POST-WWI… A CHANGING WORLD

EMPIRES — transformed…
• Austria-Hungary/Hapsburg (Eur) — gone… hello new indep states
– nationalism wins the day… sort of
• Ottoman Empire (ME) — gone… hello TURKEY (Türkiye)
Republic of Turkey
• central role: (Mustafa) Kemal Atatürk, mil/pol figure, nationalist
leader
• first President of the new democratic republic (1923-38)
— following resistance of Allied plans for carving up terr…
‘Turkish War of Independence’ (1920-23)
‘New’ Türkiye (with new capital, Ankara) = become like the West…
MODERNIZATION
• industrialization, mechanized agr, land & tax reform
• universal educ (US consult), rural schools
• latin alphabet
• Western attire
• secularization…
– pols, law/courts (Ital consult), educ
• women’s rights…
– inher, divorce, suffrage, educ & co-ed
• Russian Empire — gone, sort of… hello SOVIET UNION (USSR)
– indep Baltic states… for a time
– indep Ukraine… very briefly
– indep Finland & resurrection of indep Poland
– USSR/Soviet Empire dissolved in early 1990s… Hello Ukraine,
Baltics, etc…
CONTEXT?
• Russia can’t handle WWI … least industrialized
• socio-econ strain on pop too much.
• worsens pol tensions brewing for decades over trad monarchy
(demands for liberal, dem govt)
1917: March & Nov — 2 REVOLUTIONS
• March: trad monarchy, Tsar Nicholas II overthrown… failed exp in
dem govt
• Nov: dem govt overthrown by BOLSHEVIKS, led by V. I. Lenin —
communist… winning slogan was PEACE, LAND, BREAD… pull out of
WWI
The end of the Romanov dynasty…
Esp brutal & gruesome Soviet treatment of UKRAINE: Holodomor
(early 1932-33):
• in context of collectivization… to pay for industrial push
• ALSO: to crush Ukr nationalism
• “man-made”, i.e. artificial famine
• forced starvation of 3-4 million Ukrainian peasants
ANTI-COLONIAL MOVEMENTS… since late 19th-early 20th c — fuelled
by: growing nationalism among col pops, esp W. educ elites

Eg. INDIA — MAHATMA GHANDI, independence leader, “father of the

nation”
• educ in London-educ lawyer
• campaigned for 20+ years across India for social reforms — poverty,
taxation, land reform & self/HOME rule
• peaceful marches, protests… in face of British violence
• inspiring the Indian “nation”

In post-WWII
context of huge
British DEBT & Amer
PRESSURE to give up
empire
1947: India achieves INDEPENDENCE
But — PARTITION into Muslim-maj Pakistan & Hindu-maj India
– migrations in the millions due to anxieties, fears of rel minorities
– age-old rel tensions exacerbated by British policies over time…
– 1 000 000 + dead… 3 months… British do not step in

India-Pakistan rels
TODAY still impacted
by this trauma
ELSEWHERE: varied pathways to indep
AFRICA — mostly negotiated independence, relatively quick & non-
violent… 1950s-70s

BUT: post-IND tensions, conflicts

• ‘weak’ democracies… pol instability
• col trad of ‘heavy-handed’ govt
• col trad of using MIL in govt &
social order
• col borders… divisions
• civil wars, wars
• challenged economies… reliance
on W. aid, investments…