Unit 8 · 20th-Century Global Conflicts

Long-term causes of World War I ● (core concept) — Militarism, entangling alliances, imperial competition, and nationalism that made Europe ripe for war.

Total war ● (core concept) — War mobilizing entire societies and economies, blurring the line between soldiers and civilians.

Trench warfare ● (core concept) — The grinding positional warfare of the Western Front, producing stalemate and mass casualties.

World War I ● (core concept) — The global war sparked by rival alliances, militarism, imperialism, and nationalism, fought largely in trenches.

Schlieffen Plan ○ — Germany's plan for a quick victory over France; an illustrative example of WWI strategy.

Bolsheviks ● (core concept) — Lenin's radical Marxist faction that seized power in Russia.

Joseph Stalin ● (core concept) — Soviet dictator who industrialized the USSR through Five-Year Plans and ruled by terror.

Kulaks ● (core concept) — The land-owning peasantry liquidated — along with other perceived enemies of the state — during Stalin's economic modernization of the Soviet Union.

New Economic Policy (NEP) ● (core concept) — Lenin's compromise of communist principles, employing free-market principles to improve economic performance after the Russian Civil War.

Provisional Government (Russia) ● (core concept) — Russia's post-tsarist government, undermined by military and worker insurrections aided by the revived soviets, setting the stage for Lenin's Bolshevik revolution.

Russian Civil War ● (core concept) — The protracted civil war between communist forces and their opponents (aided by foreign powers) prompted by the Bolshevik takeover.

Russian Revolution ● (core concept) — The revolutions toppling the tsar and bringing the Bolsheviks to power, creating the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Lenin ● (core concept) — Bolshevik leader who led the October Revolution and founded the Soviet state.

Collectivization ○ — The forced consolidation of peasant farms into state collectives; an illustrative example of Stalinist policy.

Five-Year Plans ○ — Stalin's state-directed drives to rapidly industrialize the Soviet economy.

League of Nations ● (core concept) — The international organization created to preserve peace through collective security.

Mandate system ● (core concept) — League of Nations supervision of former Ottoman and German territories; an illustrative example of the settlement.

Reparations ● (core concept) — The payments imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, straining its economy.

Versailles settlement ● (core concept) — The Paris peace settlement whose provisions on guilt and reparations hindered the Weimar Republic's stability; it satisfied few and failed to resolve postwar challenges.

Weimar Republic ● (core concept) — Germany's democratic government, weakened by economic crisis and political extremism.

Fourteen Points ○ — Wilson's proposals for peace, including self-determination and the League of Nations.

War-guilt clause ○ — The Versailles provision blaming Germany for the war; an illustrative example.

Great Depression ● (core concept) — The worldwide economic collapse marked by bank failures, mass unemployment, and collapsing trade.

Adolf Hitler ● (core concept) — Nazi dictator of Germany whose expansionism and racial ideology led to World War II and the Holocaust.

Benito Mussolini ● (core concept) — Fascist dictator of Italy and the model for later fascist movements.

Fascism ● (core concept) — The ultranationalist ideology rejecting democracy and communism, glorifying the state and a supreme leader.

Francisco Franco ● (core concept) — Spanish general whose alliance with Italian and German fascists in the Spanish Civil War brought authoritarian rule to Spain from 1936 to the mid-1970s.

Nazi Party (National Socialism) ● (core concept) — Germany's fascist party, built on ultranationalism, antisemitism, and the Führer principle.

Propaganda ● (core concept) — State-controlled messaging used by totalitarian regimes to shape belief and crush dissent.

Spanish Civil War ● (core concept) — Franco's alliance with Italian and German fascists in the Spanish Civil War — in which the Western democracies did not intervene — represented a testing ground for World War II and resulted in authoritarian rule in Spain from 1936 to the mid-1970s.

Totalitarianism ● (core concept) — Rule seeking total control over public and private life through terror, propaganda, and one-party dominance.

Appeasement ● (core concept) — The British-French policy of conceding to Hitler's demands to avoid war.

Nazi-Soviet Pact ● (core concept) — The nonaggression agreement letting Hitler invade Poland without Soviet opposition; an illustrative example.

Hyperinflation ○ — The runaway inflation that devastated Germany's economy after World War I; an illustrative example.

Munich agreement ○ — The 1938 agreement exemplifying the failure of appeasement, allowing fascist expansion before World War II.

Blitzkrieg ● (core concept) — Germany's lightning-war tactic of rapid mechanized attack; an illustrative example.

Winston Churchill ● (core concept) — British leader whose strong leadership, alongside American and British industrial power and the USSR's full military commitment, contributed critically to Allied victory in World War II.

World War II ● (core concept) — The global war begun by Axis aggression, ending with Allied victory and the defeat of fascism.

Atomic bomb ○ — The nuclear weapon used against Japan at the end of World War II; the CED names 'nuclear proliferation' as required, not the bomb itself.

Genocide ● (core concept) — The deliberate extermination of a people, exemplified by the Holocaust.

The Holocaust ● (core concept) — The Nazi systematic murder of European Jews and other targeted groups.

"Final Solution" ○ — The Nazi plan for the systematic murder of Europe's Jews; an illustrative example.

Nuremberg Laws ○ — Nazi laws stripping Jews of citizenship and rights; an illustrative example of persecution.

Lost generation ● (core concept) — The disillusioned and cynical post–World War I generation; the war also transformed women's lives and democratized societies.