World Wars and Totalitarian Regimes: Causes and Consequences

Posted on Jan 13, 2025 in History

Causes of World War I

  • Colonialism and imperialism
  • Competition for raw materials
  • Bloc politics
  • Alliances (France, Great Britain, Russia)
  • Central Empires (Germany and Austria)
  • Armaments race
  • Balkans: Serbia becomes independent and desires the Southern Slavs

Consequences of World War I

  • Massive loss of life and material destruction
  • Increase in military personnel and development of new weapons
  • Bombing of populations, use of submarines, and widespread hunger
  • Poor living conditions
  • Economic hardship
  • Massive population displacement, increased use of transportation, and extension of military service
  • Postwar underproduction
  • European exports substituted by Japan and the USA
  • Transformation of the political map
  • Defeated nations lost territories
  • Emergence of new political systems
  • Creation of new countries in Eastern Europe
  • Revanchism and nationalism
  • Weakness and dissatisfaction caused by peace treaties
  • Moral and cultural crisis
  • Artists marked by the crisis
  • Decline of parliamentarian systems
  • Sense of a “lost generation”
  • Women enter the labor force
  • Rise of fascism and socialist republics

The Rise of the USSR

  • 1905: Uprising forces the absolutist Tsar to share power with the parliament (Duma), but feudal obligations continue, and the society remains largely agrarian.
  • 1914: World War I begins.
  • 1917: The people, fed up with the war, overthrow the Tsar in the February Revolution. Russia becomes a republic. In October, after a communist coup d’état, Russia enters a civil war.
  • Russia withdraws from World War I.
  • 1920: The USSR, a country of republics, is formed. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is founded. Lenin’s government is based on the Soviets, and the Communist Party is the only legal party.
  • 1925: Stalin assumes power after Lenin’s death.
  • The state controls the economy, owning all land and industries, and distributes production and profits.
  • 1921: In China, Mao Zedong creates the Chinese Communist Party and begins a long process toward communism (China becomes communist in 1949).

The Great Depression: The Crash of 1929

Causes

  • Industrial overproduction in the USA
  • European industries recover and buy fewer US products
  • People invest in shares without any guarantees
  • Overproduction and insufficient buyers
  • European countries borrow heavily from the USA and find it difficult to repay the loans

The Nazi Fascist Model

  • Anti-republican (not monarchist), believing in the imperial idea of Germany, which is why Hitler called it the Third Reich
  • Anti-democratic
  • Interracial marriage forbidden
  • Nation defined exclusively by race (blood), not birth
  • Imperialist: “Today Germany, tomorrow the world”
  • Fascists had a powerful and authoritarian leader
  • Benito Mussolini: Member of the Italian Parliament in 1921 under the Fascist Party. They formed squads to terrorize liberals, anarchists, and communists and to break up workers’ strikes.

Key Events of World War II

  • 1939, September: Germany invades Poland, and Britain declares war.
  • 1940, June: France is defeated. German occupation begins.
  • 1941, June: Germany attacks the USSR in Operation Barbarossa.
  • 1941, December: The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The USA declares war. Japan invades Southeast Asia.
  • 1942, June: The USA achieves a Pacific victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Midway.
  • 1943, September: Italy surrenders to the Allies.
  • 1944, June: Allies land on Normandy beaches, France, on D-Day.
  • 1945, February: Allies invade Germany.
  • Yalta Conference between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.
  • 1945, May: The Russians reach Berlin. Germany surrenders. Hitler commits suicide.
  • 1945, July: Potsdam Conference between Truman, Stalin, Churchill, and Attlee to organize the peace.