APWH Unit 8

8.1:

Context for the COLD WAR & DECOLONIZATION [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 1]

Two Superpowers Rise

• Cold War: A state of hostility that exists between two states chiefly characterized by an ideological struggle rather than open warfare

• The Cold War: A standoff between the US and the Soviet Union that transformed global politics for about 4 decades after WW2

• The enormous cost and destruction of WW2 meant that the victorious powers, though they won, were still suffering from the war

• However, in this devastation, two global superpowers emerged from the war, namely the US and the USSR

  • There were two reasons why these states emerged as superpowers, while everyone else were in ruins: Their economic and technological advantages

Economic Advantages

• U.S

  • Although suffered profoundly during the Great Depression, the mobilization for WW2 created the occasion for a complete economic turnaround as their industrial sector ramped up to meet wartime production demands

    • Many women took up industrial jobs during WW2

  • Additionally, aside from the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US experienced almost none of the destructive consequences of the war

    • European countries and cities laid in ruins and now had to face the monumental and expensive task of rebuilding

  • Thus, the US became the most prosperous nation in the world

  • One of their most momentous results of the U.S’s post war prosperity was their ability to help pay for the rebuilding of European nations through programs like the Marshall Plan

    • Through this plan, the US sent over $13 billion in aid for economic recovery in war torn nations and on the whole, the nations that received those funds experienced their own economic revivals 

  • The global balance of power shifted decisively toward the US

• Soviet Union

  • Since the 1920s, the Soviet economy was heavily directed by the state

  • Although that kind of command economy drew skepticism from free market minded folks, in years leading up to WW2, the Soviet economy did grow rapidly, even if that growth led to the suffering and death of millions of Soviet citizens

  • Unlike the US, the Soviet Union was hit hard by WW2, not least by Hitler’s attempted invasion and siege of Leningrad

  • Even so, the centralized command economy of the Soviets meant that they could easily recover

    • Soviet Union had the benefit of drawing natural resources

      • Enormous territory had more natural resources

    • Large population

      • More people to work towards economic recovery

    • Government’s large scale investment in heavy industry before WW2

      • Much of the infrastructure they needed for recovery was already in place

  • It wasn’t long before the Soviet Union was economically powerful again

    • Although later in the century, their emphasis on coal extraction and steel production at the expense of consumer goods would contribute to a weakening economy

Technological Advantages

• The US developed the most advanced and devastating technology of the war, namely the atomic bomb

  • Deployment of two of those bombs in Japan effectively ended the war

  • This display of new technology made it clear to the rest of the world that the US was the technological king on the global stage

• The Soviet Union, not wanting to be outdone, reacted quickly with their own atomic weapons

  • The first was tested in 194, just 4 years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

  • This led to one of the most defining characteristics of the Cold War, namely the Arms Race

    • Both powers spent stupid amount of money to developed bigger and more destructive bombs

• Now that both powers had nuclear power and hydrogen bombs, it was clear who had the power on the world stage

Decolonization: Context

• For most of world history, powerful states had built up empire all over the world

• However, in this period, a complete reversal of that trend

  • In truth, it was the two world wars that created the conditions for decolonization

• The imperial powers that fought in WW1 called up millions of troops from their colonial holdings to help them win

  • Though they really had no choice in the matter, many colonial troops fought for their imperial parents’ cause, hoping that their sacrifices would be honored with a greater degree of self-rule, or even independence

    • Adding to this desire was Woodrow Wilson’s insistence that self determination for all nations should be the guiding principle after the war

  • However, after the war, many colonies of the defeated powers simply changed hands to the victorious powers

    • Through the Mandate System, the victorious powers claimed that they were organizing colonies into a hierarchical system with varying degrees of self-rule, based on their ability to sustain themselves

    • However in practice, the Mandate System essentially continued the colonial system unchanged

      • Angered the colonies

• But, it was WW2 that really set the process of decolonization in motion

  • Again, colonial troops fought for their imperial parents’ cause

  • But this time, after the war was over and there appeared to be no clear intention of the imperial countries to grant independence to their colonies, massive anti-imperial movements broke out across the world

    • The difference this time was imperial states like Britain and France and the rest had almost no resources to resist these movements

      • The war had devastated their economies and severely weakened their military

    • Therefore, after 1945, these developments would lead to a worldwide process of decolonization

      • Broke apart colonial empires and created something like 80 new states on the world map

8.2:

The COLD WAR, Explained [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 2]

Causes of the Cold War

• Conflicting IDeologies

  • Democratic Capitalism of the US

    • Emphasized free market economics and political participation from citizens

  • Authoritarian Communism of the Soviet Union

    • Emphasizes strict government control of economy and redistribution of wealth equal to all citizens

      • Citizens have no voice in government

  • The problem is both of these ideologies are universalizing ideas, meaning that those who hold them want everyone else to hold them as well

    • The US wasn’t satisfied with keeping democracy themselves, nor was the Soviet Union satisfied with keeping communism to themselves

    • Each ideology could only prove its superior worth once every part of the world was conformed into one ideology or the other

• Mutual Mistrust

  • Started before WW2 had ended 

  • The 3 big powers, the US, Soviet Union, and Great Britain, met together in a series of conferences to discuss plans for the postwar world

    • Basically all agreed that Central and Eastern European Countries would be able to hold free elections after the war

    • Presented a problem to the Soviet Union that bordered those states

      • If those states were democratic and capitalist, then, well, they wouldn’t be communist

    • So, Stalin decided to keep those countries under Soviet control to acts a buffer zone between Russia and Europe

      • Became known as the Eastern Bloc

      • Those nations became communist in short order and served the purposes of the Soviet Union

    • The US saw this as a flagrant violation of their agreement to allow these nations the right of self-determination and democracy

  • After the war, Germany was split into occupation zones, with one occupation zone going to each of the victorious powers(Great Britain, France, US, and Soviet Union)

    • The occupation was meant to be temporary, but Stalin refused to set Eastern Germany free

      • Quickly became another communist satellite state of the Soviet Union

  • It was all of these territorial divisions that led former British prime minister Winston Churchill to proclaim that an “Iron Curtain” had fallen across Europe

•  Therefore, due to conflicting ideologies and mutual mistrust, the Cold War began and would last for the next four decades

Effects of the Cold War

• The effects of this conflict reached farther than just the two superpowers, it in fact impacts most of the entire world

• Each power wanted their own ideology to cover the entire earth

• So, as the process of decolonization was creating dozens of brand new states across the world, the US and the Soviet Union raced to influence each of these new states and win them to their respective ideologies

  • All these new states were finally becoming free of colonial rule and establishing their own paths to independence 

  • The US and the Soviet Union started seeing them as pawns in their larger ideological struggle

  • Some groups and individuals in these newly forming states refused to be pawns in this global conflict which in many ways would make them more dependent on more powerful nations

    • Exactly the situation they had just escaped in their colonial past

  • Therefore, the Non-Aligned Movement began

    • Led by Indonesian president, Ahmed Sukarno

    • Hosted the first meeting of this movement in 1955

    • 29 African and Asian heads of state met

      • Most significant states being India, Ghana, Indonesia, and Egypt

    • All represented new states that had been formerly colonies or those still resisting colonial rule in search of independence

    • Described themselves as non-aligned in order to communicate that they refused to be controlled by the conflict between the superpowers

    • The Non-Aligned movement represented an alternative to the existing economic, political, and social orders created by the Cold War rivalry

    • However, leaders of non-aligned nations were also shrewd and they knew how how to take advantage of the Cold War Rivalry

      • By feigning support for one side or the other, non-aligned states were able to gain weapons and resources that hey needed for their own defense and development

      • Ex: Indonesia received aid from the Soviet Union in its struggle for independence, but they also absolutely destroyed the Communist party there, racking up something like half a million deaths in the process

8.3:

The EFFECTS of the Cold War, Explained [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 3]

New Military Alliances

• After WW2, the Soviets occupied much of Eastern Europe(Communist Bloc)

  • In doing so, they installed communist governments in these countries

  • Made their economies serve the Soviet Union and not their own populations

• Due to all those new communist nations near the countries of western Europe, not to mention the US, decided to form a mutual defense alliance called North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) in 1949

  • Alliance of nations that were against the Soviets with the US at the helm and the countries in Western Europe

• Not to be outdone, the Soviets formed a military alliance of their own which included the Warsaw Pact in 1955

  • Included the Soviet Union at the helm and all the countries in Eastern Europe

• The agreement that was common in each alliance was that if any one member state was attacked, that constituted an attack on all of them

  • Therefore, all member nations would respond

• The creation of these alliances cranked up tensions of the Cold War heavily

Nuclear Proliferation

• Arms Race

  • US pioneered atomic bomb in 1945 in WW2

  • Soviets made their own atomic bomb in 1949

  • The US responded with the development of a hydrogen bomb in 1951

  • The Soviets responded with their own hydrogen bomb in 1953

  • After a couple of decades, each superpower possessed enough nuclear weapons to blow the world up a thousand times over

  • The crisis moment of this proliferation came in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis

    • After a failed attempt by the US to oust communist leader Fidel Castro in Cuba, the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, shipped a metric buttload of nuclear missiles to Cuba

      • Cuba was basically in America’s backyard

      • Thus, Cuba could easily blow up America

    • In 1962, US spy planes discovered these missile sites and the US was outraged

• However, the US wasn’t innocent either

  • They had basically done the same thing by placing nuclear missiles in Turkey, which shared a border with the Soviet Union

• After the discovery of these missiles in Cuba, President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent anymore shipments to Cuba

  • This naval blockade wasn’t a neutral action, it was pretty close to a declaration of war

• For 13 intense and anxiety-filled days, everyone in the world was worried if nuclear war would break out

• Fortunately, the missiles were never fired, and eventually all the parties backed down

  • This did show the world that the buildup of nuclear weapons was a real problem

  • Therefore in 1968, the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty was created

    • Called on nuclear powers to prevent non-nuclear countries from developing such disastrous weapons 

Proxy Wars

• Even though the two superpowers never directly fought, there was a lot of indirect fighting through proxy wars

• Proxy war: Small local wars in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that took on global scope as the US and the Soviet Union took sides and supported the fighting

  • Korean War

    • After WW2, the Allies divided Korea into Soviet-occupied North Korea and US-occupied South Korea

    • In 1950, after both superpowers had withdrawn, the communist North Korea invaded the anti-communist South Korea in order to create a single communist state

    • Because this was a struggle of communists and anti-communists, the Soviets and the Americans took sides quickly

      • The United Nations(mostly the US) came to the aid of South Korea

      • The Soviets sent gun’s and power to North Korea 

      • In this way, the US and the Soviet Union “fought” each other without directly fighting each other

    • In 1953, the conflict ended in a stalemate and everything in the two countries remained largely as they were before the war, except that 3 million people were dead as a result

  • Angolan Civil War

    • Began in 1975

    • Colony of Portugal

      • When they drew the borders of Angola, they threw rival people groups under one government

      • These Angolan ethnic groups, despite their rivalry, united and fought against the Portuguese and won their independence

    • But after they won independence, the real question was which one of the groups would actually hold power in the newly formed state of Angola?

    • This conflict seemed like a small conflict in sub saharan Africa, but the global superpowers did indeed get involved

      • The Soviets backed one of the groups, the US backed another, and South America yet another

      • Thus began the Angolan Civil War

        • Became another ground for larger powers conducting the Cold War

  • Contra War in Nicaragua

    • In 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, who were self-proclaimed socialists, seized power in Nicaragua

    • Two years later, the US backed a group of contras

      • Tried to overthrow the Sandinistas

      • In turn, the Sandinistas had support from the Soviet Union

    • In this attempted overthrow, the contras committed many human rights violations 

    • The conflict ended in a ceasefire and the Sandinistas were defeated in the next election

8.4:

The SPREAD of COMMUNISM After 1900 [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 4]

Communism in China

• By the 1920s, tensions were brewing against the Chinese Nationalist Party 

  • Due to their dependence on western powers and institutions

  • Main antagonist were the newly formed Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong

• Starting in 1927, there was a bitter conflict between the two parties over who would control China

• But in 1931, Japan invaded northern China

  • By 1935, the communists and the nationalist put their conflict aside and united to deal with the Japanese

  • Once the Japanese were defeated by the Allied Powers in WW2, the two rival Chinese factions started up the civil war right where they had left it off

• The Communist Party won with significant help from the Soviets and had themselves a communist revolution in China

• In 1949, leader Mao Zedong stood in Tiananmen Square and proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China

• Under Mao’s leadership, China nationalized its industry and redistributed land to peasant by means of a massive collectivization of agriculture

  • Comparison of collectivization of agriculture in China and the Soviet Union

    • Soviet Union:

      • Sparked internal rebellion

      • Millions of people died because of famine

    • China:

      • Relatively peaceful process

      • Communist party had built up trust with peasants during the civil war period

• Mao brought the economy into state control through a program called the “Great Leap Forward”

  • Definition: An economic plan to rapidly industrialize China through the development of heavy industry

• During this period, relations between China and the Soviet Union became strained

  • Mao believed the Soviet version of communism had become corrupt, and this is where the Chinese version of communism started to contrast to the Soviet version

  • Comparison of industrialization in Soviet Union and China

    • Soviet Union:

      • Stalin’s 5 year plans aimed to industrialize by focusing mainly on urban areas

    • China:

      • Mao focused on small-scale industrialization in rural areas

• However, the industrial goods created in rural areas were poor quality

• Add to that, bad harvest led to starvation of somewhere between 20-50 million Chinese people

  • Far worse than the Soviet famines caused by communist control there

  • To be clear, it was the horrible Chairman Mao who largely caused this deadly event

    • Just to show the rest of the world that his brand of communism was working just fine, he refused foreign aid during the famine

    • Continued to export the very grain that could have saved his people

Other Socialist/Communist Movements

• Socialism and communism spread through land reforms and redistribution of resources

• Egypt

  • The French and the British completed work on the Suez Canal in 1869 and took pains to control that highly strategic link between Europe and Asia

    • This canal was extremely important to the economic wellbeing of European powers, as it saved them time and money

  • In 1952, Gamal Abdul Nassar led a movement to overthrow the British and proclaimed independence for Egypt

    • Implemented socialist reforms for Egypt’s land resources

    • Nationalized the Suez Canal

      • The canal would now be under the control of Egypt alone

  • British, French, and Israeli forces invaded Egypt in retaliation

    • The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened a nuclear strike against the invading countries

    • Thus, the US president, Dwight Eidenhower, put pressure on Britain and France to withdraw, and they did

• Vietnam

  • During WW2, Japan occupied Vietnam, even though at that point, it was a French colony

  • After Japan was defeated, Vietnam declared independence from both Japan and France

  • In the wake of that declaration, two rival governments were established in Vietnam

    • Communist government in the North and a anti-communist government in the South

  • The communist government of the North began a program of land redistribution

    • A few wealthy landowners held nearly all of Vietnam’s agricultural land

    • Under this program, their ownership was canceled and land was given to the rural peasantry

• Cuba

  • In 1956, Fidel Castro led a revolution in Cuba to establish it as a communist state

  • Castro’s main goals was to purge Cuba of dependence on and subservience to the US

    • With support from the Soviet Union, Castro launched a program of land redistribution and raised wages

    • Resulted in the transfer of 15% of Cuba’s wealth from the rich to the poor

  • Castro nationalized much of the land that had belonged to various US corporations

    • These corporations had exploited Cuba’s economy for their own benefit

      • Situation similar to Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal

  • With their interest under attack, the US CIA led a failed attempt to overthrow Castro

    • Only further radicalized him in his communist beliefs

    • Led him to develop even close ties with the Soviet Union

8.5:

DECOLONIZATION, Explained [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 5]

Negotiated Independence

• India

  • Britain’s most prosperous and valuable colony

  • As such, Britain invested heavily in to build up India’s infrastructure

    • Railroads, seaports, urban development

    • All of yielded great return, but it was only built for the sake of enriching the British empire and not India

  • Resulted in a growing an educated middle class 

    • Became increasingly influenced by nationalism and greater degrees of self-rule

  • Formed the Indian National Congress in 1885

    • Goal was to petition the British government for more of a voice in Indian policy

      • These petitions were largely ignored by the British government

  • Even with this ignorance, Indians fought by the millions for the British cause in WW1

    • Even though they didn’t really have a choice, they fought regardless because they believed such sacrifices would earn them a greater degree of self-rule

    • Again, their hopes were essentially ignored

  • The discontent that followed erupted into violent resistance 

    • Occurred especially after the British troops slaughtered hundreds of peaceful Indian protesters in the Amritsar Massacre

  • Thanks to the powerful leadership of Indian nationalist Mohandas Gandhi, the imperial resistance movement turned nonviolent 

    • By the 1920s, in response to the increasing pressure, the British government did transfer some limited authority to the Indians themselves 

  • Once WW2 rolled around, the British again called millions of Indian troops to fight for their cause

  • The Indians did fight, and once the war was over, they demanded independence

    • The British were broke enough from the war and had amassed enough pro-independence politicians in Parliament

    • Officially recognized India’s independence in 1947

  • Even though the official process of India’s independence was negotiated and peaceful, the establishment of India as a new state was fraught with incredible violence

    • For centuries, India was home to a Muslim minority

    • So the Muslims, fearing that they would be marginalized in an independent India, formed a religious and ethnic movement known as the Muslim League

      • Called for a separate state of their in the independence negotiation

      • The result was the partition of India that created the new state of Pakistan

        • Would become the home of India’s Muslim minority

• Once the two states were created, Hindus fled south while Muslims fled north 

  • Each side committed unspeakable violence against each other

  • Once the dust had settled, hundreds of thousands to over a million people died  as a result

• Gold Coast

  • Also a colony of Great Britain

  • In 1947, an independence movement was led by Kwame Nkrumah

  • As Nkrumah began negotiations with the British, the situation was similar to India

    • There was no more public support for imperialism and Britain was in no position to spend money on quelling rebellions while they were busy rebuilding from the war

  • As a result of the negotiations, the new state of Ghana was born in 1957

Armed Conflict

• Whether the process of decolonization was peaceful or violent came down to the population of European settlers in the colony

• For those colonies in which large population of European settlers had made their homes, they resisted decolonization and that resistance caused outbreaks of violence in the name of independence

• Independence movement in the French colony of Algeria

  • In Africa, the French held colonial possessions in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria

    • For Morocco and Tunisia, they recognized their independence through negotiation and without bloodshed

    • However, they wouldn’t do the same for Algeria due to the population of white Europeans in the colony

  • Algeria was a hotspot for French migration for a long period of time, and French citizens living there resisted Algerian independence fiercely

  • In 1954, Arab and Berber Muslims responded by forming the National Liberation Front

    • Staged a series of violent attacks against French troops and civilians in the name of independence

  • French responded with brutality

    • Made the struggle for independence among the bloodiest in the period

    • French soldiers target civilians without restraint and committed human rights abuses on a massive scale

  • War continued until 1962, wen President Charles De Gualle opened negotiations with the Algerians

    • Declared the end of the war and Algeria’s independence

• Angola

  • By the 1950s, three Angolan political groups had joined together their colonial rule

  • Violence broke out during a spontaneous insurrection protesting inhuman treatment of farmers by the Portuguese

    • As a result, both sides unleashed violence against one another and neither made much progress

  • In 1974, a bloodless coup occurred in Portugal

    • The Angolans took the opportunity to open negotiations for independence

    • Independence came in 1975

  • Like other decolonized nations, violence immediately followed

  • Once the Portuguese were ousted, the 3 rival ethnic groups immediately fell into a civil war to determine which of them would hold power

    • The Angolan Civil war became yet another proxy war in the larger context of the Cold War

Problems of Colonial Boundaries

• The simplest reason for why many colonial independence movements quickly descended into civil war after winning independence is because of the problem of colonial boundaries 

• Imperial powers drew the boundaries for their respective territorial holdings without respect for the various ethnic and religious groups

  • In some cases, those boundaries brought rival groups together and in other cases, those boundaries split ethnic and religious groups apart

• That carelessness on the part of imperial powers often led to violent power struggles after colonial independence

• Nigeria

  • In 1960, Nigerians negotiated their independence from Britain

  • But a civil war broke out by 1967 over who would gain control over the newly independent Nigeria

    • Began when the Igbo people, who were westernized Christian people in the south, tried to secede and form their own nation called Biafra 

    • Because their land was rich in oil, the northern government resisted the secession violently

  • Ultimately, the north won out in 1970 and established, at last, a united Nigeria

• But the legacy of colonial boundaries in Africa and in various places throughout the world continue to cause tension till today

8.6:

State Building AFTER Decolonization [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 6]

Conflict in New States

• Imperial powers drew the boundaries for their respective territorial holdings without respect for the various ethnic and religious groups

• When colonies gained independence, they inherited those wack boundaries 

  • Some states sought to draw new boundaries

  • But whether they kept the colonial boundaries or not, the outcome was either way usually nasty

• Partition of India

  • Example of independence through negotiation

  • During the negotiations for India’s independence, both Gandhi and the British made frequent and impassioned appeals for India to remain one state as a home to the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority

  • However, the Muslim League(represented the Muslim minority) was pretty skeptical that the Hindu majority would treat them fairly in and Independent India

    • Pushed for a state of their own

  • Amounted to the partition of India into two states: India for the Hindu people, and Pakistan for the Muslims

    • Even though the partitions for the states largely reflected the existing locations of these rival ethnic groups, there were still significant numbers of Hindus living in the Muslim areas and vice versa

  • When independence came, Muslims fled to the north and Indians fled to the South

    • In the process, they committed enormous amounts of violence against one another

    • Once the dust settled, over 12 million people had migrated to one state or another

    • Over half a million people had died

  • After the migrations were done, yet another conflict arose over the region of Kashmir

    • In every state in the newly independent India, Muslims were the minority except Kashmir where they held a large majority

    • The fact that it held a border with Pakistan made Pakistanis assume Kashmir would be added to their territory

      • However, complicating the issue even further was the fact that the ruler of the state was Hindu and the region had many valuable natural resources

    • India declared that Kashmir belonged to them and Pakistan responded by launching attacks to claim the region for themselves

      • The U.N stepped in to mediate the dispute and insisted that the people of Kashmir themselves vote on the territorial outcome of their state

        • Given their Muslim population, would have certainly resulted in Pakistan annexing Kashmir

    • The vote never occurred, and the region has been a source of conflict between the two states to this day

• Creation of Israel in 1948

  • Before WW1, Palestine was home to a Muslim majority and was part of the Ottoman Empire

  • After the war, Palestine was transferred under the rule of Great Britain through the Mandate System, which but Great Britain in a tough spot

    • Since the late 19th century, a nationalistic ideology known as Zionism gained a lot of traction among Jews scattered around Europe

      • The chief desire of Zionist Jews was to have a state of their own, specifically  in their ancestral land of Israel

  • Under the influence of Zionism, large migrations of Jews to Palestine occurred before and after WW1

    • In addition the Zionism, this migration was encouraged by the Balfour Declaration

      • Pledge by the British to make Palestine a home for the Jews

    • The Arab Muslims that lived in Palestine vigorously resisted this migration and re envisioning of their territory as a home for the Jews

      • Things got even more tense when a huge spike in Jewish migration to Palestine during WW2 occurred as Jews fled the persecution of the Holocaust  

  • After the war, the British couldn’t come up with a way to peacefully handle the problem, so they handed the decision to the UN

    • The UN declared that Palestine will be partitioned into two states

      • One for the Jews, and one for the Arab Muslims

      • The Jews accepted this plan and declared independence in 1948

    • But the Palestinians refused to give up their land

      • To them, it seemed like another consequence of European colonial control 

    • The Palestinians almost immediately took up arms against the Israelis with support from neighboring Arab countries

  • In the end, the Israelis won that war, but several other conflicts would erupt throughout the 20th century

    • Even today, the legacy of this partition has the region filled with conflict

Government Involvement in Economics

• Gamal Abdur Nasser - Egypt

  • As a key member of the Non-Aligned movement, Nasser payed off the Cold War rivalry in order to get involved in Egypt’s economic development

  • Nationalized the Suez Canal(1956), which brought it under Egyptian control

    • When western powers invaded, Nasser gained Soviet support to end the conflict

  • Oversaw completion of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River(1970)

    • Provided electricity and irrigation for much of Egypt

  • Initiated social welfare reforms which included free schooling and healthcare\

  • The Egyptian government played a significant role in directing their economy after independence

• Indira Gandhi - Egypt

  • First and only prime minister of India in 1966

  • Inherited an economic crisis 

    • Brought on by the ongoing conflict with Pakistan and the droughts that had caused widespread famine

  • In response, she implemented a series of five year socialist economic plans 

    • Aimed to allow the government to assert more control over the economy instead of relying on foreign aid from powerful western nations

    • Adopted the green revolution which used science to develop high-yielding grain

      • Increased harvest yields and made India agriculturally self-sufficient

  • Oversaw the nationalization of key Indian industries and introduced significant government regulation on others

    • Her nationalization of banks and the increase of taxes on the wealthy, along with her 20-point economic plan, reduced inflation and increased production throughout India

Migrations to Metropoles

• Metropoles: Designated territory of the imperial country in distinction from their colonial holdings during the age of imperialism

  • Ex: India was a colony was a colony of Great Britain, so Great Britain would be the metropole of India

• Over the long history of colonialism, imperial states and their colonies developed both cultural and economic connections with one another

• So even if the presence of the imperial power was unwelcome in a colony, the colonial people grew familiar with the customs and culture of that occupying power

• Therefore, in the light of various economic difficulties faced in newly independent states during decolonization, some people choose to migrate to the cities of those metropoles to find work

  • Ex: South Asians migrating to Britain, Algerians migrating to France, Filipinos to the US

• Ultimately, this mass immigration transformed the majority white and culturally homogenous societies into genuine multi-ethnic societies

  • Those migrations also kept the cultural and economic ties between the two places live and well

8.7:

RESISTANCE to Power Structures After 1900 [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 7]

Nonviolent Resistance

• Mohandas Gandhi

  • Promoted nonviolence and civil disobedience in the cause of independence for India

  • Started political life in the Indian National Congress and became its leader by 1921

  • During the 1930s, he fully nonviolent resistance against British imperial policies in the Indian cause of independence through several significant acts

    • Homespun Movement

      • In protest of Britain’s economic dominance of India’s cotton industry, Gandhi encouraged his followers to boycott British made textile and make their own clothes at home

      • He himself did this by refusing to wear the western style suits that he had worn in his earlier years as a lawyer 

        • Instead he wore the traditional dhoti of Indian culture

    • Salt March

      • Reaction against the British salt monopoly

      • The British colonial government made it illegal for Indian to harvest their own salt, which they had in abundance along their sea shores

      • In order to protest this injustice, Gandhi led his followers on a march to the sea where they harvested their own salt

        • Although an imperial police squad was waiting for them at the coast and although they had already broken up the salt deposits and buried them in the mud, Gandhi dug them up and processed his own salt

      • For this defiance, Gandhi was arrested, one of multiple occasions in which he spent time in jail for his civil disobedience

      • Over time, though the British definitely retaliated against the movement, Gandhi’s efforts began to break Britain’s colonial hold on India

  • After WW2, Britain no longer had the resources or overwhelming public support to continue to resist Indian independence

  • Gandhi and his actions were a key player in one of the most momentous political changes in Indian history, namely its independence from the British

• Martin Luther King Jr.

  • Black Baptist minister from the US

  • Took inspiration from Gandhi’s nonviolent and civil disobedience methods

  • Fought against America’s racial segregation laws

• Civil Rights Movement

  • Aimed to secure equal rights for black Americans

  • King and his followers also resisted unjust laws by means of civil disobedience

  • Montgomery bus boycott:

    • Black Americans boycotted the city’s public bus transportation system

    • The boycott caused the city significant economic distress in Montgomery and in other places where the movement spread

    • King was also arrested on several occasions for his act of Civil disobedience 

  • Affected political change as the US Supreme Court outlawed racial discrimination in schools in the 1950s and Congress passed anti-discrimination laws in the 1960s

• Nelson Mandela

  • Although Mandela began by promoting nonviolence, he later changed his tactics

  • Once South Africa had secured its independence from Great Britain, the minority white population rose to power and introduced legalized racial segregation under a group of policies known as apartheid

  • Nelson Mandela, a prominent member of the African National Congress, led black South Africans in acts of nonviolent resistance that included boycotts and  strikes 

  • But a series of events caused Mandela to champion violence as the only way to achieve equality in South America

    • While Mandela was standing trial for treason, a nonviolent protest was occurring in the town of Sharpeville

      • In order to suppress it, the police began firing into the crowd, killing 69 people and injuring many more

    • The treason trial, combine with outrage over the Sharpeville Massacre led Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists to abandon nonviolent approaches and adopt violence in their struggle for freedom

    • Although he was jailed for more than two decades for his connection to those violent acts, upon his release in 1994, he ran for president and won office

      • Final nail in the coffin for South African Apartheid

Intensification of Conflict

• Violent responses were much more common than nonviolent resistance

  • By committing to force, some groups actually intensified violence and suffering

• Augusto Pinochet in Chile

  • Pinochet led a military coup to overthrow Salvador Allende

    • Allende happened to be a Marxist and had been implementing socialist policies

  • With help from the US, Pinochet assumed power and ruled over Chile as a dictator, and with that power, he violently suppressed opposition to his leadership

    • The military conducted raids, executions, and torture against Pinochet’s political enemies including members of leftist political parties and labor unions and the Catholic Church

• Idi Amin

  • Assumed power through a military coup in 1971

  • Responded to ethnic conflicts in Uganda with exceptional violence

  • Demonized the large South Asian population of Uganda 

    • These South Asians had made significant contributions to the economy for centuries

    • Amin claimed that they were responsible for taking jobs from Ugandans 

  • In the midst of his chaotic rule, Amin became known to the western world as the Butcher of Uganda

    • Due to the frequent campaigns of violence he carried out against his own people and his rivals

  • The violence targeted ethnic groups and in others, it targeted political enemies and in still others, it targeted seemingly random groups and individuals whom Amin deemed his enemies

  • In the end, the manner in which Amin responded to conflict intensified violence in Uganda

  • 80,000 up to 500,000 people died in the intensifying conflicts

• Rise of the Military Industrial Complex

  • As fear and economic pressure caused some states to worry about the future, one response to this anxiety was to defend the future by building up their militaries

  • The main countries that displayed this response were the US and the Soviet Union, as they raced to stockpile enough nuclear weapons to destroy everything that exists

  • This buildup was a self-feeding cycle

    • As military spending increased, so did the number of people who relied on this industry for their jobs

    • That meant if a policy maker did want to cut military spending, then they would also be putting huge amounts of people out of work

  • This meant this military-industrial complex served to increase violence throughout the world because it was economically profitable to produce and sell weapons

Violence Against Civilians

• Known as terrorism

• Al-Qaeda

  • Founded and led by Saudi Arabian billionaire, Osama bin Laden

  • Was a militant Islamic group that had deep grievances concerning the involvement of the US in Middle Eastern states, most notably Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia

  •  Responded with acts of terrorism against civilians in various parts of the world in order to pressure the US to change their policies in the region

    • The most infamous of these terrorist attacks was the 9/11 attacks on the US

      • Left more than 2000 Americans dead

  • Didn’t really dissuade the US from getting involved in the Middle East

    • This only intensified their involvement

8.8:

The END of the COLD WAR [AP World History Review—Unit 8 Topic 8]

Advancements in the US

• By the early 1980s, the US and the Soviet Union had produced over 12,000 nuclear missiles and all those weapons of mass destruction were pointed at one another

  • A major consideration that kept them from launching these missiles was the guarantee that if either started a nuclear war, it would certainly end in mutual assured destruction

• However, the tension between the two superpowers did relax somewhat during a period of detente in the 1970s

  • Ex: US President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty(SALT 1)

    • Both states agreed to prohibit further manufacturing of nuclear weapons

• In 1980, the US elected Ronald Reagan as president

  • He took a much harder line against the Soviets and decided to take the detente and basically get rid of it

  • Spearheaded the Strategic Defense Initiative

    • System that rendered any attack on the US by nuclear weapons obsolete

    • SDI sought to launch defense systems into space

      • Could detect a nuclear launch and shoot them down from space with lasers

      • The detractors of this plan dubbed it “Star Wars”

  • Even though the SDI never really came to pass, it represented a growing divide between the US and the Soviet Union

  • Reagan believed the US would attempt to match the US spending and weapons development

    • In large part, he was right

  • But the problem was since the 1970s, the Soviet economy had been stagnate and couldn’t support that kind of spending

    • Therefore, the Soviet attempts to keep up with the US military and technological investment led them into further economic decline

Troubles in Afghanistan

• In 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up its communist regime against Afghan Muslim groups that sought to overthrow it 

  • However, the Afghan rebels were supported and supplied by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan

• While the Soviets were able to control some of Afghanistan’s major cities, they could not win the rural guerilla war waged against them by the rebels

• All in all, the Soviet Union waged this losing battle for 9 years

  • Further depressed the Soviet economy

Gorbachev’s Policies

• Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in 1985

• Soviet Economy was in a crisis

  • Foreign trade was extremely limited

  • Government control of agriculture stifled the industry 

    • Farmers lacked freedom to decide what to plant and how to price crops

  • Soviet Bloc countries continued to grow discontent with Soviet oppression

    • Prague Spring: Series of mass protests in Czechoslovakia erupted in 1968 as a reaction to oppressive Soviet policies

    • The Soviets violently crushed this outcry, but the sentiment was spreading

      • The Soviet state was having to devote more and more resources that they did not have to putting those rebellions down

• With all this background, Mikhail Gorbachev enters with some policy ideas that will ultimately lead to the demise of the Soviet Union

• Gorbachev’s Policies

  • Perestroika

    • A restructuring of the economy to address economic woes by reducing the level of central planning from the government

  • Glasnost

    • Means “openness”

    • All the dissent and criticism against the government and its policies that had been brutally silenced by previous leaders was now allowed

  • Ceased Military Intervention

    • Soviet Union would no longer use military intervention in order to prop up communist governments in its own sphere of influence

• With those developments, satellite states in the Soviet Bloc took quick advantage of the loosening Soviet grip

  • Democratic reform movements erupted in one eastern European country after another, and that led to similar reform movements in the Soviet Union proper as people in Lithuania, Georgia, and other states began declaring independence and breaking free from Soviet control

• In 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down and Germany was reunited

• In response to all these destabilizing forces, the Soviet legislature voted in 1991 to dissolve the Soviet, thus marking an end to the Cold War