Download Chapter 30: The Great Depression and the Authoritarian Response

Chapter 30: The Great Depression and the Authoritarian Response



Decline of Globalization
Shakiness of Western democracies
Economic depression and political change led directly o WWII
The Global Great Depression
 Great Depression= international crisis
Causation
 War-induced inflation
 Farmers faced chronic overproduction of food and resulting low prices
 Loans from US banks to various European enterprises helped sustain
demand for goods but on condition that additional loans pour in to help pay
off the resultant debts.
 European govt. and businesses organized their African colonies for more
profitable exploitation, set up large estates, but production exceeded
demand.
 Colonies and dependant economies were unable to buy many industrial
exports, which weakened the demand for Western products
The Debacle
 Oct 29, 1929 “Black Tuesday” collapse of the New York stock market
 Duration of Great Depression was unprecedented, really only ended with the
forced production schedules from WWII
 Unemployment levels unprecedented
 Popular culture escapism: movies, comic books (Superman)
 USSR did not have a depression in the 1930’s, had cut many economic ties
with rest of world.
 Japan: heavily dependent on the export of silk- with new materials, demand
for silk decreased. Severe unemployment in Japan, coupled with poor
harvests.
 Latin America: Depression stimulated new kinds of effective political action:
greater state involvement
 Japan: looked to win more secure markets in Asia, instead of depending on
the West
Responses to the Depression in Western Europe
 Counterproductive responses: raising national tariffs, cut spending
 France: socialist and communist parties expanded, unified and formed the
Popular Front in 1936, and won the election but were resisted by
conservative republicans, stalled action.
The New Deal



Hoover: higher tariffs and cut spending, not effective, and tried to accelerate
war dept repayments from Europe
Franklin D. Roosevelt: 1933 “New Deal”: more direct aid to Americans at risk,
increased unemployment benefits, public works projects, Social Security
system, rapid govt. growth.
Great Depression didn’t actually end until WWII and the stimulus of wartime
economy
Nazism and Fascism
 Germany: new fascist regime was a product of war. Attacked the weakness
of parliamentary democracy.
o Proposed a strong state ruled by a powerful leader who would revice
the nation’s forces with vigorous foreign and military policy.
 Adolf Hitler: emerged as leader of the National Socialist (Nazi) regime in
Germany.
o Need for unity, weakness of parliamentary govt.
o Promised a return to more traditional ways
o Firm stance against socialism and communism
o Scapegoated the Jewish population
o Wanted to undo the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty
o Rose to power in 1932-33
o Constructed a Totalitarian State: government exercises massive,
direct control over virtually all the activities of its subjects.
o Eliminated opposition parties
o Purged the bureaucracy and military: installing loyal Nazis
o Secret police, the Gestapo, arrested hundreds of thousands of political
opponents
o Govt. economic planning
o Well-staged propaganda
o Strident nationalism, incessant attack on Germany’s large Jewish
minority
 Anti-Semitism: intensified in Germany
o Forced to wear special emblems
o Property was attacked and seized
o Increasing numbers were sent to ghettos and then concentration
camps
o After 1940: Hitler’s policy turned to the literal elimination of
European Jews with the Holocaust
 Wanted to recoup Germany’s WWI losses- created land empire, especially
towards the east, saw Slavic peoples as inferior.
o Violated limits on German armaments
o Annexed neighboring territories
o Hitler suspended German reparation payments
o Withdrew from League of Nations
o 1935: announced German rearmament
o 1938: Hitler announced a union, Anschuluss, with Austria
o Munich Conference, Hitler met with Chamberlain in 1938 and he
would be satisfied with the heavily German populated Sudetenland in
Czecholsolakia…Great Britain allowed and Chamberlain claimed there
would be “peace in our time.”
o Appeasement: giving in to demands in order to try and maintain peace
o March 1939: Hitler’s forces dismantled the rest of Czechoslovakia and
pressed Poland for territory.
o Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler attacked Poland
The Spread of Fascism and the Spanish Civil War
 Nazi triumph in Germany spurred fascism elsewhere
 Fascist movements in Hungary and Romania
 Italy: under Benito Mussolini
o Aggressive foreign policy, new nationalist glories
o 1935: Mussolini attacked Ethiopia, (to avenge earlier loss in the
1890’s)
o League of Nations condemned the action, but did not respond with
force
o Italians won a new colony, after much Ethiopian resistance
 Spain: Spanish Civil War
o Forces supporting a parliamentary republic had feuded with a
military-backed authoritarian state
o 1936: outright Civil War broke out
o Spanish military forces, led by General Francisco Franco, backed by
the fascist Falange party, as well as conservative landowners and
Catholic leaders.
o Republican forces had peasant and worker support, as well as
Communists and anarchists. There were also some volunteers from
the US, western Europe and USSR
o Bitter fighting in Spain for 3 years.
o German and Italian forces bombed several Spanish cities
o Franco’s forces won in 1939, and resulting regime was authoritarian
and catered to the landlords, church, and army for the next 25 years.
…To be continued…
The Great Crash and Latin American Responses
 After world financial crisis: export sales dropped rapidly
 Reform movements gained momentum
 Rise of conservative response: hostile to class conflict and supported by
church and military leaders.
 Corporatism: emphasized the organic nature of society, with the state as a
mediator adjusting the interests of different social groups
 Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940): Mexico: redistributed more than 40 million
acres of land, created communal farms, and a credit system


Expropriated foreign oil companies and created a state oil monopoly.
Cuba: nationalist movement aimed at social reform and breaking the grip of
the US
The Vargas Regime in Brazil
 1929: short civil war
 Getulio Vargas (1872-1954) took over as president
o Promised liberal reforms, elimination of abuses from old system
o 1937: New constitution with the Estado Novo (New State), based on
ideas from Mussolini’s Italy.
o Authoritarian regime within the context of nationalism and economic
reforms
o Limited immigration and eliminated parties and groups that resisted
national integration or the govt.
o Vargas eventually joined the Allies during WWII, supplied based to the
US and sent troops to Italy.
o Brazil obtained arms, financial support for industrial development,
and trade advantages.
o Criticized by right and left, committed suicide in 1954…”I was a slave
to the people, and today I am freeing myself for eternal life.”
Argentina: Populism, Peron, and the Military
 Struggle with various military coups
 Industry was growing, so was the numbers and strength of industrial
workers
 Conservative govts. Backed by the traditional military held power through
1930’s
 1943 new military coup
o nationalists who wanted to industrialize and modernize Argentina
 Colonel Juan D. Peron (1895-1974) helped out workers as he served in the
Ministry of Labor.
o Married to Eva Duarte, known as Evita, she became a pubic
spokesperson for Peron.
o Peron did sympathize with the Axis powers during WWII
o Descamisados, poor and downtrodden, Evita was a symbol
 Peronist party became increasingly radical: campaign against the Catholic
Church
 Evita died at age 33, from cancer
 1955: Peron sent into exile
 1973: Peron and new wife Isabel won the presidential and vice-presidential
election.
The Militarization of Japan
 1939: Depression hit Japan
 Japanese military conquest of Chinese province of Manchuria






Various nationalist groups emerged
o Some called for more Shinto/ Confucian values
May 1932: group of younger army officers attacked key govt and banking
officers and murdered the Prime Minister
Renewed wars between China and Japan 1937
Japanese forces quickly occupied the cities and railroads of eastern China
o Devastating bombing raids
By the end of 1938, Japan was in control of Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan
Japanese especially harsh in Korea
o Suppress Korean culture
o Japanese language forced on Korean teachers
o Young men pressed into Labor groups
o “training to endure hardship”
Industrialization and Recovery
 Due to this expansion, Japan suffered far less than many Western nations did
during the Depression decade as a whole
 Minister of Finance, Korekiyo Takahashi: increased spending to provide jobs
 Production of iron steel and chemicals soared
 By 1937: Japan had the 3rd largest and newest merchant marine
Stalinism in the Soviet Union
 totalitarian state emerged in the 1920’s
 Pressures to step up industrialization, plus autocratic hand of new leader
resulted in a police state
 1927 Stalin took power: wanted authoritarian control and to veer economy
back towards socialism (away from NEP)
 Kulaks: wealthy, commercially oriented peasants who controlled the bulk of
the land, and were attuned to profit-based market agriculture
 Stalin wanted a fully industrialized USSR, but under full control of the state
 Wanted modernization, but with a revolutionary, non-capitalist twist
Economic Policies
 Collectivization of agriculture: creation of large state, run farms
 Needed to take resources from peasants, through taxation, to provide capital
for industry
 Resistance from many kulaks, destruction of property, famine
 Millions of kulaks were killed or deported to Siberia during the early 1930’s
 Agricultural production remained a major weakness in the Soviet economy
 Five-Year Plans: set clear priorities for industrial development with expected
output levels and new facilities
 Massive factories in metallurgy, mining, and electric power
Toward an Industrial Society
 increasing numbers of people were crowded into the cities
 factory discipline was strict
 Incentive programs were introduced to motivate workers to higher
production
 Welfare services that rivaled the west
 Strikes were outlawed, and the sole trade union movement was controlled by
the Party
 Used force and authority, but also recognized the importance of maintaining
working support
Totalitarian Rule
 Socialist realism: dominant school of art, emphasizing heroic idealizations of
workers, soldiers, and peasants
 Science was controlled: said evolutionary biology was wrong because it
contradicted Marxism
 Real and imagined opponents of his version of communism were executed
 Great Purge of party leaders, hundreds of people were intimidated into
confessing imaginary crimes against the state, and most were executed.
 Many thousands more were sent to Siberaian labor camps
 News outlets controlled by the state
 Secret police force: MVD
 Politburo: party congresses/ executive committee became rubber stamps to
Stalin’s policies
 Atmosphere of terror spread
 Stalin’s purges weakened nation’s ability to respond to growing foreign
policy problems (for example the rising threat of Hitler)
 1939: Hitler-Stalin Non-Aggression Pact: USSR had time to mobilize and
attack Poland and Finland to try and regain territories lost in WWI.
New Political and Economic Realities
 Depression further weakened western Europe
 Japan rallied, with authoritarian leadership and growing reliance on military
 New initiatives in Latin America, along with severe economic dislocation
 Movements against Western colonialism continued
 Turkey: Kemal Ataturk had many reforms: traditional Islamic habits were
challenged, quest for a secular state. Abolished the fez, traditional cap of
upper-class men. Secular education and suffrage for women
 Turkey and Persia (Iran in 1935) promoted industrialization
 Arab world: growing nationalism against efforts of European efforts to rule
under Mandates
