Modern World History Fall 2001
STUDY QUESTIONS ON COURSE LECTURES
Exams in this course will include questions on the course lectures, selected from the study questions below. It is a good idea to take notes in class during the lectures, and then later to write down answers to these questions, so that you can study more effectively for the exams. Be sure that you can provide examples that support your answers.
My lectures will sometimes include interpretations that are different from those in the course textbook. That is normal—different historians often interpret the same evidence in different ways. But interpretations are more than just "opinions"--they must be based upon evidence. Historians have to defend their interpretations by proving that the evidence supports their arguments, just as you must give evidence to support your answer on an essay exam.
Look for places where the arguments that I make in lecture differ from those made in the textbook. Compare and contrast the different interpretations; weigh them against each other. Decide which interpretation seems to fit the evidence better and makes more sense to you and why. Then you can use the evidence to develop your own interpretation. That is how historians work, and that is what I want you to do when you answer essay questions.
Navigation links to lecture study questions:
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 15
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Week I : The organizational basis of industrial capitalism and its human costs
Lecture Outline:
I. Terms: industry, industrial revolution, industrial capitalism, and laissez-faire
II. England as the cradle of the industrial revolution and industrial capitalism
a) politics and the state b) ideology c) agricultural development d) infrastructure
III. The first stage of the industrial revolution: consumable goods production
a) the textile industry as model b) from manufactory to factory c) profit, rationalization, and machines
IV. Second stage: capital goods production
a) the problem of investment b) mining and steam power c) railroad industry as model
d) economic multipliers
V. Organization and rationalization: standardization, productivity, and skills
VI. The spread of industrialization
a) 1750s-1820s (England, Belgium) b) 1830s-1870s (France, USA, Germany)
c) 1870s-1900 (Russia. Japan)
VI. Human beings as a form of capital
a) labor supply b) labor skills
Study Questions:
Why was England the first country to industrialize?
We know from the textbook that new machines and access to world-wide natural resources and trade routes were important to industrialization---what basic organizational changes made the industrial revolution possible? Explain and give examples.
Based upon the lecture and the web-linked documents for week one, explain why child labor was an important element of the labor system of early industrial capitalism.
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Week II: Revolutions in France and elsewhere—rights, liberty, and conflicts over their definition and limits
Lecture Outline:
I. The Great French Revolution, 1789-1799
A) Causes
1) rigid system of legal privileges 2) fundamental social and economic tensions
3) growth of liberal public opinion 4) state financial crisis)
B) First Phase ("moderate revolution"), 1789-1792
1) revolt of the nobility 2) the gathering of the Estates National
3) the 20 June 1789 Tennis Court Oath 4) the July 1789 Paris uprising
5) reverberations of the revolution in the provinces
6) the 26 August 1789 Declaration of Rights of Man 7) the issue of constitutional monarchy
8) the question of who exercises what rights.
C) Second Phase (radical or Jacobin revolution), 1792-1794
1) opposition to the revolution in France and abroad 2) the shift to the "left" in Spring 1792
3) war with Austria and Prussia 4) arrest of the King and the call for a republic in August 1792
4) the King executed, January 1793 5) shift further to the left, the Mountain in power
6) Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, July 1793-July 1794
a) emergency measures to mobilize the economy and society for war
b) democratization and universal manhood suffrage
c) revolutionary culture and the terror
7) the end of the radical phase, 27 July 1794
D) Third Phase (conservative reaction or Thermidorian revolution), 1794-1799
1) end to Jacobin emergency measures 2) new constitution, limits placed on voting rights
3) use of violence vs the crowd 4) the war continues 5) weakness of leadership
II. The Napoleonic Era, 1799-1815
A) Napoleon's rise to power [officer/general/First Counsel (1799-1804)/Emperor (1804-1814)]
B) the spread of liberal economic and administrative reforms
C) authoritarian rule
D) over-extension of the Empire and defeat (1808-1814)
III. Overview of 1815-1847
A) the Congress System, the Holy Alliance, and conservative stability
B) the 1830 Revolution in France and "bourgeois" constitutional monarchy
C) social change
1) who controls the land? 2) urbanization 3) the rising middle classes 4) the working classes
IV. The Revolutions of 1848
A) 1848 in France
1) the February Days and the Second Republic
a) King Louis Philippe (1830-1848) b) the 22-25 February Paris uprising
c) the revolutionary coalition d) the "social republic"
2) the coalition splits, March-May 1848
a) elections and conservative majority in April b) debates over the national workshops
c) removal of the radicals from the government d) workers demonstrations in May
3) the June Days and the end of the Second Republic
a) workers' insurrection of 22 June b) the army and repression
c) new liberal-conservative coalition
d) The Party of Order elected to power, December 1848
e) Louis Napoleon Bonaparte's coup, 2 December 1851
f) the Second French Empire (1851-1870) and authoritarianism
B) 1848 elsewhere in Europe
1) Spring: coalitions of liberal and radicals, workers and the middle class, for political reform
2) Summer: splits in the revolutionary coalitions along lines of class and nationality
3) restoration of conservative-monarchical authority
4) new liberal-conservative coalitions vs threat of revolution
5) use of gradual reforms vs threat of revolution
Study Questions:
What were the fundamental long-term and short-term causes of the French Revolution?
What forces and developments pushed the French Revolution from its moderate to its radical phase in 1789-1793, what were the aims of the radical in 1793-1794, and why did the radical revolution collapse?
In what regards did Napoleon continue the reforms begun with the 1789 revolution and in what regards did Napoleon undermine the reforms begun with the 1789 revolution?
Consider the lecture notes and the web-linked documents on 1789, 1795, and 1804: what do these three "constitutions" tell us about changes in the relationship between citizens and the government during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era?
How did the liberal conception of rights and the radical (socialist) conception of rights differ in 1848, and why did this undermine the revolutionary coalitions of spring 1848?
Consider the lecture notes and the web-linked documents on 1848 in France: given the events of 1848, why did the middle class support Louis Napoleon Bonaparte when he overthrew the Second Republic and declared himself Emperor (in December 1851)?
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Week III: The Dual Revolutions and the non-European world
I. Finish any unfinished lecture material from Week II
II. The Dual Revolutions Outside Europe: Political revolution and Latin America
A. Latin American Colonial Society circa 1800
Rule of governors from Spain and Portugal
Colonial society organized to extract resources to enrich Spain and Portugal
Large plantations using forced labor of AmerIndians and African slaves
Slave labor and slave trade fundamental to economy
Social hierarchy based upon "society of castes" (place of birth and race)
Penninsulares/Creoles/Mestizos/Mulattoes/Castizos/Zambos (etc)/Indians and Africans
Declining Spanish power
Creole support for the American and French revolutions
B. The Wars of Independence
Importance of the French revolution and Napoleonic Wars in creating opportunity for
independence
Simon Bolivar and the war in the "north"
Jose de San Martin and the war in the "south"
Brazil's path to independence without war
Mexico and the questions of social reform
Priests Hidalgo and Morelos lead fight for Indian rights
Creole-led victory means no social reform
C. Political and economic instability in the wake of independence
Failure of federalist plans
Rule of the strongmen (caudillos)
Economies weakened by war
Despite new constitutions, general opposition of elites to extending civil and political rights
Week IV (18, 20 September): Divergent responses to the rise of Euro-American power
Lecture Outline
Case Study: China (for later
comparison to Japan and to cases discussed in Bulliet)
A) Background on Imperial China:
State, Society, and Economy in the Qing [Ching] Empire circa 1800
1. State system
the middle kingdom (center of civilized world)
ancient roots, dynamics towards centralism
dynastic rule (Qing dynasty, 1660s-1911)
political thought steeped in Confusianism (Confusius, b. 551 BCE,
d.479 BCE)
a highly centralized government with a court of advisors
surrounding the Emperor
a highly developed system of civil service as basis for bureaucracy that implements imperial
edicts.
growing problem of corruption
problem of weak emperors
2. Society
multi-ethnic empire (dominant group known as Han, but Qing dynasty ruled
by Manchurians)
very large population, vast majority rural, peasants
problem of rapid population growth (275 million in 1779; 430
million in 1850)
population growth worsens existing social tensions and problems (example, serious decline in
land planted per person)
strict social hierarchy, yet mobility was possible (civil servants/ peasants/ artisans/
merchants/ various 'dregs" of society; entry into civil service means social mobility for
family)
extended family as central social institution (Confucian thought on loyalty to family and
networks of social obligations; the jai [jaiting] as basis of faith, education, social security,
economy)
3.
Economic system
small-scale peasant agriculture
agricultural boom in 1600s-1700s ends, leads to stagnation in
1800s
weak infrastructure limits growth of internal markets (also decay
of infrastructure)
cultural hostility towards and legal insecurity of trade
several significant industrial activities ("luxury"
goods in high demand in Europe)
the Canton System of trade restrictions (1760-1842):
foreigners must trade in Canton with approved Chinese merchants and with no legal
protections (highly favors Chinese)
B. The British confront China to open the China market
1. British efforts
to "open" China to trade
the McCartney mission of the 1790s
the basic problem--a trade imbalance
a solution--the opium trade
2. The first Opium
War (1840-42)
Chinese responses to the opium trade
"debate" over legalization, decision to increase criminal sanctions
Commissioner Lin and efforts to stop the Opium trade (see web-linked
document)
British military expedition and victory
Treaty of Nanking (1842)
Ends
Canton System, opens ports to
British trade, establishes British diplomatic presence, allows British to live
with families in China and trade with anyone, while protected by British law
(extra-territoriality). Also
requires that China pay an indemnity.
Study Questions:
What existing problems in China's
system of government, in its society, and in its economy weakened its ability to
respond to the threat posed by the British?
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Week V (25, 27 September): Mass politics and nationalism in Europe, 1850-1914
Lecture Outline: Conservative Rule and the Problem of Authority and Legitimacy in Second Empire France and Imperial Germany
A. Second Empire France
I. Louis Napoleon as Authoritarian and as "Reformer"
LNB skillfully combined the following practices to hold on to power and maintain the image of political legitimacy:
Police-state tactics: the police spied on all opposition political organizations, the press was censored, no opposition political gatherings were permitted, and people were jailed for political dissent.
Propaganda: LNB expertly used the state-controlled press, mass rallies, holidays, and other means to portray himself as the protector of business, the friend of the worker, and the champion of the peasantry--he created an image of himself as standing "above" all class interests and representing only the good of the nation.
Imperialist foreign policy: France expanded its colonial empire in Africa and Asia, which not only brought it economic benefits, but allowed the government to point to France's victories in Africa and Vietnam as a source of national pride--LNB claimed to be responsible for these successes and equated France's "greatness" with his rule. The aim was to get people to "rally around the flag" and use patriotism to silence dissent.
Economic development programs: under LNB, the government directly aided big business. For instance, it provided subsidies to railroad developers which meant that they would make profit no matter what the situation. The government also promoted legal changes that encourage the growth of large corporations and the dominance of corporations over several aspects of the French economy.
Social welfare reforms: under LNB, unions were eventually restored to legality [in the 1860s--they were, however, infiltrated by police spies], and the government spent large sums of money to rip down urban slums and build new, improved housing. This policy was two-edged, however--as a result, the workers' neighborhoods were destroyed and workers were resettled in the suburbs, which dispersed and diminished any potential threat of workers' rebellions. The new neighborhoods in city centers were designed in part to allow the government to stop any unrest--they featured wide streets that could not be barricaded, for instance.
II. The Decline of the Second Empire
Support for Louis Napoleon began to disappear in the mid-1860s, due to conflicts with the Catholic Church and the small business community and the re-emerging radicalism of the workers movement.
In response, and facing opposition from liberals in the parliament, LNB made a series of concessions (e.g., he restored freedom of press and limited free public assembly in 1868 and accepted parliamentary review of government policies in July 1869)
Parliament then asserted its independence in January 1870 and introduced a new liberal constitution in April 1870. Parliament criticized LNB's "timid" foreign policy regarding issue of Spanish succession, which led to tensions with Prussia.
III. Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71
On 19 July 1870, France declared war on Prussia. The war was a disaster for France, and after several major military defeats, LNB removed the Premier appointed by parliament and again assumed control over all aspects of government. On 2 September 1870, LNB was captured at the front in yet another French defeat. On 4 September, the parliament declared France a Republic (the Third Republic) and formed a "Government of National Defense." But on 19 September, the Prussians placed Paris under a state of siege. The city was blockaded and starved.
On 2 January 1871, the French government capitulated to Prussia, and asked that it be allowed to hold new elections before signing the peace treaty. Elections were held on 8 February, and a National Assembly began meeting on 12 February. On 23 February 1871, the Assembly appointed an old Liberal leader (Thiers) to form a new government. On 26 February, Thiers signed a peace treaty with the German Empire that 1) gave Germany 500 sq. miles of economically important territory (Alsace and Lorraine), with a population of 1.5 million; 2 required that France pay an indemnity. Under the treaty, German troops were to occupy Paris on 1 March 1871.
IV. The Paris Commune
On 18 March, the remaining population of Paris and the Paris National Guard refused to disarm and allow the Germans to enter the city. When ordered to do so by the government, they rebelled and seized control over the city. Thiers and the government then fled. On 19 March the people of Paris began elections for the Paris Commune, an absolutely democratic self-government. All men voted, and in most districts women voted, too. The Commune began meeting on 28 March: in addition to organizing the defense of the city, the Commune also instituted a large number of democratic social reforms. On 6 April 1871, the French government and army attacked the Commune. The Communards defended the city successfully until 21 May, when the army broke its way into the city. A week of bloody fighting followed, and on 28 May 1871 the last fighters of the Commune were killed. Over 100,000 people were then arrested: many were executed, and thousands were exiled. This was the last major popular uprising in France until the 1960s.
On 31 August 1871, Thiers was elected President of the Third Republic.
B. Imperial Germany
I. The Prussian constitutional system after 1848
Government based upon constitutional monarchy, with a parliament with two "houses" (one for commoners, one for the Junkers), in which most important power of parliament is setting the budget. The King appointed a chancellor as the "executive branch," and the King held extraordinary powers--e.g., he controlled the military and foreign policy and could disband parliament at will.
II. Prussian political culture
Main features: Junkers as conservative aristocrats and agrarian capitalists; middle class timidity. Cultural factors adding to acceptance of monarchical power: Hegelian view of the state; Martin Luther's view of the monarchy; the Prussian concept of law; the experience of 1848.
III. Bismarck and German Unification
The death of King Fredrich Wilhelm in 1861 brought a new, more activist king to power in Prussia, Wilhelm I (1861-1888). Wilhelm I considered it Prussia's destiny to unify all of Germany around Prussian power. he say the military as key to this. But the parliament, which controlled the budget, refused to approve Wilhelm's request to increase military spending. This created a constitutional crisis, which Wilhelm "solved" by appointing Otto Von Bismarck as Chancellor of the government.
Bismarck in 1862 told the parliament that Prussia's great issues would be solved by "Blood and Iron." He disbanded parliament, held new elections, and divided the opposition. He then set about building up the Prussian army and the Prussian industrial economy.
Prussia's growing power, and Prussia's efforts to build a united Germany around itself, brought it into direct confrontation with Austria. In two wars in the late 1860s (ostensibly over the northern kingdom of Holstein), Prussia defeated Austria. But it still could not bring several important southern German principalities into its "North German Confederation." This was largely because of the cultural differences between the Protestant (and increasingly industrial) North and the Catholic (and mostly agricultural) South.
In 1870-71, Bismarck and King Wilhelm used the Franco-Prussian War to pull the remaining southern principalities (except Austria!) into a united German Empire. The German Empire was declared on 21 January 1871.
III. Social tensions in the united Germany
Cultural Tensions--between the Lutheran culture of the North and the Catholic culture of the South, made worse by Bismarck's policy of "Culture Wars" against Catholicism in the 1870s
Social tensions--The Junkers and other aristocrats were politically dominant but were increasingly economically threatened. In particular, free trade policies would have undermined their positions as agricultural capitalists. The Middle Class was of growing economic importance, but still lacked real political power. The Lower Middle Class was being "squeezed" by the growth of big business. The peasants, especially in the South, were threatened by the government's cultural policies and by trade policies that favored the Junkers. The Working Class grew in numbers as the economy industrialized, and workers in Germany were very politically active. Although in the South, the Catholic political parties and trade unions had much influence among workers, in the North the most important political organization among workers was the German Social Democratic Labor Party--the socialist party founded by Karl Marx.
Political tensions: The conservative political parties--mostly supported by the Junkers and some big industrialists--rallied around Bismarck and dominated politics, but they represented only a minority of the population. Most of the middle class supported various "centerist" and liberal parties. But the Social Democrats were by far the biggest political party. By the 1890s, the socialist party had more than 1 million members. This posed a potential threat to both the government and the middle class: The socialists had as their first goal the end of Germany's authoritarian system of constitutional monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic; The socialists' longer term goal was ending capitalism and replacing capitalist society with a socialist society, in which there would be no private [or corporate] ownership of business, industry, or land.
IV. Policies to Promote Conservative Stability
Under Bismarck's leadership and even once Bismarck had been replaced in 1890, the German government followed a complex strategy to restrain social and political tensions and hold on to power. (When Emperor Wilhelm I died in 1888, the new Emperor, Wilhelm II, found himself at odds with Bismarck; after a series of disagreements, he pressured Bismarck to resign in 1890).
State support for big business: the government both became a major consumer of industrial goods (especially military industrial goods) and made legal changes that encouraged the growth of big corporate conglomerates. In particular, in made it easier to form corporations--these have the advantage of being able to raise large sums of capital by selling stock, and they protect investors from legal claims against them as individuals. In Germany, large "cartels" formed that integrated corporations vertically (so that a corporation might control all of the industries that provide it with goods and services, thereby reducing costs and increasing profits) and horizontally (so that a corporation can control many or all of the companies in a particular industry, thereby eliminating competition and increasing profits). This was in keeping with the wide-spread trend away from laissez-faire and towards "organized capitalism."
The Marriage of Iron and Rye: to protect the incomes and power of the Junkers, the state imposed high tariffs on imported grain. This raised the price of imported grain and gave an advantage to the Junkers; whose large estates specialized in crops like rye. But raising the cost of grain hurt industrialists--it meant that the cost of living for workers was higher, and that forced industrialists to pay higher wages. [It also hurt the dairy-farming peasants of the South...]. The government's pro-big business policies were in part a way of securing a "balance" between the aristocrats and the industrialists--a marriage of Iron (the industrialists) and Rye (the aristocrats).
Negative Integration: The German government and its conservative supporters used all means within their grasp to define "good Germans" as those who were loyal to the Emperor and the government. Newspapers, churches, schools, and other shapers of public attitudes all stressed that certain categories of people were "un-German"--Jews, Gypsies, Poles and other ethnic minorities, and also socialists, anarchists, and even liberals who were "too critical" of the government. The point was to pressure people to conform politically and socially.
Socialization: The institutions responsible for socializing people--for teaching individuals how to fit into society and how to behave, emphasized that one should act like a "good German"--which meant conform politically and socially and respect and accept the leadership of the conservative elites. These institutions included schools, churches, universities, fraternities, the army, etc.
Social Imperialism: The German government undertook a policy of colonial expansion in Africa and in Asia during the 1870s-1914. This "imperialism" was partly motivated by economic concerns, which we will discuss in a later lecture. But is had a domestic political goal as well--the government used Germany's various victories in the colonies and its growing influence in the world to "rally people around the flag." The idea was that they could use "patriotism" to silence political dissent.
Reforms: Bismarck (and the chancellors under Wilhelm II) understood that the socialists were popular among workers because the socialists' criticisms seemed to explain the great difficulties that workers faced in their daily lives. Bismarck outlawed almost all socialist party activities (the "anti-socialist laws" of 1878 and the anti-socialist trade union laws of 1879), but also introduced a number of social reforms designed to "take away the socialists' issues" by improving conditions for workers. These reforms included a medical treatment bill for industrial workers (1883), an accident insurance act for industrial workers (1884), and the extension of insurance to agricultural workers (1886). In 1890, when Bismarck resigned, the government lifted the anti-socialist laws. but it continued issuing social reform measures like the 1891 factory inspection act.
This combination of policies may have prevented social tensions in Germany from boiling over into revolution. But they also helped reinforce the authoritarian aspects of German political culture, promoted ultra-nationalism and intolerance towards minorities, and helped push Germany along the path that would lead to World War One, as we will see in a later lecture.
Study Questions:
In both Second Empire France and Imperial Germany, fundamentally
authoritarian governments used a combination of repression and reform to
maintain conservative stability and make themselves seem "legitimate"
in the eyes of the public, despite the absence of real democracy. What types
of policies did these two regimes follow in common? Explain these policies and give specific examples.
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Week VI (2, 4 October): Japan and China respond to crisis, 1850-1914
Part A, Japan and the Western Challenge, 1800-1910
I. State, Society, and Economy Circa 1800
a) State system based upon weak imperial government, and relatively decentralized "feudal" system of region military lords under the leader of the Shogun
Power structure=1) Emperor (largely ceremonial post after 1600); 2) Shogun (the overlord of Japan's feudal lords, who rules through an administration known as the Bakufu--regional lords swear loyalty to the Shogun); 3) Daimyo (the regional feudal lords, who rule their territories, which are called the han); 4) Samurai (the class of warrior-bureaucrats that administer each had for their Daimyo--they swear loyalty to their Daimyo).
The post of Shogun (barbarian-defeating general) was created in 1192, but became especially important when Tokugawa Ieyasu took power in 1600. Ieyasu ended Japan's long civil wars and united most of the Daimyo under the Shogun. The Shoguns after Ieyasu were linked to his family line and so the period of the Shoguns' rule is called the Tokugawa Era.
b) Society based upon a rigid hereditary social hierarchy that was much more rigid than in China. Still, the "ranking" of people in this social hierarchy reflects in part the importance of Chinese influences on Japanese culture (and in particular, the influence of Confucian concepts of social rank).
The highest social status in traditional Japan was the Samurai (but there were many different "levels" of Samurai)--the Samurai were the warrior-scholar-bureaucrats. These were hereditary castes--you were born into a Samurai family of a certain rank, and where you "fit" into the Samurai hierarchy depended upon the rank of your family. Samurai behave according to a strict code of conduct and honor; for instance, it was considered beneath a samurai's honor to participate in trading activities, to farm, or to manufacture goods [in general, a samurai could not work with his hands except as a warrior, a scholar, or a bureaucrat].
After the Samurai in social status came peasants and artisan, then merchants, then various peoples of the lowest ranks (including hereditary outcastes).
Although we do not have time to discuss this, the various sects of Buddhism in Japan as well as the native religion of Shinto were very important in the ordering of traditional Japanese social life and were closely intertwined with the Tokugawa power structure.
Also, it should be noted that although there were big differences between rural and urban culture in traditional Japan, and while there were cultural differences between various regions (esp. between Eastern and western Japan), the culture of Japan's main island (Honshu) was more or less homogeneous.
c) Japan's economy was in a state of rapid growth circa 1800
Japan had experienced almost continuous agricultural improvements since the 1600s, and these continued into the 1800s (unlike the situation in China).
Japanese agriculture and manufacturing both experienced rapid growth of market networks in the 1700s and 1800s, and there was a notable increase in specialization for the market.
A number of powerful merchant families emerged in the 1600s-1800s (for instance, the Mitsui family in Edo), whose economic influence became greater than that of the Daimyo. The Daimyo needed the merchants to handle their "business" (for instance, to store and sell rice that was collected as a form of taxation), and to provide loans (for instance, so that the Daimyo could build up their forts, purchase cannons, etc.). The growth of the "middle class" was one of the most remarkable features of late Tokugawa culture, and many of the cultural practices and arts that we associate with traditional Japan (such as Japanese theater and the Geisha districts) were largely "middle class" phenomenon.
Like the Chinese, the Japanese restricted the access that foreign merchants had to Japanese markets and goods. In the 1500s there had been a notable European presence in Japan--catholic missionaries, who converted thousands of Japanese. But the Tokugawas cracked down on foreign influences in the 1600s (and persecuted Christian Japanese as well). From the 1600s, European trade with Japan was restricted. Only the Dutch could trade in Japan, and only on a man-made island in the port at Nagasaki. This gave the Japanese the advantage in all trade (by limiting supply of Japanese goods that were in high demand in Europe).
d) Political trends by 1800 reveal that Tokugawa rule was weakening and that there was already potential for major political conflict.
One problem facing the Daimyo and the Bakufu (the Shogun's administration) was financial--most simply could not generate the tax income necessary to continue building up their military defenses and paying for their Samurai retainers. Some Daimyo became more directly involved in business activity in their Han as a result. The Shogun in the early 1800s searched for means to reform the Bakufu's finances, including cutting the level of support to samurai, but these measures failed.
The Shogun's policies of shutting Japan off from foreign influence came under criticism in the early 1800s from the "Dutch Learning" advocates (like Sakuma Shozan), who argued that Japan had to "learn from the barbarians" and called for combining "Eastern Ethics" and "Western Science."
At the same time, the rule of the Shogun came under criticism from the "Mito School" of monks and samurai, who argued that the Emperor must be "restored" to full power.
II. The Western Challenge in the Industrial Era.
a) in 1853, ships from the US Navy entered Japanese waters and the US government demanded that Japan's Emperor open ports to the US. The Japanese Shogun called for the opinions of his most trusted Daimyo, then decided to agree to the US "request" in 1854. This led to a treaty with the US that opened ports to US ships and trade in 1854, and then to the 1858 "Harris Treaty" which established an unequal relationship between the US and Japan by taking away Japan's right to set tariffs and by giving Americans the right to live, lease property, and build in Japanese port cities.
b) the opening of Japan to the US (and soon, to the major European powers, which also insisted on "unequal" treaties) produced a popular anti-western reaction in Japan. This was partly because the treaty terms led to a flow of Japanese silver out of the country, further weakening the finances of the Bakufu. Fukazawa's Autobiography provides several examples of popular anti-western sentiments in the 1850s and 1860s.
c) the foreign treaties also encouraged those (like Fukazawa) who called for even greater openness towards Western culture; the increased contact with Western culture, ideas, and goods helped fuel such arguments.
d) the issue of opening Japan to foreigners came at a time when the rule of the Shoguns was in crisis. The young Shogun, Iesada, was in very poor health and had no heir. Disputes broke out among the Daimyo over who would succeed Iesada. These disputes coincided with debates over the best means to reform the Bakufu's finances, as well as other questions.
The Bakufu's efforts at financial and military reforms failed in the late 1850s and 1860s, but several individual Han reformed successfully. The Daimyo of these "reform" "progressive" Han became leaders in a movement to restore the Emperor to power--they saw the restoration of the Emperor as a necessary first step toward creating a modern, centralized government that would institute broad economic and administrative reforms.
The dispute between "reform" Daimyo who wanted to "restore" the Emperor and those Daimyo who still supported the Shogun erupted into a civil war in 1868.
III) The Meijii Restoration
a) In 1868-69, the pro-Emperor forces and the pro--Shogun forces fought a civil war. The forces backing the Emperor won.
b) With this victory, the 16-year old Emperor Mutsuhito replaced the Shogun as the central figure in Japanese government. (The new Emperor's "throne name" was Mejii, so this is known as the Meijii Restoration.) Emperor Mutsuhito issued an oath (written for him by leading reform Daimyo) pledging that all matters of state would be decided by a legislative assembly and by public discussion; that all classes would unite to promote Japan's economic welfare; that all people would be allowed to follow their own aspirations (in other words, the old hereditary hierarchy would be replaced by a system that allowed social mobility); that Japan would cast aside "backward customs" and be ruled by law; and that Japan would seek knowledge from around the world.
c) The new government then began instituting a series of reforms designed to unite the country under imperial rule, improve state finances, strengthen the military, and promote economic development. These included: compelling the daimyo to give up their han so that all claims to territory in 1871; requiring officials to wear western clothing in 1872 and adopting the western calander in 1872; forming a central Imperial Army in 1873 that was based upon conscription; establishing monetary, banking reforms, and tax reforms in 1873; banning the Samarai from wearing ceremonial swords and reducing Samarai pensions in 1876; establishment of Tokyo University in 1877 and of other schools, including in newly-colonized territories (like Hokkaido in the north); mandatory primary education for all children required in 1900
Promises of political reform were not fulfilled until 1890, when Japan adopted a constitution based upon the Prussian constitution (Emperor has extraordinary powers, controls military and foreign policy, appoints chancellor and all ministers, can disband legislature at will or override any of its decisions; legislature based upon two houses--upper house for the former daimyo, lower house for "commoners"--suffrage was limited, so only 1/2 million men had voting rights in a country of 40 million.)
IV) Economic Growth
a) The Japanese government recognized that the Japanese merchant community was still too conservative to adopt western industrial practices, and so in the 1870s became the prime creator and owner of a wide range of industries, from textiles to arms manufacturing to railroads. The goal of government sponsorship of industry was to catch up with the West as quickly as possible.
b) in the 1880s the Japanese government sold off its industrial holdings to private industry. Most of those who took advantage of this were well-placed merchants (like the Mitsui family) and daimyo. The result was the concentration of economic power in a small number of industrial cartels (zaibatsu) that used the western style business organization (e.g., vertical and horizontal integration) and dominated Japanese industry and banking.
V) Japan as Imperialist Power
a) By the late 1870s, legal reforms in Japan had convinced the Western powers that it was now "safe" to renegotiate treaties--this brought and end to the "unequal treaties" and the west began looking at Japan as a "normal" country.
b) Wide spread acceptance of "social darwinist" attitudes among Japanese intellectuals (like Fukazawa) and officials--they see Japan as the "superior race" of Asia and Japan/s destiny as dominance of Asia.
c) Japan's need for raw materials and markets leads it to look to northern China and Korea as its "spheres of influence." Japan used the threat of military force to open Korea (a Chinese client state) to Japanese trade in the 1890s, which led to a war between Japan and China. Japan defeated China with ease, and Korea came under Japanese influence (Japan annexed Korea in 1910); Japan then forced China to sign treaties opening ports to Japanese trade under the conditions as the treaties between China and the western powers.
d) Japan exploited resources and trade in northern China and Korea, so that by 1910 Japanese companies were the largest land and business owners in Korea; in Manchuria, the Japanese built railroads and invested heavily in developing markets in China.
e) Its actions in Korea and Manchuria brought Japan into direct conflict with the Russian Empire, which considered Korea and northern China to be its own sphere of influence. This conflict led to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which Japan won. Its victory over Russia meant that Japan was the first non-Western country to defeat a Western power.
Part B: The Collapse of the Chinese Empire, 1850-1914
1) Remember main points from the lecture on China in 1800-1850 (see above)
2) China reacts to the West
Internal problems (corruption, weak leadership, out-of-control population growth, shrinking food supply, growing social problems like opium addiction)
Internal rebellions on the border lands and the Tai-Ping Rebellion (Hung Hsiu-Chuan [1814-1864]; Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace
The Self-Strengthening Movement (government effort to build up the army and the economy)
3) Carving Up China
Eating away at China's influence in Asia (French in Vietnam, British in Burma, Japanese in Korea)
European powers leasing territories in which they control the economy (spheres of influence)
4) Failed Reforms
Chinese reform movements: "liberals" (Kang Yu Wei [1858-1927]; Yen Fu [1851-1921]), conservatives (Liang Chi Choa [1873-1929]), and republican-socialists (Sun Yat Sen [1866-1925])
The Hundred Days of Reform in 1898 (Emperor Kuang Hsu, Dowager Empress Tsu Hsi)
5) Rebellion and Revolution
The Boxer Rebellion of 1900 (popular anti-foreigner movement attacked foreigners and pro-foreign Chinese, which led to an international army intervening in China)
Belated reforms in 1905-1910 (discussion of a German-style constitution in 1905, elections of provincial assemblies in 1909, convocation of national assembly in 1910)
The provinces rebell in 1911 (15 provincial assemblies rebel, the central government calls on General Yuan Shih Kai [1857-1916] to put down the rebellion, but instead he negotiates a deal with the rebels)
The Emperor (the child Pu Wei) is forced to abdicate in 1911 (The Emperor is restricted to the royal palace, Yuan Shi Kai becomes president, with the support of Sun Yat Sen and the Republicans. China is declared a republic.)
The Republican government can not consolidate power--throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the country was torn apart by regional "warlord" armies, while foreign economic control (spheres of influence) continued over many regions. The Republicans who "ruled" the country were also caught up in a long civil war against the Chinese Communist Party. In the late 1930s, Japan invaded China, worsening the country's problems. China did not have a strong central government until the Communist victory in 1949.
Study Questions: Think about this lecture on Japan and China, and the previous lecture on China. Why factors seem to have made Japan better able than China to respond to the threat of West?
______
Week VII (9, 11 October): Catch-up time
______
Week VIII (16, 18 October): Imperialism and its manifestations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
A) Capitalism and
Imperialism
1)
The relationship between colonialism and imperialism/forms of imperialist
influence
a)
colonies
(political, economic, and cultural dominance, direct control of colonial power)
b)
protectorates
(political, economic, and cultural dominance, often with “shared” political
control)
c)
spheres of
influence (economic dominance, often with indirect political control)
d)
markets for
targeted investment
e)
“markets”
for cultural dominance (example--missionary activities)
2)
Contemporary arguments explaining imperialism
a)
national pride
b)
military-strategic
necessity
c)
social
Darwinism (combines elements of Darwin’s theory of evolution with theories of
racial superiority and justifications of social and political inequality)
d)
the
“missionary imperative” and the “White Man’s Burden” (Christian
duty/obligation of the “advanced, superior races” to “civilize” the
“child-like,” “savage” non-European peoples)
e)
Economic
imperialism (markets for surplus
goods, markets for surplus capital, way to generate “super-profits” to
“buy off” the domestic working class)
Specific
arguments:
i)
Hobson.
Imperial markets for goods and investments serve the class interests of
the domestic rich are against the national interest; imperialism can be ended by
establishing real domestic democracy
ii)
Conant.
International capitalism is weakened by a glut of surplus capital
(surplus savings, surplus capacity), which drives down the value of investments
and causes depression. Imperialism is a strategy to find markets for this surplus
capital and surplus production. The
US should promote free trade (not colonialization) so that it can gain access to
markets world wide (the “Open Door Policy”).
iii)
Lenin. The capitalists use markets abroad for goods and investments
to prevent depression (here his views are similar to Conant) and then they use
the “super-profits” from imperialism to “buy off” the highly-skilled
elements of the working class—this divides the workers and prevents
revolution. The solution to this,
Lenin said, was for a socialist revolution to overthrow capitalism and end
imperialism.
B.
Imperialism in Practice
1.
Asia: example, the “spheres of
influence” in China (there are many other examples as well. See, for
instance, Bulliet, ch. 21, on British colonialism in India, and ch. 24, pp.
509-511)
2. Latin America: example of the USA in Cuba (which also involves the USA in the Philippines. See Bulliet, ch. 24, pp. 511-514).
3.
Africa:
C. Imperialism and the acceleration of great power tensions.
1. Germany as a late-comer to imperial expansion, but with economic and domestic (political) need for empire. By 1900, the German leadership was discussing the great need for a German colonial empire in Africa and in Asia.
2. German perception that it was being "shut out" of imperial expansion by the British and French.
3. German hopes that the British and French would turn against each other in the Sudan are dashed by a British-French agreement on Africa in the 1890s, and the new alliance system of England-France-Russia accentuates German fears of "encirclement."
4. Germany twice used the threat of war over Morocco (in 1905 and in 1911) in an effort to split the French-British alliance, but in both cases this failed. By 1912, the German government's inner-circle of leaders (the Emperor and his closest advisors) had decided that war was the only way that Germany could spread its power in Africa and break its "encirclement" at the hands of the British-French-Russian alliance.
Study Questions:
Be prepared to write a short essay that explains some of the economic, cultural, and political causes of imperialism and that suggests why imperialism was contributing to tensions between the great powers of Europe.
Think about this lecture material and the material in Bulliet, chapter 24. Be ready to write an essay that discusses ways in which imperialism changed the lives of people in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, with special attention to examples from Africa.
_______
Week IX (23, 25 October): World War One
I. Causes usually discussed by historians
failure of diplomacy; nationalism (esp. in the Balkans); the arms race; imperialist competition; social imperialism; the zeitgeist (the "spirit of the age"); bad decisions by national leaders
II. The breakdown of diplomacy
two alliance blocks in Europe by 1907: England-France-Russia vs Germany-Austria Hungary-Italy
tensions between Germany and the French-British over colonial expansion in Africa (see previous lecture)
tensions over the Balkans (decline of Ottoman Turkey's empire and ambitions of the Austrians--who in 1908 annexed Bosnia-Herzogovina--and the Russians; rising nationalism of the Serbians)
three wars in the Balkans in 1912-1913 involved Serbia and other Balkan states, Austria and Turkey, but Serbia's ally Russia did not directly participate
28 June 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in Sarajevo (Bosnia)
Austria declared war on Serbia, Russia declared that it would defend Serbia and began to mobilize, Germany prepared to mobilize to support Austria and declared war on Russia--this in turn drew France, England, then Italy and Turkey into the war. (Italy switched sides in 1916 and joined the British alliance; the US joined the war in 1917 on the British side)
III. Imperialism and social imperialism as causes
Frustration of German imperialist ambitions in Africa had led the German leadership to decide that it was willing to fight for wider empire
1912 meetings of Kaiser Wilhelm and his closest advisors (including Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg and industrialist Walter Rathenau) to discuss Germany's aims in the next war
German aims: German control over "middle Europe"; German colonization of Eastern Europe and Russia; German control over "middle Africa"; expanded German influence in Asia and the Middle East
Social imperialism--war as a way of preventing revolution in Germany (fear of rising Social Democratic opposition)
IV. The War
Enthusiasm for war in Fall 1914
Germany (and all other combatants) had planned on a quick victory
German advances stopped in France; trench warfare on the Western front
Initial German and Austrian victories on the Eastern front vs Russia, which was not prepared for the war; by late 1915, trench warfare on Eastern front
Ottomans enter war in late 1914; by late 1915, trench warfare on Southern front
New technologies for killing and the realities of trench warfare
1917--USA entered the war; rebellions in the French army; revolution in Russia and the near collapse of the Russian army; still no clear winner
Fall 1918--German military collapse, German military leadership lobbied for peace, vs. civilian officials (Rathenau) who wanted to continue fighting. Austria knocked out of war in early November.
9 November 1918--revolution in Berlin overthrew the Kaiser, who fled to Holland. Germany declared a Republic. New government signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. War over.
V. Domestic impacts of the war
Enormous economic and domestic dislocation (shortages, destruction, refugees, etc.)
Increased state intervention and planning in the economy to keep the war effort going (economic planning, state control over key industries, state-union-ownership cooperation in all major combatants, and esp. in Germany)
Shifts in gender roles and (in the USA) impact on race relations
Death toll (approx. 10 million dead)
Cultural shock at level of violence and death undermined faith in progress and weakened faith in democracy
VI. Revolutions
1917 Russian revolutions (Tsar overthrown in March 1917; weak provisional government; Lenin and Bolsheviks [Communists] seize power in November 1917 and held on to it to win a a 3-year Civil War [1918-1921])
1918 German revolution established a Republic, at first a Social Democratic-Liberal coalition
1918-1919, revolutions in Hungary and in Turkey
1919-1920, failed attempted Communist uprisings in Germany
VII. Break up of old empires
Austria-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman empires all broken up into several new countries
VII. The Peace Process
US government's position (President Wilson)
Paris Peace Conference of 1919
Treaty of Versailles (1919): German war guilt; German territorial loses; German colonies lost; limits placed on German military; German required to pay reparations
Similar treaties for Austria and Turkey
Creation of the League of Nations
Study questions:
What combination of factors were causes of or contributed to the outbreak of World War One?
In want basic ways did the war effect life on the "home front" in the combatant states?
________
Week X (30 October, 1 November): Failed post-war stabilization and totalitarian alternatives to liberal capitalism
WE ARE ONE WEEK BEHIND--TO CATCH UP, I AM COMBINING THE LECTURES FOR WEEK X AND WEEK XI. SEE WEEK XI NOTES!
_______
Week XI (6, 8 November): Stalinism, Fascism, Nazism
To catch up, I will lecture only on the rise of the fascist dictatorships in Europe
The Rise of the Fascist Dictatorships
I) Post WWI economic instability and stabilization
hyper-inflation
state welfare policies
USA and the Dawes Plan (1924) and Young Plan (1929)
II) Post-war instability and Fascism in Italy
Post-war inflation, unemployment, and labor unrest in the North; rural unrest in the South
Lockouts and worker takeovers of factories in 1920s
growing middle class and lower middle class support for extreme nationalists in 1920-21
Benito Mussoloni's fascist party: anti-liberalism, anti-democratic, anti-marxist; emphasis on the need to fight and struggle and on national (blood) bonds
1921 fascist gains in parliament
1922 socialists' general strike backfires, leads to more fascist influence
fall 1922, fascist victories in city council elections
1923 March on Rome, King asks Mussolini to form a new government
1924 elections give fascists control over parliament
1924-1927, fascists use violence and new laws to destroy and outlaw all political opposition
Fascists establish a state economic policy (similar to WWI state capitalism), with a multi-year economic plan. Based on the idea of "autarky"--a self-sufficient economy.
"Cult of personality" of Mussolini, "El Duce"--the dictator who must be followed blindly.
III) The German (Weimar) Republic and the collapse of democracy in Germany
Weimar Constitution (1919) and the German muilti-party democratic system
hyper inflation and economic chaos, 1919-1923
attacks on democracy from the far left (communist revolts in 1919, 1920) and from the far right (freikorps, 1920 Kapp uprising, 1923 "Beer Hall" uprising, Hitler, stab in the back myth)
1924, peak of first wave of ultra-nationalism
Dawes plan and economic stabilization
Influence of German Social Democratic Labor party in the 1920s and the "vanishing middle" in German politics by 1928
1929 NY stock market crash and world-wide depression hit Germany
Elites looking for a way to remove the socialists but can't out vote them
growing popular support for Nazis
Basic ideas of Hitler and Nazis: anti-liberalism, anti-communism, struggle as the means of uniting the "national community," Aryan racial purity, definition of "Jewish-Bolshevism" (Jews and Communists) as the great enemy of the German people, establishing a "greater Germany," repudiating the Versailles Treaty, German dominance over middle Europe and middle Africa, "living space" and German colonization in Eastern Europe
Political crisis of 1930-1932 (no one party or coalition of parties can build a majority in parliament; President Hindenburg appoints three different chancellors in a row in 1930-1932; none of these can find a way to build a majority bloc, two biggest parties are the Social Democrats and the Nazis, who are enemies. Elites want to get rid of the Social Democrats, but don't trust Hitler.
January 1933, President Hindeburg appoints Hitler as Chancellor, Hitler forms a Nazi-Nationalist government.
Study Question: What political and economic factors contributed to the rise of fascism in Italy and allowed Hitler to come to power in Germany?
_____
Week XII (13, 15 November): Nazism
Nazi Germany
I) The breakdown of democracy--the 1930-33 political crisis and the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in January 1932
II) Nazi consolidation of power in 1933-1934
Spring and early summer 1933--Reichstag fire; Hindenburg gives Hitler special emergency powers; Nazi electoral victory; "Enabling Act" allows Hitler to rule without any constitutional constraints or limits; Nazis shut down all political opposition, shut down free press, outlaw strikes, etc.
1933-1934, non-Nazi nationalists purged from government
Summer 1934, purge of Hitler's rivals from Nazi party and the "Night of the Long Knives"; death of Hindeburg and plebiscite to designate Hitler to the post of "The Leader" (August 1934)
III) Nazi political/state system
No constitutional restraints; "Fuhrer power" and working toward to Fuhrer
IV) Nazi economic policy
capitalist economic planning (multi-year state economic plans); economic autarky; emphasis on military economy; economic recovery in 1934-1936, but from late 1936 the economy shows signs of problems and consumer economy begins to decay
V) Nazi propaganda policy
function of propaganda is to convince people that they really want the Nazis and really support Nazi policies; among other methods, this involves banning access to all other ideas (book burnings, censorship); also requires tight control over educational policy and strong emphasis on propaganda aimed at youth; Hitler Youth organization
VI) Nazi social policy
"Aryan race" as master race; strengthening the race by eliminating the weak; purifying the race by removing/eliminating its "racial enemies"--in particular Jews; anti-Jewish measures; the Nuremburg Laws and the definition of Germans and Jews; first stages of Jewish policy (1933-1937) concentrate on definition, isolation, removal from public life, special taxes, etc., to pressure toward emigration; in 1938, policy turns to open violence--Crystalnight, ghettoization, concentration and work camps [and during the war, mass death camps]
VII) Nazi foreign policy aims
racial unity and building the "Greater Reich"; repudiating the Versailles Treaty; German-dominated "Middle Europe"; "living space" and the German colonization of Eastern Europe; German "Middle Africa"; the "crusade" against "Judeao-Bolshevism"
VII) Fascist and Nazi aggression in the 1930s
1935, Italian invasion of Ethiopia; Hitler repudiates the Versailles Treaty; German reoccupation of the Saar district in the east
1936, German re-militarization of the Rhineland; German-Italian aid begins for Franco and the anti-Republicans in the Spainish Civil War; German-Japanese Anti-Comintern {anti USSR} Pact
1937, Italy signs Anti-Comintern Pact
1938 March, German occupation and annexation of Austria
April-May, first crisis over the Sudetenland in Czaechoslovakia
Summer, failure of Soviet efforts to create an anti-German alliance
August-September, second crisis over the Sudetenland
29-30 September Munich Conference (leaders of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy)
1 October, German occupation of Sudetenland
1939 March, German occupation of the rest of Czechoslovakia
23 August, German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed
1 September, German invasion of western Poland
3 September, Britain and France declare war on Germany--WWII begins
Study questions: How did Hitler come to power in Germany and how did he consolidate Nazi rule?
What were the basic aims of Nazi policy toward the economy, ethnic minorities and Jews, and foreign policy?
________
Week XIII (20, 22 November): World War Two
Part I. World War Two in Europe, a brief outline
Sept. 1939, German invasion of Western Poland
1939-April 1940, "phony war"
April 1940, German invasions of Denmark and Norway
May 1940, German invasions of Netherlands, Belgium, France
June 1940, Surrender of France
June 1940-June 1941, Battle of Britain
June 1941, German Invasion of USSR
1941, beginning of US "Lend Lease" program to provide aid to England and the USSR
December 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, US at war with Japan, Germany, and Italy
Feb. 1943, Battle of Stalingrad, first major German defeat; beginning of series of major Red Army victories on the Eastern Front
May 1943, Allied victories over German and Italian forces in North Africa
July 1943, Allied invasion of Italy, opening of "second front"
December 1943, Mussolini overthrown, Italy joins Allies vs Germany
Feb. 1944, Red Army reaches Poland, pushes toward Germany
June 1944, D-Day (Allied invasion of France) begins series of battles that push Germany back on the Western Front
April 1945, Red Army in Germany, closing on Berlin from the East; US forces closing on Berlin from the West
30 April 1945, suicide of Hitler
7 May 1945, German surrender to "western" Allies; 9 May 1945, German surrender to USSR
Part II, World War Two in Asia, a brief outline
1931-1936, growing influence of military over policy making in Japan
1937, Japanese invasion of Northern China
Summer 1941, Western economic boycotts vs Japan
December 1941, Japanese attack on Western colonies and bases in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific (including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii)
1941-1945, bloody fighting in South Pacific, major naval and naval-air engagements; US strategy of "island hopping"
6 August 1945, US atomic bombing of Hiroshima
9 August 1945, US atomic bombing of Nagasaki
15 August 1945, Surrender of Japan
Death toll of WWII: 55 million dead (at least); including 28 million in USSR, 5 million in Western Europe, 5-6 million Jews, 2-3 million Poles, at least 10 million Chinese, etc.
Part 3, World War II on the home fronts
War
of Mobilization of Resources—the side best able to mobilize and sustain its
economic and human resources would ultimately prevail.
USSR Re-located resources to
the East, away from the German invasion. 2/3
of able bodied men drafted, therefore great increase in number of women in
“male” professions. Use of
nationalist rhetoric—fight in the name of saving the Homeland, not a fight in
the name of Communism.
Great Britain. War meant end of
unemployment, brought higher wages and a larger number of women in the
workplace; also an increase in taxes; blurring of class distinctions.
USA. Mass mobilization of economic
resources—by December 1942, the US was producing more war materials (guns,
tanks, bombs, uniforms, etc.) than Germany, Italy, and Japan combined; high
levels of employment, in particular for women and for African-Americans;
restrictions of civil liberties, for instance, detention of Japanese-Americans
in detention camps in the western states.
Germany. Rationing had begun in
1939, as a means of preserving limited resources; the failure to seize control
of Soviet oil fields and general turn of war vs in 1943 led to much greater
economic hardships. Hitler assigned
Albert Speer to increase centralized controls over the economy, which created
conflicts between the Nazis and the industrial elite for the first time. As a result of increased government controls, production did
increase, despite heavy allied bombing.
Nazi mobilization of labor resources included massive use of slave
laborers, mostly from Eastern Europe (Russians, Poles, and Jews).
These were worked (often to death) in factories, mines, and in
concentration camps. Many of the
largest concentration camps included factories run by private industry.
The massive work and extermination camp at Aushchwitz included an arms
factor run by the Krupp corporation, a chemical plant run by the cartel I. G.
Farbin, and a coal mine.
The Nazi policy toward Jews moved to the “final
solution”—mass killings, first in the winter of 1941-42 (in occupied Soviet
territory), then in extermination camps (in Poland and in Germany), beginning in
1942. Jews, Poles, Gypsies,
Magyars, and other “inferior races” were murdered in these camps, as were
homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists and Socialists, and other groups
defined by the Nazis as enemies. By
the end of the war, millions of Jews and Poles had died in these camps.
The Nazi regime stripped their corpses of anything that might be used for
the war effort—they tore out gold fillings and used human ashes for
fertilizer, etc. German “doctors” in the camps used captives in hideous
“experiments.” The fact that
their were death camps was widely known in Germany, yet the German people
pretended that they did not exist—even people who had regular contact and
business with the camps refused to admit their existence.
Study
question: In lecture, I said that
the Germans almost certainly could not win the war once the US entered, because
it could not compete with the resources of the Allies. Explain the basis for this argument.
________________
Week XIV (27, 29 November): Origins of the Cold War; Revolution and de-colonization in the developing world
The
Cold War—Power Struggles between the USA and the USSR in the Post-World War
Two Era
A)
The Origins of the Cold War
1)
war-time
diplomacy.
Dec.
1941, US, USSR, and England become allies in fight against the “Axis” powers
(Germany, Italy, Japan). 1941-43,
cooperation in form of Lend Lease, but much suspicion between USA and USSR.
Dec.
1943, the “Big Three” (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) meeting in
Teheran (Iran) leads to agreement on opening a second front in France, but no
agreements on post-war power distribution.
Feb.
1945, “Big Three” meeting in Yalta (USSR) to discuss post-war issues.
Agree to create the UN; agree on Soviet entry into war vs Japan; agree to
Soviet sphere of influence in Manchuria; agree to split Germany into zones of
occupation (US, French, British in West; Soviet in East); agree on need to
establish new governments in liberated Eastern European countries like Poland,
but much disagreement over who should dominate in these new governments.
July-August
1945, “Big Three” meet for the last time, in defeated Germany.
(FDR dead, replaced by Truman; Churchill beaten in elections, replaced by
Atlee; only Stalin remains...). Agree
on how to deal with Nazis and on transfer of German territory to Poland;; agree
again to divide Germany into zones; agree on reparations from the
Soviet-occupied zone; agree to divide Berlin (in the East) into east-west zones;
laid down terms for post-war settlement with Japan; agreed that Western European
countries would regain all colonies that had been seized by the Japanese
(including the French in Vietnam). Disagree
over which factions have right to form governments in Eastern Europe, esp. in
Poland.
Despite
fact that US and USSR cooperated to create the United Nations, the relationship
between the two super powers rapidly fell apart.
2)
intentions,
perceptions, and events that led to the Cold War
Soviet
goals in Europe: friendly “buffer
states” on the borders of the USSR that would provide security against future
attacks; initially, Stalin did not want these to be Communist dictatorships, and
preferred them to be multi-party leftist governments that signed treaties of
friendship and cooperation with the USSR.
US
goals in Europe: European
reconstruction to re-stabilize the world economy; an “open door” to US trade
and investment in Eastern Europe.
Perceptions:
Stalin perceived US support for particular factions in Poland (etc) as
aggressive and feared that the US was trying to isolate the USSR economically
and militarily. As tensions
mounted, and as Stalin failed in efforts to control non-communist governments in
Eastern Europe, USSR decided to keep occupation troops in region and began
setting up all-Communist governments. (1945-1947).
Truman perceived Soviet actions in Eastern Europe as aggressive and
expansionist.
Disputes
leading to Cold War:
March
1947, Truman responds to Soviet support for communist rebels in the Greek civil
war by announcing that the US would act to “contain Soviet expansionism”
(the “Truman Doctrine”).
1947,
US announced the Marshall Plan, which pumped over $12.5 billion into reconstruction of
the Western European economy—goal was to stabilize and restore the economy and
by doing so to stop the growth of popular pro-Communist sentiment (it was
accompanied by political crackdown against Communist parties in Western Europe).
US offered to include Eastern Europe and the USSR in the plan, but
required that the US have the right to inspect, oversee, and invest in the
Soviet/East European economies—Stalin rejected this.
1948,
US established a separate currency for West Germany, as a first step toward
creating a West German state. The
USSR viewed this as aggressive behavior, and in response placed a blockade on
West Berlin.
The
Berlin Crisis led to the creation of two separate German states (West and East),
which came to symbolize the division of Europe in the Cold War until 1989.
B)
Basic Outlines of Cold War Era in
Europe (up to the 1980s)
Soviet
control over Eastern Europe hardened in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The USSR formed an economic bloc with the Communist regimes in Eastern
Europe (Comecon), and used its dominance to arrange unfair trade agreements that
favored the USSR. Although the
economies of Eastern Europe produced goods of higher quality than those produced
in the USSR, their economies and standards of living lagged far behind those in
Western Europe. Also, the Soviet
Communist Party directly interfered and intervened in the activities of the
ruling Communist parties in Eastern Europe.
In general, the USSR was “conservative” in its policies toward
Eastern Europe, in that it sought to prevent change. This was in part a reaction
to Moscow’s inability to control the Communist Party in Yugoslavia, which
broke with the USSR at the end of the 1940s.
When Communist reform movement emerged, the USSR sent in troops to
overthrow them and replace them with “reliable” Communists
(examples—Hungary in 1956; Czechoslovakia in 1968).
At
the same time that the US’s Marshall Plan was helping Europe rebuild, the US
created a European-American military alliance called NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) in 1949. (The USSR
responded to this by creating and Eastern European-Soviet military
alliance—the Warsaw Pact—in 1955. Also, France did not join NATO.) In addition to this military alliance, the Western Europeans
began working toward stronger economic cooperation in the 1940s and 1950s:
in 1948, they created the OECD (Organization for European Economic
Cooperation), to reduce tariffs and coordinate industrial policies.
In 1957 several Western European countries formed the Common Market (the
European Economic Community), which further stimulated trade.
At the same time, several Western European governments stimulated their
economies by directly taking control over some industries
(“nationalization”—especially of coal, steel, railroad, automobile
building, and health care). Although
Europe lost most of its colonies in the 1960s, the European economies continued
to thrive, and by the early 1970s the Common Market was producing as much as the
US economy. This brought impressive
improvements in standards of living, and it widened the gap between the lives of
people in Western and Eastern Europe.
C)
Basic Outlines of the Cold War Era in Asia
I)
De-Colonization in Asia
In
Asia, as in Africa, Cold War rivalries between the USA and the USSR became
intertwined with the issue of de-colonization.
Once
the Japanese were defeated, the Big Three had agreed, European countries were to
regain their colonies in Asia. The
situation was more complicated than that, however—Asian nationalists who had
campaigned for independence in the 1920s-1930s and who had opposed the Japanese
now expected that their countries would gain independent status.
This was true also in South Asia, where nationalists like the Congress
Party in India (and the non-violent independence leader Mahatma Gandhi) had been
struggling against British rule in India. After
the war, the European colonial powers could or would no sustain colonial
dominance. The British withdrew
willingly from India, Burma, and other colonies in 1947-48.
(The British stayed in Malaysia until they had crushed the local
communist movement, then withdrew peacefully).
The Dutch tried but failed to re-conquer Indonesia, but failed and had to
withdraw in 1949. The French, in
contrast, refused to withdraw from French Indochina, which led to a
bitter war with Vietnamese nationalists (in particular, with the
communists led by Ho Chi Minh).
In
the years after World War Two, the USSR gave political, economic, and military
support to several political factions in Asia that were fighting against
“Imperialism” and colonialism—in particular, in Vietnam and then in
Cambodia. The USA—which had in
taken a direct role in Asian affairs by establishing a government of occupation
in Japan after the war, as a result
intervened in the internal disputes of several Asian countries (most notably,
Korea and Vietnam), in an effort to “contain” Soviet influence.
In
the wake of World War Two and the Chinese Revolution (which we will discuss in a
bit—we will also discuss Japan in a bit), Communist rule and alliance with the
USSR proved attractive to some factions in countries fighting against colonial
rule; moreover, many people in under-developed Asian countries considered the
Communist economic model to be a viable—and even superior--alternative to
capitalism. (This proved true, for
instance, of the anti-colonialist leader Ho Chi Min in Vietnam, as well as for
communist movements that tried but failed to take power in Malaysia, Indonesia,
and the Philippines.) The Soviets
did not shy from the opportunity to encourage and support new communist regimes
in Asia, and USSR became the major patron of dictatorial Communist regimes in
North Vietnam and North Korea (and later in Cambodia).
Other
factions rejected the communist model in favor of capitalism, but did not
consider democracy to be appropriate or necessary for their countries’
political system. This was in part
because of deep ethnic and religious divisions (in particular between Buddhists
and Muslims), which contributed to factionalism and unrest.
Anti-communist authoritarian rulers like Marcos in the Philippines looked
to the USA for support, and the USA—to “contain Communism” and protect US
investments--helped establish a number of anti-communist authoritarian regimes
in Asia (for instance, in the Philippines, South Korea, South Vietnam, and
Iran).
In
most countries fighting colonialism, there were also other political factions
(e.g., democratic socialists; democratic capitalists), but in South Asia these
factions had little political influence during the Cold War.
A
very few countries in Asia managed to emerge from their struggles against
colonialism as stable democracies—India (in South Asia) is the great
exception. The story of Indian
nationalists’ struggle for independence from British rule, led by the
non-violent militant Gandhi, is discussed in the Buillet textbook (pp. 554-559). Although India created a stable democracy with a growing
capitalist economy, its birth in 1947-48 was not without violence—the division
on the former British colony into a predominately Hindu India and a
predominately Muslim Pakistan led to terrible bloodshed.
(The fighting in 1946-48 took 100,0000 lives and left 3 million people
refugees. India and Pakistan have
fought a series of wars, and India also fought a brief war against China in
1960; Pakistan fought a bloody war against the independence movement in
Bangladesh in 1971.)
India
sought to balance its relations with the US A and those with the USSR (and at
points was very close to the USSR), but carefully avoided becoming aligned with
either superpower. It became one of
the founding members of the “non-aligned” movement among “developing
nations” that came into existence in the 1955.
Despite
their relative lack of democracy, serious ethnic and religious tensions, and the
ongoing problem of rural poverty, during the Cold War many Asian governments
witnessed considerable economic development.
Asia benefited from the “Green Revolution” of the 1960s—new seeds,
new crops, and new fertilizers led to agricultural surplus.
India and a few other countries developed strong manufacturing sectors. But in many countries, such as India, soaring population
growth limited economic improvement, and as a result many governments
implemented policies aimed at curbing population growth.
By the 1980s several Asian countries (in addition to Japan and China) had
emerged as major forces in the world economy. But as their economies boomed, even those that maintained
rigid authoritarian regimes witnessed an escalation in ethnic and religious
violence.
II)
Two flash points in the Cold War in Asia: Korea
and Vietnam
During
World War Two Korea—which had been annexed by the Japanese in 1910—had
formally been allied with the Japanese and the Axis powers.
In accord with the Yalta agreement (Feb. 1945), post-war Korea was
divided between a Soviet-occupied sector in the North and a US-occupied sector
in the South. The US and USSR
failed in their efforts to negotiate a reunification of Korea in 1945-48, and
instead established two separate governments:
an authoritarian Communist regime in the North and an authoritarian
anti-Communist regime in the South. In
1950 the North Koreans—supported tacitly by the USSR and urged on by the
Chinese Communists—invaded South Korea. The
UN and in particular the USA intervened against the invasion, and US troops
pushed the North Koreans back into their own territory. The US forces then crossed into North Korea.
This triggered a massive Chinese response, and the US forces were pushed
back into the south. The war dragged on for several years, but in the end the two
sides agreed to a tense truce that recognized the pre-invasion border.
For
the US, the Korean war was further proof of the USSR’s aggressive intent, and
the war did much to fuel anti-Communism in the USA and foster a US military
buildup. For “Red” China, the
Korean war proved that it was now a major actor in Asian and world affairs.
Behind-the-scenes, the war aggravated existing tensions between the
Chinese Communists and the USSR; to the USA, however, it seemed as though the
Soviets and the Red Chinese constituted one massive, monolithic Communist bloc.
Although
South Korea remained an authoritarian regime (supported by the USA) into the
1980s, it experienced considerable economic growth (in part because of massive
US and especially Japanese investment).
The South Korean economic boom contrasted sharply with the economic
misery in North Korea, which depended upon aid from the USSR for its survival.
(Since the late 1980s, reform movements have forced the South Korean
government to become more democratic; the North Koreans—no longer able to get
aid once the USSR collapsed in 1990-91—exist at the edge of starvation in
perpetual economic crisis.)
In
Vietnam, the French had tried to reestablish their colonial rule after World War
Two by fighting a vicious war against the Vietnamese nationalist movement, which
in the course of its struggle turned to the Soviets for aid and adopted
Communism as its ideology. In 1954
the Vietnamese Communists defeated the French, who were forced to withdraw.
The French then agreed to a
settlement (brokered by the Soviets and the Chinese) under which Vietnam would
be divided “temporarily” into two zones—a communist controlled zone in the
North and an anti-Communist ruled zone in the South.
The US, which feared (as President Eisenhower put it) that if Vietnam
fell to the communists the rest of Southeast Asia would fall “like dominos,”
then took the place of the French in supporting the authoritarian anti-Communist
regime in the south. The situation
in Vietnam, like that in Korea, resembled the situation in Germany—the
countries were divided between a communist sector that imposed communist economic
policy and one-party rule, and a US-backed sector with a capitalist economy.
The USA also created an Asian equivalent of NATO—the South East Asian
Treaty Organization (in 1954).
In
the late 1950s and early 1960s, the US sent large amounts of military aid and
small numbers military advisors to help sustain the corrupt (but anti-Communist)
regimes in Vietnam and in Laos; meanwhile the North Vietnamese conducted a
guerilla war against the South, aided by a funds and supplies from the USSR and
a large pro-Communist movement in the south—the Viet Cong.
Under President Kennedy (in 1961-1963), the US increased its involvement
in Indochina, sending more advisors and carrying out bombings of Communist
insurgents in Laos. In 1964 the US
military began supporting raids into North Vietnam.
The war then began to escalate. By
1966, the US had committed almost half a million ground troops to the war in
Vietnam. Despite nearly a decade of
US involvement, which included massive bombing campaigns that dwarfed the
bombing of Germany and Japan, the US and its client state in South Vietnam could
not win the war. (There is a myth
that politicians would not “let” the military win the war—there is simply
no evidence of this; it was simply a war that the US could not win...a civil war
in which foreign intervention simply intensified the conflict.)
The
Vietnam war took a terrible toll on the US; although casualties were much lower
than WWII, this war was very unpopular and divided the American people.
In Vietnam after 1975, the victorious Communists relied heavily upon aid
from the USSR, while the established a political and economic system that
closely resembled that in Communist China.
(But the relationship between the Vietnamese and the Soviets threatened
China and led to bad relations. Vietnam
and China fought a brief border war at the end of the 1970s.)
Like
the Korean War, the Vietnam War fueled Cold War tensions between the USA and the
USSR. They did not fight each other
directly; instead, the USA and USSR confronted each other in these “surrogate
wars.” Since the collapse of the
USSR, Vietnam and the USA have slowly reestablished normal relations.
The situation in Korea remains tense however, despite negotiations in the
mid-1990s that seemed to be leading toward a settlement (aimed ultimately at
re-unification).
III.
The Chinese
Revolution and Communism in China
As
I explained in an earlier lecture, the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s
had led to an uneasy truce in the ongoing civil war between the Chinese
nationalists and the Chinese communists. When
Japan was defeated, both the USA and the USSR recognized the nationalists (the
Koumintang) under Chaing Kai-shek as the legitimate government of China.
But the nationalists faced a huge opposition movement in the form of the
Chinese Communist Party, which despite the fact that it received little aid from
the USSR continued to carry out its insurgency against the nationalists. In 1945
the Communists had an army of 1 million and controlled a large portion of
China’s territory; the KMT, by comparison, was weak, poorly led, and corrupt.
Unlike the KMT, the Communists pledge to conduct land reform for the
hundreds of million poor Chinese peasants.
Mao
Zedong, leader of China’s Communists since the late 1920s, had developed a
theory of Communism that differed sharply from that of Stalin and the Soviet
Communist Party—Mao argued that it was possible to build socialism on the
basis of a peasant revolution, instead of on the workers’ revolution that had
been at the core of traditional Marxist thought.
Stalin did not show great enthusiasm for the Chinese Communists, but as
it became clear the Mao was winning the Chinese civil war, the USSR began to
provide Mao with more aid. Mao’s
Red Army defeated the Nationalists in 1949 and took control of all of mainland
China. The KMT retreated to the
island of Formosa—now called Taiwan—where they established an authoritarian
anti-Communist regime.
In
mainland China, Mao and the Communists established a Communist Party
dictatorship, and executed nearly a million political opponents in their first
years in power. They set out to
destroy the Chinese capitalist and landlord classes as well as the old educated
bureaucratic elite; they also carried out attacks against China’s many
religious movements. They adopted a
Soviet-style centralized economy in which private property was banned, the land
was “collectivized,” and heavy industry was developed through 5-year
economic plans. As in the USSR, the
government controlled all media and education, which were to be used to build a
new “socialist” world view.
Although
it received some support from the USSR, the Peoples Republic of China had an
uneasy relationship with the Soviets. When
Stalin died in 1953, that relationship began to unravel.
The Chinese rejected efforts by the new Soviet leader, Khrushchev, to
criticize the Stalinist use of terror; Khrushchev, in return, rejected as
ill-conceived Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” economic plan of 1958.
The relationship between the two countries broke down completely when
Khrushchev began negotiations with the US towards limiting nuclear weapons
testing in 1963. By the end of the
1960s, the two countries were engaged in open hostilities, and they fought a
series of brief wars along their long common border.
Soviet
criticisms of the Great Leap Forward proved valid: Mao’s effort to force the country into super-rapid
industrialization on the basis of “back-yard workshops” and massive
agricultural communes failed miserably and in fact backfired, leading to a
horrific famine in the late 1950s that lingered into the early 1960s.
The failure of the Great Leap Forward and the collapse of Soviet-Chinese
relations seriously weakened Mao’s standing in the Chinese Communist Party.
He regained and solidified his pre-eminence, however, by launching the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution at the end of 1965.
Mao
and some of his closest advisors launched the Cultural Revolution as an attack
against bureaucratization and the supposed threat of “hidden”
enemies—former government officials, former capitalists and landlords, and
“revisionists” who had supported the de-Stalinization policies of the USSR.
The goal was to purge the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state
of “time-serving” bureaucrats and to revitalize the revolution based upon
the energy of the youth—the radical “Red Guards.”
In the name of Mao and the Revolution, this quickly became a mass
“witch hunt.” Students accused their teachers and employees accused their
supervisors of various political crimes and loyal communists found themselves
accused of harboring “bourgeois” cultural attributes and thoughts.
The Red Guards organized wide-spread attacks upon the educated and
professionals. Once accused of such
crimes, one was expected to take part in “self-criticism,” confess ones
errors, and express “sincere desire” to change; hundreds of thousands of
professors, intellectuals, party officials, factory managers, etc., were then
condemned and sent to labor camps or to remote villages.
The aim of such punishments was to “purify” the consciousness of
these “corrupted” people through heavy labor.
Historians
debate whether the Cultural Revolution did, in fact, effective “level”
Chinese society by attacking the privileged elite and therefore create greater
social equality. Although it
perhaps achieved its political goals (it increased the personal power of Mao and
his inner circle by terrorizing the party and it accelerated the development of
the “Cult of Personality” around Mao), the Cultural Revolution ultimately
added to China’s economic and administrative instability.
By 1969, opponents of the policies of Mao’s inner circle within party
leadership—in particular, Deng Xioping—organized a sort of “counter
attack” and began reversing the measures of the Cultural Revolution.
Many of the Red Guard leaders and other “radicals” now found
themselves condemned as counter-revolutionaries.
In 1971 Mao admitted that the Cultural Revolution had led to
“excesses.” This turn in policy
came a critical moment in China’s relationship with the Superpowers—in 1969
it fought a border war with the USSR and relations with the Soviets became even
worse; at the same time, relations between the USA and USSR were improving,
which put pressure on the Chinese. China, in turn, opened itself to warmer relations with
the USA beginning in 1971. Although
there would be fluctuations in policy, the “moderates” around Deng appear to
have gained the upper hand in internal party conflicts.
The
results of Mao’s policies for the vast majority of China’s population—the
peasants—had been mixed. The land
reforms and literacy campaigns of the 1949-1955 period had raised the level of
peasant diets and improved health care and literacy levels. The initial policies of the Great Leap Forward had increased
employment levels in the countryside. But
the failure of Mao’s economic experiments had led to mass famine in the late
1950s and early 1960s, and by the time of Mao’s death in 1976, China’s
agricultural output and levels of individual food consumption had not increased
at all from the pre-Great Leap Forward period.
With
the death of Mao in 1976, the party leadership faction led by Deng solidified
its position and launched new policies. It
carried out a public denunciation, trial, and execution of the so-called “Gang
of Four”—Mao’s wife and other advisors said to be responsible for the
Cultural Revolution and other “crimes.”
Deng then launched what he called “China’s second revolution” with
a campaign for “Four Modernizations”—modernizing agriculture, industry,
science, and technology. This
involved a series of major shifts in the policy of China’s Communist
leadership. In particular, they now
allowed peasants to leave the huge communal farms and establish family farms
(although peasants have not received the right of private ownership of this
land). The result was a rapid
increase in the level of agricultural productivity.
The regime also allowed the introduction of elements of a free-market
system at the end of the 1970s—in particular, people now could set up
small-scale privately owned businesses. The
regime also began allowing foreign investors to set up factories and businesses
in China, although the state continued to own (and still does) most large-scale
industries. These policies of
economic “liberalization” helped turn China into an economic power in the
1980s, during which the level of personal income for the Chinese doubled.
It
is important to understand that these reforms did NOT include any sort of
political liberalization—while the Communist Party has changed its economic
policies and opened to trade and contacts with the “west,” it has not
reformed its political system. Deng
actually increased political repression while liberalizing the economy.
During the 1980s (and 1990s), China carried out a series of military
campaigns against ethnic and religious movements—including measures to crush
the movement for Tibetan independence and an ongoing war against Muslim
militants in China’s western provinces.
The
most glaring example of the Chinese regime’s hard-line opposition to political
dissent came in 1989. When economic
openness resulted in a growing movement for political reform in the late 1980s,
the government deliberately tried to slow economic growth and banned all
demonstrations. Government economic
measures created high inflation in 1988, and consumer confidence plummeted.
In response to political and economic conditions, students in Beijing
organized a massive pro-democracy protest in Tiananman Square in April-June
1989. On 4 June 1989, the Chinese government used troops and tanks
to crush the uprising; soldiers killed hundreds of student protesters.
Since
1989, the Chinese government has continued to pursue policies of economic
liberalization while refusing to permit any political dissent or make political
reforms.
IV.
Japan since 1945
During the Cold War in Asia, Japan maintained a close
alliance with the USA, and some historians have argued that the chief concern of
Cold war policies in Asia ultimately was protection of Japan.
The US military occupied Japan after the end of WWII, and
President Truman gave General MacArthur authority to create the basis for a new
Japanese political system. The US
de-militarized Japan, put many of Japan’s war-time government and military
leaders on trial as war criminals, and purged the Japanese government of almost
all war-time officials. The US then
established a new constitution for Japan, under which the executive branch would
be appointed from the majority in the democratically-elected legislature (the
Diet). The constitution guaranteed
civil rights and liberties. Under
the constitution, Japan was to be a pacifist state and could not maintain an
army. US occupation brought a
number of reforms, including greater rights for women and for unions, land
reform, and anti-trust laws to limit the power of the zaibatsu.
As the Cold War heated up (in 1948), the US dropped its focus on reform,
concentrated on a campaign against the Japanese communist movement, and helped
set up the conservative “Liberal Democratic Party” as the dominant force in
Japanese politics. In 1952 the US
ended its occupation of Japan.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the Japanese government and social
elites focused their attention almost entirely on the issue of economic
development and growth. Between
1950 and 1970, Japan’s economy grew at 300 percent the rate of the US economy.
Much of this growth came from the manufacture of cheap consumer goods.
Around 1972, the Japanese economy began to shift its focus to higher
quality electronic goods, automobiles, and “information” technologies.
This fostered even greater economic expansion.
By 1986, average individual income in Japan was higher than that in the
USA.
Japan’s economic growth was made possible in part by US
policies: the Japanese did not have
to pay for their own defense—instead, the US provided Japan’s defense. In return for stationing US military bases in Japan during
the Cold War, the US government in a sense subsidized Japanese economic
development. In addition, the Japanese government abandoned anti-trust
legislation, worked in close cooperation with the country’s major corporations
and encouraged the zaibatsu in their consolidation of economic power.
(People sometimes referred to Japan as “Japan, Incorporated.”) Growth
also relied upon protectionism—the Japanese government placed high tariffs on
imported goods. And growth built off of a social ethic that stressed the
responsibility of workers (and their company-run unions) for the success of the
company: people’s social lives
were supposed to center on their company, and in return for long hours, unpaid
overtime, and absolute devotion to the company, workers received the promise of
life-long jobs. The Japanese
government and society also placed extraordinary importance upon education:
high school students underwent (and still undergo) extreme pressure to
receive high grades on exams, so as to enter the “right” university (and
therefore have access to the best jobs). In
addition to creating a highly educated, highly productive population, the
Japanese government also succeeded during the Cold War in improving health care,
lowering the crime rate, and taking steps to reduce pollution and conserve
energy and other resources (this last point was a response to Japan’s complete
dependency on imported oil—a problem that became very clear during the 1973
world oil crisis).
Japan’s era of amazing economic growth came to an end with the
end of the Cold War. First, the
corrupt leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party suffered a series of scandals
in the late 1980s and 1990s, which undermined faith in the economy.
Then came the “burst” of the “bubble economy” of the 1980s, which
had “floated” on the basis of highly inflated real-estate prices and other
speculation, which led the Bank of Japan to raise and then drastically lower
interest rates in the 1990s. This
had the effect of crippling Japanese investments.
In addition, with the Cold War over, the US (and especially the Clinton
Administration) abandoned many of its “soft on Japan” trade policies and has
forced Japan to work in an open-market climate.
Moreover, Japan in the 1990s faced increased competition from other Asian
countries (including China), which had also begun mass-producing electronics and
other consumer goods. As a result, Japan has been in recession for more than a
decade and is still searching for a solution to its economic woes.
Study Questions:
In
discussing the origins of the Cold War, I argued that the ways in which the USA
and USSR perceived each other were as important a cause as the goals that each
superpower had and the actions that they took. Explain the main idea
behind this statement.
In what sense was US involvement in the Korean
War and in the Vietnam War an outgrowth of the Cold War?
In lecture I argued that Japan’s “economic miracle” was in a sense made possible by the Cold War, and that the end of the Cold War was related to Japan's recent economic problems. Explain the main idea behind this statement.
_________
Week XV (4, 6 December): The Cold War and the issues that it overshadowed; Globalization and its discontents
A. The Cold War Era in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America
I) Sub-Saharan Africa during the Cold War
Background: African nationalismgrew slowly, but it did emerge the decades after WWI, in response to continuing European colonial rule, economic exploitation, and social-darwinistic attitudes toward the African populations. In the 1920s and 1930s, several Black anti-colonial movements became active, but anti-colonialism proved more powerful a force than nationalism itself, since many African peoples defined themselves in ethnic, tribal) and regional terms but not as part of a "nation." Conditions in Africa worsened during the Great Depression on the 1930s, which destroyed markets for many African exports; this worsening economic condition helped fuel nationalism and anti-colonialism. WWII also added to the call for African independence from colonial rule, in particular in French colonies where African nationalists had contributed to the resistance against Nazi Germany.
After WWII, the European colonial powers were faced with a situation in Africa similar to that in Asia--should they fight to hold on to their colonies, or should they disengage peacefully? In the first decades after the war, most European colonial powers tried to hold on to their colonies; the French, for instance, put more investment into their African colonies in the 1940s and 1950s than they had during the inter-war era. But even the British, who began talking about the need for African self-government, dragged their feet when it came to ending colonial rule.
As the Europeans hesitated to end their colonial rule, a generation of European and American-educated African nationalist activists began organizing mass independence movements, the goal of which were to create nation states based upon colonial territorial boundaries.
The movements for African independence came to fruition after 1956. The British were the first European power to give up its African colonies (Ghana in 1957, then its West African colonies, then its East African colonies; the process was delayed by white settler protests in Rhodesia, which broke away from the British in 1965 and was under racially repressive all-white rule until 1980). The French, who had learned from their war in Vietnam, gave its 13 African colonies "commonwealth" status in 1958, then recognized their independence in the early 1960s. (France has retained close ties to these countries, and also has frequently intervened in their political affairs.) Belgium lost its colony in Congo after a popular uprising in 1959. The last of the European colonial powers in Africa, Portugal, lost its colonies in Mozambique and Angola in the 1970s, as a result of Soviet and Cuban-backed anti-colonial revolutions.
Angola and Mozambique are clear examples of superpower-supported conflict in Africa--in the 1970s the Cubans gave direct support to the communist movements there (and the Soviets backed up the Cubans), the USA pumped money and supplies into rebel groups. Something very similar took place in Zaire (Congo), Ethiopia, and Somalia.
New African states--like the new states in Asia--often looked for a path to economic development that differed from both American capitalism and Soviet communism, and many joined the "non-aligned movement." Although the Green Revolution did bring higher agricultural yields to African farmers, who became even more tightly enmeshed in world markets than before independence, the pace of economic growth could not overtake other endemic problems. In particular, most of Africa has experienced rates of population growth that outstripped economic growth, thus worsening poverty. Moreover, Africa has suffered from periodic draughts and recurrent wars between neighbors (e.g., Ethiopia and Somalia in the 1970s), religious civil wars (e.g., between Muslims and polytheists in Nigeria), ethnic civil wars (e.g., between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda in the 1990s), and other forms of civil war.
In general, however, most new African states managed to build national unity. This came at a cost--most abandoned democracy in favor of authoritarian or dictatorial one-party or military rule (there were 70 military coups in Africa in the 1950s and 1960s alone--20 of which succeeded).
In the post-Col War era, there has been a movement toward democratic rule in parts of Africa (most significantly, in South Africa, where all-white rule gave way to multi-race, multi-party democracy. But the ongoing problems of ethnic and religious violence have escalated during the past decade, as has poverty. In addition, Africa in the 1990s faced (and still does) a widespread epidemic of AIDS, which is killing about 10,000 people a day in Africa at a crippling social and economic as well as human cost.
II. The Middle East During the Cold War Era
Background:
nationalism and tensions between secular and religious culture in the
pre-Cold War period
The
breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI was a major turning point in the
Middle East. Many Arab leaders
expected that this would lead to independence, but instead the European colonial
powers (France and Great Britain) carved the Middle East into a number of
protectorates (see the lecture on the end of World War One), frustrating Arab
nationalism. In the 1920s and 1930s
there were nationalist riots and unrest in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, all of
which were promised independence in the “near future” by the British and
French. In parts of the Middle
East, the Europeans’ aims seem to have focused on “strategic” territorial
control (e.g., the British in Egypt); in oil rich countries like Iraq and Saudi
Arabia, the Europeans and the US did not rule directly, and were most concerned
with control over oil resources.
The
great exceptions to European dominance in the inter-war era were Turkey and
Persia (Iran). In Turkey, a
nationalist military leader, Mustafa Kemal, defeated European attempts to
control Turkey and established a secular Turkish state in 1923. Kemal then took the name “Ataturk”—“the father of the
Turks.” And promoted westernization and industrialization.
Although Ataturk proved unable to reach these goals, his was the first
(and most successful) effort to establish a Middle Eastern state in which
political power and government was completely separated from Islam.
In Persia, the army managed to prevent British dominance then named a
nationalist officer, Riza Khan, to form a new government.
Like Turkey, Iran (the named was changed in 1935) sought to modernize its
economy. Riza Khan and his son,
both of whom used the title “Shah”—“the King”—of Iran, ruled as
wealthy dictators in a country where a small elite profited from oil resources
why the majority suffered in poverty. This
social gap fueled religious opposition to the regime from the Shi’ite movement
of Islam.
World
War II broke the hold of Europe over the Middle East. In 1945, France gave up control over Syria and Lebanon, and
the British retreated from most of their territories. Britain faced a major problem in Palestine, however; the
British had promised Jews a homeland in Palestine (in 1917), yet had also
encouraged Arab nationalism in the region.
After WWII, the British tired to halt efforts of the growing (and very
economically productive) Jewish population from declaring an independent state
in Palestine, and in 1945-1948 the region was rife with religious violence,
including acts of terror by both Jews and Arabs.
In 1948 the British pulled out and Jews announced the creation of the
state of Israel. Its Arab neighbors
then attacked Israel, but in the 1948-49 war the Israelis scored a stunning
victory and enlarged their territory. Although
the Israeli state offered citizenship to Arabs who agreed to recognize
Israel’s right to exist, the vast majority of Palestine’s Arabs refused, and
Israel then force fully expelled them to Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. These refugees soon became known as “Palestinians,” and
their claim to territory in Palestine/Israel is still the basis of one of the
major disputes in the region.
After
the Israeli victory, the pace of Arab nationalism escalated and the role of the
Middle East in the Cold war became clearer.
In 1949 the USA organized a coup in Iran that put the son of Riza Khan in
power—the goal was to establish a US-backed regime in the region that would
help fight Soviet influence and protect US oil interests.
To this end, the US helped arm the Shah and helped keep him in power,
despite the brutality his dictatorship displayed toward its own people.
In 1952 a nationalist army officer, Gamal Abdel Nassar, seized power in
Egypt and established a secular, modernizing, authoritarian regime.
In 1956 Egypt seized control of the Suez Canal from Great Britain, which
led to a Cold War superpower standoff when the USSR threatened to intervene
against any British military action. In
1956-1962 the Islamic states in North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco)
won their independence from France (after much violence).
From
the 1960s to 1980, the Arab-Israeli dispute intersected with Cold War tensions
and the issue of Arab dominance of the world oil market.
The
Arab states refused to recognize the legitimacy of Israel (the only democracy in
the region), and twice mounted major wars to destroy the Israeli state—in 1967
and in 1973. In both cases, the
Israelis won overwhelming victories and actually took territory from the Arabs
including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, two territories that are the object
of bitter disputes between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israel in particular seized control over Jerusalem, a city holy to Jews,
Muslims, and Christians. The last
30 years have seen almost constant fighting between Palestinians and Israelis,
which has involved a cycle of terror and retaliation. It seemed as though there could be a break through toward
peace in 1977, when Egyptian President Sadat negotiated a peace treaty with
Israel. Sadat was killed soon
afterwards by Islamic militants, but the peace between Israel and Egypt as held.
(In
1993 the Israelis agreed to recognize the Palestinian right to self-rule in
autonomous regions (under Arafat and the PLO), and in 1994 Israel signed a peace
treaty with Jordan. But the murder
of Israeli’s peace-making leader Itzak Rabin undermined the peace process and
led to the victory the Israeli conservatives, who have opposed any concessions
to the Palestinians. At the end of
the 1990s a new Labor Party government moved Israel again toward peace, but the
current conservative leadership has chosen to use force rather than
negotiation.)
The
Arab-Israeli conflict has been intertwined with Cold War rivalries in the Middle
East and with the issue of control over oil reserves.
The
first country in the region to align itself firmly with the US was Turkey, which
in response to the “danger” posed by its northern neighbor—the
USSR—joined NATO. Israel also
became a close ally of the US (and has been the number one recipient of US aid).
The oil-producing states generally aligned themselves with the US, which
(with Japan) was their major market for oil and supported oppressive regimes
like that in Iran and Saudi Arabia when they crushed leftist domestic political
resistance. Several Arab states
initially moved toward the non-aligned movement in the 1950s, led by
Egypt—they were hesitant to side with the western alliance, since it a)
included the former colonial and imperialist powers that had recently ruled over
the regions; and b) it was allied with Israel.
Egypt and Syria both accepted military aid from the USSR in the 1960s and
1970s; Egypt renounced this policy when it signed a peace with Israel, and since
has been the number 2 recipient of US aid; Syria continued receiving Soviet
support into the mid-1980s, as did the PLO.
Essentially, the USSR provided aid and weapons to forces fighting Israel,
which was aided by the USA—again, the two superpowers did not fight each other
directly, but did so through surrogates.
In
Afghanistan, however, the Soviets did end up directly fighting in a war against
a US backed enemy. In 1979 the USSR
invaded Afghanistan in order to protect a Soviet-backed Marxist government.
The USA under President Carter and then President Reagan provided weapons
and money for anti-Soviet rebels—the so-called Mujahadeen (which Reagan and
Bush called “freedom fighters”). This
group included not only Afghani tribesmen (current members of both the Taliban
and its enemies), but also included Islamic militants Egypt and from across the
world, who were being funded by Saudi Arabia and armed by the USA.
(This includes Osama Bin-Ladin and the major figures in his terrorist
organization.) To thwart the Soviet
invasion, the US funded groups that burned hospitals, killed doctors and
teachers, and cut the hands of women who attended soviet-funded schools.
But these terrorists were fighting against the USSR, and therefore the US
government supported them no matter what their crimes.
The Soviet invasion force fought a brutal war, in which it, too,
committed atrocities. But after a
decade of all-out war in Afghanistan, after the loss of more than 10,000 dead
and may times that wounded, the Red Army pulled out in the late 1980s.
(After
the Soviets left, the US-backed forces defeated the Afghani Marxist government
and began a long civil war against each other.
The winners of the civil war—an ethnic Tadjic faction—then created an
Islamic regime that denied women and non-Muslims their basic rights.
But this regime then was overthrown by the ethnic Pastun Taliban
movement, which had been created by Saudi Arabian Islamic fundamentalists (“Wahhabists”)
in schools in Pakistan, and then were armed by the Pakastanis and the Saudis.
The Taliban, as I mentioned on the very first day of class, established a
strict Islamic regime based upon Wahhabi Islam.
This is the regime that, as we all now know from the news, punished women
who wore makeup by throwing acid in their faces, stoned people to death for
adultery, banned all singing, dancing, etc., etc, etc.
The Taliban received most of its support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
(“allies” of the US in the “war on terrorism”), and with their knowledge
allowed their country to become the main training ground for Bin-Ladin’s
network of ultra-fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organizations.)
Another
factor intertwined with the Arab-Israeli dispute and Cold War tensions was Arab
dominance over the world oil market. In
1961, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia founded the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel designed to control world oil prices (by
controlling the supply), and thus preserve oil profits.
OPEC tried but failed to use its dominance in the world’s oil market to
end western support for its support
of Israel, by cutting supplies. This
happened in 1973, after the Israelis defeated an Arab invasion force.
But OPECs unity was undermined in 1978, when the Shah of Iran was
overthrown and a fundamentalist Islamic regime under the Ayatollah Kohmeini took
power in Iran.
The Shi’ite fundamentalist movement in Iran was not an isolated phenomenon. Politically militant fundamentalist Islam had been growing since the early 1970s, and had been strongest in Egypt (home of a movement that called itself the Jihad), but spread across North Africa (e.g., Sudan), the Middle East (e.g., Palestinian refugee camps and Lebanon), Muslim Central and South Asia (e.g., Afghanistan and Pakistan), and South East Asia (Malaysia, Indonesia). The movement in Egypt was the first to turn in the direction of terror, in response to President Sadat’s peace negotiations with Israel, and then to the violent repression of the fundamentalist movement by Sadat’s successor (Nubarik) after Sadat was murdered by fundamentalist militants from the “Jihad.”
It is important to note that this happened at the same time as a revival of Christian fundamentalism in the USA and of militant Jewish ultra-orthodoxy in Israel…. The issue that we need to consider in the future is perhaps the rise of fundamentalisms (plural) as an historical phenomenon…
The
establishment of an Iranian Islamic state hostile to the US (which had backed
the Shah of Iran) threw off the balance that the US had tried to create in the
region, and under Presidents Reagan and Bush, the US began pumping money and
weapons to the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Through the 1980s, Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war, which initially
reduced world oil supplies and raised oil prices in the early 1980s.
When the Iran-Iraq war ended in a stalemate, Hussein turned his attention
to the South, to the small oil-rich Arab state of Kuwait.
After the US failed to respond negatively to Iraq’s claims that Kuwait
was in reality a province of Iraq, Hussein ordered his army to invade Kuwait in
1990. The US then condemned the
invasion—the result was the Gulf War of 1990.
Study Question: You are teaching a high school history class and you have to organize one lecture (1 hour long) on the world since 1945. What topics will you discuss and what will be your main point? Explain how you would organize the lecture, what the main points on your lecture outline would be, what basic ideas you would want your students to understand, and what factual information you would present to support these ideas.