World Between Wars - AP WORLD HISTORY

Cubist Movement

twentieth-century art style; best represented by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso; rendered familiar objects as geometrical shapes

Surrealism

An artistic movement that displayed vivid dream worlds and fantastic unreal images

Lost Generation

A group of American writers who came of age during World War I who shared the belief that they were lost in a greedy, materialistic world that lacked moral values and established their literary reputations in the 1920s and would often flee to Paris; also used more generally to refer to the post- World War I generation (Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Weimar Government

Refers to the German government that was formed after Germany's defeat in World War I.

Fascism

Political philosophy that became predominant in Italy and then Germany during the 1920s and 1930s; attacked weakness of democracy, corruption of capitalism; promised vigorous foreign and military programs; undertook state control of economy to reduce social friction.

Benito Mussolini

(1883-1945) Italian fascist leader after World War I; created first fascist government (1922-1943) based on aggressive foreign policy and new nationalist glories.

The Great Depression

International economic crisis following World War I; began with collapse of American Stock market in 1929; actual causes included collapse of agricultural prices in 1920s, collapse of banking houses in the United States and Western Europe, massive unemployment; contradicted optimistic assumptions of nineteenth century

Popular Front (France)

Combination of socialist and communist political parties in France; won election in 1936; unable to take strong measures of social reform because of continuing strength of conservatives; fell from power in 1938.

The New Deal

President Franklin Roosevelt's precursor of the modern welfare state (1933-1939); programs to combat economic depression enacted a number of social insurance measures and used government spending to stimulate the economy; increased power of the state and the state's intervention in U.S. social and economic life

Deficit Spending

Government spending, in excess of revenue, of funds raised by borrowing rather than from taxation - lavish spending

John Maynard Keynes

British economist who argued that for a nation to recover fully from a depression, the Government had to spend money to encourage investment and consumption, sets the foundation for modern macroeconomics

Totalitarian State

A new kind of government in the twentieth century that exercised massive, direct control over virtually all the activities of its subjects; existed in Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union

Adolf Hitler

German Nazi Dictator during World War II (1889-1945)

Gestapo

Secret police in Nazi Germany, known for brutal tactics.

Nazi's

Followers of Hitler's National Socialist Party, picked up political support during the economic chaos of the Great Depression; advocated authoritarian state under a single leader, aggressive foreign policy to reverse humiliation of the Versailles Treaty

Nuremberg Laws

inhumane laws passed by the government of Nazi Germany that were used for racial discrimination against Jews; labeled Jews as inferiors who could not hold government jobs, nor marry non-Jewish Germans.

Jews

Second-class citizens

Kristallnacht

Nights of Broken Glass when the Nazis attacked Jews throughout Germany (torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses, and murdered close to 100 Jews)

Francisco Franco

General and leader of the nationalist forces that overthrew the Spanish democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939); head of the government of Spain until 1973 and head of state until his death in 1975

Spanish Civil War

War pitting authoritarian and military leaders in Spain against republicans and leftists between 1936 and 1939; Germany and Italy supported the royalists; the Soviet Union supported the republicans; led to victory of the royalist forces.

Guernica

Painting by Pablo Picasso about the Basque town in northern Spain that was bombed and destroyed in 1937 by German planes helping the insurgents in the Spanish Civil War; shows the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon innocent civilians, a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace

Alexander Kerensky

Liberal revolutionary leader during the early stages of the Russian Revolution of 1917; sought development of parliamentary rule, religious freedom

Red Army

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

New Economic Policy

Initiated by Lenin in 1921; state continued to set basic economic policies, but efforts were now combined with individual initiative; policy allowed food production to recover

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Federal system of socialist republics established in 1923 in various ethnic regions of Russia; firmly controlled by Communist Party; diminished nationalities protest under Bolsheviks; dissolved in 1991

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

Successor to Lenin as head of the U.S.S.R.; strongly nationalist view of communism; represented anti-Western strain of Russian tradition; crushed opposition to his rule; established series of five-year plans to replace New Economic Policy; fostered agricultural collectivization; led U.S.S.R. through World War II; furthered Cold War with Western Europe and the United States; died in 1953.

Comintern

International office of communism under U.S.S.R. dominance established to encourage the formation of communist parties in Europe and elsewhere

Collectivization

Creation of large, state-run farms rather than individual holdings; allowed more efficient control over peasants, although often lowered food production; part of Stalin's economic and political planning; often adopted in other communist regimes

Five Year Plans

Stalin's plans to hasten industrialization of the U.S.S.R.; constructed massive factories in metallurgy, mining, and electric power; led to massive state planned industrialization at cost of availability of consumer products

Socialist Realism

Attempt within the U.S.S.R. 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 fall of Qing dynasty; hoped to seize imperial throne; president of China after 1912; resigned in the face of Japanese invasion in 1916.

May Fourth Movement

Resistance to Japanese Encroachments in China began on this date in 1919; spawned movement of intellectuals aimed at transforming China into a liberal democracy; rejected Confucianism.

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.

Mao Zedong

(1893-1976) Communist leader in revolutionary China; advocated rural reform and role of peasantry in Nationalist revolution; influenced by Li Dazhao; led Communist reaction against Guomindang purges in 1920s, culminating in Long March of 1934; seized control of all of mainland China by 1949; initiated Great Leap Forward in 1958.

Guomindang

Chinese Nationalist Party founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1919; drew support from local warlords and Chinese criminal underworld; initially forged alliance with Communists in 1924; dominated by Chiang Kai-shek after 1925.

Chiang Kai-shek

(1887-1975) A military officer who succeeded Sun Yat-sen as the leader of the Guomindang or Nationalist Party in China in the mid-1920s; became the most powerful leader in China in the early 1930s, but his Nationalist forces were defeated and driven from China by the Communists after World War II.

The Long March

Communist escape from Hunan Province during civil war with Guomindang in 1934; center of Communist Party power moved to Shanxi province; firmly established Mao Zedong as head of the Communist Party in China.

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) armed rebellion in which the Mexican people fought for political and social reform, resulted in the removal of Porfirio Diaz from power; opposition forces led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

Porfirio Diaz

(1830-1915) One of Benito Juárez's generals; elected president of Mexico in 1876; dominated Mexican politics for 35 years; imposed strong central government.

Francisco Madero

(1873-1913) Moderate democratic reformer in Mexico; proposed moderate reforms in 1910; arrested by Porfirio Díaz; initiated revolution against Díaz when released from prison; temporarily gained power, but was removed and assassinated in 1913.

Pancho Villa

(1878-1923) Mexican revolutionary and military commander in Northern Mexico during the Mexican Revolution; succeeded along with Emiliano Zapata in removing Díaz from power in 1911; also participated in campaigns that removed Madero and Huerta.

Possible cowboy

Emiliano Zapata

(1879-1919) Mexican revolutionary and military commander of peasant guerrilla movement after 1910 centered in Morelos; succeeded along with Pancho Villa in removing Díaz from power; also participated in campaigns that removed Madero and Huerta; demanded sweeping land reform.

Victoriano Huerta

(1850-1916) Attempted to reestablish centralized dictatorship in Mexico following the removal of Madero in 1913; forced from power in 1914 by Villa and Zapata.

Alvaro Obregón

(1880-1928) Emerged as leader of the Mexican government in 1915; elected president in 1920.

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

(1886-1957) Mexican artist of the period after the Mexican Revolution; famous for murals painted on walls of public buildings; mixed romantic images of the American Indian past with Christian symbols and Marxist ideology.

José Clemente Orozco

(1883-1949) Mexican muralist of the period after the Mexican Revolution; like Rivera's, his work featured romantic images of the American Indian past mixed 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

Political ideology that emphasized the organic nature of society and made the state a mediator, adjusting the interests of different social groups; appealed to conservative groups in European and Latin American Societies and to the military.

Lázaro Cárdenas

(1895-1970) President of Mexico from 1934 to 1940; responsible for redistribution of land, primarily to create ejidos, or communal farms; also began program of primary and rural education.

Getúlio Vargas

(1872-1954) Elected president of Brazil in 1929; launched centralized political program by imposing federal administrators over state governments; held off coups by communists in 1935 and fascists in 1937; imposed a new constitution based on Mussolini's Italy; leaned to communism after 1949; committed suicide in 1954.

Juan Perón

(1895-1974) Military leader in Argentina who became dominant political figure after military coup in 1943; used position as minister of labor to appeal to working groups and the poor; became president in 1946; forced into exile in 1955; returned and won presidency in 1973.