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UNIT 1 Lesson 1 THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS Nalini Taneja 1.0: Objectives After reading this essay you should be able to • • • • • • • • understand some basic concepts that define the 20th century world be able to recognize the elements that went into creating the modern world define the elements of continuity and change in the 20th century trace the historical roots of twentieth century world perceive the nature of the world order and analyse the causes of inequality and conflict in the 20th century world understand why socialism posed such a challenge to capitalism also understand why the collapse of socialism in many countries has strengthened capitalism but not destroyed the challenge of socialism. 1.2: Introduction While the world as we saw it at the end of the 20th century was very different from the world in the beginning of the 20th century, there are some basic features that lend it an element of continuity. When we speak of the 20th century we speak of the modern world, and this modern world was not created overnight, nor at the same time chronologically and not even at the same pace in all areas of the world. The historical roots of the 20th century world can be traced to the decline of feudalism and the emergence and growth of capitalist societies, to begin with, in 16th century Europe and then elsewhere. Decisive developments in this historical process were the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution which shaped the modern world. In that sense there is a relationship and continuity with the 19th century during which capitalist industrialization became the dominant mode of production and nationalism and nation states the predominant feature of politics. Therefore we can safely say that the 20th century world was created by capitalist industrialization with all its social and political ramifications. You will read about various aspects of the 20th century in the later essays. In this essay we will discuss some of the defining concepts and definitions necessary for understanding the 20th century. 1.3: Capitalist industrialization Capital permeated all aspects of life in the twentieth century: societies where it advanced rapidly and, interestingly, also where it emerged but was hindered in its advance by the entrenched older social and economic structures. The twentieth century has seen the division of the world into advanced or ‘developed’ countries and those which are characterized as ‘developing’ countries; and within countries into those considered ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. 1 In fact the rapid economic advance that capitalist industrialization entailed itself became a factor for the backwardness of some societies, and within societies for a large majority of its people. Colonialism and divisions into classes are aspects of these inequalities. In other words inequality was as much inbuilt in capitalism as it was in earlier societies. Definition and features As you know industry is older than capitalism. When we talk of capitalist industrialization we therefore refer to the changes that took place in the organization of production during late 18th and 19th century. These changes in the organization of industry are inseparable from the growth of capitalism. Capitalism entails an economic and social system characterized by private ownership of property i.e., the means of production—land, factory, raw stocks—are all privately owned and controlled and production takes place for sale and profit rather than for use by the producers. What is produced, therefore, becomes a commodity, i.e., an item for sale and profit making. It has an exchange value rather than use value, and an unequal exchange value because those who own the resources gain from it rather than those who labour to produce it. In other words, the means of producing, distributing and exchanging commodities are operated by their owners solely for the financial gain of the owners. The profits are distributed to owners or invested in new technology and industries, wages are paid to the labour from it. Capital in its various forms is thus the major factor of production in capitalist industrialization. In addition to the above, i.e.,1) private ownership of means of production and exchange, 2) production for sale and financial gain rather than use, and 3) capital in its various forms being the major factor of production, there are certain other equally essential features that characterize capitalist industrialization. For example, Marx and Engels point out in their Communist Manifesto (1848) that 4) the people who have no means of production of their own (and they are in a majority), are forced to find employment, in other words, to sell their labour power, in order to live. Labour, also, therefore, becomes commodity, an item to be sold in return for wages (livelihood). Further, if everything is subjected to buying and selling then 5) market becomes the essential and central feature of a society based on capitalist industrialization. All inputs and outputs are supplied commercially through the market. All relationships are contractual relationships determined by the laws of supply and demand, or what is known as the rationality of the market. For example if there are more workers seeking employment than employers demanding work the wages will be lower and vice versa. Again in times of scarcity prices can go higher, in times of recession and financial crisis for the industrialists there may be heavy discounts. 6) Due to the ownership pattern the owners hold all the decision making powers and workers and other employees can only use their collective bargaining power through their organizations or trade unions and strikes etc. But as you can gauge, since they own no means of income other than their labour they are at a disadvantage, except in their numbers and in their unity, to the extent that there is unity amongst them. 2 Now the question arises that if owners are paying for the production then why should they not have the profit and what is so unfair about it? Many economists and thinkers believe that this is a reasonably fair deal. Marx and Engels, however, argued for a deeper analysis. 7) They argued that the profits of the employer essentially came from the exploitation of the labour of the workers i.e unequal exchange in the contractual relationship between the factory owner and the worker because the worker produced surplus value over and above what he was paid for. The wages paid are lower than the value of the goods and services produced for the capitalist. They showed that a worker is paid for his labour time, which is the number of hours he/she worked, and not on the basis of the volume of goods produced or the amount gained when the product is sold in the market. With improvements in technology and more advanced machines the workers collectively produced much more in the same time but their wages did not rise in the same measure. The factory owner gained his increased profits from this discrepancy between the value gained by the industrialist and what he has paid for. Everything utilized by the industrialist—raw stocks, infrastructure, capital, credit from banks, the distribution and transportation, machinery, even a pin—has involved labour underpaid for. This is known as the creation of surplus value out of the labour of the worker and is the crux of the injustice inherent in capitalism. Therefore, they argued, as long as private property (in the means of production) exists this contradiction between the interest of the capitalist and the worker will remain. Capitalist industrialization reflects this basic contradiction and inherent injustice and inequality of opportunity. Thus both technology and social organization of labour-- the relationship between owners and workers—were reshaped at a certain stage in history to conform to the commercial logic. This is what is characterized as capitalist industrialization. Perceptions of capitalist development For some historians and economists technical progress, leading to new inventions and their widespread use and diffusion, constituted the core of capitalist industrialization. Others regard the application of science to industry as its most significant characteristic. Still others have given more significance to the agrarian changes which created some of the pre requisites for large scale industrialization. Many have emphasized the growth of markets, within countries and across the world, the increasing division of labour, again within countries or across the world, or the changes taking place within industrial production itself (which they refer to as protoindustrialization). Some, following Karl Marx, have emphasized the new relationships which emerged from changes in the productive forces (technical progress), the transformations in the organization of production (new institutional arrangements) and new ownership patterns. Stages of capitalist industrialization Different thinkers and scholars emphasized some or a particular set of features of capitalist industrialization as crucial and identified its various stages through time differently. All of them, however, agree that it is a historical phenomenon: that it originated at a certain point in history and has been undergoing significant changes within the continuing social formation (social and economic framework). For capitalist or industrial society to emerge as dominant, for it to permeate the whole production process of society, many different economic, cultural, technological, legal and political conditions had to come together—improved technology for mass production, a class of property less workers, a legal system protecting private ownership and market in private property, 3 development of infrastructure to promote economic activity on a large scale, a political system that is conducive to it. The earliest phase is termed as merchant or mercantile capitalism and is said to correspond to the period from the 15th to the 18th centuries when western European nations like England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain dominated the seas and international trade and embarked on the colonization of other continents. The next phase spreading over the 19th century is seen as growth of full blown capitalism linked inseparably with investments in industrial production and the growth of large scale production facilitated by technological progress -- use of steam engines, new inventions in textile machinery and agriculture, new means of transportation especially railways, new methods of coal and iron mining—and factories worked with wage labour and individually owned. The early years of the 20th century saw rapid strides in steel industry, ship building, and concentration of production in large scale firms, cartels, and financial capital. It also saw monopoly capitalism, imperialism and inter imperialist rivalries take on a more aggressive stance. Monopolies in capitalist industrialization resulted from the more advanced countries recognizing heir pre-eminent position in industrial production and seeking to maintain this preeminence by protecting and monopolizing markets and the economies of their colonies rather than leaving it to open market and competition. In other words they now favoured a regulated market, controlled by them, rather than laissez faire, or leaving the laws of supply and demand to determine economies. The second half of the 20th century saw the emergence of multi or transnational corporations, new economic policies which involved structural adjustments in both advanced countries and the third world countries as a result of pressure from the advanced countries, and cuts in welfare spending by governments across the world. It also increasingly led to neo liberal economic policies, privatization of public or state owned assets. Multinationals spread their production processes and control across national boundaries, moving production overseas to reduce costs where labour was cheaper and to pre-empt competition from third world economies. These policies representing a new phase in capitalist industrialization and the consequent imperialist pressure on third world economies has been known as globalization. Forms of capitalist industrialization The time periods for the emergence of capitalist industrialization have differed and there have also been variations in the paths to capitalist industrialization. This is because of the great historical and geographical diversities involved, and the specific social and political particularities of the countries concerned. Apart from these factors the pattern of agricultural changes in the different countries and colonialism also had a great role to play in defining the specific features of capitalist industrialization in each country. Imperialism and capitalist industrialization Imperialism is the world framework of political and economic relations imposed by the advanced capitalist countries on the rest of the world. It emerges from and is historically linked with capitalist industrialization and colonialism. The manner in which the unequal and exploitative relationship between the advanced capitalist countries, also called the imperialist countries, and 4 the rest of the world has been worked out and maintained has depended on the stage of capitalist industrialization and the balance of political power derived from economic strength. Early stages of colonialism were marked by politically imposed and protected (for the benefit of the colonizer country that is) unequal terms of trade. They were reworked at a later stage of capitalist industrialization as the imperialism of free trade or unfettered exploitation of colonies. Finally, in the last decades of the 19th century, with the emergence of monopolies and finance capital there were attempts at division and re divisions of the world between the advanced capitalist countries. In the 20th century the alternating periods of economic expansion and depression led to both crises for the capitalist system and intensification of inter imperialist rivalries. The 20th century was also the century of the rise and success of socialist economies. The challenge that socialist economies with their emphasis on social justice and equality and opposition to the whole colonial framework presented to capitalist industrialisation led to the great conflict between the socialist world and the capitalist countries whose rivalries among themselves were held in check by their joint hatred and opposition to socialism. The demise of socialist economies in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe and the dilution of the socialist elements within the Chinese economy has strengthened capitalism but it has not destroyed the promise of socialism. The capitalist industrialized world and the unequal world order that it sustains is still subject to financial crises which adversely affect lives of billions of people, but also because the globalization policies of today’s world are leading to even greater inequalities between nations and within nations. 1.4: Modernity Modernity as a term applies to the modern era and is distinct from modernism which refers to specific features within different forms of art, literature, music, cinema etc. The modern also implies the opposite of being backward and evokes a sense of being progressive. In historical terms it refers to the post medieval period of history, particularly the intellectual and cultural developments associated with Renaissance and the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. It was first used in this sense. But increasingly the term has come to denote not just intellectual trends but the transformation of attitudes and a change in the world outlook of a larger set of people than those affected by the intellectual currents in the 16th-18th centuries. The French revolution and the industrial revolutions in various parts of the world transformed lives of many more millions of people. This also broadened the scope and meaning of what is meant by being modern. The term modernity came to denote the basic features of an industrialized society. It is contained in capitalist society and in socialist societies as well. In this broader sense modernity implies an industrial civilization, a certain complex of economic, social and political institutional arrangements associated with the changes that the development of capitalist industrialization entailed: right to private property, representative governments, the idea of free nations and popular sovereignty, the practice of electoral democracy, the secularization of societies and a value for religious tolerance and individual rights. The 19th century is said to mark the first phase of modernity in this sense, based on the fruits of new inventions, the steam engine, trains, ships, petroleum. The Newtonian revolution and Darwin’s 5 theory of revolution, Harvey’s discoveries of circulation of blood changed the way people looked at the world. There was expansion and change in the nature of what is conceived of as the public sphere, a reorganization of social and personal lives, a new relationship with work and leisure. Printing technology, disappearance of old patronage and the intervention of the market, along with expansion of education enabled the democratization of culture and increased the access to knowledge and what was considered as ‘high’ culture. Of the twentieth century one can say that most parts of the world had civilizations influenced if not completely transformed by capitalist industrialization. The use of technology in communication—radio, telephone, film, television, computers—and dissemination of knowledge expanded the consumer base for products of industry and for culture. They created bases for new solidarities and collective actions. Modernity meant changes in family and household, between work and leisure, between society and individual, between church and state, between church and believers, between men and women. The idea of equality and women’s emancipation, of women’s vote and entry of women into various professions, the changes in dress are all inconceivable without this context of modernity. Modernity made possible the creation of a strong force of intelligentsia that could talk for the larger society even as it came from within its privileged section. Capacities for production, space exploration, higher life expectations, cures for several diseases, created possibilities for a better world not just for a few but for all. All this was on the plus side. The context of capitalist society into which modernity was inbuilt had its flip side for the vast majority of people. Critiques of modernity had their bases in the contradictions inherent in capitalist society. One kind of critique has been that science had led to loss of spiritualism and decline of religion, technology and mass production had destroyed individual creativity, industry and urbanization had destroyed the environment and link with nature and all this had in turn affected man’s nature. Nuclear bombs, wars, loss of neighborhood and community solidarities, dilution of certain traditional values and relations, were seen as results of modernity and unbridled individualism fostered by modernity. These critics opposed what they called the ugliness of modern production, rejected capitalism and democracy at the cost of older values. This took the form of romanticism, because this critique did not take into account the reality that going back in time is not realizable or a possibility. Another kind of critique valued the advances of capitalist industrialization, particularly the increased production that now made it possible to alleviate the standards of living of the majority of the people of the world and the values that modernity brought. But they were very conscious of its limitations as well. They wanted political and individual liberties to be supplemented with economic rights and social and economic equality in the real sense. They were critical of the inequalities inherent in the system of capitalist industrialization and the wide gap between theory and reality with regard to other rights. They stood for socialism, classless societies and equality between nations and within nations. They stood for equality between men and women and for minority rights. They thought all this was not achievable within the framework of capitalist society. Theirs was therefore a critical appreciation of modernity: they wanted to realize in practice the promise of freedom and equality, which was possible only by overthrowing the system that had both created the possibilities of their realization and also prevented their actual realization because of the injustice structurally inbuilt in capitalist societies. The socialist movements and the socialist and communist parties and their various organizations best represented this world view. 6 A third response to modernity, which can be characterized as reactionary modernism, is one which accepted the fruits of modern society, such as large scale production and new technologies and the comforts they made possible, but were repulsed by its ideas. Equality, workers rights, women’s emancipation, democracy were an anathema to them. This trend became particularly successful in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, although it had supporters elsewhere as well. Linked to this last response to modernity is what has been termed as post modernism. This is a response which is rooted in the unhappiness over the changes that took place in the US and following that in Western Europe during the 1960s and the subsequent decades. Some social scientists saw this as the period of post industrialism and therefore characterized the societies of this phase as the ‘post-modern’ condition. Post modernism is thus a critique of modern society which refuses to acknowledge the capitalist basis of the modern society. It detaches society from its moorings and criticizes modernity rather than capitalism. This is not a rational critique of society. This irrationality of its critique of society gets transferred to its over all world view, and all the ills of modern life are attributed to modernity. Because modernity means an understanding of the world and of human development on the basis of the principles of rationality, scientific temper and an appreciation of the laws of human development, post modernism on the contrary opposed reason, application of general laws and what they called the ‘meta narratives’. For post modernists each person has his/her own truth and every person’s situation and therefore vantage point differs. A text does not contain except what we personally see in it: everything is relative, everything is subjective and everything exists only to the extent that we recognize it. This kind of a critique of modernity has had some negative consequences for how we look at the world and what can be done to transform society for the better, because we can simply refuse to see what we don’t want to or are unable to. 1.6: Contemporary era When we talk of contemporary era we refer exclusively to the twentieth century and within the twentieth century to those events and developments which impinge on or continue to impact on the present. In short, the contemporary, for us, as in the dictionary meaning of being simultaneous, defines what we call our times or whatever exists in our lifetimes, and all that forms a background that determines our present lives. The three defining developments or events that still live with us are the World War I (19141918), the Russian revolution of 1917, and World War II (1939-1945). They have definitively set their stamp on our world, not only because of the millions of people involved in them, but also because the causes they represented still remain alive with us and the conflicts they generated have not been resolved. International conflict, inter-imperialist rivalry and conflict of interests between the advanced capitalist countries and what is known as the Third World remain with us unresolved. The threat of wars and peace movements are important issues of today. Poverty and inequalities in societies make socialism and the 1917 revolution still relevant to us. The contemporary era has also seen the unification of nationalities and particularly in the second half of the twentieth century a process of decolonization and the consequent creation of independent nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. From the 40s to the 90s of the twentieth 7 century we see the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, representing the tensions between the socialist and the capitalist world. This is also the period of what we term the Space Age characterized by fast pace of space exploration and race for space dominance and the growth of technology and cultural developments associated with it. This is followed by the digital revolution or the age of information technology, characterized by extensive expansion and transformation in industry due to computers and the possibilities of manipulation of information and knowledge by those countries which dominated this field. The changes of the 20th century encompassed not just North America and Europe, but the entire world. Three quarters of the world awakened into new nationhood, political rights so far not available to them and new arrangements of civil society. As Prabhat Patnaik has put it, “the institutionalization of ‘one-person-one-vote’ constituted a veritable social revolution.” The actual existing democracy is thus an achievement of popular movements of the 20th century. Women won their right to vote in the advanced countries only in the 20th century after great struggles, and in the rest of the world by virtue of being active participants in national liberation. A third of the humanity broke away from the capitalist system to adopt socialism as basis of economy and state. Democracy itself was given a new meaning and content by these democratic upsurges. Reigned against them were the forces of fascism represented by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and the rule and onslaught of big Capital on the movements of the working people and the marginalized all over the world. In terms of historical time the contemporary era marks the high time of capitalist industrialization and modernity. But it is an era in which, as Aijaz Ahmad has commented, “socialism emerged as the central fact around which most aspirations and conflicts on the global scale were shaped.” There was imperialist domination on the one hand and on the other mass struggles against it which involved billions of people. National liberation movements reflected a democratic upsurge the world over. These struggles were shaped by socialism and the entry of masses of people as actors and subjects of their own history. The Soviet Union not only actively supported national liberation movements, there would have been no defeat of fascism without the sacrifice and heroism of the Soviet armies, and the resistance forces linked with socialism in the advanced capitalist countries. 1.7: Conclusion You have seen how the world we live in has been defined by capitalist industrialization and socialism in the 20th century. It continues to be so in the 21st century. The 20th century ended with the collapse of socialist states in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, US hegemony over the world and the important international institutions, and the beginning of the 21st century has seen a financial crisis that has important negative ramifications for living standards of billions of people. Despite these disastrous consequences the US, and other advanced capitalist countries, continue to pursue and impose on the rest of the world the neo liberal economic policies which constitute the core of globalization, as they have been doing since the 1980s and more particularly 1990s. While in our part of the world it seems the middle classes are under the spell of these policies and the popular resistance to them is weak, in the Latin American countries both people and governments are actively opposing these policies and the US hegemony in world affairs. How these contestations will unfold in the 21st century is not yet clear. 8 1.8: Some questions Answer the following questions in approximately 200 words. (Please consult the relevant readings recommended for the course, given in the syllabus and also at the end of the course material). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Explain four features of capitalist industrialization. Describe some of the changes in capitalist industrialization in the 20th century. How is modernity related to capitalist industrialization? Discuss the main aspects of modern civilization as seen in daily life. Discuss one trend that represented a critique of modernity. Write about any one important development which shaped the twentieth century. How did capitalist industrialization contribute to inequalities in the world? In what way did socialism constitute a challenge to the imperialist world order? 9 UNIT 2 Lesson 1 CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN ANALYSIS -Dr.Naveen Vashishta The twentieth century was the century of crisis and catastrophe for Europe after the immense peace, prosperity and optimism of the nineteenth. The century witnessed two destructive wars across the European continent, but due to the European domination of the world, these became world wars. World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was the first international conflict of great scale since the Napoleonic era. It involved all the Great Powers, with Italy entering the war in1915, and the United States in1917. The wars for national unity in Germany and Italy, Greek War of Independence, the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish War, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese War, were more or less limited to few powers and did not lead into a general conflagration. But First World War was a total war1, that is, fought not merely by professional armies, but as much by the civilian population engaged in producing for the war effort and being targeted in effect as combatant. The catastrophic conflagration was set off by the assassination of Prince Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on 28th June 1914, by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. But any attempt to understand the origins of the war must take account of a large number of long standing causes. It became one of the most controversial and debated subjects in history. For much of the nineteenth century, much of the major European powers maintained a balance of power. However, between 1871 and 1914 a wide variety of factors served to undermine international stability. The First World War was really the culmination of long-drawn-out crisis within the European system. The Rise of Germany and Alliance System of Bismarck The rise of Germany was the principal factor which produced anxiety among the major European countries. The victory of Prussia over France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 culminated in the Unification of Germany and created a new power in the heart of Europe. The foreign policy of new Germany, dominated by Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was designed to reassure Europe that Germany was a satisfied country, with no intention of upsetting the delicate balance of power in Europe. This clever style of diplomacy secured a dominant position for Germany in European affairs through the formation of delicate system of treaties and alliances which often comprised secret clauses. Bismarck captured the urgency, the European Great Powers felt about the necessity of alliances, and the delicate nature of the balance of power itself: “All[international] politics reduces itself to this formula: Try to be a trios(three) as long as the world is governed by the unstable equilibrium of five Great Powers”Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain and France. In 1872 the League of Three Emperors (Driekaiserbund) consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, was formed. He knew that France was Germany’s irreconcilable enemy, so his diplomatic skill and political insight were engaged in building up alliances for protecting Germany. In pursuit of this policy, Germany entered into an alliance with Austria in 1879 with a promise of reciprocal protection in case of 1 This term was first coined by German General Erich Ludendroff in 1918. It meant mobilization of all material as well as moral energies in the process of waging a modern war. 10 Russian aggression on either power. Three years later in 1882, Bismarck generated the FrancoItalian rivalry over Tunis (in Africa) and persuaded Italy to forget her enmity towards Austria. A secret Triple Alliance was formed in 1882 between Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, openly defensive, in part against France, in part against Russia. It is now evident that Bismarck was never firmly committed to his Triple Alliance partner. In 1887, for example, he signed the secret Re-insurance Treaty with Russia without the knowledge of Austria-Hungary or Italy, which pledged Russia’s neutrality in the event of a German attack on France, German neutrality in the event of a Russian attack on AustriaHungary, and a promise that Germany would support Russia’s attack in the Balkans. The nightmare of isolation haunted France. But after Bismarck ceased to be the German Chancellor in 1890, his successors abandoned his diplomacy. The German Emperor Kaiser William II insisted that his country must have ‘a place in the sun’ and tried to pursue the policy of Weltpolitik (namely that Germany as a Great power must play its legitimate role in the world or the desire for world power). He did not believe that Germany was a satisfied power and called for an ambitious policy of a World Empire. Some resentment arose between Germany and Russia at the Congress of Berlin over the settlement of Eastern Question. Taking advantage of this situation and proceeding cautiously, France successfully formed an alliance with Russia in 1891. This Dual Alliance ended the period of isolation of France and served as counterbalance to the Triple Alliance. The renunciation of Bismarckian diplomacy by Germany forced Britain to come out of the state of “splendid isolation.”2 The first move by the British government away from isolation was the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty(1902), which was designed to ease Britain’s worry over trade in the region and to ease the fears over the Russian threat to India. In 1904, she made an agreement of Entente Cordiale with France resolving all mutual differences. This was followed by a similar agreement with Russia in1907. Thus France, Russia and Britain formed a separate political group called Triple Entente. As the Triple Alliance confronted the Triple Entente, the condition of Europe became one of “armed peace”. The European powers, though at peace with each other, kept a jealous watch upon their neighbors and so an atmosphere of fear and suspicion prevailed in Europe. The formation of such alliances (see table on p.3) undoubtedly led to increased tensions in Europe. But they could not automatically lead to war and conversely they could contribute to peace by acting as a deterrent against possible aggressors. It was the change in the nature of these alliances from defensive to aggressive that made a difference. A.J.P Taylor points out that the pre-1914 alliances were so unstable and delicate that they cannot be seen as a major cause of war. It seems that the alliance system raised expectations about the likely Allies3 in the future war, however each nation seemed to base its decision for war on national interests. Thus it is to this extent that a link can be drawn between the alliance system and the outbreak of the First World War. 2 A term used with reference to the British policy of non-intervention in European conflicts during the late 19th century. 3 A group of countries or political parties who are formally united and working together because they have a similar aim. 11 1879 The Dual Alliance Germany and Austria-Hungary made an alliance to protect themselves from Russia 1881 Austro-Serbian Alliance 1882 The Triple Alliance Austria-Hungary made an alliance with Serbia to stop Russia gaining control of Serbia Germany and AustriaHungary made an alliance with Italy to stop Italy from taking sides with Russia 1914 Triple Entente (no separate peace) 1894 Franco-Russian Alliance Russia formed an alliance with France to protect herself against Germany and AustriaHungary Britain, Russia and France agreed not to sign for peace separately. 1907 Triple Entente This was made between Russia, France and Britain to counter the increasing threat from Germany. 1907 Anglo-Russian Entente This was an agreement between Britain and Russia 1904 Entente Cordiale This was an agreement, but not a formal alliance, between France and Britain. Table showing system of alliances reads clockwise from the top left picture Growth of Militarism The growth of militarism4, which was actually closely connected with the system of alliances, has also been assigned as a factor responsible for the war. The system of maintaining large armies actually begin with the French Revolution and was later continued under Napoleon. It was extended and efficiently developed by Bismarck during the Unification of Germany. Europe has been observed as an “armed camp” from 1870-1914. According to Michael Howard each declaration of increased armaments expenditure by a European power before 1914 was perceived as a threat by its rival, and thus created an atmosphere of mutual fear and suspicion which greatly contributed in creating the mood for the war in 1914. However, the idea that arms 4 A policy of maintaining a strong military base. 12 build up unavoidably leads to war remain doubtful and unproved. Niall Ferguson has claimed that the role of arms race in encouraging the First World War has been greatly exaggerated. Many scholars believe that the considerations of the leading powers regarding the balance of power was a much greater influence than a simple build up of arms on policy during July crisis. The balance of power in the Balkans was turning sharply against Austria-Hungary and this was a critical factor which caused her to argue for a ‘preventive war’ to weaken Serbia. A.J.P Taylor argued that the outbreak of the First World War was caused entirely by rival plans for mobilization5 by the European powers. All European powers had developed detailed war plans in expectation of war. The famous German war plan, the Schlieffen Plan, relied on the quick movement of troops and the assumption that once Germany found itself at war with Russia, it would also is at war with France. It involved: • Concentrating German forces on an attempt to take Paris and so defeat France. • When that was accomplished troops would be transferred to attack Russia. This is the most famous plan as it came very close to success. It also meant that once Germany declared war on Russia in August 1914, she would also have to attack France. However in invading France, Belgium's neutrality was violated and this brought Britain into the war. France had her own plan called Plan XVII (which Niall Ferguson described as “mad strategy”) and so also did Russia (Plan G) and Austria-Hungary (Plans R and B). All of these plans assumed the support of their respective Allies. Once the first steps towards mobilization were taken, everyone assumed that it would be fatal to stand still while their possible enemies moved forward. However the relationship between military plans and actual decisions for war is complex. The roots of militaristic attitude of the late 19th and early 20th century has been seen by many as the crisis in the liberal, enlightenment and rational values which in turn was transformed into politics. The suppression of the revolutions of 1848 signified the climax of idealistic approach to society and politics which drew from enlightenment. The ideas of thinkers like Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche also contributed to the creation of militaristic environment in this period. Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ placed the origin of species in a competitive process of natural selection which was later applied to the society. Similarly Nietzsche believed that life was a constant struggle, and existence fundamentally chaotic. These new ideas provide a rhetoric in which the international relations came to be argued, but this language did not create the war itself. The effect of these ideas can however be seen in the manner people were responding to the European situation. Militaristic ideas also explain the unnatural hysteria on the eve of the war. Rise of Nationalism in Europe Another very important factor responsible for the war was the wave of nationalism which swept all over Europe. It was in fact one of the legacy of the French Revolution. The success of nationalism in Germany and Italy invested it with a new vigor and made it a strong force in politics. The unifications of Germany and Italy were achievable mainly because Bismarck and Cavour were successful in arousing the spirit of nationalism. In the process it inflamed the racial pride of the people, encouraged them to laud their country above all others, and made them 5 A military term used for calling up troops for fight. 13 arrogant in their attitude towards their neighbors. It was the excessive zeal of nationalism that strengthened the rivalries of Germany and Britain and encouraged them to engage on a vigorous naval and military competition. It was the aggressive nationalism that led the European powers to quarrel over their interests in Asia, Africa and the Balkans. It was the outraged nationalism of the French that kept alive their spirit of revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine and made France the bitterest enemy of Germany. The ecstasy of nationalist upsurge, manifested in the outbreak of Franco-Prussian War in 1870, opened a new era of popular frenzy in international relations. The outbreak of war was greeted by cheering crowds in Berlin, Vienna and Paris. As A.J.P Taylor wrote “the people of Europe leapt willingly into war.” There were dissatisfied national minorities along the western periphery of the Russian empire. Poles and Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Finns continued to exert a strong centrifugal pull on the empire after 1870. The Russian policy towards these nationalities was of intense ‘Russification’ which had the effect of turning the most extreme patriots of these minorities towards the Russian Social Revolutionaries. These local movements represented the spirit of radical nationalism which was in ascendancy during this period. The responsibility of national self-determination6 in the origins of the war has been an important area of debate. Martel has argued that the First World War grew out of a conflict between Slav nationalism and the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. The murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand was the final straw in this struggle for mastery over the Balkans. It offered Austro-Hungarian government an ideal opportunity to rouse public opinion in support of a war. This type of interpretation which sets the July crisis in the context of long running Eastern Question7 views the First World War as one which was fought for the future of Central and Eastern Europe. Only a handful of historians would object to the view that the struggle to supplant the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans was a significant factor in the outbreak of war. In July 1914 the military leaders of Austria-Hungary were so determined to deal with Serbia that they lost their heads and ignored all plans for negotiation. However, John Leslie opines that Austria-Hungary can be blamed for planning a local Austro-Serbo conflict which was associated to its fears about Balkan nationalism, but Germany which was not interested in this conflict quite intentionally used it as an opportunity to launch the European war which Austria-Hungary never desired. John Lowe perhaps puts the significance of Austro-Serbo quarrel into its proper context by stating: “The crisis in the Balkans was the occasion, rather than the cause of the First World War”. Urge to Imperialism The expansion of Europe overseas in the 19th century led to new imperialist rivalries among the great powers. The movement of imperial expansion has been explained by a number of factors and different theories give varying importance to economic, social, cultural and strategic factors. Among the earliest theories explaining imperialism were those that linked new imperialism with economic factors and saw imperialism as arising out of modern capitalism. J.A. Hobson, a British economist, advanced a theory that advanced capitalist societies in the West were marked by an unequal distribution of wealth and this concentrated surplus capital exerted 6 Right of a nationality to choose its future 7 A term related to the problem in the middle-east, like the problem of declining Turkish Empire, the struggle of European Nationalists for freedom in the Turkish Empire and the conflicting interests of European powers in Turkey. 14 pressure on their respective governments to search for outlets abroad for investment avenues. This need forced the European powers to divide the world between them in a struggle for new industrial markets and new areas in which to invest. The result was an increased rivalry. Lenin in 1916 in his pamphlet Imperialism-The Highest Stage of Capitalism portrayed the Great War as an imperialist war, caused by rivalries triggered off by pressures of highly organized financial monopolies operating in the different European countries. He believed that German monopoly capital was behind German foreign policy. He argued that capitalism has reached its highest stage in the form of imperialism and that frenzied competition amongst commercial rivals for markets and for raw materials had inevitably brought about war. Paul Kennedy, a leading diplomat historian, has recently suggested that economic interests are a key reality behind diplomacy. In his opinion politicians have autonomous freedom to pursue foreign policy-even make crucial decisions for war-without reference to economic interest groups within society. However economic and industrial interests of each nation ultimately determine the success and failure of those decisions. This implies that politicians have primacy of political decisions for war but no control over economic consequences of such decisions. Hence economics plays a vital role in deciding the fate of nations in an international system. Carl Stirkwerda argues that the crisis of 1914 must be understood within the framework which examined whether all European leaders believed that political and military power are essential to economic success. He shows a very high level of economic cooperation and integration in Europe before 1914. Most industrialists preferred mutually beneficial economic relations and many wanted greater economic integration within European trade and financial sectors. In other words, many German industrialists saw no need for war. However, it was not industrialists who had the most significant influence over foreign policy, but the political leaders. J.A Schumpeter however denies any link between capitalism and imperialism because two of the most aggressively imperialist countries of the late 19th century- Russia and Italy were severely capital deficit. We can therefore comprehend that capitalism played a critical role in imperialism but its effect cannot be generalized and no inevitable causative relationship between the two can be established. Imperialism has also been seen in terms of extra-economic origins. C.J.H Hayes highlighted the political climate of Europe, which was one of mass-based nationalism. He also points to the importance of public opinion and sentiments. Others have stressed military and strategic factors, such as the need to secure defensive frontiers. James Joll has emphasized the idea of sub-imperialism. He argued that once colonies were launched, they took on their own momentum and developed vested interests which pushed for imperialism. Many historians have also observed cultural factors in the rise of imperialism, in terms of the role of religion. In the 19th century, many colonial ventures started as missionary activity. The desire of Christian missionaries to convert the heathen led to imperialism. Imperialism was justified by civilizing mission of Christian faith and concepts of White Man’s Burden. It however needs to be considered in its specific context, which varied from country to country. Domestic Politics Modern historians have drawn attention to the influence of internal politics on the actions of the Great Powers. Socialism had become a very popular political creed in Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy and France. The ruling class in some of these countries hoped that a short victorious 15 war would put an end to class differences and reduce the support for socialism that threatened the existing order. In Germany left wing parties, especially the Social Democratic Party (SDP) made large gains in 1912 election. German government at that time was still dominated by the Prussian Junkers who feared the rise of these left wing parties. Some authors feel that they purposely sought an external war to distract the population and whip up patriotic support for the government. Other authors feel that German conservatives were ambivalent about a war, worrying that losing a war would have disastrous consequences, and even a successful war might alienate the population if it was lengthy or difficult. In France the situation was quite the opposite, but with the same results. There was a fierce struggle between the left wing French government and its right wing opponents. A “good old war” was seen by both sides as a way to solve this crisis. Everyone thought that the war would be short and would lead to easy victory. The left side government thought that it would be an ideal opportunity to implement social reforms and the right side politicians hoped that their connections with the army leaders could give them the opportunity to regain power. British domestic politics had just the opposite effect, pulling Britain away from the war. The liberals, who had come to power in 1905, had long opposed entangling international alliances and large military expenditures and also the government was weighed down by a number of pressing political issues. While domestic factors mitigated against Britain’s entry into an eventual European conflict, foreign policy considerations pushed Britain in the direction of war. Yet in Britain too, nationalism popularized the expectation that a major war was inevitable. In Russia, the Czar’s immediate circle was divided over the advisability of going to war. Some advisors saw war as a means of rallying the support of an entire people behind the Czar. Yet others remembered Russia’s disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. This in turn contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905, which brought reforms however shortlived. Here, too, it did not seem to be in Russia’s interest to push Europe to war. Underlying the assumptions of all the Great Powers during the July Crisis was the belief that if war did break out it would be a short one. Many in Britain felt that the war would be over by Christmas. Role of Newspapers, Press and Public Opinion Another essential cause of the war was the poisoning of the public opinion by the newspapers in almost all European countries. The newspapers were often tending to ignite nationalistic feelings by distorting and misrepresenting the situation in foreign countries. On a number of occasions when peaceful solutions of complex international problems could be possible, the biased tone of newspapers in the countries involved in the conflict spoiled matters. The popular press went very far sometimes to produce results in national and international politics. In 1870 the publishing of Ems telegram by Bismarck immediately inflamed and embittered the extreme nationalist opinion in Paris and precipitated into the Franco-Prussian War. The shows the inestimable harm the press could do in creating tension in Europe. The Crisis before 1914 Between 1900 and 1914 there had been three major crises between the great powers. These crises exposed the differences between the powers and reinforced the hostility between them. Two were over Morocco (1905, 1911) and the other was over the Austrian annexation of Bosnia (1908). 16 1. First Moroccan Crisis In 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Moroccan port of Tangier and condemned French influence in Morocco. The move was designed to test the strength of the recent Anglo-French entente. The visit aggravated an international crisis, which was resolved in France's favour at the Algeciras Conference, 1906. This crisis hardened the rapprochement between Britain and France. Edward VII called the German actions "the most mischievous and uncalled for event which the German Emperor has been engaged in since he came to the throne." 2. Second Moroccan Crisis This crisis erupted when the Germans sent the gunboat "Panther" to the Moroccan port of Agadir, to protect German citizens there. Germany claimed that the French had ignored the terms of the Algeciras Conference. This provoked a major war scare in Britain until the Germans agreed to leave Morocco to the French in return for rights in the Congo. Many Germans felt that they had been humiliated and that their government had backed down. 3. The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina The two Turkish provinces had been administered by Austria since the Congress of Berlin. Austria annexed Bosnia after tricking Russia during negotiations between their respective foreign ministers. The action irritated Serbia as there was a large Serbian population in Bosnia. There was a crisis among the Great powers and it brought Europe to the threshold of war. Russia bowed to German pressure when they supported Austria and they agreed to the annexation. However she was determined not to be humiliated again. The effects of these crises had been a hardening of attitudes and an increase in distrust between the different European powers. It led to a strengthening of the different alliances: • Britain and France during the Moroccan Crises • Austria and Germany during the Bosnian crisis. The Eastern Question and the Balkans During the 19th and early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire had lost land in the Balkans to the people who lived there. The great powers were also interested in extending their influence in the region. Relations between Austria and Russia were poor over their rivalry in the Balkans. Both hoped to expand there at the cost of the Ottoman Empire. Another important factor was the growth of Slav nationalism among the people who lived there, especially Serbia. Russia encouraged Slav nationalism while Austria was worried that this nationalism could undermine her empire. Russia supported Serbia which was very bitter at the annexation of Bosnia and saw herself as Serbia’s protector. As a result of the Balkan Wars (1912 - 1913) Serbia had doubled in size and there was growing demands for the union of south Slavs (Yugoslavism) under the leadership of Serbia. Austria had a large south Slav population in the provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, the Banat and Bosnia. Austria was very alarmed at the growing power of Serbia. She felt Serbia could weaken her own Empire. The Austrians decided that they would have to wage a preventative war against Serbia in order to destroy her growing power. They were waiting for the right pretext. The Immediate Occasion and the Outbreak of War The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914 provided the immediate occasion for the outbreak of the war. Sarajevo was the capital of 17 Bosnia which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary a few years earlier. The conspirator of the assassination was a secret society, called the “Black Hand” or “The Union of Death”, of extremist Serbian nationalists whose aim was to unite all Serbians into a single Serbian state. Historians are generally agreed that the Serbian government was aware of the conspiracy to murder the Prince but did nothing to stop it. On 4th July, 1914, Franz losef of Austria sent a letter to Kaiser William asking for German support to get rid of Serbia as a power factor in the Balkans. The Kaiser consulted with Bethmann Hollweg, the German Chancellor, to decide the German position. They decided that Austria should be given free hand known as the ‘blank cheque’ to start war with Serbia. The Russian and French governments met from 20th to 23rd July, 1914 to discuss their position in view of the mounting crisis. France offered full support Russia in resisting any attempts by Austria to jeopardize the independence of Serbia. This is viewed as a second ‘blank cheque.’ Convinced of Serbia’s involvement in the assassination, Austria served an ultimatum on 23rd July making eleven demands on Serbia which were not accepted in its entirety. Serbia’s reply of 25th July did not conciliate Austria, and Serbia knowing that it would not, had already ordered mobilization of her troops. Austria rejected Serbia’s reply and immediately ordered the mobilization of her army for an attack on Serbia. On 28th July Austria declared war on Serbia. On 29th July, the Austrian army bombarded Belgrade, the Serbian capital. The outbreak of the war between Serbia and Austria was soon followed by two other wars, and the three wars, militarily linked together, led to the general war or the First World War. In order to pressurize Austria to abandon the war against Serbia, Russia ordered mobilization against Austria. She could not allow Austrian expansion in the Balkans, where she had her own ambitions which would suffer in the event of Serbia’s defeat. As Germany would come to the aid of Austria if Russia entered the war against Austria, Russia also prepared for war with Germany. Germany was convinced that in the event of war between her and Russia, France would join Russia against Germany. This would mean that Germany would have to fight on two fronts, with France in the west and with Russia in the east. To be successful in the war, Germany had made plans to first defeat France in a quick war by mobilizing most of her troops for this purpose and then turn to Russia against whom a quick victory was not possible. Thus the second war was fought between Austria and Germany on one side and Russia and France on the other. The British position was still unclear as the British government was divided on the issue of going to war. She responded to the French request for help by promising to defend northern coast of France against the German navy. However German invasion of neutral Belgium finally ended Britain’s indecisiveness, and Germany and Britain were at war. Thus the rival alliances, formed in the preceding years, had come into play. Only Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, remained neutral on the ground that Germany was not fighting a defensive war. The Scope of the War Germany declared war on Russia on 1st August 1914 and began to mobilize her troops. But the immediate German attack fell not on Russia but on Belgium and France. On 2nd August the German government presented an ultimatum to the Belgian government, demanding a passage for German armies through neutral Belgium, which the Belgians resentfully rejected. The French government fully aware of the threat facing them, had already ordered mobilization, and on 3rd August Germany declared war on France. German troops marched into Belgium to press on to France on 4th August and on the same day Britain declared war on Germany. In the meantime, the Serbo-Austrian war appeared to have become secondary. In the celebrated words of Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, as the Great War began, “The lights are going out all over Europe. They will not be lit again in our lifetime.” 18 Many other countries soon entered the war. Japan declared war on Germany. She had entered into an alliance with Britain but her main aim was to seize the German territories in the Far-East. Portugal, often referred to by Britain as her oldest ally, also entered the war. In 1915, Italy declared war against Austria. Britain and France had promised her Austrian and Turkish territories. Later, Romania and Greece also joined Britain, France and Russia, and these countries along with their allies came to be known as the Allied Powers. Germany and Austria were joined by Bulgaria having been promised territories in Serbia and Greece. Turkey declared war on Russia in November and joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria. These countries i.e. Germany and Austria and their allies came to be known as the Central Powers. Various other countries in other parts of the world also joined the war. USA entered the war in 1917 on the side of the Allied powers. In all, the number of belligerent countries rose to twentyseven. Thus the extent of conflict was widened. Conclusion In summing up we can say that the Great War had several causes, with none alone standing as a sufficient cause. Any single explanation of this complex problem is likely to be too simple. While in the final crisis of July 1914 Germany acted in a way that made war more likely, the enthusiasm with which it was greeted in all the belligerent countries and the assumption by each of the governments concerned that their vital national interests were at stake, were the result of accumulation of factors-social, intellectual, psychological, economic, political and culturalwhich all contributed to the outbreak of the war. Suggested Readings 1. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars (Cambridge Perspectives in History), 1997. 2. James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, London, 1984 3. Ruth Henig, The Origins of the First World War, Second edition, Roultedge, London & New York, 2002. 4. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II, 1996, p.1003-34. 5. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002. 6. Stephan J.Lee, Aspects of European History (1789-1980), 1982, Roultedge, London & New York, p.145-55. 7. A.J.P.Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918(1954). 8. A.J.P Taylor, The Outbreak of War, in D.E Lee (ed.) The Outbreak of the First World War: Who Was Responsible? London, 1963. 9. S.B Fay, Origins of the World War, 2 Vols, London, 1938. 10. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes. 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage, 1996 11. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07. 19 Lesson 2 COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD -Dr.Naveen Vashishta When the First World War was declared, eager commanders put long-standing military plans into effect. The German general staff counted on a rapid victory against France in the west before the Russian army could be brought into action in the east. But expecting a quick victory, German forces occupied Belgium. However, this violation of Belgian neutrality unavoidably brought Britain into war on the side of Russia and France. The Schlieffen Plan Germany’s plan for war against France had been established by Count Alfred von Schlieffen, a former chief of the German General Staff. Based on the assumption that it would take Russia, France’s ally, some time to prepare her armies to fight, the Schlieffen Plan called for German armies to knock the French out of the war within six weeks. To accomplish this, the German armies would storm around the network of fortifications on the eastern frontier of France. German forces would march through Belgium and Holland and turn south. A pincer movement southwards would encircle Paris from the northwest, and then turn to trap the French armies struggling in Alsace-Lorraine. Schlieffen and his successors all believed that the plan would probably bring Great Britain into the war because it would never accept the breach of Belgian territory and the possible presence of an enemy power just across the English Channel. But the Germans believed that a small British army would pose little threat. Then once Paris had fallen, there would still be time to send the victorious army to east to defeat the Russians. This was the solution to Bismarck’s nightmare, a simultaneous war on two fronts. Schlieffen last words had been “Keep the right wing (of the attacking armies) strong.” However his successor, Von Moltke, reduced the strength of attacking force by strengthening German defenses in Alsace-Lorraine. He also eliminated Holland from the invasion plan for lack of men. The French high command which had known the basics of the Schlieffen Plan for years did not believe that German army could rapidly move through Belgium, partly because the attacking forces would have to conquer the daunting fortress at Liege. The French also knew that the plan called for inclusion of reserves into the main German army, and doubted they could quickly become an able fighting force. Similarly the French high command had its own plan for war. It too visualizes a swift attack based on patriotic energy of the troops. “Plan XVII” would send two French armies into Alsace-Lorraine, as the Germans expected. The French planned another thrust to drive German forces back. With the bulk of German army tied up by French and British troops in Belgium the way to Berlin would be open. But having miscalculated the size of the effective German fighting force, the French also underestimated the speed with which their enemy could mobilize for war and attack. The Schlieffen Plan dictated the course of the opening hostilities and the stalemate that followed. 20 Battles in Europe The battles of First World War were fought in different parts of the world. In terms of intensity of fighting and killings, the battles in Europe overshadowed the battles outside Europe. On the Western front in Europe, the war began when the German armies, sweeping across Belgium, entered southern France and by early September had reached in the close vicinity of Paris. The French army in the mean time had moved to the France-German frontier to march into Alsace-Lorraine. The German army hoped to surround the French army and achieve a quick victory. The French offensive into Alsace-Lorraine was repulsed but the withdrawing French forces along with the British forces met the German forces in the Battle of Marne.8 The German forces had to move back and they entrenched themselves along the river Aisne. There were desperate fights, but by November end the war entered a period of a long deadlock on the Western front when neither could remove the other for about four years. Behind a long continuous chain of opposing trenches and barbed wire extending from the southern border of France with Switzerland to the northern seacoast of France, the opposing armies dug themselves in. Protected from the machine gun and rifle fire behind the trenches, neither side could break through the other’s line of trenches. Each side conducted raids on the other with little success. Germany, in 1915, started the use of poison gas to achieve the breakthrough, and Britain, in 1916, introduced the use of tanks for the same purpose but neither made much difference. On the Eastern front, Russia achieved some initial successes against Germany and Austria but these were short-lived. In 1915, the Russian armies suffered heavy defeats and the forces of the Central Powers entered many territories of the Russian empire. In 1916, Russia launched another offensive but it was repulsed. After the October Revolution of 1917 Russia withdrew from the war. On 2nd March 1918, she signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and abandoned many of its territories as a price of peace. In the meantime, Serbia and Romania had surrendered. War Outside Europe Outside Europe, some major battles were fought in North Africa and West Asia. Germany and Turkey united to intimidate the Allied possessions and influence in North Africa and West Asia. Britain and France fought these attempts and tried to seize the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire. They also established contacts with Arab nationalists and others and provoked anti-Turkish Arab risings. While pretending to champion the cause of Arab country’s freedom from Turkish rule, Britain and France entered into a secret agreement, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 which provided for the division of Arab countries between Britain and France. In 1917, the British government also promised to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. This pledge by Britain about another country was to have serious repercussions for peace and stability in West Asia. During the war years, German colonial possessions in Africa and Asia were seized by Allied powers. Japan made colonial gains in China by acquiring control over the German sphere of influence and forcing China to make further concessions to her. German Southwest Africa was occupied by South African troops, Togoland by British, French and Belgian troops. The 8 It was named after the river Marne near which the battle was fought. 21 fighting between British and German troops in German East Africa continued till the end of the war. The Deadlock in Europe In the meantime, the “war of attrition” was on in Europe. It meant a war of material, of industrial strength and supply capacity of the belligerent states. Each side was trying to wear out the other side by mobilizing more and more men and using huge amounts of war equipments. Two catastrophic battles were fought as a part of this “war of attrition.” In February 1916, Germany launched a massive attack on the French forts stretched around Verdun. The French were prepared to hold Verdun at all costs. Its loss would be a potentially mortal blow to French morale. So the French poured hundreds of thousand of their soldiers into the battle. In the damp chilling mists of the hills of Argonne, there were a lot of casualties. Although the French army held but lost 315,000 men killed or wounded; 90,000 died at the appropriately named “Dead Man’s Hill” alone. The Germans suffered 281,000 casualties. A French counterattack in the fall recaptured many of the forts the Germans had taken; again the casualties increased. In all, the French suffered 540,000 casualties and the Germans 430,000 casualties at Verdun. It was the longest battle of World War I. The Battle of Verdun merely delayed plans for a massive British offensive on Somme, supported by a similar French thrust. The assault began on 1st July 1916 after a week’s bombardment. At the first end of the first day of the Battle of Somme9, about 60,000 soldiers of the 110,000 British soldiers had become casualties, including 19,000 killed.10 When the disastrous offensive finally ended in mid-November, Britain had lost 420,000 men killed and wounded. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans lost 650,000 soldiers. The war had become a total war. It was no longer restricted to battles between armies. It required total mobilization of all the resources of the main warring nations. An increasing amount of armaments and other war materials were required to be produced which meant changing the production pattern. Every economic activity had to be subordinated to the needs of the war. So warring groups started a system of imposing an economic blockade. It necessitated that no goods i.e. food, war materials, raw materials should be allowed to enter the enemy’s country from anywhere. By doing this, each side thought that the other would be starved into submission. Britain imposed a naval blockade on Germany and though the naval fleets of the two countries fought only one major battle, and that too indecisive, the British succeeded in the blockade of Germany. To prevent food and other supplies from reaching Britain, Germany started using submarines11 which it had developed not only to destroy enemy ships but also ships of neutral countries heading for British ports. A large number of new weapons were introduced in this war. The machine gun and liquid fire were two such weapons. For the first time, aircrafts were used in warfare for bombing the civilian population but it had little role in deciding the outcome of the war. The British introduced the use of the tank. Another horrible weapon used in the war was poison gas. 9 This battle was named after the river Somme along which it was fought. 10 There were more British soldiers killed and wounded in the first three days of the Battle of Somme than Americans killed in World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined, and three times as many killed as had been killed in fifteen years of war against Napoleon. 11 U-boat, in German Unterseeboot. 22 The Final Stages of War In 1917, two events of great consequence occurred, each of which appeared to one side to present an opportunity to end the stalemate on the western front. Reacting in part to a German campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping, the United States entered the war in April on the Allies side. And Russia withdrew from the war after the Bolsheviks seized the power in the October Revolution. Meanwhile, the French armies seemed on the verge of collapse and a massive German offensive that began in March 1918 pushed Allied forces back further than they had been since 1914. The stage was set for the final phase of the war. 1. The United States Enters the War On 6th April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. USA had become the major source of arms and other essential supplies for the Entente powers. On May 7th May, 1915, a German submarine sank the British cruise liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. The ship was, despite U.S denials, carrying American manufactured ammunition to the Allies; 128 U.S citizens were among the almost 1,200 killed. The U.S already annoyed by the fresh German introduction of the mustard gas into warfare, protested strongly, and on 1st September the German government accepted the American demand to abandon the unrestricted submarine warfare. For the next two years, the Germans, wanting to keep the U.S neutral, adopted a policy of warning liners before sinking them, providing for the safety of the passengers. But the fact remained that Germany could prevent Britain from maintaining total control of the high seas only with submarines. The continuing success of the British blockade led Germany to announce on 1st February, 1917, that its submarines would attack any ship in “war zones.” Moreover there was a pressure from the German high command who believed that this was the only hope for knocking Britain out of the war. With more Americans killed in submarine attacks USA entered the war on 6th April, 1917 on the side of the Allied Powers. 2. Russia Withdraws from the War The second significant event of 1917 was the Russian Revolution. The Russian revolutionaries had opposed the war from the beginning and, under the leadership of Lenin, decided to transform it into a revolutionary war to overthrow the Russian autocracy and to seize power. The Russian army had suffered severe reverses in the war. Over 600,000 Russian soldiers had been killed. As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power, it issued the Decree on Peace with proposals to end the war without any annexations and indemnities. Russia decided to withdraw from the war and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3rd March, 1918 with Germany, which officially ended Russia’s participation in what the Allies called “the Great War of Civilization.” The End of War Many efforts were made to bring the war to an end. Discontent had been rising in the civilian population and among the soldiers of all the major warring countries. There were demonstrations and mutinies. The Russian emperor had already fallen. The discontent was much widespread in the countries of the Central Powers. There was a wave of strikes in Germany and Austria-Hungary and a succession of mutinies in their armies and navies. In Austria-Hungary, there were desertions on large scale among the soldiers of “subject nationalities” and many of them were fighting on the side of the Allies. By about the middle of July 1918, the tide of the war was beginning to turn against Germany which had launched a series of offensives on the western front, inflicting heavy casualties on the Allies. But by July, the German offensive was contained and the Allies launched counter-offensives. In the meantime the Allied forces had 23 started their military intervention in Russia. In the east, thousands of Japanese troops poured into Siberia. While the Allied intervention in Russia was to survive the end of the First World War, the collapse of the Central Powers had begun. On 8th January, 1918, American President Woodrow Wilson set out a blueprint for permanent peace. His “Fourteen Points” were based upon his understanding of how the Great War had begun, and how future wars could be avoided. The first point called for “open covenants (agreements), openly arrived at,” in place of the secret treaties whose obligations had put Europe into war. Wilson also called for freedom of the seas and freedom of trade, and the impartial settlement of colonial rivalries. Other points included the principle of non-intervention in Russia; the return of full sovereignty to Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine to France; autonomy for the national groups within the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and the independence of Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, and Poland. The last of the Fourteen Points called for the establishment of an organization or association of nations to settle other national conflicts as they arose. Bulgaria surrendered on 29th September, 1918. By the end of October the Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist. On November 12, the Habsburg emperor renounced his throne. Most people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire-the Czechs, the Poles, the Yugoslavs and the Hungarians-had already declared their independence. Now only Germany remained and final Allied offensives against her were launched in September. On 3rd November, revolution broke out in Germany; on 9th November, the German emperor abdicated and fled to Holland, and on 10th November Germany was proclaimed a republic. On 11th November, 1918, a representative of the provisional German government and General Foch of France signed an armistice and the First World War came to an end. The celebrations in London, Paris, New York, and elsewhere on the Allied side went on for days. A French veteran, tiring of the street festivities in his town, went in the evening to a graveyard. There he came upon a woman crying next to the tomb of her husband. Their small boy was with her, playing with a tricolor flag. Suddenly he cried out, “Papa, we’ve won!” Consequences of the War The First World War lasted for four years and three months. It began on August 4, 1914 and ended on November 11, 1918. It involved sixty sovereign states, overthrew four Empires (German Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Turkish Empire, Russian Empire), gave birth to seven new nations, took ten million combatant lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £ 35,000 million. This war was in several ways exclusively novel in human history. It has been described as the "primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century." It was the largest global conflict yet seen, leading to the deaths of millions and the devastation of parts of Western Europe. There had been wars in Europe before, involving many states. This one, however, was a general conflict between highly organized states that had at their control all the resources of modern warfare and were well equipped to find new methods of destruction and defence. It was fought with determination and desperation by the nations because they believed that it was a war for the survival and for high ideals; it was fought everywhere-on land, above land, on sea and under sea. Obviously any such conflict was bound to have enormous and far reaching consequences for Europe and rest of the world. Destruction of Human Lives The destruction caused by war in terms of human lives lost was terrible. There had been nothing like the Great War in history. The figures of persons who fought in the war are shocking. 24 About 6,000 people had been killed each day for more than 1,500 days. In more than four years of fighting, at least 65 million soldiers were mobilized. Out of 42 million men who served in the Allied armies, 22 million were casualties; thus making the war Europe’s cruelest scourge. The Central Powers mobilized 23 million, and had 15 million casualties. The table below shows casualties (in million) during World War I in different countries. Country Mobilized Casualties Percentage Austria-Hungary 7.8 7 90 Russia 12 9.15 76 France 8.4 6 71 Germany 11 7 63 Italy 5.5 2.15 39 Britain 8.9 3 34 United States 4.35 0.36 8 Source: John Merriman: History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II, 1996, p.1082. This was of course an unprecedented rate of casualties in any European warfare. This massive loss of human lives affected the structure of population both in sex and in age groups. The loss of life among women was much lower. Thus in Britain in the year 1911 there were 1067 females to every 1000 males. However, in 1921, the sex ratio changed to 1093 females to every 1000 males. This disequilibrium led to many social complexities and other related problems in the society. But sheer numbers do not tell the entire story. The psychic damage to the generation of survivors can hardly be measured. Of the wounded who survived, many were destined to spend the rest of their lives in hospitals. Soldiers who had lost their limbs or who were injured in other ways became a common sight in European countries after the war. The flower of European youth-or much of it-had perished. Europe seemed a continent of widows and spinsters so many were killed in the prime of their life that the birth rate fell strikingly after the war. Support for families of the dead soldiers and the invalid unable to work strained national budgets. The bloodshed was not confined to Europe alone. In an outbreak of ethnic hostility and in response to Armenian demands for independent state, the Turks forced 1.75 million Armenians to leave their homes in Turkey; more than a third of them died without water in the desert sun on the way to Syria, their bodies consumed by animals. Furthermore, about 27 million people died in an influenza epidemic during the last years of and after the war. 25 Social and Cultural Consequences European countries directed all of their resources into total war which resulted in enormous social changes. This war had the effect of accelerating women’s emancipation wherever the movement started before 1914. Women over 30 years of age were granted parliamentary vote in Britain in 1918 because the war required a national effort and in modern warfare civilian morale and industrial production had become as important as the army. Moreover, conscription created labor shortages which had to be filled at once, and women soon dispelled many anti-feminist myths as they proved their ability to do hard jobs in the factories and on the farm. Women participated in all activities and worked on factories, shops, offices and voluntary services, hospitals and schools. They worked hand in hand with men and so won their claim of equality with them. It became easier now for them to find work as traditional hindrances were eliminated. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were also more widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krupp armaments firm in Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose strikingly in public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking (9,500 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many restrictions on women disappeared during the war. It became acceptable for young, employed, single middle-class women to have their own apartments, to go out without chaperones12, and to smoke in public. Even the barriers of class and wealth were weakened to quite a great extent by the “fellowship of the trenches.” If women edged nearer to some kind of equality, the same was even truer of organized labor in nearly all belligerent countries. For government to mobilize manpower in the war, the cooperation of the trade union movement was essential and by the end of the war, unions were in a much stronger position after collaboration with the government. This social trauma manifested itself in many different ways. Some people were revolted by nationalism and what it had caused; so, they began to work toward a more internationalist world through organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied on for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced. Nihilism grew in popularity. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia and France. Artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Barlach, and Käthe Kollwitz represented their experiences, or those of their society, in blunt paintings and sculpture. Similarly, authors such as Erich Maria Remarque wrote grim novels detailing their experiences. These works had a strong impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and highlighting conflicting interpretations of the war. In Germany, nationalists including the Nazis believed that much of this work was degenerate and undermined the cohesion of society as well as dishonouring the dead. The war destroyed the cultural fabric of Europe. It caused widespread destruction of buildings. Old established values were questioned and often unthinkably repudiated, while the 12 Older person, usually a woman, who looks after a girl or a young unmarried woman on social occasions. 26 newer ones restored nothing lasting of any significance. The void thus left, saw an alarming decline of moral standards. Economic Impact The economic impact of the war was much disproportioned. At one end there were those who profited from the war and at the other end were those who suffered under the effects of inflation. The prospects of making enormous amounts of money in war manufacture were ample. War profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new rich had numerous real-life counterparts. However, government rarely interfered in major firms, as happened when the German military took over the Daimler motor car works for padding costs on war-production contracts. Governments tended to favor large, centralized industries over smaller ones. The war was a stimulus towards grouping companies into larger firms. When resources became scarce, nonessential firms, which tended to be small, were simply closed down. Inflation was the greatest single economic factor as war budgets rose to astronomical figures and massive demand forced shortages of many consumer goods. Virtually ever able-bodied person was employed to keep up with the demand. This combination of high demand, scarcity, and full employment sent prices soaring, even in the best managed countries. In Britain, a pound sterling brought in 1919 about one-third of what it had bought in 1914. French prices approximately doubled during the war and it only got worse during the 1920's. Inflation rates were even higher in other belligerents. The German currency ceased to have value in 1923. All of this had been foreseen by John Maynard Keynes as a result of the Versailles Treaty: “The danger confronting us, therefore, is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which will mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russian and approximately reach in Austria).” Inflation affected different people quite differently. Skilled workers in strategic industries found that their wages kept pace with prices or even rose a little faster. Unskilled workers and workers in less important industries fell behind. Clerks, lesser civil servants, teachers, clergymen, and small shopkeepers earned less than many skilled labors. Those who suffered the most were those dependent on fixed incoming. The incomes of old people on pensions or middle class living on small dividends remained about the same while prices double or tripled. These dropped down into poverty. These "new poor" kept their pride by repairing old clothes, supplementing food budget with gardens, and giving up everything to appear as they had before the war. Inflation radically changed the relative position of many in society. Conflicts arose over the differences in purchasing power. All wage earners had less real purchasing power at the end of the war than they had had at the beginning. To make matters worse some great fortunes were built during the wartime and postwar inflation. Those who were able to borrow large amounts of money could repay their debts in devalued currency from their war profit. It has been pointed out, that all the economic slogans of the post-war years, strangely enough, began with the prefix re: reconstruction, recovery, reparations, retrenchment, repayment of war debts, restoration of gold standard etc. Political Implications The First World War and Peace Treaty concluded after it transformed the political map of the world, particularly Europe. As mentioned earlier, four ruling dynasties were destroyed. It uprooted the hereditary autocracy and monarchy from almost all the European countries. The war had been declared ‘to make the world safe for democracy.’ There were some countries like England, Spain, Romania and Greece etc., where the monarchy could not be uprooted. But 27 nobody could deny the fact that the governments of these countries could not preserve the tone of monarchy in the real sense and democratization of the governments became order of the day after the First World War which compelled the autocratic rulers to rule as constitutional monarchs or to abdicate. This war promoted the feelings of democracy all over the world. Governments took on many new powers in order to fight the total war. War governments fought opposition by increasing police power. Authoritarian regimes like tsarist Russia had always depended on the threat of force, but now even parliamentary governments felt the necessity to expand police powers and control public opinion. Britain gave police powers wide scope in August 1914 by the Defence of the Realm Act which authorized the public authorities to arrest and punish rebels under martial law if necessary. Through later acts, police powers grew to include suspending newspapers and the ability to intervene in a citizen's private life in the use of lights at home, food consumption, and bar hours. Police powers tended to grow as the war went on and public opposition increased as well. In France a sharp rise of strikes, mutinies, and talk of a negotiated peace raised doubts about whether France could really carry on the war in 1917. A group of French political leaders decided to carry out the war at the cost of less internal liberty. The government cracked down on anyone suspected of supporting a compromise peace. Many of the crackdowns and sedition charges were just a result of war panic or calculated political opportunism. Expanded police powers also included control of public information and opinion. The censorship of newspapers and personal mail was already an established practice. Governments regularly used their power to prevent leaking of military secrets and the airing of dangerous opinions considering war efforts. The other side of using police power on public opinion was the "organizing of enthusiasm," which could be thought of as: “Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people; the organization embraces within its scope only those who do not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on the further dissemination of the idea.” World War I provided a place for the birth of propaganda which countries used with even more horrifying results during World War II. Governments used the media to influence people to enlist and to persuade them war into supporting the war. The French prime minister used his power to draft journalists or defer them in exchange for favorable coverage. The German right created a new mass party, the Fatherland Party. It was backed by secret funds from the army and was devoted to propaganda for war discipline. By 1918, the Fatherland Party was larger than the Social Democratic Party. Germany had become quite effective at influencing the masses. The war weakened the world’s centre, Europe, and strength the periphery-North America, Russia and Asia. The period after the war saw the beginning of the end of the European supremacy in the world. Economically and militarily, Europe was surpassed by the United States which emerged as world power after the war. The Soviet Union became the first socialist country and was also to come up as a major world power. Thus Europe’s primacy was at the end and its future looked miserable. The period after the war also saw the strengthening of the freedom movements in Asia and Africa. The weakening of Europe and the emergence of Soviet Union which declared her support to the struggles for national independence contribute to the growing strengths of these struggles. There was also a problem of redistribution of balance of power in the world. As a result of this war, there was a military and political collapse of old empires. The pre-war German and Austrian dominance, for a time, came to an end. The supreme task before the peacemakers was to see that Germany is kept in check and also, weakened militarily. Another problem was the 28 reshaping of eastern and central Europe in the light of newly emerging realities of national grouping, economic viability and military security. Environmental Impact of War In terms of environmental impact, World War I was most damaging, because of landscape changes caused by trench warfare. This war was fought from trenches, dug from the North Sea to the border of Switzerland. In 1918 when the war was over, empires disintegrated into smaller countries, marking the division of Europe today. Over 9 million people had died, most of which perished from influenza after the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. The war did not directly cause the influenza outbreak, but it was amplified. Mass movement of troops and close quarters caused the Spanish Flu to spread quickly. Furthermore, stresses of war may have increased the vulnerability of soldiers to the disease. Digging trenches caused trample of grassland, crushing of plants and animals, and churning of soil. Erosion resulted from forest logging to expand the network of trenches. Soil structures were transformed severely, and if the war was never fought, in all likelihood the landscape would have looked very differently today. Another destructive impact was the application of poison gas. Gases were spread throughout the trenches to kill soldiers of the opposite front. Examples of gases applied during World War I are tear gas (aerosols causing eye irritation), mustard gas (cell toxic gas causing blistering and bleeding), and carbonyl chloride (carcinogenic gas). The gases caused a total of 100,000 deaths, most caused by carbonyl chloride (phosgene). Battlefields were polluted, and most of the gas evaporated into the atmosphere. After the war, unexploded ammunition caused major problems in former battle areas. Environmental legislation prohibits explosion or dumping chemical weapons at sea; therefore the cleanup was and still remains a costly operation. In 1925, most war participants signed a treaty banning the application of gaseous chemical weapons. Chemical disarmament plants were planned in France and Belgium. Peace Treaties When the First World War ended there were a great deal of near sighted decisions made that directly lead to the Second World War thus it has been said that the Second World War was actually a continuation of the First World War. After the First World War, the Allies imposed a series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The1919 Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany was kept under blockade until she signed, ended the war. It declared Germany responsible for the war and required Germany to pay enormous war reparations and awarding territory to the victors. Unable to pay them with exports (a result of territorial losses and postwar recession), she did so by borrowing from the United States, until the reparations were suspended in 1931. The "Guilt Thesis"13 became a controversial explanation of events in Britain and the United States. The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements, especially the Nazis, exploited. The treaty contributed to one of the worst economic collapses in German history, sparking runaway inflation in the 1920s. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The treaty, however, was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement. This led to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along ethnic lines. The details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. 13 See appendix. 29 The New International Organization The League of Nations was a world organization contrived to replace the old system of ‘power politics.’ It was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920. The scheme of League of Nations was sponsored with great fervor by President Woodrow Wilson. The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League failed in its supreme task of preserving peace. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members imposing the sanctions and given the pacifist attitude following World War I, countries were reluctant to do so. Benito Mussolini stated that "The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out." After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The onset of the Second World War suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League. Conclusion Thus to conclude we can say that World War I did not completely end with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, for its social, cultural, political, economic, environmental and psychological effects influenced the lives of people long after the last shot was fired. The Great War could not be relegated to the past. War became the continuing experience of the 20th century. Suggested Readings 1. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II, 1996, p.1039-84. 2. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars (Cambridge Perspectives in History), 1997. 3. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002. 4. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01, Block 3. 30 APPENDIX FIRST WORLD WAR: WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE? The historical debate on the origins of the First World War has been affected by the existing political climate and by the urge to find out as to who was primarily responsible. The official report on the origins of the war, written by victorious powers, and presented to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 concluded that the war was premeditated by Germany and resulted from acts deliberately committed in order to make it unavoidable. Germany and Austria-Hungary deliberately worked to defeat all the many conciliatory proposals made by Entente powers to avoid war. The German War Guilt is enshrined in Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles. During the inter-war years the Germans sought to reverse the verdict and released many official documents to accomplish this end. In 1927 Erich Brandenburg, a German historian argued that Germany did not plan the First World War. He blamed Russia for wanting control over the Balkans, and France for wanting revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1930, Sidney Fay, an American historian, argued that no European power wanted war in 1914 and that all to a greater and lesser degree must share the blame. Fay attached some liability to each power involved in the July Crisis and came to the conclusion that the verdict of German War Guilt was defective. Thus the idea of collective responsibility for the outbreak of the war came to become an orthodox interpretation. In 1938, G.P Gooch, a British historian, reflected the prevailing orthodoxy by stating that “The belief that any nation or statesman was the arch criminal in 1914 is no longer held by serious students of history.” Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, suggested that “all the nations of Europe slithered over the edge of the boiling cauldron of war in 1914.” Slowly and slowly, the debate over the origins of the war began to move away from apportioning guilt towards an assessment of long-term causes. Debate over German responsibility for the war: The debate over whether Germany intended an offensive war or a war of territorial expansion is still a topic of debate. In 1961, Fritz Fisher, a German historian, published a voluminous book titled ‘Germany’s Aims in the First World War’(1967) in which he apportioned chief responsibility to Germany for preparing and launching World War I. According to him, the German desire for territorial expansion and to break free of its diplomatic encirclement culminated in the war. Fisher stated that Germany was ready to go to war at any cost in order to establish herself as a great power. He further alleged that Germany even went to the extent of provoking her allies into initiating war. He tried to show that Germany was following an aggressive policy inspired by economic interests and designed to achieve world power. He never deviated from his basic line of thinking that Germany was eager to make up for the disadvantage suffered as a result of entering late into world politics and this would have made the war inevitable. In his view there was a continuity in German objectives from 1900 to the Second World War. Fisher’s work was criticized by Gerhard Ritter, another German historian, who saw Fisher’s work as an act of national disloyalty. Ritter admitted that the German War Guilt Thesis needed revision but did not accept Fisher’s thesis. He also condemned Fisher for applying what he saw as basically Marxist approach to history without actually being openly Marxist as this would have made him unpopular. According to him Germany had no desire for world domination and its main aim was to support its ally Austria-Hungary. He also accused Fisher of ignoring the environment of the time and of not comparing different kinds of foreign imperialism including that of USA and Japan. In this sense we can see that aggression was not the prerogative 31 of any one country. The imperial objectives that Germany has been accused of were also experienced by the other Great Powers. The clearest example of this is the feeble pretexts on which Britain and USA entered the war. There are many other views as well on the extent of responsibility that needs to be apportioned to Germany for the war. Immanuel Geiss, a supporter of Fisher’s thesis suggest that the main long-term cause of the war was the German desire for Weltpolitik14. John Rohl sees the origins of the war in the German government pursuit of a pre-existing plan to split the Triple Entente or provoke a European war. Most historians however reject the idea of a pre-planed German war. The argument of a defensive German war has been articulated by scholars like Egmont Zechlin and Karl Erdmann. They still reject the idea of Germany cold-bloodedly planning a war for vast territorial gains. They believed that German policy in 1914 decided on a preventive war born of desperation and with no master plan for vast expansion, designed to ensure the survival of Germany as a major European power. Thus to conclude we can say that the anti-Fisher school of thought is willing to accept that Germany should take the major responsibility for the war but rejects the view of German policy being determined by domestic problems and the view that Germany was planning an aggressive war of territorial expansion. Instead, it suggests that German leaders desired a localized European war, with a quick German victory to break free from its diplomatic encirclement. 14 For Geiss, Weltpolitik was a belligerent policy which invited a hostile reaction and ultimately raised the international temperature to a point at which peace became impossible to sustain. 32 Lesson 3 PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT (1919-1920) -Dr.Naveen Vashishta The principal peace terms concluding the First World War were drawn up at a conference held at Paris in the first half of 1919. This conference was a more representative body than the Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been. Although the representatives of many countries participated in the deliberations and were consulted in cases directly involving their interests, the peace terms were in large measure were set by the big powers, the so called Council of four, composed of American President (Woodrow Wilson) and Prime Ministers of Great Britain (David Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), and Italy (Vittorio Orlando). The defeated powers did not participate in the negotiations and had to accept conditions in the framing of which they had taken no part. Soviet Russia, which had dropped out of the war in March 1918 by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, was not represented either. The Council of Four planned to lay the groundwork of a lasting peace, but there was a considerable difference of opinion on how to go about it. Two general approaches were apparent: the hard line, advocated by the French, and the soft line, advanced by the United States. The Italians sided with France, while the British fluctuated between the two positions. The Makers Out of the four only three men really mattered, Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. The treaty was signed on June 28th 1919 after months of argument and negotiation amongst the so-called "Big Three" as to what the treaty should contain. They had very different objectives. Woodrow Wilson: He was a high minded idealist, a bit doctrinaire, bent upon founding a new world order and so led greatest stress on establishing League of Nations. The Allied victory, he believed had provided an opportunity that mankind could least afford to slip out. The war had been a war to end all wars and the world must be made safe for democracy. When he first arrived in Europe, he had received tremendous popular welcome which convinced him that he was right, and in the negotiations he proved very stubborn. He was virtually a single-tracked mind which seldom saw the other’s man point of view. In U.S.A itself, support for his policies was receding and he became an increasingly lonely and hopeless figure. Clemenceau: He was nicknamed ‘Tiger’. He was the oldest and the ablest diplomat at conference. A stern realist in policies, he never lost sight of the goals he had set before. He was deeply suspicious about human nature in general and German nature in particular. His only concern was the security of France and France would only be secure if Germany was weak. He was a very clever person. He knew when and where to change his moods. He was very tactful and deployed extraordinary skills in negotiations. He was responsible for the insertion of certain provisions of the Treaty of Versailles which proved to be its undoing later on. He was responsible for the humiliation of the German delegates as they went to Versailles to sign the Peace Treaty in 1919. Lloyd George: Lloyd George was a great statesman. However, he often found himself in a difficult position as Wilson and Clemenceau differed from each other on many points. While Wilson wanted to base the peace settlement on idealism, Clemenceau wanted to base it on force and it was the function of Lloyd George to bring about a compromise between his colleagues. In many cases, that involved self-effacement on his part. However, that does not mean that he 33 overlooked his country’s interest at the peace conference. He agreed with Wilson that a harsh peace such as France wished for was unlikely to bring lasting peace to Europe but he had just fought and won an election during which it became clear that, like the French, the British electorate wanted the enemy to be crushed. This anti-German feeling was amply demonstrated by the then popular slogans like “Hang the Kaiser”, “Make Germany pay” and “Home fit for Heroes” with which the sky of that country echoed loudly. Peace Treaties Six separate treaties signed between 1919 and 1923 made up the final settlement. The Treaty of Versailles made peace with Germany, of St.Germain with Austria, of Neuilly with Bulgaria, of Trianon with Hungary, and of Serves and Lausanne with Turkey. 1.Treaty of Versailles (28th June 1919) The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly 5 years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the start of the war. Although the armistice signed on November 11, 1918 put an end to the actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude a peace treaty. The documents containing the terms of the Treaty consisted of 440 articles and many annexures.The victorious powers of World War I (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and other Allied states) imposed punitive territorial, military, and economic treaty terms on defeated Germany. German representatives were not permitted to participate in the treaty negotiations and the terms were non-negotiable. The terms of the Treaty, which Germany had no choice but to accept, were announced on May 7, 1919. In the north, Northern Shlezwig went to Denmark and, in the west, Eupen and Malmady to Belgium, and Alsace and Lorriane to France. Memel, a small strip of territory in East Prussia along the Baltic Sea, was ultimately placed under Lithuanian control. Posen, the Polish Corridor and part of Upper Silesia went to Poland and the great port of Danzig became a free city witin the Polish customs union. The Saar coalfields were also handed over to the French while the Saar itself was to be run by the League of Nations(It was returned to Germany after a plebicite in 1935). The Rhineland was to be occupied by the Allied troops for fifteen years. A strip of territory on both sides of the Rhine was forbidden to German troops and this area was known as Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Wilson believed that there could be no lasting peace in Europe unless the principal of self-determination was implemented in Central and Eastern Europe15. The new map of Europe attempted to give some reality to this ideal of self-determination. The Poles, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the South Slavs(in Yugoslavia), the Magyars (in Hungary), the Latvians, Lithuanians, Finns and Estonians governed themselves in 1923 when in 1914 they had been governed by the foriegners. However the pattern of racial settlement in Eastern Europe combined with the need to please the victors at the expense of the defeated caused rough justice to be done and many discontended groups were left under the rule of other races whom they despised and feared. Germany lost all her colonies. The German African colonies were divided between Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa and her colonies in the Far East and Pacific north of equator went to Japan, south of the equator went to Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to these considerable territorial losses, Germany was also forced to agree to make 15 By this he meant that every people with a sense of common nationality based on a common language and history should have the right to govern them, to determine their own futures. 34 compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied Associated Powers and their property. These compensation payments or raparations had not been mentioned in the original Fourteen Points but had to be included in the armistice terms on the insistence of France and Britain.Germany also had to surrender all her merchant ships over 1600 tons and some smaller ships also; give free coal for ten years to France, Belgium and Italy; horses, sheep and cattle to France and Belgium. Every effort was made to cripple the military strength of Germany. The total strength of the German army was limited to one lakh men. Conscription, tanks and armoured cars were all forbidden. Germany was allowed to have only six battleships, some smaller crafts but no submarines. Nor could she have an airforce. Naval forces were limited to 15,000 men, 6 battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), 6 cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons displacement each), 12 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each). Apart from this import and export of weapons and manufacture or stockpiling of poison gas was prohibited. Germany had to admit full responsibility for starting the war. This was Clause 231 - the infamous "War Guilt Clause" which read as follows: the Allied and Associated governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated governments and their nationals (citizens) have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies. The Allies included this article to justify their demand for reparations. The Germans, however, read it to mean that they alone were responsible for causing the war and greatly resented it. After agreeing to the armistice in November 1918, the Germans had been convinced that they would be consulted by the Allies on the contents of the Treaty. This did not happen and the Germans were in no position to continue the war as her army had all but disintegrated. Though this lack of consultation angered them, there was nothing they could do about it. Therefore, the first time that the German representatives saw the terms of the Treaty was just weeks before they were due to sign it in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919. There was anger throughout Germany when the terms of the Treaty were made public. The Treaty became known as a Diktat (dictated peace) - as it was being forced on them and the Germans had no choice but to sign it. Many in Germany did not want the Treaty signed, but the representatives there knew that they had no choice as German was incapable of restarting the war again. Germany was given two choices: 1) sign the Treaty or 2) be invaded by the Allies. They signed the Treaty as in reality they had no choice. When the ceremony was over, Clemenceau went out into the gardens of Versailles and said "It is a beautiful day". The Treaty seemed to satisfy the "Big Three" as in their eyes it was a just peace as it kept Germany weak yet strong enough to stop the spread of communism; kept the French border with Germany safe from another German attack and created the organization, the League of Nations that would end warfare throughout the world. However, it left a mood of anger throughout Germany as it was felt that as a nation Germany had been unfairly treated. Above all else, Germany hated the clause blaming her for the cause of the war and the resultant financial 35 penalties the treaty was bound to impose on Germany. Those who signed it became known as the "November Criminals". Many German citizens felt that they were being punished for the mistakes of the German government in August 1914 as it was the government that had declared war not the people. 2. Treaty of St.Germain-en-Laye (10th September 1919) This treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria. It consisted of 14 parts and 381 Articles and several annexure. The treaty declared that the AustroHungarian Empire was to be dissolved. The new Republic of Austria, consisting of most of the German-speaking Alpine part of the former Austrian Empire, recognized the independence of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The treaty included 'war reparations' of large sums of money, directed towards the allies, to pay for the costs of the war. Austria was reduced not only by the loss of crownlands incorporated into the states of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia (the “successor states”) but by the cession of Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and several Dalmatian islands to Italy and the cession of Bukovina to Romania. In total, it lost land to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, and Italy. Burgenland, then a part of Hungary, was awarded to Austria. An important article of the treaty required Austria to refrain from directly or indirectly compromising its independence, which meant that Austria could not enter into political or economic union with Germany without the agreement of the council of the League of Nations. Accordingly, the new republic's initial self-chosen name of German Austria had to be changed to Austria. The Austrian Army was limited to a force of 30,000 volunteers. There were numerous provisions dealing with Danubian navigation, the transfer of railways, and other details involved in the breakup of a great empire into several small independent states 3.Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (27th November 1919) This treaty was signed between Bulgaria and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers. It established borders over contested territory between Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. As a Central Powers were belligerent, Bulgaria received the least land, and was required to reduce its army to 20,000 men, pay reparations exceeding $400 million, and recognize the existence of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Bulgaria was required to hand over western Thrace to Greece, a part of Macedonia to Yugoslavia and parts of Dobruja to Romania. In Bulgaria, the results of the treaty are popularly known as the Second National Catastrophe. 4. Treaty of Trianon (4th June 1920) This peace treaty was signed between Hungary, on the one hand, and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, on the other. It consisted of 14 parts, 364 articles, many annexures, a protocol and declaration. It established the borders of Hungary and regulated its international situation. Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory and about two third of its inhabitants under the treaty. It was even harsher than the treaty of St.Germain. The principal beneficiaries of this territorial adjustment were Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 5. Treaty of Sèvres (10th August 1920) This treaty was signed between the Sultan of Turkey (who was at that time the prisoner of the allies who were also in occupation of Constantinople) and the Principal Allied and 36 Associated Powers. The Arab state of Hedjar was freed and put under British occupation. Rumania which had declared her independence, was created into a Christian Republic and put under an international guarantee. Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and Palestine were taken away from Turkey and later on given as mandates to Britain and Syria, which was also grabbed from Turkey, was put under French mandate. There was however one condition imposed regarding Palestine and this pertained to Britain’s undertaking that in Palestine would be established “a national home for the Jewish people”which was called as Balfour Declaration. This commitment ultimately enabled the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. 6. Treaty of Lausanne (24th July 1923) The terms of the Treaty of Serves accepted by the Sultan, but not so by a parallel government headed by Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He retired to Ankara and set up a rival government and also gathered a large army. Repeated attempts by the Greeks to defeat Mustafa Kemal failed and a large number of Greeks were killed and the remaining were expelled from Asia Minor. There was no one to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Serves. The French and Italian forces were withdrawn from there. The small British army remained at its stations and instead of attacking it, Mustafa Kemal entered into negotiations which led to the signing of the Treaty of Laussane. The treaty provided not only for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for the protection of the ethnic Greek minority in Turkey and the mainly ethnically Turkish Muslim minority in Greece. Much of the Greek population of Turkey was exchanged with the Turkish population of Greece. The treaty delimited the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, formally ceded all Turkish claims on Cyprus, Iraq and Syria, and (along with the Treaty of Ankara) settled the boundaries of the latter two nations. The treaty also led to international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire. An Evaluation of the Treaty of Versailles: A Case Study Having gone through the terms of this treaty a question arises as to whether this was a fair settlement or not? There is a long standing argument that it was not. This originated from the forebodings of contemporary diplomats and observers like Norman Davies and Harold Nicolson16, of economist J.M. Keynes, and historian W.H. Dawson and Ruth Henig.17 Although the sympathy for Germany was subsequently diluted by the rise of Hitler, there emerged a feeling that the Treaty of Versailles could well have contributed to the destructive phenomenon of Nazism. It then became a common to question, the wisdom of visiting the guilt of the Kaiser’s Germany upon moderate Weimer republic which had been engaged in a desperate 16 Harold Nicolson, author of the book Peacemaking 1919, wrote: “The historian, with every justification,will come to the conclusion that we were very stupid men... We arrived determined that a Peace of justice and wisdom should be negotiated; we left the conference conscious that the treaties imposed upon our enemies were neither just nor wise.” 17 According to Ruth Henig, “Compared to the treaties which Germany had imposed on defeated Russia and Rumania in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles was quite moderate... The Treaty of Versailles was not excessively harsh on Germany, either territorially or economically. However, the German people were expecting victory not defeat. It was the acknowledgement of defeat as much as the treaty terms themselves, which they found so hard to accept.” 37 struggle for survival against the forces of extreme Right. The Germans constantly attacked the Versailles Diktat. Using these sources, we can now build a composite crticism of the Treaty of Versailles. On the issue of territorial changes there is some support for the implementation of national selfdetermination, but considerable criticism of the uneven use of plebiscite. Why, for example, this facility has been provided to the Danes of Northern Schlezwig and the Poles and Czechs of Southern Silesia, but not to the Germans of the Sudetanland or of Austria? Germany’s frontier literally bled. Poland, in particular, was treated too generously at German’s expense, a clear perversion of the thirteenth of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points. As for the confiscation of German colonies, many observers point to the element of hypocrisy. Wilson’s avowed reason for this was to protect the inhabitants from the proven harshness of the German rule. The most influential critque of the economic provisions of the Treaty was J.M. Keynes18. He argued that settlement lacked wisdom in its aim to destroy Germany’s very means of subsistence. The coal and iron provisions, for example, were disastrous. Germany would be left with a capacity to produce only 60 million tonnes annually, whereas in 1913 she had consumed 110 million tonnes. Above all the indemnity being considered by the Allies in 1919 was well beyond the German means to pay. According to Keynes, the real dangers for the future lay not in boundary questions but rather in questions of food, coal and commerce. He remain convinced that ‘The Treaty, by overstepping the limits of the possible, has in practice settled nothing’. The subsequent economic crisis suffered by the Weimer Republic, including the collapse of the mark in 1923, seemed to provide immediate evidence to support his prediction. Why did a treaty of such severity emerge in the first place? The reason most commonly given was that the ideals of Wilson were heavily diluted by the ideals of Clemenceau and the practical approach of Lloyd George. Clemenceau influenced the whole proceedings because he knew only one goal: “security for France.” The British delegation took a more moderate stance, but Lloyd George was, nevertheless, under heavy pressure from the public opinion at home to make Germany pay for all the damage caused during the war. The result was the triumph of expediency over ideals leading to a deterioration of moral awareness. There could be only one solution. The revision of the treaty was the necessary and inevitable first step forward. In 1924, the Dawes Plan modified the method of paying reparations, while the Young Plan of 1930 extended the deadline, and the Lausanne Agreement of 1932 cancelled outstanding reparations. Meanwhile, all occupation forces were withdrawn from the Rhineland by 1930 and League of Nations provided for the full return of the Saar to Germany by 1935. But critics of the treaty maintained that these concessions were too late to reconcile the Germans to a settlement which it bitterly hated. However in recent times a different picture of the Treaty of Versailles emerged. By emphasizing three points it is possible to show that the treatment meted out to Germany was not unduly harsh. First, her territorial losses in 1919 were tiny compared with the alterations which the German victory would have brought. According to Fritz Fisher(German historian), Germany’s war aims included economic dominance over Belgium, Holland and France; supremacy over Courtland, Livonia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in Eastern Europe, and over Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey in the Balkans; unification with Austria and the creation of 18 He argues that the German economy would be destroyed by the post-war Versailles Treaty. A series of treaties which overlooked the really important issues of economic recovery, food, fuel, and finance would further exacerbate the situation. 38 Greater Germany; and control over the entire Eastern Mediterranean and over dismantled Russia. In sharp contrast the Allied ambassadors, far from humiliating a defeated country, showed considerable restraint in removing only those ethnic minorities who had clearly suffered inclusion in the German Reich. Second, some form of economic compensation was only to be expected, given the terrible French losses. German industries, by contrast, had largely escaped destruction since the Rhineland and Ruhr never came within the scope of Allied operations. There was, therefore, a clear-cut argument for transferring some of the wealth of a complete industrial economy to assist the reconstruction of a shattered one. Third, it has not been conclusively proved that the Treaty of Versailles crippled Germany in the process of compensating France and Belgium. The chronic inflation between 1919 and 1923 was due at least as much to the German government’s unrestrained use of bank notes and to the heavy speculation by the Rhineland industrialists. There remains a strong suspicion that Germany could not meet the reparation because she had no intention of doing so. A general hike in taxation could have met all foreign debts. No ministry, however, was prepared to risk the internal opposition which this step would have brought; a short-term policy based on the reckless printing of paper money seemed a much easier choice. The role of France and Britain at the Peace Settlement has also been extensively reassessed. It seemed that France had every right to consider itself the aggrieved party between1919 and 1923. The French originally sought to accomplish two objectives only: economic reconstruction and military security. These could be attained most effectively within the structure of an Atlantic community which would perpetuate the unity of the war time alliance. Hence the Minister of Commerce, Clemental, had in 1918 proposed an economic bloc which would operate the system of preferential tariffs and come to an agreement on currency matters. As for the future security of France, Tardieu, the French delegate, argued that a neutralized Rhineland would be the best guarantee against future German invasion. This should be related to a permanent pact between the Western powers. Once Western Europe had achieved a new strength and stability as a result of these agreements, Germany could be allowed to regain her economic and industrial status without the danger of future aggression and war. Unfortunately the French scheme proved unsuccessful. Clemental’s proposals were rejected by the United States, with the result that France had to depend entirely on German reparations for her economic recovery. Worse followed when the U.S Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. This meant that the treaty of mutual guarantee between France, Britain and the United States also collapsed. The United States withdrew from all military commitments in Europe, while Britain, whose membership of the alliance had been tied to American involvement, considered her own obligation to France ended by the Senate’s decision. France was by now virtually isolated and faced the prospect of containing, by herself, the inevitable revival of Germany. By 1923, moreover, it had become evident that the German government was doing its utmost to escape fulfilling the terms of the treaty. Was it surprising, therefore, that Poincare, the French President, should have tried to restore the French plan by ordering the occupation of Ruhr? British government was the main critique of this action. But, it has been argued, that the record of the British delegation at Paris was far from moderate or even consistent. The usual view that Lloyd George was a pragmatist, driven by occasional harshness only by pressure from the British public opinion, will not do. If anything, the British position was more extreme than the French. Lloyd George, for example, appeared just as revanchist as Clemenceau; in 1918 he told the Imperial War Cabinet: ‘The terms of peace must be tantamount to some penalty for the offence.’ In one of the sub-commissions, a British representative claimed that Germany could 39 afford to pay reparations of 120,000 million dollars. Although Lloyd George appeared to have been won over to moderation, the British government still put reparations figure almost twice as high as did the French, and then complicated the proceedings by demanding the inclusion of war pensions and separate allowances as war damages. Largely because of British stubbornness, the reparations figure had to be settled separately and was not announced until 1921. By this time the German government had taken comfort from the evident disintegration of the alliance between the victorious powers and had begun to probe for weaknesses in the Versailles Settlement. The country most seriously affected by this was France, who had taken a consistently reasonable line on the whole reparations issue. Conclusion It is difficult for anyone to seriously argue that the Treaty of Versailles was a success. But, whereas the treaty’s detractors maintained that the major need was fundamental review, some of its defenders have put the case for more effective enforcement. The settlement failed not because it was too harsh, but because the alliance which devised it fell apart with the withdrawal of the United States and Britain, and the isolation of France. Although the treaty was supported by Collective Security and the Locarno Pact (1925), it remained susceptible to any German refusal to implement it. The modification secured by the Dawes Pact (1924) was sufficient to win the temporary co-operation of moderate statesmen like Stressmann. But, in the long term, German public opinion continued to see the whole settlement as a Diktat and eventually supported its overthrow by the Nazi regime. Opponents of the treaty argued that Nazism was one of the legacies; its defenders maintain that Hitler succeeded only because the treaty was not enforced. Germany did have grounds for complaint but the Treaty could have been more severe. As stated by Norman Lowe, “In conclusion it has to be said that this collection of peace treaties was not a conspicuous success. It had the unfortunate effect of dividing Europe into the states which wanted to revise the settlement (Germany being the main one), and those which wanted to preserve it. On the whole, the latter turned out to be lukewarm in support... and it became increasingly difficult to apply the terms fully. Hobsbawm argues that “the Versailles settlement could not possibly be the basis of a stable peace. It was doomed from the start, and another war was practically certain.” The French politician Marshal Foch, as the Versailles Treaty was being signed, stated rather prophetically, “This is not peace; it is an armistice for 20 years.” Gilbert White, an American delegate at the Conference, put it perfectly when he remarked that given the problems involved, 'it is not surprising that they made a bad peace; what is surprising is that they managed to make peace at all.’ Suggested Readings 1. Ruth Henig, Versailles and After: 1919-1933, (London: Routledge), Lancaster Pamphlets, 1995. 2. Norman Lowe. Mastering Modern World History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). 3. Stephan J.Lee, Aspects of European History(1789-1980), 1982, Roultedge, London & New York, p.199-206. 40 4 .Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth Century, Manchester University Press, 1998. 5. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, A History of the World, 1914 – 1991 (New York: Vintage Books, 1996) 6. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920). 7. M. Kitchen, Europe Between the Wars (New York: Longman, 2000) 41 Lesson 4 LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND MANDATE SYSTEM -Dr. Naveen Vashishta The League of Nations was an international association for the furtherance of cooperation among nations, the settlement of international disputes, and the preservation of the peace formed after the First World War. The concept of a peaceful community of nations had been outlined as far back as 1795, in Immanuel Kant’s work Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. One attempt to put such a concept into practice were the international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. It was to have been a universal alliance aiming at disarmament and the peaceful settlement of disputes through arbitration. Following the failure of the Hague Peace Conferences, a third conference had been planned for 1915. The League is often spoken as being the brainchild of the American President Woodrow Wilson. Although Wilson was certainly a great supporter of the idea of international organisation for peace, the League was in reality the result of a coming together of similar suggestions (made during the First World War) by a number of world statesman. Lord Robert Cecil of Britain, Jan Sumts of South Africa and Leon Bourgeois of France put forward detailed schemes as to how an organisation was to set up: Lloyd George reffered to it as one of Britain’s war aims, and Wilson included it as the last of his fourteen points. Wilson’s great contribution was to insist that the League Covenant19, which had been drawn up by an international committee, should be included in each of the separate peace treaties. It had two main aims: To maintain peace through collective security20 and to encourage international co-operation in order to solve economic and social problems. The League's creation was a centerpiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace, The Paris Peace Conference accepted the proposal to create the League of Nations on January 25, 1919. The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919. Initially, the Charter was signed by 44 states, including 31 states which had taken part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict. Despite Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, the United States neither ratified the Charter nor joined the League due to opposition in the U.S. Senate. On 10th January 1920, the League of Nations, officially came into existence with its headquarters at Geneva in Switzerland. The League held its first council meeting in Paris on January 16, 1920 six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force. In November, the headquarters of the League moved to Geneva, where the first general assembly of the League was held on November 15, 1920 with representatives from 41 nations in attendance. Symbols The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo. Proposals for adopting an official symbol were made during the League's beginning in 1920, but the member states never reached agreement. However, League of Nations organization used varying logos and flags (or none at all) in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to find a design, 19 The list of rules by which the League was to operate. 20 If one state attacked another, the member state of the League would act together, collectively, to restrain the aggressor, either by economic or by military sanctions. 42 which again failed to produce a symbol. One of the reasons for this failure may have been the fear by the member states that the power of the supranational organization might supersede them. Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed stars within a blue pentagon. The pentagon and the five-pointed stars were supposed to symbolize the five continents and the five races of mankind. In a bow on top and at the bottom, the flag had the names in English (League of Nations) and French (Société des Nations). This flag was used on the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940. Languages The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English and Spanish (from 1920). The League seriously considered adopting Esperanto as their working language and actively encouraging its use but neither option was ever adopted. In 1921, there was a proposal by Lord Robert Cecil to introduce Esperanto into state schools of member nations and a report was commissioned to investigate this. When the report was presented two years later it recommended the teaching of Esperanto in schools, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted. The strongest opposition came from the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to protect the French Language which he argued was already the international language. The opposition meant the report was accepted apart from the part that approved Esperanto in schools. Structure of League of Nations The League had four principal organs, a Secretariat, a Council, an Assembly and a Permanent Court of International Justice. The League also had numerous Agencies and Commissions. Authorization for any action required both a unanimous vote by the Council and a majority vote in the Assembly. The Secretariat The Secretariat of the League consisted of the Secretary-General (based in Geneva) who was appointed by the Council with the approval of the Assembly and such other staff as was required for its work. The other staff of the Secretariat was appointed by the Secretary-General in consultation with the Council. There were two Deputy Secretary-General and two Under Secretaries-General, subordinate to the Secretary-General. The nember-states paid the expenses of the Secretariat. The Secretariat functioned throught the year in contrast to the Council and the Assembly. The Council The Council of the League comprised of permanent members, non-permanent members and ad hoc representatives. It began with four permanent members (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members, which were elected by the Assembly for a three year period. The first four non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain. The United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the United States Senate voted on March 19, 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing American participation in the League. This prompted the United States to go back to policies of isolationism. The initial composition of the Council was subsequently changed a number of times. The number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on September 22, 1922, and then to nine on September 8, 1926. Germany also joined the League and became a fifth permanent member of the Council on the latter date, taking the Council to a total of fifteen members. When 43 Germany and Japan later both left the League, the number of non-permanent seats was eventually increased from nine to eleven. The Council met on average five times a year, and in extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held between 1920 and 1939. every member of the Council had only one vote. The Council was required to deal with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world. The main function of the Council was the settlement of disputes among the various countries of the world. It was required to formulate plans for disarmanent by various states. It was to recommed methods by which the territorial integrity of the states could be guaranted. The General Assembly The League of Nations' Assembly was a meeting of all the Member States, with each state allowed up to three representatives and one vote. It was required to meet at least once a year. In case of necessity, there could be additional meetings of the Assembly. It was given the authority to deal with any matter within its sphere of action or which affected the peace of the world. It could not discuss those matters which were exclusively reserved for the Council. It could admit new members of the League by two-third majority. Every year it elected a certain member of non-permanent members of the Council. The Judges of the Permanent Court of International Justice were elected by the Assembly for a certain number of years. The Assembly revised the budget prepared by the Secretariat and also supervised the work of the Council. Permanent Court of International Justice The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), sometimes called the World Court, was the international court of the League of Nations, established on15th February 1922 under Article XIV of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The PCIJ began its preliminary session in the Hague in January 1922 and heard its first case, an advisory opinion, in May 1922. Between 1922 and 1940 the Court dealt with 38 contentious cases between States and delivered 27 advisory opinions. It was replaced in 1946 by the International Court of Justice when the United Nations was organized. Technically speaking, the PCIJ was not an organ of the League of Nations, although the Court's existence was closely connected to the League. The jurisdiction of this Court extended to all the cases which the party referred to it and all matters specially provided for in the treaties and conventions in force. The members were allowed to accept the optional clause by signing the separate protocol and that gave the Court jurisdiction in matters concerning the interpretation of any treaty, questions of international law, any dispute which involved a violation of international law etc. While making decisions, the Court applied the international convention recognized by the states in conflict, international customs, general principles of law recognized by the civilized states, judicial decisions, and the teachings of highly qualified publicists of the various states. The Court was also required to give its advisory opinion in certain matters. The judgment of the Court was final and there was no provision for appeal. However, the Court could review its previous decisions in the light of new facts brought before it, provided those facts were not known to the parties at the time of decision. Second World War marked the end of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Court held its last wartime session in the Hague in February 1940, before the German invasion of the Netherlands. With the search for a new post-war international order, delegates at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC (August-October 1944) discussed the 44 development of a new International Court of Justice, which would work in association with the new United Nations Organization. Delegates at the San Francisco Conference approved the new International Court of Justice (June 1945) as one of the principal organs of the United Nations (Article VII) and as the UN's chief judicial organization. In October 1945, the members of the PCIJ held their last session in the Hague and on January 31, 1946, the judges of the Permanent Court of International Justice resigned. Other bodies Several other agencies and commissions were created by the League to deal with major international problems.These were the Disarmament Commission, the Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the Mandates Commission, the International Commission on Intellectual Cooperation (ancestor of the UNESCO), the Permanent Central Opium Board, the Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission. Several of these institutions were transferred to the United Nations after the Second World War. In addition to the International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice became a UN institution as the International Court of Justice, and the Health Organization was restructured as the World Health Organization. The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing permanent officials of the League, an executive section the General Advisory Council or Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready to be presented to the Council. This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever, the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes. The Health Organization also worked successfully with the government of the Soviet Union to prevent typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease. In 1919 the International Labour Organization was created as a part of the Versailles Treaty and became part of the League's operations with Albert Thomas as its first director. It successfully convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight hour working week. It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women in the workplace, and make shipowners liable for accidents involving seamen. The organization continued to exist after the end of the League, becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946. The League wanted to regulate the drugs trade and established the Permanent Central Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and its by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations for the legal international trade in narcotics. The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across the world, and fought forced prostitution. Its main success was through pressing the countries who administered mandated countries to end slavery in those countries. The League also secured a commitment from Ethiopia, as a condition of joining the League in 1926, to end slavery and worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-tribal slavery. It succeeded in gaining the emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organized raids against slave traders in its efforts to stop the practice of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the death rate of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55% to 4%. Records were kept to control slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking women and children. Led by Fridtjof Nansen the Commission for Refugees looked after the interests of refugees including overseeing their 45 repatriation and, when necessary resettlement. At the end of the First World War there were two to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout Russia, within two years of the commission's foundation, in 1920, it had helped 425,000 of them return home. It established camps in Turkey in 1922 to deal with a refugee crisis in that country and to help prevent disease and hunger. It also established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless peoples. The Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry into the status of women all over the world. It was formed in April 1938 and dissolved in early 1939. The Mandate System League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Previously, the conquered territories were annexed by the conquerers. In 1919, a new device called Mandate System was adopted according to which conquered territories were to be put under the guardianship of the League of Nations and certain powers were to be put in charge of those territories to carry on their administration. While appointing a member country as a mandatory power, its resources, experience, and geographical positions were taken into account. The mandated territories were considered as a sacred trust of civilisation. These territories were former colonies of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire that were placed under the supervision of the League following World War I. The Permanent Mandates Commission supervised League of Nations Mandates, and also organised plebiscites in disputed territories so that residents could decide which country they would join. Types of mandates: The exact level of control by the Mandatory power over each mandate was decided on an individual basis by the League of Nations. However, in every case the Mandatory power was forbidden to construct fortifications or raise an army within the mandate and was required to present an annual report on the territory to the League of Nations. Despite this, mandates were seen as de facto colonies of the empires of the victor nations.The mandates were divided into three distinct groups based upon the level of development each population had achieved at that time. Class A mandates: The first group or Class A mandates were areas formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire deemed to "...have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory." The Class A mandates were: • Iraq (United Kingdom), 10 August 1920 - 3 October 1932, then an independent kingdom. • Palestine (United Kingdom), from 25 April 1920 (effective 29 September 1923 - 14 May 1948 to the independence of Israel), till 25 May 1946 including Transjordan (the Hashemite emirate, later kingdom of Jordan). • Syria (France), 29 September 1923 - 1 January 1944, including Lebanon; Hatay (a former Ottoman Alexandretta sandjak) broke away from it and became a French protectorate, until it was ceded to the republic Turkey. By 1948 these mandates had been replaced by new monarchies (Iraq, Jordan) and republican governments (Israel, Lebanon, Syria). 46 Class B mandates:The second group or Class B mandates were all former German territories in the SubSaharan regions of West and Central Africa, which were deemed to require a greater level of control by the mandatory power: "...the Mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion". The mandatory power was forbidden to construct military or naval bases within the mandates. The Class B mandates were : • Ruanda-Urundi (Belgium), formerly two separate German protectorates, joined as a single mandate from 20 July 1922, but 1 March 1926 - 30 June 1960 in administrative union with the colony Belgian Congo, since 13 December 1946 a United Nations Trust Territory (till their separate Independences on 1 July 1962) • Tanganyika (United Kingdom) from 20 July 1922, 11 December 1946 made a United Nations trust territory; from 1 May 1961 enjoys self-rule, on 9 December 1961 independence (as dominion), on 9 December 1962 a Republic, in 1964 federated with Zanzibar, and soon renamed together Tanzania and two former German territories, each split in a British and a French League of Nations mandate territory, according to earlier military occupation zones: • Kamerun was split on 20 July 1922 into British Cameroons (under a Resident) and French Cameroun (under a Commissioner till 27 August 1940, then under a Governor), on 13 December 1946 transformed into United Nations Trust Territories, again a British (successively under senior district officers officiating as Resident, a Special Resident and Commissioners) and a French Trust (under a Haut Commissaire) • the former German colony of Togoland was split in British Togoland (under an Administrator, a post filled by the colonial Governor of the British Gold Coast (present Ghana) except 30 September 1920 - 11 October 1923 Francis Walter Fillon Jackson) and French Togoland (under a Commissioner) (United Kingdom and France), 20 July 1922 separate Mandates, transformed on 13 December 1946 into United Nations trust territories, French Togo Associated Territory (under a Commissioner till 30 August 1956, then under a High Commissioner as Autonomous Republic of Togo) and British Togoland (as before; on 13 December 1956 it ceased to exist as it became part of Ghana) Class C mandates: A final group, the Class C mandates, including South-West Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, were considered to be "best administered under the laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its territory" The Class C mandates were former German possessions: • former German New Guinea (Australia) from 17 December 1920 under a (at first Military) Administrator; after (wartime) Japanese/U.S. military commands from 8 December 1946 under UN mandate as North East New Guinea (under Australia, as administrative unit), until it merged into present Papua New Guinea. • Nauru, formerly part of German New Guinea (Australia in effective control, formally together with United Kingdom and New Zealand) from 17 December 1920, 1 November 1947 made into a United Nations trust territory (same three powers) till its 31 January 1968 independence as a Republic - all that time under an Administrator 47 • former German Samoa (New Zealand) 17 December 1920 a League of Nations mandate, renamed Western Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa), from 25 January 1947 a United Nations trust territory till its 1 January 1962 independence • South Pacific Mandate (Japan) • South-West Africa (South Africa); o from 1 October 1922 Walvisbaai's administration (still merely having a Magistrate until its 16 March 1931 Municipal status, thence a Mayor) was also assigned to South West Africa Mandate According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August 1920 "draft mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers would not be definitive until they had been considered and approved by the League ... the legal title held by the mandatory Power must be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers and the other conferred by the League of Nations," Three steps were required to establish a Mandate under international law: (1) The Principal Allied and Associated Powers confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third power; (2) the principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations that a certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain defined territory; and (3) the council of the League of Nations takes official cognisance of the appointment of the mandatory power and informs the latter that it [the council] considers it as invested with the mandate, and at the same time notifies it of the terms of the mandate, after assertaining whether they are in conformance with the provisions of the covenant.The Mandate System was critisized as “a hallow mockery”, “ a hypocritcal sham and designed to disguise old imperialistic wolves in new sheep’s clothing”. The Successes of the League It would be unjust to dismiss the League as a total failure; in fact many of its commissions and committees achieved valuable results and much was done to foster international co-operation. One of the most successful was the International Labour Organisation under its French socialist director, Albert Thomas. Its obejective was to improve the conditions of labour all over the world by persuading governments to fix maximum working day and week, specify adequate minimum wages and introduce sickness and unemployment benefits and old age pensions. It collected and published a vast amount of information and many governments were prevailed to take upon action. The Refugee Organisation led by a Norweign explorer, Fridtjof Nansen solved the problems of thousands of war prisoners marooned in Russia after the war ended. The Health Organisation did good work in investigating the causes of epidemics and was particularly successful in combating a typhus epidemic in Russia which at one time seemed likely to engulf Europe. The Mandates Commission supervised the government of the territories taken away from Germany and Turkey, while another commission was resposible for administering the Saar to be returned to Germany. Not all were successful, however, the Disarmament Commission made no progress in the near impossible task of persuading member states to reduce armaments, though they had all promised to do so when they agreed to the covenant. Many political disputes were referred to the League in the early 1920s; in all but two of the League’s decisions were accepted. For example in the dispute between Sweden and Finland over the Aland Islands, the decision was in favour of Finland (1920); over the rival claims of 48 Germany and Poland to the important industrial area of Upper Silesia, the League decided that it should be partitioned between the two (1921). When the Greeks invaded Bulgaria after some shooting incidents on the frontier, the League swiftly intervened: Greek troops were withdrawn and damages paid to Bulgaria (1925). When Turkey claimed the province of Mosul, part of the Britain mandated territory of Iraq, the League decided in favour of Iraq. Even further afield, squabbles were settled between Peru and Columbia and between Bolivia and Paraguay. It is significant, however, that none of these decisions went against a major state, which might have challened the League’s verdict. In fact during this same period the League twice found itself overruled by the Conference of Ambassadors based in Paris, which was intended to deal with problems arising out of the Treaty of Versailles. There were first the rival claims of Poland and Lithuania to Vilna (1920) followed by the Corfu Incident, a quarrel between Italy under Mussolini and Greece (1923). The fact that the League seemed unable or unwilling to respond to these affronts was not a promising sign. Failure of League of Nations Although The League of Nations has done much that it should be proud of, its failures are much too noticeable to turn a blinds eye on. At the time of Corfu Incident in1923, many people wondered what would happen if a powerful state were to challenge the League on an issue of major importance, for example by invading an innocent country. How effective would League be then? Unfortunately several such challenges occurred during the 1930s, and on every ocassion the League was found wanting. Reasons ascribed for this failure are discussed below: 1. An initial disadvantage of the League was that it was too closely linked with the Treaty of Versailles, giving it the air of being an organisation for the benefit of the victorious powers. In addition, it had to defend the peace settlement which was far from perfect. Some of the provisions were bound to cause trouble- for example, the disappointment of Italy and the inclusion of Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia. 2. The League was dealt a severe blow in March 1920 when the United States Senate rejected the Versailles Settlement and the League. There were many reasons behind this decision: many Americans wanted to return to a policy of isolation and feared that membership of the League might cause them to be embroiled in another war; the Republicans, now in majority in the Senate, strongly opposed Woodrow Wilson(a Democrat), but he refused to compromise over either the League Covenant or the terms of the treaties. Thus the League was deprived of a powerful member whose presence would have been of great psychological and financial advantage. 3. Germany was not allowed to join the League until 1926 and the USSR became its member only in 1934(when Germany left), so that for the first few years of its existence the League was deprived of three of the world’s most important powers. 4. In the early years, the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris was an embarrassment. It was intended to function only until the League machinery was established, but it lingered on, and on several ocassion took precedence over League. In 1920 the League supported Lithuania in her claim to Vilna which had just been taken away from her by the Poles, but then allowed the Ambassadors to award Vilna to Poland. A later example was the Corfu Incident(1923) which arose from the boundary dispute between Greece and Albania, in which three Italian officers working on the boundary commission were killed. Mussolini blamed the Greek 49 Island of Corfu. Greece appealed to the League, Mussolini refused to recognize its competence to deal with the problem and threatened to withdraw from the League, whereupon the Ambassadors ordered Greece to pay the full amount demanded. At this early stage, however, supporters of the League dismissed these incidents as teething troubles. 5. There were serious weaknesses in the Covenant making it difficult to ensure that decisive action was taken against any aggressor. It was difficult to achieve unanimous decisions. The League had no military of its own and through Article 16 expected member states to supply troops if necessary, a resolution was passed in 1923 that each member would decide for itself whether or not to fight in a crisis. This clearly made nonsense of the idea of collective security. Several attempts were made to strengthen the Covenant but these failed because a unanimous decision was needed to change it and this was never achieved. The most notable attempt was made in 1924 by the British Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, in a resolution known as Geneva Protocol which pledged members to accept arbitration and help any victim of unprovoked aggression. With supreme irony, the Conservative government which followed McDonald informed the League that they could not agree to the protocol; they were reluctant to commit Britain and the dominions to the defence of all the 1919 frontiers. Unfortunately this left the League as its critics remarked, ‘lacking teeth’. 6. The continued absence of the USA and the USSR plus the hostility of Italy made the League very much a Franco-British affair, but as their rejection of Geneva Protocol showed, the British Conservatives were never enthusiastic about the League and preferred to sign the Locarno Treaties(1925) outside the League instead of conducting negotiations within it. None of these weaknesses necessarily doomed the League to failure, however, provided all the members were prepared to refrain from aggression and accept League decisions; between 1925 and 1930 events ran fairly smoothly but unfortunately dictators rose to power in Japan and Germany together with Italy; they refused to keep up the rules and pursued a series of actions which revealed the League’s weaknesses. 7. In 1931 Japanese troops invaded the Chinese territory of Manchuria. China appealed to the League which condemned Japan and ordered her troops to be withdrawn. When Japan refused, the League appointed a commission under Lord Lytton in1932 which decided that there were faults on both sides and suggested that Manchuria be governed by the League. However, Japan rejected this and withdrew from the League (March 1933). The question of economic sanctions let alone military ones was not raised because Britain and France had serious economic problems and were reluctant to apply a trade boycott of Japan in case it led to war, which they were ill-equipped to win, especially without American help. Japan had sucessfully defied the League, and its prestige was damaged though not yet fatally. 8. The failure of the World Disarmament Conference(1932) which met under the auspices of the League was a grave disappointment. The Germans asked for equality of armaments with France, but when the French demanded that this should be postponed for at least eight years, Hitler was able to use the French attitude as an excuse to withdraw Germany from the conference and later from the League. 9. The most serious blow was the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935. The League condemned Italy and introduced economic sanctions which, however, did not include a ban on exports of oil, coal and steel to Italy. So half-hearted were the sanctions that Italy was able to complete the conquest of Abyssinia without too much inconvenience in May 1936. A few weeks later sanctions were abandoned and Mussolini had flouted the League. Again Britain and France must share the blame for League’s failure. Their motives was the desire not to 50 antagonise Mussolini too much so as to keep him as an ally against the real danger-Germany, but the results were disastrous: Mussolini was annoyed by the sanctions anyway and began to draw closer to Hitler. In this way the small states lost all faith in the League and Hitler himself was encouraged to break the Versailles Treaties. After 1935, therefore, the League was not taken seriously again. Demise and Legacy As the situation in Europe deteriorated into war, the Assembly transferred, on 30 September 1938 and 14 December 1939, enough power to the Secretary General to allow the League to continue to legally exist and continue with operations on a reduced scale. After this was completed, the headquarters of the League remained unoccupied for nearly six years until the Second World War had ended. The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in April in Geneva. Delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly where their first act was the closure the twentieth meeting, adjourned on 14 December 1939, and opened the twenty-first. This session concerned itself with liquidating the League, the Palace of Peace was given to the UN, reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied them and the debts of the League were settled. Robert Cecil is said to have summed up the feeling of the gathering during a speech to the final assembly when he said: “aggression where it occurs and however it may be defended, is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ whatever force is necessary to crush it ... that every well-disposed citizen of every state should be ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain peace ... I venture to impress upon my hearers that the great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations, like individuals, depend.”The motion that dissolved the League, stating that "The League of Nations shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its affairs" passed unanimously. The motion also set the date for the end of the League as the day after the session was closed. On the 18 April 1939 the President of the Assembly, Carl J. Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first and last session of the General Assembly of the League of Nations closed." As a result the League of Nations ceased to exist on 19 April 1939. With the onset of World War II, it had been clear that the League had failed in its purpose – to avoid any future world war. During the war, neither the League's Assembly nor Council had been able or willing to meet, and its Secretariat in Geneva had been reduced to a skeleton staff, with many offices moving to North America. At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers agreed to create a new body to replace the League. This body was to be the United Nations. Many League bodies, such as the International Labour Organization, continued to function and eventually became affiliated with the UN. The League's assets of $22,000,000 were then assigned to the U.N. The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more effective than the League. The principal Allies in World War II (UK, USSR, France, U.S., and China) became permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving the new "Great Powers" significant international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the UN Security Council are binding on all members of the UN; however, unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the League Council. Permanent members of the UN Security Council were given a shield to protect their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting decisively in many cases. Similarly, the UN does not have its own standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions, such as the Korean War, and peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. However, the UN has in some cases been forced to 51 rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in attracting members from the nations of the world, making it more representative. Conclusion According to Pat Buchnan, in the final analysis, it was not the League that failed. It was the Allies that failed. Neither Britain nor France—nor the United States—was willing to risk war for high principle, if authenticated that principle jeopardized vital interests. None of the three had a vital interest in whether or not Japan (or Russia or China) controlled Manchuria. And if the United States refused to join the League, how could nations object if Germany walked out? As for Ethiopia, was upholding the principle of non-aggression in Africa worth a war that might drive Italy into the arms of Nazi Germany? Indeed, the limited sanctions imposed on Italy helped to create the Rome-Berlin Pact of Steel, that first Axis of Evil. As for Hitler’s military occupation of the Rhineland, this was a direct challenge to France. But if France, with its huge army, would not act militarily in its own vital interests, why should anyone else? Although the League was called a ‘League of Notions’ or a ‘League of Robbers’ and it was believed that the League could only bark and did not bite, yet it did a lot of work which proved very significant. There were some quarrels, which the League settled very successfully, yet it had to come forth a number of problems, which it failed to settle at all. On the whole, according to F.P. Walters, “The League as a working institution is dead, but the ideals which it sought to promote, the hopes to which it gave rise, the method it devised, the agencies it created, have become an integral part of the political thinking of the civilized world.” Suggested Readings 1.Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth Century, Manchester University Press, 1998. 2. F. P Walters, A History of the League of Nations, Vol.2, O.U.P, London, 1952. 3. F.S Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920–1946. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986. 4. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars(Cambridge Perspectives in History), 1997. 52 UNIT 3 Lesson 1 ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917 Dr.Naveen Vashishta Introduction The Russian Revolution was a pivotal event in the history of the twentieth century. It ushered in an era of ideological conflict culminating in the Cold War and remained an especially politicized historical event. Only the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 finally transformed the Russian Revolution into an historical fact. The Russian Revolution of 1917 actually refers to a series of events in imperial Russia that culminated in 1917 with the establishment of the Soviet state that became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The two successful revolutions of 1917 are referred to collectively as the Russian Revolution. The first revolution overthrew the autocratic imperial monarchy. It began with a revolt on February 23 to 27, 1917, according to the Julian, or Old Style, calendar then in use in Russia21. The second revolution, which opened with the armed insurrection of October 24 and 25, organized by the Bolshevik Party against the Provisional Government, effected a change in all economic, political, and social relationships in Russian society; it is often designated as the Bolshevik, or October Revolution. Causes of the Russian Revolution Although the events of the Russian Revolution happened abruptly, the causes may be traced back nearly a century. Prior to 1917 Russian society was undergoing significant changes that resulted in the crisis of the old order. The new social and economic forces generated by these changes had different interests and desires. Therefore, by 1917 there emerged an extreme contradiction and divergence between the old and new Russia. The Russian Revolution represented the democratic ambitions of these new forces. The Russian state on the other hand represented the interests of the old ruling classes. The Russian autocracy remained strong on the support of landed nobility. So there emerged, by 1917, a crisis not only between the old and new forces but also between these new forces and the Russian state. According to Richard Pipes “The Russian Revolution of 1917 was not an event or even a process, but a sequence of disruptive and violent acts that occurred more or less concurrently but involved actors with differing and in some measure contradictory objectives.” So what were the long and short term causes that led to this milestone in history? Let us examine these in detail. 1. Autocratic rule and inefficiency of the Tsar The government in Russia was autocratic without being efficient. The Tsar’s administration was weak and corrupt. His autocracy had outlived the purpose. The spread of western ideas led to the development of progressive ideas among the people. The demand for truly representative body with adequate powers to satisfy the needs of the people was a gathering 21 On January 31, 1918, the Soviet government adopted the Gregorian, or New Style, calendar, which moved dates by thirteen days; therefore, in the New Style calendar the dates for the first revolution would be March 8 to 12. 53 force. Instead of fulfilling the demands of the people, Tsar Nicholas II of Romanov dynasty, announced that he would preserve the principles of autocracy as firmly and unwaveringly as his predecessor. He kept Constantine Pobedonostev22, the evil genius of Russia, in power. Another evil genius who exercised great influence on the administration of the Tsar was Gregory Rasputin.23 The government was run by the bureaucracy who was inflexible and inefficient. It is true that Russia did come to have its first Parliament (Duma) in 1906. But it did not lead to the establishment of parliamentary institutions on the English model. It did not have full authority over legislation and finance. It had no control over the ministry. Even the budget was safeguarded from parliamentary interference. Due to successive interference of the imperial government in the elections, the Duma became a reactionary body. All kinds of restrictions were placed on the individual freedom as well as the freedom of press. Another weakness of the autocracy was the personality of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II himself. Poorly educated, narrow in intellectual perspective, a bad judge of people, isolated from the Russian society at large and in contact only with the most narrow military and bureaucratic circles, intimidated by the ghost of his imposing father and helpless under the destructive influence of his endlessly unfortunate wife: Nicholas II was obviously inadequate to the demands of his high position and this was an inadequacy for which no degree of charm, of courtesy of delicacy of manner, could compensate. He was short-sighted and his lack of grasp of the realities of the life of the country interfering with political process in ways that were for him absolutely suicidal. 2. Discontent of the Peasantry The Russian peasants were dissatisfied with the conditions of their life. They were not happy with the terms of the emancipation settlement24 which freed them from serfdom in 1861 but required them to pay compensation to the landlords for the loss of their labor rights. The problem was further compounded by the failure of Witte's land reforms of the early 1900s. The serfs claimed that the release of landlords from their military commitments in the 18th century should have automatically liberated them from their periodical obligations which they owed to the landlords. So they resented the imposition of financial burdens in lieu of labor burdens as a violation of an implied contract. The exaction of these redemption payments25 was maintained up to 1907. Further the peasants were assigned less land than they had previously possessed. The situation deteriorated because of their inability to make the best use of the soil which they occupied. The system of cultivation in Russia was backward. The peasants lacked the capital and technique to raise it to a higher level by adopting the methods of intensive cultivation. The scope 22 Pobedonostev was a strong monarchist with fervent beliefs about which path was in the best interest of Russia. He was a reactionary and he passed these beliefs to Alexander and then later to Nicholas. According to Pobedonostev, the monarch's absolute rule was ensured by God. He believed that any infringement on this power was against God's wishes. He instilled in Nicholas the belief that his most important job was to pass along to his heir the same form of absolute power which had been passed to him. "Pobedonostev did succeed in getting some of his ideas into Nicholas' head, and especially this one: that it was the duty of a Tsar-autocrat to pass on all his powers intact to his son.” 23 Another figure that played a significant part in causing the Russian revolution. He was a monk in the Russian Orthodox Church and had increasing importance and influence on the Tsar. 24 It was introduced by Alexander II (1855-1881), the Russian Tsar. 25 The peasants were to pay an annual sum for 49 years to the government, at the end of which time the land was to be their property. 54 for individual action was further reduced by the system of land ownership which was assigned to the mir26, by the intermixture of strips into which many of the holdings were divided and by the status of the peasant household as legal representatives of its members in all property relations. The root cause of the dissatisfaction of the Russian peasants was the shortage of land. The peasants cast hungry eyes upon the estates of big landlords. Long before the revolution they pressed for a fresh allocation of land. Peter Stolypin, prime minister from 1906 to 1911, made determined efforts to win over the peasants believing that given twenty years of peace there would be no question of revolution. Redemption payments were abolished and peasants were encouraged to buy their own land (about 2 million had done so by 1916 and another 3.5 million had immigrated to Siberia where they had their own farms). As a result there emerged a class of comfortably-off peasants (called kulaks) whom, Stolypin hoped; the government could rely on for support against revolution. By 1911 it was becoming clear that Stolypin's land reforms would not have the desired result, partly because the peasant population was growing too rapidly (at the rate of 1.5 million a year) for his schemes to cope with, and because farming methods were too inefficient to support the growing population comfortably. The assassination of Stolypin in 1911 removed one of the few really able tsarist ministers and perhaps the only man who could have saved the monarchy 3. Discontent of the Workers During the concluding years of the 19th century, the Russian industry developed a great deal. It was owing to several factors. The emancipation of serfs made available a plentiful supply of cheap labor for the industry. The creation of railways opened up the means of communication and increased the facilities of transport. Foreign loans provided the necessary basis for large industrial undertakings. As a result of exceptional growth of industry, factory system grew rapidly. The industrial workers are always more intelligent and less conservative in their nature than the rural laborers. The factory system had done away with the isolation of the worker and brought the great masses of men together. It also gave them an insight of their economic power. The workers suffered from long hours of work, low wages, brutality, and a system of rapacious fines. The government was generally blind to the sufferings of the workers. The capitalists blocked the path of factory reform on the ground of what they termed freedom of the people’s labor which actually meant the freedom of the strong to exploit the weak. The Russian workmen sought to redress their grievances through strikes. The expansion of industry not only created an industrial proletariat, but also called into existence a class of wealthy manufacturers. Russia thus passed into the stage of capitalism. She had fallen into the line with western industrialism. Labor for the fast developing industries was continuously recruited from the rural population. Their abrupt divorce from the land and their isolation from the educated classes, made the Russian workers hospitable to the revolutionary ideas. But this advantage was off-set by their illiteracy, backwardness, lack of organizational abilities and absence of system in labor. Apart from this, the Russian industry in its techniques and capitalist structure stood at the level of the advanced countries and even outperformed them in some respects. There was a great concentration of industry in Russia. Enterprises employing more than a thousand workers employed 41.4 percent of the Russian labor which meant that there was no transitional layer between the capitalists and the workers. 26 The village community 55 Sheila Fitzpatric in her book ‘The Russian Revolution’ states that "...the factory committees took over [the factories in order] to save the workers from unemployment, when the owner or manager abandoned the plant or threatened to close it because it was losing money. As such events became more common, the definition of workers' control moved closer to something like workers' self-management." She notes that because of the growing disagreement between the workers and the government, that real grievances were developed and that a program of selfmanagement became every more necessary in the eyes of the working classes. Instead of foreign anarchistic elements conspiring to get worker support, it was the conditions in Petrograd that caused the workers to become more rebellious. Workers angered by "...the Bolsheviks [who had gained] influence in the factory committees...[that] there was an emerging sense in the working class that 'soviet power' meant that the workers should be sole masters in the district, the city, and perhaps the country as a whole...this was closer to anarchism or anarcho-syndicalism than to Bolshevism, and the Bolshevik leaders did not in fact share the view that direct workers’ democracy through factory committees and the soviets was a plausible or desirable alternative to their own concept of party-led 'proletarian dictatorship." 4. Spread of Socialism As the industrialization of Russia began to make great progress there arose a new generation of industrial workers who had to work hard in the crowded towns under circumstances which made their lives an intolerable burden. Naturally it was from this class that the message of socialism met with a heavy response. In the 1890’s the teachings of Marx27 were popularized and spread by radicals like the novelist Maxim Gorkey, and revolutionary socialism made rapid progress among factory workers, winning over many of the intelligentsia, to its cause. In 1895 was founded the Workmen’s Social Democratic Party with a programme similar to that of the socialists in other countries. The peasantry now led by middle-class radicals, emulated the example of the urban proletariat and in 1901 organized a Social Revolutionary Party with a platform that included the confiscation of the large estates of the nobility and their division into small individual holdings. The party believed in terrorism as a weapon, though they kept it for the present in reserve. Thus was set on foot a revolutionary movement which aimed at reconstructing the social and political systems of Russia on socialist principles. In 1903 there was a split in the Social Democratic Party on the questions of party discipline and tactics, and its radical section led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov popularly known as Lenin, seceded from the main body. This section came to be known as Bolsheviks (men of majority) and the more moderate wing of the party came to be known as Mensheviks (minority men). As a party the Bolsheviks remained far inferior in numbers to the Mensheviks, although they had secured the majority on the questions which caused their secession. Both believed in strikes and revolution, but the Bolsheviks felt it was essential to win the support of peasants as well as industrial workers, whereas the Mensheviks, doubting the value of peasant support, favored close co-operation with the middle class; Lenin was strongly opposed to this. In 1912 appeared the new Bolshevik newspaper Pravda (Truth), which was extremely important as a means of publicizing Bolshevik ideas and giving political direction to the already developing strike wave. 27 Karl Marx wrote “Communist Manifesto” which is known as the ‘Bible of Russian Revolution’. In this book Marx declared that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. He predicted that in the ongoing struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the latter was bound to win, leading to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat which in turn would finally give place to a classless society. 56 5. Demands for liberal reforms by the new middle classes When the twentieth century opened the challenge to autocracy in Russia came more from liberalism than socialism. The industrial revolution had created well-developed and energetic middle class, and merchants, factory-owners and other businessmen joined hands with intellectual liberals in demanding some system of representative government. The Zemstva28 also became active and drew up a definite programme of reform demanding a freely elected national assembly, a responsible ministry, equality of all citizens and freedom of the press, of religion and of speech. But Tsar Nicholas II, who was under the influence of the reactionary minister Plehve, turned a deaf ear to these demands. The Russian government failed to recognize that the people had outgrown the necessity of an autocrat and that the old bottles would not contain the new wine. Hence it continued to be oppressive and repressive quite unmindful of the gathering storm. The stubbornness of the Tsar and his blindness to the potential strength of the new forces that were surging around him, were among the important causes which produced the Russian Revolution. 6. The Revolution of 1905 The Revolution of 1905 proved a dress rehearsal of the Revolution of 1917. The storm that had been brewing burst forth in 1905 when the government stood discredited by its failure in the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian army suffered heavy reverses in the war. This had further strength the revolutionary movement in Russia. There were agitations and disturbances all over the country. On 9th January 1905, a mass of peaceful workers with their wives and children was fired at in St. Petersburg while on its way to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar. More than a thousand of them were killed and thousand of others were wounded. This day is known as Bloody Sunday. The news of the killings provoked unprecedented disturbances throughout Russia. Even the sections of the army and navy revolted. A new form of organization called the ‘Soviet’, or the council of worker’s representatives was developed in this revolution which proved decisive in the upheaval of 1917. Soviet of peasants was also formed. The Zemstvos demanded reforms, the workman struck work, and the peasantry plundered the landlords. Unable to suppress the growing disorders the Tsar promised reforms and announced the summoning of a Duma or national assembly29. But the experiment of reconciling parliamentary government with autocracy ended in failure. Taking advantage of the divisions in the rank of the opposition the Tsar reduced the Duma to a mere consultative body and was able to secure the triumph of autocracy. By 1906, the revolutionary wave had spent its main force and reaction was in full swing. The government under the influence of Stolypin continued the policy of alternate (sometimes combined) repression and concession, and the hatred aroused by the former more than undid any benefits from the latter. 7. The attempt to diminish the power of the Duma (Russian Parliament) No sooner had the 1905 Revolution died out than Nicholas II thought of withdrawing the liberal concessions from the people. Before the first Duma met, the government propagated the constitution the Fundamental Laws. The Tsar was described as 'the supreme autocratic power' in 28 The reform of 1864 created district and provincial assemblies (Zemstva). The members of the district assemblies were elected by the inhabitants of each rural district, peasants and nobles alike. Members of the district assemblies then elected delegates of the provincial assemblies. This system of election tended to cut down the power of the nobles and gave more political right to the non-noble classes. 29 This was a supposed ‘parliament’ that could only give advice to the Tsar and this was ignored – members who opposed the Tsar were executed or imprisoned. 57 the constitution. He kept huge executive and legislative powers, including the control of the army and foreign policy, the right to dissolve the Duma and to dismiss his ministers. The Duma was to consist of the Upper and Lower Chambers. Half of the members of the Upper Chamber were appointed by the Tsar. Although the Lower Chamber was elected by wide male suffrage and secret voting, the elaborate system of indirect voting favored the wealthier class. The voters first voted for the electors who then voted for those further electors who could finally vote for the members of the Duma. This system of election favored the wealthier class who had the freedom to take part in a series of elections. The wealthier class was usually conservative in their political outlook and inclined to support the Tsar. Thus the autocratic power of the Tsar was well-protected by the undemocratic provisions of the constitution. The First Duma took place in May-July 1906. Even though indirect voting favoured the wealthier and politically conservative classes30, the majority of the people elected to sit in the First Duma were anti-government. The First Duma consisted of the members of the following groups: the Constitutional Democrats or Cadets31, the Octobrists32, the national groups, the labor group, the peasant members33, a few Social Democrats (The socialist parties boycotted the first election because they had not forgotten the suppression of St. Petersburg and the Moscow Soviets. But a few Social Democrats disobeyed the order of the Party and took part in the elections.) The largest party was the Cadets. These political groups and parties demanded ministerial responsibility and full control of all affairs of the state, including taxation. In other words, they wanted a constitutional monarchy. The Tsar promptly dissolved the Duma. On the whole the First Duma lasted for 73 days. In the election of the Second Duma the Tsar intimidated many anti-government voters to give up their candidature or their right to vote. But intimidation was useless. Many antigovernment candidates were elected to the Second Duma. Most threatening to the Tsar, 65 Social Democrats were elected. The Social Democrats made demands to liberalize the Tsarist government. As a result, the Second Duma met the same fate as the First Duma. Within 3 months (March-June, 1907), it was again dissolved by the Tsar. The Tsar was firm not to face a rebellious Duma again. He altered the franchise to deprive many of the peasants and non-Russian nationalities of the vote and to give so many votes to the wealthy landowners as to assure that 60 percent of the seats of the Duma were taken up by them34. Because of the new franchise system, most of the men elected into the Duma were government supporters. 30 The conservative classes comprised the landowners, rich merchants and pro-Tsarist supporters. 31 The Cadets comprised liberals who demanded the establishment of a parliament, with legislative power. Their views were very much like those of the British liberals. 32 The Octobrists were the right-wing liberals. They were well-satisfied with the October Manifesto and would not ask for more political rights. 33 The national groups represented the national minorities. The labour group and the peasant members represented those peasants and workers who did not join the Social Revolutionary Party and the Social Democratic Party 34 According to the government decree of 1907, the Duma should be elected on a class basis by a number of electoral colleges. The wealthier landowners were to choose 60 per cent of the electors, the peasants 22 per cent, the merchants 15 per cent, and the working men 3 per cent. 58 The Third Duma (1907-1912) and the Fourth Duma (1912-1917) served their period of office of five years. They were dominated by the Octobrists and the Monarchists. The Cadets and the handful of socialists occupied about one quarter of the seats in the Duma. As the Duma grew conservative in its composition, the frustration among the Russian masses found little chance of expression in the Duma. Many of the Russian people turned against Tsardom again. Despite the promises of the October Manifesto that civil liberties would be granted to the people, a policy of repression was adopted by Stolypin, Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911. He was infamous for persecuting the Jews and ruthless treatment of rioters in the countryside. To punish the Finnish nationalists, he deprived Finland of independence. Many Social Democrats, including Lenin, were deported. 8. Discontent of the non-Russian National Minorities The Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic Empire. Nearly half of the population of Russia was made up of national minorities like Poles, Finns, Jews, Latvians and Lithuanians. If the Russian government had wished it could have done everything to reconcile them to the Russian state and play them off against potential rebellious central Great Russian group. But the Tsar’s government did neither; it instead followed the policy of forceful ‘Russification’35 towards them. The publication of newspapers and books in the languages of non-Russian nationalities was completely forbidden. Instructions could not be imparted to students in the schools in their native languages. Russian government intentionally promoted contempt and hatred for the nonRussians. Russian population was made to look upon them as aliens and as inferior races. Most of the highly placed government officials were Russians and the entire business in the numerous organs of the administration was conducted in the Russian language. Russian officials spared no effort in insulting, humiliating and oppressing the non-Russian nationalities. They had to suffer untold miseries at the hands of Tsardom, which has rightly called as the ‘hangman and torturer of the non-Russian peoples.’ As a result a high percentage of members of national minorities participated in the revolution. Freedom from national oppression in the Tsarist Empire coincided with the victory of the socialist revolution. Apart from the disaffection felt by the peoples of the Baltic region, Central Asia, Transcaucasia and other areas as a result of political and cultural bias, the economic backwardness that Tsarist economic policies involved for these regions ensured that they remained primarily agricultural with a strong stake in the land question. There surfaced strong movements for national self-determination, demanding rights for their own languages, culture, equal opportunities and even a separate political identity. The Bolsheviks supported land for the peasant as well as the right to secession and a voluntary union. The peasantry in these areas played a vital role in the victory of the socialist alternative to the Tsarist autocracy, completely evading all liberal solutions to nationalist objectives. 9. Economic Crisis The economic causes of the Russian Revolution were based mainly on the Tsar's mismanagement, compounded by World War I. More than fifteen million men joined the army, which left an insufficient number of workers in the factories and on the farms. The result was widespread shortages of food and materials. Factory workers had to bear terrible working conditions, including twelve to fourteen hour days and low wages. Many riots and strikes for 35 It means suppression of the languages and literatures and cultures of other nationalities. 59 better conditions and higher wages broke out. Although some factories agreed to the requests for higher wages, wartime inflation quashed the increase. Prices rose high because all kinds of goods and food became scarce during the war. In general, the price rose by 500 - 700 per cent between 1914 and 1917. The scarcity of food and all kinds of goods were due to the following reasons: (i) Russia was cut off from outside aid by the blockade of the Central Powers; (ii) the transport system was poor; (iii) the devastation of the wheat-growing Ukraine early in the war; (iv) the factories had to manufacture military goods to meet the needs of the unnaturally large army36. Because of the exorbitant prices of bread, many Russian people were hungry. Hunger led to waves of strikes of workers who cried out not only economic demands but also political demands: "Down with the Tsar". There was one protest to which Nicholas II responded with violence in response, industrial workers went on strike and effectively paralyzed the railway and transportation networks. What few supplies were available could not be effectively transported. As goods became more and more scarce, prices skyrocketed. By 1917, famine threatened many of the larger cities. Nicholas's failure to solve his country's economic suffering and communism's promise to do just that comprised the core of the revolution. 10. The Impact of the First World War The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the prevalent social and political protests, focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this patriotic unity did not last for very long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took its toll. More important, though, was this deeper fragility: although many ordinary Russians joined anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, the most popular reaction appears to have been skepticism and fatalism. Hostility toward the Germany and the desire to defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the government. Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster: in the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg, over 120,000 Russian troops were killed, wounded or captured, while Germany suffered just 20,000 casualties. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas II had taken direct command of the army, personally overseeing Russia's main theatre of war and leaving his ambitious but incapable wife Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Gregori Rasputin in the Imperial family was widely resented. In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army which was better led, trained and supplied was terrifyingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces, and, by the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1,600,000 and 1,800,000 soldiers, with an additional 2,000,000 prisoners of war and 1,000,000 missing, all making up a total of nearly 5,000,000 men. These staggering losses played a definite role in the mutinies which began to occur and, in 1916, reports of fraternizing with the enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went hungry, and they lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Widespread discontent lowered morale, only to be further undermined by a series of military defeats. 36 Because Russia was industrially backward, she found it necessary to recruit a large army to fight against Germany so that her superiority in numbers could compensate her deficiency in equipment. By 1917 about fifteen million were recruited 37% of the male population of working age. This led to labor shortage and less production in factories. 60 Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. Already, by the end of 1914, only five months into the war, nearly 400,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000 were injured. Far sooner than expected, scarcely-trained recruits had to be called up for active duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer class also saw remarkable turnover, especially within the lower echelons, which were quickly filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or worker backgrounds, were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917. The huge losses on the battlefields were not limited to men, however. The army quickly ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food), and, by mid-1915, men were being sent to the front bearing no arms; it was hoped that they could equip themselves with the arms that they recovered from fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. With patently good reason, the soldiers did not feel that they were being treated as human beings, or even as valuable soldiers, but, rather, as raw materials to be squandered for the purposes of the rich and powerful. By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat -- and it was not always orderly: desertion, plunder and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation had improved in many respects. Russian troops stopped retreating, and there were even some modest successes in the offensives that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also, the problem of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production. Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it had been during the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of the war, still draining away strength and lives from the country and its many individuals and families, remained an oppressive unavoidability. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted fundamentally in the feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory could be achieved." The war was devastating, of course, and not only to soldiers. By the end of 1915, there were many signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation propelled real incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages made it difficult to buy even what one could afford. These shortages were especially a problem in the capital, Petrograd37, where distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly bad. Shops closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat and other provisions, and lines lengthened massively for what remained. It became increasingly difficult both to afford and actually buy food. Not surprisingly, strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915, and so did crime; but, for the most part, people suffered and endured -- scourging the city for food -- working-class women in Petrograd reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines --, begging, turning to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth, complaining about the rich, and wondering when and how this would all come to an end. With good reason, the government officials responsible for public order worried about how long the people's patience would last. A report by the Petrograd branch of the security police, the Okhrana, in October 1916, warned quite bluntly of "the possibility in the near future of riots by the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.” Nicholas II was blamed for all of these crises, and what little support he had left began to crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916. It stated that, inevitably, a terrible disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of 37 Formerly the City of St. Petersburg 61 government was put in place. In typical fashion, however, Nicholas ignored them, and Russia's Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. One year later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed. Ultimately, Nicholas's inept handling of his country and the War destroyed the Tsars and ended up costing him both his rule and life. Conclusion In conclusion we can say that there were many reasons for a revolution in Russia. Some were political, others were social and economic, but they all had something in common - they all helped to dethrone Tsar Nicholas II. Russia in the early 20th century covered a huge area that was a large proportion of the Asian continent and one very powerful man, the Tsar Nicholas II, ruled it all. Most of the country was living in poverty in overcrowded areas, working with the same system as in medieval times, and being paid very little. There were only two industrial cities, Petrograd and Moscow, with the rest of it countryside slums. Nicholas had a tough time ruling over this huge country, nearly 8000km across with tens of millions of people, which stretched from Poland nearly to Alaska. We can be sympathetic towards him because of the size of his empire but some of his problems were his own fault. He was a strict autocrat - giving the people no power or control over their lives. His decision to go to the war in 1914 proved disastrous for the imperial regime. According to Richard Pipes “Had it not been World War 1, the Russian Imperial government might have muddled through and in time yielded to some kind of parliamentary regime. ” Suggested Readings 1. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1994 2. Orlando Figes, A People’s tragedy: the Russian Revolution 1891-1924, London, 1996. 3. Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution 1899-1919, London, 1990. 4. J.L.H.Keep, The Russian Revolution a Study in Mass Mobilization, London 1976. 5. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II, 1996. 6. Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997). 7. Clive Emsley, Conflict and Stability in Europe, Routledge, 1979 8. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07. 62 Lesson 2 COURSE OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON RUSSIA AND WORLD Dr.Naveen Vashishta Stages of Russian Revolution A. The First Stage – The Fall of Tsardom On March 8, 1917, the first street disturbances broke out in Petrograd. It was sparked off by the shortage of bread. After a few days came the demand; ‘Down with the Autocracy’. There were red flags all over the city. Soon it spread to other cities and also to the countryside. The Tsar ordered his troops to suppress the strikers. The troops at first fired on the strikers but then refused to do so and fraternized instead. When the Petrograd troops turned to the side of these hungry strikers on March 10, it meant that the army which had been used to preserve the autocratic monarchy would not protect the Tsar. On March 12, the Tsar ordered the Fourth Duma to suspend its sessions. The Duma refused to obey the orders. Since both the upper and lower classes did not accept the rule of the Tsar, his rule was over. The top generals of the army informed the Nicholas II that the well-being of the nation and the successful pursuit of war required his abdication so in order to pacify the discontent of his people he renounced the throne in favour of his brother Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich (1878–1918). The latter, however, decided against accepting the crown saying that he would do so only at the request of a future constituent assembly. The provisional government, except for the addition of the socialist leader Kerensky, was made up of the same liberal leaders who had organized the progressive bloc in the Duma in 1915. The prime minister, Prince Lvov, was a wealthy landowner and a member of the Constitutional Democratic (or Cadet) party, which favored an immediate constitutional monarchy and ultimately a republic. Lvov was largely a figurehead; the outstanding personality in the government was Milyukov (1859–1943), minister of foreign affairs and strongest leader of the Cadet party since its founding in 1905. He played the principal role in formulating policy. Kerensky, the minister of justice, who had been leader of the Trudovik (“laborite”) faction in the Duma, was the only representative of moderate socialist opinion in the provisional government. But his brother knew that there was widespread hatred of Tsardom. Thus on March 16, 1917, the Romanov dynasty came to an end and Russia lost the pivot around which its political life revolved for three centuries (1613-1917). The March Revolution was a spontaneous revolution set off by the lower classes. It came as a result of their deep-seated hatred of the Tsars who deprived them of political freedom, and brought them severe economic sufferings and military defeats. The First World War brought the dissatisfaction of the Russians to a head. The Russian masses made the revolution impulsively without any leadership from the revolutionary parties. 63 B. The Second Stage – Dual Power (dvoevlastie) (1) Two Parallel Developments On March 12, a group of Duma deputies, rejecting the Tsar's order to dissolve, constituted a Provisional Government and assumed the interim responsibility for public order. On March 11, the hungry strikers and the Petrograd troops had set up the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Workers and soldiers in other places followed their example and also set up soviets to take over functions of local governments. These soviets were popularly elected by the masses and so enjoyed more popular support than the Provisional Government which represented the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landlords. This situation was one of ‘dual power’. The Provisional Government, formed under the premiership of Prince Lvov, was recognized as the legal authority by both the foreign governments and the soviets in Russia. The foreign governments recognized the Provisional Government because it advocated those democratic principles close to British and American democracy. The soviets accepted the legality of the Provisional Government on condition that it did not go against the aims of the soviets. A curious situation arose: the Provisional Government ruled the country with full support only of the middle classes; the soviets got the majority support from the people but did not want to rule the country. Thus, the rule of the Provisional Government had to depend upon the conditional support of the soviets. (2) The Attempts of the Provisional Government to Preserve Its Own Power The Provisional Government tried to strengthen its authority by various means but all of her efforts gave more chances for the political opponents to attack it. (i) The granting of political freedom- Many of the members of the Provisional Government were middle-class liberals. They believed in political democracy. Thus the Provisional Government granted an official pardon to political prisoners, cancelled the discriminatory legislation, introduced the eight-hour day, legalized strikes, and granted freedom of the press, speech and assembly. The ethnic minorities received autonomy. The political prisoners were allowed to return to Russia. Thus the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had full freedom to attack the Provisional Government as soon as they returned from their exiles. (ii) Compromise with the Soviets-The Petrograd Soviet declared that it would support the Provisional Government if it approved the latter's action. On March 14, the Soviet issued the Army Order No. 1. According to this order, the soldiers should send their representatives to the Petrograd Soviet should elect their own committees to run their military units and should take orders only from the Petrograd Soviet. In short, the Provisional Government had to share her control of the Russian army with the Petrograd Soviet. Since the Petrograd Soviet did not encourage the army to fight and so there was a further decline in the fighting spirit of the army. (iii) The continuation of the war-The Provisional Government decided to continue the war. They still thought that if they could win the war, they could gain the support of the Russian people. Moreover, they hoped to honor their international obligations with the Allied countries-Britain and France, for example, the Anglo-Russian Entente and the French-Russian Alliance. . Besides all these, the Provisional Government hoped to get Constantinople. Thus the Provisional Government fought many battles in May and June, although the Russian army was unwilling to fight. 64 In July, the Russian forces were mobilized for a 'July offensive in Galacia'. Russian forces suffered heavy losses. People at the front and behind the front turned to the Bolsheviks because they demanded the immediate ending of the war. (iv) The calling of the Constituent Assembly-Soon after the March Revolution, the Provisional Government promised to call a Constituent Assembly to be elected by universal manhood suffrage. The general public hoped that the election for the Constituent Assembly would be held as soon as possible. The peasants expected that once the Constituent Assembly was called, it would legalize the confiscation and distribution of the landlords' estates. To the great disappointment of the Russian people, the Provisional Government hesitated to call the Constituent Assembly due to the turmoil within the country. Meanwhile the prices of food and other daily necessities continued to rise, this turned many Russians against the Provisional Government. To sum up, the Provisional Government which had support from the upper and middle classes could only prolong its rule by getting the support from the masses. The continuation of the war and the failure to tackle with the economic questions of the day alienated the masses from the Provisional Government. Under this situation, any political party professing to satisfy these needs of the masses would be welcomed and could easily seize political power. The Bolsheviks led by Lenin seized this opportunity. C. The Third Stage – Lenin’s return (April 1917) and internal split within the Provisional Government (August 1917) (1) Lenin's Return- When the March Revolution broke out, the prominent leaders of the Bolshevik Party were in exile. In April, Lenin returned to Russia with the help of the German government because the latter thought that they could make use of Lenin's anti-war propaganda to weaken the Provisional Government's will and ability to fight38. As expected, Lenin immediately launched his antiwar attack on the Government upon his arrival at Finland Station in Russia. He demanded the Provisional Government to give 'All power to the Soviets'39. He convinced his Bolshevik supporters that the seizure of power by the soviets would be the signal for a European-wide socialist revolution. To prepare for the seizure of power, his Bolshevik supporters set out to win support from the masses in the soviets. Up to June, their efforts were not very successful. When the First All Russian Congress of Soviets met in the capital, the Social Revolutionaries (285 deputies) and the Mensheviks (245 deputies) still dominated the soviets40. The Bolsheviks had 105 deputies in the Congress. From June onwards the situation began to change. A number of moderate Socialists took part in the Provisional Government. Kerensky, a leading member of the Social Revolutionary 38 Being a socialist, Lenin adopted an antiwar policy during the First World War. He advocated that the First World War was a fight among the capitalistic government for influence and power. The workers should not assist them. As a proponent of withdrawing Russia from the Great War, the Germans were willing to facilitate Lenin's passage back via a 'sealed train'. 39 Other demands of Lenin included the speedy conclusion of the war without annexation, the renunciation of all secret diplomatic agreements, the control of factories by workers and the immediate seizure of land by peasants.) 40 Soon after the Revolution, the soviets of the masses came under the control of the Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. 65 Party, even became the Prime Minister of the government. He was responsible for continuing to send the poorly-equipped troops into battle and inviting the Mensheviks to take part in the administration. Thus the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks were discredited in the eyes of the Russian people as they were identified with the unpopular Provisional Government. Although the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks represented the interests of the people but they failed to realize that the time was ripe for the socialist revolution i.e. the second stage of the revolution. They did not see that the bourgeoisie was already in opposition to a further progress of the revolution. Only the Bolsheviks realized all this. They were the only political party to give voice to the aspirations of the people and put forward the demand of the time. The popularity of the Bolshevik Party rose as a result of its antiwar policy. They demanded land for the peasants; workers control over industries; the right of nations to self-determination; and above all bread. ‘Peace! Land! Bread! Democracy!’ became the popular slogans. Thus the Bolsheviks had a popular base. (2) Lenin's setback- The Bolsheviks were soon involved in a spontaneous rising of the workers in July. Kerensky immediately seized this opportunity to suppress the Bolshevik Party. Lenin escaped to Finland and Trotsky was imprisoned41. The Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, was suppressed. The growing influence of the Bolsheviks came to a halt for a short while, but soon the Bolsheviks had their chance to seize power again.The Bolsheviks quickly revived their influence when the Provisional Government had to make use of the military support of the Bolshevik workers in Petrograd to defeat a coup d'etat by a right-wing politician named Kornilov in August42. D. The Fourth Stage-The November Revolution (September-November 1917) Kornilov's coup, combined with more battle defeats by the Germans and the failure of the government to solve the economic problems of the workers and peasants, produced a decisive swing of opinion in Petrograd towards the Bolsheviks. In September, the Bolsheviks, for the first time, won a majority in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Trotsky, released from prison, was elected as the President of the Petrograd Soviet. Seeing that the prestige of the Provisional Government was at its lowest ebb, Lenin made the decision to seize power on October 20. A 'Military Revolutionary Committee' was set up for the coup d'etat. On November 6, under the direction of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Red Guards and the regular troops occupied the key points in Petrograd. (The regular troops in Petrograd and Moscow were won over because of the propaganda against the war policy of Lvov and Kerensky.) The Provisional Government, like the Tsarist government before them, offered almost no resistance. Kerensky escaped from Russia and power passed to the soviets. On November 7, in the evening, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met in Petrograd and approved by a two-thirds of the coup. (Lenin had manipulated the Congress in such a way as to dominate it.) The Congress elected the Council of People's Commissars as the 41 Trotsky was a Marxist and for a long time worked as an independent revolutionary in Russia. Before 1914 he had attempted to bring about great cooperation between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, but he failed. In 1917, after the March Revolution, he returned from exile in America. In July, he decided to join the Bolsheviks. 42 The right-wing politicians believed that a left-wing revolution was imminent. So Kornilov decided to move his troops towards Petrograd. He wanted to set up a military dictatorship to forestall a left-wing revolution. 66 executive body of the Soviets. Lenin was the Chairman of the Commissars, Trotsky was the Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Stalin was the Commissar for Nationalities43. Summary of the 1917 Revolutions The two revolutions in 1917 were of different character. The first was a spontaneous revolution made by the masses. They hated the reactionary monarchy for its suppression of personal liberty and its general backwardness. The Provisional Government, soon set up, consisted chiefly of liberal bourgeoisie44. They wanted to create a democratic republic similar to that of the United States and France. They wanted to give to the Russians those political liberties and civil liberties as enjoyed by the Western countries. They regarded Russia as an ally of the western democratic nations and deemed it necessary to continue the war against Germany. But the middle class had neglected the land hunger and war-weariness of the masses. The masses gradually turned to the Bolsheviks. The peasants welcomed the Bolsheviks' slogan 'peace, land and bread'. The workers welcomed the Bolsheviks slogan 'All power to the Soviets'. Popularity of the Bolsheviks increased when there was rapid inflation at home and more military defeats at the front. The number of party members increased tenfold between January and August 191745. When the Provisional Government was digging its own grave by an internal split in August, Lenin made use of his well-organized and highly disciplined party to seize power at once46. Lenin's coup d'etat was a planned revolution and his intention was to set up a socialist society in Russia. This was how the first communist government set up in the world. 43 Stalin arrived from Siberia after the March Revolution and took a leading role in carrying out the coup d'etat. 44 The Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks joined the Provisional Government only after July 1917. The Bolsheviks had 200,000 members in August. 45 46 The other socialist parties (the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries) had a wrong belief that their historical hours had not yet arrived. They allowed the bourgeois government to stay in power. They still thought a socialist revolution would only take place after a period of bourgeois rule. 67 Brief Chronology Leading to Revolution of 191747 Date(s) Event(s) 1855 Start of reign of Tsar Alexander II. 1861 Emancipation of the serfs. 1874–81 Growing anti-government terrorist movement and government reaction. 1881 Alexander II assassinated by revolutionaries; succeeded by Alexander III. 1883 First Russian Marxist group formed. 1894 Start of reign of Nicholas II. 1898 First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). 1900 Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR). 1903 Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Beginning of split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. 1904–5 Russo-Japanese War; Russia loses war. 1905 Russian Revolution of 1905. January: Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg. June: Battleship Potemkin uprising at Odessa on the Black Sea October: general strike, St. Petersburg Soviet formed; October Manifesto: Imperial agreement on elections to the State Duma. 1906 First State Duma. Prime Minister: Peter Stolypin. Agrarian reforms begin. 1907 Second State Duma, February–June. 1907 Third State Duma, until 1912. 1911 Stolypin assassinated. 1912 Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik/Menshevik split final. 1914 Germany declares war on Russia. 1915 Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself Commander in Chief. Progressive Bloc formed. 1916 Food and fuel shortages and high prices. 1917 Strikes, mutinies, street demonstrations lead to the fall of autocracy. 47 Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918. It was twelve days behind the Gregorian calendar during the 19th century and thirteen days behind it during the 20th century. 68 Expanded chronology of Revolution of 1917 Gregorian Date Julian Date Event January Strikes and unrest in Petrograd February February Revolution March 8th February 23rd International Women's Day: Strikes and demonstrations in Petrograd, growing over the next few days. March 11th February 26th 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square. Tsar Nicholas II prorogue the State Duma and orders commander of Petrograd military district to suppress disorders with force. March 12th February 27th Troops refuse to fire on demonstrators, desertions. Prison, courts, and police stations attacked and looted by angry crowds. Okhranka buildings revolutionaries. set on fire. Garrison joins Petrograd Soviet formed. Formation of Provisional Committee of the Duma by liberals from Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets). March 14th March 1st Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet March 15th March 2nd Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional Government formed under Prime Minister Prince Lvov. April 16th April 3rd Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April Thesis May 3rd–4th April 20th–21st "April Days": mass demonstrations by workers, soldiers, and others in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow triggered by the publication of the Foreign Minister Miliukov's note to the allies, which was interpreted as affirming commitment to the war policies of the old government. First Provisional Government falls May 18th May 5th First Coalition Government forms when socialists, representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to enter the cabinet of the Provisional Government. Kerensky, the only socialist already in the government, made minister of war and navy. 69 June 16th June 3rd First All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies opens in Petrograd. Closed on 24th. Elects Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK), headed by Mensheviks and SRs. June 23rd June 10th Planned Bolshevik demonstration in Petrograd banned by the Soviet. June 29th June 16th Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian forces. Initial success only. July 1st June 18th Official Soviet demonstration in Petrograd for unity is unexpectedly dominated by Bolshevik slogans: "Down with the Ten Capitalist Ministers", "All Power to the Soviets". July 15th July 2nd Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks. July 16th–17th July 3rd–4th The "July Days"; mass armed demonstrations in Petrograd, encouraged by the Bolsheviks, demanding "All Power to the Soviets". July 19th July 6th German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attack. Russians retreat in panic, sacking the town of Tarnopol. Arrest of Bolshevik leaders ordered. July 20th July 7th Lvov resigns and asks Kerensky to become Prime Minister and form a new government. Established July 25th. August 4th July 22nd Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested September 8th August 26th Second coalition government ends September8th–12th August 26th– 30th "Kornilov mutiny". Begins when the commander-in-chief of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov, demands (or is believed by Kerensky to demand) that the government give him all civil and military authority and moves troops against Petrograd. September 13th August 31st Majority of deputies of the Petrograd Soviet approve a Bolshevik resolution for an all-socialist government excluding the bourgeoisie. 70 September 14th September 1st Russia declared a republic September 17th September 4th Trotsky and others freed. September 18th September 5th Bolshevik resolution on the government wins majority vote in Moscow Soviet. October 2nd September 19th Moscow Soviet elects executive committee and new presidium, with Bolshevik majorities, and the Bolshevik Viktor Nogin as chairman. October 8th September 25th Third coalition government formed. Bolshevik majority in Petrograd Soviet elects Bolshevik Presidium and Trotsky as chairman. October 23rd October 10th Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed uprising. October 24th October 11th Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until October 13th. November 2nd October 20th First meeting of the Military Revolutionary Committee(MRC) of the Petrograd Soviet. November 7th October 25th October Revolution is launched as MRC directs armed workers and soldiers to capture key buildings in Petrograd. Winter Palace attacked at 9:40pm and captured at 2am. Kerensky flees Petrograd. Opening of the 2nd AllRussian Congress of Soviets. November 8th October 26th Second Congress of Soviets: Mensheviks and right SR delegates walk out in protest against the previous day's events. Congress approves transfer of state authority into its own hands and local power into the hands of local soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies, abolishes capital punishment, issues Decree on Peace and Decree on Land, and approves the formation of an allBolshevik government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as chairman. Impact of the Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. The revolution and its consequences remains a living topic, attitudes towards it being woven into the fabric of liberal capitalist self-justification and into socialist ideas of all varieties, not least the shrill polemics of radical groups which trace their lineage back to one form of 71 Bolshevism or another. It has very much been a case of ‘tell me what you think of the Russian revolution and I’ll tell you who you are.’48 The revolution that Lenin led marked one of the most radical turning points in Russia’s history: it affected economics, social and political structure, international relations, and most any other benchmark by which one might measure a revolution. Although the new government would prove to be at least as repressive as the one it replaced, the country’s new rulers were drawn largely from the intellectual and working classes rather than from the aristocracy—which meant a considerable change in direction for Russia. Economic Impact The Russian Revolution radically altered Russia’s economic structure. It meant an end of private property, and the change to ownership of all property by the state. It also established the control of workers over industries. There was an introduction of centralised economy keeping in mind the needs of the whole country, especially the working people. Through a centralised economy they sought to guarantee a much faster pace of economic development and the fruits of that development to a vast majority of the people. Through it they sought to prevent an anarchy in production, and also avoid wastage. The First Five Year Plan, however was introduced much later but planning was an important contribution of Russian Revolution to the world. The Decree of Land envisaged the immediate abolition of landed estates(including crown, monastery, and churchn lands) and their transfer to the peasantry for hereditary use. Small private farms however still existed there. Social Impact The Russian Revolution also destroyed the roots of social inequality. It laid the foundations of a classless society. The new social set-up was formed on the basis of equality, justice and Communism. “Everyone according to his ability and everyone according to his work” was the principle that was followed now. It narrowed the gap between the salaries of the workers and the owners of the factories. A step of tremendous significance was the publication of the Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia by the constitution. These included, among others, the right to self-determination, an eight-hour working day, and insurance against unemployment. It also guaranteed certain social benefits to all citizens, such as free medical care, free and equal education for all, equal access to culture and cultural advancement. All this was gradually made available to the people as production and infrastructure for these provisions were being simultaneously created. The roles of Russian women have changed drastically because of the revolution. The women were given more freedom and therefore were successful in achieving independence followed by a higher standing in society. Before the 1917 revolution, women were treated to be beneath men in almost every aspect in life. However, due to active women’s right movements, and more opportunities the war gave them, women were finally able to declare their independence and be appreciated as individuals. The Bolsheviks came to power with the idea of liberation of women and transformation of the family. They were able to equalize women’s legal status with men’s by reforming certain laws such as the Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship ratified in October 1918 which allows both spouses were to retain the right to their own property and earnings, grant children born outside wedlock the same rights as those born within, and made divorce available upon request. Equality for women was also envisaged in the constitution. There was a provision for six-month maternity leave, crèches and public canteens at 48 Dr. Christopher Read, Review Article, Writing the History of the Russian Revolution 72 places of work. All this was aimed at making possible greater participation of women in public life. These measures had a great impact on capitalist societies. In order to meet the challenges of the socialist society, they were also forced to grant certain welfare schemes. In fact the concept of a welfare state in the west was a direct response to the Russian Revolution. The Revolution also separated religion from politics. Religion was made a purely private affair. No religious education was imparted in the educational institutions and no public utility was given in the name of religion. Political Impact The Russian Revolution resulted in the establishment of a state of the working people embodied in the notion of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. It was recognized that the opponents of the revolution could still harm the interests of the people. The Russian Revolution was infact immediately followed by the intervention of many other countries on the side of Russian nobility and bourgeoisie against the revolution and workers of Russia. Therefore, it was essential, for sometime, to have a political system dominated by the working class. But this state was much more democratic than the states of bourgeois countries because it guaranteed the rule of the majority (i.e. workers) over a minority which held civil liberties in the pre-revolutionary Russia. Thus bourgeois democracy was thus to be transformed into socialist democracy. Impact of the Revolution on World The Bolshevik revolution was by no means a specifically "Russian" phenomenon. As Lenin was later to put it, Bolshevism had become "World Bolshevism" by virtue of its revolutionary tactics, theory and program. By indicating the "right road of escape from the horrors of war and imperialism…Bolshevism can serve as a model of tactics for all." The "proletariat, the soldiers and peasants lined up against the bourgeoisie." This was the essence of the Russian Revolution. October was not a coup conducted by a secretive and elitist band. Above all, the revolution was about the mobilization of the mass of ordinary Russians—workers, soldiers and peasants—in a struggle to change their world. That is to this day the most important legacy of the Russian revolution. The greatest historian of the revolution, and one of its most important participants, Leon Trotsky, described the significance of revolution: “The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business—kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new regime. Whether this is good or bad we leave to the judgment of moralists. We ourselves will take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development. The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.” Passivity gave way to self activity. As historian Marc Ferro put it, "the citizens of the new Russia, having overthrown Tsardom, were in a state of permanent mobilization." "All Russia," wrote Sukhanov, "was constantly demonstrating in those days." The Russian Revolution represented an important landmark in international relations. The Bolsheviks abolished all the old secret treaties signed by the autocracy and the Provisional Government with different countries. It was increasingly being felt that the people should have 73 the right to know what their rulers are doing and the people of any country should have the right to influence the foreign policy of their country through debate and intervention. The Revolution marked the beginning of the decline of imperialism and the rise of socialism. As the first successful socialist revolution the Russian Revolution was bound to have repercussions for the future. The world as a whole was sure to feel the onset of the completely new type of social and economic system. The Communist International or Comintern, organized on the lines of First and Second International, was the means of promoting revolutions on an international scale. The revolution ended the domination and exploitation of the peasants by the landlords. It made possible to uplift the material and cultural standards of life of the working people. It helped to destroy the old exploitative and oppressive state machine dominated by the minority of capitalists and landlords and replaced it by a new type of state-dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin and Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized without the success of the world proletariat in other countries, e.g. without German Revolution. The Bolsheviks recognized the right to self-determination including the right to succession of all the oppressed nationalities inhabiting the boundaries of the Tsarist Empire and made them equal partners in socialist construction and overcoming social and economic backwardness The Russian Revolution inspired all over the world, the struggles of the colonial people and nations for independence from the Western imperialist countries. The Indian National Movement, for example, was profoundly affected by the November Revolution. It gathered momentum and a certain direction from the Russian Revolution. The revolution acted as a catalytic agent who transformed the national movements all over the world to assume a definite shape and thus facilitated the early shattering of the stranglehold of the Western imperial power over Asia and Africa, the two continents, where their imperial supremacy was most widespread and most oppressive. By rendering active material and political assistance in anti-imperialist struggles, the revolution had greatly contributed in bringing the downfall of imperialism. Conclusion In conclusion we can say that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a movement that endorsed equality, though more economically than politically. This revolution was in part a ripple caused by the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization sharply divided society into the owners and the workers, with the latter comprising the majority of the population. This division influenced Marx's principles of socialism, which in turn inspired the Russian Revolution. In its effort to reject economic despotism, the revolution set hopes of equality for all those in the world who felt disempowered by capitalism. Today, the Western economy remains heavily capitalist; the fundamental ideas of the Russian Revolution are still followed by those who believe that a redistribution of economic power is necessary for the well-being of the working people. The 1917 Russian revolution was powerful in spreading socialist ideas and astonishing in its scope of immediate impact, but ultimately it was a failed attempt at a political and economic reform. The socialist ideals could not be achieved in practice and the communist Soviet government was dissolved in less than a century. Furthermore, in spite of the reactionary wave created by the 1917 revolution that extended until 1923, no other Marxist movement was successful in achieving or keeping real power. 74