Great War Dbq

The world created after the Great War, and especially during the Great Depression, was one of economic depression and political instability. People were looking for radical solutions to these radical problems, and many began to believe that the answer could be found in ideology. During the interwar years, nationalism was still extremely prevalent throughout the world as colonies sought independence, successor states struggled to establish legitimate governments, mandates were created, and Zionism moved into the Middle East. North America’s goal was the spread of democracy, but many people held the capitalist economy associated with democracy responsible for the Great Depression. In the relatively strong countries, governments eventually stepped in to provide relief for their citizens, shifting many democratic governments decidedly toward socialism. In the weaker countries, however, the military took

control of the government in order to provide security. For the poor, communism seemed to be an answer to their poverty, since one of its basic core beliefs was that wealth should be shared equally by the citizens. But communism and the equal sharing of wealth was exactly what the middle and upper classes feared most, and they started looking for a government to protect them against the communist revolution. After years of war and economic depression, they wanted security and stability, and fascism was just the ideology they were looking for. The result of these ideological “isms” was the rise of authoritarian governments around the globe—and hence, a very delicate political climate during the interwar years and Great Depression.

Explanations for political extremism in this period fall into five broad categories: economic factors, social cleavages, external influences, electoral systems, and institutional/cultural inheritances. Authors from Lipset (1959) to Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) have suggested that the more economically developed a nation, the greater the likelihood that democracy will not only be established but be secured. Attempts to capture modernization in the sense of Lipset have used GDP per capita, education, and urbanization as proxies. Urbanization is also related to the work of Moore (1966), who argued that democracy and agrarian society are a difficult marriage owing to the interest of large landowners in maintaining their monopoly of land ownership.
When World War I ended, the Canadian government moved away from a laissez-faire economy, taking a more hands-on approach. The expansion of factories that had occurred during World War I allowed Canada to overproduce goods during the 1920s. Canadians began investing in the stock market, often buying on margin. This is referred to as speculating, and resulted in massive inflation of stock prices. The stock market could only sustain increased inflation for so long, and on October 29, 1929, the market crashed. This was known as Black Tuesday, and many Canadians, particularly those who had bought on margin, lost everything. Coupled with the financial collapse of the stock market, the prairies were ravaged by a drought that lasted nearly eight years. Unemployment skyrocketed, and many Canadians “rode the rails” in search of jobs. The Great Depression lasted until Canada declared war on Germany, creating another prosperous wartime economy. During the Depression, many new political parties formed, promising social and economic reforms.
At this time, the Canadian government set up a relief system, colloquially known as “pogey”, which in essence was a welfare system. Unfortunately, “pogey” was extremely low, and many people could still not afford to eat. Prime Minister King insisted that he would provide no relief for unemployed Canadians, and, as a result, he was defeated by R.B. Bennet in the 1930 election. Bennet immediately set up relief camps, which provided wages for unemployed men. However, the wages were low, and the camp conditions were awful beyond any comprehension of the word. Bennet proposed a “New Deal” to bring Canada out of the Depression. This New Deal introduced a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and a taxation system that was now directly linked to income. Politically, Prime Minister King’s lack of action forced Canadians to turn to new political parties, such as the Canadian Commonwealth Federation, led by J.S. Woodsworth, which was composed of farmers and labourers who were sick of the federal government’s inaction. The CCF adopted the Regina Manifesto, which was the party’s policy of ridding Canada of capitalism and establishing a socialist state. The Social Credit Party, formed by William Aberhart, was another party formed out of discontent. The Social Credit Party argued that democracy was wasteful. The formation of these protest parties illustrated that Canadians were desperate to overcome the Depression, and were willing to support radical political parties to do so.
At the onset of the Great Depression, much of Europe was still recovering from the devastating destruction of WWI.

Many of these nations looked for new answers to both the old and new problems that they faced. This resulted in the rise of dictatorship governments across Europe. In Italy, Benito Mussolini established his Fascist government, which opposed democracy and relied heavily on military control of the country. In Germany, Adolf Hitler rose to power by appealing to the unhappiness of Germans over the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler promised to return Germany to prosperity. After some aggressive military maneuvers in the Rhineland and Czechoslovakia, Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The League of Nations, whose goal was to provide collective security, used the policy of appeasement to avoid creating a conflict with Germany. Thus, when Germany invaded Poland, the Allied nations decided that they had no choice but to respond aggressively. Two days later, both Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War

II.