Unit 8: 20th-Century Global Conflicts

Liberal democracy

A political system emphasizing representative government, civil liberties, and competitive elections; challenged by communism and fascism in interwar Europe.

Communism

A revolutionary ideology claiming to rule for workers and peasants; promoted as an alternative to liberal democracy and associated with the Soviet model after 1917.

Fascism

An extreme nationalist, anti-liberal, authoritarian ideology emphasizing the primacy of the state, militarism, and unity through discipline; rose in interwar Europe.

Treaty of Versailles

The 1919 post–World War I peace treaty that reshaped borders, restricted Germany militarily, and fueled resentment through reparations and the war guilt clause.

Great Depression

A worldwide economic collapse (c. 1929–1939) that drove mass unemployment and poverty and helped destabilize democracies while boosting extremist movements.

Nationalism

The belief that a people with shared language, history, or culture should have political sovereignty; intensified rivalries and destabilized multiethnic empires.

Ethnic tensions

Conflicts arising from mixed populations and minorities within new or redrawn states, especially after WWI border changes, contributing to diplomatic instability.

Pan-Slavism

A movement supporting Slavic peoples’ unity and political goals, often backed by Russia; intensified Balkan tensions against empires like Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans.

Imperial competition

Rivalry among great powers for colonies, trade routes, prestige, and resources; encouraged a zero-sum mentality and heightened international tensions.

Militarism

The glorification of military power and treating war as a legitimate policy tool; reinforced the belief that military readiness ensured survival.

Triple Alliance

Pre–World War I alignment of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy that helped divide Europe into rival camps.

Triple Entente

Pre–World War I alignment of France, Russia, and Great Britain that shaped expectations and crisis responses.

July Crisis

The chain of escalating decisions after the June 28, 1914 assassination that led major powers from a Balkan crisis into World War I.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne whose assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 helped trigger the July Crisis and World War I.

Total war

A form of warfare in which governments mobilize armies, economies, labor, and civilian morale/psychology to sustain mass industrial conflict.

Trench warfare

A defensive, dug-in form of fighting prominent on the Western Front in WWI, contributing to stalemate and massive casualties.

Armistice of Compiègne

The agreement ending fighting on the Western Front; signed November 11, 1918.

Armenian Genocide

The Ottoman Empire’s systematic extermination of Armenians beginning in 1915, killing an estimated 1.5 million through deportations, forced labor, and massacres.

Propaganda

State-directed messaging (posters, newspapers, censorship) used to sustain morale, encourage enlistment, demonize enemies, and justify sacrifice in total war.

Provisional Government

The Russian government formed after the tsar abdicated in February/March 1917; weakened by continuing Russia’s participation in WWI.

Soviets

Workers’ and soldiers’ councils in Russia that claimed grassroots legitimacy in 1917 and challenged the authority of the Provisional Government.

Dual power

The unstable situation in 1917 Russia in which the Provisional Government and the soviets both claimed authority and legitimacy.

Bolsheviks

The revolutionary socialist party led by Vladimir Lenin that seized power in October/November 1917.

Vladimir Lenin

Leader of the Bolsheviks who helped organize the October/November 1917 seizure of power and promoted promises of “Peace, Land, Bread.”

Peace, Land, Bread

A Bolshevik slogan summarizing urgent promises to end war, redistribute land, and address food shortages, helping win support in 1917.

Russian Civil War

A multi-party conflict (often dated 1918–1922) following the Bolshevik seizure of power; helped push the new regime toward coercive centralization and repression.

Soviet Union

The world’s first lasting socialist state, created in 1922 after Bolshevik victory; became a major ideological and geopolitical force in Europe.

Paris Peace Conference

The 1919 meeting of 27 countries that negotiated post–World War I settlements; key decisions dominated by the Big Four, with Germany excluded from shaping terms.

Big Four

The leading powers dominating Paris Peace Conference decisions: Britain, France, the United States, and Italy.

Article 231 (war guilt clause)

The Treaty of Versailles clause assigning responsibility for the war to Germany; politically explosive and symbolically humiliating.

Self-determination

The principle that national groups should choose their political status; applied after WWI but complicated by ethnically mixed regions and minority populations.

League of Nations

Interwar international organization based in Geneva meant to uphold peace through collective security; lacked enforcement power and failed to prevent WWII.

Collective security

The idea that aggression against one state is aggression against all, requiring members to respond together; weakened in the 1930s by lack of enforcement and political will.

Keynesian economics

John Maynard Keynes’s view that governments should intervene in downturns (e.g., public spending during recessions) to stimulate demand and stabilize the economy.

Marxist economics

Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism as exploitative, advocating abolishing private property and establishing worker control of production and more equal distribution of profits.

Authoritarian regime

A system concentrating power in a leader or small group and limiting political freedoms, without necessarily attempting total control of private life.

Totalitarian regime

A system seeking to control politics, culture, education, the economy, and personal beliefs through ideology, propaganda, and coercion (an ideal type on a spectrum).

Scapegoating

Blaming a targeted group for broader problems; central to Nazi antisemitism in portraying Jews as an internal enemy “explaining” defeat and crisis.

Appeasement

A policy (associated with Neville Chamberlain) of making concessions to aggressive states to avoid war; risky when concessions lack credible deterrence.

Revisionist state

A state seeking to overturn an existing international settlement; Nazi Germany aimed to undo Versailles and expand territorially in the 1930s.

Lebensraum

“Living space”; Hitler’s goal of territorial expansion in Eastern Europe as part of a racial-imperial project.

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

Hitler’s 1936 move to reintroduce German troops into the Rhineland in violation of the post–WWI settlement, testing and weakening deterrence.

Anschluss

The 1938 annexation/union of Austria with Nazi Germany, a major step in dismantling the interwar order.

Munich Agreement

The 1938 agreement granting Germany the Sudetenland, often cited as a key example of appeasement encouraging further aggression.

Nazi-Soviet Pact (Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact)

The 1939 nonaggression pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR, reflecting strategic calculation and clearing the way for the invasion of Poland.

Blitzkrieg

“Lightning war”; German strategy coordinating armor, motorized infantry, aircraft, and communications for rapid encirclement and early WWII victories.

Nuremberg Laws

The 1935 Nazi anti-Jewish laws stripping Jews of rights and citizenship and excluding them from German society (including bans on marriage/relations with “Germans”).

Kristallnacht

The November 9–10, 1938 coordinated pogrom against Jews in Nazi Germany marked by burned synagogues, destroyed businesses, killings, and mass arrests; a turning point toward systematic violence.

Final Solution

The Nazi program (coordinated by 1942) for the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews, implemented through bureaucracy, deportations, and killing centers.

Wannsee Conference

A January 1942 meeting associated with bureaucratic coordination of the Final Solution across Nazi agencies.