topic 6, lesson 1: rise of aggressive dictators

Text 1: Peace Dissolves

• totalitarian leaders used aggression to enhance own power

• at Versailles post-WWI, Britain, France, and US had most of a say (Germany and Russia weren’t there); lots of bitterness

• totalitarianism= more extreme than dictatorships (use of terror, censorship, and police force)

• totalitarian regimes blamed on destruction left by WWI and desperation of Great Depression

Text 2: Strict Regimes in the Soviet Union and Italy

• Lenin programs → civil war, starvation, famine, death

Stalin Rules the Soviet Union

• Stalin= suspicious, cruel, ruthless, tyrannical

• Great Terror= traitors of Communist party purged, political prisoners went to Gulag (labor camps)

• fear and massive propaganda kept Stalin in power

Mussolini Establishes an Italian Dictatorship

• Italian gvt= weak, economic depression, land not obtained from Austria-Hungary division

• Mussolini’s Fascist Party promised to restore order, his followers were ‘Black Shirts’

• Mussolini outlawed political parties, created secret police, suppressed strikes

Text 3: Germany and Japan Change Leadership

• Weimar Republic (democracy) didn’t last for long in Germany

Emergence of the Nazis

• Nazis weren’t socialists; opposed any “ism” that promoted class interest

• Hitler was violently anti-semitic, evident in his book ‘mein kampf’(‘my struggle’)

Hitler Rules a German Dictatorship

• Hitler appointed as chancellor, consolidated his power and ruled unchecked

• Although Hitler had good economic policies (ex. public work projects), leadership was oppressive

Militarism Gains Support in Japan

• Japan continued as constitutional monarchy, but military assumed dictator-like powers over people

The Japanese Empire Expands

• Japan established puppet state in Manchuria (China)

• “Rape of Nanjing”: Japanese soldiers murder residents and burn a large section of the Chinese capital

Text 4: Dictators Move to Gain Territory

• League of Nations & other powerful nations failed to stop Italian and German aggression

Weakness of the League of Nations

• LON had no standing army and no enforcement

Hitler and Mussolini Challenge the Peace

• Hitler expanded army, violating treaty of versailles

• emphasized Germany’s need to gain Lebensraum (living space)

• League failed to respond to Germanys invasion of Rhineland

• Ethiopia fell when Italy invaded

Dictators Support War in Spain

• fascist nationalists rebelled against Spanish democratic govt in Spanish Civil War

• large democratic powers watched from sidelines, fascist ones helped the Nationalist leader

Text 5: Aggression Meets Appeasement

• appeasement from France and Britain only spurred fascists to be more aggressive

• belief that a strong Germany could buffer against the USSR

• FDR pursued good neighbor policy w latin america and improved relations w USSR; became isolationist

• Austria had to accept Anschluss, Munich pact js postponed the war rather than preserving peace