from the ruling provisional government. The Bolsheviks, a faction of
Russian Social Democrats led by Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), pro-
moted violent revolution. Once in power, Lenin nationalized the land
and turned it over to the local rural soviets (councils of workers and
soldiers’ deputies). After extensive civil war, the Communists, as they
now called themselves, succeeded in retaining control of Russia and
taking over an assortment of satellite countries in Eastern Europe.
This new state took the official name the Union of Soviet Socialist Re-
publics (USSR, or Soviet Union) in 1923.
Economic upheaval followed on the heels of war and revolution.
The Great Depression of the 1930s dealt a serious blow to the stabil-
ity of Western countries. Largely due to the international scope of
banking and industrial capitalism, the economic depression deeply
affected the United States and many European countries. By 1932 un-
employment in the British workforce stood at 25 percent, and 40 per-
cent of German workers were without jobs. Production in the United
States plummeted by 50 percent.
This economic disaster, along with the failure of postwar treaties
and the League of Nations to keep the peace, provided a fertile breed-
ing ground for destabilizing forces to emerge once again. In the 1920s
and 1930s, totalitarian regimes came to the fore in several European
countries. Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) headed the nationalistic
Fascist regime in Italy. Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) consolidated his
control of the Soviet Union by 1929. Concurrently, in Germany
Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) built the National Socialist German Work-
ers Party (also known as the Nazi Party) into a mass political move-
ment and eliminated all opposition.
These ruthless seizures of power led to the many conflicts that
evolved into World War II. This catastrophic struggle erupted in
1939 when Germany invaded Poland, and Britain and France de-
clared war on Germany. Eventually, the conflict earned its designa-
tion as a world war. While Germany and Italy fought most of Europe
and the Soviet Union, Japan invaded China and occupied In-
dochina. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in
1941, the United States declared war on Japan. Germany, in loose al-
liance with Japan, declared war on the United States, which joined
the conflict in Europe on the side of Britain and France. Although
most of the concerns of individual countries participating in World
War II were territorial and nationalistic, other agendas surfaced as
well. The Nazis, propelled by Hitler’s staunch anti-Semitism, sought
to build a racially exclusive Aryan state. This resolve led to the horror
of the Holocaust, the killing of nearly two out of every three Euro-
pean Jews.
World War II drew to an end in 1945, when the Allied forces de-
feated Germany, and the United States dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The shock of the war’s physical,
economic, and psychological devastation immediately tempered the
elation people felt at the conclusion of these global hostilities.Europe, 1900 to
Like other members of society, artists deeply felt the effects of the
political and economic disruptions of the early 20th century. As the
old social orders collapsed and new ones, from communism to cor-910 Chapter 35 EUROPE AND AMERICA, 1900 TO 1945
MAP35-1Colonial empires around 1900.
0 1500 3000 miles
0 1500 3000 kilometersCANADABRITISH
FRENCHGUIANASLIBYA EGYPTSUDANBRITISH E. AFRICANIGERIAADENFALKLAND IS.(British)ERITREAITALYGERMANYPACIFIC OCEANARCTIC OCEAN ARCTIC OCEANATLANTIC
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OCEANUNITED
STATESHAWAII(U.S.)DUTCHUNION OFS. AFRICASOUTHWESTGERMAN
AFRICAANGOLAMOZAMBIQUEMADAGASCARBELGIANCONGO
CAMEROONGOLD COASTSIERRALEONEGERMANE. AFRICAITALIANSOMALILANDBRITISHSOMALILANDFRENCH
WEST AFRICARIO DE ORO
GAMBIA (British)
PORTUGUESEGUINEAOTTOMAN
EMPIREPORTUGALSPAINBELGIUMFRANCENETHERLANDSBRITAINGREATICELAND
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MAR
KINDIA
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FRENCHINDO-
CHINADUTCH EAST INDIESPHILIPPINESAUSTRALIAZEALANDNEWJAPANRUSSIAGREENLANDMOROCCOSPANISHBelgian Empire
British EmpireDanish Empire
Dutch ControlledFrench Empire
German EmpireItalian Controlled
Japanese EmpireOttoman Empire
Portuguese EmpireRussian Empire
Spanish ControlledUnited States Controlled
Independent Nations