Italian Fascism

Italian Fascism

• Fascists encouraged the development of large families.

Italian Fascism Education

• School children started the day with a salute and "Let us salute the flag in the Roman fashion; hail to Italy; hail to Mussolini."
• Textbooks emphasized:
  • Glorious past of ancient Romans.
  • The imperial destiny of Italy’s future.
  • How other Western nations are not to be trusted.

Italian Fascism Physical Fitness

• Emphasis on physical fitness.

Italian Fascism Anti-Semitism

• 50k Jews lived in Italy in the 1930s.
• While Mussolini did NOT implement an extermination program in Italy, there were still antisemitic laws passed in the 30s.
• Jews were not allowed to teach or serve in the government/military.

Italian Fascism Youth Groups

• Young boys were in the fascist youth group, the Opera Nazionale Balilla.
• Girls were in the Littorio fascist youth group.
• Some children dressed up like members of the ancient Roman Empire.
• Children of the fascist youth consecrated a new flag, while dictator Mussolini looked on.

Real-World Implementations

• Communism
  • Economic equality (in theory, but in practice, only the connected are rich).
  • Class equality (among the poor).
  • All property public (owned by friends of the party).
• Fascism
  • Dictator rule.
  • National strength leads to war.
  • Anti-democracy, anti-free-speech, anti-individual.
  • National pride leads to racism.
  • Government surveillance.
  • Rigid classes.

The Fascists’ March on Rome

• October 1922.
• Socialism gained ground in Italy in the early 1920s.
  • WWI caused huge economic instability in most of Europe.
  • People were unhappy with working conditions, cost of living, and the inability of the government to help.
  • The early 1920s saw many strikes, protests, occupations, etc.

The Fascists’ March on Rome

• October 1922.
• The Blackshirts:
  • Fascist militia group that formed at the same time as the rise of socialism.
  • The Italian government wasn’t effectively stopping the strikes and protests, so some local elites called on the Blackshirts to help.
  • They did! Violently. Attacked unions, social clubs, socialist politicians, local newspapers, etc.
  • Police did not stop them (and sometimes supported/gave weapons).

The Fascists’ March on Rome

• October 1922.
• 1921 Election:
  • Fascist Party won some seats in Parliament, including Mussolini.
  • Socialists also gained political power, though Blackshirts interfered in elections and intimidated voters.
• Violence worsened.
• Anti-fascist strike in August 1922.
• Mussolini declared that the Fascists would suppress the strike if the government didn’t.

The Fascists’ March on Rome

• October 1922.
• Fascist squads moved through the countryside, demolishing buildings occupied by socialists.
• Eventually, Mussolini declared at a rally, “Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy.”
• Fascist forces marched on Rome to demand that King Victor Emmanuel III make Mussolini the Prime Minister.

The Fascists’ March on Rome

• October 1922.
• Government tried to rally troops to fight back, but the king refused to sign the order.
• Pressure on the king increased because Mussolini was supported by the military, the business class, and the right wing.
• October 29th: King handed power to Mussolini.
  • He feared civil war.
  • He and others also thought they could control Mussolini and the fascists if they just compromised now.

Consolidation of Power

• 1924: Various sham elections to shore up dominance of Fascist Party in Parliament.
  • Fascists murdered those that spoke against Mussolini/fascists, including journalists.
• By 1925, the fascists had dismantled Italy’s democracy.
  • Mussolini declared himself dictator.
  • All political parties besides the National Fascist Party were made illegal.

Consolidation of Power

• 1929: Lateran Treaty with Catholic Church.
  • Established Vatican City as an independent state.
  • Heavy influence of Church in education and other areas.

Mussolini as a Dictator

• Abolished democracy and free speech.
• Heavy censorship of media.
• Strikes outlawed.
• Dismantled constitutional protections and built a police state.
• Industrialism & production increased.
• Never as effective as Hitler or Stalin.

Germany and the Treaty of Versailles

• The War Guilt Clause forced Germany to take all the blame for WWI.
  • Lost territory.
  • Gave up overseas colonies.
  • Disarmed.
  • Paid financial reparations.
• Meant to both punish Germany and to keep them from becoming powerful enough to do it again.
• Contributed to German economic and political instability after WWI.

The Weimar Republic

• The Weimar Republic was the government in Germany after WWI as the result of Kaiser Wilhelm stepping down.
  • Constitutional democracy.
  • Lasted from 1918-1933, when the Nazis took power.
  • Marked the end of Imperial Germany, which was also known as the “Second Reich” (reich = empire/government).
• “Two very different moods characterized Weimar politics and society.”
  • Excitement and creativity: New freedoms of expression led to a flourishing of the arts, culture, and progressive social attitudes toward traditionally marginalized groups like queer people and women.
  • Anxiety and fear: The pace of change scared some Germans, and many were afraid of communism because of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution. Economic problems plagued Germany, including hyperinflation.

Inflation in Germany

• The Weimar government printed more money instead of raising taxes.
  • Partially to make reparations payments and partially to pay workers during strikes in critical industrial areas.
• Paper money needs to have gold or credit behind it, but Germany’s had none.
• More money printed = each note becomes worth less.
  • 1918: 1 mark for a loaf of bread
  • 1922: 160 marks
  • 1923: 200,000,000,000 marks
• Eventually, 1 US dollar = 4.2 trillion German marks.

Inflation in Germany

• People brought wheelbarrows full of paper money to buy groceries, and used Marks for wallpaper (insulation) and in fires to keep warm.
• This frustration contributed to the formation of new extreme political parties on both the left and the right.

Stab-in-the-Back Myth

• The belief that the German army didn’t lose WWI on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by disloyal forces on the home front.
  • Prominent military leaders (including Paul von Hindenburg) spread this story to avoid taking the blame themselves for the loss. Hindenburg even testified in front of a parliamentary committee investigating Germany’s defeat in WWI that revolutionary forces had sabotaged the German military and caused its collapse.
  • Socialists, communists, and Jewish people were blamed, and many right-wing groups claimed the Weimar Republic as a whole was illegitimate.
• Right-wing extremists, German nationalists, and antisemitic groups took it a step further and said the stab in the back was the work of an international Jewish conspiracy.

Adolf Hitler

• Born 1889 in Austria-Hungary to a middle-class family. Abused as a child. Mother’s death took a major toll.
• Tried to get into Vienna art school & failed.
• Political awakening in Vienna: influenced by political movements that were especially prejudiced against communism and Jewish people.
• 1913: Moved to Munich to avoid Austrian military service and became obsessed with all things German.

Adolf Hitler

• WWI:
  • Enthusiastic volunteer for Germany, highly decorated soldier, runner, war romantic.
  • Partially blinded by mustard gas toward end of the war.
  • Found out Germany surrendered while in the hospital and felt betrayed and “bitterly” disappointed.
• After the war, recruited to work for the information office of the military administration and to gather intelligence on political movements. He found the party he was assigned to monitor so compelling that he joined it and quickly rose to leadership.

The Nazi Party

• Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party)
• Originally founded in 1919 by Anton Drexler as the German Workers’ Party (DAP).
• One of several right-wing extremist groups that emerged from the nationalist, racist, and paramilitary sections of Germany’s culture to fight against the communist uprisings in this time.

The Nazi Party

• Nationalists: believed that all policies should be focused on making the German nation stronger.
• Socialists: it’s complicated. Not the traditional Marx definition of socialism—rather, they wanted a government-managed economy and saw both capitalism and communism as deeply selfish and opposed to national unity.

The Nazi Party

• The original German Worker’s Party (DAP) hated the Weimar Republic and Treaty of Versailles and blamed Jewish people for Germany’s problems.
• One of many small fringe groups, UNTIL…
• 1920: Hitler attended a meeting and, before long, his energy and speaking skills made him Drexler’s right-hand man. This enabled him to eventually take over the party.

Hitler’s Influence

• Drexler and Hitler announced the Nazi’s 25 Point Plan in 1920.
• The Nazi Party platform outlined how they wanted to save Germany.

Hitler's Influence

• Key features of the 25 Point Programme
  • No. 1: The union of all Germans to form a Greater Germany.
  • No. 2: The scrapping of the Treaty of Versailles.
  • No. 4: Citizenship of the state to be granted only to people of German blood. Therefore, no Jew was to be a citizen of the nation.
  • No. 6: The right to vote in elections to be allowed only to German citizens.
  • No. 7: Foreign nationals to be deported if it became impossible to feed the entire population.
  • No. 8: All non-Germans who entered the country after 1914 to leave.
  • No. 13: The government to nationalize all businesses that had been formed into corporations.
  • No. 14: The government to profit-share in major industries.
  • No. 17: An end to all speculation in land and any land needed for communal purposes would be seized. There would be no compensation.
  • No. 23: All newspaper editors and contributors to be German, and non-German papers to appear only with the permission of the government.
  • No. 24: Religious freedom for all - providing the views expressed did not threaten or offend the German people.
  • No. 25: The creation of a strong central government for the Reich to put the new programme into effect.

Hitler’s Influence

• In the early 1920s, Hitler began showing up to beer halls to speak to the people about Nazi ideology.
• Still more of a soldier than a politician at this point, but climbing the ranks into Nazi leadership.
• July 1921: Became leader of the party.
• Referred to himself as Führer (leader) of the Nazi Party.
• Passionate speaker, focused on the “stabbed in the back” myth, heavily criticized the new Weimar Republic.

Hitler’s Influence

*Creates a paramilitary force of ex-soldiers in 1921.
*Sturmabteilung, also called
* SA
* Storm Troopers
* Brownshirts
*Paraded in the streets as a show of force, controlled the crowds at meetings, sent to beat opposition.

Beer Hall Putsch

• November 8-9, 1923.
• Hitler tried to start a coup in Munich, Bavaria.
• Roused the people via gunfire and speeches.
• Many top Nazis involved, first major use of the SA.
• Failure:
  • Suppressed that night.
  • 20 people dead.
  • Hitler and others tried for high treason.
  • Hitler sentenced to 5 yrs, serves 9 mo.
  • Gets his name out there nationally.
  • In prison, writes Mein Kampf.
• Upon release, he is not allowed to speak publicly & the Nazi party is banned from having official gatherings.

Mein Kampf and Hitler’s Beliefs

• Published as a manifesto-- he began setting his vision for a “new Germany”.
• Beliefs:
  • Jewish culture = Marxist, evil, overly sexual, “parasitic” – calls for extermination.
  • Eugenics: the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable traits.
  • Selective breeding—no “mixed” marriages.
• Leads to the idea of ridding society of those deemed less desirable.

German Recovery

• America to the rescue: Dawes Plan
  • Financial support system that allowed German bankers to stabilize the currency with a loan from the United States.
  • Germany slowly starts to recover.
  • By 1929, Germany manufacturing as much as before WWI.
• As Hitler leaves jail, he finds that Germany has gotten on just fine without him.
• Eventually, the German government removes restrictions on Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Nazis Struggle in the 20s

• Throughout the rest of the 1920s, the Nazis gained followers, though never enough to have real power in the Reichstag (parliament).
• Targeted wealthy businessmen, farmers, women, soldiers, and those who held similar views.
• Good with propaganda.
• Didn’t get the votes because things were getting better in the 20s—Hindenburg was well-liked, the economy was recovering, and the working class supported the Communists.

Stock Market Crash

• The American economy collapses in 1929—Black Tuesday/Stock Market Crash.
• Start of the Great Depression.
• This heavily impacts European markets.
• US demands Germany pay back the loans from the Dawes Plan.
• The German economy once again spirals out of control.

The Great Depression

• The Great Depression affected the whole world and lead to a new wave of unrest and despair in Germany.
• This gave the Nazis the opportunity to stir up more hatred of the Weimar Republic and to gain more followers.
• People more drawn to extremist political parties.
• Nazis promised to fix the economy (Hitler promised “bread and work”) and opened soup kitchens.
• The Great Depression was a gift to the Nazis.

Weimar Government

• Paul Von Hindenburg was the president of the Weimar Republic.
  • Popular war general (who started the stabbed-in-the-back-myth) who became a popular president.
  • An early critic of the Nazi party.
• Reichstag: the German parliament under the Weimar constitution.
• The leader was called the chancellor.

Election of 1932

• Seeking a legal path to power now, Hitler ran for president against Hindenburg.
  • Made promises about solving the unemployment crisis, reversing the restraints of the Treaty of Versailles, and expanding German territory.
  • Appealed to traditional German values (family, self-sufficiency, tradition).
• The Nazis had begun to build a cult of personality around him.
  • Presented him as the savior of Germany.

Election of 1932

• Hindenburg won the presidential election for a third term.
• BUT Nazis got the most votes in the Reichstag.
  • Hitler was able to tap into the anger and helplessness many Germans felt because of the Great Depression.
  • Some saw the Weimar government as too weak to handle the economic crisis.
  • Chaos in big cities like Berlin saw members of rival political parties brawling and sometimes killing one another.
• Many voters felt change was critical.

Hitler Takes Power

• Nazis and other right-wing Reichstag members formed a coalition and convinced Hindenburg that Hitler was the only way to defend against continuing political chaos and Communism.
• Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler the chancellor.
• He was appointed in a small ceremony, but then he and the SA marched through Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in a large-scale Nazi show of force (propaganda!).

Hitler Takes Power

• The Reichstag Fire
• Less than one month after Hitler became chancellor, an arsonist burned down the Reichstag building.
• The Nazis spread a false claim that it was a communist attack and drummed up fear of a communist revolt.
• Hitler and the Nazis made a series of political moves to strip Germany of its democracy: gave the president dictatorial power, suspended the right to assembly/free press/free speech, removed restraints on police investigations.

Hitler Takes Power

• The Enabling Act
  • Allowed the chancellor to ignore the checks and balances in the constitution and issue laws without the consent of Germany’s parliament.
• 1934: Hindenburg died
• Instead of calling elections, Nazis pressured the Reichstag into appointing Hitler president (on top of being chancellor).
• There was then a popular vote (with widespread voter intimidation) to merge the posts of chancellor and president together into one position. 90% voted yes.

Hitler Takes Power

• Hitler is now officially a dictator and in complete control of Germany in 1934.
• Hitler used the large “yes” vote to claim public support for his own move to take absolute power.
• He took the title Führer und Reichskanzler (Führer and Reich Chancellor).

Hitler’s Central Goal

• The Aryan race is a historical race concept that emerged in the late 1800s to describe people of Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping.
• Lebensraum: living space for “pure” Germans.
• Goal: promote and expand the Aryan race.
• Method: eradicate those who are deemed impure/non-Aryan through totalitarianism.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Creates & Emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft

• Volk: “people”
• Volksgemeinschaft: roughly translates to “people’s community”.
• Originally became popular during WWI as Germans rallied in support of the war.
• Used by the Nazi party to create an ethnically-based community to rally people behind.

Creates & Emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft

• Hitler promises to restore faith in the Volk and bring wholeness (while accusing other politicians of tearing at German unity).
• Sets the standard for who is a “true” German.
• Propaganda pushes the Volk as Aryan Germans.
• Later turns into the “us vs. them” mentality.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Opens Dachau Concentration Camp

• First concentration camp opens in Dachau, Germany in 1933.
• The original aim is to contain political prisoners in one place.
• Serves as the blueprint for future concentration camps.
• Distinct disregard for inmates’ lives and health, and as a result, tens of thousands of people perish in the camps.
• The camp system expanded over the next decade and eventually included extermination camps too.
• This will eventually expand into containing (concentrating) other prisoners—Jewish people, Roma, the disabled, homosexuals, the elderly, etc.
• Aim: annihilate all peoples that they consider “degenerate” and a threat to the strength and purity of the Aryan race.
• Within months of the Nazis taking power in 1933, they pass a law calling for the forced sterilization of disabled people.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Book burning & erasure of culture

• 1933: Nazi student groups at universities across Germany carry out a series of book burnings of works that had an “un-German spirit”.
• The first book burnings take place 100 days into Hitler’s chancellorship.
• The largest of these book bonfires occurred in Berlin, where an estimated 40,000 people gathered to hear a speech by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.
• Goebbels declared that “Jewish intellectualism is dead” and endorsed the students’ “right to clean up the debris of the past”.
• “Degenerate Art” Exhibition
  • Nazis deemed a variety of modern art/artists to be “sick and immoral”.
  • 1937: Confiscated and displayed thousands of pieces of art in a museum exhibition on Munich.
  • Also destroyed or sold other works of art.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Involvement of the People

• Plays a very important role in cultivating loyal followers for Hitler and the Nazis.
• All teachers have to be vetted by local Nazi officials—disloyal teachers are fired.
• Most affected: History and Biology.
• Hitler Youth/League of German Girls
  • Introduce children to Nazi ideology.
  • Prepare young people for war.
  • By 1939, 82% of kids aged 10-18 belong to one of these.
• Women
  • 3 "K"s: Kinder, Küche, Kirche (children, kitchen, church)

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels

• Joseph Goebbels
• Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.
• Devoted Hitler follower and radical anti-Semite.
• Goebbels had complete control over the content of German newspapers, magazines, books, music, films, stage plays, radio programs, and fine arts.
• Goal: censor all opposition to Hitler, make him/Nazis look good, stir up hatred for Jewish people.
• Method: tailor messages to different sections of society to appeal to them specifically.
• Use of antisemitic children's book, mathematical word problems.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Nuremburg Laws

• 1935--Nazis put their ideas about race into law.
• An important step toward achieving the Nazi goal of separating Jews from other German people.
• One law defined a citizen as someone who is “of German or related blood.”
  • Jewish people were defined as a separate race and, therefore, couldn’t be citizens of Germany.
  • This meant they had no political rights.
• The other law made marriages or sexual relationships between Jews and Germans illegal.
  • They branded the mixing of Jews and Germans “race defilement”.
  • According to the Nazis, “mixed race” children undermined the purity of the German race.
• According to these laws, a person with at least three Jewish grandparents was Jewish.
• The Nazi regime required people to prove their grandparents’ racial identity for categorization.
• While these laws mainly targeted Jewish people, they also included racial minorities like Roma and people of African descent.
• Consequences:
  • More anti-Jewish laws in the following years.
  • Some Jewish families were able to flee the country, but many were unable to.
• Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) (November 9-10, 1938)
  • Violent pogroms against the Jewish population in Germany.
  • Nazi thugs, SA, Hitler Youth raided Jewish temples, businesses, homes, and steal/break/burn everything.
  • First massive arrest of Jewish people specifically because they are Jewish and for no other reason – 30k males rounded up and taken to concentration camps.
  • Marks the start of the Holocaust.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Remilitarization of the Rhineland

• The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to stop all military activity in the Rhineland.
• March 1936: Hitler blatantly violates the treaty and orders troops to this zone.
• Britain and France condemn his actions but neither intervenes to stop him.

Acts as Chancellor and Führer

1. Creates & emphasizes Volksgemeinschaft
2. Opens Dachau concentration camp
3. Book burning
4. Involvement of the people
5. Propaganda via Joseph Goebbels
6. Nuremburg laws
7. Remilitarization of the Rhineland
8. Night of the Long Knives

Night of the Long Knives

• The SS (Schitzstaffel)
  • Originally Hitler’s personal bodyguards became the feared soldiers that carry out the bidding of the Nazi party.
• Heinrich Himmler
  • Like Goebbels, a devotee of Hitler and an anti-Semite.
  • Became head of SS in 1929 and expanded the group’s role and size.
  • The person behind the mechanics of the Holocaust and the “Final Solution”.
• 1935: Himmler named head of Germany’s secret police.
  • Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei)
  • Gestapo is in charge of tracking down and arresting Hitler’s adversaries.
• Night of the Long Knives (1934)
  • Purge of SA leadership and other political opponents.
  • Hitler fears the leader of the SA is a potential threat to his own power (fear intensified by top Nazis reporting news of a potential coup to him).
  • Leaders of SA ordered to attend a meeting at a hotel in Bavaria.
  • Hitler arrives and personally places top SA leader, Ernst Röhm, under arrest.
  • Over the next two days, most of the rest of SA leadership is arrested and murdered without a trial.
  • Röhm is initially pardoned but then given the choice of suicide or murder. Refuses to take his own life and is shot by SS guards.

Authoritarianism in Japan

• Japanese militarism built the foundation of state-centered authoritarianism during the interwar period.
• In the late nineteenth century, Japan began building an empire to rival the powers of Europe, Russia, the United States, and China.
• Their empire survived World War I, continued into the 1920s and 1930s, but finally collapsed in defeat during World War II.
• One of the main strategies pursued by the Japanese was a close relationship between civilian and military authority. Modeled strategy on Germany’s approach in the 1880s.
• Borrowing from German law, Japan did not put elected officials in charge of the military. Instead, they gave the emperor total control. This allowed the military to act without answering to a civilian government.
• The military could inspire national pride by claiming decisive victory in wars. They could also determine colonial policy on its own, acting like an authoritarian government of their own.
• These factors made up the fundamental principles of Japanese militarism: raising military power and using it for political gain.
• By 1930, Japanese leaders saw themselves as facing two potential enemies: the young Soviet Union and any western liberal capitalist country, such as the United States.
• Facing these ideologically diverse soon-to-be foes, Japan realized they had something in common with two other insurgent regimes of the interwar period: Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
• Japanese army invaded Manchuria in 1931. Then, they set out to conquer the region, placing a large amount of new territory under its direct control and turning the region into a puppet state of Japan. This operation was a tremendous success but the conquest had broader economic and political implications.
• They decided on an arrangement in which the military regime kept a tight grip on the region’s economy to ensure its productivity. This “controlled economy” resembled Stalin’s command economy in the Soviet Union. Both systems asserted state control over the economy in the name of national strength.
• Over time, the lines between state and military blurred until they nearly vanished. Functionally, the whole empire – including Japan itself – became a military state.
• The state expanded into more and more areas of life in order to direct the energies and resources of its subjects into a sprawling imperial war effort that never seemed to end.
• Like the Italian Fascists, Japanese imperialists often depicted their conquests as part of a mission to “civilize” peoples seen as less advanced. But the grim realities of occupation in Manchuria and elsewhere in the empire were less civil, marked more by violence and economic exploitation.
• On its way to becoming a world power in the late nineteenth century, Japan borrowed from the principles of German militarism to design its imperial state.
• One effect of this was that the Japanese military gained a high degree of independence.
• Following the annexation of Manchuria, the military leadership adopted a controlled economy designed to funnel all resources into the war effort.

Recap: Meiji Restoration

• The Meiji Restoration changed social, political, and economic aspects of Japan dramatically:
  • Social: abolition of feudalism, rising nationalism, national education system, urbanization, exposure to Western culture (clothes, entertainment, mass media, etc.)
  • Political: Emperor, constitution, Diet, (partial) democracy, Westernized legal and military systems.
  • Economic: rapid industrialization, infrastructure projects (telegraphs, railways, etc.), promotion of private businesses, more individual choice in jobs, economic prosperity.
• Many of these changes were motivated by Japan’s desire to revise the unequal treaties with the West.
• “Japan was highly successful in organizing an industrial, capitalist state [based] on Western models.”

Early Imperialism Motivations

• Fighting back against unequal treaties and racial discrimination from Western powers.
• National security and protection against colonization.
  • By the 1890s, Japan had a strong army/navy that had been organized, trained, and armed like a European military.
  • They saw European and American interference in other parts of Asia (China and Korea) as a threat to their own safety.
• Economic interests: access to resources and markets as industrialization progressed.
• Nationalism, to a small extent.

Early Imperialism

• Under the new constitution and government, the head of the Japanese military was the emperor.
  • While he had technically been restored to power, he was still not a strong political figure, though he was worshipped as an important cultural and religious figure.
  • In reality, the military largely ran itself, with those high up in the ranks having broad power.
• The military also made decisions around wars and colonization almost entirely independent of the civilian government.

Early Imperialism First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95)

• Japan vs. China and Korea. This is the first big test of Japan’s new military.
• Japan wins, takes Taiwan and the Liaodong peninsula, ends Qing power in Korea.
• But this is a threat to Russian expansion into the area.
• Russo-Japanese War (1904)
  • Japan vs. Russia. Another Japanese victory.
  • Pushed Russia out of the Liaodong peninsula and southern Manchuria.
  • A boost to popular morale in Japan and a step toward the idea that Japan can/should expand.

Early Imperialism Korea as a Colony

• Japan officially annexed Korea as a colony in 1910 and ruled over it until 1945.
• Rule was harsh—colonization was directed by the military, and any dissent among Koreans was ruthlessly crushed