UNIT FIVE
1914-PRESENT
The world in 1914 was clearly
dominated by European nations. Despite the rise of such powers as the
QUESTIONS OF
PERIODIZATION
20th century history is probably
the most difficult to evaluate, primarily because we are still so close to it.
We don't have the advantage of perspective that we have for earlier eras. After
all, we don't know very much yet about the chapters that follow the end of the
century, and even though some very dramatic events have occurred in the early
21st century, their meaning for the future is far from clear. However, even
with our limited perspective, the 20th century appears to have been a pivotal
one, with major changes and new patterns being established.
Major characteristics that
distinguish the time period 1914 - present include:
We
will analyze these important characteristics of the period by examining these
topics:
WAR AND DIPLOMACY
Wars
are old occurrences during world history, but 20th century wars were unique in
that they increasingly encompassed more and more of the globe. World War I
began as a European conflict that spread into other regions, but World War II
and the Cold War intensified international conflict to reach almost all parts
of the globe. A series of international organizations formed in reaction to the
wars, and provided a diplomatic alternative to world crises.
WORLD WAR I
World
War I is an important marker event in modern history because it ushers in a new
era in which the global framework changed dramatically. It also marks the
collapse of European hegemony that had been solidly in place during the
1750-1914 era.
CAUSES
The
onset of war in 1914 resulted from years of tensions among European nations:
1)
Nationalism - During the 19th century the identities of many European peoples
intensified greatly. This nationalism set the stage for World War I in two
ways:
2)
Entangling Alliances - As countries and empires built their arms,
they looked to one another for support and protection. Two hostile camps
emerged, bound by treaties that stated conditions under which nations would go
to war with one another in order to improve their chances for
self-preservation. The two major alliances were the Triple Entente (
SPARK
FOR THE WAR
In
June 1914 all of
NATURE
OF THE WAR
World
War I is often defined by the optimism that countries had going into the war in
contrast to the horror, shock, and slaughter that traumatized them by the time
the war ended in 1918. The balance of power struck in 1815 had been strong
enough to delay conflict so that no one alive in 1914 could remember the
devastation of war, and almost every nation glorified the excitement of war.
The two sides settled into the Allied Powers-(England, France, Russia, and
Italy (who switched sides at the last minute); and the Central Powers; Germany,
Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. The war was fought on two fronts:
Russia
withdrew from the war in 1917, releasing German soldiers to transfer to the
Western Front, but U.S. soldiers supplemented French and British soldiers there
so that the stalemate was finally broken, with the armistice occurring in
November 1918. The net effect of the war was the slaughter of a huge portion of
a generation of young men, primarily from Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary,
England, and France. Arguably, Europe never fully recovered from the loss.
THE
VERSAILLES TREATY
The
"Great War" is a marker event in world history because it is the
first in a series of events that led to declining European power and ascending
power for the United States and Japan. However, the Versailles Treaty at the
end of the war is almost as important event as the war itself because it
changed the nature of international relations and set the stage for World War
II.
Although
27 nations gathered at Versailles Palace in France in 1919 to shape a treaty,
men from three nations dominated the proceedings: David Lloyd George from
Britain, Georges Clemenceau from France, and Woodrow Wilson from the United
States. Russia, who had pulled out of the war in 1917, was not represented.
Woodrow Wilson came to the meetings with his plan, called the Fourteen Points,
which was grounded in two important principles:
Britain
and France came to Versailles with different motivations. After all, their
countries had suffered a great deal more from the war than the United States
had. For example, whereas Britain lost almost a million young men and France
lost almost 1,400,000, the United States lost only about 115,000. A great deal
of the war was fought on French soil, and so France suffered devastation of
cities and countryside, and even French people who were not soldiers
experienced the war first hand. As a result, George and Clemenceau were less
idealistic than Wilson. Revenge and control of Germany, who was a more
immediate threat to them than to the United States - were more important to
them.
The
treaty that resulted was a compromise among the three countries. The many
provisions include these important ones:
The
treaty was a fiasco that satisfied almost no one and infuriated many. The Turks
and Arabs of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as people of Germany's
colonies, couldn't understand why eastern European countries were created as
independent countries and they weren't. What's more the British occupied many
areas of the Middle East, and did not leave once the treaty was signed. The
League of Nations excluded Germany and Russia from membership, and the United
States Senate failed to ratify the treaty and never joined the League. As a
result, the international peace organization had very limited authority from
the beginning. However, the most immediate reaction came from Germany, who saw
the treaty as unfairly blaming them for the war and punishing them so severely
that they could not recover. Their discontent provided fertile grounds for the
rise of a demagogue that of course happened in due time.
THE ROOTS OF WORLD WAR II
World
War II is often described as Chapter 2 of the War that started in 1914. Only 20
years of peace lie in between the end of World War I and the beginning of World
War II, and in many ways the hostilities never ceased.
THE
RISE OF JAPAN
The
Meiji Restoration of the late 19th century had greatly strengthened Japan in
almost every way: militarily, politically, and economically. As the political
oligarchy imitated western imperialist success and as China's strength faded,
Japan's influence along the Pacific Rim grew. Japanese success against Russia
in the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century surprised many western
nations and proved that Japan was becoming a world power. When World War I
broke out, Japan entered on the side of the Allied Powers, and almost
immediately began to claim German territories around them. In 1915 Japan made
Twenty-one Demands of China that allowed Japan a great deal of control over
Chinese trade and production, even though China did not accept all of the
demands.
Japan
broke the post-war peace in 1931 by invading traditionally Chinese Manchuria,
clearly reflecting their intention to expand their empire at the expense of
China. This invasion angered the international community, and many nations
reacted by enacting economic sanctions, but Japan was undeterred. From there,
China itself was threatened, even after the League of Nations condemned
Japanese actions. In 1937, they began a full-scale invasion of China, and
rapidly began to control more and more of the mainland.
EXPANSIONISM
IN EUROPE
Even
as the Versailles Conference was going on, new stirrings of nationalism served
as precursors of what was to come. Italy's representative to Versailles, Prime
Minister Orlando, was called home early because his government had suffered a
coup led by Benito Mussolini. Mussolini appealed to Italian nationalism in his
quest to rebuild the glories of Ancient Rome through his military leadership.
However, most menacing of all was the Nazi movement in Germany, led by an
Austrian named Adolf Hitler.
Post-war
Struggles in Germany
After
World War I ended, Germany established a republican form of government under
the leadership of General Hindenberg, a hero from the war. However, the government
had countless obstacles in reestablishing order and stability. War debts were
crushing, vital resources in the west had been claimed by France, and inflation
became rampant as the country tried to rebuild itself after the devastation of
the war. When the Great Depression spread throughout Europe in 1929-30,
weakened Germany was the most vulnerable to its punch.
In
their desperation, Germans were open to new political solutions, including
those advocated by communism. On the other end of the political spectrum, Adolf
Hitler, an Austrian artist who had fought in World War I, attracted attention
as the leader of the German Socialist Workers Party. In a series of clever
political moves, he established his party in the Reichstag, and eventually
convinced Hindenberg to appoint him as chancellor. After Hindenberg died, he
and his "Nazi" party came to dominate German politics with promises
to restore German prosperity. That they did, but by blatantly breaking the
provisions of the Versailles Treaty. He rebuilt the army, seized the
resource-rich Rhineland from France, and played upon the loss of German pride
suffered by the humiliations of the Versailles Treaty. His Nazi state was
authoritarian and militaristic, and like Japan and Italy, also incredibly expansionistic.
German
Expansion
Under
Hitler, Germany began claiming territory around but outside its borders
established by the Versailles Treaty. The claims were backed by military force,
and at first they were only the lands that Germany believed had been unfairly
taken from them by the Versailles Treaty. But eventually Hitler's forces
attacked the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia with many German people, but
also home to Czechs and other Slavs. Finally, with this action, Hitler
experienced some reaction from the old Allied Powers.
The
Munich Agreement and the Start of the War
England
and France answered Czechoslovakia's pleas for help by calling a meeting with
Hitler in Munich in 1938. Under the leadership of Britain's Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain, the Allies reached an agreement with Hitler, infamously
known as appeasement, or giving Hitler the land he had already seized in
exchange for his promise to not take any more. Chamberlain promised the British
people upon his return home that he had achieved "peace in our time,"
but the war began the very next year when Hitler broke his promise by attacking
Poland. England and France were still war-weary from World War I, but they
reluctantly declared war on Germany. Chamberlain was replaced as Prime Minister
by Winston Churchill, who had long warned Britain about the danger posed by
Adolf Hitler.
THE
NATURE OF THE WAR
The
nations of the world aligned themselves with the Allied Powers (originally led
by Britain and France, later joined by Russia and the United States ) and the
Axis Powers (led by Germany, Italy, and Japan.) Even though the causes of World
War II were rooted in unsettled business from World I, the nature of the war
was far different from any previous conflict in world history. Some distinct characteristics
of World War II are:
All
of these characteristics combine to make World War II a total war, one that
involved almost all citizens in all countries and mobilized deadly weapons
created by the organizational capacity that accompanied industrialized
economies. Overall, at least 35 million people died in World War II.
THE
HOLOCAUST
Genocide
(ethnic based mass killings) characterized World War II. For example, the
Japanese tortured and killed as many as 300,000 Chinese citizens in Nanking
after the city had fallen. The bombings of Hiroshima killed 78,000 Japanese,
and Nagasaki killed tens of thousands more. The largest slaughter resulted from
Hitler's decision to eliminate Jews in Germany and eastern Europe resulted in 6
million deaths in concentration camps that specialized in efficient methods of
extermination. The Holocaust was an unprecedented modern genocide that also
targeted gypsies and political dissidents. The "final solution" to
the "Jewish problem" included death by gassing, electrocution, phenol
injections, flamethrowers, and machine guns. Others died in concentration camps
from starvation and medical experiments.
THE
COURSE OF THE WAR
The
war officially began in Europe with Hitler's invasion of Poland in 1939. He
used a war technique called blitzkrieg (lightning war) to quickly conquer
Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. Blitzkrieg involved
bombing civilian targets and rapidly moving troops, tanks, and mechanized
carriers. By 1940 only Britain resisted German attack. Germany could not
execute his techniques on the island nation, so the Battle of Britain was
fought primarily in the air between the Royal Air Force and the German
Luftwaffe. Germany stretched its armies when in decided to attack Russia to the
east, despite an earlier non-aggression treaty signed between the two
countries. The attack sparked Russia's entry on the Allied side in 1941, and
the Germans suffered their first defeat of the war in Stalingrad in 1942.
The
course of the war changed dramatically when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii in 1941, causing the United States to enter the war. The United States
fought in both arenas, Europe and the Pacific, and played a much larger role in
World War II than they did in World War I.
POST-WORLD WAR II INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Instead
of being settled by one sweeping peace treaty, World War II ended with many
negotiations and meetings. An important result of Allied discussions was the
formation of the United Nations, only one of many international organizations
that formed in the decades that followed World War II.
THE COLD WAR
The
Cold War describes the decades-long period after World War II that centered
around tensions between the two most powerful countries that emerged from the
war: the United States and the Soviet Union. The era marks the replacement of
European hegemony with two competing power centers. The globe during this time
was divided into three parts: the United States and its allies, the Soviet
Union and its allies, and a "Third World," of unaligned, generally less
developed countries that both "superpowers" competed to influence.
THE
ROOTS OF THE COLD WAR
The
World War II alliance between the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the United
States and Britain on the other, was based primarily on a mutual enemy:
Germany. The lack of trust between the two "sides" was apparent even
before the war was officially over at two peace conferences:
The
United States and the Soviet Union reacted by seizing control of lands that
they occupied in Asia, with the northern half of Korea controlled by the
Soviets, and the southern half by the United States. The U.S. maintained its
occupation of Japan,
China
regained most of its former territory, and the old colonial powers maintained
control in Southeast Asia. In Europe, the Soviet Union pushed its boundaries
westward, and the nations of eastern Europe (with the exceptions of Greece and
Yugoslavia) fell under Soviet domination. Since the countries of western Europe
were seriously weakened by the war, they depended on the United States to help
them maintain their democracies. The United States sent aid to them with the Marshall
Plan, a program of loans to help them rebuild their infrastructures. The
Soviets saw this as a vehicle for American economic domination, and in the
words of Winston Churchill, an "Iron Curtain" descended across
Europe, dividing east from west.
THE
ARMS RACE
The
competition between the United States and the Soviet Union extended to almost
all areas, including a race to develop space technology and attempts to gain
support from Third World countries. However, the deadliest competition came as
both countries built their nuclear arsenals. In 1949 the Soviet Union developed
the atom bomb, and from that point until the 1980s, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.
introduced new and increasingly powerful weapons, as well as new kinds of
missile systems to develop them.
The
Cold War was at its height during the 1950s and 1960s, with people around the
globe fearing the worst, the outbreak of a third world war, but this time with
nuclear weapons that would almost certainly destroy the world. During the
1970s, both countries saw the need to compromise, and a series of negotiations
led to arms reductions. Tensions eased further during the late 1980s, partly
because the Soviet Union was on the verge of economic collapse.
NEW PATTERNS OF NATIONALISM
Nationalism
was as important a force during the 20th century as it had been in the previous
era. People under the control of imperialist nations continued to strive for
their own identities, and new, independent nations popped up in Africa, the
Indian subcontinent, and southeast Asia. Nationalist movements also were a
major cause of the late 20th century breakup of the Soviet Union, again
changing the balance of world power in the post-Cold War era.
NATIONALISM
IN AFRICA
By
the early 20th century Europeans had colonized most of the African continent.
Christian missionaries set up schools that educated a new native elite, who
learned not only skills and literacy but western political ideas as well. They
couldn't help but notice the contrast between the democratic ideals they were
being taught in class and the reality of discrimination that they saw around
them. This observation sparked nationalist movements in many places, including:
POST
WORLD WAR II STRUGGLES IN ALGERIA
World
War II was a humiliating experience for the French. Their armies had folded
under Hitler's blitzkrieg within a few days, and they had to be liberated from
German control by the other Allied powers. Both world wars devastated the
infrastructure of France, and the weak parliamentary government seemed to have
little control over the economy. Despite these hardships (or perhaps because of
them), the French were determined to hold on to Algeria and Vietnam in
Southeast Asia after World War II ended. French persistence set off major
revolts in both areas. In 1954 war in Algeria broke out with great brutality by
both sides. In reaction to the government's inability to fight the war, the
French government was totally restructured, with strong man Charles de Gaulle
taking the reins of the country as its new president. Algeria finally gained
their independence in 1962, but lingering bitterness and retaliation led to a
stream of French-sympathizers flooding into France from Algeria.
DECOLONIZATION
IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
None
of the wars for independence in sub-Saharan Africa matched the Algerian
struggle in scale. One by one native leaders negotiated treaties with their
imperialist masters, so that by the late 1960s, the African continent was
composed primarily of independent nations. A Pan-African movement was started
by Kwame Nkrumah, who in 1957 became the prime minister of Ghana, and Jomo
Kenyatta, a leader of Kenya, but the focus of nationalism was on independence
for the individual colonies.
Independence
led to many new problems for African nations. Many border disputes occurred,
since colonial boundaries often did not follow ethnic lines. The borders of
some countries, such as Nigeria and Zaire, encompassed several different ethnic
groups that struggled with one another for control of the country. Race
conflict became particularly severe in the temperate southern part of the
continent, where Europeans clashed with natives for political and economic
power. South Africa was left with apartheid, an attempt by European minorities
to keep natives in subservient, and very separate, roles in society. The
African National Congress, formed in South Africa in 1912, led a bloody
struggle against apartheid, which eventually led to success when Nelson Mandela
became the first native president of South Africa in 1994.
NATIONALISM
IN INDIA
Native
elite had formed nationalist groups in India before World War I began, and the
struggle against British control continued until India finally won its
independence in 1947. The movement was fractured from the beginning, largely
because the diversity of people on the Indian subcontinent made a united
independence movement difficult. Tensions were particularly high between Hindus
and Muslims. Muslims constituted only about a quarter of the entire Indian
population, but they formed a majority in the northwest and in eastern Bengal.
During
World War I Indians supported Britain Enthusiastically, hoping that they would
be rewarded for their loyalty. However, Britain stalled on independence, and political
tensions mounted. For the next twenty years, Indians and British clashed often
and violently, and the colony threatened to descend into chaos. The downward
spiral was halted by Mohandas K. Gandhi, a man known to his followers as
"Mahatma," the "great soul." Gandhi, educated as a lawyer
in Britain, had some unusual political ideas. He denounced violence and popular
uprisings and preached the virtues of ahisma (nonviolence) and satyagraha (the
search for truth.) He demonstrated his identification with the poor by wearing
simple homespun clothing and practicing fasting. He was also a brilliant
political tactician, and he had a knack for attracting public attention. His
most famous gesture was the Walk to the Sea, where he gathered salt as a symbol
of Indian industry, an action forbidden by the British government. Such
non-violent persistence landed him in jail repeatedly, but his leadership gave
Indians the moral high-ground over the British, who eventually agreed to
independence in 1947.
The
independence agreement was complicated because Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of the
Indian National Congress, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Muslim
League, clashed openly. Violent riots between Hindus and Muslims broke out in
Bengal and Bihar, so that the British negotiated with the two organizations to
partition India into two states. Most of the subcontinent remained under
secular rule dominated by Hindus, but the new Muslim state of Pakistan was
formed in the northwest and northeast. Independence celebrations were marred by
violence between Muslims and Hindus. The partition led to massive movements of
Indians from one area to the other, and Gandhi himself was assassinated by a
Hindu who was upset because the partition meant that he had to leave his home.
Religious conflict continued to plague the subcontinent for the rest of the
20th century.
NATIONALIST
MOVEMENTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
In
Indonesia, a nationalist leader named simply Sukarno, cooperated with the
Japanese during World War II with the hope of throwing off the colonial control
of the Dutch. Despite the Japanese defeat in the war, independence was
negotiated in 1949, and Sukarno became the dictator until he was removed by a
military coup in 1965. The British granted independence to Burma (now Myanmar) in
1948, and the United States negotiated independence with the Philippines in
1946. As in Africa, the French provided the most resistance to decolonization
in southeast Asia.
Throughout
the area, independence leaders were also drawn to communism, and French
Indochina was no exception. The Communist leader Ho Chi Minh led his supporters
against the French, capturing the colonial stronghold of Dienbienphu in 1954.
Ho Chi Minh's government took over in the north, and a noncommunist nationalist
government ruled in the south, which eventually came to be heavily supported by
the United States. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the United States waged an
unsuccessful war with North Vietnam that eventually ended in the reunification
of the country under communist rule in 1975.
NATIONALISM
IN LATIN AMERICA
Nationalism
in Latin America took the form of internal conflict, since almost all the
nations had achieved independence during the 19th century. However, most were
still ruled by an authoritarian elite. During the 20th century, many nations
experienced populist uprisings that challenged the elite and set in motion an
unstable relationship between democracy and militarism. Some teetered back and
forth between democratically elected leaders and military generals who established
power through force. Coups d'etat became common, and political legitimacy and
economic viability became serious issues.
MAJOR GLOBAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTS
World
War I not only shattered the power of European nations, it also left their
economies seriously weakened. However, after a period of post-war recession,
economic prosperity returned by the mid-1920s, most markedly in the United States.
Mass consumption rates rose for several years, fed by new technologies such as
the radio, rayon, household appliances, and the automobile. However, the stock
market crashes of 1929 put an end to the recovery in Europe as well as the boom
in the United States.
THE GREAT DEPRESSION
The
stock markets in the United States had boomed during the late 1920s, but the
optimism of investors that drove the markets upward far outstripped the
strength of the economy. When the bubble burst in October 1929, the New York
Stock Exchange tumbled, losing half of its value within days. Millions of
investors lost money, as did the banks and brokers who had lent them money. New
York banks called in their loans to Germany and Austria who in turn could no
longer pay war reparations to France and Great Britain. The series of events
led to a domino effect of crashing markets in Europe and other industrialized
countries, ushering in the deepest and most widespread depression in history.
Companies laid off thousands of workers, farm prices fell, and unemployment
rates soared. The catastrophe caused many to rethink the free-enterprise
system, and increased the appeal of alternate political and economic
philosophies, such as communism and fascism.
The
Depression had a serious effect on the global economy, with global industrial
production dropping about 36 percent between 1929 and 1932, and world trade
sinking by 62 percent. France and Britain escaped the worst by making their
colonies and dependents buy their products instead of products from other
countries. However, Germany suffered greatly. Already crippled by the
Versailles Treaty, the depression in Germany meant that half of its population
lived in poverty by the early 1930s. Japan's economy also took a nosedive,
partly because the country's economy was very dependent on exports from the
distressed international market to pay for imported food and fuel. The
Depression devastated other countries that depended on international trade,
such as Brazil and Columbia for their coffee, Argentina for its wheat and beef,
Malaya and the Dutch East Indies for their rubber, and Ceylon and Java for
their tea. Countries less dependent on international markets managed to escape
the worst of the economic malaise.
The
Depression only ended with the advent of World War II, when production demands
from the war stimulated the U.S. economy sufficiently to create jobs for
workers and sell agricultural products on the world market.
TWENTIETH CENTURY TECHNOLOGY
The
new inventions sparked by the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century
continued to develop during the 20th century. New military technologies
resulted from the two world wars, including tanks, poison gas, airplanes, jet
engines, radar, submarines, and improved weaponry. The most dramatic and dangerous
new type of weapon was nuclear, but nuclear energy also had the potential to be
harnessed for power for peaceful endeavors. When applied to industry, many of
the World War II technologies increased productivity, reduced labor
requirements, and improved the flow of information. After both world wars,
pent-up demand for consumer goods spawned new inventions for peacetime
economies. Improvements in existing technologies kept economies healthy during
the 1950s and 60s, especially as European countries began to recover from the
war. Trucks, airplanes, and trains became bigger and faster, cutting
transportation costs. Both the United States and the Soviet Union built highway
systems and airports and constructed nuclear power plants.
THE
COMPUTER AGE
One
of the most important new technologies of the 20th century was the computer. At
first they were large and very expensive, so that only large corporations,
governments, and universities could afford them. However, desktop computers
began replacing typewriters by the mid-1980s, and by century's end, computers
were smaller, more powerful, and more affordable than ever before. The internet
rapidly developed and expanded during the 1990s, and its ability to connect
computers to one another and access information transformed communications by
the early 21st century.
MULTINATIONAL
CORPORATIONS
Computers
helped make possible the proliferation of multinational corporations. As early
as the 18th century, large companies had conducted business across national
borders. However, with improved transportation and communications, these
corporations became truly international in the late 20th century with their
multinational ownership and management. International trade agreements and open
markets reinforced the trend. Many of the companies were American (General
Motors, Exxon, Microsoft) or Japanese (Honda, Sony), but by 2000 many other
multinational corporations were headquartered in countries with smaller
economies.
One
result of the growth of transnational corporations was the increasing
difficulty that national government had in regulating them. Often the companies
simply repositioned their plants and labor force by moving their bases to
countries with fewer regulations and cheaper labor. As a result, the worst
cases of labor and environmental abuses tended to occur in poor nations.
THE
PACIFIC RIM
Another
important development of the late 20th century was the increasing economic
strength of many countries and cities along the "Pacific Rim," such
as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Japan
experienced a faster rate of economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s than did
any other major developed economy, growing at about 10 percent a year. In
contrast to the American model of free enterprise, giant Japanese business
conglomerates known as keiretsu have close relationships with government. The
government supports business interests in industry, commerce, construction,
automobiles, semiconductors, and banking through tariff and import regulations.
By 1990 Japan enjoyed a trade surplus with the rest of the world that caused
many observers to believe that Japan would soon pass the United States as the
world's strongest economy. However, by 2000 the Japanese economy was slowed by
overvalued stocks and housing, speculation, and corruption.
South
Korea, as one of the Asian Tigers (along with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
Singapore), followed the model of close cooperation between government and
industry. Through a combination of inexpensive labor, strong technical
education, and large capital reserves, South Korea experienced a
"compressed modernity" that transformed the country into a major
industrial and consumer economy that, despite a recession in 1997, continued
into the early 21st century. The initial economic bursts of Singapore and Hong
Kong were based on shipping and banking and commercial services, and Hong Kong
eventually developed highly competitive textile and consumer electronic
industries. Despite the conflict with mainland China, Taiwan's economy grew
rapidly, beginning with small, specialized companies.
In
China after Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping emerged as the new
communist leader. He advocated a socialist market economic, a practical blend
of socialism and capitalism, to solve China's economic woes. By century's end,
China's economy had expanded rapidly, and by the early 21st century, China was
granted membership in the World Trade Organization, and was rapidly become one
of the most important trading nations in the world.
IDEOLOGIES AND REVOLUTIONS
Many
of the conflicts of the 20th century, including World War II and the Cold War,
represent important ideological clashes between industrialized democracies and
industrialized totalitarian powers. Two important ideologies that greatly
influenced the century were communism and fascism.
Whereas
fascism played an important role in World War II, communism sparked numerous
revolutions, including those in Russia and China.
COMMUNISM IN RUSSIA
During
World War I Russia had the largest army in the world, but its generals were
incompetent and the soldiers were poorly equipped. The war inflicted incredible
hardship on the Russian people, and by early 1917, soldiers were deserting en
masse from the war front, citizens were demonstrating, and workers were
striking. In the chaos that followed, the tsar abdicated, and a provisional government
was put in place. When the autocratic government toppled, revolutionary groups
that had been repressed for decades became active, and the communist-inspired
Bolsheviks seized control of parliament. Under the leadership of Vladimir
Lenin, Russia withdrew from the war and was named the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. After a four-year civil war, Lenin established his control over the
country, and the U.S.S.R. became the first communist regime of the 20th
century.
STALINISM
When
Lenin died in 1924, his position as General Secretary of the Communist Party
was eventually claimed by Joseph Stalin. Stalin emphasized internal
development, and set in place Five-Year Plans that set industrial goals
designed to strengthen the power of the Soviet Union. Stalin did not focus on
producing consumer goods. Instead his plans increased the output of electricity
and heavy industry, such as iron, steel, coal, and machinery. Agriculture was
collectivized, a process that abolished small private farms and forced farmers
to work on large government-controlled farms that produced food to support
industry.
Stalinism
was characterized not only by industrialization and collectivization, but by
brutal, centralized control of government that held little resemblance to
Marxist doctrine. Despite his purges of untold millions of people, Stalin did
lead the Soviet Union to industrialize faster than any country had ever done.
By the late 1930s, the U.S.S.R. was the world's third largest industrial power,
after the United States and Germany.
POST-STALIN
ECONOMIC CRISES
Russia
emerged from World War II as a superpower, largely as a result of Stalin's
focus on industrial strength. However, economic development was uneven. The
USSR produced a great army, developed a sophisticated missile program, and
participated in a "race to space" with the United States. Much money
was spent on maintaining control over satellite states, but the consumer failed
to grow. By the mid-1980s, the country was on the verge of economic collapse,
although the severity of its problems was largely unknown to outsiders. Mikhail
Gorbachev attempted to revive the country through a 3-pronged program:
The
Gorbachev reforms backfired after a conservative coup attempt in 1991. Although
the coup failed, and Gorbachev retained his position as president, the crisis
resulted in unrest that quickly brought an end to the U.S.S.R. as the republics
one by one declared their independence. By the year's end, Gorbachev had no job
because he had no country, and Russia - the largest of the republics - emerged
under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin. The 1990s saw a weakened Russia
struggling to establish a democracy and regain some of its former power.
COMMUNISM IN CHINA
Communism
emerged in the early 20th century shortly after the Bolshevik Revolution in
Russia. The Communist leader, Mao Zedong, accepted a great deal of support from
the U.S.S.R., but he did not gain control of China until 1949. Until then, the
country was ruled by nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. Mao gained strength as
a result of the Long March of 1934-5, as he and his followers evaded Chiang's
army that pursued him for thousands of miles. With the Japanese occupation of
China before and during World War II, the two men called a truce, but when the
war ended, Mao's army emerged as the stronger one, with Chiang and his
supporters finally being driven to the island of Taiwan. In 1949, Mao claimed
main land China for communism, renaming the country the People's Republic of
China.
CHINA
UNDER MAO
At
first, Mao accepted a great deal of aid from the Soviet Union, establishing
Five-Year Plans modeled after those instituted by Stalin. However, Maoism
always differed the Soviet-style communism, partly because Mao believed in the
importance of keeping an agricultural-based economy. He broke with the Soviet
Union in the late 1950s and instituted his Great Leap Forward to compensate for
the loss of Soviet aid. This program emphasized both agricultural and
industrial development, but the economy nose-dived. Mao responded with the
Cultural Revolution in 1966 - a much more profound reform in that it
encompassed political and social change, as well as economic. Mao was still
unhappy with China's progress toward true egalitarianism, and his main goal was
the purify the party and the country through radical transformation.
A
primary goal of the Cultural Revolution was to remove all vestiges of the old
China and its hierarchical bureaucracy and emphasis on inequality. Scholars
were sent into the fields to work, universities and libraries were destroyed.
Emphasis was put on elementary education - all people should be able to read
and write - but any education that created inequality was targeted for
destruction.
CHINA
UNDER DENG XIAOPING
When
Mao died in 1976, the country was on the verge of collapse, traumatized by
massive changes brought by the Cultural Revolution. His successor, Deng
Xiaoping, encouraged a practical mix of socialism and capitalism called the
socialist market economy, a tactic that brought better economic health to
China. During the late 20th century, China became more and more capitalistic
while still retaining centralized control by the government. Tensions between
economic reform and the centralized communist political system erupted into
popular disruptions, most famously at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. By
the early 21st century, China remained the largest (and one of the only)
communist-controlled country in the world, but had become increasingly
prosperous with the government openly encouraging trade with capitalist countries.
SOCIAL REFORM AND SOCIAL REVOLUTION
The
20th century saw the spread of international Marxism, as first the Soviet
Union, and eventually the People's Republic of China, sought to influence other
countries to turn to communism. Their efforts were countered by the United
States, that sought to spread capitalism and its form of democratic government.
However, by mid-century, communist parties were entrenched in countries in many
parts of the globe, especially in Latin America and Southeast Asia. As communism
supported egalitarian revolts, democratic countries of the west instituted
their own versions of social reform.
FEMINIST
MOVEMENTS
Both
World Wars had the effect of liberating western women from their old
subservient roles of the 19th century. In both cases, when men left for war,
women stepped into jobs that kept the economies going during wartime. One
effect was the granting of suffrage to women after World War I, first in the
United States, but eventually to most countries in western Europe. After World War
II, women saw no comparable gain, partly because of the Red Scare that
developed in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the United States. The fear of
the international spread of communism led to increased suspicions about
citizens' loyalty to their country, and so many responded by embracing a
traditional way of life.
After
the Red Scare faded, the feminist movement revived during the 1960s to claim
other rights than suffrage for women. One area of change came with abortion and
birth control rights, as feminists asserted that only with birth control
measures would women be able to free themselves from the age-old tendency of
"biology determining destiny." Birth control pills ensured this
freedom, and some legal protections for abortion emerged during the 1970s.
Another area of change was economic employment, which by century's end was
40-50% of the workforce in most industrialized countries. The U.S. Civil Rights
Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination on the basis of both race and sex.
BLACK
NATIONALISM
The
women's movement was spurred by a surge of black nationalism during the 1950s.
Blacks in Africa asserted themselves through independence movements that
resulted in the widespread decolonization of the era. Blacks in the United
States responded to the leadership of Martin Luther King, who relied openly on
Indian leader Mohandas Gandhis's methods of passive nonresistance and
boycotting to attain equality in the United States.
The
Soviet Union often pointed to the discrimination that black Americans experienced
as an indication of the evils of capitalism. One result was the civil rights
movement, led by King, that led to vast legal changes in the United States for
blacks. Segregation was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in
1954, and national legislation outlawed many other forms of discrimination in
1964 and 1965. During the 1980s an anti-apartheid movement in South Africa led
to similar legislation there, and eventually to the 1994 election of the first
black president, Nelson Mandela.
GLOBALIZATION OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
CULTURE
Since
the classical period, world history has involved a tension between the
differing natures of individual civilizations and the forces of interaction
that cause civilizations to share common culture, science, and technology. By
the late 20th century these two counter-trends were apparent in the
interactions of nations worldwide: globalization and fragmentation.
Globalization is an integration of social, technological, scientific,
environmental, economic, and cultural activities of nations that has resulted
from increasing international contacts. On the other hand, fragmentation is the
tendency for people to base their loyalty on ethnicity, language, religion, or
cultural identity. Although globalization and fragmentation appear to be
opposite concepts, they both transcend political boundaries between individual
countries. At the beginning of the 21st century it is possible to predict that
new homogenizing forces will further reduce variations between individual cultures
or that a new splintering among civilizations is taking place, with each region
advocating its own self-interest.
FORCES
FOR GLOBALIZATION
The
cross-cutting forces of the past century or so have increasingly homogenized
cultures. Most civilizations find it very difficult to isolate themselves from
the rest of the world since they are tied together in so many ways. Some
factors that promote globalization include:
FORCES
FOR FRAGMENTATION
All
through history, regions and civilizations have combined distinctive
traditions, experiences, and beliefs that unify them at the same time that they
set them apart from others. The late 20th and early 21st centuries are no
exception. To date, no pattern of modernization has obliterated key boundaries
between the major civilizations. Some factors that encourage fragmentation
include:
Do
supranational regional organizations such as NATO, NAFTA, OPEC, and the
European Union encourage globalization or fragmentation? The case may be argued
either way. The fact that nations within each organization must cooperate with
others may be seen as a stepping-stone to internationalism since trade and
communications barriers have decreased within the regions. From this point of
view, regional organizations represent a movement away from national
organizations toward international ones. On the other hand, it may be argued
that they are just larger units that represent conflicting regions, each with
their own loyalties and points of view that separate them from the others.
DEMOGRAPHIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES
Dramatic
changes occurred in the 20th century in migration patterns, birthrates and
death rates, and types of urbanization. Continued industrialization, expansion
of agricultural production, and technological innovations also impacted the
world's ecosystem, inspiring "green" movements to pop up in many
areas.
MIGRATIONS
Two
distinct types of migrations characterized the 20th century:
POPULATION
INCREASES
Human
reproductive and life expectancy patterns changed profoundly in the second half
of the 20th century. By the late 1960s Europe and other industrial societies
had made a demographic transition to lower fertility rates and reduced
mortality. Lower birthrates occurred as more women went to work, couples
married at later ages, and birth control methods became more effective. Death
rates declined as well, as modern medicine and better health led to increased
longevity. The number of births in the developed nations was just enough to
replace the people that died, and populations began to stabilize. Many experts
predicted that the same thing would occur in developing nations once their
industrialization process was more advanced. However, as of the early 21st
century, the demographic transition has not occurred in developing or less
developed countries around the globe.
THE
GROWTH OF DEVELOPING NATIONS
Whether
the transition will occur in the future is open to debate. However, some political
leaders of developing nations have encouraged high birth rates, thinking that a
larger population would increase political power. In other areas, cultural
patterns enforce values that support large families. Whatever the reasons, at
current rates, most of the population increases of the 21st century will almost
certainly take place in developing nations. Areas of rapid population increase
include most nations of Africa and Latin America. In Asia, the populations of
India and China have continued to grow despite government efforts to reduce
family size. In China, efforts to enforce a limit of one child per family have
led to female infanticide as rural families have sought to produce male heirs.
In India, forced sterilization led to public protest and electoral defeat of
the ruling political party. In both countries, population rates have slowed,
but the population bases are already so large that a real slowdown is unlikely
to occur in the foreseeable future.
CONTRASTING
POPULATION PYRAMIDS
Population
pyramids show the distribution of a country's population by age group and by
gender. At the beginning of the 21st century, these pyramids for industrialized
nations contrasted greatly with those of developing nations. The slow rates of
growth in industrialized nations and the contrasting rapid growth in developing
nations create strikingly different population compositions. In industrialized
nations, the percentage of older people is increasing, and the percentage of
younger people is decreasing. These differences create demands for social
security and healthcare for senior citizens that challenge the ability of a
shrinking labor pool to finance through taxes. In contrast, the populations of
young people are exploding in developing countries, resulting in job shortages
and unmet demands on the education systems. Poor nations, then, often find it
impossible to create wealth since education and jobs are in such short supply.
"GREEN"
MOVEMENTS
During
the 1960s environmental activists began movements devoted to slowing the
devastating consequences of population growth, industrialization, and the
expansion of agriculture. These "green" movements raised public
awareness of the world's shrinking rainforests and redwood trees, the
elimination of animal species, and the pollution of water and air. Predictably,
pressure on environments is greatest in developing countries, where population
is increasing the most rapidly. By the early 21st century, environmental
movements were most effectively in industrialized nations, where they have
formed interest groups and political parties to pressure governments to protect
the environment. Some governments have rewarded energy-efficient factories,
fuel-efficient cars, and alternative energy sources such as solar and wind
power. However, these movements have had less success in developing nations,
where deforestation and pollution continue to be major problems.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Although
the 20th century is so recent that our analytical perspective is limited, in
many ways the era appears to be a pivotal one, with major changes and new
patterns being established. Since 1914 two world wars and a cold war have led
to the decline of European power and the rise of the United States.
Politically, more and more nations are experimenting with democratic
governments, and authoritarian regimes appear to be on the decline. Social
inequality has been challenged on many fronts, and gender, racial, and social
class distinctions have been altered radically in at least some areas of the world.
By the early 21st century, the forces of globalization clash with those that
encourage fragmentation. Perhaps it is this dynamic that will shape our future.
Will advances in global connections, trade, and communication lead to a more
unified world, or will regional differences fragment the world in ways that
will lead to division and conflict? Both patterns have occurred in world
history, but never before has either encompassed virtually all people on earth.
Despite the fact that these tendencies are deeply rooted in time, they promise
that at least some developments of the 21st century will be new, different, and
extremely challenging.