The Rise of Totalitarianism in the East and West

Russia (communist)

Italy (fascist)

Japan (fascist)

Germany (fascist)

Italy

• Birthplace of fascism• Mussolini won power (appointed prime

minister by the king) in 1922, after the “March on Rome”

• 1932 “The Doctrine of Fascism”-Mussolini

Mussolini’s ambitions:

1935: aggressive war against Ethiopia (Italians lost against Ethiopia,or Abyssinia, in 1898)

The Italians used:– Poison gas– Aeroplanes– Machine guns

against ill-equipped Ethiopian troops

The invasion of Albania-April, 1939

Invasion of Greece- October, 1940 (WW II)

Germany had to intervene to avoid Italian defeat

Japan

The U.S. expected conflict with Japan (and planned for it) before a fight with Germany

Why?

Commercial rivalry

Territorial rivalry

Before the 1940’s, both Japan and the United States had vied for influence in the Pacific

The Japanese?

Forced to open to trade when the Americans sailed into Tokyo Harbor in 1853

Why “forced”?

• US economic imperialism---Japan had a large population, representing a potentially huge market for American goods (both raw materials and manufactured goods)

• Japan had spurned western technology and culture, then found itself at the mercy of it

“After the signing of the treaty, the Japanese invited the Americans to a feast. The Americans admired the courtesy and politeness of their hosts, and thought very highly of the rich Japanese culture.”

http://www.history.navy.mil

The Japanese Military, ca. 1850

The Japanese military, ca. 1905—defeat of the Russian fleet at Tsushima

Japan had been a marginal ally of the Allied powers in WW I in order to expand its Asian territories

By the 1930’s, it had transformed itself into an imperial power, calling it the…

“Greater East-Asian Co-prosperity Sphere”

Japan’s Growing Power (1870-1942)

Escalating Conflict:

Mid-1930’s -1940 the U.S. had:

a) Placed an embargo on exports to Japan---despite trade treaty with Japan that had been signed in 1911

b) Frozen Japanese assets

c) Placed an embargo on all oil and remaining raw materials not covered under the previous Acts

At the same time, Japan had pursued a brutal, expansionist foreign policy (not unlike European empire-building 150-200 years before)

Outbreak

The Japanese resolved to deal a crippling blow to the American Navy at its new Pacific base, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

“Anyone who has seen the auto factories in Detroit and the oil fields in Texas … “knows that Japan lacks the national power for a naval race with America.”

-Yamamoto

Admiral Yamomoto:

“In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success.”

GermanyHitler appointed chancellor in 1933

Expansion:

Rhineland (1936)Sudetenland/Czechoslovakia (1938)Austria (1938)

The 1930’s were years of economic and political instability around the world

Democracy was the exception, not the rule.