European Govts. Between the Wars

I. France & Great Britain France was the strongest power on the European continent after WWI formed the Popular Front government in June 1936

a coalition of Communists, Socialists & Radicals introduced the French New Deal

included collective bargaining rights for workers 40-hour work weeks minimum wage guarantees

Great Britain initially faced high unemployment after WWI had been unable to maintain their international markets during the war

the Labour Party & the Conservatives were the 2 dominant political parties John Maynard Keynes’ economic theories – deficit spending 1922 – Great Britain granted full autonomy to the southern part of Ireland

result of years of warfare southern Ireland was predominantly Catholic

II. Soviet Union & Joseph Stalin

totalitarian – definition communism - definition Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) Trotsky vs. Stalin over the future of the USSR Stalin’s economic revolution

Five Year Plans – industrialization steel, heavy machinery & oil production

agricultural collectivization & elimination of private farms resistance & the purges

forced labor camps in Siberia (the gulag) famine?

III. Italy & Benito Mussolini

fascism – definition came to power in post-WWI economic decline

his movement appealed to the middle class & was fiercely nationalistic and anti-communist

Il Duce squadristi = Blackshirts

used terror & intimidation to quell opposition OVRA = secret police policies re:

Catholic church? women? the press?

IV. Germany & Adolf Hitler

Nazi Party = National Socialist German Workers’ Party Nazism = German fascism SA (Brownshirts) = Storm Troopers

Mein Kampf (My Struggle) anti-Semitic & anti-communist

Hitler’s goals need to unite all German-speaking peoples in one empire – the Third Reich enforce racial purification – the Aryan race national expansion - lebensraum

Hitler’s rise to power – refer to video “Evil Rising” used democracy to destroy democracy (& create a police state) became Chancellor in January 1933 Enabling Act – March 23, 1933

policies re: women? economic development? Nuremberg laws (originated in Sept. 1935) Schutzstaffeln (SS) – led by Heinrich Himmler