combat
troops to Vietnam
(1965)
Soviet invasion
of Afghanistan
(1979)
Cuban Missile Crisis
(1962)
Tito expelled
from Soviet bloc
(1948)
CONCLUSION
AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II, a new conflict appeared in Europe as the
two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, began to
compete for political domination. This ideological division soon
spread to the rest of the world as the United States fought in Korea
and Vietnam to prevent the spread of communism, promoted by
the new Maoist government in China, while the Soviet Union used
its influence to prop up pro-Soviet regimes in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America.
What had begun, then, as a confrontation across the great
divide of the Iron Curtain in Europe eventually took on global
significance, much as the major European powers had jostled for
position and advantage in Africa and eastern Asia prior to World
War I. As a result, both Moscow and Washington became entangled
in areas that in themselves had little importance in terms of real
national security interests.
As the twentieth century entered its last two decades, however,
there were tantalizing signs of a thaw in the Cold War. In 1979,
China and the United States decided to establish mutual diplomatic
relations, a consequence of Beijing’s decision to focus on domestic
reform and stop supporting wars of national liberation in Asia.
Six years later, the ascent of Mikhail Gorbachev to leadership,
culminating in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, brought a
final end to almost half a century of bitter rivalry between the
world’s two superpowers.
The Cold War had thus ended without the horrifying vision of
a mushroom cloud. Unlike earlier rivalries that had culminated in
the century’s two world wars, the antagonists had gradually come to
realize that the struggle for supremacy could best be carried out in
the political and economic arena rather than on the battlefield. And
in the final analysis, it was not military superiority, but political,
economic, and cultural factors that had brought about the triumph
of Western civilization over the Marxist vision of a classless utopia.
The world’s statesmen could now shift their focus to other problems
of mutual concern.
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 7 EAST AND WEST IN THE GRIP OF THE COLD WAR 167
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
ON MAY 22, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a policy
speech before an assembled audience of students at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He used the occasion to propose a new
domestic strategy—to be known as the ‘‘Great Society’’—to bring
about major economic and social reforms in the United States. The
aim of these reforms, he said, would be to use the national wealth
‘‘to enrich and elevate our national life and to advance the quality
of our American civilization.’’1
In his State of the Union address the following January, Presi-
dent Johnson unveiled some of the details of his plan. They included
increased funding for education, urban renewal, the fight against
crime and that against disease, a new Medicare program, and a war
on poverty. Finally, he called for an extension of voting rights to
guarantee the franchise to all citizens.
During the next few years, the U.S. Congress enacted many of
the programs drafted by the Johnson administration, and the Great
Society became a familiar part of the American landscape. A few
years, later, however, it came under attack, as a more conservative
electorate turned away from expensive welfare programs and
endorsed a more modest approach to meeting the social needs of
the American people. An era of active government intervention to
bring about changes in the fabric of American society had came
to an end.
168
CHAPTER 8
THE UNITED STATES, CANADA,
AND LATIN AMERICA
The United States Since 1945
Between 1945 and 1970, the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt’s
New Deal largely determined the parameters of American
domestic politics. The New Deal gave rise to a distinct
pattern that signified a basic transformation in American
society. This pattern included a dramatic increase in the
role and power of the federal government, the rise of
organized labor as a significant force in the economy and
politics, a commitment to the welfare state, albeit a re-
stricted one (Americans did not have access to universal
health care as most other industrialized societies did), a
grudging acceptance of the need to resolve minority
problems, and a willingness to experiment with deficit
spending as a means of spurring the economy.
One reason for the success of New Deal policies in the
postwar era was the decision by the United States and its
European allies to pursue free trade as ameans of expanding
global prosperity and preventing the vicious trade wars that
had been a contributing factor in the Great Depression in
the 1930s. The first step took place in 1947, when twenty-
three leading nations accepted the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the goal of whichwas to lower
tariffs and quotas in order to promote free trade on a global
basis. The success of GATT led in 1995 to its replacement by
the World Trade Organization (WTO), an organization of
more than 150 nations dedicated to promoting trade
agreements and moderating trade disputes.
These goals were facilitated by the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which had
been established in the late 1940s. The IMF was to sta-
bilize the global financial system by supervising exchange
rates and offering financial and technical assistance to
nations encountering economic difficulties. The World
Bank was to provide grants and loans to assist developing
nations in building up their infrastructure so they could
compete more effectively in the global marketplace.
An Era of Prosperity and Social Commitment
The influence of New Deal politics was bolstered by the
election of Democratic presidents—Harry Truman in
1948, John F. Kennedy in 1960, and Lyndon B. Johnson in
1964. Even the election of a Republican president, Dwight
D. Eisenhower, in 1952 and 1956, did not significantly
alter the fundamental direction of the New Deal. As Ei-
senhower conceded in 1954, ‘‘Should any political party
attempt to abolish Social Security and eliminate labor
laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party
again in our political history.’’
No doubt, the economic boom that took place after
World War II fueled public confidence in the new
American way of life. A shortage of consumer goods
during the war left Americans with both surplus income
and the desire to purchase these goods after the war. Then,
too, the growing power of organized labor enabled more
and more workers to obtain the wage increases that fueled
the growth of the domestic market. Increased government
expenditures (justified by the theory of English economist
John Maynard Keynes that government spending could
stimulate a lagging economy to reach higher levels of
productivity) also indirectly subsidized the American
private enterprise system. Especially after the Korean War
began in 1950, outlays on defense provided money for
scientific research in the universities and markets for
weapons industries. After 1955, tax dollars built a massive
system of interstate highways, and tax deductions for
mortgages subsidized homeowners. Between 1945 and
1973, real wages grew at an average rate of 3 percent a year,
the most prolonged advance in American history.
America on the Move The prosperity of the 1950s and
1960s also translated into significant social changes. More
workers left the factories and fields and moved into white-
collar occupations, finding jobs as professional and technical
employees, managers, proprietors, and clerical and sales
workers. In 1940, blue-collar workers made up 52 percent of
the labor force; farmers and farmworkers, 17 percent; and
white-collar workers, 31 percent. By 1970, blue-collar
workers constituted 50 percent; farmers and farmworkers,
3 percent; and white-collar workers, 47 percent.
One consequence of this change was a movement
from rural areas and central cities into the suburbs. In
1940, just 19 percent of the American population lived
in suburbs, with 49 percent in rural areas and 32 percent
in central cities. By 1970, those figures had changed to 38,
31, and 31 percent, respectively. The move to the suburbs
also produced an imposing number of shopping malls
and reinforced the American passion for the automobile,
which provided the means of transport from suburban
home to suburban mall and workplace. Finally, the search
for prosperity led to new migration patterns. As the West
and South experienced rapid economic growth through the
development of new industries, especially in the defense
field, massive numbers of people made the exodus from
the cities of the Northeast and Midwest to the Sunbelt of
the South and West. Between 1940 and 1980, cities like
Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cleveland lost between
13 and 36 percent of their populations, while Los Angeles,
Dallas, and San Diego grew between 100 and 300 percent.
Visions of Insecurity Although the country was be-
coming more affluent, it was also feeling more vulnerable as
Cold War confrontations abroad had repercussions at
home. The Communist victory in China aroused fears that
Communists had infiltrated the United States. A demagogic
senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, helped intensify
a massive ‘‘Red scare’’ with unsubstantiated allegations that
there were hundreds of Communists in high government
positions. Congressional hearings on the subject were held
by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and
dozens of government officials or public figures were ac-
cused of radical sympathies or past membership in the
Communist Party. A number of film actors and producers
were placed on a blacklist that prevented them from finding
employment in Hollywood. One U.S. senator even accused
General George C. Marshall of treason for his efforts to
bring about a truce in the civil war in China.
In the end, McCarthy overplayed his hand when he
attacked alleged ‘‘Communist conspirators’’ in the U.S.
Army, and he was censured by Congress in 1954. Shortly
after, his anti-Communist crusade came to an end. The
pervasive fear of communism and the possibility of a
nuclear war, however, remained strong. For those millions
of Americans living in major metropolitan areas, the
wailing of a siren in the night always conjured up latent
fears of a surprise nuclear attack from the Soviet Union.
Toward the Great Society While the 1950s have been
characterized (erroneously) as a tranquil age, the period
between 1960 and 1973 was clearly a time of upheaval that
brought to the fore some of the problems that had been
glossed over during the Eisenhower years. The era began
on an optimistic note. At age forty-three, John F. Kennedy
(1917–1963) became the youngest elected president in the
history of the United States and the first born in the
twentieth century. The new administration focused pri-
marily on foreign affairs, although it inaugurated an ex-
tended period of increased economic growth, the result—in
part—of lower taxes and a business-friendly atmosphere.
But the bright promise of a new era of peace, progress, and
prosperity was suddenly shattered on November 22, 1963,
when Kennedy was assassinated under mysterious cir-
cumstances by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas.
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 169
Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–
1973), who won a new term as president in a landslide in
1964, used his stunning mandate to pursue the growth of
the welfare state, first begun in the New Deal. Johnson’s
Great Society programs included health care for the
elderly, a ‘‘war on poverty’’ to be fought with food stamps
and a ‘‘job corps,’’ the new Department of Housing and
Urban Development to deal with the problems of the
cities, and federal assistance for education.
Focus on Civil Rights Johnson’s other domestic passion
was the achievement of equal rights for African Ameri-
cans. The civil rights movement began in earnest in 1954
when the U.S. Supreme Court took the dramatic step of
striking down the practice of maintaining racially segre-
gated public schools. According to Chief Justice Earl
Warren, ‘‘Separate educational facilities are inherently
unequal.’’ A year later, during a boycott of segregated buses
in Montgomery, Alabama, the eloquent Martin Luther
King Jr. (1929–1968) surfaced as the leader of a growing
movement for racial equality.
By the early 1960s, a number of groups, including
King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
were organizing demonstrations and sit-ins across the
South to end racial segregation. In August 1963, King led
the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This
march and King’s impassioned plea for racial equality had
an electrifying effect on the American people (see the box
on p. 171). By the end of 1963, a majority of Americans (52
percent) called civil rights the most significant national
issue; only 4 percent had done so eight months earlier.
On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers
disappeared while investigating the torching of an African
American church in Mississippi. A few weeks later, their
bodies were discovered in a partially constructed dam
nearby. President Johnson took advantage of the uproar
caused by the incident to promote the cause of civil rights
legislation. As a result of his initiative, Congress in 1964
enacted the Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation and
discrimination in the workplace and in all public ac-
commodations. The Voting Rights Act, passed the fol-
lowing year, eliminated racial obstacles to voting in
southern states. But laws alone could not guarantee a
‘‘great society,’’ and Johnson soon faced bitter social un-
rest, both from African Americans and from the bur-
geoning antiwar movement.
In the North and West, African Americans had had
voting rights for many years, but local patterns of segre-
gation resulted in considerably higher unemployment
rates for blacks (and Hispanics) than for whites and left
blacks segregated in huge urban ghettos. In these ghettos,
calls for militant action by radical black nationalist leaders,
such as Malcolm X of the Black Muslims, attracted more
attention than the nonviolent appeals of Martin Luther
King. In the summer of 1965, race riots erupted in the
Watts district of Los Angeles and led to thirty-four deaths
and the destruction of more than one thousand buildings.
Cleveland, San Francisco, Chicago, Newark, and Detroit
likewise exploded in the summers of 1966 and 1967. After
the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, more
than one hundred cities experienced rioting, including
Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital. The combination
of riots and extremist comments by radical black leaders
led to a ‘‘white backlash’’ and a severe division of Amer-
ican society. In 1964, only 34 percent of white Americans
agreed with the statement that blacks were asking for ‘‘too
much’’; by late 1966, that number had risen to 85 percent.
A Nation Divided Antiwar protests also divided the
American people after President Johnson committed
American combat troops to the costly war in Vietnam
(see Chapter 7). The antiwar movement arose out of the
The Antiwar Movement. As U.S. military casualties in South
Vietnam began to mount in the mid-1960s, public protests against the war
began to intensify on the home front. Many of the protesters were young
Americans subject to the draft, but opposition to U.S. policies in Vietnam
gradually spread throughout the country and eventually forced President
Lyndon Johnson and his successor Richard M. Nixon to withdraw
American troops from the country. Shown here is a vast protest
demonstration against the backdrop of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
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170 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
free speech movement that began in 1964 at the Uni-
versity of California at Berkeley as a protest against the
impersonality and authoritarianism of the large univer-
sity. As the war progressed and U.S. casualties mounted,
protests escalated. Teach-ins, sit-ins, and the occupation
of university buildings alternated with more radical
demonstrations that increasingly led to violence. The
killing of four students at Kent State University in 1970 by
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 171
Text not available due to copyright restrictions
the Ohio National Guard caused a reaction, and the an-
tiwar movement began to subside. Supporters contended
that the antiwar movement had helped weaken the will-
ingness of many Americans to continue the war. But the
combination of antiwar demonstrations and ghetto riots
in the cities also prepared many people to embrace ‘‘law
and order,’’ an appeal used by Richard M. Nixon (1913–
1994), the Republican presidential candidate in 1968.
With Nixon’s election in 1968, a shift to the right in
American politics had begun.
America Shifts to the Right
Nixon eventually ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam by
gradually withdrawing American troops and appealing
to the ‘‘silent majority’’ of Americans for patience in
bringing the conflict to an end. A slowdown in racial
desegregation appealed to southern whites, who had
previously tended to vote Democratic. The Republican
strategy also gained support among white Democrats in
northern cities, where court-mandated busing to
achieve racial integration had produced a white back-
lash. Nixon was less conservative on other issues, no-
tably when, breaking with his strong anti-Communist
past, he visited China in 1972 and opened the door to
the eventual diplomatic recognition of that Communist
state.
Nixon was paranoid about conspiracies, however,
and began to use illegal methods of gaining political in-
telligence about his political opponents. One of the
president’s advisers explained that their intention was to
‘‘use the available federal machinery to screw our political
enemies.’’ Nixon’s zeal led to the infamous Watergate
scandal—the attempted bugging of Democratic National
Headquarters located at the Watergate complex in down-
town Washington, D.C. Although Nixon repeatedly lied
to the American public about his involvement in the af-
fair, secret tapes of his own conversations in the White
House revealed the truth. On August 9, 1974, Nixon re-
signed from office, an act that saved him from almost
certain impeachment and conviction.
After Watergate, American domestic politics fo-
cused on economic issues. Gerald R. Ford (1913–2006)
became president when Nixon resigned, only to lose in
the 1976 election to the Democratic former governor of
Georgia, Jimmy Carter (b. 1924), who campaigned as an
outsider against the Washington establishment. Both
Ford and Carter faced severe economic problems. The
period from 1973 to the mid-1980s was one of economic
stagnation, which came to be known as stagflation—a
combination of high inflation and high unemployment.
In 1984, median family income was 6 percent below that
of 1973.
The First Oil Crisis The economic downturn stemmed
at least in part from a dramatic rise in oil prices. Oil had
been a cheap and abundant source of energy in the 1950s,
but by the late 1970s, half of the oil used in the United
States came from the Middle East. An oil embargo
imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) cartel as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli
War in 1973 and OPEC’s subsequent raising of prices led
to a quadrupling of the cost of oil. By the end of the
1970s, oil prices had increased twentyfold, encouraging
inflationary tendencies throughout the entire economy.
Although the Carter administration produced a plan for
reducing oil consumption at home while spurring do-
mestic production, neither Congress nor the American
people could be persuaded to follow what they regarded
as drastic measures.
By 1980, the Carter administration was facing two
devastating problems. High inflation and a noticeable
decline in average weekly earnings were causing a per-
ceptible drop in American living standards. At the same
time, a crisis abroad had erupted when fifty-three
Americans were taken and held hostage by the Iranian
government of Ayatollah Khomeini (see Chapter 15).
Carter’s inability to gain the release of the American
hostages led to the perception at home that he was a weak
president. His overwhelming loss to Ronald Reagan
(1911–2004) in the election of 1980 brought forward the
chief exponent of conservative Republican policies and a
new political order.
Dismantling the Welfare State The conservative trend
continued in the 1980s. The election of Ronald Reagan
changed the direction of American policy on several
fronts. Reversing decades of the expanding welfare state,
Reagan cut spending on food stamps, school lunch pro-
grams, and job programs. At the same time, his admin-
istration fostered the largest peacetime military buildup
in American history. Total federal spending rose from
$631 billion in 1981 to more than $1 trillion by 1986. But
instead of raising taxes to pay for the new expenditures,
which far outweighed the budget cuts in social areas,
Reagan convinced Congress to support supply-side eco-
nomics. Massive tax cuts were designed to stimulate rapid
economic growth and produce new revenues.
Reagan’s policies seemed to work in the short run,
and the United States experienced an economic upturn
that lasted until the end of the 1980s, although most of
the benefits accrued to the most affluent members of
American society. But the spending policies of the Reagan
administration also produced record government deficits,
which loomed as an obstacle to long-term growth. In the
1970s, the total deficit was $420 billion; between 1981 and
1987, Reagan’s budget deficits were three times that amount.
172 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
The inability of George H. W. Bush (b. 1924), Reagan’s
vice president and successor, to deal with an economic
downturn led to the election of a Democrat, Bill Clinton
(b. 1946), in November 1992.
Seizing the Political Center
The new president was a southerner who claimed to be a
new Democrat—one who favored fiscal responsibility and
a more conservative social agenda—a clear indication that
the rightward drift in American politics had not been
reversed by his victory. During his first term in office,
Clinton reduced the budget deficit and signed a bill
turning the welfare program back to the states while
pushing measures to strengthen the educational system
and provide job opportunities for those Americans re-
moved from the welfare rolls. By seizing the center of the
American political agenda, Clinton was able to win re-
election in 1996, although the Republican Party now held
a majority in both houses of Congress.
President Clinton’s political fortunes were helped
considerably by a lengthy economic revival. Thanks to
downsizing and technological advances, major U.S. cor-
porations began to recover the competitive edge they had
lost to Japanese and European firms in previous years. At
the same time, a steady reduction in the annual govern-
ment budget deficit strengthened confidence in the per-
formance of the national economy. Although wage
increases were modest, inflation was securely in check,
and public confidence in the future was on the rise.
Many of the country’s social problems, however, re-
mained unresolved. Although crime rates were down,
drug use, smoking, and alcoholism among young people
remained high, and the specter of rising medical costs
loomed as a generation of baby boomers (those born in
the two decades after World War II, so called because of
the dramatic spike in births during that period) neared
retirement age. Americans remained bitterly divided over
such issues as abortion and affirmative action programs
to rectify past discrimination on the basis of gender, race,
or sexual orientation.
President Clinton contributed to the national sense
of unease by becoming the focus of a series of financial
and sexual scandals that aroused concerns among many
Americans that the moral fiber of the country had been
severely undermined. Accused of lying under oath in a
judicial hearing, he was impeached by the Republican-led
majority in Congress. Although the effort to remove
Clinton from office failed, his administration was tar-
nished, and in 2000, Republican candidate George W.
Bush (b. 1946), the son of Clinton’s predecessor, narrowly
defeated Clinton’s vice president, Albert Gore, in the race
for the presidency. Bush too sought to occupy the center
of the political spectrum while heeding the concerns of
his conservative base.
The Politics of Terrorism On September 11, 2001,
Muslim terrorists hijacked four commercial jet planes
shortly after taking off from Boston, Newark, and
Washington, D.C. Two of the planes were flown directly
into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New
York City, causing both buildings to collapse; a third
slammed into the Pentagon, near Washington, D.C.; and
the fourth crashed in a field in central Pennsylvania.
About three thousand people were killed, including
everyone aboard the four airliners.
The hijackings were carried out by a terrorist orga-
nization known as al-Qaeda, which had been suspected of
bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and at-
tacking a U.S. naval ship, the U.S.S. Cole, two years later.
Its leader, Osama bin Laden, was a native of Saudi Arabia
who was allegedly angry at the growing U.S. presence in
the Middle East. U.S. President George W. Bush vowed to
wage an offensive war on terrorism, and in October, with
broad international support, including from the United
Nations, U.S. forces attacked al-Qaeda bases in Afghani-
stan (see Chapter 15).
The Bush administration had less success in gaining
UN approval for an attack on the brutal regime of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq, which the White House accused of
amassing weapons of mass destruction and providing
support to terrorist groups in the region. Nevertheless, in
March 2003, U.S. forces invaded Iraq and quickly over-
threw the regime of Saddam Hussein. Initially, the invasion
had broad popular support in the United States, but as
insurgent activities continued to inflict casualties on U.S.
and Allied occupation forces—not to speak of the deaths of
thousands of Iraqi civilians—the war became more con-
troversial. The failure to locate suspected weapons of mass
destruction raised questions about the motives behind the
administration’s decision to invade Iraq. Some Americans
called for an immediate pullout of U.S. troops.
The Bush administration was also dogged by an
economic downturn and a number of other domestic
problems, including the outsourcing of American jobs to
Asian countries and the failure to control illegal immi-
gration from Mexico. But it benefited from the public
perception that the Republican Party was more effective
in protecting the American people from the threat of
terrorism than its Democratic rival. Evangelical Christians—
one of the nation’s most vocal communities—were also
drawn to the Republican Party for its emphasis on tra-
ditional moral values and the sanctity of the family and
its opposition to abortion. Riding the wave of such
concerns, President Bush defeated the Democratic can-
didate John F. Kerry in the presidential election of 2004.
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 173
After the election, the Bush administration sought to
rein in the rising cost of domestic spending by presenting
new proposals to reform Social Security and the Medicare
program. But the war in Iraq continued to distract the
White House from other pressing issues, including a
dramatic rise in the price of oil and an exploding national
budget deficit, that demanded the urgent attention of the
nation and its political leaders. In national elections held
in the fall of 2006, the Democratic Party seized control of
both houses of Congress for the first time in twelve years.
The presidential campaign of 2008 was historic in
terms of the major candidates for high office. The nom-
inee of the Democratic Party, Illinois senator Barack
Obama, was an African American of mixed parentage,
while his closest challenger was ex-President Clinton’s
wife, Hillary. Senator John McCain, the Republican can-
didate, selected Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his run-
ning mate. The presidential election appeared to be highly
competitive. The Republican Party ran strongly on issues
of national security, but a sudden financial crisis, brought
on by a serious downturn in the housing market and an
ensuing credit crush, put the public focus squarely on the
national economy. When the votes were counted, Barack
Obama had won a decisive victory on a platform of
change and an increased role for government in the affairs
of American society. Was the pendulum of American
politics about to shift back toward the left?
The Changing Face
of American Society
Major changes took place in American society in the
decades following World War II. New technologies such
as television, jet planes, and the computer all dramatically
altered the pace and nature of American life. Increased
prosperity led to the growth of the middle class, the ex-
pansion of higher education, and a rapid increase in
consumer demand for the products of a mass society. The
building of a nationwide system of superhighways,
combined with low fuel prices and steady improvements
in the quality and operability of automobiles, produced a
highly mobile society in which the average American
family moved at least once every five years, sometimes
from one end of the continent to the other.
A Consumer Society, a Permissive Society
These changes in the physical surroundings of the
country were matched by equally important shifts in the
social fabric. Boosted by rising incomes, a new generation
of baby boomers grew up with higher expectations about
their future material prospects than their parents had had.
The members of this new ‘‘consumer society’’ focused
much of their attention on achieving the ‘‘good life’’—
a middle-class lifestyle, complete with a home in the
suburbs, two automobiles, and ample time for leisure
activities. The growing predilection for buying on the in-
stallment plan was an important factor in protecting the
national economy from the cycle of ‘‘boom and bust’’ that
had characterized the prewar period, while also increasing
the level of personal debt.
With the introduction of credit cards, the personal debt
of the average American skyrocketed, while the savings
rate plummeted to its lowest level in decades. By the end of
the 1990s, adjustable rate mortgages had become increas-
ingly popular. Inappropriate mortgages were a major fac-
tor in the financial crisis that struck the national economy
in the fall of 2008, as were risky banking practices. The fact
is, millions of Americans, with the encouragement of their
political leaders, were spending beyond their means. When
unemployment figures began to creep upward because of
the financial crisis, the number of home foreclosures in-
creased dramatically, and the nation was faced with its
most serious economic recession in decades.
American social mores were also changing. Casual
attitudes toward premarital sex (a product in part of the
introduction of the birth control pill) and the use of
drugs (a practice that increased dramatically during the
Vietnam War) marked the emergence of a youth move-
ment in the 1960s that questioned all authority and fos-
tered rebellion against older generations.
The new standards were evident in the breakdown of
the traditional nuclear family. Divorce rates increased
exponentially to the point that at the end of the century,
one of every two marriages was likely to end in divorce.
Attitudes toward extramarital sex and homosexuality
were also changing, and the stigma attached to children
born out of wedlock eroded dramatically, although such
evolving values were initially more evident in large cities
than in the American heartland.
The Melting Pot in Action
One of the primary visual factors that helped shape
American society in the postwar era was the increasing
pace of new arrivals from abroad. As restrictions on im-
migration were loosened after World War II, millions of
immigrants began to arrive from all over the world. Al-
though the majority came from Latin America, substantial
numbers came from China, Vietnam, and the countries of
southern Asia. By 2003, people of Hispanic origin sur-
passed African Americans as the largest minority group in
the country.
In recent years, illegal immigration—primarily from
Mexico but also to a lesser extent from other countries in
174 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
Central America—has become a controversial issue in
American politics. Since many illegal immigrants gravi-
tate to low-paying jobs not attractive to most Americans,
they have usually been tacitly accepted by the public as a
necessary evil. Now, however, their numbers have in-
creased dramatically (an estimated 500,000 have crossed
the border illegally each year since 2000), and critics point
to the financial burden the new arrivals place on the
nation’s educational and medical systems. The number of
Hispanics living in the southwestern states has increased
to the extent that some argue the melting pot has become
a ‘‘salad bowl’’ of unassimilated minorities living inside
the borders of the United States. Yet recent immigrants,
many of them undocumented, have became an increas-
ingly indispensable element in the U.S. economy, com-
prising one-quarter of all farmworkers and 14 percent of
all those employed in construction jobs.
Women and Society
Many of the changes taking place in American life re-
flected the fact that the role of women was in a state of
rapid transition. In the years immediately following
World War II, many women gave up their jobs in factories
and returned to their traditional role as homemakers,
sparking the ‘‘baby boom’’ of the late 1940s and 1950s.
Eventually, however, many women became restive with
their restrictive role as wives and mothers and began to
enter the workforce at an increasing rate. Unlike the sit-
uation before the war, many of them were married. In
1900, for example, married women made up about 15
percent of the female labor force. By 1970, their number
had increased to 62 percent.
American women were still not receiving equal
treatment in the workplace, however, and by the late
1960s, some began to assert their rights and speak as
feminists. Leading advocates of women’s rights in the
United States included Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.
A journalist and the mother of three children, Friedan
(1921–2006) grew increasingly uneasy with her attempt
to fulfill the traditional role of housewife and mother. In
1963, she published The Feminine Mystique, in which she
analyzed the problems of middle-class women in the
1950s and argued that women were systematically being
denied equality with men. The Feminine Mystique became
a best seller and transformed Friedan into a prominent
spokeswoman for women’s rights in the United States.
As women became more actively involved in public
issues, their role in education increased as well. Beginning
in the 1980s, women’s studies programs began to prolif-
erate on college campuses throughout the United States.
Women also became active in promoting women’s rights
in countries around the world, and they helped organize
international conferences on the subject in Mexico City,
Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing.
Although women have steadily made gains in terms
of achieving true equality in legal rights and economic
opportunity in American society, much remains to be
done. In recent years, much of the energy in the women’s
movement has focused on maintaining the right to
legalized abortion. In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision in Roe v. Wade established the legal right to
abortion. That ruling, however, has been under attack
from those Americans who believe that an abortion is an
act of murder against an unborn child, and the issue has
become a major factor in political campaigns.
The Environment
Concern over environmental problems first began to
engage public opinion in the United States during the
1950s, when high pollution levels in major cities such as
Los Angeles, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, combined with the
popularity of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, aroused
concerns over the impact that unfettered industrialization
was having on the quality of life and the health of the
American people. During the next several decades, fed-
eral, state, and local governments began to issue regu-
lations directed at reducing smog in urban areas and
improving the quality of rivers and streams throughout
the country.
In general, most Americans reacted favorably to such
regulations, but by the 1980s, the environmental move-
ment had engendered a backlash as some people com-
plained that excessively radical measures could threaten
the pace of economic growth and cause a loss of jobs. By
the end of the century, environmental issues had become
deeply entangled with worries about the state of the na-
tional economy. Still, growing concerns about the po-
tential impact of global warming kept the state of the
environment alive as a serious problem in the world
community (see Chapter 16). In 2006, the documentary
film An Inconvenient Truth appeared in movie theaters
across the country. Produced by Albert Gore, Clinton’s
vice president, it sought to arouse public awareness of the
severity of the current climatic crisis, and in the presi-
dential elections held two years later, both major candi-
dates addressed the issue in the fall campaign.
Cultural Trends
The changing character of American society was vividly
reflected in the world of culture, where the postwar era
brought forth a new popular culture increasingly oriented
toward the interests of young people.
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 175
The World of Painting
After World War II, the capital of the Western art world
shifted from Paris to New York. Continuing the avant-
garde quest to express reality in new ways, a group of New
York artists known as Abstract Expressionists began to
paint large nonrepresentational canvases in an effort to
express a spiritual essence beyond the material world.
Among the first was Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), who
developed the technique of dripping and flinging paint
onto a canvas spread out on the floor. Pollock’s large
paintings of swirling colors expressed the energy of pri-
mal forces as well as the vast landscapes of his native
Wyoming.
During the 1960s, many American artists began to
reject the emotional style of the previous decade and
chose to deal with familiar objects from everyday expe-
rience. Some feared that art was being drowned out by
popular culture, which bombarded Americans with the
images of mass culture in newspapers, in the movies, or
on television. In the hope of making art more relevant
and accessible to the public, artists sought to pattern
their work on aspects of everyday life to reach and ma-
nipulate the masses. Works such as those by Andy
Warhol (1930–1987), which repeated images such as
soup cans, dollar bills, and the faces of theMona Lisa and
Marilyn Monroe, often left the viewer with a detached
numbness and a sense of being trapped in an impersonal,
mechanized world. Repetitious and boring, most such
paintings did little to close the gap between popular
culture and serious art.
Perhaps the most influential American artist of the
postwar era was Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008),
whose works broke through the distinctions between
painting and other art forms such as sculpture, photog-
raphy, dance, and theater. In his ‘‘collages’’ or ‘‘combines,’’
he juxtaposed disparate images and everyday objects—
photographs, clothing, letters, even dirt and cigarette
butts—to reflect the energy and disorder of the world
around us. He sought to reproduce the stream of images
projected by flicking the channels on a TV set. His works
represented an encapsulated documentary of American
life in the 1960s, filled with news events, celebrities, war,
sports, and advertisements.
Beginning in the late 1960s, a new school of con-
ceptual art began to reject the commercial marketability
of an art object and seek the meaning of art in ideas. Art
as idea could be philosophy, linguistics, mathematics, or
social criticism, existing solely in the mind of the artist
and the audience. In a related attempt to free art from the
shackles of tradition, a school of performance art used the
body as a means of living sculpture. Often discomfiting or
shocking in its intimate revelations, performance art
expanded the horizons of modern creativity but also
widened the gap between modern art and the public,
many of whom now considered art as socially dysfunc-
tional and totally lacking in relevance to their daily lives.
From Modernism to Postmodernism By the early
1970s, Postmodernism became the new art of revolt. Al-
though some artists persevered in the Modernist tradition
of formal experimentation, many believed that art should
serve society; thus, their work expressed political con-
cerns, seeking to redress social inequities by addressing
issues of gender, race, sexual orientation, ecology, and
globalization. This new style was called conceptual art,
because it was primarily preoccupied with ideas. Using
innovative techniques such as photography, video, and
even representational painting, such artists produced
shocking works with the intent of motivating the viewer
to political action.
One of the most popular genres in the 1990s was the
installation. The artist ‘‘installs’’ machine- or human-
made objects, sometimes filling a large room, with the
aim of transporting the viewer to another environment so
as to experience new ideas and self-awareness. A powerful
example is found in the untitled installation of 1997 by
Robert Gober (b. 1955): in its center, a stereotypical
statue of the Virgin Mary stands over an open drain while
a wide steel pipe pierces her body. Such a violent violation
of the Madonna can be viewed by Christians as depicting
the victory and resilience of faith despite the prevalence of
a philosophical discourse denying the existence of God.
For non-Christians, Gober’s work represents the indom-
itable spirit of humanity, which remains intact despite a
century of adversity.
New Concepts in Music and Architecture
Musical composers also experimented with radically new
concepts. One such innovator was John Cage (1912–
1992), who defined music as the ‘‘organization of sound’’
and included all types of noise in his music. Any un-
conventional sound was welcomed: electronic buzzers
and whines, tape recordings played at altered speeds, or
percussion from any household item. In wanting to make
music ‘‘purposeless,’’ Cage removed the composer’s con-
trol over the sounds. Rather, he sought to let the sounds,
unconnected to one another, exist on their own. His most
discussed work, called 4033@, was four minutes and thirty-
three seconds of silence—the ‘‘music’’ being the sounds
the audience heard in the hall during the ‘‘performance,’’
such as coughing, the rustling of programs, the hum of
air conditioning, and the shuffling of feet.
In the 1960s, minimalism took hold in the United
States. Largely influenced by Indian music, minimalist
176 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
composers such as Philip Glass (b. 1937) focus on the
subtle nuances in the continuous repetitions of a melodic
or rhythmic pattern. Yet another musical development
was microtonality, which expands the traditional twelve-
tone chromatic scale to include quarter tones and even
smaller intervals. Since the 1960s, there has also been
much experimental electronic and computer music. De-
spite the excitement of such musical exploration, how-
ever, much of it is considered too cerebral and alien, even
by the educated public.
One of the most accomplished and accessible con-
temporary American composers, John Adams (b. 1947),
has labeled much of twentieth-century experimental
composition as the ‘‘fussy, difficult music of transition.’’
His music blends Modernist elements with classical tra-
ditions using much minimalist repetition interspersed
with dynamic rhythms. Critics applaud his operas Nixon
in China (1987) and Doctor Atomic (2005), which drama-
tizes the anxious countdown to the detonation of the first
atomic bomb in New Mexico in 1945.
Architecture best reflects the extraordinary global
economic expansion of the second half of the twentieth
century, from the rapid postwar reconstruction of Japan
and Europe to the phenomenal prosperity of the West
and the newfound affluence of emerging Third World
nations. No matter where one travels today, from Kuala
Lumpur to Johannesburg, from Buenos Aires to Shang-
hai, the world’s cities boast the identical monolithic
rectangular skyscraper, which is the international symbol
of modernization, money, and power.
Postmodern American architects, however, grew tired
of the repetition and impersonality of the international
style. Inspired by a new enthusiasm for historical pres-
ervation and urban renewal, they began to reincorporate
traditional materials, shapes, and decorative elements into
their buildings. Anyone sighting an American city today
cannot fail to observe its Postmodern skyline, with py-
ramidal and cupolaed skyscrapers of blue-green glass and
brick. Even Modernist rectangular malls have tacked on
Greek columns and entryways shaped like Egyptian
pyramids.
The arts are affected by the technological discoveries
of their age, and today’s marvel is undoubtedly the
computer. In recent years, all the arts have been grappling
with computerizing their medium. In architecture, for
example, the computer is used as an engineering tool to
solve construction problems for buildings imagined on
the drawing board. What is more, architects today bypass
the drawing board completely and let the computer
conceive the building all by itself. In the visual arts, many
artists compose abstract designs or representational
paintings directly on the computer, forsaking canvas and
brush entirely.
New Trends in Literature
Fictional writing in the 1960s reflected growing concerns
about the materialism and superficiality of American
culture and often took the form of exuberant and comic
verbal fantasies. As the pain of the Vietnam War and the
ensuing social and political turmoil intensified, authors
turned to satire, using black humor and cruelty in the
hope of shocking the American public into a recognition
of its social ills. Many of these novels—such as Thomas
Pynchon’s V. (1963), Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), and
John Barth’s Sot-Weed Factor (1960)—were wildly imagi-
native, highly entertaining, and very different from the
writing of the first half of the century, which had detailed
the ‘‘real’’ daily lives of small-town or big-city America.
In the 1970s and 1980s, American fiction relinquished
the extravagant verbal displays of the 1960s, returning to a
more sober exposition of social problems, this time related
to race, gender, and sexual orientation. Much of the best
fiction explored the moral dimensions of contemporary
life from Jewish, African American, feminist, or gay per-
spectives. Bernard Malamud (1914–1986), Saul Bellow
(1915–2005), and Philip Roth (b. 1933) presented the
Jewish American experience, while Ralph Ellison (1914–
1994), James Baldwin (1924–1987), and Toni Morrison
(b. 1931) dramatized the African American struggle.
Some outstanding women’s fiction was written by
foreign-born writers from Asia and Latin America, who
examined the problems of immigrants, such as cultural
identity and assimilation into the American mainstream.
Popular Culture
Popular culture has always played an important role in
helping the American people define themselves. It also
reflects the economic system that supports it, for it is this
system that manufactures, distributes, and sells the im-
ages that people consume as popular culture. As popular
culture and its economic support system have become
increasingly intertwined, leisure industries have emerged.
Modern popular culture is thus inextricably tied to the
mass consumer society in which it has emerged. This
consumer-oriented aspect of popular culture delineates it
clearly from the folk culture of preceding centuries; folk
culture is something people make, whereas popular cul-
ture is something people buy.
The United States has been the most influential force
in shaping popular culture in the West and, to a lesser
degree, throughout the world. Through movies, music,
advertising, and television, the United States has spread
its particular form of consumerism and the American
dream to millions around the world. As we shall see in
later chapters, however, American culture is also resented
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 177
in many parts of the world for its role in eroding tradi-
tional values and the ability of individual nations to de-
fine their own social mores.
Motion pictures were the primary vehicle for the
diffusion of American popular culture in the years im-
mediately following World War II and continued to
dominate both European and American markets in the
next decades. Although developed in the 1930s, television
did not become readily available until the late 1940s. By
1954, there were 32 million sets in the United States as
television became the centerpiece of middle-class life. In
the 1960s, as television spread around the world, Amer-
ican networks unloaded their products on Europe and
developing countries at extraordinarily low prices. Only
the establishment of quota systems prevented American
television from completely inundating these countries.
The United States has also dominated popular music
since the end of World War II. Jazz, blues, rhythm and
blues, rock, rap, and hip-hop have been the most popular
music forms in the Western world—and much of the non-
Western world—during this time. All of them originated
in the United States, and all are rooted in African
American musical innovations. These forms later spread
to the rest of the world, inspiring local artists, who then
transformed the music in their own way.
In the postwar years, sports became a major product
of both popular culture and the leisure industry. The
emergence of professional football and basketball leagues,
as well as the increasing popularity of their college
equivalents, helped to transform sports into something
akin to a national obsession. Sports became a cheap form
of entertainment for consumers, as fans did not have to
leave their homes to enjoy athletic competitions. In fact,
some sports organizations initially resisted television,
fearing that it would hurt ticket sales. The tremendous
revenues possible from television contracts overcame this
hesitation, however. As sports television revenue esca-
lated, many sports came to receive the bulk of their yearly
revenue from broadcasting contracts.
Sports became intertwined with international politics
as well as big business. Politicization was one of the most
significant trends in sports during the second half of the
twentieth century. Football (soccer) remains the dominant
world sport and more than ever has become a vehicle for
nationalist sentiment and expression. It has yet to establish
a mass viewing base in the United States, however. On the
other hand, the Olympic Games are one of the most
watched events on television.
Science and Technology
Since the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century
and the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth, science
and technology have played increasingly important roles
in the growth of Western civilization. Before World
War II, theoretical science and technology were largely
separated. Pure science was the domain of university
professors, far removed from the practical technological
matters of technicians and engineers. But during World
War II, university scientists were recruited to work for
their governments to develop new weapons and practical
instruments of war. British physicists played a crucial
role in developing an improved radar system in 1940
that helped defeat the German air force in the Battle of
Britain. The computer, too, was a wartime creation. British
mathematician Alan Turing designed a primitive com-
puter to assist British intelligence in breaking the secret
codes of German ciphering machines. The most famous
product of wartime scientific research was the atomic
bomb, created by a team of American and European
scientists under the guidance of the physicist J. Robert
Oppenheimer. Obviously, most wartime devices were
created for destructive purposes, but computers and
breakthrough technologies such as nuclear energy were
soon adapted for peacetime uses.
The sponsorship of research by governments and the
military during World War II led to a new scientific model.
Science had become very complex, and only large orga-
nizations with teams of scientists, huge laboratories, and
complicated equipment could undertake such large-scale
projects. Such facilities were so expensive, however, that
only governments and large corporations could support
them. Because of its postwar prosperity, the United States
was able to lead in the development of the new science.
Almost 75 percent of all scientific research funds in the
United States came from the government in 1965. In fact,
the U.S. defense establishment generated much of the
scientific research of the postwar era. One of every four
scientists and engineers trained after 1945 was engaged in
the creation of new weapons systems. Universities found
their research agendas increasingly determined by gov-
ernment funding for military-related projects.
There was no more stunning example of how the new
scientific establishment operated than the space race of
the 1960s. In 1957, the Soviet Union announced that it
had sent the first space satellite, Sputnik I, into orbit
around the earth. In response, the United States launched
a gigantic project to land a manned spacecraft on the
moon within a decade. Massive government funding fi-
nanced the scientific research and technological advances
that attained this goal in 1969.
The postwar alliance of science and technology led to
an accelerated rate of change that became a fact of life
throughout Western society. The emergence of the com-
puter has revolutionized American business practices and
transformed the way individuals go about their lives and
178 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
communicate with each other. Although early computers,
which required thousands of vacuum tubes to function,
were quite large, the development of the transistor and the
silicon chip enabled manufacturers to reduce the size of
their products dramatically. By the 1990s, the personal
computer had become a fixture in businesses, schools, and
homes around the country. The Internet—the world’s
largest computer network—provides millions of people
around the world with quick access to immense quantities
of information as well as rapid communication and com-
mercial transactions. By 2000, an estimated 500 million
people were using the Internet, and the number has more
than tripled since then. The United States was initially at
the forefront of this process, and the Clinton administra-
tion established the goal of providing instruction in com-
puters in every school in the country. In recent years,
however, innovation has become a global phenomenon.
Science is also being harnessed to serve other social
purposes, including the development of biologically en-
gineered food products, the formulation of new medi-
cines to fight age-old diseases, and the development of
alternative fuels to replace oil and the internal combus-
tion engine. Recent interest has focused on the invention
of new automobile engines that—like the hybrid varieties
now entering the market—rely on some combination of
electrical power and liquid energy. As automobile sales
plummeted during the financial crisis in the fall of 2008,
Barack Obama promised that the issue would receive
priority attention during his administration.
Canada: In the Shadow of Goliath
Canada experienced many of the same developments as
the United States in the postwar years. For twenty-five
years after World War II, Canada realized extraordinary
economic prosperity as it set out on a new path of in-
dustrial development. Canada had always had a strong
export economy based on its abundant natural resources.
Now it also developed electronic, aircraft, nuclear, and
chemical engineering industries on a large scale. Much of
the Canadian growth, however, was financed by capital
from the United States, which resulted in U.S. ownership
of Canadian businesses. While many Canadians wel-
comed the economic growth, others feared U.S. economic
domination of Canada and its resources.
Canada’s close relationship with the United States has
been a notable feature of its postwar history. In addition
to fears of economic domination, Canadians have also
worried about playing a subordinate role politically and
militarily to their neighboring superpower. Canada
agreed to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in
1949 and even sent military contingents to fight in Korea
the following year. But to avoid subordination to the
United States or any other great power, Canada has
consistently and actively supported the United Nations.
Nevertheless, concerns about the United States have not
kept Canada from maintaining a special relationship with
its southern neighbor. The North American Air Defense
Command (NORAD), formed in 1957, was based on
close cooperation between the air forces of the two
countries for the defense of North America against aerial
attack. As another example of their close cooperation, in
1972, Canada and the United States signed the Great
Lakes Water Quality Agreement to regulate water quality
of the lakes that border both countries.
After 1945, the Liberal Party continued to dominate
Canadian politics until 1957, when John Diefenbaker
(1895–1979) achieved a Conservative victory. But a major
recession returned the Liberals to power, and under Lester
Pearson (1897–1972), they created Canada’s welfare state
by enacting a national social security system (the Canada
Pension Plan) and a national health insurance program.
The most prominent Liberal government, however,
was that of Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000), who came to
power in 1968. Although French Canadian in background,
Trudeau was dedicated to Canada’s federal union. In 1968,
his government passed the Official Languages Act, creating
a bilingual federal civil service and encouraging the
growth of French culture and language in Canada. Al-
though Trudeau’s government vigorously pushed an in-
dustrialization program, high inflation and Trudeau’s
efforts to impose the will of the federal government on the
powerful provincial governments alienated voters and
weakened his government.
For Canada, the vigor of the U.S. economy in the 1980s
and 1990s was amixed blessing, for the American behemoth
was all too often inclined tomake use of its power to have its
way with its neighbors. Economic recession had brought
Brian Mulroney (b. 1939), leader of the Progressive Con-
servative Party, to power in Canada in 1984. Mulroney’s
government sought to privatize many of Canada’s state-run
corporations and negotiated a free trade agreement with the
United States. Bitterly resented by many Canadians as a
sellout, the agreement costMulroney’s governmentmuch of
its popularity. In 1993, the ruling Conservatives were
crushed in national elections, winning only two seats in
the House of Commons. The Liberal leader, Jean Chrétien
(b. 1934), took over as prime minister with the charge of
stimulating the nation’s sluggish economy.
The new Liberal government also faced an ongoing
crisis over the French-speaking province of Quebec. In
the late 1960s, the Parti Québécois, headed by René
Lévesque, campaigned on a platform of Quebec’s
secession from the Canadian confederation. In 1970, the
party won 24 percent of the popular vote in Quebec’s
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 179
provincial elections. To pursue their
dream of separation, some under-
ground separatist groups even used
terrorist bombings and kidnapped two
prominent government officials. In
1976, the Parti Québécois won Que-
bec’s provincial elections and in 1980
called for a referendum that would
enable the provincial government to
negotiate Quebec’s independence from
the rest of Canada. But voters in
Quebec rejected the plan in 1995, and
debate over Quebec’s status continued
to divide Canada as the decade came to
a close. Provincial elections held in April 2003 delivered a
stunning defeat to the Parti Québécois and a decisive
victory to federalist elements. By then,
however, the ruling Liberal Party was
plagued by scandals, and in 2006, na-
tional elections brought the Con-
servatives, under new prime minister
Stephen Harper (b. 1959), to power in
Ottawa. The new government sought
to repair strained relations with the
United States, but failed to win a ma-
jority in national elections held in the
fall of 2008, throwing the country into
a constitutional crisis.
Democracy,Dictatorship,
and Development in
Latin America Since 1945
The Great Depression of the 1930s
caused political instability in many
Latin American countries that led to
military coups and militaristic regimes
(see Chapter 5). But it also helped
transform Latin America from a traditional to a modern
economy. Since the nineteenth century, Latin Americans
had exported raw materials, especially minerals and
foodstuffs, while buying the manufactured goods of the
industrialized countries, particularly Europe and the
United States. Despite a limited degree of industrializa-
tion, Latin America was still dependent on an export-
import economy. As a result of the Great Depression,
however, exports were cut in half, and the revenues
available to buy manufactured goods declined. In re-
sponse, many Latin American countries encouraged the
development of new industries to produce goods that
were formerly imported. Due to a shortage of capital in
the private sector, governments often
invested in the new industries,
thereby leading, for example, to
government-run steel industries in
Chile and Brazil and petroleum in-
dustries in Argentina and Mexico.
An Era of Dependency
In the 1960s, however, most Latin
American countries were still depen-
dent on the United States, Europe,
and now Japan for the advanced
technology needed for modern in-
dustries. To make matters worse, poverty conditions in
some countries limited the size of domestic markets, and
many countries were unable to
find markets abroad for their
products.
These failures resulted in
takeovers by military regimes
that sought to curb the demands
of the new industrial middle class
and a working class that had in-
creased in size and power as a
result of industrialization. In the
1960s, repressive military regimes
in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina
abolished political parties and
turned to export-import econo-
mies financed by foreigners while
encouraging multinational cor-
porations to come into their
countries. Because these compa-
nies were primarily interested in
taking advantage of Latin Amer-
ica’s raw materials and abundant
supply of cheap labor, their pres-
ence often offered little benefit to
the local economy and contributed
to the region’s dependence on the industrially developed
nations.
In the 1970s, Latin American regimes grew even
more reliant on borrowing from abroad, especially from
banks in Europe and the United States. Between 1970 and
1982, debt to foreigners increased from $27 billion to
$315.3 billion. By 1982, a number of governments an-
nounced that they could no longer pay interest on their
debts to foreign banks, and their economies began to
crumble. Wages fell, and unemployment skyrocketed.
Governments were forced to undertake fundamental re-
forms to qualify for additional loans, reducing the size of
the state sector and improving agricultural production in
Quebec
City
Hudson
Bay
Atlantic
Ocean
QUEBEC
CANADA
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 750 1,500 Kilometers
Quebec
Atlantic
Ocean
Pacific
Ocean
Caribbean Sea
Rio de
Janeiro
Falkland
Islands (Br.)
South Georgia
Island (Br.)
Buenos
AiresSantiago
Montevideo
Quito
Bogotá
Caracas
Lima
Asunción
La Paz
BRAZIL
BOLIVIA
PERU
COLOMBIA
ECUADOR
VENEZUELA
PARAGUAY
CHILE
ARGENTINA
URUGUAY
FRENCH GUIANA
GUYANA
SURINAME
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 750 1,500 Kilometers
South America
180 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
order to stem the flow of people
from the countryside to the cities
and strengthen the domestic market
for Latin American products. In
many cases, these reforms were
launched by democratic govern-
ments that began to replace the
discredited military regimes in
power during the 1980s.
In the 1990s, the opening of
markets to free trade and other
consequences of the globalization
process began to have a growing
impact on Latin American econo-
mies. As some countries faced the
danger of bankruptcy, belt-tightening
measures undertaken to reassure
foreign investors provoked social
protests and threatened to under-
mine the precarious political stability
in the region.
Not all political parties in Latin
America opted to adopt the capi-
talist model. In some countries, re-
sentment at economic and social
inequities led to the emergence of
strong leftist movements or even to
social revolution. The most prominent example was
Cuba, where in the late 1950s Fidel Castro established a
regime based loosely on the Soviet model. Eventually,
other revolutionary movements flourished or even came
to power in Chile, Uruguay, and parts of Central America
as well (see ‘‘The Marxist Variant’’ below).
The Role of the Catholic Church The Catholic church
has sometimes played a significant role in the process of
social and political change. A powerful force in Latin
America for centuries, the church often applied its
prestige on the side of the landed elites, helping them
maintain their grip on power. Eventually, however, the
church adopted a middle stance in Latin American so-
ciety, advocating a moderate capitalist system that
would respect workers’ rights, institute land reform, and
provide for the poor. Some Catholics, however, took a
more radical path to change by advocating a theology of
liberation. Influenced by Marxist ideas, advocates of
liberation theology believed that Christians must fight
to free the oppressed, using violence if necessary. Some
Catholic clergy recommended armed rebellions and
even teamed up with Marxist guerrillas in rural areas.
Other radical priests worked in factories alongside
workers or carried on social work among the poor in
the slums.
In recent years, the Catholic church in Latin America
has encountered a new challenge in the form of the in-
creased popularity of evangelical Protestant sects. In
Brazil, one of the reasons advanced for the popularity of
evangelical sects is the stand taken by the Vatican on is-
sues such as divorce and abortion. Even the vast majority
of Brazilian Catholics surveyed support the right to
abortion in cases of rape or danger to the mother and
believe in the importance of birth control to limit pop-
ulation growth and achieve smaller families.
The Behemoth to the North Throughout the postwar
era, the United States has cast a large shadow over Latin
America. In 1948, the nations of the region formed the
Organization of American States (OAS), which was
intended to eliminate unilateral action by one state in
the internal or external affairs of another state, while
encouraging regional cooperation to maintain peace. It
did not end U.S. interference in Latin American affairs,
however. The United States returned to a policy of
unilateral action when it believed that Soviet agents
were attempting to use local Communists or radical
reformers to establish governments hostile to U.S. in-
terests. In the 1960s, President Kennedy’s Alliance for
Progress encouraged social reform and economic de-
velopment by providing private and public funds to
Come All Ye Faithful. Although the vast majority of people living in contemporary Latin America
are Roman Catholics, other forms of Christian belief have gained in popularity in recent years. One of
the most rapidly expanding is Protestant evangelicalism, which first became active in the region during
the 1960s. Taking advantage of evolving social values and a growing thirst for personal spiritual
experience, several evangelical and Pentecostal churches set up the Latin American Council of Churches
in 1983. Today, the twenty-seven churches affiliated with the Council have a following of about five
million members. Shown here is a recently constructed evangelical church in Salvador, one of the chief
centers of evangelical fervor in Brazil.
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CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 181
elected governments whose reform programs were ac-
ceptable to the United States. But when Marxist-led
insurrections began to spread throughout the region,
the United States responded by providing massive
military aid to anti-Communist regimes to forestall
the possibility of a Soviet bastion in the Western
Hemisphere.
Since the 1990s, the United States has played an active
role in persuading Latin American governments to open
their economies to the international marketplace. Though
globalization has had some success in promoting pros-
perity in the region, it has also led to economic dislocation
and hardship in some countries, provoking familiar cries
of ‘‘Yanqui imperialismo’’ from protest groups and the
election in recent years of leftist governments in several
countries in the region.
Nationalism and the Military: The Examples
of Argentina and Brazil
The military became the power brokers of twentieth-
century Latin America. Especially in the 1960s and 1970s,
military leaders portrayed themselves as the guardians of
national honor and orderly progress. In the mid-1970s,
only Colombia, Venezuela, and
Costa Rica maintained democratic
governments.
A decade later, pluralistic sys-
tems had been installed virtually
everywhere except in Cuba, Para-
guay, and some of the Central
American states. The establishment
of democratic institutions, however,
has not managed to solve all the
chronic problems that have plagued
the states of Latin America. Official
corruption continues in many
countries, and the gap between rich
and poor is growing, most notably
in Brazil and in Venezuela, though
leftist regimes in both countries
have adopted policies designed to
redistribute the wealth.
Argentina Fearful of the forces
unleashed by the development of
industry, the military intervened in
Argentinian politics in 1930 and
propped up the cattle and wheat
oligarchy that had controlled the
government since the beginning of
the twentieth century. In 1943,
restless military officers staged a
coup and seized power. But the new regime was not sure
how to deal with the working classes. One of its members,
Juan Perón (1895–1974), thought that he could manage
the workers and used his position as labor secretary in the
military government to curry favor with them. He en-
couraged workers to join labor unions and increased job
benefits as well as the number of paid holidays and va-
cations. But as Perón grew more popular, other army
officers began to fear his power and arrested him. An
uprising by workers forced the officers to back down, and
in 1946, Perón was elected president.
Perón pursued a policy of increased industrialization
to please his chief supporters—labor and the urban
middle class (known rhetorically as the descamisados, or
‘‘shirtless ones’’). At the same time, he sought to free
Argentina from foreign investors. The government
bought the railways; took over the banking, insurance,
shipping, and communications industries; and assumed
regulation of imports and exports. But Perón’s regime was
also authoritarian. His wife, Eva Perón, organized wom-
en’s groups to support the government while Perón cre-
ated fascist gangs, modeled after Hitler’s Storm Troops,
that used violence to overawe his opponents. But growing
corruption in the Perón government and the alienation of
The Panama Canal: Lifeline to the World. Since its completion in 1914, the Panama Canal has
served as one of the major maritime routes for the shipment of goods around the world. Initially placed
under U.S. control as a result of the original treaty between the United States and the Republic of
Panama, operation of the canal reverted to Panamanian administration in 1979 as the result of a treaty
engineered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Today, about 1,200 ships pass through the canal each month.
Annual shipping tonnage through the canal surpassed 300 million tons in 2007. Here a container ship
passes through one of the locks into Gatun Lake.
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182 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
more and more people by the regime’s excesses encour-
aged the military to overthrow him in September 1955.
Perón went into exile in Spain.
It had been easy for the military to seize power, but it
was harder to rule, especially now that Argentina had a
party of Peronistas clamoring for the return of the exiled
leader. In the 1960s and 1970s, military and civilian
governments (the latter closely watched by the military)
alternated in power. When both failed to provide eco-
nomic stability, military leaders decided to allow Juan
Perón to return. Reelected president in September 1973,
Perón died one year later. In 1976, the military installed a
new regime, using the occasion to kill more than six
thousand leftists in what was called the ‘‘Dirty War.’’ With
economic problems still unsolved, the regime tried to
divert popular attention by invading the Falkland Islands
in April 1982. Great Britain, which had controlled the
islands since the nineteenth century, decisively defeated
the Argentine forces. The loss discredited the military and
opened the door once again to civilian rule. In 1983, Raúl
Alfonsı́n (b. 1927) was elected president and sought to
reestablish democratic processes.
In 1989, however, Alfonsı́n was defeated in the
presidential elections by the Peronist candidate, Carlos
Saúl Menem (b. 1930). During his first term, the char-
ismatic Menem won broad popularity for his ability to
control the army, long an active force in politics, and he
was reelected in 1995. But when he sought to control
rampant inflation by curbing government spending, ris-
ing unemployment and an economic recession cut into
his public acclaim. Plagued with low growth, rising em-
igration (a growing number of descendants of European
settlers were returning to live in Europe), and shrinking
markets abroad, the government defaulted on its debt to
the International Monetary Fund in 2001, initiating an
era of political chaos. In May 2003, Néstor Kirchner
(b. 1950) assumed the presidency and sought to revive
public confidence in an economy in paralysis. The new
president took decisive steps to end the crisis, adopting
measures to stimulate economic growth and promote
exports. By 2005, the debt to the IMF had been fully paid
off. Kirchner also encouraged measures designed to bring
the military officers who carried out the Dirty War of the
1970s to justice. Néstor Kirchner’s success in stabilizing
the Argentine economy, which resulted in a 9 percent
increase in the gross domestic product, was undoubtedly
a factor in the presidential campaign in the fall of 2007,
when his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was elected
to succeed him in office. But growing income inequality, a
rising rate of inflation—always a threat to economic
prosperity in Argentina—and a looming energy crisis
tarnished the performance of the first female president in
the country’s history.
Brazil After Getúlio Vargas was forced to resign from
the presidency in 1945 (see Chapter 5), a second Brazilian
republic came into being. In 1949, Vargas was elected to
the presidency. But he was unable to solve Brazil’s eco-
nomic problems, especially its soaring inflation, and in
1954, after the armed forces called on him to resign,
Vargas committed suicide. Subsequent democratically
elected presidents had no better success in controlling
inflation while trying to push rapid industrialization. In
the spring of 1964, the military decided to intervene and
took over the government.
The armed forces remained in direct control of the
country for twenty years, setting a new economic course,
cutting back somewhat on state control of the economy
and emphasizing market forces. The new policies seemed
to work, and during the late 1960s, Brazil experienced an
‘‘economic miracle’’ as it moved into self-sustaining
economic growth, generally the hallmark of a modern
economy. Promoters also pointed to the country’s success
in turning a racially diverse population into a relatively
color-blind society.
Rapid economic growth carried with it some po-
tential drawbacks. The economic exploitation of the
Amazon River basin opened the region to farming but in
the view of some critics threatened the ecological balance
not only of Brazil but of the earth itself. Ordinary Bra-
zilians hardly benefited as the gulf between rich and poor,
always wide, grew even wider. In 1960, the wealthiest 10
percent of Brazil’s population, most of whom were of
European descent, received 40 percent of the nation’s
income; in 1980, they received 51 percent. At the same
time, rapid development led to an inflation rate of 100
percent a year, and an enormous foreign debt added to
the problems. Overwhelmed, the generals resigned from
power and opened the door for a return to democracy
in 1985.
In 1990, national elections brought a new president
into office—Fernando Collor de Mello (b. 1949). The new
administration promised to reduce inflation with a
drastic reform program based on squeezing money out of
the economy by stringent controls on wages and prices,
drastic reductions in public spending, and cuts in the
number of government employees. But Collor de Mello’s
efforts—reminiscent of Menem’s in Argentina—were un-
dermined by reports of official corruption, and he re-
signed at the end of 1992 after having been impeached. In
new elections two years later, Fernando Cardoso (b. 1931)
was elected president by an overwhelming majority of the
popular vote.
Cardoso, a member of the Brazilian Social Demo-
cratic Party, introduced measures to privatize state-run
industries and to reform social security and the pension
system. He rode a wave of economic prosperity to
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 183
reelection in 1998. But economic problems, combined
with allegations of official corruption and rising fac-
tionalism within the ruling party, undermined his pop-
ularity, leading to the victory of the Workers’ Party in
elections held in 2003. The new president, ex-lathe op-
erator Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, or Lula (b. 1945), how-
ever, immediately cautioned his supporters that the
party’s ambitious plans could not be realized until urgent
financial reforms had been enacted. That remark effec-
tively sums up the challenge that the new administration
faced: how to satisfy the pent-up demands of its tradi-
tional constituency—the millions of Brazilians still living
in poverty conditions—while dealing effectively with the
realities of exercising power.
During the next few years, the Brazilian economy
experienced dramatic growth in several areas: millions of
acres of virgin lands were brought under cultivation in
the interior, enabling the country to become a major
exporter of agricultural products, including wheat, cot-
ton, and soybeans. In late 2007, the government an-
nounced the discovery of significant underwater oil
reserves off the southeastern coast of the country. Such
successes have led to growing prosperity for many Bra-
zilian citizens, who have taken advantage of low interest
rates to increase their purchase of automobiles, homes,
and consumer goods. Ambitious social programs have
begun to reduce the gap between wealth and poverty—
always one of the most visible characteristics of Brazilian
society. The country is now poised to become a hemi-
spheric superpower and has recently announced plans to
organize a defensive alliance of Latin American countries
similar to NATO.
The Mexican Way
During the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas in the 1930s,
the Mexican government returned to some of the original
revolutionary goals by distributing 44 million acres of
land to landless Mexican peasants, thereby appealing to
the rural poor.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Mexico’s ruling party, the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), focused on a
balanced industrial program. Fifteen years of steady eco-
nomic growth combined with low inflation and real gains
in wages for more and more people made those years
appear to be a golden age in Mexico’s economic develop-
ment. But at the end of the 1960s, one implication of
Mexico’s domination by one party became apparent with
the rise of the student protest movement. On October 2,
1968, a demonstration by university students in Tlaltelolco
Square in Mexico City was met by police, who opened fire
and killed hundreds of students. Leaders of the PRI be-
came concerned about the need to change the system.
The next two presidents, Luis Echeverrı́a (b. 1922)
and José López Portillo (1920–2004), introduced political
reforms. The government eased rules for the registration
of political parties and allowed greater freedom of debate
in the press and universities. But economic problems
continued to trouble Mexico.
In the late 1970s, vast new reserves of oil were dis-
covered in Mexico. As the sale of oil abroad rose dra-
matically, the government became increasingly dependent
on oil revenues. When world oil prices dropped in the
mid-1980s, Mexico was no longer able to make payments
on its foreign debt, which had reached $80 billion in
1982. The government was forced to adopt new economic
policies, including the sale of publicly owned companies
to private parties.
The debt crisis and rising unemployment increased
dissatisfaction with the government. In the 1988 elections,
the PRI’s choice for president, Carlos Salinas (b. 1948),
who had been expected to win in a landslide, won by only
a 50.3 percent majority. The new president continued the
economic liberalization of his predecessors and went even
further by negotiating the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada.
Although NAFTA was highly controversial in the United
States because of the fear that U.S. firms would move
factories to Mexico, where labor costs are cheaper and
environmental standards less stringent, some observers
assert that the impact of NAFTA has been more beneficial
to the U.S. economy than to its southern neighbor. Re-
flecting Mexico’s continuing economic problems was
rising popular unrest in southern parts of the country,
where unhappy farmers, many of whom are native
Amerindians, have grown increasingly vocal in protesting
endemic poverty and widespread neglect of the needs of
the indigenous peoples, who comprise about 10 percent
of the total population of 100 million people.
In the summer of 2000, a national election suddenly
swept the ruling PRI from power. The new president,
Vicente Fox (b. 1942), promised to address the many
problems affecting the country, including political cor-
ruption, widespread poverty, environmental concerns,
and a growing population. But he faced vocal challenges
from the PRI, which still controlled many state legis-
latures and a plurality in Congress, as well as from the
protest movement in rural areas in the south. Calling
themselves Zapatistas in honor of the revolutionary leader
Emiliano Zapata (see Chapter 5), the rebels demanded
passage of legislation to protect the rights of the indige-
nous Indian population and increasing autonomy for
regions such as the southern state of Chiapas, where
Amerindians make up a substantial percentage of the
population. Although the movement has since faded, it
aroused such a groundswell of support from around the
184 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
country that President Fox found himself under consid-
erable pressure to deal with generations of neglect in
solving the problems of Mexico.
The conservative lawyer Felipe Calderón took over
from Fox in December 2006 in a presidential election
disputed by his rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Calderón sought to rule from the center, while adopting
measures to alleviate the poverty and bring about fiscal
reform. But such efforts have been undermined by the
economic slowdown in the United States. Mexico’s
problems are enormous. Forty percent of Mexicans live in
poverty, and one in ten earns less than the equivalent of
one U.S. dollar a day.
The Marxist Variant
Until the 1960s, Marxism played little role in the politics
of Latin America. The success of Fidel Castro in Cuba,
however, opened the door for other revolutionary
movements that aimed to gain the support of peasants
and industrial workers and bring radical change to Latin
America.
The Cuban Revolution An authoritarian regime,
headed by Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973) and closely tied
economically to U.S. investors, had ruled Cuba since
1934. A strong opposition movement to Batista’s gov-
ernment developed, led by Fidel Castro (b. 1926) and
assisted by Ernesto ‘‘Ché’’ Guevara (1928–1967), an Ar-
gentinian who believed that revolutionary upheaval was
necessary for change to occur. Castro maintained that
only armed force could overthrow Batista, but when their
initial assaults on Batista’s regime brought little success,
Castro’s forces, based in the Sierra Maestra mountains,
turned to guerrilla warfare (see the box above). As the
rebels gained more support, Batista responded with such
CASTRO’S REVOLUTIONARY IDEALS
On July 26, 1953, Fidel Castro and a small group of supporters
launched an ill-fated attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago
de Cuba. Castro was arrested and put on trial. This excerpt is
taken from his defense speech, in which he discussed the goals
of the revolutionaries.
Fidel Castro, ‘‘History Will Absolve Me’’
I stated that the second consideration on which we based our chances
for success was one of social order because we were assured of the peo-
ple’s support. When we speak of the people we do not mean the com-
fortable ones, the conservative elements of the nation, who welcome
any regime of oppression, any dictatorship, and despotism, prostrating
themselves before the master of the moment until they grind their
foreheads into the ground. When we speak of struggle, the people
means the vast unredeemed masses, to whom all make promises and
whom all deceive; we mean the people who yearn for a better, more
dignified, and more just nation; who are moved by ancestral aspira-
tions of justice, for they have suffered injustice and mockery, genera-
tion after generation; who long for great and wise changes in all
aspects of their life; people, who, to attain these changes, are ready to
give even the very last breath of their lives—when they believe in some-
thing or in someone, especially when they believe in themselves.
In the brief of this cause there must be recorded the five revo-
lutionary laws that would have been proclaimed immediately after
the capture of the Moncada barracks and would have been broadcast
to the nation by radio. . . .
The First Revolutionary Law would have returned power to the
people and proclaimed the Constitution of 1940 the supreme Law of
the land, until such time as the people should decide to modify or
change it. . . .
The Second Revolutionary Law would have granted property,
not mortgageable and not transferable, to all planters, subplanters,
lessees, partners, and squatters who hold parcels of five or less cabal-
lerias [tract of land, about 33 acres] of land, and the state would in-
demnify the former owners on the basis of the rental which they
would have received for these parcels over a period of ten years.
The Third Revolutionary Law would have granted workers and
employees the right to share 30 percent of the profits of all the large
industrial, mercantile, and mining enterprises, including the sugar
mills. . . .
The Fourth Revolutionary Law would have granted all planters
the right to share 55 percent of the sugar production and a mini-
mum quota of forty thousand arrobas [25 pounds] for all small
planters who have been established for three or more years.
The Fifth Revolutionary Law would have ordered the confisca-
tion of all holdings and ill-gotten gains of those who had committed
frauds during previous regimes, as well as the holdings and ill-
gotten gains of all their legatees and heirs. . . .
Furthermore, it was to be declared that the Cuban policy in the
Americas would be one of close solidarity with the democratic peo-
ple of this continent, and that those politically persecuted by bloody
tyrants oppressing our sister nations would find generous asylum,
brotherhood, and bread in [Cuba]. Not the persecution, hunger, and
treason that they find today. Cuba should be the bulwark of liberty
and not a shameful link in the chain of despotism.
Q What did Fidel Castro intend to accomplish by his revolution
in Cuba? On whose behalf did he fight this revolution?
SOURCE: Excerpt from Latin American Civilization by Benjamin Keen,
ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), pp. 369–373.
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 185
brutality that he alienated his own supporters. The dic-
tator fled in December 1958, and Castro’s revolutionaries
seized Havana on January 1, 1959.
Relations between Cuba and the United States
quickly deteriorated. An agrarian reform law in May 1959
nationalized all landholdings over 1,000 acres. A new level
of antagonism arose early in 1960 when the Soviet Union
agreed to buy Cuban sugar and provide $100 million in
credits. On March 17, 1960, President Eisenhower di-
rected the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to ‘‘organize
the training of Cuban exiles, mainly in Guatemala, against
a possible future day when they might return to their
homeland.’’2 Arms from Eastern Europe began to arrive in
Cuba, the United States cut its purchases of Cuban sugar,
and the Cuban government nationalized U.S. companies
and banks. In October 1960, the United States declared
a trade embargo of Cuba, driving Castro closer to the
Soviet Union.
On January 3, 1961, the United States broke diplo-
matic relations with Cuba. The new U.S. president, John
F. Kennedy, approved a plan originally drafted by the
previous administration to launch an invasion to over-
throw Castro’s government, but the landing of fourteen
hundred CIA-assisted Cubans in Cuba on April 17, 1961,
known as the Bay of Pigs, turned into a total military
disaster. This fiasco encouraged the Soviets to make an
even greater commitment to Cuban independence by
attempting to place nuclear missiles in the country, an act
that led to a showdown with the United States (see
Chapter 7). As its part of the bargain to defuse the missile
crisis, the United States agreed not to invade Cuba.
But the missile crisis affected Cuba in another way as
well. Castro, who had urged Soviet leader Nikita Khrush-
chev to stand firm even at the risk of nuclear war with the
United States, now realized that the Soviet Union was
unreliable. If revolutionary Cuba was to be secure and no
longer encircled by hostile states tied to U.S. interests, the
Cubans would have to instigate social revolution in the rest
of Latin America. He believed that once guerrilla wars were
launched, peasants would flock to the movement and
overthrow the old regimes. Guevara attempted to launch a
guerrilla war in Bolivia but was caught and killed by the
Bolivian army in the fall of 1967. The Cuban strategy had
failed.
In Cuba, however, Castro’s socialist revolution pro-
ceeded, with mixed results. The Cuban Revolution did
secure some social gains for its people, especially in health
care and education. The regime provided free medical
services for all citizens, and a new law code expanded the
rights of women. Illiteracy was wiped out by creating
new schools and establishing teacher-training institutes
that tripled the number of teachers within ten years.
Eschewing the path of rapid industrialization, Castro
encouraged agricultural diversification. But the Cuban
economy continued to rely on the production and sale of
sugar. Economic problems forced the Castro regime to
depend on Soviet subsidies and the purchase of Cuban
sugar by Soviet bloc countries.
The disintegration of the Soviet Union was a major
blow to Cuba, as the new government in Moscow no
longer had a reason to continue to subsidize the onetime
Soviet ally. During the 1990s, Castro began to introduce
limited market reforms and to allow the circulation of
U.S. dollars. But most Cubans remain locked in poverty,
and although an ailing Fidel Castro has recently been
replaced by his younger brother, Raoul, the system of
political repression remains intact and the U.S. embargo
is still in place today.
Chile Another challenge to U.S. influence in Latin
America appeared in 1970 when a Marxist, Salvador Al-
lende (1908–1973), was elected president of Chile and
attempted to create a socialist society by constitutional
means. Chile suffered from a number of economic
problems. Wealth was concentrated in the hands of large
landowners and a few large corporations. Inflation, for-
eign debts, and a decline in the mining industry (copper
exports accounted for 80 percent of Chile’s export in-
come) caused untold difficulties. Right-wing control of
the government had failed to achieve any solutions, es-
pecially since foreign investments were allowed to expand.
There was growing resentment of U.S. corporations, es-
pecially Anaconda and Kennecott, which controlled the
copper industry.
In the 1970 elections, a split in the moderate forces
enabled Allende to become president of Chile as head of a
coalition of Socialists, Communists, and Catholic radi-
cals. A number of labor leaders, who represented the
interests of the working classes, were given the ministries
of labor, finance, public works, and interior in the new
government. Allende increased the wages of industrial
workers and began to move toward socialism by nation-
alizing the largest domestic and foreign-owned corpo-
rations. Nationalization of the copper industry—essentially
without compensation for the owners—caused the Nixon
administration to cut off all aid to Chile, creating serious
problems for the Chilean economy. At the same time, the
government offered only halfhearted resistance to radical
workers who were beginning to take control of the landed
estates.
These actions brought growing opposition from the
upper and middle classes, who began, with covert support
from the CIA, to organize strikes against the government.
Allende attempted to stop the disorder by bringing three
military officers into his cabinet. They succeeded in
ending the strikes, but when Allende’s coalition increased
186 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
its vote in the congressional elections of March 1973, the
Chilean army, under the direction of General Augusto
Pinochet (1915–2006), decided on a coup d’état. In Sep-
tember 1973, Allende and thousands of his supporters
were killed. Contrary to the expectations of many right-
wing politicians, the military remained in power and set
up a dictatorship. The regime moved quickly to outlaw
all political parties, disband the congress, and restore many
nationalized industries and landed estates to their original
owners. The copper industry, however, remained in gov-
ernment hands. Although Pinochet’s regime liberalized the
economy, its flagrant abuse of human rights led to growing
unrest against the government in the mid-1980s. In 1989,
free elections produced a Christian Democratic president
who advocated free market economics.
The shadow of the Pinochet era continued to hover
over Chilean politics, however, as many citizens de-
manded that the general, now living in exile, be brought
to justice for his crimes against humanity. In 2000, he was
returned to the country from Europe and placed on trial
for crimes that had allegedly taken place under his rule. In
the meantime, the Socialist Party returned to power
through national elections under a program to bring
about moderate reforms while simultaneously opening
the country to the global trade network. In 2006, Socialist
Michelle Bachelet (b. 1951) was elected president, the first
woman chief executive in Latin America.
Nicaragua The United States intervened in Nicaraguan
domestic affairs in the early twentieth century, and U.S.
Marines actually remained there for long periods of time.
The leader of the U.S.-supported National Guard, Anas-
tasio Somoza (1896–1956), seized control of the gov-
ernment in 1937, and his family remained in power for
the next forty-three years. U.S. support for the Somoza
military regime enabled the family to overcome any op-
ponents while enriching themselves at the expense of the
state.
Opposition to the regime finally arose from Marxist
guerrilla forces known as the Sandinista National Liber-
ation Front. By mid-1979, military victories by the San-
dinistas left them in virtual control of the country.
Inheriting a poverty-stricken nation, the Sandinistas or-
ganized a provisional government under the leftist leader
Daniel Ortega (b. 1945) and aligned themselves with the
Soviet Union. The Reagan and Bush administrations,
believing that Central America faced the danger of an-
other Communist state, financed the counterrevolution-
ary Contra rebels in a guerrilla war against the Sandinista
government. The Contra war and a U.S. economic em-
bargo undermined support for the Sandinistas, and in
1990, they agreed to hold free elections. Although they
lost to a coalition headed by Violetta Barrios de
Chamorro (b. 1929), Ortega returned to the presidency in
elections held in 2006.
Venezuela: The New Cuba? With the discovery of oil
in the small town of Cabı́mas in the early 1920s, Vene-
zuela took its first step toward becoming a major exporter
of oil and one of the wealthiest countries in Latin
America. At first, profits from ‘‘black rain’’ accrued
mainly to the nation’s elite families, but in 1976 the oil
industry was nationalized, and Venezuela entered an era
of national prosperity. But when the price of oil on world
markets dropped sharply in the 1980s, the country’s
economic honeymoon came to an end, and in 1989
President Carlos Andrés Pérez launched an austerity
program that cut deeply into the living standards of much
of the population.
After popular demonstrations led to an army
crackdown in 1992, restive military forces launched an
abortive coup to seize power. Five years later, one of the
leading members of the plot—a paratroop commander
named Hugo Chávez (b. 1954)—was elected president in
national elections. Taking advantage of rising oil prices,
Chávez launched an ambitious spending program to
improve living conditions for the poor. Although such
measures have earned his regime broad national sup-
port, critics charge that Chávez’ efforts to strengthen
presidential powers—including a program to organize
his supporters into ‘‘Bolı́varian circles’’ (in honor of the
nineteenth-century Venezuelan liberator Simón Bolı́var)
at the local level—display his all-too-evident dictatorial
tendencies.
A longtime admirer of Fidel Castro, Chávez has
strengthened relations with Cuba and encourages rev-
olutionary movements throughout Latin America. In
recent years, he has acquired new allies with the election
of leftist governments in Bolivia and Ecuador. As an
outspoken opponent of ‘‘Yanqui imperialism,’’ he has
proposed resistance to U.S. proposals for a hemispheric
free trade zone, charging that such an organization
would operate only for the benefit of the United States.
Using his country’s oil wealth as a means of promoting
his political objectives, Chávez has replaced Fidel Castro
as Washington’s most dangerous adversary in Latin
America.
Trends in Latin American Culture
Postwar literature in Latin America has been vibrant.
Writers such as Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize winner
Gabriel Garcı́a Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, and Carlos
Fuentes are among the most respected literary names of
the last half century. These authors often use dazzling
language and daring narrative experimentation to make
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 187
their point. Master of this new style is Gabriel Garcı́a
Márquez (b. 1938), from Colombia. In One Hundred
Years of Solitude (1967), he explores the transformation of
a small town under the impact of political violence, in-
dustrialization, and the arrival of a U.S. banana company.
Especially noteworthy is his use of magical realism, re-
lating the outrageous events that assail the town in a
matter-of-fact voice, thus transforming the fantastic into
the commonplace.
Unlike novelists in the United States and Western
Europe, who tend to focus their attention on the interior
landscape within the modern personality in an industrial
society, fiction writers in Latin America, like their coun-
terparts in Africa and much of Asia, have sought to
project an underlying political message. In his epic The
War of the End of the World, the Peruvian Mario Vargas
Llosa (b. 1936) condemned the fanaticism and the in-
humanity of war. In his novel The Feast of the Goat
(2001), he expressed his moral outrage at the cruel dic-
tatorship of Fulgencio Trujillo in the Dominican Re-
public. Others, like his countryman, José Maria Arguedas
(1911–1969), have championed the cause of the Amer-
indian and lauded the diversity that marks the ethnic mix
throughout the continent. Some have run for high po-
litical office as a means of remedying social problems.
Some have been women, reflecting the rising demand for
sexual equality in a society traditionally marked by male
domination. The memorable phrase of the Chilean poet
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957)—‘‘I have chewed stones
with woman’s gums’’—encapsulates the plight of Latin
American women.
A powerful example of Postmodern art in Latin
America is found in the haunting work of the Colombian
artist Doris Salcedo (b. 1958). Her art evokes disturbing
images of her country’s endless civil war and violent drug
trade. Salcedo often presents everyday wooden furniture,
over which she has applied a thin layer of cement and
fragments of personal mementos from the owner’s past
life: a remnant of lace curtain, a lock of hair, or a hand-
kerchief. Frozen in time, these everyday souvenirs evoke
the pain of those who were dragged from their homes
in the middle of the night and senselessly murdered.
Salcedo’s work can be experienced as an impassioned plea
to stop the killing of innocent civilians or as the fossilized
artifact from some future archaeologist’s dig, showing
traces of our brief and absurd sojourn on earth.
Shibboleth. Installation art, a popular form of artistic expression today,
is often used by its practitioners to examine social and moral issues in
contemporary life. In this case, the installation seeks to portray in dramatic
form the social, racial, and ethnic divisions that characterize our world.
Shibboleth, by well-known Colombian artist Doris Salcedo, consists of a
jagged crack in a cement floor that begins as a small fissure and widens
as it progresses, gripping the viewer with the sense of an unyielding and
dangerous abyss. The term comes from the Bible and refers to tribal
differences that were discussed in an Old Testament story.
CONCLUSION
DURING THE SECOND HALF of the twentieth century, the United States
emerged as the preeminent power in the world, dominant in its
economic and technological achievements as well as in terms of
military hardware. Although the Soviet Union was a serious
competitor in the arms race engendered by the Cold War, its
economic achievements paled in comparison with those of the U.S.
behemoth. Beginning in the 1970s, Japan began to rival the United
States in the realm of industrial production, but the challenge faded
in the 1990s, when structural weaknesses began to tarnish the
Japanese miracle.
The worldwide dominance of the United States was a product
of a combination of political, economic, and cultural factors and
showed no signs of abating as the new century began. But there
were some warning signs that bore watching: a growing gap in the
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188 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
CHAPTER NOTES
1. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B.
Johnson, Bk. 1, 1963–64 (Washington, D.C., 1965), p. 704.
2. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Waging Peace,
1956–1961 (Garden City, 1965), p. 533.
distribution of wealth that could ultimately threaten the steady
growth in consumer spending; an educational system that all too
often fails to produce graduates with the skills needed to master the
challenges of a technology-driven economy; and a racial divide that
threatens to undermine America’s historical role as a melting pot of
peoples.
As the new century dawned, a new challenge from abroad
appeared in the form of a militant terrorist movement originating
in the Middle East. The U.S. response, led by the administration of
President George W. Bush, was primarily military, but whether the
political and social forces driving the movement can be defeated by
such means alone has been a matter of vigorous debate, and the new
administration under President Barack Obama has promised to
adopt a more comprehensive approach.
The United States also faces a growing challenge in the
economic realm from a resurgent Asia and a united Europe. As the
U.S. economy faces the consequences of what may become the most
serious recession since before World War II, the future of American
global primacy remains in serious doubt.
For most of the nations elsewhere in the Americas, U.S.
dominance has mixed consequences. As a vast consumer market
and a source of capital, the dynamism of the U.S. economy helped
stimulate growth throughout the region. But recent studies suggest
that for many countries in Latin America, the benefits of
globalization have been slower to appear than originally predicted
and have often flowed primarily to large transnational corporations
at the expense of smaller domestic firms. At the same time, the U.S.
penchant for interfering in the affairs of its neighbors has aroused
anger and frequently undermined efforts by local governments to
deal with problems within their own borders. As the world enters a
new millennium, the United States is still finding it difficult to be a
good neighbor.
TIMELINE
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005
United States
Death
of FDR
(1945)
Death
of Jackson Pollock
(1956) Era of
“magical realism”
Era of installation art
Eisenhower era
(1953–1961)
Latin America
Presidency of
Ronald Reagan
(1981–1989)
Terrorist attack on
the United States
(2001)
Rule of Juan Perón
in Argentina
(1946–1955)
Movement toward democracy
in Latin America
“Lula” da Silva
becomes president
of Brazil
(2003)
Assassination of
John F. Kennedy
(1963)
Watergate
scandal
(1972)
Martin Luther King Jr.
and the civil rights movement
(1955–1968)
Emergence of women’s
liberation movement
(1960s)
Presidency of
Bill Clinton
(1993–2001)
WORLD HISTORY RESOURCES
Visit the Web site for Contemporary World History to access
study aids such as Flashcards, Critical Thinking Exercises, and
Chapter Quizzes:
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
CH A P T E R 8 THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND LATIN AMERICA 189
www.cengage.com/history/duiker/contempworld5e
ACCORDING TO KARL MARX, capitalism is a system that
involves the exploitation of man by man; under socialism, it is the
other way around. That wry joke, an ironic twist on the familiar
Marxist remark a century previously, was typical of popular humor
in post–World War II Moscow, where the dreams of a future Com-
munist utopia had faded in the grim reality of life in the Soviet
Union.
Nevertheless, the Communist monopoly on power seemed
secure, as did Moscow’s hold over its client states in Eastern Europe.
In fact, for three decades after the end of World War II, the Soviet
Empire appeared to be a permanent feature of the international
landscape. But by the early 1980s, it became clear that there were
cracks in the facade of the Kremlin wall. The Soviet economy was
stagnant, the minority nationalities were restive, and Eastern European
leaders were increasingly emboldened to test the waters of the global
capitalist marketplace. For much of the population throughout the
region, the ‘‘brave new world’’ forecast by Karl Marx remained but
a figment of his imagination. In the United States, newly elected
President Ronald Reagan boldly predicted the imminent collapse of
the ‘‘evil empire.’’
190
CHAPTER 9
BRAVE NEW WORLD: THE RISE AND FALL
OF COMMUNISM IN THE SOVIET UNION
AND EASTERN EUROPE
The Postwar Soviet Union
World War II had left the Soviet Union as one of the
world’s two superpowers and its leader, Joseph Stalin, at
the height of his power. As a result of the war, Stalin and
his Soviet colleagues were now in control of a vast empire
that included Eastern Europe, much of the Balkans, and
territory gained from Japan in East Asia.
From Stalin to Khrushchev
World War II devastated the Soviet Union. Twenty mil-
lion citizens lost their lives, and cities such as Kiev,
Kharkov, and Leningrad suffered enormous physical de-
struction. As the lands that had been occupied by the
German forces were liberated, the Soviet government
turned its attention to restoring their economic struc-
tures. Nevertheless, in 1945, agricultural production was
only 60 percent and steel output only 50 percent of
prewar levels. The Soviet people faced incredibly difficult
conditions: they worked longer hours; they ate less; they
were ill-housed and poorly clothed.
In the immediate postwar years, the Soviet Union
removed goods and materials from occupied Germany
and extorted valuable raw materials from its satellite
states in Eastern Europe. More important, however, to
create a new industrial base, Stalin returned to the
method he had used in the 1930s—the extraction of de-
velopment capital from Soviet labor. Working hard for
little pay and for precious few consumer goods, Soviet
laborers were expected to produce goods for export with
little in return for themselves. The incoming capital from
abroad could then be used to purchase machinery and
Western technology. The loss of millions of men in the
war meant that much of this tremendous workload fell to
Soviet women, who performed almost 40 percent of the
heavy manual labor.
An Industrial Powerhouse The pace of economic re-
covery in the postwar Soviet Union was impressive. By
1947, Russian industrial production had attained 1939
levels; three years later, it had surpassed those levels by 40
percent. New power plants, canals, and giant factories were
built, and new industrial enterprises and oil fields were
established in Siberia and Soviet Central Asia. A new five-
year plan, announced in 1946, reached its goals in less than
five years. Returning to his prewar forced-draft system,
Stalin had created an industrial powerhouse (see Map 9.1).
Although Stalin’s economic recovery policy was
successful in promoting growth in heavy industry, pri-
marily for the benefit of the military, consumer goods
remained scarce, as long-suffering Soviet citizens were
still being asked to sacrifice for a better tomorrow. The
development of thermonuclear weapons, MIG fighters,
and the first space satellite (Sputnik) in the 1950s may
have elevated the Soviet state’s reputation as a world
power abroad, but domestically, the Soviet people were
shortchanged. Heavy industry grew at a rate three times
that of personal consumption. Moreover, the housing
shortage was acute, with living conditions especially dif-
ficult in the overcrowded cities.
When World War II ended, Stalin had been in power
for more than fifteen years. During that time, he had
removed all opposition to his rule and remained the
undisputed master of the Soviet Union. Increasingly
distrustful of competitors, Stalin exercised sole authority
and pitted his subordinates against one another. One of
these subordinates, Lavrenti Beria, head of the secret
Bucharest
Tunis
Tehran
Ankara
Athens
Tirana
Belgrade
Sofia
Budapest
Tbilisi
Baku
Yerevan
Warsaw
Prague
Sarajevo
SkopjeRome
Berlin
Stockholm
Helsinki
Moscow
Minsk
Odessa
Chisinau
Kiev
Vienna
Zagreb
Riga
Vilnius
Tallinn Leningrad
ITALY
DENMARK
EAST
GERMANY
WEST
GER.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
AUSTRIA HUNGARY
ROMANIA
BULGARIA
SWEDEN
FINLAND
ALBANIA
GREECE TURKEY
UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
YUGOSLAVIA
IRAN
POLAND
U.S.S.R
LITHUANIA
LATVIA
ESTONIA
BELARUS
UKRAINE
MOLDOVA
GEORGIA
AZERBAIJAN
ARMENIA
KAZAKHSTAN
TURKMENISTAN
Sicily
Black Sea
Dnieper R.
Volga R.
Ba
ltic
Se
a
C
aspian Sea
Danube R.
Tigris R.
E
uphrates
Don
R.
0 500 1,000 Miles
0 500 750 1,500 Kilometers
MAP 9.1 The Soviet Union. After World War II, the boundaries of Eastern Europe were
redrawn as a result of Allied agreements reached at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences. This
map shows the new boundaries that were established throughout the region, placing Soviet
power in the center of Europe.
Q How had the boundaries changed from the prewar era?
CH A P T E R 9 BRAVE NEW WORLD: THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMUNISM IN THE SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE 191
police, controlled a force of several hundred thousand
agents, leaving Stalin’s colleagues completely cowed. As
Stalin remarked mockingly on one occasion, ‘‘When I die,
the imperialists will strangle all of you like a litter of
kittens.’’1
Stalin’s morbid suspicions added to the constantly
increasing repression of the regime. In 1946, government
decrees subordinated all forms of literary and scientific
expression to the political needs of the state. Along with
the anti-intellectual campaign came political terror. By
the late 1940s, an estimated nine million people were in
Siberian concentration camps. Stalin’s distrust of poten-
tial threats to his power even extended to some of his
closest colleagues. In 1948, Andrei Zhdanov, his pre-
sumed successor and head of the Leningrad party orga-
nization, died under mysterious circumstances. The
doctors who had attended the Soviet official were charged
with causing his death (thus producing the label, ‘‘the
doctors’ plot’’), but most historians believe it was done on
Stalin’s order. Within weeks, the Leningrad party orga-
nization was purged of several top leaders, many of whom
were charged with traitorous connections with Western
intelligence agencies. In succeeding years, Stalin directed
his suspicion at other members of the inner circle, in-
cluding Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Known as
‘‘Old Stone Butt’’ in the West for his stubborn defense of
Soviet security interests, Molotov had been a loyal lieu-
tenant since the early years of Stalin’s rise to power. Now
Stalin distrusted Molotov and had his Jewish wife placed
in a Siberian concentration camp.
The Rise and Fall of Nikita Khrushchev Stalin died—
presumably of natural causes—in 1953 and, after some
bitter infighting within the party leadership, was suc-
ceeded by Georgy Malenkov, a veteran administrator and
ambitious member of the Politburo. Malenkov came to
power with a clear agenda. In foreign affairs, he hoped to
promote an easing of Cold War tensions and improve
relations with the Western powers. For Moscow’s Eastern
European allies, he advocated a ‘‘new course’’ in their
mutual relations and a decline in Stalinist methods of
rule. Inside the Soviet Union, he hoped to reduce defense
expenditures and assign a higher priority to improving
the standard of living. Such goals were laudable and
probably had the support of the majority of the Russian
people, but they were not necessarily appealing to key
pressure groups within the Soviet Union—the army, the
Communist Party, the managerial elite, and the security
services (now known as the Committee for State Security,
or KGB). Malenkov was soon removed from his position
as prime minister, and power shifted to his rival, the new
party general secretary, Nikita Khrushchev.
During his struggle for power with Malenkov,
Khrushchev had outmaneuvered him by calling for height-
ened defense expenditures and a continuing emphasis on
heavy industry. Once in power, however, Khrushchev
The Portals of Doom. Perhaps the most feared location in the Soviet Union was Lyubyanka Prison, an
ornate prerevolutionary building in the heart of Moscow. Taken over by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution,
it became the headquarters of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, later to be known as the KGB. It was here
that many Soviet citizens accused of ‘‘counterrevolutionary acts’’ were imprisoned and executed. The figure on
the pedestal is that of Felix Dzerzhinsky, first director of the Cheka and a loyal henchman of Joseph Stalin. After
the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the statue was removed.
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192 P A R T I I I ACROSS THE IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE
showed the political dexterity displayed by many an Amer-
ican politician and reversed his priorities. He now resumed
the efforts of his predecessor to reduce tensions with the
West and improve the standard of living of the Russian
people. Hemoved vigorously to improve the performance of
the Soviet economy and revitalize Soviet society. By nature,
Khrushchev was a man of enormous energy as well as an
innovator. In an attempt to release the stranglehold of the
central bureaucracy over the national economy, he abolished
dozens of government ministries and split up the party and
government apparatus. Khrushchev also attempted to reju-
venate the stagnant agricultural sector, long the Achilles heel
of the Soviet economy. He attempted to spur production by
increasing profit incentives and opened ‘‘virgin lands’’ in
Soviet Kazakhstan to bring thousands of acres of new land
under cultivation.
Like any innovator, Khrushchev had to overcome the
inherently conservative instincts of the Soviet bureaucracy,
as well as of the mass of the Soviet population. His plan to
remove the ‘‘dead hand’’ of the state, however laudable in
intent, alienated much of the Soviet official class, and his
effort to split the party angered those who saw it as the
central force in the Soviet system. Khrushchev’s agricul-
tural schemes inspired similar opposition. Although the
Kazakhstan wheat lands would eventually demonstrate
their importance in the overall agricultural picture,
progress was slow, and his effort to persuade the Russian
people to eat more corn (an idea he had apparently picked
up during a visit to the United States) led to the mocking
nickname of ‘‘Cornman.’’ Disappointing agricultural pro-
duction, combined with high military spending, hurt the
Soviet economy. The industrial growth rate, which had
soared in the early 1950s, now declined dramatically from
13 percent in 1953 to 7.5 percent in 1964.
Khrushchev was probably best known for his policy
of destalinization. Khrushchev had risen in the party hi-
erarchy as a Stalin protégé, but he had been deeply dis-
turbed by his mentor’s excesses and, once in a position of
authority, moved to excise the Stalinist legacy from Soviet
society. The campaign began at the Twentieth Congress of
the Communist Party in February 1956, when Khrush-
chev gave a long speech criticizing some of Stalin’s major
shortcomings. The speech had apparently not been in-
tended for public distribution, but it was quickly leaked
to the Western press and created a sensation throughout
the world (see the box on p. 194). During the next few
years, Khrushchev encouraged more freedom of expres-
sion for writers, artists, and composers, arguing that
‘‘readers should be given the chance to make their own
judgments’’ regarding the acceptability of controversial
literature and that ‘‘police measures shouldn’t be used.’’2
At Khrushchev’s order, thousands of prisoners were re-
leased from concentration camps.
Khrushchev’s personality, however, did not endear
him to higher Soviet officials, who frowned at his ten-
dency to crack jokes and play the clown. Nor were the
higher members of the party bureaucracy pleased when
Khrushchev tried to curb their privileges. Foreign policy
failures further damaged Khrushchev’s reputation among
his colleagues. Relations with China deteriorated badly
under his leadership. His plan to install missiles in Cuba
was the final straw (see Chapter 7). While he was away on
vacation in 1964, a special meeting of the Soviet Politburo
voted him out of office (because of ‘‘deteriorating health’’)
and forced him into retirement. Although a group of
leaders succeeded him, real power came into the hands
of Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982), the ‘‘trusted’’ supporter of
Khrushchev who had engineered his downfall.
The Brezhnev Years, 1964–1982
The ouster of Nikita Khrushchev in October 1964 vividly
demonstrated the challenges that would be encountered
by any Soviet leader sufficiently bold to try to reform the
Soviet system