After World War One, the societies of the European countries were fractured and destroyed. Economies, cultures, and morality were thoroughly messed up. Unstable and inefficient dictator states were created from the land confiscated by the victors of the catastrophic event. The results of “The War to End All Wars” included horrible inflation and terrible depressions. Even the democratic states and countries became focused upon war collectivism, in which war is the health of the state. Many of the European counties fell apart into civil wars or incessantly fought with their neighbors. Three countries, Russia, Italy, and then Germany, dissolved into ideological dictatorships, in which a tyrannical dictatorial government forced the people to conform to the “ideal” society. Unfortunately, these three dictatorships were among the worst of history and ended up further destroying European society in the coming of World War Two.
In Russia, the February Revolution of 1917 ended with the Tsar abdicating and passing all of his power to the Provisional Government. That same year, the Bolsheviks ended up taking over the Provisional Government of Russia in the October Revolution. This sparked a massive civil war between the Bolsheviks and everybody else. Sadly, this civil war resulted in a ruined countryside and seven to ten million people dead. Under the Bolsheviks, who won, Russia became a police state, and Lenin instituted the “Red Terror.” Millions more died. The Communists redistributed food and encouraged the farmers to rat out their neighbors. In this way, Lenin and his comrades caused devastating famine and countless uprisings, in which many more people were murdered. The aftereffects of several assassination attempts left Lenin with poor health and led to his subsequent death. With Lenin out of the picture, his patsy, Stalin, commandeered the government. Stalin suffered from paranoia. Under his direction, his officers oversaw incredibly horrific ethnic cleansings, purges, and mass murder (tens of millions). Soon, even the officers who had served Stalin faithfully joined the ranks of the dead. After the first waves of ethnic cleansings in the late 1930s, Stalin saw a way to gain much land in Eastern Europe by allying with Germany’s Fuhrer. The Non-Aggression Pact of 1938 between Russia and Germany did just this and kept the Communists out of the war for a while.
Meanwhile, in the new country of Italy, the people felt as though they had been cheated at the Paris Peace Conference. The lands that were promised to Italy had also been pledged to multiple other countries. Taking advantage of this, Mussolini led his socialist party into power. Along the way, Mussolini changed and modified his socialist ideas until he settled with Fascism, which is defined as “Nothing outside the state” by Benito Mussolini. Under his control, Italy became a one party police state. Mussolini’s political takeover of Italy lead to terrible atrocities and mass murder. Should the powers of the world have only promised each portion of land to one country, none of this would ever have happened.
After World War I, Germany was in chaos because of the peace settlement. Depression set in because of the post WWI retaliatory policies. To aid the citizens of Germany, a new constitution was drafted and passed at Weimar. However, some people, such as Hitler, did not like the constitution. Hitler hated the way that the war ended for Germany and blamed it on the Jews and other minorities, although he continued to serve as an army officer. He was sent undercover to infiltrate the DAP, a radical nationalist party, and eventually joined it and took control. With the backing of his new Nazi friends, Hitler attempted a takeover of the German government by force, but failed. Upon being released from jail, Hitler began a political campaign to take over the government. After the depression hit Germany in full force, they succeeded. This success and subsequent rise to power is attributed to his blaming the failure of the war not on the soldiers, but on the Jews, socioeconomic ills, and other minorities. His party called for nationalism. When he finally became the leader of Germany, he passively attacked those who he had blamed for years. With Adolf Hitler now in charge, Germany began to commit horrendous atrocities. All of this occurred simply because the great powers at the Paris Peace Conference were not fair.
During WWI, Japan started to become an imperialist power. It had joined the allies and confiscated most, if not all, of the German and Austrian colonies and settlements within the area. Upon the conclusion of the war, Japan realized that it wanted to continue to be an imperialist power, and began to invade China. This country was ripe for the taking. Japan also began to expand throughout the Pacific islands. However, America wanted to become the master of the Pacific too. America began to create its Pacific Defense Triangle, a series of ports and military bases that would enable America to travel anywhere in the Pacific quickly. The primary bases were at the Philippines, Hawaii, and the west coast of the continental 48 states. Due to both countries striving to expand throughout the Pacific Ocean, conflict between Japan and the United States of America was inevitable.
With the outbreak of Communism in Russia, like a nasty rash, the entire country fell apart and was kept together only by terrible dictators who committed horrendous atrocities. In Italy, Fascism spread like a plague and infected the government, allowing mass murder throughout the country. Germany’s cancerous Nazism and socialist ideas grew and spread all through the citizenry, developing a mob mentality based on revenge. Having caught the flu of imperialism during WWI, Japan, and the likewise infected America, strove to expand their powers far into the Pacific Ocean and into each other’s territory. The festering post war world was in critical condition and about to collapse into the next global conflict.