Age of Total War
Fall 2007
The General Situation
There was hope that the war was
over.
But the hoped for prosperity was
short lived.
Once the hoopla came to an end.
Economic malaise set in.
Especially in the U.S. and Great
Britain.
In Japan, there was concern that
Japan was being discriminated by the West.
In the Soviet Union there was a
struggle to see who would follow Lenin.
In the U.S. Americans looked
inward.
Post Civil War Russia
Following the Civil War and the
Russo-Polish War, Russia was devastated.
War Communism was still in
place.
The sailors of the Baltic Fleet
listened to the grievances from Petrograd.
By then the composition of the
Baltic Fleet had changed.
More peasants had entered and
the old guard was scattered to the winds.
Background to the Mutiny
In Feb. 1921 popular agitation
to the Bolsheviks took place in Petrograd.
32 sailors served as a fact
finding team to investigate the charges.
On Feb. 28 a general meeting
agreed to support a report made by Stepan Petrichenko.
The 15 Demands were then drafted
to
Kronstadt
Soviet.
Which proved to dangerous for
Lenin.
Kronstadt Demands
Immediate new Elections to the
Soviets
Freedom of Speech and Press
Freedom of Assembly
Organization of a new group to
represent the interests of the people of Petrograd
New review of all prisoners in
detention
Abolition of all political
departments in the armed forces
End of the militia detachments
sent to rural villages
Equalization of all rations
Abolition of all party military
detachments
Giving peasants the right to own
land and cattle
All military organizations
should agree to this resolution
What Happened Next?
Mikhail Kalinin top Bolshevik
tried to speak on March 1 and was shouted down.
The leaders of the RevKom tried
to speak and were arrested.
Kalinin reported to Zinoviev
(Party Boss in Petrograd) and Trotsky.
All news from Kronstadt was
censored.
Military power was the next
option.
Their Slogan was Soviets
without Communists.
Crushing The Mutiny
Trotsky rushes to Petrograd and
mobilizes loyal Red Army formations.
On the night of March 16, 1921,
45,000 troops under the command of
Mikhail Tukhachevsky
attacked in three directions.
The revolt was crushed, 600 were
killed and 900 were executed.
About 8,000 fled to Finland.
Impact of Kronstadt
Lenin had to make a strategic
retreat to insure the regimes survival.
This happened before the X Party
Congress.
In many respects, Lenin was
willing to accept a peasants Brest.
This became the bases of NEP.
Changes now came from above.
New Economic Policy
Food tax (ten percent) replaced
food requisitions.
Peasants could lease land and
hire labor.
Small business were allowed to
open.
But not the larger ones such as
banks, railroads, etc.
Which even lead to the creation
of a new group of businessmen known as Nepmen.
Trouble in the Workers Paradise
Not everyone was happy with this
trend.
Especially with the leftwing
Bolsheviks.
They attacked those successful
peasants known as Kulaks.
Stalin would have another plans
and ended NEP in 1929.
Buy this time Lenin was ill and
Lenins lieutenants were lining up to replace him.
Death of Lenin and the Coming of Stalin
Lenins health was in decline
following Dora Kaplans assassination attempt in 1918.
The arguments over NEP further
weakened him.
Then he made the fatal mistake
of creating the post of General Secretary.
Recommending Stalin for the
post.
Lenin then had an operation to
remove the bullet from Kaplans assassination attempt.
Instead, he had a stroke.
The Great Schemer
Stalin used his position to
purge Trotskys supporters from key posts.
He was unruly.
Even a bully.
He insulted Lenins wife,
Krupskaya.
Demanding that Lenin not write
letters.
Lenin did more than that.
He wrote his last will and
testament.
The Last Will and Testament
It was written sometime between
Dec. 1922 or Jan. 1923.
He intended that it be published
in Pravda
and read at the upcoming Party Congress.
Instead it was withheld from
all.
In his
Last Testament
he tells everyone no one is capable to follow
him.
But Along Comes Joe
Stalin moved in to arrange
Lenins funeral.
The creation of the Cult of
Lenin.
Marginalizing Trotsky.
Then other Old Bolsheviks.
By 1928 he moved against the
Kulaks.
Moving toward Collectivization.
Followed by the Purges.
The rest is history.
The Japanese Situation following
Versailles
The Japanese felt wanted to be
accepted.
Instead they discovered that
they were rejected by the West.
Especially the Americans.
Even the British too, their
traditional ally.
Yet Japan was making head way.
Especially in textiles and
challenging the British.
The Great Tokyo Earthquake in 1923
It struck on Sept. 1, 1923.
Registered 8.1 on the Richter
Scale.
Fires broke out throughout the
city.
The public then blamed the
Koreans.
Who were attacked at will.
Perhaps 140,000 died and
countless others injured.
Aid rushed in from the West,
including the U.S.
The Emergence of the Rightwing
There was a deep resentments
mounting in Japan.
Over the Washington Naval
Conference in 1922.
Then in 1924 U.S. prohibited
Japanese immigration into the United States.
While militarism was in decline
following the war, it was revived by such nationalists as
Kitta Ikki.
Claiming that Japan had the
right to demand equality with the millionaire powers.
China was ready for the taking.
Western Culture Takes to Tokyo
Department stores like Harrods
and Bloomingdales.
Japanese took to cars.
And Baseball.
Movies like Charlie Chaplain
were very poplar.
As was Jazz.
Dancing.
Which drove the political
reactionaries crazy.
Harding and the Return to Normalcy
Harding was not a bad man, but
not fit to be president.
Harding was made by Harry
Daughtery.
Because he looked like a
president.
His main campaign promise was
Less government in Business, and more Business in Government.
But behind the man was
corruption.
And as Harding said,
my
friends
theyre the ones that keep me walking the floors at night.
Teapot Dome
This was part of a general
scandal that engulfed all of the Harding administration.
Fall convinced Edwin Denby, the
Secretary of the Navy, to all the Interior Department to run the Elk Hills and
Teapot Dome oil reserves.
And then lease them to his buds
Harry F. Sinclair and Edward Doheny.
Before this was exposed Harding
died.
Other Harding Scandals
Fall would be sent to prison in
1931.
Thomas Miller of the Office of
Alien Property was convicted.
Charles Forbes, Director of
Veterans Bureau was convicted of fraud for skimming profits and accepting
kickbacks.
Charles Cramer, and aid to
Forbes, committed suicide.
As did Jess Smith and aid to the
AG.
Coolidge was at least clean.
Cool Cal
He was a minor Republican
politician who made a name for himself during the Boston Police Strike in 1919.
Found himself on the Republican
ticket with Harding in 1920.
He was the first president to
use the radio, but did not have a telephone on his desk.
He was a friend of big business.
He was elected in his own right
to the Presidency in 1924.
But things were happening that
he was not prepared for.
William Allen White considered
him a Puritan in Babylon.
The Role of Andrew Mellon
Mellon made a fortune in
banking, construction and a host of other endeavors.
He also served as Secretary of
the Treasury for Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover.
He cut the debt and cut taxes.
Which was called the Mellon
Plan.
Reducing taxes and government
expenses was his passion.
He was considered the greatest
Secretary of the Treasure since Alexander Hamilton.
The Jazz Age I
Society was
changing
as a result of the war.
Women were dressing differently.
Women were now a little fast
and perhaps a little brazen.
Skirts were getting shorter.
They bobbed their hair.
Exposed their arms and for
heavens sake, their legs.
The typical flapper was Louise
Brooks.
F. Scott Fitzgerald would
understand these ladies.
The Jazz Age II
But this is also the age of
Prohibition.
Rise in crime with Al Capone in
Chicago.
With speakeasies all the social
ills that went with it.
As well as the rise of the KKK.
And the struggle with modernity
with the Scopes Monkey Trial.
The Dark Side of the Jazz Age
Farmers were being driven into
the ground by the burden of debt.
Workers purchasing power was
stagnant.
Inventories were on the rise.
Questionable business practices
threatened investors.
Such as the case of Samuel
Insull, a forerunner of the ENRON fiasco.
The Anarchist Vision
That no government was good
government
Best way of creating social
justice was via the pistol and dynamite.
William McKinley was a victim.
The wife of Franz Joseph
Made an attempt on TR.
When did it come to an end?
Sacco and Vanzetti
Two Anarchists Sacco and
Vanzetti were arrested for a murder of a shoe factory paymaster and security
guard.
The event happened in April
1920.
They were charged with capital
murder, found guilty, and executed in 1927.
Where they innocent victims,
anarcho-terrorists, or a combination of the two?
What We Know, May Know, or Simply Will
Never Know
Both claimed that they were
innocent wrongly accused.
The public so believed that they
were victims of a red paranoia.
In 1961 evidence pointed to the
fact that Saccos weapon was used in the crime.
Then in 1982 new evidence points
to that weapon may have been planted.
But we will never know.
Collateral Damage
The Wall Street Bombing of Sept.
16, 1920 was the greatest terrorist attack on American soil until Oklahoma City.
At noon time a horse-drawn cart
pulled up to the J. P. Morgan Bank.
It was estimated that there were
a hundred pounds of dynamite on board.
70 died and 300 injured.
There was a link to the
Sacco-Vanzetti case.