The world between wars: revolutions depression and authoritarian response

Alexander Kerensky

Headed the Provisional Government in 1917. Refused to redistribute confiscated landholdings to the peasants. Thought fighting the war was a national duty.

Red Army

Military organization constructed under leadership of Leon Trotsky, Bolshevik follower of Lenin; made use of people of humble background

New Ecenomic Policy

Initiated by Lenin in 1921; statecontinued to set basic economicpolicies, but efforts were nowcombined with individualinitiative; policy allowed foodproduction to recover.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Federal system of socialistrepublics established in 1923 invarious ethnic regions of Russia;firmly controlled by CommunistParty; diminished nationalitiesprotest under Bolshev

Supreme Soviet

Parliament of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; elected by universal suffrage; actually controlled by Communist party; served to ratify party decisions.

Joseph Stalin

Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state by purging all opposition (1879-1953)

Comintern

Communist International, international association of communist parties led by the Soviet Union for the purpose of encouraging worldwide communist revolution

Collectivization

a system in which private farms are eliminated and peasants work land owned by the government

Five Year Plan

Stalin's economic policy to rebuild the Soviet economy after WWI. tried to improve heavy industry and improve farm output, but resulted in famine

Socialist Realism

Attempt within the USSR to relate formal culture to the masses in order to avoid the adoption of Western European cultural forms; begun under Joseph Stalin; fundamental method of Soviet fiction, art, and literary criticism.

Yuan Shikai

warlord in northern China after the fall of the Qing dynasty; president of China in 1912; hoped to become emperor, but blocked in 1916 by Japanese intervention in China.

May Fourth Movement

A national protest in China in 1919, in which people demonstrated against the Treaty of Versailles and foreign interference.

Li Dazhao

(1888-1927) Chinese intellectual who gave serious attention to Marxist philosophy; headed study circle at the University of Beijing; saw peasants as vanguard of revolutionary communism in China

Guomindang

Nationalist political party founded on democratic principles by Sun Yat-sen in 1912. After 1925, the party was headed by Chiang Kai-shek, who turned it into an increasingly authoritarian movement.

Chiang Kai-shek

General and leader of Nationalist China after 1925. Although he succeeded Sun Yat-sen as head of the Guomindang, he became a military dictator whose major goal was to crush the communist movement led by Mao Zedong.

The long March

The 6,000-mile (9,600-kilometer) flight of Chinese Communists from southeastern to northwestern China. The Communists, led by Mao Zedong, were pursued by the Chinese army under orders from Chiang Kai-shek.

Syndicalism

Economic and political system based on the organization of labor; imported in Latin America from European political movements; militant force in Latin American politics

Mexican Revolution

(1910-1920 CE) Fought over a period of almost 10 years form 1910; resulted in ouster of Porfirio Diaz from power; opposition forces led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

Porfirio Diaz

a dictator who dominated Mexico, permitted foriegn companies to develop natural resources and had allowed landowners to buy much of the countries land from poor peasants

Francisco Madero

Early leader in the Mexican Revolution; in 1911 became president of Mexico; wanted land ownership and free, honest elections, two years later he was murdered, led to power struggles

Pancho Villa

A popular leader during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. An outlaw in his youth, when the revolution started, he formed a cavalry army in the north of Mexico and fought for the rights of the landless in collaboration with Emiliano Zapata.

Emiliano Zapata

Revolutionary and leader of peasants in the Mexican Revolution. He mobilized landless peasants in south-central Mexico in an attempt to seize and divide the lands of the wealthy landowners. Though successful for a time, he was ultimately defeated and assassinated.

Victoriano Huerta

Attempted to reestablish centralized dictatorship in Mexico following the removal of Madero in 1913; forced from power in 1914 by Villa and Zapata.

Alvaro Obregon

General who violently seized power/overthrew Carranza because Carranza did not support the final version of the Mexican Constitution. Promoted reforms and was assassinated in 1928.

Mexican Constitution of 1917

Promised land reform, limited foreign ownership of key resources, guaranteed the rights of workers, and placed restrictions on clerical education; marked formal end of Mexican Revolution.

Diego Rivera

Mexican artist of the period after the Mexican Revolution; famous for murals painted on walls of public buildings; mixed romantic images of the Indian past with Christian symbols and Marxist ideology.

Jose Clemente Orozco

(1883-1949) Mexican muralist of the period after the Mexican Revolution; like Rivera's, his work featured romantic images of the Indian past with Christian symbols and Marxist ideology.

Cristeros

Conservative peasant movement in Mexico during the 1920s; most active in central Mexico; attempted to halt slide toward secularism; movement resulted in armed violence.

Corporatism

a political system in which interest groups become an institutionalized part of the state or dominant political party;public policy is typically the result of negotiations among representatives of the state and key interest groups

Lazaro Cardenas

President of Mexico (1934-1940). He brought major changes to Mexican life by distributing millions of acres of land to the peasants, bringing representatives of workers and farmers into the inner circles of politics, and nationalizing the oil industry

Getulio Vargas

Dictator of Brazil from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Defeated in the presidential election of 1930, he overthrew the government and created Estado Novo ('New State'), a dictatorship that emphasized industrialization.

Juan Peron

President of Argentina (1946-1955, 1973-1974). As a military officer, he championed the rights of labor. Aided by his wife Eva Duarte Peron, he was elected president in 1946. He built up Argentinean industry, became very popular among the urban poor.