Transcript The Ancestors of the West

Au cabaret negre
(detail)
Painted by:
Kees van Dongen
Chapter 26
The Illusion
of Stability,
1919–1930
p745
Key Points of the 1920s in Europe
• The Modernistic style of the 1920s was:
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Evident in the art deco originating in France
Evident in Bauhaus, the German art school
Expressive of an optimism of accelerated modernization
Emphasized by a wave of neo-orthodox religious thinking
• The 1920s saw:
– The international order continued to be dependent on European
powers
– The US retreated from active involvement in Europe
– In many respects, Japan was regarded as a great power
– Colonial concerns continued to affect the balance of power in Europe
– The idea of a “world safe for democracy” came under strain because
the new democracies in Eastern Europe crumpled
On the orders of BrigadierGeneral Reginald Dyer, the army
fired on the crowd for ten
minutes. The figures released by
the British government were 370
dead and 1200 wounded. Other
sources place the number dead
at well over 1000. This "brutality
stunned the entire nation". The
ineffective inquiry and the initial
accolades for Dyer by the House
of Lords fuelled widespread
anger, leading to the Noncooperation Movement of 1920–
22.
The West and the World
after the Great War
• War led to new questioning of Western
supremacy
• Japan’s emergence as a world power
• Growing unrest in Asia and Africa
– In China, intellectuals adapted Leninism
and Wilsonian ideas to a new context
– In India, Britain failed to suppress the
growing nationalist movement
• Amritsar Massacre – sparked the struggle for
Indian independence
• Mohandas Gandhi head of Indian National
Congress
– Egypt won independence in 1922, but
remained under British influence
– Britain pursued a program of limited
reform in Africa
Amritsar Massacre, 1919
In response to AntiColonialism the British
cracked down on India.
In this photo: any Indian
using the road where a
female British doctor was
beaten, was forced to crawl
along it.
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Enforcing the Versailles Settlement
• Britain, concerned with its empire, left enforcement of
the settlement largely to France
• French efforts to prevent German resurgence
– New alliances in eastern Europe
– France invaded the Ruhr in 1923 b/c it accused Germany of being in
default on its treaty obligations.
• Led Germany to “print” $$$ for its striking workers – led to HYPER-INFLATION
• The Maginot Line
– A massive system of fortifications along the Franco-German border
– Conflicted with eastern alliance strategy
– A sign of declining French self-confidence
The New Political Spectrum: Communism
• Russia’s transformation of the Left
– The USSR, a centralized, non-democratic state
– The Comintern
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Sought worldwide Marxist-Leninist Communist revolution
Created a spilt in the international socialist movement
Russian Communists (Comintern) realized the true enemy was the socialists
Marxists, led by German Karl Kutsky, believed that Lenin communism
would damage international socialism.
– Russian Civil War pitted the Bolsheviks against
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Non-Russian nationalities attempting to free themselves from the Russian Empire
Foreign intervention (USA, France, Gr.Br., Poland, & Japan all sent troops)
The Whites (a variety of non-communist Russians)
Russians who had become disillusioned w/ the Communist Party
From Lenin to Stalin, 1921-1929
– Lenin’s New Economic Policy (restored private enterprise in agriculture & retail)
– Stalin’s Five Year Plan (led to a program of crash industrialization and
collectivization of the farms & increased Cultural regimentation)
– The new idea of “socialism in one country” – no longer trying to spread communism
– demanded “socialist realism”.
•
By mid-1918, the new communist
regime was under attack from many
sides, by both foreign troops and
anticommunist Russians.
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Bolshevik-held territory shrank
during 1919, but over the next year,
the Red Army managed to regain
much of what had been lost and to
secure the new communist state.
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Anton Denikin, Alexander
Kolchak, and Nicholas Yudenich
commanded the most significant
counterrevolutionary forces.
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While Leon Trotsky commanded the
Red Army
Map 26-1 p749
rivals for Soviet leadership after Lenin’s death.
Stalin, the winner, would eventually have his two
competitor’s killed.
Bukharin
Trotsky
Stalin
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Vladimir Tatlin
Soviet architect
Created this model for a monument to the
3rd International (Comintern)
It was supposed to be revolving and twice as
tall as the Empire State Building.
It was never built but demonstrates
the dynamic form of the utopian aspirations
of the early years of the communist
experiment in Russia
p752
The New Political Spectrum: Fascism
• Post War Italy
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The political situation was complicated by the conviction that Italy should have stayed out of the war
since its gains did not justify its costs
• The Rise of Benito Mussolini
– Presented fascism as a solution to Italy’s political problems
• The “Third Way” = An alternative to both Marxist Socialism and conventional democracy
• A dynamic remedy for political gridlock
– Became prime minister in 1922
– The key role of the Giacomo Matteotti murder, 1924
• Matteotti was murdered by Fascists – Many who had tolerated Mussolini as the man who could
keep order deserted him in the wake of the murder.
• Set Mussolini on the path to dictatorship
• Cemented the Fascist connection to the political use of paramilitary force
• Key fascist policies
– Totalitarian social control
– The “corporative state”
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Sought to strengthen the state in order to promote the national interest & to help mobilize society
Was gradually implemented & seemed to restore order
Replaced the parliament w/ a Chamber of Fasces & Corporations based on occupation
Attracted attention abroad, especially w/ reaction to the Great Depression of the 1930s
• The Lateran Pact, 1929
– A settlement between Italy and the Catholic
Church
• Recognized the independent sovereign state of Vatican
City
• Italy pays rent to the Vatican – given Church needed
funds
• Roman Catholicism becomes Official church of Italy
• Church has significant roles in Marriage and Public
education laws
– In return the Pope supported Mussolini and
Fascism.
Italo
Balbo
Benito
Mussolini
Mussolini
founded
Fascism &
became
PM of
Italy in
1922.
This photo
is from
1922.
Italo
Balbo was
a
pioneering
aviator &
later
fascist
Italy’s air
force
minister
p754
Toward Mass Society
• Consumerism
– Con’t to grow in the 1920s b/c:
• Expansion of the automobile industry
• Development of civil aviation
• Advances in the chemical & electrical industries
• Industrial transformations spurred by the war
– New industries: automobiles, airplanes, electricity, complex machinery
– A new cult of efficiency and mass production from America
• Taylorism & Fordism:
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Maximizing worker efficiency by breaking down production into small, repetitive tasks
Maximizing consumerism by raising wages
Mass production for mass consumption
capitalism
– Older industries have trouble with new global competition
• Less advanced industries didn’t modernize instead they made workers work longer hours for
less pay.
– Changing roles for women in the workforce and society
• Women earning right to vote in Britain & the US – both voted for existing political parties.
• See Josephine Baker slide to follow
• Inflation and economic turmoil
– German hyperinflation, 1923
– French inflation until 1928
After moving
from the United
States to Paris
in 1925, Baker
quickly created
a sensation as a
cabaret dancer
and singer.
Her exotic
costumes played
on the European
association of
Africa with the
wild and
uninhibited.
p757
Advertising
• Emergence of advertising in the 1920s:
– Printing & radio expanded the effects of advertising
– Advertising was aimed at mass consumption of goods & services
– Advertising became an art form (see slides to follow)
– Critics argued that advertising was debasing cultural standards
• A new “mass culture”
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Growth of consumption and advertising
Expanding media: print, radio and film
Democratization of leisure
The growing influence of “popular culture”
Car Ad,
1928:
The SixCylinder
Opel Hits
the Jackpot
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Jewelry Ad, 1920s:
“Wear
jewelry-It
makes you a
winner. And
it’s the ideal
Christmas
gift.”
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Complacency and anxiety
in France and Britain
• France
– Early confidence
– Undercut by a sense that the nation couldn't’t stand another
war of such magnitude
• Britain
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Unrest in Ireland led to division of the island
The Liberals declined and Labour rose
A new, less aristocratic political climate
Growing labor unrest and high unemployment
The Trials of the New Democracies
• The Weimar Republic (see next slide for details)
– A democratic government torn between far Left and far Right
– Reliance on right-wing paramilitary “Free Corps” and left wing worker’s
organizations to maintain order
– Gustav Stresemann, leading Weimar statesman
• The Treaty of Locarno
• An example proving that Weimar was not inevitably doomed
• East-Central Europe
– Quick collapse of democracy in most of the region’s newly created
countries only CZECHOSLOVAKIA remained a democracy throughout
the 1920s.
– Difficulties caused by breakup of the Hapsburg system
East-Central Europe after WWI
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New National Borders
– Created new economic barriers
– Redistributed agricultural land
• Led to lower production & forced small famers to sell out
GERMANY
– Weimar Republic
• Was born in humiliating defeat
• Had to take responsibility for the Treaty of Versailles
• Encountered severe economic problems
• Often had to use repressive methods of the old imperial system to control
opposition
• German Electorate tended to return unstable COALITION governments
– TREATY of LOCARNO
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Acceptance of Germany back to the ranks of respectable states
Recognition by France & Germany their common border
Freedom for Germany to attempt revisions to its eastern border
Eventual membership of Germany into the League of Nations
Foreign ministers Aristide
Briand (left) of France
and Gustav Stresemann
of Germany spearheaded
the improved international
relations that bred
optimism during the late
1920s.
p764
This poster
advertises Fritz
Lang’s 1926 film
Metropolis, which
explored the
dehumanization
and exploitation of
the modern city.
p760
The Search for Meaning in a Disordered World
• Anxiety and Disillusionment
– Ortega y Gasset and fears of mass society
– Franz Kafka – his stories were set in an incomprehensible futile world - the term
Kafkaesque has entered the English language to describe surreal situations like
those in his writing. (my favorite is the Metamorphosis – a Kafka short story)
– Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West – a cyclical theory of history that explained
how Western Civilization had declined.
– Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents – Freud argued that progress in
civilization is based on the suppression of natural instincts which will inevitably explode in
violence such as war.
• Remaking old traditions
– Karl Barth – reacted against liberal theology & saw the world & humanity as
sinful and helpless (neo-orthodox theology)
– Benedetto Croce – was a defender of democracy - reassessment of liberal democracy
– The cultural Marxism of Georg Lukács and the Frankfurt School – Lukács believed
that Marxism could be used to analyze consciousness & capitalist culture.
• Building new traditions
– Virginia Woolf’s idea that women needed a writing tradition of their own. A
Room of One's Own (1929), with its famous dictum, "A woman must have money and a
room of her own if she is to write fiction."
• Why does history know so little about women?
• Experiences of the ordinary people in history will be known by investigating the
history of women
• Women’s creative power is greatly different from men’s
• Education for women would emphasize the differences between men & women
– Dada’s rejection of reason - promoted chaotic artistic productions. Surrealism grew
out of Dadaism – André Breton spearheaded the surrealist movement in literature &
visual arts.
– Bauhaus, the “machine aesthetic” and Constructivism
• Walter Gropius was the founder of the Bauhaus school and held that elements of
machine-based civilization could be used to produce a new, positive artistic
tradition.
André Breton
Virginia Woolf
Woolf, a member of the noted
British Bloomsbury Group of
intellectuals and one of the most
influential female writers of the
twentieth century, sought to
specify what was needed for a
more powerful female voice in
the Western literary tradition.
p767
The Bauhaus, an influential but controversial German art school, was
established in Weimar in 1919 and then moved to Dessau in 1925. Walter
Gropius, its founding director, spearheaded the design of its headquarters
building. Constructed in 1925-1926, it immediately became a symbol of the
Weimar modernism that some admired and others detested.
p768
"The morality of idiots and their
belief in geniuses makes me
shit." --Jean (Hans) Arp