Essay: The effect of War

In our nation’s history, there has been a select few eras of unimaginable war and chaos that changed entire generations, politics, and alliances. They distorted peace on every front, and will live on in our hearts forever as we mourn our loss but admire our nation’s strength and courage, even through years of misfortune and bloodshed. Of these great wars, there is one that effected every continent on the globe, from the United States to Africa, France to South America. The second world war would come after a time of great depression for the United States, and followed the war that was merited to end all wars. It would influence the world and it’s leaders unlike anything before it, and is a harsh turning point in our history.
World War two was one of the bloodiest wars in our nation’s history, and there are countless scapegoats and vile acts which brought the United States into this great war for over half a decade. The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project is a research center associated with the Department of History of The George Washington University, who wrote many details covering this worldwide phenomenon. In these papers they state that WWII, “was the largest armed conflict in human history. Ranging over six continents and all the world’s oceans, the war caused an estimated 50 million military and civilian deaths, including those of 6 million Jews.” Many Americans today do not know the real reasons as to what exactly led to these horrific events, but modern research has collected data and analyzed the war enough so that we have a clear timeline of pre-war evidence. Ultimately, the failing economies of the worlds nations, coupled with the rise of disturbed power hungry leaders such as Communist leader Joseph Stalin, lead to the second world war being an inevitable yet bloody and terrifying venture for all of the world to succumb to.
After World War One, European economy was left in shambles. The economy in much of centralized and Western Europe was so poor, that their worthless unbacked paper bills were being burned for warmth or even used as toilet paper. Dr. Ton Noterman quotes in his thesis in his publication, Money, Markets, and the State, “The massive European debt during the 1920s was in direct result of  WWI destruction and loans taken to pay for the war, which in turn caused the great economic collapse in Europe during the 1920s.” Simply put, war cost Europe money they did not have, and with the varying levels of comic despair, the different economical systems trying to resolve their issues unilaterally, and the fear of further economic depravity, the nations were tense for change and poised for conflict after the first World War.
This is where Communism comes into the political and economic context of the decade, challenging democracy and the profit based values of capitalism. The Soviet Union had pulled it’s troops from World War One in 1917, after their own bloody revolution started within its borders. America became angry at the Soviet Union for abandoning the war, and was against Communistic societies as it challenged their longstanding capitalistic background. This sparked tension between the US and the Soviet Union at first, as both countries were in bad economic standing in the 1920’s and 1930’s. To further explain the situation the Soviet Union was in, Revelations from the Russian Archives, found in our library of congress explained the Soviet Unions status and what their government did in response to it. “As factories stood idle and famine raged in the countryside, Vladimir Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921 to infuse energy and direction into the fledgling Communist- controlled economy. NEP retreated from Communist orthodoxy and opened up the Soviet monolith economically.”
Most people today, particularly in young America, don’t understand the true economic hole that Europe was facing, and how that gave rise to the Communist movements and it’s leaders. After the aforementioned revolution in Russia, the Bolshevik people seized power over the nation. When they took control, they changed their political affiliation to the “Communist Party,” and according to the Stanford University article Communism and Computer Ethics, sent their philosophies to all European Socialist Parties. They then continued to seize factories, railroads, and other public and private sectors under government control. It is important to understand this movement, as it would give rise to historic leaders like Joseph Stalin, who had a very extreme effect on the outcome of WWII and US relations.
While Communism was being established across some of Eastern Europe with aggressors such as Stalin rising into power, America was facing it’s own economic instability. In the late 1920’s, the Federal Reserve began raising its interest rates, just as there was a crash in industrial production. An article in The Economist, A Refresher of the 1930’s, explains that as large portion of American’s lost their jobs, and as the economy began to unravel, the banks too began to shut down and ultimately fail. The banks needed help, but was entirely depleted of physical cash collateral to give the federal government. As the article states, the worst was yet to come, and by 1933 “more than 11,000 of America’s 25,000 banks had failed. As people rushed to turn bank deposits into cash, the money supply collapsed.”
By 1935, most of the world was still struggling to pick up the pieces of the first World War. As the evidence shows, countries across Europe were left to fend for themselves and build up from scratch- continuously failing when trying to implement their “continue as we have in the past” structure of rehabilitation. America has fallen into the worst depression it will see for almost another one hundred years, and conflict in Eastern Europe and the rise of Communism and select leaders have begun to shed more turmoil and despair amongst its people. In the 1930’s, Mussolini’s Italy are allied against the communists with Hitler’s now Nazi controlled Germany after coming to power in 1933. Hitler promised to return Germany to its former glory, and its strong nationalization led to a destructive military.
In 1939, this anti-communist force of Germany and its allies have taken over Austria and quickly Czechoslovakia and by August, they sign a mutual non aggression document with the growing Soviet Union simply saying that they would stay out of each others way and take what they wanted of Europe. Finally, in September of 1939, Germany invades Poland, the last straw before Great Britain and France officially declare war on Germany. Soon, Stalin himself invades Poland which is contested against German power. By 1940 these powers had taken over much of Europe, setting their sights on Great Britain after taking France. In 1941 the Nazi’s invaded Russia breaking their pact and beginning the destruction on the Eastern Front.
The Asian front is also fo great importance regarding WW2. In the early 1900’s China was in a civil war while Japan is also becoming more nationalistic and militaristic, invading the country of Manchuria in 1931, taking more and more control of the land. As war exploded in those late months of 1939 and the early 1940’s and the United States was giving support to its allies in the West, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in efforts to decimate its Navy. Dr. Marvin L. Byrd explains that Japans plan was to take control of all of Asia, signing peace treaties with the Soviet Union, and in desperate need of the US supply of oil to continue its movement into Asia. Dr. Byrd says that by the end of 1941 the US asked Japan to discontinue its pursuit into Indochina, who refused. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in the territory of Hawaii in efforts to weaken the US ability to fight a war in Japan.