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27 Cards in this Set
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Vladimir Lenin |
was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. His political theory was based on Marxism and he served as the head of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. Under Lenin’s administration, the Russian Empire was replaced by the Soviet Union and all wealth including land, industry, and business was nationalized. Under his leadership, Russia would be the first major country to provide legal equality rights and suffrage to women and minorities, homosexuality and abortion were legalized, as well as the establishment free education and healthcare. |
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Soviets
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were elected representatives of a conglomerated alliance of worker’s unions in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century. These bodies were designed to hold the provisional government together until an election of a constituent assembly could take place. As support grew for the Bolsheviks, they promised the workers a government run by the workers’ councils to overthrow the provisional government, which would ultimately give all power to the soviets. |
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Mustafa Kemal
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was a Turkish army officer, reformist statesmen, and the first president of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey and was granted the surname Ataturk, meaning “Father of the Turks” by the Turkish parliament in 1934. After World War I he led the Turkish National Movement, in the Turkish War of Independence, to victory. He would then institute programs of political, economic, and cultural reforms seeking to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern and secular nation-state. |
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African National Congress
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was an organization founded in 1912 in South Africa by educated black professionals. The purpose of the congress was to combat white racial repression. The congress made little headway until after World War II when anti-colonialism swept Africa, at which time, the African National Congress became Africa’s strongest organization. |
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Franz Ferdinand
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was the Austro-Hungarian archduke and heir to the throne. He was assassinated in Sarajevo by the Serbian terrorist organization called The Black Hand that was seeking Slavic independence from Austro-Hungarian rule. His assassination precipitated Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war on Serbia in 1914, and among other geo-political tensions, was the spark that ultimately led to the Central Powers and Allies to declare war on one another, starting World War I. |
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Sun Yat-sen
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was a Chinese medical practitioner, revolutionary, father of Chinese nationalism, and first president of the Republic of China. He played an instrumental part in overthrowing the Qing dynasty during the years leading up to the Revolution of 1911, which ended two thousand years of imperial rule and marked the beginning of China’s early republican era. He also developed the political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People: nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood. |
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League of Nations
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was an intergovernmental organization founded in 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ending World War I. It was the first international organization whose principle mission was to maintain world peace, which represented a fundamental shift in diplomatic philosophy from the preceding one hundred years. The League ultimately proved incapable of its primary purpose because it could not prevent aggression by the Axis powers, which led to the Second World War. |
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Benito Mussolini |
was an Italian politician, journalist, and leader of the National Fascist Party. He would rule Italy as Prime Minister from 1922 to 1943. He initially ruled constitutionally but would then drop all pretenses to democracy and set up a legal dictatorship under the fascism movement in which he founded in response to communism. |
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Chiang Kai-shek |
was a Chinese political and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China. In 1926 he would lead the Northern Expedition to unify China against the Beiyang government and local warlords. He massacred communists in Shanghai who wanted to join him for fear they might dominate his nationalist cause. He had colluded with capitalists who he felt may have the ability to aid him in rebuilding China. He later cut deals with the warlords to consolidate his power and began to modernize and industrialize China. |
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Joseph Stalin
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became leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin in 1924 by expanding the function of his current role and eliminating opposition. He replaced the New Economic Policy with a centralized command economy, launching a period of industrialization and collectivization in order to rapidly transform the Soviet Union from an agrarian society into an industrial power. This transformation and upheaval in agriculture resulted in a mass famine. |
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Mao Zedong
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was a Chinese communist revolutionary and the founding father of the People’s Republic of China. He would mobilize the peasants of south-central China for a Chinese Soviet Republic with his own institutions and army. Chiang and his Nationalists sought to put down this movement; Mao and his supporters fled on the six-thousand mile Long March. During the Second Sino-Japanese war that began in 1937, Mao allied with Chiang but after Japan's defeat, the Chinese civil war would continue with Mao rising victorious. |
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Rape of Nanjing
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was an episode of mass rape and murder committed by the Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese war in 1937. An estimated 300,000 were murdered in Nanjing. The incident took place after a brutal three-month battle for Shanghai and as the Japanese moved inland, Nanjing was prevented from evacuation by Chinese troops ordered to guard the port. International outcry energized Chinese resistance to the Japanese. |
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Gandhi
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was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement in British-ruled India. He employed nonviolent civil disobedient to combat oppression by refusing to cooperate with oppressors. In 1930 he led fifty-thousand Indians two hundred miles to collect salt from the seaside salt flats to boycott a heavy British salt tax. He succeeded in converting Indian nationalism from an aim of the elite into a movement of the masses and inspired movements for civil rights across the world. |
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Francisco Franco
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disappointment with the removal of the monarchy, he successfully led a military rebellion to overthrow the Spanish democratic republic. During the Spanish Civil War in 1936 Franco would receive military support from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. He would establish an autocratic dictatorship in Spain with himself at the head of the state and government. Franco would later reestablish the monarchy and rule as regent until is death. |
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Holocaust
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was an act of genocide in which approximately two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population was killed by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1941 and 1945. The Nazis also targeted Gypsies, Poles, communists, homosexuals, Soviet POWs, and the mentally and physically disabled. The killings took place throughout Nazi Germany and its occupied territory. Nazis blamed the Jews for the loss of World War I and economic crisis so the Final Solution was enacted to rid the world of these perceived threats to allow the Aryan race to thrive as superior to all other races. |
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Anna Frank
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was a fifteen year old Jewish diarist and writer from Germany, who lived in the Netherlands. In the 1940’s her family and she hid from the Nazis for two years but were ultimately found and moved from one concentration camp to another. After her death her diary was found and published. Her stature as both a writer and humanist has grown throughout the world and she has been discussed as a symbol of the Holocaust and as a representative of persecution. |
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Containment
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was the major United States initiative in 1947 to counter the spread of Communism in response to Soviet pressures against Turkey. The concept asserted that by long-term and vigilant containment of communism would eventually lead to its collapse. America would provide political, economic and military support to any regime resisting Soviet influence; while Soviets similarly aided forces resisting western domination. |
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Fidel Castro
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is a Cuban politician and revolutionary who served as the Prime Minister and President of Cuba. He led a movement in guerrilla war against Batista’s Cuban military junta. After taking a leading role in the Cuban revolution, which ousted Batista, the United States attempted to remove Castro from power because of his friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Countering these threats, he formed an economic and military alliance with the Soviet Union, allowing them to place nuclear weapons on Cuba, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. |
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NATO
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is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization founded in 1949. It is an alliance formed of the United States, Canada, Iceland, and nine European nations designed to protect Western Europe against Soviet expansion. The alliance made clear that any aggression to one nation would be considered aggression to all nations within the alliance. NATO was formed response to the Berlin Blockade, to counter the military power of the USSR, and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. |
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Berlin Airlift
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in 1948 France merged its German occupation zones with the British-American sector to unite western Germany. Stalin feared the West was moving to reunite and rebuild Germany, and hoping to gain concessions, he blockaded all routes from western Germany to Berlin. Because Berlin was inside Soviet occupied eastern Germany, the British, French, and American sectors of Berlin depended on supplies delivered from western Germany. Truman opted with British support to supply Berlin by cargo plane drops flown around the clock. The Soviets chose not to forcibly interrupt the airlift to avoid all-out war with the United States. |
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Tet Offensive
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was a push my North Vietnam with simultaneous attacks throughout South Vietnam in 1968 coinciding with the celebration of the Lunar New Year. Although the offensive was a failure for the North, it undermined American moral. Shocked by televised coverage and that the battered enemy could launch a major assault; Americans concluded that victory was not insight, as their leaders claimed. |
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1. How and why did Europe become divided into two major alliances prior to World War I? How did the division contribute to the crisis that developed after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand? |
Otto von Bismarck established a series of alliances to maintain peace in Europe. When Wilhelm II came to power, he dismissed Bismarck as chancellor. He would not renew the Reassurance Treaty with Russia because he thought it compromised the Triple Alliance of 1882. Seeing the non-renewal as aggression, Russia would seek alliance with France, who had previously been kept isolated. Wilhelm began to build up his navy which spurred an arms race with Britain, who then sought an alliance with Japan and France to help protect its empire from German belligerence. When Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, Germany fully backed Austria if they decided to declare war on Serbia and, their protector, Russia; thus pulling the rest of Europe into war through these series of alliances. |
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2. What were the major accomplishments of the peacemakers at Versailles and what were their major failures?
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The major accomplishment of the Versailles Peace Treaty was the establishment of the League of Nations; an intergovernmental organization designed to maintain world peace which marked a fundamental shift in diplomatic philosophy. The failures of the treaty included humiliating Germany by making them take the blame for the entire war and forcing them to pay huge reparations that would bankrupt the country. The treaty had no negotiation between the victors and defeated, but instead, was settlement imposed by the victors who held much resentment by the war’s end. |
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3. Compare and contrast the reform movements in the Ottoman Empire and China in the first half of the 1900s. How did they respond to Western presence and influence? Which was more stable? Which one created a longer lasting change?
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Following the Great War, Turkish nationalist revolted in the Ottoman Empire. They over through the sultan and created the Republic of Turkey; creating a westernized, industrialized, and, most importantly, a secular state. In China, nationalism and communism fought over the future. Lenin’s views resonated in China as the Russian revolution coincided and the Paris Peace conference would ignore Chinese pleas. The Republic of Turkey would prove more stable and created a longer lasting change. |
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4. Discuss the events that led to the outbreak of WWII in 1939 beginning with the rise of Hitler to power.
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As Germany was experiencing economic disaster after World War I, the two leading political parties emerged as the Communist and the Nazis. Fearing a Communist takeover, Germany opted to support the Nazis. Hitler would be appointed chancellor by Hindenburg who feared the party’s growing power. Hitler began to re-militarize with the excuse of defense against communist Russia. He then sought to expand lebensraum into Austria and Czechoslovakia. After negotiating with appeasement tactics, Hitler was now confident that the France and Britain would avoid war at all cost. Hitler then invaded Poland and signed a non-aggression pact with Russia. France and England would now declare war. |
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5. Compare and contrast the different anti-colonial movements that emerged after the World Wars (you can choose any from, India, Asia, or Africa). Include tactics, public support and perception, and reaction from the colonial government. Which ones were more successful and why?
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India rallied behind Gandhi in its anti-colonial movement, using nonviolent civil disobedient to protest the colonial rule. The British had a tough time combating this method and moved toward giving independents. However, Muslim and Hindu clashes then re-strengthened British imperialism and eventually led to the division of India, creating Pakistan. In North Africa, fighting broke out between nationalists and French soldiers because France’s defeat in Indochina gave the nationalist the confidence to revolt. They could not defeat the French army in conventional war so they resorted to terrorist tactics. After strong resistance and assassination attempts from, both, Algeria and France, French leader de Gaulle successfully removed France from Algeria. |
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6. How did the United States and the Soviet Union emerge as the dominant influences in Europe and the World after 1945?
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The United States and Soviet Union emerged as dominant influences because the British stepped down when Attlee took office and promised to reduce Britain’s role in international affairs. The Soviet Union had the strongest and largest army after defeating Germany. The United States left the war with no homeland destroyed that would need rebuilding, massive industrial power and wealth from wartime production, as well as atomic weapons. |
