EUROPEAN
POLITICAL
DEVELOPMENTS
1918-1935
GREAT BRITAIN
• 1. Edward VII
(1901-1910)
• 2. George V
(1910-1936)
• 3. Edward VIII
(1936) abdicated
• 4. George VI
(1936-1952)
• 5. Elizabeth II
(1952 –
)
GREAT BRITAIN
• A. ELECTIONS 1918: First
Parliamentary elections since
1910. Called the Coupon or
Khaki elections. Major issue was
the nature of the peace
settlement.
• 1. Representation of the Peoples
Act: granted women over age 30
the right to vote.
• 2. Victory: David Lloyd George
and his Conservative Coalition
won a landslide victory
GREAT BRITAIN
• B. POSTWAR ECONOMY: Initial
boom brought to a halt by
government retrenchment, tax
increases, and overproduction. A
severe recession occurred by the
end of 1921.
• 1. Unemployment averaged 12%
annually until the Depression.
• 2. Unemployment Insurance Acts
(1920,1921) and subsidized
Housing to alleviate the distress
of workers.
GREAT BRITAIN
• C. THE IRISH QUESTION
• 1. Easter Rebellion (1916):
Sinn Fein gained
prominence in Ireland as a
result.
• 2. 1918 Elections: 75% of
the members elected to the
British Parliament from
Ireland declared Irish
independence in Dublin.
Éamon de Valera
GREAT BRITAIN
• 3. Civil War: Between the Irish
Republican Army and the Black
and Tan (England's special Irish
occupation forces)
• 4. Home Rule: Lloyd George's
government provided for a
division of Ireland with two
legislatures. Only the northern six
(out of 32) counties accepted this
arrangement. October, 1921
London created the Irish Free
State, from which Ulster withdrew,
as a part of the British
commonwealth.
GREAT BRITAIN
• D. GOVERNMENT SHAKE-UP
1922-1924: All of these problems
caused disaffection among Lloyd
George's supporters and a new
Conservative government was
formed under Andrew Bonar-Law,
who was forced to resign in 1923
due to poor health. He was
replaced by Stanley Baldwin, who
resigned in 1923 and was followed
by Labour Party leader Ramsay
MacDonald. His government fell
after only nine months, primarily
because he tried to establish
formal ties with Russia.
GREAT BRITAIN
• E. THE RETURN OF STANLEY
BALDWIN: Baldwin, Conservative
Party,
• returned to the prime minister-ship
in 1924. The economy revived in
1925 as prices and wages
increased.
• 1. Widows. Orphans. and Old Age
Pensions Act (1925)
• 2. General Strike: May, 1926 in
support of miners. Baldwin refused
to concede to the miners'
demands, and broke the strike
GREAT BRITAIN
• 3. Trade Unions Act: Sponsored by
Baldwin in 1927. It outlawed such labor
action as occurred during the General
Strike.
• 4. USSR: Baldwin broke formal ties with
the USSR in 1927 as a result of Soviet
espionage activities.
• 5. 1928: Legislation passed giving women
the same voting rights as men.
GREAT BRITAIN
• F. ELECTIONS OF 1929: The
Labour Party gained a
majority and Ramsay
MacDonald returned as prime
minister.
• 1. Depression: Unemployment
reached 25% by 1932.
• 2. August 24. 1931:
Confidence in the government
fell and so did the Labour
Party.
GREAT BRITAIN
• G. "NATIONAL GOVERNMENT"
1931-1935
• 1. August 25, 1931: King George V
convinced MacDonald to return to
office as head of a National Coalition
Cabinet. The Labour Party refused to
accept this and ejected MacDonald
from the party. MacDonald's coalition
swept the 1931 elections.
• 2. Economic Policies: Gold standard
abandoned. High tariffs imposed.
Focus on the domestic market (autos
and electric appliances). Low interest
rates led to housing boom. As a
result the economy began to recover
after 1932.
GREAT BRITAIN
• 3. Commonwealth: In 1931 the government
implemented the Statute of Westminster which
created the British Commonwealth of Nations,
granted its members political equality, and
freedom to reject any act passed by Parliament
that related to a Dominion state.
• 4. Election of 1935: MacDonald resigned in
June, 1935 due to ill health. Stanley Baldwin
succeeded him when the Conservatives won a
majority.
FRANCE
• 1. Third Republic
(1870-1945)
• 2. Fourth Republic
(1945-1958)
• 3. Fifth Republic
(1958)
FRANCE
• A. THE BLOC NATIONAL,
1919-1924: The moderate
conservatives won a two-thirds
majority in the Chamber of
Deputies in the 1919 elections.
The coalition government
under Premier Alexandre
Millerand was called the Bloc
National. Aristide Briand
replaced Millerand in 1921 but
his failure to act firmly in the
matter of German reparations
caused his removal. He was
replaced by Raymond
Poincare
FRANCE
• 1. Economic policies:
Large sums were spent
on rebuilding after WWI,
as France counted on
German reparations to
fund the construction. A
financial crisis resulted
when the reparations
were not paid. Public
debt continued to
increase and the value
of the franc steadily
declined.
FRANCE
• 2. Occupation of the Ruhr: In
December, 1922 Poincare
declared Germany in default and
in January occupied the Ruhr
along with Belgium. The Germans
in the Ruhr followed a policy of
passive resistance so the Ruhr
mines and factories were
unproductive and France and
Belgium gained little financial
advantage while the cost of
occupying the Ruhr necessitated
raising taxes 20%.
FRANCE
• D. THE CARTEL DES GAUCHES:
1924-1926 financial troubles caused
the fall of the Bloc National at the
1924 elections. Majority control of the
Chamber of Deputies rested in a
Radical/socialist coalition. The Cartel
des Gauches chose Radical leader
Edouard Herriot as Premier;
Millerand continued as president;
Aristide Briand became Foreign
Minister. Continuing financial
problems spelled the removal of
Herriot in 1925. He was replaced by
Paul Painleve.
FRANCE
• E. THE UNION NATIONALE, 1926-1928:
The franc continued to decline, In 1926 a
new government was formed and
Poincare was given special authority over
economic policy. In the next two years he
raised taxes and achieved more
investments in government bonds. The
franc rose by 1928 and Poincare was
considered a financial ''miracle worker''
• F. ANDRE TARDIEU, 1929-1932:
Poincare resigned on July 27, 1929 due to
ill health. Andre Tardieu dominated French
politics for the next three years in
Moderate cabinets.
FRANCE
• 1. Tardieu tried unsuccessfully
to initiate political reforms by
creating a stable two party
system.
• 2. National Workingmen's
Insurance Law (1930):
Provided various forms of
financial aid for illness,
retirement, and death.
• 3. Depression: Did not hit
France until 1931; worst
effects lasted for four years.
FRANCE
• G. RETURN OF THE CARTEL DES GAUCHES. 19321934: The moderates were defeated in the elections of
May 1, 1932, victims of the economic downturn. The new
Leftist government was stalemated as the Radicals and
Socialists offered different solutions. The Socialists
wanted nationalization of major factories, expanded social
reforms and public works programs for the unemployed.
The radicals wanted a reduction in government spending.
The instability resulted in six Cabinets between June,
1932 and February, 1934. A number of radical groups
emerged during this time.
FRANCE
• H. Elections 1936:
Communists: Socialists, and
Radicals formed an alliance
called the Popular Front (in
reaction to the growth of
fascism) and they were the
clear victors in the May
elections.
• 1. Leon Blum: Leader of the
Socialist Party: which became
the strongest party in Fance
FRANCE
• 2. Inspired by FDR'S New
Deal, the Popular Front
under Blum encouraged the
union movement and began
a program of social reform.
Inflation marred the success
of these programs.
• 3. Blum was forced to resign
in June, 1937 and the
Popular Front collapsed.
GERMANY
• A. WEIMAR REPUBLIC
1918-1929: November 9,
1918 Kaiser Wilhelm I
resigns and the German
Republic is established.
• 1. Provisional Government:
Chancellor Fredrich Ebert
presided over the new
government until elections
could be held for a
nationally elected
legislature which would
draw up a constitution.
GERMANY
• 2. February 11, 1919:
The National
Constituent Assembly
met for the first time in
Weimar. Ebert was
selected President
Philipp Scheidemann
formed the first Cabinet
and became its first
chancellor.
GERMANY
• 3. Problems
• a. Credibility: Undermined by
acceptance of ''the dictated peace",
by the violent but unsuccessful
Communist Spartikist Rebellion'
(Jan. 5-11, 1919), by the brief
Communist takeover of Bavaria in
April, 1919, and by the rightist
Kapp Putsch (March 13-17, 1920)
in Berlin.
• b. Economy: War debts, reparation
payments, spiraling inflation (8.4
marks per dollar 1919; 7000 marks
per dollar by Dec., 1922)
GERMANY
• c. Ruhr Occupation: A policy of
passive resistance was advised and
the government printed worthless
marks which dropped from
40,000/dollar in Jan., 1923 to 4.2
trillion to the dollar by the end of
1923. The occupation ended in
September and did prompt sympathy
for Germany's economic difficulties.
• d. Political Difficulties: Instability
resulted in a ''revolving door'' for
chancellors and over 350 political
murders.
GERMANY
• 4. Gustav Stresemann:
Dominant figure in German
politics 1923 to his death in
1929; most of that time he
served as Foreign Minister.
He tried to restore financial
stability and issued a new
mark, the Rentenmark
which was equal to 1 billion
old marks and was backed
by the mortgage value of
Germany's farm and
industrial land.
GERMANY
• 5. Paul von Hindenburg:
This WWI war hero was
elected to the presidency
in 1925. He vowed to
uphold the constitution,
which disappointed
conservatives.
GERMANY
• B. THE
DEPRESSION IN
GERMANY:
Exacerbated an
already dismal
economic situation.
By January 1932
unemployment was
43%.
GERMANY
• C. THE RISE OF HITLER
ITALY
• A. POLITICS: Beset by problems,
the Italian people looked for a
change and in the elections of
1919 the Socialists made
considerable gains. Giovanni
Giolitti: Premier (6/1920 - 6/1921);
he concentrated on international
conflicts and neglected domestic
concerns. The socialists promoted
a series of strikes whose violence
divided the country.
ITALY
• B. RISE OF MUSSOLINI
SPAIN
• 1. Alfonso XIII
(1886-1931)
• 2. Spanish
Republic
(1931-1936)
SPAIN
• 3. Civil War
(1936-1939)
• 4. Dictatorship Francisco Franco
(1939-1975)
SPAIN
• 5. Restoration
of the
Monarchy Juan Carlos I
(1975-
SCANDINAVIA
• A. GROWTH OF THE
SOCIALIST PARTY:
passed social reform
legislation in the 1920's.
• B. Development of A
Unique Type of
Socialism: Grew out of a
strong tradition of
cooperative community
action.
SCANDINAVIA
• C. THE DEPRESSION: Sweden pioneered in
the use of large-scale deficits to finance public
works. Norway and Denmark followed suit.
• 1. Increases in social welfare benefits (old age
pensions unemployment insurance, subsidized
housing, and maternity allowances.)
• 2. Growth of the bureaucracy; large increase in
taxes.
USSR
• INTRODUCTION; Soyuz Sovetskikh
Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (C.C.C.P.); capital
city of Moscow ; National Motto: Proletarii
Vsekh Stran, Soyedinyaites! - Workers of all
countries unite!
USSR
• A. DIVISIONS
• 1. Fifteen Republics: Russia, Latvia, Estonia,
Lithuanian, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia,
Armenian, Moldovia, Azerbaijan, Tadzhikzstan,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan
• 2. Russia - west of the Ural Mountains; actually
one of the 15 republics; largest of the 15
republics
• 3. Siberia - east of the Ural Mountains
USSR
• B. THE LAND
• 1. USSR was the largest
country in the world.
(more than 8,500,000
sq.mi.) It had the
longest coastline in the
world; northern waters
frozen much of the year;
most rivers flow north so
unusable for shipping;
Ob is the longest
USSR
• 2. USSR covered 12 time zones.
• 3. More than 1/2 of the USSR was a plain. The
tundra is the farthest north near Arctic Circle;
permafrost; farming impossible; sparse
population makes living from fishing, hunting,
herding reindeer. The taiga (thick forested) is
south of the tundra; timber. The steppes are
south of the taiga and are grasslands with good
soil for farming
USSR
• LENIN ( 1870-1924 ) REGIME
• A. BEGINNINGS
• 1. OCTOBER REVOLUTION;
November 7, 1917 (October 24
in the Russian calendar)
Bolsheviks take St. Petersburg
under the slogan of Peace,
Bread. and Land. The
members of the provisional
government were arrested. The
new government was
organized under Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov Lenin and his sidekick Leon Trotsky who led the
army.
USSR
• 2. RUSSIA WITHDRAWS FROM WWI: Russia
signed a truce with Germany. The Treaty of BrestLitovsk was signed in March, 1918. The
government ordered all farmland to be divided
among the peasants. Elections were held for a
national assembly. When the Social Revolutionary
Party won a majority the Bolsheviks closed the
Assembly 3. In 1918 the capital was moved to
Moscow. The Cheka(secret police) was organized.
The Red Army was organized
USSR
• B. TROUBLE
• 1. The Chelyabinsk Incident (May 14, 1918):
Czech POW's being shipped through
Vladivostok to the Western Front brawled with
Hungarian POW's at Chelyabinsk in the Urals,
resulting in a Czech rebellion against Soviet
authorities and the seizure of the Urals area and
eastern Siberia by late summer. This incident
complicated the already-existing civil war in
Russia.
USSR
• 2. Civil War (1918-1920):
Communists (Reds) vs Anticommunists (Whites). The
White Resistance formed out
of the opposition to Lenin's
seizure of Petrograd. Admiral
Alexander Kolchak was
eventually recognized as the
overall leader of the
resistance. The Whites were
backed by western nations
including the U.S. These
landed forces in Russia at
major shipping points to
protect supplies sent to the
provisional government.
USSR
•After initial victories, the
White Resistance began to
collapse. On January
4,1920, Kolchak abdicated
in favor of Anton Denikin
who was turned over by his
Czech protectors to the
Soviets and executed on
February 7. Ultimately, there
was a Communist victory.
USSR
• 3. Polish-Soviet War (l920):
Attempting to take advantage of
the USSR during the Civil War,
Pilsudski tried to retake territory
lost to Russia during the Polish
Partitions of the late 18th. century.
Invading the Ukraine on April 25,
the Poles took Kiev two weeks
later. A Soviet counteroffensive
was stopped by the Poles outside
of Warsaw. An armistice was
signed October 12, 1920 and the
Treaty of Riga was signed March
12, 1921. Poland's border was
placed east of the Curzon Line.
USSR
• 4. The Kronstadt Revolt
(March 1, 1921): Uprising
of sailors at the Kronstadt
naval station. They
demanded free elections,
freedom of speech, and
the abolition of the Cheka.
The revolt was crushed
by Trotsky under Lenin's
order by March 18.
USSR
• C. POLICIES
• 1. New Economic policy was
announced by Lenin in 1921. It
provided for limited capitalism
(peasants were permitted to sell
their surpluses in free markets
while paying a fixed acreage
tax) and encouraged foreign
investment. By 1928 the USSR
had recovered so that farm and
industrial production equaled
that prior to World War I.
USSR
• 2. Political Organization: Lenin
created self-governing republics
bound together as the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics in
1922. The Bolsheviks began to
call themselves the Communist
Party. This name derived from
the term ''communism'' used by
Karl Marx to describe an
economic system based on
centralized planning by the
state.
USSR
• 3. Comintern
(Third
International,
Communist
International):
Founded 1919 to
coordinate the
revolutionary
activities of
communist parties
abroad.
USSR
• D. DEATH OF LENIN: On May 25,
1922, Lenin suffered a stroke that
left him partially paralyzed. He also
suffered from complications of an
assassination attempt dating to
1918. After a series of strokes,
Lenin died on Jan. 21, 1924, at the
age of 53, the most revered
personage--apart from Marx himself-in the world of communism. The
former capital city of Saint
Petersburg (then Petrograd) was
renamed Leningrad in his honor.
Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square,
with his body embalmed and on
display in a glass coffin, became the
most renowned shrine in the
Communist world
USSR
• POWER STRUGGLE:
Occurred in the year before
Lenin's death.
• A. LEON TROTSKY (18791940, Lev Davidovich
Bronstein) was the founder of
the Red army . He was
capable and popular but some
began to fear he would
become a dictator. He was
committed to world revolution.
''Permanent Revolution''
USSR
• B. JOSEPH STALIN (18791953, Joseph Vissarionovich
Djugashvili): Secretary of the
Communist Party. Stalin means
“man of steel” . He promoted
''Socialism in One Country'' that
aimed to build up Russia's
socialist base regardless of the
status of world revolution.
Lenin came to fear Stalin but it
was too late. When Lenin died
Stalin succeeded him and
Trotsky was exiled in 1929
(murdered in Mexico 1940)
USSR
• STALIN REGIME: Establishment of
totalitarianism.
• A. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
promoted by Stalin beginning in 1928
with the Five Year Plan. It established
a command economy as Communist
officials were put in charge of
factories, mines and railroads. It set
specific production goals, established
sources for raw materials, and
decreed markets. Consumer goods
were sacrificed for investment in
mines, heavy industry, railroads, and
energy resources.
USSR
• Every aspect of the worker's life
was controlled by the
government. Between 1930 and
1932 trade unions lost most of
their power. Foreign engineers
were brought in to plan and
construct factories. A second Five
Year Plan was launched in 1933.
It was spectacularly successful as
the USSR became a major
industrial power. Urbanization
accompanied industrialization.
USSR
• B. AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
abolished privately owned farms
and replaced them with collectives
which would be equipped with
modern machinery. The peasants
resisted. 5 to 10 million died. Many
more were shipped to Siberia. Many
farmers destroyed crops and
livestock to protest. The
government confiscated what
remained, taking land from about 10
million peasants. Famine came to
rural areas in 1932-33. By 1938,
93% of peasants live on collective
farms.
USSR
• C. PURGES: Stalin got rid of his
enemies, both individually and en
masse. His wife committed suicide (?)
after an evening in which she had
complained about the misery of the
people. In late 1934 his #2 man Sergei
Kirov was ''mysteriously'' murdered.
Stalin used this incident to launch a
reign of terror. Millions were arrested,
exiled, or executed. In August, 1936,
sixteen old Bolsheviks admitted to plots
against Stalin in public trials. The purge
spread downward through the ranks.
Religion was repressed (churches
became ''museums of atheism"). People
were forbidden to travel outside the
country.
Sergei Kirov
USSR
• D. LIFE IN THE STALIN
REGIME: People ate black bread
and wore shabby clothing.
Constant shortages but heavily
taxed vodka was available.
Severe housing shortage resulted
in overcrowding.
• Socialist faithful idealistically saw
themselves as builders of a
socialist state. Social : old age
pensions, free medical services,
free education day-care centers;
unemployment did not exist;
possibility of personal
advancement through specialized
skills and technical education.