Pavlac B.A. A Concise Survey of Western Civilization: Supremacies and Diversities throughout History
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CHAPTER
Rejections of Democracy
TheInterwarYearsandWorldWarII,1918to1945
M
any people in the West thought they had won World War I in the name of
democracy. Western civilization increasingly promoted the idea that most
adults in a state should share in rule, making decisions through conflict
and compromise within legal and moral boundaries of behavior in established par-
liaments and other representative bodies. While such participatory politics had
been growing in power and influence since the seventeenth century, democracy
remained difficult. Democratic governments were undermined by the Great War’s
loss of life, the economic destruction, high-handed government policies, the shat-
tering of old morals and traditions, and a flawed peace process. The ‘‘war to end
all wars’’ led to worse ones.
DECLINE OF THE WEST?
The Scientific Revolution had offered science as the vehicle of humanity’s progress
toward peace and prosperity. But the modern chemical explosives and machined
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weapons of the Great War showed how science might instead drive nations toward
death and destruction. Nor could science help as a worldwide plague, the influ-
enza pandemic (1918–1919), killed perhaps as many as twenty-five million people
worldwide, more than twice the deaths caused by the recent war. The flu germs
swept around the globe with amazing velocity and lethality. Only the natural muta-
tion of the germ and resistance of the human immune system defeated the plague.
But what could prevent another such from striking? Many people no longer had the
same confidence that science could make the world a better place.
New scientific views in physics that followed those of Darwin in biology and
Freud in psychiatry further weakened confidence that the world could be under-
stood and improved. Einstein’s complex theory of relativity (1916) replaced the
logical simplicity and sensible familiarity of Newton’s clockwork universe. Accord-
ing to this new theory, a person’s position of observation, or point of view, could
affect such facts as the measure of time or distance. Even matter and energy were
interchangeable, according to the famous formula E mc
2
(energy equals mass
times the speed of light squared). The physicist Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle
(1927) stated that one could know either the location or the direction of an atom’s
electron, but not both simultaneously. This atomic theory became a metaphor for
an era of increasing doubt.
The future of world peace also grew increasingly uncertain, despite the clear
victory of the Allied Powers in the Great War. The American president Woodrow
Wilson in particular had proclaimed that the Great War was about making the world
safe for democracy. Indeed, many of the new countries created out of the peace
settlement of the Paris Peace Treaties declared themselves to be democratic. They
actually made reasonable attempts at practicing responsible self-government. Real
participation of all adult citizens—with laws and amendments even finally granting
the vote to women—reached its high point in most modern industrialized states
just after the Great War. Having the structures of republican government, though,
did not always result in actual respect for the democratic process.
The Great War’s peace proc ess i ron icall y un derm ined principles o f democ-
racy. Negotiations had started off with much optimism in Pari s in January 1919.
At that time , the Euro peans wel com ed Woodrow Wil son, the first s itti ng U. S. pr es-
ident ever to leave th e country. Since Ameri ca’s power had won the w ar for the
Allies, the other leaders of the ‘‘Big Four’’ allies (Lloyd George of Britain, Cl em-
enceau of Fr ance, and Orlando of Italy) grudgingly accept e d his pr eeminenc e. A
year ea rlie r, in January 1918, whi le th e w ar was still ragi ng, Wilson had already
set the tone for peace prop osal s with th e declara tion of hi s Fourteen Points.
Theseidealsproposedaworldofinternationalcooperationwithopenandhonest
diplomacy, supp ort for na tionali stic prin cipl es, and avoidance of warfare. The
European people s certain ly ho ped , based on the sound comm on sense and
decency of the Fourteen Points, th at Wilson ’s Am eric an vision wou ld establish a
better future fo r all nations.
Wilson also envisioned a new international institution, the League of Nations.
This organization was meant to replace the obviously failed practice of sovereign
nations facing off in a balance of power, with or without alliances. Instead, the
League was to promote collective security in a fashion similar to the Concert of
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Europe conducted by the Congress of Vienna a century before. Its ever-present
forum of delegates would replace the need for emergency congresses or confer-
ences every time an international crisis threatened to flare into war. The League
offered the possibility for diverse nations with divergent interests to work together
rather than against one another. Another world war, people rightfully feared, could
doom civilization as they knew it.
It was t oo much to hope, however , that a few months of negotiati ons could
easily over come the grudg es an d disagreements amassed durin g a th ousand years
of European conflict since the Treaty of Verdu n in 8 47. C ompl icat ing m atters
further wer e the aspirati ons o f op pres sed colon ial peopl es all ov er th e world. The
League’s ow n doo m was largely determin ed by the v ery p lace in w hich it w as
called into exis tenc e, namely Par is, the ca pita l of Ge rma ny’ s bit ter enemy. Instead
of forging a new beginning for coop erat ion in Europe, thos e who wanted t o pun-
ish the Central P ower s outmaneuvered Wilson’s good i nten tio ns. In the Treaty
of Versailles, signed i n L ouis XIV’s ba roque palace, the Al lies fo rced the G ermans
to accept the primary blame for the war. That treaty also pointedly excluded Ger-
many fr om th is new organizatio n of ‘‘free’’ peoples. Thus , one of the most impor-
tant great powers was left out. The vict orio us Allies also shut out their former
great power ally, Russia, because (as e xpla ined below) of its new c ommu nist gov-
ernment.
The worst blow to League membership was when the United States refused to
join. Many Americans had never shared Wilson’s vision of world participation; they
instead thought the United States should return to an isolationist attitude. These
Americans tried to ignore the reality that the United States was inextricably tied up
in world affairs with its colonies in the Pacific, its grip on the Caribbean and Latin
America, and its worldwide economic reach. Additionally, partisan politics poi-
soned the process. Wilson was a Democrat, and both houses of Congress were held
by Republican majorities. The Republican leaders of the Senate, which constitution-
ally ratified treaties, suggested a few changes they thought would preserve Ameri-
can independence of action and control over its own armed forces. Wilson refused
to compromise and embarked on a whirlwind campaign to win popular support
for ‘‘his’’ treaty. The stress of traveling thousands of miles in just a few weeks
brought on a stroke, which incapacitated him. His wife, Edith, practically ran the
White House for months, as she interpreted the bedridden president’s feeble
attempts at communication.
Wilson’s removal from politics meant that the United States of America signed
a separate peace with Germany, without the covenant concerning the League of
Nations. So the United States turned its back on the League of Nations. Great Britain
and France, nervous about the growing influence of American power, were glad at
first to see the Americans leave. For the next two decades, the isolationist United
States retreated behind the imaginary shelter of the Arctic, Pacific, and Atlantic
Oceans. These bodies of water, however, declined as defensive barriers in an age of
iron-hulled motorized ships and aircraft.
Ironically, the United States had become essential to Western civilization even
as it withdrew its political interests. Before World War I, most cultural, economic,
and social significance came from Europe. After the war, European society seemed
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stagnant compared to the creativity coming from Americans. During the Roaring
Twenties, America swelled with the artistic creativity of the Jazz Age. The ‘‘Lost
Generation’’ of American writers, disillusioned by both World War I and American
materialism, led the literary elites of the West. As the main creditor nation of Euro-
pean war debts, New York replaced London as the capital of finance (see figure
13.1). This cultural and economic shift to the New World remained unthreatening
to the Old World because of the United States’ reluctance to maintain large armed
forces or to throw around its diplomatic weight. American jazz music, however, hit
Europe hard, thrilling those who were moved by its African-based rhythms and
horrifying those who could not hear its beauty or appreciate its complexity.
Millions first heard jazz music over the new invention of radio, which tied the
world’s cultures together as never before. Although invented before the war, radio
IMAGE INTENTIONALLY REMOVED
Figure 13.1. New York. A construction worker on a skyscraper in New
York admires the nighttime skyline.
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as a medium came into its own in the 1920s. Radio stations were built all over the
industrialized nations. Although usage taxes (paid by owners of radio sets) sup-
ported public broadcasting in many European countries, advertising mostly
financed radio’s expansion in the United States. Either way, radio signals reached
around the globe, especially thanks to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s
growth through the British Empire.
When not gathered at home around their radios for entertainment, Western
audiences also flocked to the movies. Movies, like radio, had started in industrial-
ized countries before the war but became wildly popular afterward. Movie theaters
or cinemas, specially built or adapted from performance halls, showed films of
current events, works adapted from classic plays and literature, or newly created
works. American filmmakers in the sunshine of Hollywood became the most prolific
creators of that medium worldwide, soon outproducing the Europeans.
Movies became a dominant feature of Western culture. One of the first movie
stars, the British-born Charlie Chaplin with his ‘‘Little Tramp’’ character, became
an iconic figure around the globe. For the first few years, movies had no sound
except as provided by local musicians in the theaters. The first movie with synchro-
nized sound, The Jazz Singer (1929), portrayed the clash of old culture (a Jewish
cantor) with his modernized and Americanized son (the jazz singer of the title). It
symbolized the new age replacing the traditional past. Because of the success radio
and movies had in English-speaking countries, English increasingly became the lan-
guage of international media and culture.
The new world tied together by radio and movies seemed even smaller because
of new innov atio ns in transpor tat ion. Airplanes soared a cro ss oceans. Lindbergh cap-
tured the public imag inat ion w ith the first solo flight from New York to Paris (1927).
His instant fame showed how radio and newsreels spread information and invented
personalit ies. Airlines soon began to fly paying passengers across all barriers of land
and sea. The most popular and affordable transport was the mot orca r or automobil e,
symbolic of the movement and force of the twentieth centur y. A s the car became the
backbone of industrial production, the demand for paved roads and parking began
to radically transform the urb an and rural landscape. Affordable automobiles allowed
more young people to escape parental supervision, making the ‘‘back seat’’ a byword
for sex ual opportunity.
The standards of living rose briskly in most of the industrialized West during
most of the 1920s. At first, the economic costs and destruction of the Great War had
drained the resources of many European nations, so it took a few years to realign
their economies back to peacetime production. Then, consumer consumption
became the great engine for economic growth of modern economies. More manu-
facturing meant better pay and benefits for productive workers. While advertising
enticed westerners to purchase goods and services, easier access to credit lent them
the means to do it quickly and conveniently. A rising level of prosperity nurtured
an irresistible tendency toward materialism. Refrigerators and washing machines
were soon not just modern conveniences but necessities. Leisure time and vaca-
tions came to be expected. By the late 1920s, members of the widening Western
middle classes were enjoying themselves as never before.
For some people, that enjoyment included consuming recreational chemicals.
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Psychoactive substances such as opium (increasingly purified into morphine and
heroin), cocaine, and marijuana became more accessible due to modern agricul-
ture, processing, and transportation. Authorities in Western nations grew con-
cerned over increasing rates of addiction and the resultant social destruction. They
began to regulate and outlaw dangerous drugs. The United States went furthest,
outlawing the manufacture and selling of alcohol with a law declaring Prohibition
(1920–1933). Alcohol was, of course, the most widespread recreational drug since
civilization began, whether in the form of beer, wine, or distilled liquor. The Ameri-
can experiment with controlling alcohol consumption was unusual and ultimately
unsuccessful. Unsurprisingly, recreational drug use remained prevalent in Western
nations despite their official restrictions or prohibitions.
Despite a seeming prosperity, for some the rising materialism, increasing drug
use, and spreading popular culture encouraged pessimism. For them, the war had
killed or damaged so many promising youths, weakened traditional elites, and led
to a decline in churchgoing. Oswald Spengler, in The Decline of the West (1922–
1926), summed up people’s fears. Although his book was more discussed than
actually read, Spengler claimed in dense prose that Western civilization had become
senile. The events of the 1930s seemed to prove his point.
The troubles began with the Wall Street crash (1929), which then triggered
the worldwide economic collapse called the Great Depression (1929–1941). In
the 1920s, the stock exchanges on Wall Street, the financial district of New York,
had been pushing people to invest more money in business than ever before. The
eagerness to own stock, even in companies that were overvalued, pushed the prices
higher. Many people, both rich and middle class, were buying stock on credit,
believing that prices would keep rising forever. Thus, billions of dollars in stock
values had accumulated out of sheer optimism and greed. One Thursday morning,
24 October 1929, some investors began to doubt the alleged worth of these stocks
and sold them while the market was high, hoping to cash out with big profits. The
market fell so fast, though, that financial institutions began to collapse, and wealth
disappeared. Within a few weeks, the value of the market had fallen by 50 percent,
and it continued to fall for the next three years. Billions of dollars of capital simply
vanished into thin air.
Since New York had become the pivotal center for the investment of capital, the
Wall Street crash smashed other Western economies. Banks called in their loans,
but borrowers had little with which to pay back. Even when banks confiscated col-
lateral, such as homes or real estate, they still had too little cash on hand when
investors demanded their deposits. Forced into bankruptcy, banks failed, and the
life savings of millions of people disappeared. Many businesses could not meet
payrolls, saw their capital resources drained, and closed their doors. As consumers
had too little disposable wealth to buy goods and services, businesses shut down
because new orders dried up. Workers then had no paychecks, further weakening
demand and consumption. Governments tried to defend their countries’ factories
and farms by erecting protectionist trade barriers of high taxes or bans on imports.
These measures only damaged international trade and little helped the domestic
economies. Even food prices fell, forcing one out of every four farms into foreclo-
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sure in the United States. Millions of people went on the move looking for jobs,
but few were to be found.
These effects spread through the industrialized West, hitting hardest in the
United States, Japan, Germany, and Austria. The worldwide economic depression
of the 1930s accelerated the abandonment of parliamentarianism in those countries
where they had had too little time to take root. People began to question their
government’s competency or whether democracy could work at all. Great Britain,
France, and a few others clung to their parliamentary democracies, while commu-
nist and socialist parties gained in elections in nearly all Western nations.
The only place where organized socialist and communist movements remained
weak was in the United States. In America, the administration of President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt (r. 1933–1945) found other solutions to the economic collapse.
When FDR (as he was commonly called) ran for president in 1932, he revitalized
the Democratic Party with a coalition of intellectuals, Southerners (both white and
black), Jews, farmers, immigrants, and workers—all united in getting the economy
moving. Roosevelt’s advisors declared that the laissez-faire classical liberal econom-
ics was a dead fraud, since its free reign to the capitalists had brought on the eco-
nomic collapse. Instead, he proposed a ‘‘New Deal’’ for Americans, with massive
government intervention in the economy and the society.
The heart of the New Deal program was Keynesian economic theory, which
suggested a revision to the long-dominant theory of laissez-faire or classical liberal
economics. Laissez-faire theory assumed that capital would always be available for
investment. But the economic worldwide collapse of 1929 had eliminated many
banks and much capital. To get out of such a serious economic collapse, when
private capital was in short supply, British economist John Maynard Keynes recom-
mended that governments spend money they borrowed from themselves. Such gov-
ernment spending could help fuel a recovery, which could then revive private
capital investments. The massive public debt created by deficit spending could later
be paid off through the normal taxation and borrowing from banks after people
were working and investing again. Most Western governments began to adopt and
use this deficit spending practice regularly.
Using deficit spending, Roosevelt’s administration put Americans to work at
government expense at jobs that ranged from planting trees to writing plays, build-
ing bridges to digging ditches. Nevertheless, the American economy failed to fully
recover during the 1930s. Yet majorities of Americans, cheered by these efforts and
FDR’s image of cheerful and determined optimism, voted him into office four times,
more times than any other U.S. president. Meanwhile, Roosevelt’s political and
economic enemies hated the growing power of the federal government and
accused FDR of socialism and dictatorship.
Leaders of other democracies in the West did not enjoy the kind of popularity
FDR had in America, although they did share his inability to end the depression.
Those leaders who did gain popular followings actually became dictators and often
carried out real socialist policies. One after another, many westerners turned away
from enlightened participatory politics of liberal democratic parliamentarianism
and handed over their fates to dictators. These dictators then tried to reshape the
world into their own visions.
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Review: How did the West suffer cultural confusion in the wake of war?
Response:
RUSSIANS IN REVOLT
The first great pol itic al altern ati ve to the Western de mocr aci es arose out of Worl d
War I with the Russian Revolution (1917 –192 2). Before the Great War, the Rus-
sian Empire had already be en playing ca tch- up as it ponderous ly industrialized in
imitation of its European riva ls. In politics, t houg h, the absolute mo narchy of Tsar
Nicholas II had s hown litt le interest in democra tic insti tutions. Revolut ion then
forced change, as it had in Fran ce a century earlier, and with results that were
equally as u nexp ecte d. The Rus sian Revoluti on’s over poweri ng ideology pion-
eered new forms of government: the modern dictatorsh ips of totalitari anism
and authoritarianism.
These types of dictatorial regimes became commonplace after World War I.
Although authoritarianism was perhaps less intrusive and effective than totalitarian-
ism, both types adapted absolutism to a democratic age. As in an absolute monar-
chy, one person took charge of the state. Yet unlike the monarchies of old, the new
dictators did not descend from some special god-linked dynasty but were chosen
rather by ‘‘historical destiny.’’ Napoleon Bonaparte exemplified this type of charis-
matic genius who seized power from incompetent politicians. Often, the lower-
class birth of a dictator worked to his advantage, allowing him to be portrayed as a
man of the people, a member of the masses who had become important and
empowered with industrialization. The authoritarian leader’s clothing helped to
cement this new image. Gone were the crowns, ermine robes, and scepters of kings.
Instead, the business suit, antiquated traditional costume, or worker’s overalls and
cap linked the dictator with average citizens; as an alternative, a military uniform
asserted the values of discipline, obedience, and violence.
As opposed to monarchs who relied on tradition, dynasty, nobility, and religion,
the modern dictator maintained power through the modern political mechanism
of a party—elite followers who willingly and diligently served the leader. The party
embodied the ‘‘will’’ of the people, who were asked to participate in only rigged
elections and plebiscites. The party structure channeled the will of the dictator
down to the local level. Combined with the modern technologies of mass communi-
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cation, bureaucracy, and law enforcement, the masses could be mobilized to
achieve national goals like never before in history.
The twentieth-century authoritarian and totalitarian regimes sprang from both
nationalism and socialism that had arisen in the nineteenth century. Karl Marx
would have been surprised that the first successful socialist revolution took place in
Russia. In 1900, few people, and certainly not Marx, thought Russia was particularly
prepared for a proletarian revolution because of its minimal industrialization. The
Russian regime had always lumbered on under the sheer weight of its conjoined
rule of tsar, Orthodox Church, and landed aristocracy.
Defeat in wars, however, triggered drastic change for Russia. The empire first
showed its vulnerability when it lost the Russo-Japanese War (1905–1906). The
Japanese surprise attack on Russian positions in East Asia expanded its own imperi-
alism at Russia’s expense. Nimble Japan successfully humiliated stumbling Russia.
In reaction to the defeat of Russian armies and navies, the 1905 Revolution broke
out. The Soviets (or councils) of Workers and Soldiers organized by the socialist
Leon Trotsky provided some real muscle behind the revolt. At first, Tsar Nicholas II
made concessions, at least to middle-class demands for a representative and limited
government. After loyal troops returned from the front, however, he realized he
had the power to crush the rebellion after all. Consequently, Tsar Nicholas acted
on a basic principle:
No revolution can succeed against a relatively competent
government.
He broke his promises to liberalize his government, revoked the constitution, and
repressed the radicals, executing some and sending many others to Siberia. They
and others in exile survived to organize again.
The enormous costs of World War I offered a second chance for revolution as
the tsar’s system failed in the crucible of that brutal conflict. The Russian front, as
mentioned in the previous chapter, is often ignored in histories, which prefer to
concentrate on the dreadful trench warfare of the western front. Yet the vast ebb
and flow of armies from the mountainous Balkans to the frigid Baltic ravaged east-
ern Europe more horribly than Verdun or the Somme had western Europe. The
Russians did have some successes against the ineffectual Austrians, but as the effi-
cient German high command took over operations on the eastern front, Russia
found its troops ground up by modern weaponry. Tsar Nicholas himself went to
the front to command the troops, but he lacked any skills beyond his ability to
inspire.
Meanwhile, Petrograd (the new name for St. Petersburg) remained in the hands
of the tsar’s dilettante wife, Tsarina Alexandra. She fell under the spell of the charis-
matic charlatan Rasputin. That mad ‘‘monk’’ had convinced her that he could cure
their son, the Tsarevitch Alexei, of hemophilia (a genetic disease causing uncon-
trolled bleeding from any bruise or cut, inherited because of the inbreeding of
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