Interwar Period Molly Wenner
All countries
- Some look to science to help support disillusion with the world
- Movies become big entertainment
- Three waves of the influenza pandemic hit
- Many people feel increasingly fearful of the unpredictable world
- Post war prosperity crashes
- People in early post war era live for the moment, not planning on future
England
- Outdated factories and “replaced” as industrial leader by Japan and America.
- Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour Party in the political arena
- IRA terrorist group fights for their independence
- The Locarno Pact in which a series of treaties state problems will be solved peacefully, and guaranteed existing
- boundaries between France and Germany
America
- Women start wearing hair and skirts shorter and start hanging in jazz clubs. The “Flappers”
- Led by Hebert Hoover in the early stages of the depression years, later led by FDR.
- Social Security Act of 1935 provided unemployment and oldaged benefits
- New Deal: a series of reforms in an attempt to drag their country out of the depression
France
- Farmland as well as entire cities of the North lay in ruins as a result of the battles of WWI
- Wartime alliance with Italy comes to an end
- Spent large amount of money to fortify borders with the Maginot Line
- Signed a mutual assistance treaty with Czechoslovakia and Poland
- The Locarno Pact in which a series of treaties state problems will be solved peacefully, and guaranteed existing boundaries between France and Germany
Germany
- Leader known as der Fuhrer
- His inspired speeches led his people to believe they could be restored in their pride, power, and world status
- Secretly began to rebuild and rearm the army
- Nazi Party leader Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor & begins the Third Reich
- The Weimar Republic was the federal government establish after the war, however it proved to be weak and ineffective
- To help rid the country of the communist his party staged the burning of the Reichstag building and blamed the communist
- Open violation of the Treaty of Versailles when he marched his troops into the Rhineland.
- The Beer Hall Putsch was an attempt to oust the government. The future leader of the country was involved and jailed for his involvement
- Began Fascist doctrine that appealed to the upper and middle classes
- His “Black Shirts” broke up strikes, intimidated workers, and drove elected socialist from office
- The Locarno Pact in which a series of treaties state problems will be solved peacefully, and guaranteed existing boundaries between France and Germany
- In a book by the future leader of the country known as Mein Kampf, his racial superiority theory was laid out
- Violence plays a major role in politics
- Racial Superiority is an obsession of he state
- One man controls political parties
- No concern for human rights
Italy
- His inspired speeches led his people to believe they could be restored in their pride, power, and world status
- Fascist leader known as Benito Mussolini, also known as Il Duce, rises to power
- Symbol of country is Roman axe bundled tightly with rods
- Youth followers, known as “Sons of the Wolf”
- Began Fascist doctrine that appealed to the upper and middle classes
- The Locarno Pact in which a series of treaties state problems will be solved peacefully, and guaranteed existing boundaries between France and Germany
- Violence plays a major role in politics
- One man controls political parties
- No concern for human rights
Soviet Union

- New Economic Plan kept heavy industry, communications, transportation, and credit systems under government control
- The 5year plan resulted in decreased agricultural output and many starve
- Easter Rising: revolt against their government in an attempt to gain independence but resulted in executions of many of the movements leaders
- Vladimir Lenin rose to lead the country
- Became a command economy in which government controlled all economic decisions
- ALL religion was discouraged and in many cases banned all together
- The death of Lenin led to a power struggle between Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Stalin will win the fight
- The “purge” rid the country of party members suspected of being disloyal
- Agriculture grouped to form collective farms and people worked together to bring in the crops using the scarce farm machinery
- Had a five year plan to increase industrial, agricultural output and turn them into modern industrial giant 42.
- Million of citizens were sent to gulags which were brutal labor camps in the barren area known as Siberia
- Violence plays a major role in politics
- One man controls political parties
- No concern for human rights
- End all class division like Karl Marx