Free HSC Modern History Flashcard Review

Treaty of Versailles and associated treaties concluded World War One. Key terms: German reparations (132 billion gold marks), territorial losses (13% of European territory), military restrictions (100,000 army limit), and 'war guilt' clause (Article 231). Historians debate whether harsh penalties destabilised the Weimar Republic or whether resentment was primarily nationalist rather than economic.

International organisation established 1920 to prevent future wars. Structure: Assembly (all members), Council (permanent members—Britain, France, Japan, Italy; later Germany, USSR), Secretariat. Limitations: No enforcement mechanism, no military force, required unanimous decisions, absence of major powers (US never joined; USSR admitted 1934; Germany/Japan/Italy withdrew).

Economic collapse beginning October 1929 (US stock market crash). Causes: overproduction, speculative investing, unequal wealth distribution, agricultural decline. Global spread via international debt and trade collapse. By 1933, unemployment reached ~25% in USA, 6 million in Germany. Triggered conditions enabling authoritarian movements.

Economic crisis created conditions for authoritarian movements. Fascism (Italy under Mussolini, 1922) and Nazism (Germany under Hitler, 1933) offered simplified solutions, nationalist ideology, and scapegoating. Key appeal: employment through rearmament, restoration of national pride post-Versailles, opposition to communism.

British and French strategy of allowing Nazi German expansion to avoid war. Key concessions: Rhineland remilitarisation (1936), Anschluss/union with Austria (1938), Munich Agreement ceding Czechoslovak Sudetenland (1938). Critics contend it emboldened Hitler; proponents argued it was rational given military weakness and anti-communist sentiment.

February Revolution (March 1917 Gregorian): Tsar Nicholas II overthrown by military mutiny and worker strikes; Romanov dynasty ended. October Revolution (Bolshevik coup): Lenin and Bolsheviks seized power from Kerensky's Provisional Government. Historiographers debate agency: Did Bolsheviks seize power or did chaos create opportunity?

Conflict between Bolshevik Red Army and White (anti-communist) forces. Key figures: Trotsky (Red Army commander), White generals (Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel). Outcome: Bolshevik victory through superior organisation, interior lines, control of industrial centres. Cost: ~5 million deaths (combat, famine, disease).

Bolshevik economic policy during Civil War: nationalisation of industry, requisition of agricultural grain, militarisation of labour, prohibition of private trade. Aimed to mobilise all resources for war effort. Consequences: agricultural collapse, famine (1920-1921: ~5 million deaths), industrial breakdown.

Lenin's policy retreat from War Communism. Permitted limited private trade and small business while state retained control of 'commanding heights' (heavy industry, transport, banking). Agricultural grain requisitions replaced by fixed tax. Result: economic recovery by 1926; grain production and industrial output exceeded pre-1914 levels.

Centrally planned economic programmes aimed at rapid industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation. First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932): targeted heavy industry growth (steel, coal, oil, machinery). Key features: state control of production targets, mobilisation of labour, emphasis on capital investment over consumer goods.

Stalin's policy of consolidating individual peasant farms into collective farms (kolkhozes) and state farms (sovkhozes). Forced process encountering fierce peasant resistance (kulaks often destroyed livestock and grain rather than collectivise). Consequences: agricultural collapse, widespread famine (1932-1933: ~7 million deaths, especially Ukraine).

Stalin's systematic campaign of political repression targeting Old Bolsheviks (show trials of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin), military officers (~40,000 purged), party members, suspected 'enemies of the state.' Methods: NKVD arrests, torture, forced confessions, executions, labour camps. Estimated deaths: 750,000-1 million.

Network of forced labour camps throughout Soviet Union used to punish political prisoners, kulaks, criminals, and others deemed 'socially dangerous.' Conditions: extreme overcrowding, malnutrition, brutal labour (forestry, mining, construction, railways), harsh climate. Population grew dramatically during collectivisation and Great Terror.

Hierarchical society organised around state control. Party nomenklatura (elite), technical specialists, workers, collective farm peasantry. Control mechanisms: secret police (NKVD), censorship, propaganda, mandatory party membership for advancement, restricted internal travel (internal passport system), surveillance and denunciation culture.

German state established after Kaiser's abdication. Constitution (August 1919): presidential system with proportional representation. Weaknesses: resentment of Versailles Treaty, economic instability (hyperinflation 1923), political fragmentation. Crises: Kapp Putsch (1920), Beer Hall Putsch (1923). Historiography: was Weimar doomed from inception or could it have survived absent Depression?

Adolf Hitler: Austrian-born veteran, joined Nazi Party (NSDAP) 1920. Beer Hall Putsch (1923, unsuccessful), imprisonment and writing of Mein Kampf, re-emergence during Depression. Nazi electoral success: 2.6% (1928) to 37.3% (November 1932); Hitler appointed Chancellor (January 1933) by President Hindenburg.

Rapid transformation from Chancellor to dictator. Key events: Reichstag Fire (February 1933), Enabling Act (March 1933—granted Hitler legislative powers), Night of Long Knives (June 1934—purge of SA brownshirts), death of Hindenburg (August 1934—Hitler becomes Führer). Mechanisms: emergency decrees, suppression of opposition parties, co-option of conservative elites.

Racial antisemitism (Jews as racial enemy threatening Aryan purity), lebensraum (living space in Eastern Europe), Führerprinzip (leadership principle—absolute obedience to leader), anticommunism, ultra-nationalism, social Darwinism. Rooted in racial pseudoscience and geopolitical ambitions.

Totalitarian apparatus: Gestapo (secret police), SS (paramilitary elite force), Hitler Youth (indoctrination), Nazi Labour Front (worker control), elimination of independent civil society. Dual power structures: Nazi Party parallel to state administration, often creating jurisdictional confusion. Propaganda ministry (Goebbels) controlled media, education, culture.

Nazi racial legislation stripping Jews of German citizenship and legal rights. Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honour (prohibiting marriages/relations between Germans and Jews), Reich Citizenship Law (Jews became 'subjects' not citizens). Subsequent decrees expanded restrictions on employment, property, professional participation.