HISTORY OF THE MODERN WORLD (SUMMARY)

During the 19th century the main ideas followed were liberalism, democracy, socialism,
anarchism along with the suffragist movement.

The same ideas were followed in Europe: freedom, equality, fraternity… but by then all of them
established again the absolutist principles. Basically, all those advances served for nothing as
they got back to the way it had been before the French revolution. Leaving England and the
States, every country in Europe wanted to go back to the liberal principles that were established
by the French revolution. Because of that 3 waves of revolutions took place, which were not
only characterized by economic reasons, but also with nationalistic reasons:

- The one in 1820 affected mainly Greece as it got its independence as a nation-state.
- The one in 1830 affected mainly Belgium as it was established as a buffer state for the
UK.
- The one in 1848 started developing socialist and labour movements. It mainly influenced
France and Austria.

Political ideological principles of liberalism, democracy and nationalism:

About liberalism we can say that there are two branches of it: the political one and the economic
one. It is based on the individual with freedom and individual rights as right for life, freedom in
every sphere as it could be the press or speech, and property. Locke considered basic the rights
of life, property and freedom. This made a new political system to be established containing the
rule of law, a constitution and the separation of powers.

At that time, power would be given to those who were elected through liberal elections, which
was mainly composed by those who completed certain requisites. In contrast, democratically
elections are characterized by the vote of all the people no matter if they are male, female, they
have land or no…

About nationalism we can say that nations have always been the unit of analysis. It was a very
successful ideology during the 19th century and it strongly influenced ideology after the IWW
and IIWW. It emerged as one of the most important political tendencies. Ernest Gellner who is
the founding father of nationalism expressed that political and national unit should be the same.
It could take the form of a sentiment or it could develop as political recognition. Thus, it could
be betrayed in several ways between we can mention the following ones:

- When members aren’t living together

- There are different people in your nation that don’t feel the same way as you
- When you don’t have the state, but you have the nation.

From Max Weber’s point of view, a nation can be defined as a territory, with people inside it,
with power over it, when it has the monopoly of violence and a government to rule the state.

In nationalism we have two different schools:

- German school: it is characterized by the feelings. This means that people are members
of a nation if they share the same culture and traditions. Volkgeist. From the political
point of view, people who had the same culture should live in the same place.
- French school: It is the voluntary school. This means that people are members of the
same nation if they want to live together.

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At the very beginning, nationalism was a liberal ideology but with time it ended in racism, as can
be seen in the case of Hitler or Mussolini.

Schulze explains the change from nationalism to racism in his texts. He differentiates between
two different approaches: the liberal nationalist and the integral nationalist. He also believes
that this movement become really important because states were struggling inside and outside.

We must distinguish between socialism and labor movement as the latter does not mean that
workers were inside a socialist organization. Socialism was the main ideology for workers but
not the only one.

The case of England was the most different as they got into the industrial revolution. Here we
find a paradox because socialism and communism were born outside England: in the French
revolution as they were going to emerge there.

Communism wanted to promote the destruction of bourgeoisie institutions, transference of

power to the proletarian groups, and the radical egalitarian principles. On the other hand,
socialism was just the reaction to the industrial capitalism. Both of them are a critique of the
capitalist system but on a different level.

In the UK, at the beginning of the 19th century, workers associations were forbidden. This made
the 1st movement to protest against the industrial revolution to evolve. This was the so-called
the Luddites’ movement. They thought that by destructing the machines they would find the
solution to their problems. Due to the revolution of the textile workers and the repercussions it
had (death) in 1824 the laws that forbade associations were abolished. Because of this early
associations developments, socialism and communism were not born in the UK. Proletarians
integrated the trade unions and even urban middle classes had a sit in parliament. This
happened by abolishing the limited suffrage.

By 1834, trade unions were already created in the UK. They wanted to merge all the little
communities into one bigger. By 1938 the People’s Charter was established by the trade unions
and they were asking for vote for men, secret voting system, abolishing the need to have
property. This was very successful and because of that the Reform Act was passed. As in the UK
workers had already experienced a revolution they would barely be influenced by socialism nor
communism.

In France socialism was going to develop. It was first used in a newspaper as a word to describe
a new system that was alternative to liberalism and putting emphasis on collaboration and
cooperation. It was a moral critic of the system. It was mainly characterized by authors like Saint-
Simon and Owen, known as the utopian socialists. They believed that through the creation of
small communities, people would state cooperating and leave aside the capitalist system.

Until Karl Marx appeared Saint-Simon was the most important socialist. Marx appeared as a
scientific socialist in contrast to Saint-Simon and Owen. Marx was able to put together the three
main traditions of analysis: German philosophy, French socialist and the liberal British economic
analysis. From the theoretical point of view, it was a critique to the bourgeoisie society. Socialist
had the idea of improving working conditions and also changing the social order.

Marx’s approach was comprised by 4 elements:

- Historical materialism: men are meant to do something on history based on the

economic historical condition. The dialectic concept is used in this element.

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- Modes of production: he also made an interpretation of history from the economic
point of view, taking into account the changes in the economic system and its evolution
from the slave mode of production to capitalism. Each of the had its own way of
organizing the means of production (land, resources and technology). Each mode of
production had its own class ruling that had the control of the means of production.
There were to classes, the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. So, social classes relations
would be based on economic relations.
In relation to that relationship between the two social classes, Marx wrote the
Communist Manifesto to explain that the relation would end in an antagonistic relation
in history and that would end with the collapse of the capitalist system.
- Labor theory of value: it says that the value of a product is determined by the amount
of labor necessary to produce it. They wanted to produce commodities that would be
exchanged by money. That benefit would not be for the worker but for the bourgeoisie
instead. Capitalist system would change drastically because of its capacity to redesign in
order to avoid crisis.
- Theory of state: it is mainly divided into the infrastructure and the superstructure. The
first one is characterized by the socioeconomic relations, while the second depends on
the first, being the ruling class the one that established religion… From this we get that
proletarians aren’t supposed to conquer the state, but to destroy the socioeconomic
relations.

Marx’s theory was against nationalism, feminism as he believed that it wasn’t the important
thing. He believed that workers had to focus on changing those socioeconomic relations.

For Marx, the subject of the revolutions were proletarians, but all proletarians
independently of their nationality,

The anarchist ideology is characterized by authors like Proudhon and Bakunin. Its principles
were also born with the French revolution. It can be said that it was born before socialism
as it as a mere radicalization of liberalism. They wanted the complete disappearance of the
state, as it was the source of coercion for them.

Proudhon was very close to the utopian socialist as they agreed in the way to solve the
problem which was to create communities. He was against everything that was represented
in the new society.

Bakunin was the one who challenged Marx in the first international. He was much more
interested in action than in writing discourses. He even was involved in the revolutions of
1848. He was in favor of violence. While Marx believed that the proletarians were going to
make the revolution, Bakunin believed that peasants were going to be the ones who would
do it. Bakunin believed that people did not need to organize for the revolution as he saw the
Paris Commune as an experiment. Marx believed that they needed to organize, whole for
Bakunin the creation of a party meant the negation of liberty.

We can distinguish internationals:

- The first international (1864) is the most important one as it was the one in which Marx
and Bakunin completely split. Since then anarchism and socialism are completely
opposite. It was also created the International Working Men’s Association. It was
organized by the British and French trade unions.

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 - The second international (1889) was known as the revisionist international. Its aim was
to obtain a 8 hours working per day. New countries joined the international. Bernstein’s
approach was going to give the name to this international: he believed that Marx was
wrong in that the capitalist system would collapse as it was able to redesign adapt to se
situation. What is more, proletarian’s conditions of living were improving.
- The third international (1920) was the one in which communism and socialism were
going to split.
- The fourth international (1938) was when Lenin died and Stalin and Trotsky started
disagreeing.

About the suffragist movement, it was devoted to women’s right to vote. For Socialism and
Marxism, it was part of the superstructure, so they were not going to fight for it. It all began with
the French revolution. Here we have the presence of Olympe de Gouges who wrote the
Declarations of the Women and the Citizen. Her main point was to fight for political equality.
She also defended the right of divorce, the protection the infancy, recognition of the kids who
were born outside marriage. She worked with the abolitionist movement too.

In the UK, Mary Wollstonecraft was taking the lead. She wrote a book called A Vindication of
the Rights of Women. She focused on the sexual double standard and rights. She believed that
the fact that women were inferior was due to a lack of education. After the French Revolution,
al Europe took a conservative path, characterized by women staying at home and taking care of
the kids while men were in the public sphere.

In the UK, John Stuart Mill supported feminism and thanks to him the women were able to vote
in local elections from 1889 which was made because by the First Women Association. Even
Queen Victoria was against suffragist as it was believed that women would collapse everything.

By 1897 the National Union of Women Suffrage Society was created by the hand of Millicent
Fawcett. She believed that it would be by pacific means through which women would get the
right to vote.

By the beginning of the 20th century the suffragettes were born. They were characterized, in
contrast, with the use of violence. Its leader was Emmeline Pankhurst. The situation in the UK
was characterized by repression, by women going to jail and dying there because of starvation
as they went on hunger strike and the government did not want women dying. Because of that
the Cat and Mouse Act was passed, which was basically forcing them to eat.

Once the IWW started, suffragism was going to disappear because of the conflictive situation.
Still, once the war finished, in 1919 the right to vote was recognized with properties, and in 1928
it was fully recognized. Spain got its vote in 1932.

Meanwhile in the US, the most important document was the Declarations of the Sentiment of
the Seneca Falls (1848). In this Seneca falls declaration, both women and abolitionists were
together. The abolition of slavery was achieved sooner than the right to vote for women.
Amendments were made to the constitution: the 13th concerning the abolition of slavery and
14th concerning the citizenship of slaves. It was with the 19th amendment that vote for women
was adopted. With the 15th amendment black people were able to vote, providing that they had
properties, they knew how to write and read… Martin Luther King started fighting against that
in the US.

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 EUROPE IN 1871

There were only two systems by that time: the liberal English system and the French democratic
system.

The system of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland was a parliamentary system with
censitarian suffrage and the parliament was integrated only by the upper classes. As years kept
going, other social groups got into the system. By that time politics were governed by Queen
Victoria and the system was characterized by the alternation of the Torys and the Whigs (being
the first more conservative). Gladstone and Disraeli. By that time, Britain was experiencing a
huge imperialistic enhancement. But, as every country does, they had their internal problem. In
this case it was Ireland. It started claiming for independence from the UK because of the
occupation of the Irish island. In the island there was an important division of the Catholic part
(South) and the Anglican part (north).UK divided the island in two parts, allowing the south to
get its independence while maintaining the north. This created a civil war as the Irish were
claiming the whole island. As UK won the war, they kept their northern part. This created a
nationalistic problem that developed into a terrorist problem: IRA. UK was characterized by the
splendid isolation.

In France the system was completely different. With the French Revolution the Third Republic
was established after the Franco Prussian War. They started to change the educational system
to create republican citizens. They even divided the church from education, so that they could
establish the laic system. France also developed an empire, but it was not going to be as big as
the British. They were also going to develop strong anti-German policies after the war and
socialist parties were created. Another issue, related with that previously said, was the Dreyfus
Affair, in which Alfred Dreyfus was accused of collaborating with the Germans. Three years later,
new evidence emerged, and thanks to Emil Zola he was set free. This was important because of
the division of people defending the individual, but always putting the state above everything.

In the German Empire the system was characterized by an authoritarian system that looked like
a liberal, because they had a parliament, they even had elections, but all the power was in
Bismarck’s hands. After the unification it began a fast industrialization process. Bismarck was
the main impulse for the unification. Its society was split in two parts, one more industrialized
and another which was rural. Bismarck was the author of the system of alliances that were going
to end in the IWW. As Germany was seen as an enemy, he had to maintain the equilibrium in
Europe. He was going to develop an empire but without challenging the UK or France too much,
so he was cautious. He wanted to extend Germany and isolate France, by doing a railway line
from Constantinople to Bagdad. “playing like a juggler”. After Bismarck, William II got to be
chancellor and he was going to be much more expansionist. As he started a bigger expansion
Germany had the need to do a rearmament. The alliances for the IWW were going to be the
Triple Alliance (Germany, Italy and Austro Hungary) and the Triple Entente (UK, France and
Russia).

In the Austro-Hungarian Empire there was a dual monarchy. That creation wanted to solve the
problems of the Magyars. This was a very successful solution in the long run but in the end, they
had the problem anyway. It had the same political system as Germany, they had two
parliaments, on in Wien another one in Budapest, but the most important decisions were taken
by the emperor who was Franz Joseph. They even had a constitution and the right to association
was approved but only for Austrian people. The socioeconomic situation was the same as in
Germany, this meaning that there was a rural area and a much more industrialized one.

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However, the main problem was going to be nationality as in that territory there were plurality
of nationalities. Until the 19th century there was no problem, but once the Balkan situation took
place, the nationalistic principles arose. The recognition of the universal male suffrage had aim
of keeping peaceful conditions. This didn’t work and the conflict increased once the
assassination of the Emperor took place. He was assassinated in Sarajevo by the Black Hand
Terrorists. Serbia would only finance this group to create a problem.

In the Ottoman Empire we can talk about how it loss influence through the years, due to the
presence of the great powers. What is more, as it shared borders with Austria-Hungary the
rivalries and the disputes were going to be often. The Ottoman Empire was not active anymore.
It was not industrialized as the Great Powers. A lot of states that were under its influence like
Greece got their independence. They started a war against Russia which they lost. However, the
Young Turks were fighting internally. They wanted the Ottoman Empire to focus on itself and
not to be so involved in European conflicts. When this internal revolt took place was when the
areas under its influence got their independence. The Balkans League was created and had the
aim to influence the are against Austria, UK and Germany.

The Balkans were the playing territory for the superpowers. Taking advantage of the Franco
Prussian war, Russia decided to influence in the area, so that it would have free access to the
straits (Bosporus and Dardanelles). Serbia won a war against the Ottoman Empire, and this was
followed by the war between Russian and the Ottoman Empire. Due to this, each country
created in the area was dependent on Russia. Bismarck decided to organize a Congress in Berlin
in 1878 to grant the peace in the Balkans by giving the independence to some countries like
Romania. The crisis in the Balkans were mainly because of nationalistic principles and the will of
the new created countries to expand their influence. The internal situation was very fragile as
there were the Young Turks with Ataturk. This was the moment in which Bulgaria decided its
own independence. This Balkan situation will be one of the origins of the IWW.

IMPERIALISTIC DEVELOPMENT BY FRANCE AND THE UK

As we have said before, the British Empire was at its peak while the French Empire was smaller.
The period of maximum expansion was between 1870 and 1940. The US and Japan would also
create their empire. Imperialism was not new as it had previously existed in the time of the
Greeks, but its extension was not comparable.

The main reasons for the imperialist expansion were: economic reasons, demographic reasons,
nationalistic racist reasons, scientific reasons and religious reasons.

Imperialism was not the same as colonialism. The latter was made through economic companies
(British companies), trading ports (Hong Kong), direct rule (India) or even through the creation
of a protectory (Morocco).

By then the free areas to expand were Asia and Africa. As all European powers wanted an
empire, Bismarck created a congress in Berlin for the division of this territories. The idea was
not to invade but just to influence. UK’s main goal was to keep Egypt as it had the Suez Channel
along with the creation of the North-South Axis, while France wanted to create the East-West
Axis. UK had some problems with in the South African region (Boer Wars) as they wanted to
have more influence in the South African Region. After the IWW, UK decided to create the
Commonwealth to recognize the British historical presence in the different areas.

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In the Asian area, which was not like the African as there were already created some empires as
the Japanese and the Chinese, it was not that easy to get territories. Though, France got some
as Indochina or Thailand while the UK got the area of the India (Bangladesh, Pakistan and
Myanmar). India became known as the Real Crown Jewel, proclaiming Queen Victoria herself
the emperor of India. On the other hand, China and Japan remained really close rejecting any
kind of foreign influence. Despite that, the big European powers were forcing them to allow
some commercial concessions, as could be the example of Hong Kong. In Egypt meanwhile, the
UK had occupied it and was controlling the government. It was a protectorate of the UK until
1922 when it got its independence. Between China and the UK, they got into the Opium wars
because UK wanted to have the control of the Opium trade. As those wars were lost, Hong Kong
was given to the UK. That allowed the rest of the powers to establish diplomatic places to
influence in the China too. There were also the Boxers wars which had the aim of putting
pressure on the emperor for changes. On the other hand, Japan wanted to create its own
empire. When Japan won a war against China and another against Russia it was clear that it was
becoming an empire. The Tibet region was divided between Russia and the UK. The creation of
Afghanistan was crucial as the UK did not want any type of borders with Russia.

ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT WAR

The causes of the Great War rely on the alliances, nationalism, very low confidence in peace
instruments, Balkan situation, the longevity of the war, militarism, sea rivalry between Germany
and the UK, colonialism, integration of masses into politics and the conflict between the liberal
democracies and the authoritarian regimes. Still, the most important reason was the
assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand. Austria wanted to see what
had exactly happened in Serbia but that meant a violation of the national sovereignty. Because
of that, Austria declared war to Serbia, so Russia mobilized its troops to support Serbia, which
made Germany get into the conflict too. Germany had the Schlieffen Plan which consisted on
attacking France through Belgium. As soon as Germany invaded Belgium the UK got into the war
too. They basically ended up declaring war to every single state of the others.

This is called the first modern war because of how long it was and the amount of new
methodologies to win as are the use of submarines, aviation and gas poison along with the
machine gun. This war was very static, so we can say that there was no advance in conquering
territory. Because of this static war, all European countries had to transform their whole
productive system and put it to the service of the war. There were established two military
fronts: the Western one and the Eastern. By May 1915, Italy got into the war, so a new front was
opened. Until the Marne Battle (1914) it was not clear how much the war was going to last. After
the Russian Revolution began, the Eastern front was going to collapse. In the battler of Verdun
and the one in Somme, fronts advances. Their aim was to exhaust France. When Germany
started the submarine war against the UK, it was decided who would win as the US got involved
in the war. As Russia had exited the war because of its internal revolution, the eastern front
disappeared, and the war was about to end.

On the 11 November 1918 the armistice was signed. As the Austro-Hungarian emperor was
unable to control the situation, he asked for help to the US that was later denied to this meant
the Austro-Hungarian Empire was over. The same was going to happen in Germany. Wilson was
going to negotiate only with the appointed representative of Germany. Germany had its own
internal conflict: socialist and communist revolts. The German Republic was declared in Weimar.

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The peace conference was settled for January 1919 in Paris. It was going to be integrated by
Wilson, Clemenceau, Lloyd and Orlando. On some occasions the prince of Japan would also be
there. 5 treaties were signed: Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria.

The Treaty of Versailles was singed with Germany, who directly accepted the treaty without
having previously read it.

The new system would be based on the 14 points (based on the principle of self determination
and achieving European security) of Wilson who had the idea to create the League of Nations.
Finally, the US did not ratify the treaty as the Senate didn’t want to be involved in European
crisis all the time. The UK got into the League of Nations without the aim of using power against
other states and Germany got into it in 1926.

The treaty meant the reduction of the military army and the readjustment of the colonial
properties. But the most important was the right of self-determination for the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.

The consequences of this war were: the Treaty of Versailles were the loss of land from the
German empire along with colonial territories, Alsace and Lorraine were given to France, Poland
and Czechoslovakia were created, the demilitarization of Germany, war reparations (Keynes),
the Sarre region was rented to France, demographic consequences, social consequences and
destruction of several empires.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Russian revolution is one of the most controversial events in the 20th century. But, there is
not only one revolution, there are two: 1905, known as the liberal democratic revolution and
1917 with the events in February and October.

Before the revolutionary period Russia was an empire characterized by a very patrimonialistic
idea of the state. Russians believed that the tsar was the reincarnation of God on earth and he
saw him as the father of Russia. Once people realized that they wanted to modernize, the system
was not able to cope with all the new social demands of 1905.

There were two tsars: Alexander II, who was well known because he made the serve
emancipation and introduced very important changes in politics and agriculture. The university
was autonomous, judicial power was independent, censorship of press was abolished. Despite
being the tsar that made more modern changes he was assassinated. After him, his son
Alexander III, got back to the authoritarian system forgetting everything his father had
previously done. He rejected everything that had to do with Western traditions and became a
russification policy to russify the Russians. With this antisemitism started, as Russian saw
themselves above the rest and made them go to the cities where there was more police. This
tsar also experienced a terrorist attack and since then his measures were much more stronger.
Here is where we see Lenin, as his brother was involved in this terrorist attack his family suffered
the consequences. Despite that, Alexander III began to introduce some economic modernization
measures. In the big cities labour conflicts and strikes began to appear.

Socialism and anarchism were introduced in Russia through Plejanov, who was the founder of
the first socialist group. It was not created in Russia but in Geneva. Still, Plejanov introduced the
Marxist ideology in Russia. In 1898 the Russian Social Democratic Party was created by joining
small groups. The first leaders of this group were going to be Plejanov, Trotsky, Lenin and

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Martov. In 1902, Lenin published What is to be done? being the answer to this question
revolution. This was going to be a very important work for the revolution in 1917.

There are going to be two groups in the Marxist ideology. Lenin formed a political party as he
got from Marx that proletarians for themselves were not going to be able to make revolution.
They needed to be organized. The second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party was
held in London in 1903. There they were going to discuss how to organize, what had to be done…
Lenin took advantage of the moment in which one group left the room to call himself the
Bolsheviks (majority in Russian). The other group was left at being the Mensheviks (minority).

Dictatorship was not into Marx’s ideology, so that made authors like Rose Luxembourg or
Trotsky to be against Lenin’s ideas. Lenin believed that Russia could go directly to the proletarian
revolution.

For his revolution, Lenin though about the peasant and nationalists as allies. The revolution in
1905 was going to change a lot of thins in Russia. By that time the tsar was Nicholas II. During
his reign there were social crisis and social conflicts. There were strong famines and by that time
Russia and Japan were at war. In November 1904 Zemtovs were organized. Those were local
assemblies with administrative capacity to organize the local area and also with juridical capacity
over the peasants. They began expressing that some king of change was needed in Russia, the
tsar decided to ignore them, although some people told him to reconsider them. As he was
pressured because of the war he finally accepted some measures like introducing the rule of
law, relax the press censorship ad increasing the power of the zemtovs. On the 9th January 1905
the peasant organized a peaceful demonstration. Their aim was to give to the tsar a document
asking for 8h day work, minimum salary of 1 rubble per day, and the formations of a constitutive
assembly and to dismiss the inefficient bureaucrats. Despite the fact that the revolution was
peaceful, the police massacred those people. This is known as the Russian Red Bloody Sunday.
After that, Russian started strikes and realized that the tsar was not their father. The rest of 1905
was a rebellion: occupation of nobles’ land, universities closed, creation of the soviets to
represent the workers. By October 1905 the railway workers organized a strike that finished
being a general strike. With this situation, the tsar was forced to ask Japan for peace, and by
publishing the October Manifesto he promised a constitution and the creation of a Duma. The
Kadete party was created in Moscow, its aim was to get a constitution.

By that time Lenin decided to get back to Russia, and the groups there were the Kadete and the
Bolsheviks who were preparing for revolution. Once Russia signed the peace with Japan
repression increased as the soldiers were not at the front. The Duma was opened but had no
power. In this period Piotr Stolypin was elected as prime minister. He was a conservative, but
he knew that some reformist policies had to take place. He introduced mechanization. His
measures led to an immigration to the cities and gave more power to the Zemtovs. His reforms
were important until he died in 1911. Population increased.

The group around the tsarina was one of the most closed ones. The situation with her was that
she was German and living in Russia while there was a strong sentiment of superiority of the
Russians. She had Rasputin as an advisor and he was able to control everything he wanted. Once
he was assassinated, she felt in a depression.

Right after, the world war began followed by the second Russian revolution. In February 1917
Russia was already in the war. St. Petersburg changed its name to Petrograd and women began
demonstrations asking for primary food. As the army was at war, the tsar lost all his authority
which gave the Duma the power. They proclaimed a provisional government. Lvov was named

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president. Nicholas II was persuaded by the provisional government to abdicate. The majority
of the Duma wanted a constitution. The provisional government was trying to get legitimation.
Soviets and the provisional government began to cooperate. The model of the soviets was
spreading all over Russia. By March there were two main authorities in Russia: the provisional
government and the soviets.

The first measures of the provisional government had the aim of controlling the country. The
first two mistakes of the Russian history were that they hadn’t stopped the war sooner, and the
other one was that the Soviets could have taken the power before the provisional government
as they had much more influence.

In April 1917, Lenin arrived in Petrograd. To get there he had to go through Germany which they
accepted because they though that that would distract Russia from the war. As soon as he
arrived he promised peace, land and bread. He promised transferring power to the soviets.

Lenin needed to be supported by the peasants, so he wrote the April Thesis to explain his theory.
The provisional government was no longer able to control the situation, so Bolsheviks got into
the last place with power: the soviets. They created the Red guard. Trotsky came to Russia on
May to support Lenin. On the first meeting of the soviets Mensheviks were more than
Bolsheviks. A huge offensive was made against German troops by the provisional government
and the Bolsheviks supported it. The provisional government was about to increase repression
and Lenin ran away from Petrograd. Kerensky was elected prime minister and he created a
government with people of the soviets. He promised to convoke open elections next November.

During that summer, the Affaire Kornilov took place. Kerensky appointed Kornilov as general
commander and he moved the troops to the capital. Kerensky released the Bolsheviks and gave
them arms. Kornilov was arrested and Kerensky assumed power as a dictator. When Kerensky
wanted to correct the situation, other problems arose like the will of being recognized of the
nationalists. In October Lenin got back to Petrograd where the situation was no longer the same,
as Kerensky had no much power, and the soviets were the main institution. He decided to go
ahead with the international revolution. They created the Military Revolutionary Committee of
the Petrograd Soviets; whose president was Trotsky. Lenin and Trotsky created the Politburo
(composed by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin). On October 25th Lenin decided to take the government
in the name of the soviets. Despite it was taken in their name, this was not a proletarian
revolution. Kerensky and the provisional government had no power. When Lenin met with the
soviets he promised to respect the result of the November elections, he created the Cheka, and
organized the first concentration camp in Russia. Some lands were going to be given to peasants
and announced the recognition of the right for self-determination of the ethnic groups. With
that he wanted the nationalities’ support.

Once the elections took place, the Bolsheviks got less votes that the Mensheviks. So, Lenin
closed the Duma, he signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty with Germany and the civil war in Russia
began. There was also a war between Russia and Poland as they wanted recognition. All
products were nationalized under the Communist Obour. The government started confiscating
all the products that the peasants had and as they were against these measures. The famine was
horrible in the country, so Lenin asked the US for help. Lenin introduced New Economic Policies
that had the aim of leaving the peasants with their own production and using it for commerce.
It was a kind of capitalism but under the state. The Brest-Litovsk treaty implied that Russia lost
some territories, some of which got their own independence. In 1922 the Russian started being
called Soviet Union.

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As Mensheviks had less cooperation and coordination the lost the war. Peasants did not support
any of the two sides.

Since 1922, the power man was Stalin, but he didn’t get officially power until 1925. Trotsky and
some others were against this treaty, but Stalin convinced them that it was the moment for
revolution. This was followed in countries like Hungary. He started the purge and Trotsky was
dismissed and sent to Kazakhstan and later to Mexico where he was killed. Stalin started the
quinquennial plans for industrialization.

GENERAL FRAMEWORK (once the Russian revolution took place)

By November 1918 Germany was already asking for the armistice. Each country focused on
reconstructing its country internally and externally. Liberal democracies had won the war and
the principle of self-determination had massive influence. After the war, more than half of the
states were democracies.

Samuel Huntington believes that Europe has suffered three waves of democratization, being
this the first one. What is more, every wave of democratization has a reverse way, being in this
case the IIWW. The Second would be after the IIWW and the third happened until the collapse
of the Soviet Union. In less than 3 years the democracies started to crumble. They moved to
totalitarian regimes.

The difficult and complicated situation of the interwar period was going to be a reason of the
IIWW. Linz identified the reasons of this change to the totalitarian regime and those were:

- The existence of alternative model to liberal democracies: people wanted to experiment

the soviet revolution, so that’s why they were into the authoritarian systems.
- Economic crisis of 1929: it made the differences between the peasants and the land
owners much clear.
- Nationalism: it was questioning the organization.
- Religious cleavage.

This analysis had the aim of not repeating the breakdown.

The consequences of the war were disastrous for Germany, Italy an Austria. The main difference
between them was that Italy was a monarchy and Germany was a republic.

For Italy the consequences were disastrous on the economics, demographic consequences and
a very conflictive social situation. This made the industrial workers to be mobilized. A formation
of a nationalistic movement took place and Italy changed its side to the Allies because they were
promised a gift. Still, they didn’t get all that was promised. Orlando, the one in the negotiation
left the meeting as he completely disagreed. Italians were afraid of the soldiers that were going
to get home, as they had no work but knew how to use arms. What is more, peasant and workers
started creating Trade Unions.

By 1919-1920 a revolutionary situation extended in Italy. Liberal parties were not able to control
this situation so Benito Mussolini emerged as an influential figure. He was socialist, and once he
got back from the war as a demobilized soldier he knew a lot of strategies so he was important.
He founded the Fasci Italianni di Combattimento and the Squadre d’Azzione. Those were formed
by syndicalism groups, students and soldiers. The futurist movement had the idea of supporting
Mussolini.

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In summer 1920, there was a difficult situation as with general strikes and occupation of fabrics.
This was close to the soviet inspiration. Repression was made by the Squadre d’Azzione.

By November 1920 the movement was transformed into a political party: National Fascist Party.
Also, the Communist Party was created with Tasca and Gramsci. On May 1921 elections were
celebrated, but there was no clear majority. Still, Mussolini had a seat, which meant that fascism
had got to the parliament and now he had access to different resources. When Mussolini got to
power there was an awful socioeconomic situation and Mussolini believed that violence would
change that. So, he took the paramilitary powers in the north and at the rover Po valley they
took the power. By the first months only the little towns were in control. Socialists and anarchists
were against this situation. This was when Mussolini made the March on Rome as he wanted to
demonstrate how strong his group was. He was going to use the commemoration of Italy
winning on the IWW and he used that as an excuse. The March on Rome consisted on groups
from different parts in Italy to march on Rome, later merging into Rome with black shirts. In the
end, there were much more soldiers and police to avoid the march. The prime minister then
declared the state of emergency in Rome. Meanwhile, the king was afraid that the soldiers
would not respect his orders so he called Mussolini to create a government coalition with the
liberals (who had got the highest percentage in the elections).

Since then Mussolini was going to be called Duce. The pattern of getting to power without
violence was going to be used by Hitler too. In the elections of April 1924, the fascist party got
65% of the votes so they got to power. Some historians call it a transition period. Matteotti
started opposing to the fascist system saying they had paid for all their votes and subsequently
he went missing. The other groups left parliament as they did not agree with that amount of
violence and even the industrial men began thinking that it was not good to support Mussolini.

On January 1925 Mussolini got to the parliament and accepted that it was him who murdered
Matteotti. He also expressed his will to create a fascist state, and he had been building a
dictatorship. By the end of 1925 he got all the power as the king had left. Italy began influencing
and got out of the League of Nations. There was an attempt to kill Mussolini and since then
repression was full. He abolished parliament and created the Chamber of the Fascist Group.

For the Weimar Republic there were different periods like the one from 1919 to 1924 which
was a very conflictive one, then the belle epoque from 1924 to 1928 and finally the Big Crisis.
William II had left his family so there was no authority. At that time the Socialist party was the
most important one and it assumed the provisional government with Ebert. The SPD suffered
some internal problems as the division of the party itself because of their will to participate on
the war or not and finally, the communist division. Socialist separate from the SPD and created
the Spartakists being one of their leader Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht who were killed
by the Freikorps.

Ebert and the Socialist Party were blamed for the assassination of the leaders. This was going to
develop a huge problem as there was no clear majority. The Freikorps were also in charge of the
repression in the region of Babaria. The military right made a coup d’etat in 1920. At the same
time the government and the provisional government were negotiating the treaty of Versailles.
Some important people were assassinated as could be the MFA or Rathenau, the one who was
negotiating the treaty.

From the political point of view, the Weimar Republic had elections in January 1919. The SPD
won in a coalition with the Catholic Centre Party and the DDP. Once this coalition began losing
support the Weimar coalition began to crumble. Hitler was going to take advantage. As there

12
were too many parties there was going to be fragility. They managed to retain the government
until 1929.

The Constitution of 1919 left the President of the Republic being the head of state. The president
could dissolve the congress, direct the army and open electoral processes. Article 48 gave the
president exceptional capacities in urgent situations. There were two chambers: the Reichstag
and the Reichsrat. (congress and senate respectively). Article 48 along with the pure
proportional electoral system caused political fragility. Between 1919 and 1933 there were two
presidents of the Republic: Ebert and von Hindenburg, being the latter the one who was going
to call Hitler. The latter was elected in the second round as the Socialist and the Communist
party did not agree to collaborate.

The economic crisis was provoked by the Treaty of Versailles. In April 1921 the Allies established
the total amount of the reparation Germany had to pay. As France and Belgium believed that
Germany was not going to be able to give them the exact amount of reparations, they started
confiscating the Ruhr area and some railways. Germans decided to apply the passive resistance
which made unemployment rise. From 1933 to 1934 hyperinflation started appearing in
Germany. The mark literally lost all its value, as they needed to solve the problem with the
reparations. This was the time in which Hitler decided to organize the coup d’etat in Munich
called the Bear hole. As a consequence, he was sent to prison where he wrote Mein Kampf.

The so called Nazi party, National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) wanted revenge for
the Versailles Treaty. It was social in the way of taking care of the people, but it had nothing to
do with socialism. This party was founded in 1920 as a refoundation of another party. Hitler
presented 25 points among which were the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles. The electoral
target were mainly the middle and low classes as they were the ones who were suffering the
most. Later on, he would also get the support from the industrial men as he was going to
militarize Germany. He even moved to the industrial families like the Thyssen. Germany was
able to recover from the hyperinflation to reconduct the economy in 1924 because of
international help. Stresemann played an important role being the chancellor and later the MFA.
He wanted to create a new mark, and he also started controlling public spending and deficits.
He asked the other countries to analyze again the amount that had to be paid by Germany on
reparations. This was the beginning of the Dawes plan, which made Germany recover from the
Crisis. He believed that the reparations had to be based on the real economic capacity Germany
had to pay. This led to an evacuation of the Ruhr area and the Reich Bank was organized under
the Allies supervision.

In 1922, Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Rapallo and opened diplomatic
relations. In 1925, the Treaty of Locarno was signed, and it had the aim of respecting the clear
borders and to try to solve conflicts in a pacific way. In 1926 Germany joined the League of
Nations with a permanent seat in the council.

It is said that if big men had thought about the globalized world they would have prevented the
crisis of 1929 as there were clear signs of it. The first of them was the decline of agricultural
prices. As at first Europe was not able to produce other countries started getting into the
international market, but once those European countries were able to produce the tariffs and
barriers were created. The other sign must have been the coal production as it was declining.
This happened because of oil and hydroelectricity. One of the countries that suffered the most
was the UK. Another sign of alarm was the financial banking system. Once Germany was not
able to pay Belgium and France were left with no money to invest in their system. Once the Black

13
Thursday exploded in USA Europe was really affected. The elements explaining this were the
interdependence, falling prices in raw materials, inability to articulate international solutions
and the resistance of governments to change the gold standard.

Meanwhile in the US, 13 million of stock were negotiates which meant that there were so many,
prices went down and people lost all their money. Banks could not recover the loans, and banks
consequently closed. Hoover believed that this was part of liberalism so it was not necessary to
take measures. In 1932, Hover was followed by Roosevelt that started the so called New Deal,
which was basically the state expanding, creating schools…

In 1936 a Fascist party was created in the UK. For Juan Linz, economy was not the only
explanation. He suggested taking into consideration social and political factors to understand
why Hitler got to power. History can be explained in many reasons not just one.

In the Weimar republic Chancellor or Prime minister was Muller and the president was von
Hindenburg. The coalition trembled when they had to get to a conclusion for the crisis. They had
2 options being the first one to reduce expenditure and the other was to get help from the
international financial market. Trade unions believed that this was not the way to deal with the
crisis so they wanted a new policy. A new chancellor was elected, Bruning. He moved to another
economic policy and put deflationist policies. Despite his good intentions, he was not able to
make economy recover. He had the idea of creating a market with Austria. But this plan did not
succeed either. With this situation, in the elections of September 1930, the Nazi party got major
influence. Basically, the extremes were increasing. After that, Bruning tried to form government.
Article 48 increased its use and he started governing by decrees. Without a majority the
chancellor was exercising with the help of the president. This is considered the beginning of the
declining of the Weimar Republic.

Bruning, decided a new economic policy to change the fact that 30% of the population was
unemployed. He nationalized land, renegotiated war compensations and even forbade the SS
(directed by Himmler, personal bodyguard for Hitler) and the SA (just a paramilitary group,
Rohm, who was later killed in the Long Night Knives in 1934 because Hitler was afraid of him and
the power he had.). Bruning made that because of the violence on the streets. In this context
Germans had to go to vote again in 1932. In the first round there was no majority, so von
Hindenburg got elected from the second round having Hitler much closed than he expected. He
made Bruning resign as he was said to be using Bolshevik measures. Article 48 began being
extremely important.

Despite the fact that Hitler got a majority, von Hindenburg chose Von Papen as prime minister.
He needed support, and Hitler was only going to offer it if he had again his SS and SA. Von Papen
would later be killed by Hitler. Von Papen tried to get the majority by making another elections,
but actually, Hitler got the majority and even if this was true von Hindenburg said no to him. By
January 1933, Hitler was finally called to be chancellor. This happened because Gary was going
to control Hitler. Before Hitler got to power we had Schleicher. He tried to form a coalition. In
parliament they had the vote of confidence against Von Papen. Its aim was to get rid of the
chancellor.

Hitler got to power on the 13th of January 1933. His first measure was to extend that there was
a communist conspiracy against them. The Reichstag was burnt and that made him blame the
communist. In less than 3 moths he had completely destroyed the opposition, by having
previously suspended political rights.

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In March 1933 he convoked elections again and he didn’t get majority, so he needed to make a
2/3 majority to govern. He also used the Law for the Defense for People and the State. He
assumed legislative and executive power on himself. He got the right to approve laws by himself.
The federal republic was dissolved and the Reichstag and the Reichsrat too. During the following
months he appointed Goebbels as ministry of propaganda, he prohibited parties and trade
unions, he destroyed the SA and the Nazi party was declared the only legal party in Germany.
He introduced racial laws as the Nuremberg laws, with which he forbade interracial marriage,
no citizenship for Jewish people.

In 1936 the Service for the Solution of the Jewish Question was created. Finally, important rules
in 1939 made them go away and leave all they had. The night of the Broken Glass was when they
attacked Jewish shops. In the Wannsee conference the final solution was given: massive killing
of Jewish in concentration camps. Parker explains that the reason why this solution was taken
was because solders suffered a lot by shooting people.

Despite all the bad things Hitler did, he was able to hep Germany with her economic recover. He
made rearmament policies and he reduced inflation by having prices and salaries under control.
Hitler also suspended the payment of reparations and there were no protests as there were no
trade unions. They wanted to get rid of the external commerce influence. He even suspended
the payment of reparations. The confiscation of Jewish properties was important too.

The Lebensraum was the expansionist process followed by Germany to expand in Europe.
Germany withdrew from the League of Nations, the Polish-German non-aggression pact,
militarization, rejection of the Treaty of Locarno, Anti Komintern pact, Anschluss annexation,
Germany got the Sudetenland, invasion of Czechoslovakia, Danzig annexation with Poland, pact
of no aggression between the USSR and Germany, German invasion of Poland, France and UK
declare war in 1939, expulsion of the USSR of the League of Nations, Hitler invaded Russia,
Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor 1941. The Danzig corridor was the only way to Poland to get to
the sea. Integral nationalism was a very important instrument to create the German nation that
Hitler pretended.

At that time, Churchill was in opposition of the British Parliament. He believed that if you chose
dishonor you would get war. Hitler claimed the Danzig corridor. Because of that he invaded
Poland. Before the elections in July 1932 he had two important discourses the Appeal to the
German Nation was one of them.

DESINTEGRATION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The Ottoman Empire will be what we know as Turkey while the rest of the powers were under
the influence of the European Powers. During the IWW those same powers discussed what to
do with it as it was obvious that it was going to dissolve. The UK had prime importance here.

In March 1915, Britain and Russia signed a secret agreement so that Russia would incorporate
the capital of the Ottoman Empire while maintaining the Dardanelles, Gallipoli… as it was a
crucial route for Russia to keep in contact with the Mediterranean. Russia would agree with
British claims on the areas of Persia, Mesopotamia included. On the other hand, UK had a secret
service with the Sharif of Saudi Arabia in La Mecca, with whom they were negotiating to organize
a revolt against the church. This had the purpose of creating a mess inside the Ottoman Empire,
that would help Britain to have more influence there. With the influence of the British, Arab
Tribes were going to develop pan-Arabic nationalism. It’s important to mention Lawrence of
Arabia as a hero for the British and Arabs as he fought with them in the liberation movements.

15
Britain was playing on two sides: on one hand the agreements with Russia and the revolt in the
Ottoman Empire, and on the other the Sykes-Picot agreement with France with which they
would influence different areas.

Once Lenin got to power he denounced the secret agreement and the UK was ashamed of having
cooperated outside the Allies. Everybody felt the results of it. Once the peace conference was
organized, France and the UK made the division respecting the Sykes-Picot agreement and they
also promised to accept the independence of Arab States, which later would be forgotten. In
this situation the Treaty of Sevres was created and signed but not ratified by the big powers, so
that they would not have to create an independent state for the Kurds. By 1920, Ataturk was in
the process of creating a Turkish nation state.

Britain was interested mostly because of the oil in the area. Mosul was influenced by the UK
using the Iraq oil company that was founded in 1929. In 1923 the UK accepted the creation of
Transjordan, while in 1946 Jordania was recognized. UK also tried to create a monarchy in the
area of Iraq with King Faisal, who preferred being king of Syria but as Syria was under French
influence they would not let him to create a monarchy. Those areas were not protectorates but
mandates. Transjordan created a monarchy while Iraq couldn’t. The Kurds organized a revolt
against the king of Iraq and it was suffocated by the British Royal Force. Iraq was recognized as
independent in 1930 by the British but keeping the control of some oil and military bases. In the
case of Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite family was kicked out and the family of the Wahhabi came
to power. This was the most radical part of the Muslim religion. Those were recognized by the
UK, France and finally by the US.

Syria and Lebanon were both under French control, so they were republics. They had cultural
religious tolerance and got their independence in 1946. They remained loyal to the Vichy
government and because of that after the IIWW it took influence over these two areas. The
Sykes-Picot agreement had hurt the jihadists.

Anti-Semitism in Europe started in the 19th century with the pogroms in Russia, the Dreyfus
Affair… At that moment nationalist states were created and the Zionist groups too. In 1917 the
Balfour declaration was declared.

Chaim Weizmann was going to be the first president of the Israeli state and previously he would
have pushed the Zionist movement which mainly were those who wanted to create the Israeli
state for Jewish people. He convinced British authorities to issue a statement in favor of the
establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. All this happened because of his influence
as he was one of the most important producers of acetone. This situation was shocking as the
UK was involved in the creation of a state in a territory that didn’t belong to them. Balfour
though that this was going to be forgotten by it actually wasn’t. As UK got Palestine after the
war, they had to do something as it was under UK influence when it was supposed to be under
international control. At the beginning the Jewish immigration was very few, while after the
holocaust it became massive. But the Arab population living there felt threatened.

By 1920 the Jewish Zionist paramilitary group was created to defend the Jewish population that
was emigrating, it was called the Hagana, being those the origins of the Israel army. The Jewish
started thinking that the territory was too small for them. Before IIWW the British proposed the
partition of the state: the Jewish part and the Arab part, but both parts opposed.

By 1939 only 1/3 of the population of Palestine was Jewish. So, at the end of IIWW As the Arabs
were less developed the Zionist though that this was the moment to ask for recognition and

16
creation using terrorist attacks. In July 1946, King David Hotel in Jerusalem suffered an explosion,
being a total of 99% British. As UK pressured, the UNGA created a special committee to solve
the problem. This made a partition plan to be passed and later approved, so on 14th May 1948
Israel was declared by a resolution of the GA. Ben Gurion was going to be the first Prime
Minister, and he declared by virtue the historic right of the Jewish people.

17