Weve already examined the colorful analysis offered by

Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte regarding his

countrys new jet fighter, so lets today look at the aviation
insights offered by a politician on our home shores.
In the September 26 presidential debate pitting Hillary
Clinton against Donald Trump, when questioned about
nuclear doctrine, Trump stated:
But Russia has been expanding their -- they have a much
newer capability than we do. We have not been updating
from the new standpoint.
I looked the other night. I was seeing B-52s, they're old
enough that your father, your grandfather could be flying
them. We are not -- we are not keeping up with other
countries.
The gist of it appears to be the B-52 is an obsolete airplane
that proves that the United States Air Force has fallen
behind the rest of the world, particularly Russia.
But Those Aircraft are Really Old, Arent They?
You can call off the fact checkers on this one! The B-52
Stratofortress first flew in 1952 and ended its production
run in 1962, so the 76 B-52Hs in Air Force service are older
than nearly anyone flying them. Trump is literally accurate
in stating that your grandfather may have flown the plane,
in that there is at least one family with three generations of
B-52 crew members.
Such a storied plane is worthy of its own profilehow many
planes can claim their own hairstyle, 1970s rock band, and
cocktail?but well stick to the questions of its current
relevance for now.
The B-52nicknamed the BUFFwas originally intended to
drop nuclear gravity bombs on the Soviet Union. That would
already have been suicidal by the end of the 1960s given the
rapid improvement of surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles,
and would be even more so today.
So What Are They Good for? Why is the U.S. Air
Force Still Flying Them?
The B-52 has been deployed in virtually every major military
conflict the United States has engaged in since the Gulf War.
Why?
The B-52 still has two things going for it: it can carry a lot of
bombs and missiles. And it can carry them very far8,800
miles, before even factoring in in-flight refueling. Which you
should. The airframe also has a lot of space for upgrades.
So basically, its a long-distance bomb and missile truck.
What if the target has air defenses? Then each B-52 can lug
up to 20 AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missiles (which can
carry both nuclear and conventional warheads) across
oceans and launch them from hundreds of miles away.
If you need to surge a ton of firepower somewhere halfway
across the world from the nearest air base, the capability is
there.
But B-52s often havent had to use expensive cruise missile
because most of Americas recent opponents, such as the
Taliban in Afghanistan or ISIS in Middle East, dont have
the powerful surface-to-air missiles necessary to shoot at a
B-52 flying at high altitude.
B-52s loaded with twelve JDAM GPS-guided bombs or 4 to
10 GBU laser-guided bombs can orbit over battle zones,
awaiting close air support requests from troops on the
ground. Of course a jet fighter can do the same jobbut
fighters have shorter range, and cant loiter overhead for
nearly as long. When the United States intervened against
the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, it was B-52s and more
modern B-1s flying from the United States lugging precision
guided bombs that dropped much of the initial ordinance
because the U.S. Air Force did not yet have local airbases
from which its fighters could operate from.
Today, B-52s are actively flying missions against ISIS and
the Taliban.
I Heard Theyd be a Great Way to Carpet Bomb
ISIS!
Carpet bombing involves dropping hundreds or thousands
of unguided bombs to carpet the target area. Its an
indiscriminate technique which does have a nasty shock
effect. The B-52 is certainly capable of itit can carry 51
conventional 500- or 750-pound bombs, or around 40
cluster bombs. B-52s did perform low-level carpet bombing
attacks against Iraqi troops stuck in exposed defensive
positions in the middle of the desert during the 1991 Gulf
War.
However, the Air Force is uninterested in carpet bombing
today. It only works against densely concentrated targets,
which is certainly is not typical of the opponents it fights
today. It also produces tons of collateral damage and
couldnt be employed near civilian areas without causing
heavy civilian casualties for minimal military benefit. Carpet
bombing during World War IIeven on the occasions it was
militarily effectiveproduced disproportionately
civilian, and at times even friendly, casualties. Blowing up
an ISIS held city would clearly be a war crimeand if that
 isnt enough to dissuade, then the obvious political and
military consequences should be.
Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of
technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared,[1] visible
light, radio-frequency (RF)spectrum, and audio, collectively known as stealth
technology.[2While no aircraft is totally invisible to radar, stealth aircraft make it
more difficult for conventional radar to detect or track the aircraft effectively,
increasing the odds of an aircraft successfully avoiding detection by enemy
radar and/or avoiding being successfully targeted by radar guided weapon

The government of Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian

state. Totalitarian regimes, in contrast to a dictatorship, establish
complete political, social, and cultural control over their subjects,
and are usually headed by a charismatic leader.

The government of Nazi Germany was a fascist, totalitarian

state. Totalitarian regimes, in contrast to a dictatorship, establish
complete political, social, and cultural control over their subjects,
and are usually headed by a charismatic leader.

Historical Rise of Totalitarianism. Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler
may be the first totalitarian rulers that come to mind. ...
North Korea. ...
China. ...
Iraq.

Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism

Is Totalitarian


329 COMMENTS
TAGS The Police StateWorld HistoryOther Schools of ThoughtPhilosophy and MethodologyPolitical
Theory

11/11/2005George Reisman
My purpose today is to make just two main points: (1) To show why Nazi
Germany was a socialist state, not a capitalist one. And (2) to show why
socialism, understood as an economic system based on government
ownership of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian
dictatorship.

The identification of Nazi Germany as a socialist state was one of the

many great contributions of Ludwig von Mises.

When one remembers that the word "Nazi" was an abbreviation for "der
NationalsozialistischeDeutsche Arbeiters Partei in English translation:
the National Socialist German Workers' Party Mises's identification
might not appear all that noteworthy. For what should one expect the
economic system of a country ruled by a party with "socialist" in its name
to be but socialism?

Nevertheless, apart from Mises and his readers, practically no one thinks
of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that
it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all
other Marxists have claimed.

The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that
most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.

What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of

production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual
substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German
government. For it was the German government and not the nominal
private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership:
it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in
what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as
well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and
what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be
permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises
showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises

termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist
principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before
the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the
State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of
course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is
also owned by the State.

But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was

the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed
in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime
from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime
inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in
government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies,
and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response
to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.

The effect of the combination of inflation and price and wage controls
is shortages, that is, a situation in which the quantities of goods people
attempt to buy exceed the quantities available for sale.

Shortages, in turn, result in economic chaos. It's not only that consumers
who show up in stores early in the day are in a position to buy up all the
stocks of goods and leave customers who arrive later, with nothing a
situation to which governments typically respond by imposing
rationing. Shortages result in chaos throughout the economic
system. They introduce randomness in the distribution of supplies
between geographical areas, in the allocation of a factor of production
among its different products, in the allocation of labor and capital among
the different branches of the economic system.

In the face of the combination of price controls and shortages, the effect
of a decrease in the supply of an item is not, as it would be in a free
market, to raise its price and increase its profitability, thereby operating
to stop the decrease in supply, or reverse it if it has gone too far. Price
control prohibits the rise in price and thus the increase in profitability. At
the same time, the shortages caused by price controls prevent increases
in supply from reducing price and profitability. When there is a shortage,
the effect of an increase in supply is merely a reduction in the severity of
the shortage. Only when the shortage is totally eliminated does an
increase in supply necessitate a decrease in price and bring about a
decrease in profitability.

As a result, the combination of price controls and shortages makes

possible random movements of supply without any effect on price and
profitability. In this situation, the production of the most trivial and
unimportant goods, even pet rocks, can be expanded at the expense of
the production of the most urgently needed and important goods, such as
life-saving medicines, with no effect on the price or profitability of either
good. Price controls would prevent the production of the medicines from
becoming more profitable as their supply decreased, while a shortage
even of pet rocks prevented their production from becoming less
profitable as their supply increased.

As Mises showed, to cope with such unintended effects of its price

controls, the government must either abolish the price controls or add
further measures, namely, precisely the control over what is produced, in
what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it is distributed, which I
referred to earlier. The combination of price controls with this further set
of controls constitutes the de facto socialization of the economic system.
For it means that the government then exercises all of the substantive
powers of ownership.

This was the socialism instituted by the Nazis. And Mises calls it
socialism on the German or Nazi pattern, in contrast to the more obvious
socialism of the Soviets, which he calls socialism on the Russian or
Bolshevik pattern.

Of course, socialism does not end the chaos caused by the destruction of
the price system. It perpetuates it. And if it is introduced without the prior
existence of price controls, its effect is to inaugurate that very chaos.
This is because socialism is not actually a positive economic system. It is
merely the negation of capitalism and its price system. As such, the
essential nature of socialism is one and the same as the economic chaos
resulting from the destruction of the price system by price and wage
controls. (I want to point out that Bolshevik-style socialism's imposition of
a system of production quotas, with incentives everywhere to exceed the
quotas, is a sure formula for universal shortages, just as exist under all
around price and wage controls.)

At most, socialism merely changes the direction of the chaos. The

government's control over production may make possible a greater
production of some goods of special importance to itself, but it does so
only at the expense of wreaking havoc throughout the rest of the
economic system. This is because the government has no way of knowing
the effects on the rest of the economic system of its securing the
production of the goods to which it attaches special importance.

The requirements of enforcing a system of price and wage controls shed

major light on the totalitarian nature of socialism most obviously, of
course, on that of the German or Nazi variant of socialism, but also on
that of Soviet-style socialism as well.

We can start with the fact that the financial self-interest of sellers
operating under price controls is to evade the price controls and raise
their prices. Buyers otherwise unable to obtain goods are willing, indeed,
eager to pay these higher prices as the means of securing the goods they
want. In these circumstances, what is to stop prices from rising and a
massive black market from developing?

The answer is a combination of severe penalties combined with a great

likelihood of being caught and then actually suffering those
penalties. Mere fines are not likely to provide much of a deterrent. They
will be regarded simply as an additional business expense. If the
government is serious about its price controls, it is necessary for it to
impose penalties comparable to those for a major felony.

But the mere existence of such penalties is not enough. The government
has to make it actually dangerous to conduct black-market transactions.
It has to make people fear that in conducting such a transaction they
might somehow be discovered by the police, and actually end up in jail. In
order to create such fear, the government must develop an army of spies
and secret informers. For example, the government must make a
storekeeper and his customer fearful that if they engage in a black-market
transaction, some other customer in the store will report them.

Because of the privacy and secrecy in which many black-market

transactions can be conducted, the government must also make anyone
contemplating a black-market transaction fearful that the other party
might turn out to be a police agent trying to entrap him. The government
must make people fearful even of their long-time associates, even of their
friends and relatives, lest even they turn out to be informers.

And, finally, in order to obtain convictions, the government must place the
decision about innocence or guilt in the case of black-market
transactions in the hands of an administrative tribunal or its police agents
on the spot. It cannot rely on jury trials, because it is unlikely that many
juries can be found willing to bring in guilty verdicts in cases in which a
man might have to go to jail for several years for the crime of selling a few
pounds of meat or a pair of shoes above the ceiling price.

In sum, therefore, the requirements merely of enforcing price-control

regulations is the adoption of essential features of a totalitarian state,
namely, the establishment of the category of "economic crimes," in which
the peaceful pursuit of material self-interest is treated as a criminal
offense, and the establishment of a totalitarian police apparatus replete
with spies and informers and the power of arbitrary arrest and
imprisonment.

Clearly, the enforcement of price controls requires a government similar

to that of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia, in which practically anyone
might turn out to be a police spy and in which a secret police exists and
has the power to arrest and imprison people. If the government is
unwilling to go to such lengths, then, to that extent, its price controls
prove unenforceable and simply break down. The black market then
assumes major proportions. (Incidentally, none of this is to suggest that
price controls were the cause of the reign of terror instituted by the
Nazis. The Nazis began their reign of terror well before the enactment of
price controls. As a result, they enacted price controls in an environment
ready made for their enforcement.)

Black market activity entails the commission of further crimes. Under de

facto socialism, the production and sale of goods in the black market
entails the defiance of the government's regulations concerning
production and distribution, as well as the defiance of its price controls.
For example, the goods themselves that are sold in the black market are
intended by the government to be distributed in accordance with its plan,
and not in the black market. The factors of production used to produce
those goods are likewise intended by the government to be used in
accordance with its plan, and not for the purpose of supplying the black
market.

Under a system of de jure socialism, such as existed in Soviet Russia, in

which the legal code of the country openly and explicitly makes the
government the owner of the means of production, all black-market
activity necessarily entails the misappropriation or theft of state
property. For example, the factory workers or managers in Soviet Russia
who turned out products that they sold in the black market were
considered as stealing the raw materials supplied by the state.

Furthermore, in any type of socialist state, Nazi or Communist, the

government's economic plan is part of the supreme law of the land. We all
have a good idea of how chaotic the so-called planning process of
socialism is. Its further disruption by workers and managers siphoning off
materials and supplies to produce for the black market, is something
which a socialist state is logically entitled to regard as an act of sabotage
of its national economic plan.And sabotage is how the legal code of a
socialist state does regard it. Consistent with this fact, black-market
activity in a socialist country often carries the death penalty.

Now I think that a fundamental fact that explains the all-round reign of
terror found under socialism is the incredible dilemma in which a socialist
state places itself in relation to the masses of its citizens. On the one
hand, it assumes full responsibility for the individual's economic well-
being. Russian or Bolshevik-style socialism openly avows this
responsibility this is the main source of its popular appeal. On the other
hand, in all of the ways one can imagine, a socialist state makes an
unbelievable botch of the job. It makes the individual's life a nightmare.

Every day of his life, the citizen of a socialist state must spend time in
endless waiting lines. For him, the problems Americans experienced in the
gasoline shortages of the 1970s are normal; only he does not experience
them in relation to gasoline for he does not own a car and has no hope
of ever owning one but in relation to simple items of clothing, to
vegetables, even to bread. Even worse he is frequently forced to work at a
job that is not of his choice and which he therefore must certainly hate.
(For under shortages, the government comes to decide the allocation of
labor just as it does the allocation of the material factors of production.)
And he lives in a condition of unbelievable overcrowding, with hardly ever
a chance for privacy. (In the face of housing shortages, boarders are
assigned to homes; families are compelled to share apartments. And a
system of internal passports and visas is adopted to limit the severity of
housing shortages in the more desirable areas of the country.) To put it
mildly, a person forced to live in such conditions must seethe with
resentment and hostility.

Now against whom would it be more logical for the citizens of a socialist
state to direct their resentment and hostility than against that very
socialist state itself? The same socialist state which has proclaimed its
responsibility for their life, has promised them a life of bliss, and which in
fact is responsible for giving them a life of hell. Indeed, the leaders of a
socialist state live in a further dilemma, in that they daily encourage the
people to believe that socialism is a perfect system whose bad results
can only be the work of evil men. If that were true, who in reason could
those evil men be but the rulers themselves, who have not only made life
a hell, but have perverted an allegedly perfect system to do it?

It follows that the rulers of a socialist state must live in terror of the
people. By the logic of their actions and their teachings, the boiling,
seething resentment of the people should well up and swallow them in an
orgy of bloody vengeance. The rulers sense this, even if they do not admit
it openly; and thus their major concern is always to keep the lid on the
citizenry.

Consequently, it is true but very inadequate merely to say such things as

that socialism lacks freedom of the press and freedom of speech. Of
course, it lacks these freedoms. If the government owns all the
newspapers and publishing houses, if it decides for what purposes
newsprint and paper are to be made available, then obviously nothing can
be printed which the government does not want printed. If it owns all the
meeting halls, no public speech or lecture can be delivered which the
government does not want delivered. But socialism goes far beyond the
mere lack of freedom of press and speech.

A socialist government totally annihilates these freedoms. It turns the

press and every public forum into a vehicle of hysterical propaganda in its
own behalf, and it engages in the relentless persecution of everyone who
dares to deviate by so much as an inch from its official party line.

The reason for these facts is the socialist rulers' terror of the people. To
protect themselves, they must order the propaganda ministry and the
secret police to work 'round the clock. The one, to constantly divert the
people's attention from the responsibility of socialism, and of the rulers of
socialism, for the people's misery. The other, to spirit away and silence
anyone who might even remotely suggest the responsibility of socialism
or its rulers to spirit away anyone who begins to show signs of thinking
for himself. It is because of the rulers' terror, and their desperate need to
find scapegoats for the failures of socialism, that the press of a socialist
country is always full of stories about foreign plots and sabotage, and
about corruption and mismanagement on the part of subordinate officials,
and why, periodically, it is necessary to unmask large-scale domestic
plots and to sacrifice major officials and entire factions in giant purges.

It is because of their terror, and their desperate need to crush every

breath even of potential opposition, that the rulers of socialism do not
dare to allow even purely cultural activities that are not under the control
of the state. For if people so much as assemble for an art show or poetry
reading that is not controlled by the state, the rulers must fear the
dissemination of dangerous ideas. Any unauthorized ideas are dangerous
ideas, because they can lead people to begin thinking for themselves and
thus to begin thinking about the nature of socialism and its rulers. The
rulers must fear the spontaneous assembly of a handful of people in a
room, and use the secret police and its apparatus of spies, informers, and
terror either to stop such meetings or to make sure that their content is
entirely innocuous from the point of view of the state.

Socialism cannot be ruled for very long except by terror. As soon as the
terror is relaxed, resentment and hostility logically begin to well up
against the rulers. The stage is thus set for a revolution or civil war. In
fact, in the absence of terror, or, more correctly, a sufficient degree of
terror, socialism would be characterized by an endless series of
revolutions and civil wars, as each new group of rulers proved as
incapable of making socialism function successfully as its predecessors
before it. The inescapable inference to be drawn is that the terror actually
experienced in the socialist countries was not simply the work of evil
men, such as Stalin, but springs from the nature of the socialist system.
Stalin could come to the fore because his unusual willingness and
cunning in the use of terror were the specific characteristics most
required by a ruler of socialism in order to remain in power. He rose to the
top by a process of socialist natural selection: the selection of the worst.

I need to anticipate a possible misunderstanding concerning my thesis

that socialism is totalitarian by its nature. This concerns the allegedly
socialist countries run by Social Democrats, such as Sweden and the
other Scandinavian countries, which are clearly not totalitarian
dictatorships.

In such cases, it is necessary to realize that along with these countries

not being totalitarian, they are also not socialist. Their governing parties
may espouse socialism as their philosophy and their ultimate goal, but
socialism is not what they have implemented as their economic system.
Their actual economic system is that of a hampered market economy, as
Mises termed it. While more hampered than our own in important
respects, their economic system is essentially similar to our own, in that
the characteristic driving force of production and economic activity is not
government decree but the initiative of private owners motivated by the
prospect of private profit.

ntroduction
Antoine Allen 11.E1 To what extent was Hitler a totalitarian dictator? A totalitarian
ruler creates a totalitarian state. One in which the leader, in this cases Adolf Hitler
has total control of the government and the people. A totalitarian dictator is a
person or organisation who has total control and authority over a nation. This is the
basis of totalitarianism. The historian Fredrick definition is 'totalitarian state must;
attempt to control every aspect of people's lives; be a dictatorship with one party
and one leader; have the countries media, economy and education system firmly
under control of the state. The totalitarian state may also, tend to be both militaristic
and nationalistic.' This essay will examine the extent to which Hitler achieve achieved
this. Hitler's dictatorship was based on his ability to manipulate the law and keep
himself and the Nazi part within the boundaries of the laws. This makes him a
totalitarian because he was able to make his country only one party and one leader.
This fits exactly into what Fredrick defines. Hitler may seemingly fit into the category
of totalitarianism because of being the only leader and he had in place Nazi officials
to control all the states in the towns in the country but arguably he only had control
over the economy for 3 years. People believe the economy was recovering due to
the end of the depression. Hitler was more of a medieval monarch in the way in,
which handled the state and his affairs, because there was a lot of pomp like
Nuremburg Rallies. This was due to Hitler being lazy. He despised paper work and
party members would have to go to Bavaria and flatter him before proposing their
laws. Is this a dictator tuned into pulse of a nation? Also this shows Hitler is less of a
totalitarian dictator as he simply signed other peoples laws and paper work. ...read
more.

Middle
Before local government had the choice of discarding the central governments rules,
they no longer had this choice. Hitler controlled the government all over the country.
Also he controlled the media and church he used all this control and censorship.
Hitler allowed the party to be able to survive in the event of his demise; well he tried
to do this. Hitler kept himself and the party legal this was done to please external
forces such as foreign countries. After his failed illegal attempts to power, he realised
the only way was the legal way. This helped and strengthened his control over the
nation because the people knew that he democratically gained power and was their
choice. This fits exactly into the Fredrick description of totalitarian dictatorship. He
controlled the people lives and church. The people followed Hitler because of his use
of terror. Hitler and other dictators use terror because it leaves deep scars on the
survivors forever and shapes the rest of their lives. Leaving them afraid of being
touched by the terror and fear not being conformists. Terror was used because it was
expeditious. Hitler could simply get the Gestapo to drag someone out their house
during the night and it would spread fear and horror among the people. He did this
to gain total control over the people; this would strengthen his regime, as people
would not rebel against the Nazis. There were 3 instruments of terror in the Nazi
hierarchy, the S.S otherwise known as the elite guard, The Gestapo and S.D. They
often overlapped and confronted each other, this was instigate from Hitler's opinion
that this would result in the strongest follower emerging victorious. This
strengthened Hitler's regime by making each of the organisation work hard to
topple the others successes. The Gestapo was organised by Gring, who
administrated two thirds of German controlled Prussian police. After purging regular
police, he replaced them with Nazis. ...read more.

Conclusion
This made it easy for Hitler to have total control as he was controlling the education
and the future of the children. Like Orwell says 'who ever controls the past controls
the present, who ever controls the present controls the future'. Hitler held all the
keys to time; this helped him because he could compare the Nazis to other great
empires. Hitler was a totalitarian dictator, with the Enabling Act he had no
opposition, the rubber stamp parliament, he had the Gestapo as a secret police and
he had the media. He was able to terrorise, manipulate and control the lives of the
German people, through this he gained power and totalitarian status. In Hitler's
Germany there were many characteristics of a totalitarian state. The government ran
and censored the media. Most forms of media could potentially be interfered with or
heavily censored. This removes freedom of speech, therefore enabling the
government to influence popular opinions via fallacious new messages of
propaganda. Propaganda within Nazi Germany was highly successful. The Nazis
realised the necessity of using radios and newspapers as a means of indoctrinating
the masses. Also they knew the level of control these mediums held over the
unsuspecting population. They used their mediums to show Hitler and the party had
overwhelming support and control. This strengthened the regime as it made the
people part of a community and those who did not fit the community stood out like
a Hitler in a synagogue. In essence Germany under Hitler was a very good example
of what a totalitarian state is. People did not question the establishments decisions,
it was popular conception that if you did such a thing like confronting the
establishment, you would be imprisoned or worse something like the Night of the
long Knives would happen to you. This belief; the terror aloud Hitler to get total
control over the people and their lives. This lead to hysteria, the people either knew
the state was corrupt or was too afraid to tell anyone. This is a true totalitarian state.
As Hitler orchestrated it, he is and was a totalitarian dictator. ...read more.

Aftermath of World War I

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The aftermath of World War I saw drastic political, cultural, economic, and
social change across Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in areas outside those
that were directly involved. Four empires collapsed due to the war, old
countries were abolished, new ones were formed, boundaries were redrawn,
international organizations were established, and many new and old
ideologies took a firm hold in people's minds.
World War I also had the effect of bringing political transformation to most of
the principal parties involved in the conflict, transforming them into electoral
democracies by bringing near-universal suffrage for the first time in history,
such as Germany (German federal election, 1919), Great Britain (United
Kingdom general election, 1918), and Turkey (Turkish general election, 1923).

William Orpen's The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors: the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in 1919

Contents
 [hide]

1Blockade of Germany

2Treaty of Versailles

3Influenza epidemic

4Ethnic minorities

5Political upheavals

o 5.1New nations break free

o 5.2Revolutions

o 5.3Germany

o 5.4Russian Empire

o 5.5Austria-Hungary

o 5.6Ottoman Empire

o 5.7Great Britain

o 5.8United States

o 5.9France

o 5.10Italy

o 5.11China

o 5.12Japan

6Territorial gains and losses

o 6.1Nations that gained or regained territory or independence after

World War I

o 6.2Nations that lost territory or independence after World War I

 7Social trauma

8Remains of ammunition

9Memorials

o 9.1War memorials

o 9.2Tombs of unknown soldiers

10See also

11Notes

12Further reading

13External links

Blockade of Germany[edit]
Main article: Blockade of Germany
Through the period from the armistice on 11 November 1918 until the signing
of the peace treaty with Germany on 28 June 1919, the Allies maintained the
naval blockade of Germany that had begun during the war. As Germany was
dependent on imports, it is estimated that 523,000 civilians had lost their lives.
[1]
N. P. Howard, of the University of Sheffield, claims that a further quarter of a
million more died from disease or starvation in the eight-month period
following the conclusion of the conflict.[2] The continuation of the blockade after
the fighting ended, as author Robert Leckie wrote in Delivered From Evil, did
much to "torment the Germans ... driving them with the fury of despair into the
arms of the devil."[citation needed] The terms of the Armistice did allow food to be
shipped into Germany, but the Allies required that Germany provide the
means (the shipping) to do so. The German government was required to use
its gold reserves, being unable to secure a loan from the United States.[citation
needed]

Historian Sally Marks claims that while "Allied warships remained in place
against a possible resumption of hostilities, the Allies offered food and
medicine after the armistice, but Germany refused to allow its ships to carry
supplies". Further, Marks states that despite the problems facing the Allies,
from the German government, "Allied food shipments arrived in Allied ships
before the charge made at Versailles".[3] This position is also supported by
Elisabeth Glser who notes that an Allied task force, to help feed the German
population, was established in early 1919 and that by May 1919 " Germany
[had] became the chief recipient of American and Allied food shipments".
Glser further claims that during the early months of 1919, while the main
relief effort was being planned, France provided food shipments to Bavaria
and the Rhineland. She further claims that the German government delayed
the relief effort by refusing to surrender their merchant fleet to the Allies.
Finally, she concludes that "the very success of the relief effort had in effect
deprived the [Allies] of a credible threat to induce Germany to sign the Treaty
of Versailles.[4] However, it is also the case that for eight months following the
end of hostilities, the blockade was continually in place, with some estimates
that a further 100,000 casualties among German civilians to starvation were
caused, on top of the hundreds of thousands which already had occurred.
Food shipments, furthermore, had been entirely dependent on Allied goodwill,
causing at least in part the post-hostilities irregularity.[5][6]

Treaty of Versailles[edit]
Main article: Treaty of Versailles

Demonstration against the Treaty in front of the Reichstag building

After the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the signing of the Treaty of
Versailles on 28 June 1919, between Germany on the one side and France,
Italy, Britain and other minor allied powers on the other, officially ended war
between those countries. Other treaties ended the relationships of the United
States and the other Central Powers. Included in the 440 articles of the Treaty
of Versailles were the demands that Germany officially accept responsibility
for starting the war and pay economic reparations. The treaty drastically
limited the German military machine: German troops were reduced to 100,000
and the country was prevented from possessing major military armaments
such as tanks, warships, armored vehicles and submarines.

Influenza epidemic[edit]
Historians continue to argue about the impact the 1918 flu pandemic had on
the outcome of the war. It has been posited that the Central Powers may have
been exposed to the viral wave before the Allies. The resulting casualties
having greater effect, having been incurred during the war, as opposed to the
allies who suffered the brunt of the pandemic after the Armistice. When the
extent of the epidemic was realized, the respective censorship programs of
the Allies and Central Powers limited the public's knowledge regarding the
true extent of the disease. Because Spain was neutral, their media was free to
report on the Flu, giving the impression that it began there. This
misunderstanding led to contemporary reports naming it the "Spanish flu."
Investigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford of St
Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital, identified a major
troop staging and hospital camp in taples, France as almost certainly being
the center of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus was
harbored in birds, and mutated to pigs that were kept near the front.[7]The
exact number of deaths is unknown but about 50 million people are estimated
to have died from the influenza outbreak worldwide.[8][9] In 2005, a study found
that, "The 1918 virus strain developed in birds and was similar to the 'bird
flu' that in the 21st century spurred fears of another worldwide pandemic, yet
proved to be a normal treatable virus that did not produce a heavy impact on
the world's health."[10]

Ethnic minorities[edit]
The dissolution of the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman
empires created a number of new countries in eastern Europe and the Middle
East.[11] Some of them, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, had substantial
ethnic minorities who were sometimes not fully satisfied with the new
boundaries that cut them off from fellow ethnics. For example, Czechoslovakia
had Germans, Poles, Ruthenians and Ukrainians, Slovaks and Hungarians.
The League of Nationssponsored various Minority Treaties in an attempt to
deal with the problem, but with the decline of the League in the 1930s, these
treaties became increasingly unenforceable. One consequence of the
massive redrawing of borders and the political changes in the aftermath of the
war was the large number of European refugees. These and the refugees of
the Russian Civil War led to the creation of the Nansen passport.
Ethnic minorities made the location of the frontiers generally unstable. Where
the frontiers have remained unchanged since 1918, there has often been the
expulsion of an ethnic group, such as the Sudeten Germans. Economic and
military cooperation amongst these small states was minimal, ensuring that
the defeated powers of Germany and the Soviet Union retained a latent
capacity to dominate the region. In the immediate aftermath of the war, defeat
drove cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union but ultimately
these two powers would compete to dominate eastern Europe.

Political upheavals[edit]
Main article: International relations (19191939)
New nations break free[edit]
German and Austrian forces in 1918 defeated the Russian armies, and the
new communist government in Moscow signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in
March 1918. In that treaty, Russia renounced all claims
to Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the territory of Congress
Poland, and it was left to Germany and Austria-Hungary "to determine the
future status of these territories in agreement with their population." Later
on, Vladimir Lenin's government also renounced the Partition of Poland treaty,
making it possible for Poland to claim its 1772 borders. However, the Treaty of
Brest-Litovsk was rendered obsolete when Germany was defeated later in
1918, leaving the status of much of eastern Europe in an uncertain position.
Revolutions[edit]
Main article: Revolutions of 191723

Political divisions of Europe in 1919 after the treaties of Brest-Litovskand Versailles and before
the treaties of Trianon, Kars, Riga and the creation of the Soviet Union, Irish Free
State and Turkish Republic
A far-left and often explicitly Communist revolutionary wave occurred in
several European countries in 1917-1920, notably in Germany and Hungary.
The single most important event precipitated by the privations of World War I
was the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Germany[edit]
Main articles: German Revolution of 191819 and Hyperinflation in the
Weimar Republic
In Germany, there was a socialist revolution which led to the brief
establishment of a number of communist political systems in (mainly urban)
parts of the country, the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the creation of
the Weimar Republic.
On 28 June 1919 the Weimar Republic was forced, under threat of continued
Allied advance, to sign the Treaty of Versailles. Germany viewed the one-
sided treaty as a humiliation and as blaming it for the entire war. While this
was not the intent of the treaty[citation needed], the notion took root in German society
and was never accepted by nationalists, although it was argued by some,
such as German historian Fritz Fischer. The German government
disseminated propaganda to further promote this idea, and funded the Centre
for the Study of the Causes of the War to this end.
132 billion gold marks ($31.5 billion, 6.6 billion pounds) were demanded from
Germany in reparations, of which only 50 billion had to be paid. In order to
finance the purchases of foreign currency required to pay off the reparations,
the new German republic printed tremendous amounts of money to
disastrous effect. Hyperinflation plagued Germany between 1921 and 1923. In
this period the worth of fiat Papiermarks with respect to the
earlier commodity Goldmarks was reduced to one trillionth (one million
millionth) of its value.[12] In December 1922 the Reparations Commission
declared Germany in default, and on 11 January 1923 French and Belgian
troops occupied the Ruhr until 1925.
The treaty required Germany to permanently reduce the size of its army to
100,000 men, and destroy their tanks, air force, and U-boat fleet (her capital
ships, moored in Scapa Flow, were scuttled by their crews to prevent them
from falling into Allied hands).
Germany saw relatively small amounts of territory transferred to Denmark,
Czechoslovakia, and Belgium, a larger amount to France (including the
temporary French occupation of the Rhineland) and the greatest portion as
part of a reestablished Poland. Germany's overseas colonies were divided
between a number of Allied countries, most notably the United Kingdom in
Africa, but it was the loss of the territory that composed the newly independent
Polish state, including the German city of Danzig and the separation of East
Prussia from the rest of Germany, that caused the greatest outrage. Nazi
propaganda would feed on a general German view that the treaty was unfair
many Germans never accepted the treaty as legitimate, and lent their political
support to Adolf Hitler.
Russian Empire[edit]
The Soviet Union benefited from Germany's loss, as one of the first terms of
the armistice was the abrogation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. At the time of
the armistice Russia was in the grips of a civil war which left more than seven
million people dead and large areas of the country devastated. The nation as
a whole suffered socially and economically. As to her border
territories, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia gained independence. They were
occupied again by the Soviet Union in 1940. Finland gained a lasting
independence, though she repeatedly had to fight the Soviet Union for her
borders. Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan were established as independent
states in the Caucasus region. These countries were proclaimed as Soviet
Republics in 1922 and over time were absorbed into the Soviet Union. During
the war, however, Turkey captured the Armenian territory around Artvin, Kars,
and Igdir, and these territorial losses became
permanent. Romania gained Bessarabiafrom Russia. The Russian
concession in Tianjin was occupied by the Chinese in 1920; in 1924 the Soviet
Union renounced its claims to the district.
Austria-Hungary[edit]

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Main articles: Treaty of Trianon and Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)

With the war having turned decisively against the Central Powers, the people
of Austria-Hungary lost faith in their allied countries, and even before the
armistice in November, radical nationalism had already led to
several declarations of independence in south-central Europe after November
1918. As the central government had ceased to operate in vast areas, these
regions found themselves without a government and many new groups
attempted to fill the void. During this same period, the population was facing
food shortages and was, for the most part, demoralized by the losses incurred
during the war. Various political parties, ranging from ardent nationalists, to
social democrats, to communists attempted to set up governments in the
names of the different nationalities. In other areas, existing nation states such
as Romania engaged regions that they considered to be theirs. These moves
created de facto governments that complicated life for diplomats, idealists,
and the Western allies.
The Western forces were officially supposed to occupy the old Empire, but
rarely had enough troops to do so effectively. They had to deal with local
authorities who had their own agenda to fulfill. At the peace conference in
Paris the diplomats had to reconcile these authorities with the competing
demands of the nationalists who had turned to them for help during the war,
the strategic or political desires of the Western allies themselves, and other
agendas such as a desire to implement the spirit of the Fourteen Points.
For example, in order to live up to the ideal of self-determination laid out in the
Fourteen Points, Germans, whether Austrian or German, should be able to
decide their own future and government. However, the French especially were
concerned that an expanded Germany would be a huge security risk. Further
complicating the situation, delegations such as the Czechs and Slovenians
made strong claims on some German-speaking territories.
The result was treaties that compromised many ideals, offended many allies,
and set up an entirely new order in the area. Many people hoped that the new
nation states would allow for a new era of prosperity and peace in the region,
free from the bitter quarrelling between nationalities that had marked the
preceding fifty years. This hope proved far too optimistic. Changes in territorial
configuration after World War I included:

Establishment of the Republic of German Austria and the Hungarian

Democratic Republic, disavowing any continuity with the empire and exiling
the Habsburg family in perpetuity.

Borders of newly independent Hungary did not include two-thirds of the

lands of the former Kingdom of Hungary, including areas where the ethnic
Magyars were in a majority. The new republic of Austria maintained control
over most of the predominantly German-controlled areas, but lost various
other German majority lands in what was the Austrian Empire.
Division of Austria-Hungary after World War I

Bohemia, Moravia, Opava Silesia and the western part of the Duchy of
Cieszyn, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia formed the
new Czechoslovakia.

Galicia, the eastern part of the Duchy of Cieszyn, northern County of

Orava and northern Spisz were transferred to Poland.

the Southern half of the County of Tyrol and Trieste were granted
to Italy.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, Slovenia,

and Vojvodina were joined with Serbia to form the Kingdom of the Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia.

Transylvania and Bukovina became parts of Romania.

The Austro-Hungarian concession in Tianjin was ceded to the Republic

of China.
These changes were recognized in, but not caused by, the Treaty of
Versailles. They were subsequently further elaborated in the Treaty of Saint-
Germain and the Treaty of Trianon.
The 1919 treaties generally included guarantees of minority rights, but there
was no enforcement mechanism. The new states of eastern Europe mostly all
had large ethnic minorities. Millions of Germans found themselves in the
newly created countries as minorities. More than two million ethnic
Hungarians found themselves living outside of Hungary in Slovakia, Romania
and Yugoslavia. Many of these national minorities found themselves in hostile
situations because the modern governments were intent on defining the
national character of the countries, often at the expense of the other
nationalities. The interwar years were hard for religious minorities in the new
states built around ethnic nationalism. The Jews were especially distrusted
because of their minority religion and distinct subculture. This was a dramatic
come-down from the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Although antisemitism had been widespread during Habsburg rule, Jews
faced no official discrimination because they were, for the most part, ardent
supporters of the multi-national state and the monarchy.[13]
The economic disruption of the war and the end of the Austro-
Hungarian customs union created great hardship in many areas. Although
many states were set up as democracies after the war, one by one, with the
exception of Czechoslovakia, they reverted to some form of authoritarian rule.
Many quarreled amongst themselves but were too weak to compete
effectively. Later, when Germany rearmed, the nation states of south-central
Europe were unable to resist its attacks, and fell under German domination to
a much greater extent than had ever existed in Austria-Hungary.
Ottoman Empire[edit]
Main articles: Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish War of
Independence
At the end of the war, the Allies occupied Constantinople (stanbul) and the
Ottoman government collapsed. The Treaty of Svres, a plan designed by the
Allies to dismember the remaining Ottoman territories, was signed on 10
August 1920, although it was never ratified by the Sultan.
The occupation of Smyrna by Greece on 18 May 1919 triggered a nationalist
movement to rescind the terms of the treaty. Turkish revolutionaries led
by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, a successful Ottoman commander, rejected the
terms enforced at Svres and under the guise of General Inspector of the
Ottoman Army, left Istanbul for Samsun to organize the remaining Ottoman
forces to resist the terms of the treaty. On the eastern front, the Turkish
Armenian War and signing of the Treaty of Kars with the Russian
S.F.S.R. took over territory lost to Armenia and post-Imperial Russia.[14]
On the western front, the growing strength of the Turkish nationalist forces led
Greece, with the backing of Britain, to invade deep into Anatolia in an attempt
to deal a blow to the revolutionaries. At the Battle of Dumlupnar, the Greek
army was defeated and forced into retreat, leading to the burning of Smyrna
and the withdrawal of Greece from Asia Minor. With the nationalists
empowered, the army marched on to reclaim Istanbul, resulting in the Chanak
Crisis in which the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, was forced to
resign. After Turkish resistance gained control over Anatolia and Istanbul, the
Svres treaty was superseded by the Treaty of Lausanne which formally
ended all hostilities and led to the creation of the modern Turkish Republic. As
a result, Turkey became the only power of World War I to overturn the terms
of its defeat, and negotiate with the Allies as an equal.[15]
Lausanne Treaty formally acknowledged the new League of Nations
mandates in the Middle East, the cession of their territories on the Arabian
Peninsula, and British sovereignty over Cyprus. The League of Nations
granted Class A mandates for the French Mandate of Syria and
Lebanon and British Mandate of Mesopotamia and Palestine, the latter
comprising two autonomous regions: Mandate Palestine and the Emirate of
Transjordan). Parts of the Ottoman Empire on the Arabian Peninsula became
part of what is today Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The dissolution of the Ottoman
Empire became a pivotal milestone in the creation of the modern Middle East,
the result of which bore witness to the creation of new conflicts and hostilities
in the region.[16]
Great Britain[edit]
In Britain, funding the war had a severe economic cost. From being the
world's largest overseas investor, it became one of its biggest debtors with
interest payments forming around 40% of all government
spending. Inflation more than doubled between 1914 and its peak in 1920,
while the value of the Pound Sterling (consumer expenditure[17]) fell by 61.2%.
Reparations in the form of free German coal depressed local industry,
precipitating the 1926 General Strike.
British private investments abroad were sold, raising 550 million. However,
250 million in new investment also took place during the war. The net
financial loss was therefore approximately 300 million; less than two years
investment compared to the pre-war average rate and more than replaced by
1928.[18] Material loss was "slight": the most significant being 40% of the British
merchant fleet sunk by German U-boats. Most of this was replaced in 1918
and all immediately after the war.[19] The military historian Correlli Barnett has
argued that "in objective truth the Great War in no way inflicted crippling
economic damage on Britain" but that the war "crippled the
British psychologically but in no other way".[20]
Less concrete changes include the growing assertiveness
of Commonwealth nations. Battles such as Gallipoli for Australia and New
Zealand, and Vimy Ridge for Canada led to increased national pride and a
greater reluctance to remain subordinate to Britain, leading to the growth of
diplomatic autonomy in the 1920s. These battles were often decorated in
propaganda in these nations as symbolic of their power during the war.
Colonies such as the British Raj (India) and Nigeria also became increasingly
assertive because of their participation in the war. The populations in these
countries became increasingly aware of their own power and Britain's fragility.

Cartoon predicting the aftermath of the war by Henry J. Glintenkamp, first published in The
Masses in 1914

In Ireland, the delay in finding a resolution to the home rule issue, partly
caused by the war, as well as the 1916 Easter Rising and a failed attempt to
introduce conscription in Ireland, increased support for separatist radicals.
This led indirectly to the outbreak of the Irish War of Independence in 1919.
The creation of the Irish Free State that followed this conflict in effect
represented a territorial loss for Britain that was all but equal to the loss
sustained by Germany, (and furthermore, compared to Germany, a much
greater loss in terms of its ratio to the country's prewar territory). Despite this,
the Irish Free State remained a dominion within the British Empire.
After World War I women gained the right to vote as, during the war, they had
had to fill-in for what were previously categorised as "men's jobs", thus
showing the government that women were not as weak and incompetent as
they thought. Also, there were several significant developments in medicine
and technology as the injured had to be cared for and there were several new
illnesses that medicine had to deal with.
United States[edit]
While disillusioned by the war, it having not achieved the high ideals promised
by President Woodrow Wilson, American commercial interests did finance
Europe's rebuilding and reparation efforts in Germany, at least until the onset
of the Great Depression. American opinion on the propriety of providing aid to
Germans and Austrians was split, as evidenced by an exchange of
correspondence between Edgar Gott, an executive with The Boeing
Company and Charles Osner, chairman of the Committee for the Relief of
Destitute Women and Children in Germany and Austria. Gott argued that relief
should first go to citizens of countries that had suffered at the hands of
the Central Powers, while Osner made an appeal for a more universal
application of humanitarian ideals.[21] The American economic influence
allowed the Great Depression to start a domino effect, pulling Europe in as
well.
France[edit]

French cavalry entering Essenduring the occupation of the Ruhr.

Alsace-Lorraine returned to France, the region which had been ceded to

Prussia in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War. At the 1919 Peace
Conference, Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's aim was to ensure that
Germany would not seek revenge in the following years. To this purpose, the
chief commander of the Allied forces, Marshal Ferdinand Foch, had
demanded that for the future protection of France the Rhine river should now
form the border between France and Germany. Based on history, he was
convinced that Germany would again become a threat, and, on hearing the
terms of the Treaty of Versailles that had left Germany substantially intact, he
observed that "This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years."
The destruction brought upon French territory was to be indemnified by
the reparations negotiated at Versailles. This financial imperative dominated
France's foreign policy throughout the 1920s, leading to the 1923 Occupation
of the Ruhr in order to force Germany to pay. However, Germany was unable
to pay, and obtained support from the United States. Thus, the Dawes
Plan was negotiated after Prime Minister Raymond Poincar's occupation of
the Ruhr, and then the Young Plan in 1929.
Also extremely important in the War was the participation of French colonial
troops, including the Senegalese tirailleurs, and troops from Indochina, North
Africa, and Madagascar. When these soldiers returned to their homelands and
continued to be treated as second class citizens, many became the nuclei of
pro-independence groups.
Furthermore, under the state of war declared during the hostilities, the French
economy had been somewhat centralized in order to be able to shift into a
"war economy", leading to a first breach with classical liberalism.
Finally, the socialists' support of the National Union government
(including Alexandre Millerand's nomination as Minister of War) marked a shift
towards the French Section of the Workers' International's (SFIO) turn towards
social democracy and participation in "bourgeois governments",
although Lon Blum maintained a socialist rhetoric.
Italy[edit]

Residents of Fiume cheering D'Annunzio and his Legionari, September 1919. At the time,
Fiume had 22,488 (62% of the population) Italians in a total population of 35,839 inhabitants.

In 1882 Italy joined with the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian
Empire to form the Triple Alliance. However, even if relations
with Berlin became very friendly, the alliance with Vienna remained purely
formal, as the Italians were keen to acquire Trentino and Trieste, parts of the
Austro-Hungarian empire populated by Italians.
During World War I Italy aligned with the Allies, instead of joining Germany
and Austria. This could happen since the alliance formally had merely
defensive prerogatives, while the Central Empires were the ones who started
the offensive. With the Treaty of London, Britain secretly offered
Italy Trentino and Tyrol as far as Brenner, Trieste and Istria, all
the Dalmatian coast except Fiume, full ownership of Albanian Valona and a
protectorate over Albania, Antalya in Turkey and a share of
the Turkish and German colonial empire, in exchange for Italy siding against
the Central Empires[citation needed].
After the victory, Vittorio Orlando, Italy's President of the Council of Ministers,
and Sidney Sonnino, its Foreign Minister, were sent as the Italian
representatives to Paris with the aim of gaining the promised territories and as
much other land as possible. In particular, there was an especially strong
opinion about the status of Fiume, which they believed was rightly Italian due
to Italian population, in agreement with Wilson's Fourteen Points, the ninth of
whom read:
"A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly
recognizable lines of nationality".
Nevertheless, by the end of the war the Allies realized they had made
contradictory agreements with other Nations, especially regarding Central
Europe and the Middle-East. In the meetings of the "Big Four", in which
Orlando's powers of diplomacy were inhibited by his lack of English, the Great
powers were only willing to offer Trentino to the Brenner, the Dalmatian port
of Zara, the island of Lagosta and a couple of small German colonies. All
other territories were promised to other nations and the great powers were
worried about Italy's imperial ambitions; Wilson, in particular, was a staunch
supporter of Yugoslav rights on Dalmatia against Italy and despite the Treaty
of London which he did not recognize.[22] As a result of this, Orlando left the
conference in a rage. This simply favored Britain and France, which divided
among themselves the former Ottoman and German territories in Africa.[23]
In Italy, the discontent was relevant: Irredentism (see: irredentismo) claimed
Fiume and Dalmatia as Italian lands; many felt the Country had taken part in a
meaningless war without getting any serious benefits. This idea of a "mutilated
victory" (vittoria mutilata) was the reason which led to the Impresa di
Fiume ("Fiume Exploit"). On September 12, 1919, the nationalist
poet Gabriele d'Annunzio led around 2,600 troops from the Royal Italian
Army (the Granatieri di Sardegna), nationalists and irredentists, into a seizure
of the city, forcing the withdrawal of the inter-Allied (American, British and
French) occupying forces.
The "mutilated victory" (vittoria mutilata) became an important part of Italian
Fascism propaganda.
China[edit]

Social trauma[edit]
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The experiences of the war in the west are commonly assumed to have led to
a sort of collective national trauma afterward for all of the participating
countries. The optimism of 1900 was entirely gone and those who fought
became what is known as "the Lost Generation" because they never fully
recovered from their suffering. For the next few years, much of Europe
mourned privately and publicly; memorials were erected in thousands of
villages and towns.
So many British men of marriageable age died or were injured that the
students of one girls' school were warned that only 10% would marry.[25]
[26]:20,245
The 1921 United Kingdom Census found 19,803,022 women and
18,082,220 men in England and Wales, a difference of 1.72 million which
newspapers called the "Surplus Two Million".[26]:2223 In the 1921 census there
were 1,209 single women aged 25 to 29 for every 1,000 men. In 1931 50%
were still single, and 35% of them did not marry while still able to bear
children.[25]
As early as 1923, Stanley Baldwin recognized a new strategic reality that
faced Britain in a disarmament speech. Poison gas and the aerial bombing of
civilians were new developments of the First World War. The British civilian
population did not, for centuries, have any serious reason to fear invasion. So
the new threat of poison gas dropped from enemy bombers excited a grossly
exaggerated view of the civilian deaths that would occur on the outbreak of
any future war. Baldwin expressed this in his statement that "The bomber will
always get through". The traditional British policy of a balance of power in
Europe no longer safeguarded the British home population. Out of this fear
came appeasement. It is notable that neither Baldwin nor Neville
Chamberlain fought in the war, but the anti-appeasers Antony Eden, Harold
Macmillan and Winston Churchill did.
One gruesome reminder of the sacrifices of the generation was the fact that
this was one of the first times in conflict whereby more men died in battle than
from disease, which was the main cause of deaths in most previous wars.
The Russo-Japanese War was the first conflict where battle deaths
outnumbered disease deaths, but it was fought on a much smaller scale
between just two nations.
This social trauma made itself manifest in many different ways. Some people
were revolted by nationalism and what they believed it had caused, so they
began to work toward a more internationalist world through organizations such
as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly popular. Others had
the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied upon
for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect
hypothetical notions of civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment
and cynicism became pronounced. Nihilism grew in popularity. Many people
believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had known it,
including the collapse
of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist movements around
the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they
had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas
directly or particularly harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe,
Russia and France.
Artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Barlach, and Kthe
Kollwitz represented their experiences, or those of their society, in blunt
paintings and sculpture. Similarly, authors such as Erich Maria
Remarque wrote grim novels detailing their experiences. These works had a
strong impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and highlighting
conflicting interpretations of the war. In Germany, nationalists including
the Nazis believed that much of this work was degenerate and undermined
the cohesion of society as well as dishonoring the dead.

Iron harvest World War I ordnance left beside a field for disposal by the army in 2004
near Ypres in Belgium

Remains of ammunition[edit]
Main article: Iron harvest
Throughout the areas where trenches and fighting lines were located, such as
the Champagne region of France, quantities of unexploded ordnance have
remained, some of which remains dangerous, continuing to cause injuries and
occasional fatalities in the 21st century. Some are found by farmers ploughing
their fields and have been called the iron harvest. Some of this ammunition
contains toxic chemical products such as mustard gas. Cleanup of major
battlefields is a continuing task with no end in sight for decades to come.
Squads remove, defuse or destroy hundreds of tons of unexploded
ammunition every year in Belgium, France, and Germany.
Socialist Revolutionary Party
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Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries
-

General Secretary Viktor Chernov

Founded 1902

Newspaper Revolutionary Russia

Paramilitary wing SR Combat Organization

Ideology Agrarian socialism

Narodnichestvo

Political position Left-wing

International Second International(18891916),

affiliation Labour and Socialist
International (19231940)

Colours Red

Slogan "Through struggle you will attain

your rights!"

Anthem Worker's Marseillaise

Party flag
 Politics of Russia

Political parties

Elections

SocialistRevolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads " -" (in
Russian), short for Party of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The banner bears the party's motto "
" ("Through struggle you will attain your rights"), and the globe
bears the slogan " " ("land and freedom") expressing agrarian socialist ideology of
the party.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or Party of Socialists-
Revolutionaries(the SRs; Russian: - (), , esery)
was a major political party in early 20th century Russia and a key player in the Russian Revolution.
Its general ideology was revolutionary socialism of democratic socialist and agrarian socialist forms.
After the February Revolutionof 1917, it shared power with other liberal and democratic socialist
forces within the Russian Provisional Government. In November 1917, it won a plurality of the
national vote in Russia's first-ever democratic elections (to the Russian Constituent Assembly), but
the October Revolution had changed the political landscape and the Bolsheviks disbanded the
Constituent Assembly in January 1918.[1] The SRs soon split into pro-Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik
factions. The anti-Bolshevik faction of this party, known as the Right SRs, which remained loyal to
the Provisional Government leader Alexander Kerensky was defeated and destroyed by
the Bolsheviks in the course of the Russian Civil War and subsequent persecution.
 Contents
[hide]

1History

o 1.1Prior to the Russian Revolution

o 1.2Russian Revolutions

o 1.3After the October Revolution

o 1.4In exile

2See also

3Notes

4References

5External links

History[edit]
Prior to the Russian Revolution[edit]
The party's ideology was built upon the philosophical foundation of Russia's narodnik
Populist movement of the 1860s-70s and its worldview developed primarily by Alexander
Herzen and Pyotr Lavrov. After a period of decline and marginalization in the 1880s, the
Populist/narodnik school of thought about social change in Russia was revived and substantially
modified by a group of writers and activists known as "neonarodniki" (neo-Populists),
particularly Viktor Chernov. Their main innovation was a renewed dialogue with Marxism and
integration of some of the key Marxist concepts into their thinking and practice. In this way, with the
economic spurt and industrialization in Russia in the 1890s, they attempted to broaden their appeal
in order to attract the rapidly growing urban workforce to their traditionally peasant-oriented
programme. The intention was to widen the concept of the 'people' so that it encompassed all
elements in society that opposed the Tsarist regime.
The Socialist Revolutionary Party was established in 1902 out of the Northern Union of Socialist
Revolutionaries (founded in 1896), bringing together many local socialist-revolutionary groups
established in the 1890s, notably Workers' Party of Political Liberation of Russia created
by Catherine Breshkovsky and Grigory Gershuni in 1899. As primary party theorist emerged Victor
Chernov, the editor of the first party organ, Revolutsionnaya Rossiya (Revolutionary Russia). Later
party periodicals included Znamia Truda (Labor's Banner), Delo Naroda (People's Cause), and Volia
Naroda (People's Will). Party leaders included Gershuni, Breshkovsky, AA Argunov, ND
Avksentiev, MR Gots, Mark Natanson, NI Rakitnikov (Maksimov), Vadim Rudnev, NS Rusanov, IA
Rubanovich, and Boris Savinkov.
The party's program was democratic socialist and agrarian socialist; it garnered much support
among Russia's rural peasantry, who in particular supported their program of land-socialization as
opposed to the Bolshevik programme of land-nationalisationdivision of land to peasant tenants
rather than collectivization in state management. The party's policy platform differed from that of
the Russian Social Democratic Labour Parties both Bolshevik and Menshevik in that it was not
officially Marxist (though some of its ideologues considered themselves such); the SRs believed that
the 'labouring peasantry', as well as the industrial proletariat, would be the revolutionary class in
Russia. Whereas Russian SDs defined class membership in terms of ownership of the means of
production, Chernov and other SR theorists defined class membership in terms of extraction of
surplus value from labour. On the first definition, small-holding subsistence farmers who do not
employ wage labour are, as owners of their land, members of the petty bourgeoisie; on the second
definition, they can be grouped with all who provide, rather than purchase, labour-power, and hence
with the proletariat as part of the 'labouring class'. Nevertheless, Chernov considered the proletariat
as 'vanguard', and the peasantry as the 'main body' of the revolutionary army. [2]

Kampf un kempfer - a Yiddishpamphlet published by the PSR exile branch in London 1904.
The party played an active role in the Revolution of 1905, and in the Moscow and St. Petersburg
Soviets. Although the party officially boycotted the first State Duma in 1906, 34 SRs were elected,
while 37 were elected to the second Duma in 1907; the party boycotted both the third and fourth
Dumas in 19071917. In this period, party membership drastically declined, and most of its leaders
emigrated from Russia.
A distinctive feature of party tactics until about 1909 was its heavy reliance on assassinations of
individual government officials. These tactics were inherited from SRs' predecessor in the Populist
movement, People's Will, a conspiratorial organization of the 1880s. They were intended to
embolden the "masses" and intimidate ("terrorize") the Tsarist government into political concessions.
The SR Combat Organization, responsible for assassinating government officials, was initially led by
Gershuni and operated separately from the party so as not to jeopardize its political actions. SRCO
agents assassinated two Ministers of the Interior, Dmitry Sipyagin and V. K. von Plehve, Grand Duke
Sergei Aleksandrovich, the Governor of Ufa N. M. Bogdanovich, and many other high-ranking
officials.
In 1903, Gershuni was betrayed by his deputy, Yevno Azef, an agent of the Okhranasecret police,
arrested, convicted of terrorism and sentenced to life at hard labor, managing to escape, flee
overseas and go into exile. Azef became the new leader of the SRCO, and continued working for
both the SRCO and the Okhrana, simultaneously orchestrating terrorist acts and betraying his
comrades. Boris Savinkov ran many of the actual operations, notably the assassination attempt on
Admiral Fyodor Dubasov.
Terrorism was controversial for the party from the beginning, however. At its Second Congress
in Imatra in 1906, the controversy over terrorism was one of the main reasons for the defection of
the SR Maximalists on the left and the Popular Socialists on the right. The Maximalists endorsed not
only attacks on political and government targets but also 'economic terror' (i.e., attacks on
landowners, factory owners etc.); the Popular Socialists rejected all terrorism. Other issues also
divided the defectors from the PSR: Maximalists disagreed with the SRs' strategy of a 'two-stage'
revolution as advocated by Chernov, the first stage being 'popular-democratic' and the second
'labour-socialist'. To Maximalists, this seemed like the Social-Democrats' distinction between
'bourgeois-democratic' and 'proletarian-socialist' stages of revolution. Maximalism stood for
immediate socialist revolution. Meanwhile, the Popular Socialists disagreed with the party's proposal
to 'socialise' the land (i.e., turn it over to collective peasant ownership) and instead wanted to
'nationalise' it (i.e., turn it over to the state; they also wanted landowners to be compensated, while
the PSR rejected indemnities).
In late 1908, a Russian narodnik and amateur spy hunter Vladimir Burtsev suggested that Azef might
be a police spy. The party's Central Committee was outraged and set up a tribunal to try Burtsev for
slander. At the trial, Azef was confronted with evidence and was caught lying, he fled and left the
party in disarray. The party's Central Committee, most of whose members had close ties to Azef, felt
obliged to resign. Many regional organizations, already weakened by the revolution's defeat in 1907,
collapsed or became inactive. Savinkov's attempt to rebuild the SRCO failed and it was suspended
in 1911. Ironically, Gershuni had defended Azef from exile in Zurich until his death there.
The Azef scandal contributed to a profound revision of SR tactics that was already underway. As a
result, it renounced assassinations ("individual terror") as a means of political protest.
With the start of World War I, the party was divided on the issue of Russia's participation in the war.
Most SR activists and leaders, particularly those remaining in Russia, chose to support the Tsarist
government mobilization against Germany. Together with the like-minded members of
the Menshevik party, they became known as oborontsy ("defensists"). Many younger defensists
living in exile joined the French army as Russia's closest ally in the war. A smaller group, the
internationalists, which included Chernov, favored the pursuit of peace through cooperation with
socialist parties in both military blocs. This led them to participate in
the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences with Bolshevik emigres led by Lenin. This fact was later
used against Chernov and his followers by their right-wing opponents as alleged evidence of their
lack of patriotism and Bolshevik sympathies.
Russian Revolutions[edit]
Main article: Russian Revolution

The February Revolution allowed the SRs to return to an active political role. Party leaders, including
Chernov, returned to Russia. They played a major role in the formation and leadership of the
Soviets, albeit in most cases playing second fiddle to the Mensheviks. One member, Alexander
Kerensky, joined the Provisional Government in March 1917 as Minister of Justice, eventually
becoming the head of a coalition socialist-liberal government in July 1917, although his connection
with the party was tenuous. (He had served in the Duma with the Trudoviks, breakaway SRs that
defied the party's refusal to participate in the Duma.)
After the fall of the first coalition in AprilMay 1917 and the reshuffling of the Provisional
Government, the party played a larger role. Its key government official at the time was Chernov who
joined the government as Minister of Agriculture. He also tried to play a larger role, particularly in
foreign affairs, but soon found himself marginalized and his proposals of far-reaching agrarian
reform blocked by more conservative members of the government. After the failed Bolshevik uprising
of July 1917, Chernov found himself on the defensive as allegedly soft on the Bolsheviks and was
excluded from the revamped coalition in August 1917. The party was now represented in the
government by Nikolai Avksentyev, a right-wing defensist, as Minister of the Interior.
This weakening of the party's position intensified the growing divide within it between supporters of
the coalition with the Mensheviks and those inclined toward more resolute, unilateral action. In
August 1917, Maria Spiridonova, leader of the Left SRs, advocated scuttling the coalition and
forming an SR-only government, but was not supported by Chernov and his followers. This spurred
the formation of the left-wing faction and its growing support for cooperation with the Bolsheviks. The
Left SRs believed that Russia should withdraw immediately from World War I, and they were
frustrated that the Provisional Government wanted to postpone addressing the land question until
after the convocation of the Russian Constituent Assembly instead of immediately confiscating the
land from the landowners and redistributing it to the peasants.
Left SRs and Bolsheviks referred to the mainstream SR party as the "Right SR" party whereas
mainstream SRs referred to the party as just "SR" and reserved the term "Right SR" for the rightwing
faction of the party led by Breshkovsky and Avksentev.[3]The primary issues motivating the split were
the war and the redistribution of land.
At the Second Congress of Soviets on October 25, 1917, when the Bolsheviks proclaimed the
deposition of the Provisional government, the split within the SR party became final. The Left SR
stayed at the Congress and were elected to the permanent VTsIK executive (while initially refusing to
join the Bolshevik government) while the mainstream SR and their Menshevik allies walked out of
the Congress. In late November, the Left SR joined the Bolshevik government, obtaining three
ministries.
After the October Revolution[edit]

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In the election to the Russian Constituent Assembly held two weeks after the Bolsheviks took power,
the party still proved to be by far the most popular party across the country, gaining 40% of the
popular vote as opposed to the Bolsheviks' 25%.[4]However, in January 1918 the Bolsheviks
disbanded the Assembly and after that the SR became of less political significance. [5] The Left
SRs became the coalition partner of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet government, although they
resigned their positions after the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (the peace treaty with the Central Powers
that ended Russia's participation in World War I). A few Left SRs like Yakov Grigorevich
Blumkin joined the Communist Party.
Dissatisfied with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, two Chekists who were left SRs assassinated the
German ambassador to Russia, Count Wilhelm Mirbach early in the afternoon on July 6.[6] Following
the assassination, on July 67, 1918, the left SRs attempted a "Third Russian Revolution" against
the Bolsheviks, which failed, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, exile, and execution of party
leaders and members. In response, some SRs turned again to violence. A former SR, Fanny Kaplan,
tried to assassinate Lenin on August 30, 1918. Many SRs fought for the Whites or Greens in
the Russian Civil War alongside some Mensheviks and other banned moderate socialist elements.
The Tambov Rebellion against the Bolsheviks was led by an SR, Aleksandr Antonov. However,
after Admiral Kolchak was installed as "Supreme Leader," of the White Movement in November
1918, he expelled all Marxists from the ranks. As a result, many SRs placed their organization
behind White lines at the service of the Red Guards and the CHEKA. Later, many Left SRs became
Communists.
Following Lenin's instructions, a trial of SRs was held in Moscow in 1922, which led to protests by,
among others, Eugene Debs, Karl Kautsky, and Albert Einstein. Most of the defendants were found
guilty, but did not plead guilty, unlike the defendants in the later show trials in the Soviet Union in the
late 1920s and the 1930s.[7]
In exile[edit]
The party continued its activities in exile. A Foreign Delegation of the Central Committee was
established, based in Prague. The party was a member of the Labour and Socialist
International between 1923 and 1940
s