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The American Nation
Chapter 27
The World War II Era,
1935–1945
Copyright © 2003 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ. All rights reserved.
Stalin’s Dictatorship in the
Soviet Union
Chapter 27, Section 1
• Lenin had set up a communist government in
the Soviet Union.
• After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin
gained power. He ruled as a totalitarian dictator.
In a totalitarian state, a single party controls the
government and people’s lives.
– Citizens do not ask questions.
– Criticism is punished.
• Stalin modernized industry and agriculture, but
his methods were brutal.
– Peasants had to hand over land and animals to
government-run farms. Millions who resisted were
Vladimir Lenin Today
Josef Stalin
Prisoners in Stalin Forced Labor
Camps
Chapter 27, Section 1
Fascism in Italy
• Benito Mussolini and his Fascist party seized power in 1922.
Fascism combined militarism, extreme nationalism, and blind loyalty
to the state.
– Fascists were supported by business leaders and landowners.
– Mussolini played on Italian anger over the Versailles Treaty, which
hadn’t given Italy all the territory it wanted after World War I.
– He also used economic unrest and fears of communist revolution.
• Mussolini outlawed all political parties except his own.
– He controlled the press and banned criticism.
– Critics were jailed or murdered.
• Mussolini promised to restore the greatness of ancient Rome.
– He began a program of military aggression. Aggression is a warlike act
by one country against another without just cause.
– In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. The Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie
Allies signing Versailles Treaty
Benito Mussolini
Some of Italy’s Forces moving
into Ethiopia
Haile Selassie
Chapter 27, Section 1
Nazism in Germany
• Adolf Hitler brought the National Socialist
German Workers’ Party, or Nazis, to power in
Germany.
• Hitler also played on anger about the Versailles
Treaty, which blamed Germany for World War I and
made them pay heavy war costs.
• Hitler blamed Jews and other traitors. Hitler was using
Jews and others as scapegoats—a person or group
on whom to blame one’s problems.
• In 1933, Hitler became head of the German
government.
National Socialist German
Worker’s Party
Adolf Hitler’s Manifesto Mein
Kampf
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler in WWI
Chapter 27, Section 1
Nazism in Germany
• Hitler preached that Germans belonged to a superior
race.
• The Nazis singled out Jews for special persecution. The Jews
were deprived of citizenship, forbidden to use public facilities,
and driven out of their jobs.
• Later, Jews were sent to concentration camps—prison camps for
civilians who are considered enemies of the state.
• In time, Hitler would unleash his plan to kill all European Jews.
• Hitler claimed that Germany had a right to expand to the
east.
• He began to rebuild Germany’s military.
• In 1936, German troops moved into the Rhineland, near
the borders of France and Belgium.
Jewish Store Guarded by two SS
Soilders, Sign says no respectable
German would shop here
The Nazi’s labeled all Jewish
Stores
Jewish students are made fun of,
writing says the Jews are the
enemy
Piling in Train Cars off to
Concentration Camps
Chapter 27, Section 1
Military Rule in Japan
• Japan suffered in the Great Depression. People grew
impatient with their democratic government, and military
leaders took power.
• Like Hitler, these leaders preached racial superiority.
• Military rulers set out to expand into Asia.
• In 1931, Japanese forces seized Manchuria in northeastern
China. Manchuria was rich in coal and iron.
• The Japanese set up a state in Manchuria called Manchukuo.
• China called on the League of Nations for help.
• The League condemned Japanese aggression but did little else.
• The United States refused to recognize Manchukuo but took no
Japanese Forces Invading
Manchuria
Japan Stressed Military
Superiority
League of Nations
Japanese Emperor Hiro Hito
Chapter 27, Section 1
American Isolationism
In the United States, the isolationist mood of the 1920s continued.
Americans were determined to keep from becoming involved.
Neutrality
Acts
• In 1935, Congress passed the first of a series of Neutrality
Acts, which banned arms sales and loans to countries at war.
• Congress also warned Americans not to travel on ships of
countries at war.
Good
Neighbor
Policy
• In 1930, President Hoover had rejected the Roosevelt
Corollary. He said that the United States no longer claimed
the right to intervene in Latin American affairs.
• Franklin Roosevelt moved toward building friendlier relations
with Latin America. Under his Good Neighbor Policy,
American troops withdrew from Nicaragua and Haiti.
• The United States also canceled the Platt Amendment, which
had limited Cuban independence.
US Neutrality
Cartoon Illustrating
Appeasement
Cartoon Illustrating Good
Neighbor Policy
Chapter 27, Section 2
Aggression in Asia
In 1937, Japan began an all-out war against
China.
• Japanese planes bombed China’s major cities.
• Japanese troops occupied northern and central
China.
The Japanese advance into China alarmed
American leaders.
• They thought it would undermine the Open Door
Policy, which promised equal access to trade in
China.
Japanese Invasion of China
Japan Moving toward China
Chapter 27, Section 2
Aggression in Europe
In 1938, Germany annexed Austria.
– This action violated the Treaty of Versailles.
– Britain and France took no action.
Later in 1938, Hitler claimed the Sudetenland, the western
part of Czechoslovakia. He said that many people of
German heritage lived there.
– Britain and France had signed treaties to protect Czechoslovakia but
did not want to go to war.
– In September, leaders of Britain, France, Italy, and Germany met in
Munich. At this Munich Conference, Hitler promised that Germany
would take no further territory once it had the Sudetenland.
– Britain and France agreed. This practice of giving in to aggression in
order to avoid war is known as appeasement.
German Troops Welcomed in the
Annexation of Austria
Leaders Leaving the Munich
Conference
Chapter 27, Section 2
Aggression in Europe
In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin signed the NaziSoviet Pact.
• The two rivals agreed not to attack each other.
• Secretly, they agreed to divide Poland and other
parts of Eastern Europe.
• In September 1939, Hitler launched a blitzkrieg,
or lightning war, against Poland. The Poles soon
surrendered.
• The Soviet Union seized eastern Poland. It also
invaded Finland and later annexed Estonia,
Lithuania, and Latvia.
Cartoon On Nazi-Soviet Pact
Invasion of Poland
Planes fly in over Poland in the
Blitz
German Troops entering Poland
Chapter 27, Section 2
Aggression in Europe