UNIT 1

Lesson 1

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: SOME CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

Nalini Taneja

1.0: Objectives

After reading this essay you should be able to

• understand some basic concepts that define the 20th century world
• be able to recognize the elements that went into creating the modern world
• define the elements of continuity and change in the 20th century
• trace the historical roots of twentieth century world
• perceive the nature of the world order and
• analyse the causes of inequality and conflict in the 20th century world
• understand why socialism posed such a challenge to capitalism
• also understand why the collapse of socialism in many countries has strengthened
capitalism but not destroyed the challenge of socialism.

1.2: Introduction

While the world as we saw it at the end of the 20th century was very different from the world in
the beginning of the 20th century, there are some basic features that lend it an element of
continuity. When we speak of the 20th century we speak of the modern world, and this modern
world was not created overnight, nor at the same time chronologically and not even at the same
pace in all areas of the world. The historical roots of the 20th century world can be traced to the
decline of feudalism and the emergence and growth of capitalist societies, to begin with, in 16th
century Europe and then elsewhere. Decisive developments in this historical process were the
Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution which shaped the modern world. In that sense
there is a relationship and continuity with the 19th century during which capitalist
industrialization became the dominant mode of production and nationalism and nation states the
predominant feature of politics. Therefore we can safely say that the 20th century world was
created by capitalist industrialization with all its social and political ramifications.

You will read about various aspects of the 20th century in the later essays. In this essay we will
discuss some of the defining concepts and definitions necessary for understanding the 20th
century.

1.3: Capitalist industrialization

Capital permeated all aspects of life in the twentieth century: societies where it advanced rapidly
and, interestingly, also where it emerged but was hindered in its advance by the entrenched older
social and economic structures. The twentieth century has seen the division of the world into
advanced or ‘developed’ countries and those which are characterized as ‘developing’ countries;
and within countries into those considered ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

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In fact the rapid economic advance that capitalist industrialization entailed itself became a factor
for the backwardness of some societies, and within societies for a large majority of its people.
Colonialism and divisions into classes are aspects of these inequalities. In other words inequality
was as much inbuilt in capitalism as it was in earlier societies.

Definition and features

As you know industry is older than capitalism. When we talk of capitalist industrialization we
therefore refer to the changes that took place in the organization of production during late 18th
and 19th century. These changes in the organization of industry are inseparable from the growth
of capitalism.

Capitalism entails an economic and social system characterized by private ownership of property
i.e., the means of production—land, factory, raw stocks—are all privately owned and controlled
and production takes place for sale and profit rather than for use by the producers. What is
produced, therefore, becomes a commodity, i.e., an item for sale and profit making. It has an
exchange value rather than use value, and an unequal exchange value because those who own the
resources gain from it rather than those who labour to produce it.

In other words, the means of producing, distributing and exchanging commodities are operated
by their owners solely for the financial gain of the owners. The profits are distributed to owners
or invested in new technology and industries, wages are paid to the labour from it. Capital in its
various forms is thus the major factor of production in capitalist industrialization.

In addition to the above, i.e.,1) private ownership of means of production and exchange, 2)
production for sale and financial gain rather than use, and 3) capital in its various forms being the
major factor of production, there are certain other equally essential features that characterize
capitalist industrialization.

For example, Marx and Engels point out in their Communist Manifesto (1848) that 4) the people
who have no means of production of their own (and they are in a majority), are forced to find
employment, in other words, to sell their labour power, in order to live. Labour, also, therefore,
becomes commodity, an item to be sold in return for wages (livelihood).

Further, if everything is subjected to buying and selling then 5) market becomes the essential and
central feature of a society based on capitalist industrialization. All inputs and outputs are
supplied commercially through the market. All relationships are contractual relationships
determined by the laws of supply and demand, or what is known as the rationality of the market.
For example if there are more workers seeking employment than employers demanding work the
wages will be lower and vice versa. Again in times of scarcity prices can go higher, in times of
recession and financial crisis for the industrialists there may be heavy discounts.

6) Due to the ownership pattern the owners hold all the decision making powers and workers and
other employees can only use their collective bargaining power through their organizations or
trade unions and strikes etc. But as you can gauge, since they own no means of income other
than their labour they are at a disadvantage, except in their numbers and in their unity, to the
extent that there is unity amongst them.

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Now the question arises that if owners are paying for the production then why should they not
have the profit and what is so unfair about it? Many economists and thinkers believe that this is
a reasonably fair deal. Marx and Engels, however, argued for a deeper analysis. 7) They argued
that the profits of the employer essentially came from the exploitation of the labour of the
workers i.e unequal exchange in the contractual relationship between the factory owner and the
worker because the worker produced surplus value over and above what he was paid for. The
wages paid are lower than the value of the goods and services produced for the capitalist. They
showed that a worker is paid for his labour time, which is the number of hours he/she worked,
and not on the basis of the volume of goods produced or the amount gained when the product is
sold in the market. With improvements in technology and more advanced machines the workers
collectively produced much more in the same time but their wages did not rise in the same
measure. The factory owner gained his increased profits from this discrepancy between the value
gained by the industrialist and what he has paid for. Everything utilized by the industrialist—raw
stocks, infrastructure, capital, credit from banks, the distribution and transportation, machinery,
even a pin—has involved labour underpaid for. This is known as the creation of surplus value
out of the labour of the worker and is the crux of the injustice inherent in capitalism. Therefore,
they argued, as long as private property (in the means of production) exists this contradiction
between the interest of the capitalist and the worker will remain. Capitalist industrialization
reflects this basic contradiction and inherent injustice and inequality of opportunity.

Thus both technology and social organization of labour-- the relationship between owners and
workers—were reshaped at a certain stage in history to conform to the commercial logic. This is
what is characterized as capitalist industrialization.

Perceptions of capitalist development

For some historians and economists technical progress, leading to new inventions and their
widespread use and diffusion, constituted the core of capitalist industrialization. Others regard
the application of science to industry as its most significant characteristic. Still others have given
more significance to the agrarian changes which created some of the pre requisites for large scale
industrialization. Many have emphasized the growth of markets, within countries and across the
world, the increasing division of labour, again within countries or across the world, or the
changes taking place within industrial production itself (which they refer to as proto-
industrialization). Some, following Karl Marx, have emphasized the new relationships which
emerged from changes in the productive forces (technical progress), the transformations in the
organization of production (new institutional arrangements) and new ownership patterns.

Stages of capitalist industrialization

Different thinkers and scholars emphasized some or a particular set of features of capitalist
industrialization as crucial and identified its various stages through time differently. All of them,
however, agree that it is a historical phenomenon: that it originated at a certain point in history
and has been undergoing significant changes within the continuing social formation (social and
economic framework).

For capitalist or industrial society to emerge as dominant, for it to permeate the whole production
process of society, many different economic, cultural, technological, legal and political
conditions had to come together—improved technology for mass production, a class of property
less workers, a legal system protecting private ownership and market in private property,
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development of infrastructure to promote economic activity on a large scale, a political system
that is conducive to it.

The earliest phase is termed as merchant or mercantile capitalism and is said to correspond to the
period from the 15th to the 18th centuries when western European nations like England, France,
the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain dominated the seas and international trade and embarked on
the colonization of other continents. The next phase spreading over the 19th century is seen as
growth of full blown capitalism linked inseparably with investments in industrial production and
the growth of large scale production facilitated by technological progress -- use of steam engines,
new inventions in textile machinery and agriculture, new means of transportation especially
railways, new methods of coal and iron mining—and factories worked with wage labour and
individually owned.

The early years of the 20th century saw rapid strides in steel industry, ship building, and
concentration of production in large scale firms, cartels, and financial capital. It also saw
monopoly capitalism, imperialism and inter imperialist rivalries take on a more aggressive
stance. Monopolies in capitalist industrialization resulted from the more advanced countries
recognizing heir pre-eminent position in industrial production and seeking to maintain this pre-
eminence by protecting and monopolizing markets and the economies of their colonies rather
than leaving it to open market and competition. In other words they now favoured a regulated
market, controlled by them, rather than laissez faire, or leaving the laws of supply and demand to
determine economies.

The second half of the 20th century saw the emergence of multi or transnational corporations,
new economic policies which involved structural adjustments in both advanced countries and the
third world countries as a result of pressure from the advanced countries, and cuts in welfare
spending by governments across the world. It also increasingly led to neo liberal economic
policies, privatization of public or state owned assets. Multinationals spread their production
processes and control across national boundaries, moving production overseas to reduce costs
where labour was cheaper and to pre-empt competition from third world economies. These
policies representing a new phase in capitalist industrialization and the consequent imperialist
pressure on third world economies has been known as globalization.

Forms of capitalist industrialization

The time periods for the emergence of capitalist industrialization have differed and there have
also been variations in the paths to capitalist industrialization. This is because of the great
historical and geographical diversities involved, and the specific social and political
particularities of the countries concerned. Apart from these factors the pattern of agricultural
changes in the different countries and colonialism also had a great role to play in defining the
specific features of capitalist industrialization in each country.

Imperialism and capitalist industrialization

Imperialism is the world framework of political and economic relations imposed by the advanced
capitalist countries on the rest of the world. It emerges from and is historically linked with
capitalist industrialization and colonialism. The manner in which the unequal and exploitative
relationship between the advanced capitalist countries, also called the imperialist countries, and

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the rest of the world has been worked out and maintained has depended on the stage of capitalist
industrialization and the balance of political power derived from economic strength.

Early stages of colonialism were marked by politically imposed and protected (for the benefit of
the colonizer country that is) unequal terms of trade. They were reworked at a later stage of
capitalist industrialization as the imperialism of free trade or unfettered exploitation of colonies.
Finally, in the last decades of the 19th century, with the emergence of monopolies and finance
capital there were attempts at division and re divisions of the world between the advanced
capitalist countries.

In the 20th century the alternating periods of economic expansion and depression led to both
crises for the capitalist system and intensification of inter imperialist rivalries. The 20th century
was also the century of the rise and success of socialist economies. The challenge that socialist
economies with their emphasis on social justice and equality and opposition to the whole
colonial framework presented to capitalist industrialisation led to the great conflict between the
socialist world and the capitalist countries whose rivalries among themselves were held in check
by their joint hatred and opposition to socialism.

The demise of socialist economies in the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe and
the dilution of the socialist elements within the Chinese economy has strengthened capitalism but
it has not destroyed the promise of socialism. The capitalist industrialized world and the unequal
world order that it sustains is still subject to financial crises which adversely affect lives of
billions of people, but also because the globalization policies of today’s world are leading to
even greater inequalities between nations and within nations.

1.4: Modernity

Modernity as a term applies to the modern era and is distinct from modernism which refers to
specific features within different forms of art, literature, music, cinema etc. The modern also
implies the opposite of being backward and evokes a sense of being progressive. In historical
terms it refers to the post medieval period of history, particularly the intellectual and cultural
developments associated with Renaissance and the Age of Reason and Enlightenment. It was
first used in this sense.

But increasingly the term has come to denote not just intellectual trends but the transformation of
attitudes and a change in the world outlook of a larger set of people than those affected by the
intellectual currents in the 16th-18th centuries. The French revolution and the industrial
revolutions in various parts of the world transformed lives of many more millions of people. This
also broadened the scope and meaning of what is meant by being modern. The term modernity
came to denote the basic features of an industrialized society. It is contained in capitalist society
and in socialist societies as well.

In this broader sense modernity implies an industrial civilization, a certain complex of economic,
social and political institutional arrangements associated with the changes that the development
of capitalist industrialization entailed: right to private property, representative governments, the
idea of free nations and popular sovereignty, the practice of electoral democracy, the
secularization of societies and a value for religious tolerance and individual rights. The 19th
century is said to mark the first phase of modernity in this sense, based on the fruits of new
inventions, the steam engine, trains, ships, petroleum. The Newtonian revolution and Darwin’s
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theory of revolution, Harvey’s discoveries of circulation of blood changed the way people looked
at the world. There was expansion and change in the nature of what is conceived of as the public
sphere, a reorganization of social and personal lives, a new relationship with work and leisure.
Printing technology, disappearance of old patronage and the intervention of the market, along
with expansion of education enabled the democratization of culture and increased the access to
knowledge and what was considered as ‘high’ culture.

Of the twentieth century one can say that most parts of the world had civilizations influenced if
not completely transformed by capitalist industrialization. The use of technology in
communication—radio, telephone, film, television, computers—and dissemination of knowledge
expanded the consumer base for products of industry and for culture. They created bases for new
solidarities and collective actions. Modernity meant changes in family and household, between
work and leisure, between society and individual, between church and state, between church and
believers, between men and women. The idea of equality and women’s emancipation, of
women’s vote and entry of women into various professions, the changes in dress are all
inconceivable without this context of modernity. Modernity made possible the creation of a
strong force of intelligentsia that could talk for the larger society even as it came from within its
privileged section. Capacities for production, space exploration, higher life expectations, cures
for several diseases, created possibilities for a better world not just for a few but for all.

All this was on the plus side. The context of capitalist society into which modernity was inbuilt
had its flip side for the vast majority of people. Critiques of modernity had their bases in the
contradictions inherent in capitalist society.

One kind of critique has been that science had led to loss of spiritualism and decline of religion,
technology and mass production had destroyed individual creativity, industry and urbanization
had destroyed the environment and link with nature and all this had in turn affected man’s
nature. Nuclear bombs, wars, loss of neighborhood and community solidarities, dilution of
certain traditional values and relations, were seen as results of modernity and unbridled
individualism fostered by modernity. These critics opposed what they called the ugliness of
modern production, rejected capitalism and democracy at the cost of older values. This took the
form of romanticism, because this critique did not take into account the reality that going back in
time is not realizable or a possibility.

Another kind of critique valued the advances of capitalist industrialization, particularly the
increased production that now made it possible to alleviate the standards of living of the majority
of the people of the world and the values that modernity brought. But they were very conscious
of its limitations as well. They wanted political and individual liberties to be supplemented with
economic rights and social and economic equality in the real sense. They were critical of the
inequalities inherent in the system of capitalist industrialization and the wide gap between theory
and reality with regard to other rights. They stood for socialism, classless societies and equality
between nations and within nations. They stood for equality between men and women and for
minority rights. They thought all this was not achievable within the framework of capitalist
society. Theirs was therefore a critical appreciation of modernity: they wanted to realize in
practice the promise of freedom and equality, which was possible only by overthrowing the
system that had both created the possibilities of their realization and also prevented their actual
realization because of the injustice structurally inbuilt in capitalist societies. The socialist
movements and the socialist and communist parties and their various organizations best
represented this world view.
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A third response to modernity, which can be characterized as reactionary modernism, is one
which accepted the fruits of modern society, such as large scale production and new technologies
and the comforts they made possible, but were repulsed by its ideas. Equality, workers rights,
women’s emancipation, democracy were an anathema to them. This trend became particularly
successful in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, although it had supporters elsewhere as well.

Linked to this last response to modernity is what has been termed as post modernism. This is a
response which is rooted in the unhappiness over the changes that took place in the US and
following that in Western Europe during the 1960s and the subsequent decades. Some social
scientists saw this as the period of post industrialism and therefore characterized the societies of
this phase as the ‘post-modern’ condition. Post modernism is thus a critique of modern society
which refuses to acknowledge the capitalist basis of the modern society. It detaches society from
its moorings and criticizes modernity rather than capitalism. This is not a rational critique of
society. This irrationality of its critique of society gets transferred to its over all world view, and
all the ills of modern life are attributed to modernity.

Because modernity means an understanding of the world and of human development on the
basis of the principles of rationality, scientific temper and an appreciation of the laws of human
development, post modernism on the contrary opposed reason, application of general laws and
what they called the ‘meta narratives’. For post modernists each person has his/her own truth
and every person’s situation and therefore vantage point differs. A text does not contain except
what we personally see in it: everything is relative, everything is subjective and everything exists
only to the extent that we recognize it.

This kind of a critique of modernity has had some negative consequences for how we look at the
world and what can be done to transform society for the better, because we can simply refuse to
see what we don’t want to or are unable to.

1.6: Contemporary era

When we talk of contemporary era we refer exclusively to the twentieth century and within the
twentieth century to those events and developments which impinge on or continue to impact on
the present. In short, the contemporary, for us, as in the dictionary meaning of being
simultaneous, defines what we call our times or whatever exists in our lifetimes, and all that
forms a background that determines our present lives.

The three defining developments or events that still live with us are the World War I (1914-
1918), the Russian revolution of 1917, and World War II (1939-1945). They have definitively set
their stamp on our world, not only because of the millions of people involved in them, but also
because the causes they represented still remain alive with us and the conflicts they generated
have not been resolved. International conflict, inter-imperialist rivalry and conflict of interests
between the advanced capitalist countries and what is known as the Third World remain with us
unresolved. The threat of wars and peace movements are important issues of today. Poverty and
inequalities in societies make socialism and the 1917 revolution still relevant to us.

The contemporary era has also seen the unification of nationalities and particularly in the second
half of the twentieth century a process of decolonization and the consequent creation of
independent nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. From the 40s to the 90s of the twentieth
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century we see the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, representing the tensions
between the socialist and the capitalist world. This is also the period of what we term the Space
Age characterized by fast pace of space exploration and race for space dominance and the
growth of technology and cultural developments associated with it. This is followed by the
digital revolution or the age of information technology, characterized by extensive expansion and
transformation in industry due to computers and the possibilities of manipulation of information
and knowledge by those countries which dominated this field.

The changes of the 20th century encompassed not just North America and Europe, but the entire
world. Three quarters of the world awakened into new nationhood, political rights so far not
available to them and new arrangements of civil society. As Prabhat Patnaik has put it, “the
institutionalization of ‘one-person-one-vote’ constituted a veritable social revolution.” The actual
existing democracy is thus an achievement of popular movements of the 20th century. Women
won their right to vote in the advanced countries only in the 20th century after great struggles,
and in the rest of the world by virtue of being active participants in national liberation. A third of
the humanity broke away from the capitalist system to adopt socialism as basis of economy and
state. Democracy itself was given a new meaning and content by these democratic upsurges.
Reigned against them were the forces of fascism represented by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany,
and the rule and onslaught of big Capital on the movements of the working people and the
marginalized all over the world.

In terms of historical time the contemporary era marks the high time of capitalist
industrialization and modernity. But it is an era in which, as Aijaz Ahmad has commented,
“socialism emerged as the central fact around which most aspirations and conflicts on the global
scale were shaped.” There was imperialist domination on the one hand and on the other mass
struggles against it which involved billions of people. National liberation movements reflected a
democratic upsurge the world over. These struggles were shaped by socialism and the entry of
masses of people as actors and subjects of their own history. The Soviet Union not only actively
supported national liberation movements, there would have been no defeat of fascism without the
sacrifice and heroism of the Soviet armies, and the resistance forces linked with socialism in the
advanced capitalist countries.

1.7: Conclusion

You have seen how the world we live in has been defined by capitalist industrialization and
socialism in the 20th century. It continues to be so in the 21st century.

The 20th century ended with the collapse of socialist states in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe, US hegemony over the world and the important international institutions, and the
beginning of the 21st century has seen a financial crisis that has important negative ramifications
for living standards of billions of people. Despite these disastrous consequences the US, and
other advanced capitalist countries, continue to pursue and impose on the rest of the world the
neo liberal economic policies which constitute the core of globalization, as they have been doing
since the 1980s and more particularly 1990s. While in our part of the world it seems the middle
classes are under the spell of these policies and the popular resistance to them is weak, in the
Latin American countries both people and governments are actively opposing these policies and
the US hegemony in world affairs. How these contestations will unfold in the 21st century is not
yet clear.

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1.8: Some questions

Answer the following questions in approximately 200 words. (Please consult the relevant
readings recommended for the course, given in the syllabus and also at the end of the course
material).

1. Explain four features of capitalist industrialization.

2. Describe some of the changes in capitalist industrialization in the 20th century.
3. How is modernity related to capitalist industrialization?
4. Discuss the main aspects of modern civilization as seen in daily life.
5. Discuss one trend that represented a critique of modernity.
6. Write about any one important development which shaped the twentieth century.
7. How did capitalist industrialization contribute to inequalities in the world?
8. In what way did socialism constitute a challenge to the imperialist world order?

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 UNIT 2
Lesson 1

CAUSES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AN ANALYSIS

-Dr.Naveen Vashishta
The twentieth century was the century of crisis and catastrophe for Europe after the
immense peace, prosperity and optimism of the nineteenth. The century witnessed two
destructive wars across the European continent, but due to the European domination of the
world, these became world wars. World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great
War, and the War to End All Wars, was the first international conflict of great scale since the
Napoleonic era. It involved all the Great Powers, with Italy entering the war in1915, and the
United States in1917. The wars for national unity in Germany and Italy, Greek War of
Independence, the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish War, the Boer War, and the Russo-Japanese
War, were more or less limited to few powers and did not lead into a general conflagration. But
First World War was a total war1, that is, fought not merely by professional armies, but as much
by the civilian population engaged in producing for the war effort and being targeted in effect as
combatant.
The catastrophic conflagration was set off by the assassination of Prince Archduke
Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on
28th June 1914, by a Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. But any attempt to understand the
origins of the war must take account of a large number of long standing causes. It became one of
the most controversial and debated subjects in history. For much of the nineteenth century, much
of the major European powers maintained a balance of power. However, between 1871 and 1914
a wide variety of factors served to undermine international stability. The First World War was
really the culmination of long-drawn-out crisis within the European system.
The Rise of Germany and Alliance System of Bismarck
The rise of Germany was the principal factor which produced anxiety among the major
European countries. The victory of Prussia over France in the Franco-Prussian War in 1871
culminated in the Unification of Germany and created a new power in the heart of Europe. The
foreign policy of new Germany, dominated by Bismarck, the first Chancellor of Germany, was
designed to reassure Europe that Germany was a satisfied country, with no intention of upsetting
the delicate balance of power in Europe. This clever style of diplomacy secured a dominant
position for Germany in European affairs through the formation of delicate system of treaties
and alliances which often comprised secret clauses. Bismarck captured the urgency, the
European Great Powers felt about the necessity of alliances, and the delicate nature of the
balance of power itself: “All[international] politics reduces itself to this formula: Try to be a
trios(three) as long as the world is governed by the unstable equilibrium of five Great Powers”-
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Britain and France. In 1872 the League of Three Emperors
(Driekaiserbund) consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia, was formed. He knew
that France was Germany’s irreconcilable enemy, so his diplomatic skill and political insight
were engaged in building up alliances for protecting Germany. In pursuit of this policy, Germany
entered into an alliance with Austria in 1879 with a promise of reciprocal protection in case of

1
This term was first coined by German General Erich Ludendroff in 1918. It meant mobilization of all material as
well as moral energies in the process of waging a modern war.
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Russian aggression on either power. Three years later in 1882, Bismarck generated the Franco-
Italian rivalry over Tunis (in Africa) and persuaded Italy to forget her enmity towards Austria. A
secret Triple Alliance was formed in 1882 between Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, openly
defensive, in part against France, in part against Russia.
It is now evident that Bismarck was never firmly committed to his Triple Alliance
partner. In 1887, for example, he signed the secret Re-insurance Treaty with Russia without the
knowledge of Austria-Hungary or Italy, which pledged Russia’s neutrality in the event of a
German attack on France, German neutrality in the event of a Russian attack on Austria-
Hungary, and a promise that Germany would support Russia’s attack in the Balkans. The
nightmare of isolation haunted France. But after Bismarck ceased to be the German Chancellor
in 1890, his successors abandoned his diplomacy. The German Emperor Kaiser William II
insisted that his country must have ‘a place in the sun’ and tried to pursue the policy of
Weltpolitik (namely that Germany as a Great power must play its legitimate role in the world or
the desire for world power). He did not believe that Germany was a satisfied power and called
for an ambitious policy of a World Empire. Some resentment arose between Germany and
Russia at the Congress of Berlin over the settlement of Eastern Question. Taking advantage of
this situation and proceeding cautiously, France successfully formed an alliance with Russia in
1891. This Dual Alliance ended the period of isolation of France and served as counterbalance to
the Triple Alliance. The renunciation of Bismarckian diplomacy by Germany forced Britain to
come out of the state of “splendid isolation.”2 The first move by the British government away
from isolation was the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty(1902), which was designed to ease
Britain’s worry over trade in the region and to ease the fears over the Russian threat to India. In
1904, she made an agreement of Entente Cordiale with France resolving all mutual differences.
This was followed by a similar agreement with Russia in1907. Thus France, Russia and Britain
formed a separate political group called Triple Entente. As the Triple Alliance confronted the
Triple Entente, the condition of Europe became one of “armed peace”. The European powers,
though at peace with each other, kept a jealous watch upon their neighbors and so an atmosphere
of fear and suspicion prevailed in Europe.
The formation of such alliances (see table on p.3) undoubtedly led to increased tensions
in Europe. But they could not automatically lead to war and conversely they could contribute to
peace by acting as a deterrent against possible aggressors. It was the change in the nature of these
alliances from defensive to aggressive that made a difference. A.J.P Taylor points out that the
pre-1914 alliances were so unstable and delicate that they cannot be seen as a major cause of
war. It seems that the alliance system raised expectations about the likely Allies3 in the future
war, however each nation seemed to base its decision for war on national interests. Thus it is to
this extent that a link can be drawn between the alliance system and the outbreak of the First
World War.

2
A term used with reference to the British policy of non-intervention in European conflicts during the late 19th
century.
3
A group of countries or political parties who are formally united and working together because they have a similar
aim.
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 1881 1882
1879
Austro-Serbian Alliance The Triple Alliance
The Dual Alliance

Austria-Hungary made an Germany and Austria-

Germany and Austria-Hungary
alliance with Serbia to stop Hungary made an alliance
made an alliance to protect
Russia gaining control of with Italy to stop Italy from
themselves from Russia
Serbia taking sides with Russia

1914 1894
Triple Entente (no separate Franco-Russian Alliance
peace)

Russia formed an alliance

Britain, Russia and France with France to protect herself
agreed not to sign for peace against Germany and Austria-
separately. Hungary

1907
1904
Triple Entente 1907
Entente Cordiale
Anglo-Russian Entente

This was made between

Russia, France and Britain to
counter the increasing threat
from Germany.
This was an agreement, but
This was an agreement
not a formal alliance, between
between Britain and Russia
France and Britain.

Table showing system of alliances reads clockwise from the top left picture

Growth of Militarism
The growth of militarism4, which was actually closely connected with the system of
alliances, has also been assigned as a factor responsible for the war. The system of maintaining
large armies actually begin with the French Revolution and was later continued under Napoleon.
It was extended and efficiently developed by Bismarck during the Unification of Germany.
Europe has been observed as an “armed camp” from 1870-1914. According to Michael Howard
each declaration of increased armaments expenditure by a European power before 1914 was
perceived as a threat by its rival, and thus created an atmosphere of mutual fear and suspicion
which greatly contributed in creating the mood for the war in 1914. However, the idea that arms

4
A policy of maintaining a strong military base.

12
build up unavoidably leads to war remain doubtful and unproved. Niall Ferguson has claimed
that the role of arms race in encouraging the First World War has been greatly exaggerated.
Many scholars believe that the considerations of the leading powers regarding the balance
of power was a much greater influence than a simple build up of arms on policy during July
crisis. The balance of power in the Balkans was turning sharply against Austria-Hungary and this
was a critical factor which caused her to argue for a ‘preventive war’ to weaken Serbia. A.J.P
Taylor argued that the outbreak of the First World War was caused entirely by rival plans for
mobilization5 by the European powers. All European powers had developed detailed war plans in
expectation of war. The famous German war plan, the Schlieffen Plan, relied on the quick
movement of troops and the assumption that once Germany found itself at war with Russia, it
would also is at war with France.
It involved:
• Concentrating German forces on an attempt to take Paris and so defeat France.
• When that was accomplished troops would be transferred to attack Russia. This is the
most famous plan as it came very close to success.
It also meant that once Germany declared war on Russia in August 1914, she would also
have to attack France. However in invading France, Belgium's neutrality was violated and this
brought Britain into the war. France had her own plan called Plan XVII (which Niall Ferguson
described as “mad strategy”) and so also did Russia (Plan G) and Austria-Hungary (Plans R and
B). All of these plans assumed the support of their respective Allies. Once the first steps towards
mobilization were taken, everyone assumed that it would be fatal to stand still while their
possible enemies moved forward. However the relationship between military plans and actual
decisions for war is complex.
The roots of militaristic attitude of the late 19th and early 20th century has been seen by
many as the crisis in the liberal, enlightenment and rational values which in turn was transformed
into politics. The suppression of the revolutions of 1848 signified the climax of idealistic
approach to society and politics which drew from enlightenment. The ideas of thinkers like
Charles Darwin and Friedrich Nietzsche also contributed to the creation of militaristic
environment in this period. Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ placed the origin of species in a
competitive process of natural selection which was later applied to the society. Similarly
Nietzsche believed that life was a constant struggle, and existence fundamentally chaotic. These
new ideas provide a rhetoric in which the international relations came to be argued, but this
language did not create the war itself. The effect of these ideas can however be seen in the
manner people were responding to the European situation. Militaristic ideas also explain the
unnatural hysteria on the eve of the war.
Rise of Nationalism in Europe
Another very important factor responsible for the war was the wave of nationalism which
swept all over Europe. It was in fact one of the legacy of the French Revolution. The success of
nationalism in Germany and Italy invested it with a new vigor and made it a strong force in
politics. The unifications of Germany and Italy were achievable mainly because Bismarck and
Cavour were successful in arousing the spirit of nationalism. In the process it inflamed the racial
pride of the people, encouraged them to laud their country above all others, and made them

5
A military term used for calling up troops for fight.
13
arrogant in their attitude towards their neighbors. It was the excessive zeal of nationalism that
strengthened the rivalries of Germany and Britain and encouraged them to engage on a vigorous
naval and military competition. It was the aggressive nationalism that led the European powers
to quarrel over their interests in Asia, Africa and the Balkans. It was the outraged nationalism of
the French that kept alive their spirit of revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine and made
France the bitterest enemy of Germany. The ecstasy of nationalist upsurge, manifested in the
outbreak of Franco-Prussian War in 1870, opened a new era of popular frenzy in international
relations. The outbreak of war was greeted by cheering crowds in Berlin, Vienna and Paris. As
A.J.P Taylor wrote “the people of Europe leapt willingly into war.”
There were dissatisfied national minorities along the western periphery of the Russian
empire. Poles and Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Finns continued to exert a strong centrifugal pull
on the empire after 1870. The Russian policy towards these nationalities was of intense
‘Russification’ which had the effect of turning the most extreme patriots of these minorities
towards the Russian Social Revolutionaries. These local movements represented the spirit of
radical nationalism which was in ascendancy during this period.
The responsibility of national self-determination6 in the origins of the war has been an
important area of debate. Martel has argued that the First World War grew out of a conflict
between Slav nationalism and the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire. The murder of
Archduke Francis Ferdinand was the final straw in this struggle for mastery over the Balkans. It
offered Austro-Hungarian government an ideal opportunity to rouse public opinion in support of
a war. This type of interpretation which sets the July crisis in the context of long running
Eastern Question7 views the First World War as one which was fought for the future of Central
and Eastern Europe.
Only a handful of historians would object to the view that the struggle to supplant the
Ottoman Empire in the Balkans was a significant factor in the outbreak of war. In July 1914 the
military leaders of Austria-Hungary were so determined to deal with Serbia that they lost their
heads and ignored all plans for negotiation. However, John Leslie opines that Austria-Hungary
can be blamed for planning a local Austro-Serbo conflict which was associated to its fears about
Balkan nationalism, but Germany which was not interested in this conflict quite intentionally
used it as an opportunity to launch the European war which Austria-Hungary never desired. John
Lowe perhaps puts the significance of Austro-Serbo quarrel into its proper context by stating:
“The crisis in the Balkans was the occasion, rather than the cause of the First World War”.
Urge to Imperialism
The expansion of Europe overseas in the 19th century led to new imperialist rivalries
among the great powers. The movement of imperial expansion has been explained by a number
of factors and different theories give varying importance to economic, social, cultural and
strategic factors. Among the earliest theories explaining imperialism were those that linked new
imperialism with economic factors and saw imperialism as arising out of modern capitalism. J.A.
Hobson, a British economist, advanced a theory that advanced capitalist societies in the West
were marked by an unequal distribution of wealth and this concentrated surplus capital exerted

6
Right of a nationality to choose its future
7
A term related to the problem in the middle-east, like the problem of declining Turkish Empire, the struggle of
European Nationalists for freedom in the Turkish Empire and the conflicting interests of European powers in
Turkey.
14
pressure on their respective governments to search for outlets abroad for investment avenues.
This need forced the European powers to divide the world between them in a struggle for new
industrial markets and new areas in which to invest. The result was an increased rivalry. Lenin in
1916 in his pamphlet Imperialism-The Highest Stage of Capitalism portrayed the Great War as
an imperialist war, caused by rivalries triggered off by pressures of highly organized financial
monopolies operating in the different European countries. He believed that German monopoly
capital was behind German foreign policy. He argued that capitalism has reached its highest
stage in the form of imperialism and that frenzied competition amongst commercial rivals for
markets and for raw materials had inevitably brought about war.
Paul Kennedy, a leading diplomat historian, has recently suggested that economic
interests are a key reality behind diplomacy. In his opinion politicians have autonomous freedom
to pursue foreign policy-even make crucial decisions for war-without reference to economic
interest groups within society. However economic and industrial interests of each nation
ultimately determine the success and failure of those decisions. This implies that politicians have
primacy of political decisions for war but no control over economic consequences of such
decisions. Hence economics plays a vital role in deciding the fate of nations in an international
system.
Carl Stirkwerda argues that the crisis of 1914 must be understood within the framework
which examined whether all European leaders believed that political and military power are
essential to economic success. He shows a very high level of economic cooperation and
integration in Europe before 1914. Most industrialists preferred mutually beneficial economic
relations and many wanted greater economic integration within European trade and financial
sectors. In other words, many German industrialists saw no need for war. However, it was not
industrialists who had the most significant influence over foreign policy, but the political leaders.
J.A Schumpeter however denies any link between capitalism and imperialism because
two of the most aggressively imperialist countries of the late 19th century- Russia and Italy were
severely capital deficit. We can therefore comprehend that capitalism played a critical role in
imperialism but its effect cannot be generalized and no inevitable causative relationship between
the two can be established.
Imperialism has also been seen in terms of extra-economic origins. C.J.H Hayes
highlighted the political climate of Europe, which was one of mass-based nationalism. He also
points to the importance of public opinion and sentiments. Others have stressed military and
strategic factors, such as the need to secure defensive frontiers. James Joll has emphasized the
idea of sub-imperialism. He argued that once colonies were launched, they took on their own
momentum and developed vested interests which pushed for imperialism. Many historians have
also observed cultural factors in the rise of imperialism, in terms of the role of religion. In the
19th century, many colonial ventures started as missionary activity. The desire of Christian
missionaries to convert the heathen led to imperialism. Imperialism was justified by civilizing
mission of Christian faith and concepts of White Man’s Burden. It however needs to be
considered in its specific context, which varied from country to country.
Domestic Politics
Modern historians have drawn attention to the influence of internal politics on the actions
of the Great Powers. Socialism had become a very popular political creed in Germany, Austria,
Russia, Italy and France. The ruling class in some of these countries hoped that a short victorious

15
war would put an end to class differences and reduce the support for socialism that threatened the
existing order.
In Germany left wing parties, especially the Social Democratic Party (SDP) made large
gains in 1912 election. German government at that time was still dominated by the Prussian
Junkers who feared the rise of these left wing parties. Some authors feel that they purposely
sought an external war to distract the population and whip up patriotic support for the
government. Other authors feel that German conservatives were ambivalent about a war,
worrying that losing a war would have disastrous consequences, and even a successful war might
alienate the population if it was lengthy or difficult.
In France the situation was quite the opposite, but with the same results. There was a
fierce struggle between the left wing French government and its right wing opponents. A “good
old war” was seen by both sides as a way to solve this crisis. Everyone thought that the war
would be short and would lead to easy victory. The left side government thought that it would be
an ideal opportunity to implement social reforms and the right side politicians hoped that their
connections with the army leaders could give them the opportunity to regain power.
British domestic politics had just the opposite effect, pulling Britain away from the war.
The liberals, who had come to power in 1905, had long opposed entangling international
alliances and large military expenditures and also the government was weighed down by a
number of pressing political issues. While domestic factors mitigated against Britain’s entry into
an eventual European conflict, foreign policy considerations pushed Britain in the direction of
war. Yet in Britain too, nationalism popularized the expectation that a major war was inevitable.
In Russia, the Czar’s immediate circle was divided over the advisability of going to war.
Some advisors saw war as a means of rallying the support of an entire people behind the Czar.
Yet others remembered Russia’s disastrous defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. This in turn
contributed to the outbreak of the Revolution of 1905, which brought reforms however short-
lived. Here, too, it did not seem to be in Russia’s interest to push Europe to war. Underlying the
assumptions of all the Great Powers during the July Crisis was the belief that if war did break out
it would be a short one. Many in Britain felt that the war would be over by Christmas.
Role of Newspapers, Press and Public Opinion
Another essential cause of the war was the poisoning of the public opinion by the
newspapers in almost all European countries. The newspapers were often tending to ignite
nationalistic feelings by distorting and misrepresenting the situation in foreign countries. On a
number of occasions when peaceful solutions of complex international problems could be
possible, the biased tone of newspapers in the countries involved in the conflict spoiled matters.
The popular press went very far sometimes to produce results in national and international
politics. In 1870 the publishing of Ems telegram by Bismarck immediately inflamed and
embittered the extreme nationalist opinion in Paris and precipitated into the Franco-Prussian
War. The shows the inestimable harm the press could do in creating tension in Europe.
The Crisis before 1914
Between 1900 and 1914 there had been three major crises between the great powers.
These crises exposed the differences between the powers and reinforced the hostility between
them. Two were over Morocco (1905, 1911) and the other was over the Austrian annexation of
Bosnia (1908).

16
1. First Moroccan Crisis
In 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Moroccan port of Tangier and condemned French
influence in Morocco. The move was designed to test the strength of the recent Anglo-French
entente. The visit aggravated an international crisis, which was resolved in France's favour at the
Algeciras Conference, 1906. This crisis hardened the rapprochement between Britain and France.
Edward VII called the German actions "the most mischievous and uncalled for event which the
German Emperor has been engaged in since he came to the throne."
2. Second Moroccan Crisis
This crisis erupted when the Germans sent the gunboat "Panther" to the Moroccan port of
Agadir, to protect German citizens there. Germany claimed that the French had ignored the terms
of the Algeciras Conference. This provoked a major war scare in Britain until the Germans
agreed to leave Morocco to the French in return for rights in the Congo. Many Germans felt that
they had been humiliated and that their government had backed down.
3. The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina
The two Turkish provinces had been administered by Austria since the Congress of
Berlin. Austria annexed Bosnia after tricking Russia during negotiations between their respective
foreign ministers. The action irritated Serbia as there was a large Serbian population in Bosnia.
There was a crisis among the Great powers and it brought Europe to the threshold of war. Russia
bowed to German pressure when they supported Austria and they agreed to the annexation.
However she was determined not to be humiliated again. The effects of these crises had been a
hardening of attitudes and an increase in distrust between the different European powers. It led to
a strengthening of the different alliances:
• Britain and France during the Moroccan Crises
• Austria and Germany during the Bosnian crisis.
The Eastern Question and the Balkans
During the 19th and early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire had lost land in the Balkans
to the people who lived there. The great powers were also interested in extending their influence
in the region. Relations between Austria and Russia were poor over their rivalry in the Balkans.
Both hoped to expand there at the cost of the Ottoman Empire. Another important factor was the
growth of Slav nationalism among the people who lived there, especially Serbia. Russia
encouraged Slav nationalism while Austria was worried that this nationalism could undermine
her empire. Russia supported Serbia which was very bitter at the annexation of Bosnia and saw
herself as Serbia’s protector.
As a result of the Balkan Wars (1912 - 1913) Serbia had doubled in size and there was
growing demands for the union of south Slavs (Yugoslavism) under the leadership of Serbia.
Austria had a large south Slav population in the provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, the Banat and
Bosnia. Austria was very alarmed at the growing power of Serbia. She felt Serbia could weaken
her own Empire. The Austrians decided that they would have to wage a preventative war
against Serbia in order to destroy her growing power. They were waiting for the right pretext.
The Immediate Occasion and the Outbreak of War
The assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28th June
1914 provided the immediate occasion for the outbreak of the war. Sarajevo was the capital of
17
Bosnia which had been annexed by Austria-Hungary a few years earlier. The conspirator of the
assassination was a secret society, called the “Black Hand” or “The Union of Death”, of
extremist Serbian nationalists whose aim was to unite all Serbians into a single Serbian state.
Historians are generally agreed that the Serbian government was aware of the conspiracy to
murder the Prince but did nothing to stop it. On 4th July, 1914, Franz losef of Austria sent a letter
to Kaiser William asking for German support to get rid of Serbia as a power factor in the
Balkans. The Kaiser consulted with Bethmann Hollweg, the German Chancellor, to decide the
German position. They decided that Austria should be given free hand known as the ‘blank
cheque’ to start war with Serbia. The Russian and French governments met from 20th to 23rd
July, 1914 to discuss their position in view of the mounting crisis. France offered full support
Russia in resisting any attempts by Austria to jeopardize the independence of Serbia. This is
viewed as a second ‘blank cheque.’ Convinced of Serbia’s involvement in the assassination,
Austria served an ultimatum on 23rd July making eleven demands on Serbia which were not
accepted in its entirety. Serbia’s reply of 25th July did not conciliate Austria, and Serbia knowing
that it would not, had already ordered mobilization of her troops. Austria rejected Serbia’s reply
and immediately ordered the mobilization of her army for an attack on Serbia. On 28th July
Austria declared war on Serbia. On 29th July, the Austrian army bombarded Belgrade, the
Serbian capital.
The outbreak of the war between Serbia and Austria was soon followed by two other
wars, and the three wars, militarily linked together, led to the general war or the First World
War. In order to pressurize Austria to abandon the war against Serbia, Russia ordered
mobilization against Austria. She could not allow Austrian expansion in the Balkans, where she
had her own ambitions which would suffer in the event of Serbia’s defeat. As Germany would
come to the aid of Austria if Russia entered the war against Austria, Russia also prepared for war
with Germany. Germany was convinced that in the event of war between her and Russia, France
would join Russia against Germany. This would mean that Germany would have to fight on two
fronts, with France in the west and with Russia in the east. To be successful in the war, Germany
had made plans to first defeat France in a quick war by mobilizing most of her troops for this
purpose and then turn to Russia against whom a quick victory was not possible. Thus the second
war was fought between Austria and Germany on one side and Russia and France on the other.
The British position was still unclear as the British government was divided on the issue of going
to war. She responded to the French request for help by promising to defend northern coast of
France against the German navy. However German invasion of neutral Belgium finally ended
Britain’s indecisiveness, and Germany and Britain were at war. Thus the rival alliances, formed
in the preceding years, had come into play. Only Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance,
remained neutral on the ground that Germany was not fighting a defensive war.
The Scope of the War
Germany declared war on Russia on 1st August 1914 and began to mobilize her troops.
But the immediate German attack fell not on Russia but on Belgium and France. On 2nd August
the German government presented an ultimatum to the Belgian government, demanding a
passage for German armies through neutral Belgium, which the Belgians resentfully rejected.
The French government fully aware of the threat facing them, had already ordered mobilization,
and on 3rd August Germany declared war on France. German troops marched into Belgium to
press on to France on 4th August and on the same day Britain declared war on Germany. In the
meantime, the Serbo-Austrian war appeared to have become secondary. In the celebrated words
of Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary, as the Great War began, “The lights are going
out all over Europe. They will not be lit again in our lifetime.”
18
 Many other countries soon entered the war. Japan declared war on Germany. She had
entered into an alliance with Britain but her main aim was to seize the German territories in the
Far-East. Portugal, often referred to by Britain as her oldest ally, also entered the war. In 1915,
Italy declared war against Austria. Britain and France had promised her Austrian and Turkish
territories. Later, Romania and Greece also joined Britain, France and Russia, and these
countries along with their allies came to be known as the Allied Powers. Germany and Austria
were joined by Bulgaria having been promised territories in Serbia and Greece. Turkey declared
war on Russia in November and joined the war on the side of Germany and Austria. These
countries i.e. Germany and Austria and their allies came to be known as the Central Powers.
Various other countries in other parts of the world also joined the war. USA entered the war in
1917 on the side of the Allied powers. In all, the number of belligerent countries rose to twenty-
seven. Thus the extent of conflict was widened.
Conclusion
In summing up we can say that the Great War had several causes, with none alone
standing as a sufficient cause. Any single explanation of this complex problem is likely to be too
simple. While in the final crisis of July 1914 Germany acted in a way that made war more likely,
the enthusiasm with which it was greeted in all the belligerent countries and the assumption by
each of the governments concerned that their vital national interests were at stake, were the result
of accumulation of factors-social, intellectual, psychological, economic, political and cultural-
which all contributed to the outbreak of the war.
Suggested Readings
1. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars (Cambridge Perspectives
in History), 1997.
2. James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, London, 1984
3. Ruth Henig, The Origins of the First World War, Second edition, Roultedge, London & New
York, 2002.
4. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II,
1996, p.1003-34.
5. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002.
6. Stephan J.Lee, Aspects of European History (1789-1980), 1982, Roultedge, London & New
York, p.145-55.
7. A.J.P.Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918(1954).
8. A.J.P Taylor, The Outbreak of War, in D.E Lee (ed.) The Outbreak of the First World War:
Who Was Responsible? London, 1963.
9. S.B Fay, Origins of the World War, 2 Vols, London, 1938.
10. E. J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes. 1914-1991 (New York: Vintage,
1996
11. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07.

19
 Lesson 2

COURSE AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR

IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD
-Dr.Naveen Vashishta
When the First World War was declared, eager commanders put long-standing military
plans into effect. The German general staff counted on a rapid victory against France in the west
before the Russian army could be brought into action in the east. But expecting a quick victory,
German forces occupied Belgium. However, this violation of Belgian neutrality unavoidably
brought Britain into war on the side of Russia and France.
The Schlieffen Plan
Germany’s plan for war against France had been established by Count Alfred von
Schlieffen, a former chief of the German General Staff. Based on the assumption that it would
take Russia, France’s ally, some time to prepare her armies to fight, the Schlieffen Plan called for
German armies to knock the French out of the war within six weeks. To accomplish this, the
German armies would storm around the network of fortifications on the eastern frontier of
France. German forces would march through Belgium and Holland and turn south. A pincer
movement southwards would encircle Paris from the northwest, and then turn to trap the French
armies struggling in Alsace-Lorraine. Schlieffen and his successors all believed that the plan
would probably bring Great Britain into the war because it would never accept the breach of
Belgian territory and the possible presence of an enemy power just across the English Channel.
But the Germans believed that a small British army would pose little threat. Then once Paris had
fallen, there would still be time to send the victorious army to east to defeat the Russians. This
was the solution to Bismarck’s nightmare, a simultaneous war on two fronts.
Schlieffen last words had been “Keep the right wing (of the attacking armies) strong.”
However his successor, Von Moltke, reduced the strength of attacking force by strengthening
German defenses in Alsace-Lorraine. He also eliminated Holland from the invasion plan for lack
of men. The French high command which had known the basics of the Schlieffen Plan for years
did not believe that German army could rapidly move through Belgium, partly because the
attacking forces would have to conquer the daunting fortress at Liege. The French also knew that
the plan called for inclusion of reserves into the main German army, and doubted they could
quickly become an able fighting force.
Similarly the French high command had its own plan for war. It too visualizes a swift
attack based on patriotic energy of the troops. “Plan XVII” would send two French armies into
Alsace-Lorraine, as the Germans expected. The French planned another thrust to drive German
forces back. With the bulk of German army tied up by French and British troops in Belgium the
way to Berlin would be open. But having miscalculated the size of the effective German fighting
force, the French also underestimated the speed with which their enemy could mobilize for war
and attack. The Schlieffen Plan dictated the course of the opening hostilities and the stalemate
that followed.

20
Battles in Europe
The battles of First World War were fought in different parts of the world. In terms of
intensity of fighting and killings, the battles in Europe overshadowed the battles outside Europe.
On the Western front in Europe, the war began when the German armies, sweeping across
Belgium, entered southern France and by early September had reached in the close vicinity of
Paris. The French army in the mean time had moved to the France-German frontier to march into
Alsace-Lorraine. The German army hoped to surround the French army and achieve a quick
victory. The French offensive into Alsace-Lorraine was repulsed but the withdrawing French
forces along with the British forces met the German forces in the Battle of Marne.8 The German
forces had to move back and they entrenched themselves along the river Aisne. There were
desperate fights, but by November end the war entered a period of a long deadlock on the
Western front when neither could remove the other for about four years.
Behind a long continuous chain of opposing trenches and barbed wire extending from the
southern border of France with Switzerland to the northern seacoast of France, the opposing
armies dug themselves in. Protected from the machine gun and rifle fire behind the trenches,
neither side could break through the other’s line of trenches. Each side conducted raids on the
other with little success. Germany, in 1915, started the use of poison gas to achieve the
breakthrough, and Britain, in 1916, introduced the use of tanks for the same purpose but neither
made much difference.
On the Eastern front, Russia achieved some initial successes against Germany and
Austria but these were short-lived. In 1915, the Russian armies suffered heavy defeats and the
forces of the Central Powers entered many territories of the Russian empire. In 1916, Russia
launched another offensive but it was repulsed. After the October Revolution of 1917 Russia
withdrew from the war. On 2nd March 1918, she signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with
Germany and abandoned many of its territories as a price of peace. In the meantime, Serbia and
Romania had surrendered.
War Outside Europe
Outside Europe, some major battles were fought in North Africa and West Asia.
Germany and Turkey united to intimidate the Allied possessions and influence in North Africa
and West Asia. Britain and France fought these attempts and tried to seize the Arab territories of
the Ottoman Empire. They also established contacts with Arab nationalists and others and
provoked anti-Turkish Arab risings. While pretending to champion the cause of Arab country’s
freedom from Turkish rule, Britain and France entered into a secret agreement, known as the
Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916 which provided for the division of Arab countries between
Britain and France. In 1917, the British government also promised to establish a national home
for the Jewish people in Palestine. This pledge by Britain about another country was to have
serious repercussions for peace and stability in West Asia.
During the war years, German colonial possessions in Africa and Asia were seized by
Allied powers. Japan made colonial gains in China by acquiring control over the German sphere
of influence and forcing China to make further concessions to her. German Southwest Africa
was occupied by South African troops, Togoland by British, French and Belgian troops. The

8
It was named after the river Marne near which the battle was fought.
21
fighting between British and German troops in German East Africa continued till the end of the
war.
The Deadlock in Europe
In the meantime, the “war of attrition” was on in Europe. It meant a war of material, of
industrial strength and supply capacity of the belligerent states. Each side was trying to wear out
the other side by mobilizing more and more men and using huge amounts of war equipments.
Two catastrophic battles were fought as a part of this “war of attrition.” In February 1916,
Germany launched a massive attack on the French forts stretched around Verdun. The French
were prepared to hold Verdun at all costs. Its loss would be a potentially mortal blow to French
morale. So the French poured hundreds of thousand of their soldiers into the battle. In the damp
chilling mists of the hills of Argonne, there were a lot of casualties. Although the French army
held but lost 315,000 men killed or wounded; 90,000 died at the appropriately named “Dead
Man’s Hill” alone. The Germans suffered 281,000 casualties. A French counterattack in the fall
recaptured many of the forts the Germans had taken; again the casualties increased. In all, the
French suffered 540,000 casualties and the Germans 430,000 casualties at Verdun. It was the
longest battle of World War I.
The Battle of Verdun merely delayed plans for a massive British offensive on Somme,
supported by a similar French thrust. The assault began on 1st July 1916 after a week’s
bombardment. At the first end of the first day of the Battle of Somme9, about 60,000 soldiers of
the 110,000 British soldiers had become casualties, including 19,000 killed.10 When the
disastrous offensive finally ended in mid-November, Britain had lost 420,000 men killed and
wounded. The French lost 200,000 men and the Germans lost 650,000 soldiers.
The war had become a total war. It was no longer restricted to battles between armies. It
required total mobilization of all the resources of the main warring nations. An increasing
amount of armaments and other war materials were required to be produced which meant
changing the production pattern. Every economic activity had to be subordinated to the needs of
the war. So warring groups started a system of imposing an economic blockade. It necessitated
that no goods i.e. food, war materials, raw materials should be allowed to enter the enemy’s
country from anywhere. By doing this, each side thought that the other would be starved into
submission. Britain imposed a naval blockade on Germany and though the naval fleets of the two
countries fought only one major battle, and that too indecisive, the British succeeded in the
blockade of Germany. To prevent food and other supplies from reaching Britain, Germany
started using submarines11 which it had developed not only to destroy enemy ships but also ships
of neutral countries heading for British ports.
A large number of new weapons were introduced in this war. The machine gun and liquid
fire were two such weapons. For the first time, aircrafts were used in warfare for bombing the
civilian population but it had little role in deciding the outcome of the war. The British
introduced the use of the tank. Another horrible weapon used in the war was poison gas.

9
This battle was named after the river Somme along which it was fought.
10
There were more British soldiers killed and wounded in the first three days of the Battle of Somme than
Americans killed in World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined, and three times as
many killed as had been killed in fifteen years of war against Napoleon.
11
U-boat, in German Unterseeboot.
22
The Final Stages of War
In 1917, two events of great consequence occurred, each of which appeared to one side to
present an opportunity to end the stalemate on the western front. Reacting in part to a German
campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied shipping, the United States entered
the war in April on the Allies side. And Russia withdrew from the war after the Bolsheviks
seized the power in the October Revolution. Meanwhile, the French armies seemed on the verge
of collapse and a massive German offensive that began in March 1918 pushed Allied forces back
further than they had been since 1914. The stage was set for the final phase of the war.
1. The United States Enters the War
On 6th April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. USA had become the
major source of arms and other essential supplies for the Entente powers. On May 7th May, 1915,
a German submarine sank the British cruise liner Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. The ship was,
despite U.S denials, carrying American manufactured ammunition to the Allies; 128 U.S citizens
were among the almost 1,200 killed. The U.S already annoyed by the fresh German introduction
of the mustard gas into warfare, protested strongly, and on 1st September the German
government accepted the American demand to abandon the unrestricted submarine warfare. For
the next two years, the Germans, wanting to keep the U.S neutral, adopted a policy of warning
liners before sinking them, providing for the safety of the passengers.
But the fact remained that Germany could prevent Britain from maintaining total control
of the high seas only with submarines. The continuing success of the British blockade led
Germany to announce on 1st February, 1917, that its submarines would attack any ship in “war
zones.” Moreover there was a pressure from the German high command who believed that this
was the only hope for knocking Britain out of the war. With more Americans killed in submarine
attacks USA entered the war on 6th April, 1917 on the side of the Allied Powers.
2. Russia Withdraws from the War
The second significant event of 1917 was the Russian Revolution. The Russian
revolutionaries had opposed the war from the beginning and, under the leadership of Lenin,
decided to transform it into a revolutionary war to overthrow the Russian autocracy and to seize
power. The Russian army had suffered severe reverses in the war. Over 600,000 Russian soldiers
had been killed. As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power, it issued the Decree on Peace with
proposals to end the war without any annexations and indemnities. Russia decided to withdraw
from the war and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3rd March, 1918 with Germany, which
officially ended Russia’s participation in what the Allies called “the Great War of Civilization.”
The End of War
Many efforts were made to bring the war to an end. Discontent had been rising in the
civilian population and among the soldiers of all the major warring countries. There were
demonstrations and mutinies. The Russian emperor had already fallen. The discontent was much
widespread in the countries of the Central Powers. There was a wave of strikes in Germany and
Austria-Hungary and a succession of mutinies in their armies and navies. In Austria-Hungary,
there were desertions on large scale among the soldiers of “subject nationalities” and many of
them were fighting on the side of the Allies. By about the middle of July 1918, the tide of the
war was beginning to turn against Germany which had launched a series of offensives on the
western front, inflicting heavy casualties on the Allies. But by July, the German offensive was
contained and the Allies launched counter-offensives. In the meantime the Allied forces had
23
started their military intervention in Russia. In the east, thousands of Japanese troops poured into
Siberia. While the Allied intervention in Russia was to survive the end of the First World War,
the collapse of the Central Powers had begun.
On 8th January, 1918, American President Woodrow Wilson set out a blueprint for
permanent peace. His “Fourteen Points” were based upon his understanding of how the Great
War had begun, and how future wars could be avoided. The first point called for “open
covenants (agreements), openly arrived at,” in place of the secret treaties whose obligations had
put Europe into war. Wilson also called for freedom of the seas and freedom of trade, and the
impartial settlement of colonial rivalries. Other points included the principle of non-intervention
in Russia; the return of full sovereignty to Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine to France; autonomy for
the national groups within the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and the independence of Romania,
Serbia, Montenegro, and Poland. The last of the Fourteen Points called for the establishment of
an organization or association of nations to settle other national conflicts as they arose.
Bulgaria surrendered on 29th September, 1918. By the end of October the Ottoman
Empire had ceased to exist. On November 12, the Habsburg emperor renounced his throne. Most
people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire-the Czechs, the Poles, the Yugoslavs and the
Hungarians-had already declared their independence. Now only Germany remained and final
Allied offensives against her were launched in September. On 3rd November, revolution broke
out in Germany; on 9th November, the German emperor abdicated and fled to Holland, and on
10th November Germany was proclaimed a republic. On 11th November, 1918, a representative
of the provisional German government and General Foch of France signed an armistice and the
First World War came to an end.
The celebrations in London, Paris, New York, and elsewhere on the Allied side went on
for days. A French veteran, tiring of the street festivities in his town, went in the evening to a
graveyard. There he came upon a woman crying next to the tomb of her husband. Their small
boy was with her, playing with a tricolor flag. Suddenly he cried out, “Papa, we’ve won!”
Consequences of the War
The First World War lasted for four years and three months. It began on August 4, 1914
and ended on November 11, 1918. It involved sixty sovereign states, overthrew four Empires
(German Empire, Hapsburg Empire, Turkish Empire, Russian Empire), gave birth to seven new
nations, took ten million combatant lives (another 30 million were wounded), and cost about £
35,000 million. This war was in several ways exclusively novel in human history. It has been
described as the "primordial catastrophe of the twentieth century." It was the largest global
conflict yet seen, leading to the deaths of millions and the devastation of parts of Western
Europe. There had been wars in Europe before, involving many states. This one, however, was a
general conflict between highly organized states that had at their control all the resources of
modern warfare and were well equipped to find new methods of destruction and defence. It was
fought with determination and desperation by the nations because they believed that it was a war
for the survival and for high ideals; it was fought everywhere-on land, above land, on sea and
under sea. Obviously any such conflict was bound to have enormous and far reaching
consequences for Europe and rest of the world.
Destruction of Human Lives
The destruction caused by war in terms of human lives lost was terrible. There had been
nothing like the Great War in history. The figures of persons who fought in the war are shocking.

24
About 6,000 people had been killed each day for more than 1,500 days. In more than four years
of fighting, at least 65 million soldiers were mobilized. Out of 42 million men who served in the
Allied armies, 22 million were casualties; thus making the war Europe’s cruelest scourge. The
Central Powers mobilized 23 million, and had 15 million casualties. The table below shows
casualties (in million) during World War I in different countries.

Country Mobilized Casualties Percentage

Austria-Hungary 7.8 7 90

Russia 12 9.15 76

France 8.4 6 71

Germany 11 7 63

Italy 5.5 2.15 39

Britain 8.9 3 34

United States 4.35 0.36 8

Source: John Merriman: History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II,
1996, p.1082.
This was of course an unprecedented rate of casualties in any European warfare. This
massive loss of human lives affected the structure of population both in sex and in age groups.
The loss of life among women was much lower. Thus in Britain in the year 1911 there were 1067
females to every 1000 males. However, in 1921, the sex ratio changed to 1093 females to every
1000 males. This disequilibrium led to many social complexities and other related problems in
the society.
But sheer numbers do not tell the entire story. The psychic damage to the generation of
survivors can hardly be measured. Of the wounded who survived, many were destined to spend
the rest of their lives in hospitals. Soldiers who had lost their limbs or who were injured in other
ways became a common sight in European countries after the war. The flower of European
youth-or much of it-had perished. Europe seemed a continent of widows and spinsters so many
were killed in the prime of their life that the birth rate fell strikingly after the war. Support for
families of the dead soldiers and the invalid unable to work strained national budgets. The
bloodshed was not confined to Europe alone. In an outbreak of ethnic hostility and in response to
Armenian demands for independent state, the Turks forced 1.75 million Armenians to leave their
homes in Turkey; more than a third of them died without water in the desert sun on the way to
Syria, their bodies consumed by animals. Furthermore, about 27 million people died in an
influenza epidemic during the last years of and after the war.

25
Social and Cultural Consequences
European countries directed all of their resources into total war which resulted in
enormous social changes. This war had the effect of accelerating women’s emancipation
wherever the movement started before 1914. Women over 30 years of age were granted
parliamentary vote in Britain in 1918 because the war required a national effort and in modern
warfare civilian morale and industrial production had become as important as the army.
Moreover, conscription created labor shortages which had to be filled at once, and women soon
dispelled many anti-feminist myths as they proved their ability to do hard jobs in the factories
and on the farm. Women participated in all activities and worked on factories, shops, offices and
voluntary services, hospitals and schools. They worked hand in hand with men and so won their
claim of equality with them. It became easier now for them to find work as traditional hindrances
were eliminated. They undertook a variety of jobs previously held by men. They were also more
widely employed in industrial jobs. By 1918, 37.6 percent of the work force in the Krupp
armaments firm in Germany was female. In England the proportion of women works rose
strikingly in public transport (for example, from 18,000 to 117,000 bus conductors), banking
(9,500 to 63,700), and commerce (505,000 to 934,000). Many restrictions on women
disappeared during the war. It became acceptable for young, employed, single middle-class
women to have their own apartments, to go out without chaperones12, and to smoke in public.
Even the barriers of class and wealth were weakened to quite a great extent by the “fellowship of
the trenches.” If women edged nearer to some kind of equality, the same was even truer of
organized labor in nearly all belligerent countries. For government to mobilize manpower in the
war, the cooperation of the trade union movement was essential and by the end of the war,
unions were in a much stronger position after collaboration with the government.
This social trauma manifested itself in many different ways. Some people were revolted
by nationalism and what it had caused; so, they began to work toward a more internationalist
world through organizations such as the League of Nations. Pacifism became increasingly
popular. Others had the opposite reaction, feeling that only military strength could be relied on
for protection in a chaotic and inhumane world that did not respect hypothetical notions of
civilization. Certainly a sense of disillusionment and cynicism became pronounced. Nihilism
grew in popularity. Many people believed that the war heralded the end of the world as they had
known it, including the collapse of capitalism and imperialism. Communist and socialist
movements around the world drew strength from this theory, enjoying a level of popularity they
had never known before. These feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or particularly
harshly affected by the war, such as central Europe, Russia and France.
Artists such as Otto Dix, George Grosz, Ernst Barlach, and Käthe Kollwitz represented
their experiences, or those of their society, in blunt paintings and sculpture. Similarly, authors
such as Erich Maria Remarque wrote grim novels detailing their experiences. These works had a
strong impact on society, causing a great deal of controversy and highlighting conflicting
interpretations of the war. In Germany, nationalists including the Nazis believed that much of
this work was degenerate and undermined the cohesion of society as well as dishonouring the
dead.
The war destroyed the cultural fabric of Europe. It caused widespread destruction of
buildings. Old established values were questioned and often unthinkably repudiated, while the

12
Older person, usually a woman, who looks after a girl or a young unmarried woman on social occasions.
26
newer ones restored nothing lasting of any significance. The void thus left, saw an alarming
decline of moral standards.
Economic Impact
The economic impact of the war was much disproportioned. At one end there were those
who profited from the war and at the other end were those who suffered under the effects of
inflation. The prospects of making enormous amounts of money in war manufacture were ample.
War profiteers were a public scandal. Fictional new rich had numerous real-life counterparts.
However, government rarely interfered in major firms, as happened when the German military
took over the Daimler motor car works for padding costs on war-production contracts.
Governments tended to favor large, centralized industries over smaller ones. The war was a
stimulus towards grouping companies into larger firms. When resources became scarce,
nonessential firms, which tended to be small, were simply closed down. Inflation was the
greatest single economic factor as war budgets rose to astronomical figures and massive demand
forced shortages of many consumer goods. Virtually ever able-bodied person was employed to
keep up with the demand. This combination of high demand, scarcity, and full employment sent
prices soaring, even in the best managed countries. In Britain, a pound sterling brought in 1919
about one-third of what it had bought in 1914. French prices approximately doubled during the
war and it only got worse during the 1920's. Inflation rates were even higher in other
belligerents. The German currency ceased to have value in 1923. All of this had been foreseen by
John Maynard Keynes as a result of the Versailles Treaty: “The danger confronting us, therefore,
is the rapid depression of the standard of life of the European populations to a point which will
mean actual starvation for some (a point already reached in Russian and approximately reach in
Austria).”
Inflation affected different people quite differently. Skilled workers in strategic
industries found that their wages kept pace with prices or even rose a little faster. Unskilled
workers and workers in less important industries fell behind. Clerks, lesser civil servants,
teachers, clergymen, and small shopkeepers earned less than many skilled labors. Those who
suffered the most were those dependent on fixed incoming. The incomes of old people on
pensions or middle class living on small dividends remained about the same while prices double
or tripled. These dropped down into poverty. These "new poor" kept their pride by repairing old
clothes, supplementing food budget with gardens, and giving up everything to appear as they had
before the war. Inflation radically changed the relative position of many in society. Conflicts
arose over the differences in purchasing power. All wage earners had less real purchasing power
at the end of the war than they had had at the beginning. To make matters worse some great
fortunes were built during the wartime and postwar inflation. Those who were able to borrow
large amounts of money could repay their debts in devalued currency from their war profit. It has
been pointed out, that all the economic slogans of the post-war years, strangely enough, began
with the prefix re: reconstruction, recovery, reparations, retrenchment, repayment of war debts,
restoration of gold standard etc.
Political Implications
The First World War and Peace Treaty concluded after it transformed the political map
of the world, particularly Europe. As mentioned earlier, four ruling dynasties were destroyed. It
uprooted the hereditary autocracy and monarchy from almost all the European countries. The
war had been declared ‘to make the world safe for democracy.’ There were some countries like
England, Spain, Romania and Greece etc., where the monarchy could not be uprooted. But

27
nobody could deny the fact that the governments of these countries could not preserve the tone of
monarchy in the real sense and democratization of the governments became order of the day
after the First World War which compelled the autocratic rulers to rule as constitutional
monarchs or to abdicate. This war promoted the feelings of democracy all over the world.
Governments took on many new powers in order to fight the total war. War
governments fought opposition by increasing police power. Authoritarian regimes like tsarist
Russia had always depended on the threat of force, but now even parliamentary governments felt
the necessity to expand police powers and control public opinion. Britain gave police powers
wide scope in August 1914 by the Defence of the Realm Act which authorized the public
authorities to arrest and punish rebels under martial law if necessary. Through later acts, police
powers grew to include suspending newspapers and the ability to intervene in a citizen's private
life in the use of lights at home, food consumption, and bar hours. Police powers tended to grow
as the war went on and public opposition increased as well. In France a sharp rise of strikes,
mutinies, and talk of a negotiated peace raised doubts about whether France could really carry on
the war in 1917. A group of French political leaders decided to carry out the war at the cost of
less internal liberty. The government cracked down on anyone suspected of supporting a
compromise peace. Many of the crackdowns and sedition charges were just a result of war panic
or calculated political opportunism. Expanded police powers also included control of public
information and opinion. The censorship of newspapers and personal mail was already an
established practice. Governments regularly used their power to prevent leaking of military
secrets and the airing of dangerous opinions considering war efforts. The other side of using
police power on public opinion was the "organizing of enthusiasm," which could be thought of
as: “Propaganda tries to force a doctrine on the whole people; the organization embraces within
its scope only those who do not threaten on psychological grounds to become a brake on the
further dissemination of the idea.”
World War I provided a place for the birth of propaganda which countries used with
even more horrifying results during World War II. Governments used the media to influence
people to enlist and to persuade them war into supporting the war. The French prime minister
used his power to draft journalists or defer them in exchange for favorable coverage. The
German right created a new mass party, the Fatherland Party. It was backed by secret funds
from the army and was devoted to propaganda for war discipline. By 1918, the Fatherland Party
was larger than the Social Democratic Party. Germany had become quite effective at influencing
the masses.
The war weakened the world’s centre, Europe, and strength the periphery-North
America, Russia and Asia. The period after the war saw the beginning of the end of the European
supremacy in the world. Economically and militarily, Europe was surpassed by the United States
which emerged as world power after the war. The Soviet Union became the first socialist country
and was also to come up as a major world power. Thus Europe’s primacy was at the end and its
future looked miserable.
The period after the war also saw the strengthening of the freedom movements in Asia
and Africa. The weakening of Europe and the emergence of Soviet Union which declared her
support to the struggles for national independence contribute to the growing strengths of these
struggles. There was also a problem of redistribution of balance of power in the world. As a
result of this war, there was a military and political collapse of old empires. The pre-war German
and Austrian dominance, for a time, came to an end. The supreme task before the peacemakers
was to see that Germany is kept in check and also, weakened militarily. Another problem was the
28
reshaping of eastern and central Europe in the light of newly emerging realities of national
grouping, economic viability and military security.
Environmental Impact of War
In terms of environmental impact, World War I was most damaging, because of
landscape changes caused by trench warfare. This war was fought from trenches, dug from the
North Sea to the border of Switzerland. In 1918 when the war was over, empires disintegrated
into smaller countries, marking the division of Europe today. Over 9 million people had died,
most of which perished from influenza after the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. The war did not
directly cause the influenza outbreak, but it was amplified. Mass movement of troops and close
quarters caused the Spanish Flu to spread quickly. Furthermore, stresses of war may have
increased the vulnerability of soldiers to the disease.
Digging trenches caused trample of grassland, crushing of plants and animals, and
churning of soil. Erosion resulted from forest logging to expand the network of trenches. Soil
structures were transformed severely, and if the war was never fought, in all likelihood the
landscape would have looked very differently today.
Another destructive impact was the application of poison gas. Gases were spread
throughout the trenches to kill soldiers of the opposite front. Examples of gases applied during
World War I are tear gas (aerosols causing eye irritation), mustard gas (cell toxic gas causing
blistering and bleeding), and carbonyl chloride (carcinogenic gas). The gases caused a total of
100,000 deaths, most caused by carbonyl chloride (phosgene). Battlefields were polluted, and
most of the gas evaporated into the atmosphere. After the war, unexploded ammunition caused
major problems in former battle areas. Environmental legislation prohibits explosion or dumping
chemical weapons at sea; therefore the cleanup was and still remains a costly operation. In 1925,
most war participants signed a treaty banning the application of gaseous chemical weapons.
Chemical disarmament plants were planned in France and Belgium.
Peace Treaties
When the First World War ended there were a great deal of near sighted decisions made
that directly lead to the Second World War thus it has been said that the Second World War was
actually a continuation of the First World War. After the First World War, the Allies imposed a
series of peace treaties on the Central Powers. The1919 Treaty of Versailles, in which Germany
was kept under blockade until she signed, ended the war. It declared Germany responsible for the
war and required Germany to pay enormous war reparations and awarding territory to the
victors. Unable to pay them with exports (a result of territorial losses and postwar recession), she
did so by borrowing from the United States, until the reparations were suspended in 1931. The
"Guilt Thesis"13 became a controversial explanation of events in Britain and the United States.
The Treaty of Versailles caused enormous bitterness in Germany, which nationalist movements,
especially the Nazis, exploited. The treaty contributed to one of the worst economic collapses in
German history, sparking runaway inflation in the 1920s.
The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920. The treaty,
however, was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish republican movement.
This led to the Turkish Independence War and, ultimately, to the 1923 Treaty of
Lausanne.Austria-Hungary was also partitioned, largely along ethnic lines. The details were
contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon.
13
See appendix.
29
The New International Organization
The League of Nations was a world organization contrived to replace the old system of
‘power politics.’ It was an international organization founded as a result of the Treaty of
Versailles in 1919–1920. The scheme of League of Nations was sponsored with great fervor by
President Woodrow Wilson. The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through
collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and
improving global quality of life. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a
fundamental shift in thought from the preceding hundred years. The League failed in its supreme
task of preserving peace. The League lacked its own armed force and so depended on the Great
Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to economic sanctions which the League ordered, or
provide an army, when needed, for the League to use. However, they were often reluctant to do
so. Sanctions could also hurt the League members imposing the sanctions and given the pacifist
attitude following World War I, countries were reluctant to do so. Benito Mussolini stated that
"The League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."
After a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League
ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis Powers in the 1930s. The onset
of the Second World War suggested that the League had failed in its primary purpose, which was
to avoid any future world war. The United Nations replaced it after the end of the war and
inherited a number of agencies and organizations founded by the League.
Conclusion
Thus to conclude we can say that World War I did not completely end with the signing
of the Treaty of Versailles, for its social, cultural, political, economic, environmental and
psychological effects influenced the lives of people long after the last shot was fired. The Great
War could not be relegated to the past. War became the continuing experience of the 20th
century.
Suggested Readings
1. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II,
1996, p.1039-84.
2. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars (Cambridge Perspectives
in History), 1997.
3. Keith Robbins, The First World War, Oxford University Press, 2002.
4. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01, Block 3.

30
 APPENDIX
FIRST WORLD WAR: WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE?
The historical debate on the origins of the First World War has been affected by the
existing political climate and by the urge to find out as to who was primarily responsible. The
official report on the origins of the war, written by victorious powers, and presented to the
Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 concluded that the war was premeditated by Germany
and resulted from acts deliberately committed in order to make it unavoidable. Germany
and Austria-Hungary deliberately worked to defeat all the many conciliatory proposals made by
Entente powers to avoid war. The German War Guilt is enshrined in Article 231 of the Treaty of
Versailles.
During the inter-war years the Germans sought to reverse the verdict and released many
official documents to accomplish this end. In 1927 Erich Brandenburg, a German historian
argued that Germany did not plan the First World War. He blamed Russia for wanting control
over the Balkans, and France for wanting revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1930,
Sidney Fay, an American historian, argued that no European power wanted war in 1914 and that
all to a greater and lesser degree must share the blame. Fay attached some liability to each power
involved in the July Crisis and came to the conclusion that the verdict of German War Guilt was
defective. Thus the idea of collective responsibility for the outbreak of the war came to become
an orthodox interpretation. In 1938, G.P Gooch, a British historian, reflected the prevailing
orthodoxy by stating that “The belief that any nation or statesman was the arch criminal in 1914
is no longer held by serious students of history.” Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister,
suggested that “all the nations of Europe slithered over the edge of the boiling cauldron of war in
1914.” Slowly and slowly, the debate over the origins of the war began to move away from
apportioning guilt towards an assessment of long-term causes.
Debate over German responsibility for the war: The debate over whether Germany intended
an offensive war or a war of territorial expansion is still a topic of debate. In 1961, Fritz Fisher, a
German historian, published a voluminous book titled ‘Germany’s Aims in the First World
War’(1967) in which he apportioned chief responsibility to Germany for preparing and launching
World War I. According to him, the German desire for territorial expansion and to break free of
its diplomatic encirclement culminated in the war. Fisher stated that Germany was ready to go to
war at any cost in order to establish herself as a great power. He further alleged that Germany
even went to the extent of provoking her allies into initiating war. He tried to show that Germany
was following an aggressive policy inspired by economic interests and designed to achieve world
power. He never deviated from his basic line of thinking that Germany was eager to make up for
the disadvantage suffered as a result of entering late into world politics and this would have
made the war inevitable. In his view there was a continuity in German objectives from 1900
to the Second World War.
Fisher’s work was criticized by Gerhard Ritter, another German historian, who saw
Fisher’s work as an act of national disloyalty. Ritter admitted that the German War Guilt Thesis
needed revision but did not accept Fisher’s thesis. He also condemned Fisher for applying what
he saw as basically Marxist approach to history without actually being openly Marxist as this
would have made him unpopular. According to him Germany had no desire for world
domination and its main aim was to support its ally Austria-Hungary. He also accused Fisher of
ignoring the environment of the time and of not comparing different kinds of foreign imperialism
including that of USA and Japan. In this sense we can see that aggression was not the prerogative

31
of any one country. The imperial objectives that Germany has been accused of were also
experienced by the other Great Powers. The clearest example of this is the feeble pretexts on
which Britain and USA entered the war.
There are many other views as well on the extent of responsibility that needs to be
apportioned to Germany for the war. Immanuel Geiss, a supporter of Fisher’s thesis suggest that
the main long-term cause of the war was the German desire for Weltpolitik14. John Rohl sees the
origins of the war in the German government pursuit of a pre-existing plan to split the Triple
Entente or provoke a European war. Most historians however reject the idea of a pre-planed
German war. The argument of a defensive German war has been articulated by scholars like
Egmont Zechlin and Karl Erdmann. They still reject the idea of Germany cold-bloodedly
planning a war for vast territorial gains. They believed that German policy in 1914 decided on a
preventive war born of desperation and with no master plan for vast expansion, designed to
ensure the survival of Germany as a major European power.
Thus to conclude we can say that the anti-Fisher school of thought is willing to accept
that Germany should take the major responsibility for the war but rejects the view of German
policy being determined by domestic problems and the view that Germany was planning an
aggressive war of territorial expansion. Instead, it suggests that German leaders desired a
localized European war, with a quick German victory to break free from its diplomatic
encirclement.

14
For Geiss, Weltpolitik was a belligerent policy which invited a hostile reaction and ultimately raised the
international temperature to a point at which peace became impossible to sustain.
32
 Lesson 3

PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT (1919-1920)

-Dr.Naveen Vashishta
The principal peace terms concluding the First World War were drawn up at a conference
held at Paris in the first half of 1919. This conference was a more representative body than the
Congress of Vienna in 1815 had been. Although the representatives of many countries
participated in the deliberations and were consulted in cases directly involving their interests, the
peace terms were in large measure were set by the big powers, the so called Council of four,
composed of American President (Woodrow Wilson) and Prime Ministers of Great Britain
(David Lloyd George), France (Georges Clemenceau), and Italy (Vittorio Orlando). The defeated
powers did not participate in the negotiations and had to accept conditions in the framing of
which they had taken no part. Soviet Russia, which had dropped out of the war in March 1918 by
signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, was not represented either.
The Council of Four planned to lay the groundwork of a lasting peace, but there was a
considerable difference of opinion on how to go about it. Two general approaches were apparent:
the hard line, advocated by the French, and the soft line, advanced by the United States. The
Italians sided with France, while the British fluctuated between the two positions.
The Makers
Out of the four only three men really mattered, Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George.
The treaty was signed on June 28th 1919 after months of argument and negotiation amongst the
so-called "Big Three" as to what the treaty should contain. They had very different objectives.
Woodrow Wilson: He was a high minded idealist, a bit doctrinaire, bent upon founding a new
world order and so led greatest stress on establishing League of Nations. The Allied victory, he
believed had provided an opportunity that mankind could least afford to slip out. The war had
been a war to end all wars and the world must be made safe for democracy. When he first arrived
in Europe, he had received tremendous popular welcome which convinced him that he was right,
and in the negotiations he proved very stubborn. He was virtually a single-tracked mind which
seldom saw the other’s man point of view. In U.S.A itself, support for his policies was receding
and he became an increasingly lonely and hopeless figure.
Clemenceau: He was nicknamed ‘Tiger’. He was the oldest and the ablest diplomat at
conference. A stern realist in policies, he never lost sight of the goals he had set before. He was
deeply suspicious about human nature in general and German nature in particular. His only
concern was the security of France and France would only be secure if Germany was weak. He
was a very clever person. He knew when and where to change his moods. He was very tactful
and deployed extraordinary skills in negotiations. He was responsible for the insertion of certain
provisions of the Treaty of Versailles which proved to be its undoing later on. He was
responsible for the humiliation of the German delegates as they went to Versailles to sign the
Peace Treaty in 1919.
Lloyd George: Lloyd George was a great statesman. However, he often found himself in a
difficult position as Wilson and Clemenceau differed from each other on many points. While
Wilson wanted to base the peace settlement on idealism, Clemenceau wanted to base it on force
and it was the function of Lloyd George to bring about a compromise between his colleagues. In
many cases, that involved self-effacement on his part. However, that does not mean that he
33
overlooked his country’s interest at the peace conference. He agreed with Wilson that a harsh
peace such as France wished for was unlikely to bring lasting peace to Europe but he had just
fought and won an election during which it became clear that, like the French, the British
electorate wanted the enemy to be crushed. This anti-German feeling was amply demonstrated
by the then popular slogans like “Hang the Kaiser”, “Make Germany pay” and “Home fit for
Heroes” with which the sky of that country echoed loudly.
Peace Treaties
Six separate treaties signed between 1919 and 1923 made up the final settlement. The
Treaty of Versailles made peace with Germany, of St.Germain with Austria, of Neuilly with
Bulgaria, of Trianon with Hungary, and of Serves and Lausanne with Turkey.
1.Treaty of Versailles (28th June 1919)
The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, exactly 5 years after the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the events that triggered the start of the war.
Although the armistice signed on November 11, 1918 put an end to the actual fighting, it took six
months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude a peace treaty. The documents
containing the terms of the Treaty consisted of 440 articles and many annexures.The victorious
powers of World War I (the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and other Allied states)
imposed punitive territorial, military, and economic treaty terms on defeated Germany. German
representatives were not permitted to participate in the treaty negotiations and the terms were
non-negotiable. The terms of the Treaty, which Germany had no choice but to accept, were
announced on May 7, 1919. In the north, Northern Shlezwig went to Denmark and, in the west,
Eupen and Malmady to Belgium, and Alsace and Lorriane to France. Memel, a small strip of
territory in East Prussia along the Baltic Sea, was ultimately placed under Lithuanian control.
Posen, the Polish Corridor and part of Upper Silesia went to Poland and the great port of Danzig
became a free city witin the Polish customs union. The Saar coalfields were also handed over to
the French while the Saar itself was to be run by the League of Nations(It was returned to
Germany after a plebicite in 1935). The Rhineland was to be occupied by the Allied troops for
fifteen years. A strip of territory on both sides of the Rhine was forbidden to German troops and
this area was known as Demilitarised Zone (DMZ).
Wilson believed that there could be no lasting peace in Europe unless the principal of
self-determination was implemented in Central and Eastern Europe15. The new map of Europe
attempted to give some reality to this ideal of self-determination. The Poles, the Czechs, the
Slovaks, the South Slavs(in Yugoslavia), the Magyars (in Hungary), the Latvians, Lithuanians,
Finns and Estonians governed themselves in 1923 when in 1914 they had been governed by the
foriegners. However the pattern of racial settlement in Eastern Europe combined with the need to
please the victors at the expense of the defeated caused rough justice to be done and many
discontended groups were left under the rule of other races whom they despised and feared.
Germany lost all her colonies. The German African colonies were divided between
Britain, France, Belgium and South Africa and her colonies in the Far East and Pacific north of
equator went to Japan, south of the equator went to Britain, Australia and New Zealand. In
addition to these considerable territorial losses, Germany was also forced to agree to make

15
By this he meant that every people with a sense of common nationality based on a common language and
history should have the right to govern them, to determine their own futures.

34
compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allied Associated Powers and
their property. These compensation payments or raparations had not been mentioned in the
original Fourteen Points but had to be included in the armistice terms on the insistence of France
and Britain.Germany also had to surrender all her merchant ships over 1600 tons and some
smaller ships also; give free coal for ten years to France, Belgium and Italy; horses, sheep and
cattle to France and Belgium.
Every effort was made to cripple the military strength of Germany. The total strength of
the German army was limited to one lakh men. Conscription, tanks and armoured cars were all
forbidden. Germany was allowed to have only six battleships, some smaller crafts but no
submarines. Nor could she have an airforce. Naval forces were limited to 15,000 men, 6
battleships (no more than 10,000 tons displacement each), 6 cruisers (no more than 6,000 tons
displacement each), 12 destroyers (no more than 800 tons displacement each) and 12 torpedo
boats (no more than 200 tons displacement each). Apart from this import and export of weapons
and manufacture or stockpiling of poison gas was prohibited.
Germany had to admit full responsibility for starting the war. This was Clause 231 - the
infamous "War Guilt Clause" which read as follows: the Allied and Associated governments
affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss
and damage to which the Allied and Associated governments and their nationals (citizens) have
been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany
and her allies. The Allies included this article to justify their demand for reparations. The
Germans, however, read it to mean that they alone were responsible for causing the war and
greatly resented it.
After agreeing to the armistice in November 1918, the Germans had been convinced that
they would be consulted by the Allies on the contents of the Treaty. This did not happen and the
Germans were in no position to continue the war as her army had all but disintegrated. Though
this lack of consultation angered them, there was nothing they could do about it. Therefore, the
first time that the German representatives saw the terms of the Treaty was just weeks before they
were due to sign it in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on June 28, 1919.
There was anger throughout Germany when the terms of the Treaty were made public.
The Treaty became known as a Diktat (dictated peace) - as it was being forced on them and the
Germans had no choice but to sign it. Many in Germany did not want the Treaty signed, but the
representatives there knew that they had no choice as German was incapable of restarting the war
again.
Germany was given two choices:
1) sign the Treaty or
2) be invaded by the Allies.
They signed the Treaty as in reality they had no choice. When the ceremony was over,
Clemenceau went out into the gardens of Versailles and said "It is a beautiful day".
The Treaty seemed to satisfy the "Big Three" as in their eyes it was a just peace as it kept
Germany weak yet strong enough to stop the spread of communism; kept the French border with
Germany safe from another German attack and created the organization, the League of Nations
that would end warfare throughout the world. However, it left a mood of anger throughout
Germany as it was felt that as a nation Germany had been unfairly treated. Above all else,
Germany hated the clause blaming her for the cause of the war and the resultant financial
35
penalties the treaty was bound to impose on Germany. Those who signed it became known as the
"November Criminals". Many German citizens felt that they were being punished for the
mistakes of the German government in August 1914 as it was the government that had declared
war not the people.
2. Treaty of St.Germain-en-Laye (10th September 1919)
This treaty was signed between the Allied and Associated Powers and Austria. It
consisted of 14 parts and 381 Articles and several annexure. The treaty declared that the Austro-
Hungarian Empire was to be dissolved. The new Republic of Austria, consisting of most of the
German-speaking Alpine part of the former Austrian Empire, recognized the independence of
Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. The treaty
included 'war reparations' of large sums of money, directed towards the allies, to pay for the
costs of the war. Austria was reduced not only by the loss of crownlands incorporated into the
states of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia (the “successor states”) but by the cession of
Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and several Dalmatian islands to Italy and the cession of
Bukovina to Romania. In total, it lost land to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, and
Italy. Burgenland, then a part of Hungary, was awarded to Austria.
An important article of the treaty required Austria to refrain from directly or indirectly
compromising its independence, which meant that Austria could not enter into political or
economic union with Germany without the agreement of the council of the League of Nations.
Accordingly, the new republic's initial self-chosen name of German Austria had to be changed to
Austria. The Austrian Army was limited to a force of 30,000 volunteers. There were numerous
provisions dealing with Danubian navigation, the transfer of railways, and other details involved
in the breakup of a great empire into several small independent states
3.Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine (27th November 1919)
This treaty was signed between Bulgaria and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers.
It established borders over contested territory between Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece and the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. As a Central Powers were belligerent, Bulgaria received
the least land, and was required to reduce its army to 20,000 men, pay reparations exceeding
$400 million, and recognize the existence of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Bulgaria was required to hand over western Thrace to Greece, a part of Macedonia to Yugoslavia
and parts of Dobruja to Romania. In Bulgaria, the results of the treaty are popularly known as the
Second National Catastrophe.
4. Treaty of Trianon (4th June 1920)
This peace treaty was signed between Hungary, on the one hand, and the Principal Allied and
Associated Powers, on the other. It consisted of 14 parts, 364 articles, many annexures, a
protocol and declaration. It established the borders of Hungary and regulated its international
situation. Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory and about two third of its inhabitants under
the treaty. It was even harsher than the treaty of St.Germain. The principal beneficiaries of this
territorial adjustment were Romania, Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes.
5. Treaty of Sèvres (10th August 1920)
This treaty was signed between the Sultan of Turkey (who was at that time the prisoner of
the allies who were also in occupation of Constantinople) and the Principal Allied and

36
Associated Powers. The Arab state of Hedjar was freed and put under British occupation.
Rumania which had declared her independence, was created into a Christian Republic and put
under an international guarantee. Mesopotamia, Trans-Jordan, and Palestine were taken away
from Turkey and later on given as mandates to Britain and Syria, which was also grabbed from
Turkey, was put under French mandate. There was however one condition imposed regarding
Palestine and this pertained to Britain’s undertaking that in Palestine would be established “a
national home for the Jewish people”which was called as Balfour Declaration. This commitment
ultimately enabled the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.
6. Treaty of Lausanne (24th July 1923)
The terms of the Treaty of Serves accepted by the Sultan, but not so by a parallel
government headed by Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He retired to Ankara and set up a rival government
and also gathered a large army. Repeated attempts by the Greeks to defeat Mustafa Kemal failed
and a large number of Greeks were killed and the remaining were expelled from Asia Minor.
There was no one to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Serves. The French and Italian forces
were withdrawn from there. The small British army remained at its stations and instead of
attacking it, Mustafa Kemal entered into negotiations which led to the signing of the Treaty of
Laussane.
The treaty provided not only for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for
the protection of the ethnic Greek minority in Turkey and the mainly ethnically Turkish Muslim
minority in Greece. Much of the Greek population of Turkey was exchanged with the Turkish
population of Greece. The treaty delimited the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey,
formally ceded all Turkish claims on Cyprus, Iraq and Syria, and (along with the Treaty of
Ankara) settled the boundaries of the latter two nations. The treaty also led to international
recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the
defunct Ottoman Empire.
An Evaluation of the Treaty of Versailles: A Case Study
Having gone through the terms of this treaty a question arises as to whether this was a fair
settlement or not? There is a long standing argument that it was not. This originated from the
forebodings of contemporary diplomats and observers like Norman Davies and
Harold Nicolson16, of economist J.M. Keynes, and historian W.H. Dawson and Ruth Henig.17
Although the sympathy for Germany was subsequently diluted by the rise of Hitler, there
emerged a feeling that the Treaty of Versailles could well have contributed to the destructive
phenomenon of Nazism. It then became a common to question, the wisdom of visiting the guilt
of the Kaiser’s Germany upon moderate Weimer republic which had been engaged in a desperate

16
Harold Nicolson, author of the book Peacemaking 1919, wrote: “The historian, with every justification,will
come to the conclusion that we were very stupid men... We arrived determined that a Peace of justice and
wisdom should be negotiated; we left the conference conscious that the treaties imposed upon our enemies
were neither just nor wise.”

17
According to Ruth Henig, “Compared to the treaties which Germany had imposed on defeated Russia and
Rumania in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles was quite moderate... The Treaty of Versailles was not excessively
harsh on Germany, either territorially or economically. However, the German people were expecting victory
not defeat. It was the acknowledgement of defeat as much as the treaty terms themselves, which they found so
hard to accept.”

37
struggle for survival against the forces of extreme Right. The Germans constantly attacked the
Versailles Diktat.
Using these sources, we can now build a composite crticism of the Treaty of Versailles. On
the issue of territorial changes there is some support for the implementation of national self-
determination, but considerable criticism of the uneven use of plebiscite. Why, for example, this
facility has been provided to the Danes of Northern Schlezwig and the Poles and Czechs of
Southern Silesia, but not to the Germans of the Sudetanland or of Austria? Germany’s frontier
literally bled. Poland, in particular, was treated too generously at German’s expense, a clear
perversion of the thirteenth of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points. As for the confiscation of
German colonies, many observers point to the element of hypocrisy. Wilson’s avowed reason for
this was to protect the inhabitants from the proven harshness of the German rule.
The most influential critque of the economic provisions of the Treaty was J.M. Keynes18. He
argued that settlement lacked wisdom in its aim to destroy Germany’s very means of subsistence.
The coal and iron provisions, for example, were disastrous. Germany would be left with a
capacity to produce only 60 million tonnes annually, whereas in 1913 she had consumed 110
million tonnes. Above all the indemnity being considered by the Allies in 1919 was well beyond
the German means to pay. According to Keynes, the real dangers for the future lay not in
boundary questions but rather in questions of food, coal and commerce. He remain convinced
that ‘The Treaty, by overstepping the limits of the possible, has in practice settled nothing’. The
subsequent economic crisis suffered by the Weimer Republic, including the collapse of the mark
in 1923, seemed to provide immediate evidence to support his prediction.
Why did a treaty of such severity emerge in the first place? The reason most commonly given
was that the ideals of Wilson were heavily diluted by the ideals of Clemenceau and the practical
approach of Lloyd George. Clemenceau influenced the whole proceedings because he knew
only one goal: “security for France.” The British delegation took a more moderate stance, but
Lloyd George was, nevertheless, under heavy pressure from the public opinion at home to make
Germany pay for all the damage caused during the war. The result was the triumph of
expediency over ideals leading to a deterioration of moral awareness.
There could be only one solution. The revision of the treaty was the necessary and
inevitable first step forward. In 1924, the Dawes Plan modified the method of paying reparations,
while the Young Plan of 1930 extended the deadline, and the Lausanne Agreement of 1932
cancelled outstanding reparations. Meanwhile, all occupation forces were withdrawn from the
Rhineland by 1930 and League of Nations provided for the full return of the Saar to Germany by
1935. But critics of the treaty maintained that these concessions were too late to reconcile the
Germans to a settlement which it bitterly hated.
However in recent times a different picture of the Treaty of Versailles emerged. By
emphasizing three points it is possible to show that the treatment meted out to Germany was not
unduly harsh. First, her territorial losses in 1919 were tiny compared with the alterations which
the German victory would have brought. According to Fritz Fisher(German historian),
Germany’s war aims included economic dominance over Belgium, Holland and France;
supremacy over Courtland, Livonia, Estonia, Lithuania and Poland in Eastern Europe, and over
Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey in the Balkans; unification with Austria and the creation of

18
He argues that the German economy would be destroyed by the post-war Versailles Treaty. A series of
treaties which overlooked the really important issues of economic recovery, food, fuel, and finance would
further exacerbate the situation.
38
Greater Germany; and control over the entire Eastern Mediterranean and over dismantled Russia.
In sharp contrast the Allied ambassadors, far from humiliating a defeated country, showed
considerable restraint in removing only those ethnic minorities who had clearly suffered
inclusion in the German Reich. Second, some form of economic compensation was only to be
expected, given the terrible French losses. German industries, by contrast, had largely escaped
destruction since the Rhineland and Ruhr never came within the scope of Allied operations.
There was, therefore, a clear-cut argument for transferring some of the wealth of a complete
industrial economy to assist the reconstruction of a shattered one. Third, it has not been
conclusively proved that the Treaty of Versailles crippled Germany in the process of
compensating France and Belgium. The chronic inflation between 1919 and 1923 was due at
least as much to the German government’s unrestrained use of bank notes and to the heavy
speculation by the Rhineland industrialists. There remains a strong suspicion that Germany could
not meet the reparation because she had no intention of doing so. A general hike in taxation
could have met all foreign debts. No ministry, however, was prepared to risk the internal
opposition which this step would have brought; a short-term policy based on the reckless printing
of paper money seemed a much easier choice.
The role of France and Britain at the Peace Settlement has also been extensively
reassessed. It seemed that France had every right to consider itself the aggrieved party
between1919 and 1923. The French originally sought to accomplish two objectives only:
economic reconstruction and military security. These could be attained most effectively within
the structure of an Atlantic community which would perpetuate the unity of the war time
alliance. Hence the Minister of Commerce, Clemental, had in 1918 proposed an economic bloc
which would operate the system of preferential tariffs and come to an agreement on currency
matters. As for the future security of France, Tardieu, the French delegate, argued that a
neutralized Rhineland would be the best guarantee against future German invasion. This should
be related to a permanent pact between the Western powers. Once Western Europe had achieved
a new strength and stability as a result of these agreements, Germany could be allowed to regain
her economic and industrial status without the danger of future aggression and war.
Unfortunately the French scheme proved unsuccessful. Clemental’s proposals were rejected by
the United States, with the result that France had to depend entirely on German reparations for
her economic recovery. Worse followed when the U.S Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles. This meant that the treaty of mutual guarantee between France, Britain and the United
States also collapsed. The United States withdrew from all military commitments in Europe,
while Britain, whose membership of the alliance had been tied to American involvement,
considered her own obligation to France ended by the Senate’s decision. France was by now
virtually isolated and faced the prospect of containing, by herself, the inevitable revival of
Germany. By 1923, moreover, it had become evident that the German government was doing its
utmost to escape fulfilling the terms of the treaty. Was it surprising, therefore, that Poincare, the
French President, should have tried to restore the French plan by ordering the occupation of
Ruhr?
British government was the main critique of this action. But, it has been argued, that the
record of the British delegation at Paris was far from moderate or even consistent. The usual
view that Lloyd George was a pragmatist, driven by occasional harshness only by pressure from
the British public opinion, will not do. If anything, the British position was more extreme than
the French. Lloyd George, for example, appeared just as revanchist as Clemenceau; in 1918 he
told the Imperial War Cabinet: ‘The terms of peace must be tantamount to some penalty for the
offence.’ In one of the sub-commissions, a British representative claimed that Germany could

39
afford to pay reparations of 120,000 million dollars. Although Lloyd George appeared to have
been won over to moderation, the British government still put reparations figure almost twice as
high as did the French, and then complicated the proceedings by demanding the inclusion of war
pensions and separate allowances as war damages. Largely because of British stubbornness, the
reparations figure had to be settled separately and was not announced until 1921. By this time the
German government had taken comfort from the evident disintegration of the alliance between
the victorious powers and had begun to probe for weaknesses in the Versailles Settlement. The
country most seriously affected by this was France, who had taken a consistently reasonable line
on the whole reparations issue.
Conclusion
It is difficult for anyone to seriously argue that the Treaty of Versailles was a success.
But, whereas the treaty’s detractors maintained that the major need was fundamental review,
some of its defenders have put the case for more effective enforcement. The settlement failed not
because it was too harsh, but because the alliance which devised it fell apart with the withdrawal
of the United States and Britain, and the isolation of France. Although the treaty was supported
by Collective Security and the Locarno Pact (1925), it remained susceptible to any German
refusal to implement it. The modification secured by the Dawes Pact (1924) was sufficient to win
the temporary co-operation of moderate statesmen like Stressmann. But, in the long term,
German public opinion continued to see the whole settlement as a Diktat and eventually
supported its overthrow by the Nazi regime. Opponents of the treaty argued that Nazism was one
of the legacies; its defenders maintain that Hitler succeeded only because the treaty was not
enforced. Germany did have grounds for complaint but the Treaty could have been more severe.
As stated by Norman Lowe, “In conclusion it has to be said that this collection of peace
treaties was not a conspicuous success. It had the unfortunate effect of dividing Europe into the
states which wanted to revise the settlement (Germany being the main one), and those which
wanted to preserve it. On the whole, the latter turned out to be lukewarm in support... and it
became increasingly difficult to apply the terms fully. Hobsbawm argues that “the Versailles
settlement could not possibly be the basis of a stable peace. It was doomed from the start, and
another war was practically certain.” The French politician Marshal Foch, as the Versailles
Treaty was being signed, stated rather prophetically, “This is not peace; it is an armistice for 20
years.” Gilbert White, an American delegate at the Conference, put it perfectly when he
remarked that given the problems involved, 'it is not surprising that they made a bad peace; what
is surprising is that they managed to make peace at all.’

Suggested Readings
1. Ruth Henig, Versailles and After: 1919-1933, (London: Routledge), Lancaster Pamphlets,
1995.

2. Norman Lowe. Mastering Modern World History (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).
3. Stephan J.Lee, Aspects of European History(1789-1980), 1982, Roultedge, London & New
York, p.199-206.

40
4 .Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth Century,
Manchester University Press, 1998.
5. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, A History of the World, 1914 – 1991 (New York:
Vintage Books, 1996)
6. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Howe, 1920).
7. M. Kitchen, Europe Between the Wars (New York: Longman, 2000)

41
 Lesson 4

LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND MANDATE SYSTEM

-Dr. Naveen Vashishta
The League of Nations was an international association for the furtherance of cooperation
among nations, the settlement of international disputes, and the preservation of the peace formed
after the First World War. The concept of a peaceful community of nations had been outlined as
far back as 1795, in Immanuel Kant’s work Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch. One
attempt to put such a concept into practice were the international Hague Conventions of 1899
and 1907. It was to have been a universal alliance aiming at disarmament and the peaceful
settlement of disputes through arbitration. Following the failure of the Hague Peace Conferences,
a third conference had been planned for 1915. The League is often spoken as being the
brainchild of the American President Woodrow Wilson. Although Wilson was certainly a great
supporter of the idea of international organisation for peace, the League was in reality the result
of a coming together of similar suggestions (made during the First World War) by a number of
world statesman. Lord Robert Cecil of Britain, Jan Sumts of South Africa and Leon Bourgeois of
France put forward detailed schemes as to how an organisation was to set up: Lloyd George
reffered to it as one of Britain’s war aims, and Wilson included it as the last of his fourteen
points. Wilson’s great contribution was to insist that the League Covenant19, which had been
drawn up by an international committee, should be included in each of the separate peace
treaties. It had two main aims: To maintain peace through collective security20 and to encourage
international co-operation in order to solve economic and social problems.
The League's creation was a centerpiece of Wilson's Fourteen Points for Peace, The Paris
Peace Conference accepted the proposal to create the League of Nations on January 25, 1919.
The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League
was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919.
Initially, the Charter was signed by 44 states, including 31 states which had taken part in the war
on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict. Despite Wilson's efforts to
establish and promote the League, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, the
United States neither ratified the Charter nor joined the League due to opposition in the U.S.
Senate. On 10th January 1920, the League of Nations, officially came into existence with its
headquarters at Geneva in Switzerland. The League held its first council meeting in Paris on
January 16, 1920 six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force. In November, the
headquarters of the League moved to Geneva, where the first general assembly of the League
was held on November 15, 1920 with representatives from 41 nations in attendance.
Symbols
The League of Nations had neither an official flag nor logo. Proposals for adopting an
official symbol were made during the League's beginning in 1920, but the member states never
reached agreement. However, League of Nations organization used varying logos and flags (or
none at all) in their own operations. An international contest was held in 1929 to find a design,

19
The list of rules by which the League was to operate.
20
If one state attacked another, the member state of the League would act together, collectively, to restrain
the aggressor, either by economic or by military sanctions.
42
which again failed to produce a symbol. One of the reasons for this failure may have been the
fear by the member states that the power of the supranational organization might supersede them.
Finally, in 1939, a semi-official emblem emerged: two five-pointed stars within a blue
pentagon. The pentagon and the five-pointed stars were supposed to symbolize the five
continents and the five races of mankind. In a bow on top and at the bottom, the flag had the
names in English (League of Nations) and French (Société des Nations). This flag was used on
the building of the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.
Languages
The official languages of the League of Nations were French, English and Spanish (from
1920). The League seriously considered adopting Esperanto as their working language and
actively encouraging its use but neither option was ever adopted. In 1921, there was a proposal
by Lord Robert Cecil to introduce Esperanto into state schools of member nations and a report
was commissioned to investigate this. When the report was presented two years later it
recommended the teaching of Esperanto in schools, a proposal that 11 delegates accepted. The
strongest opposition came from the French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, partially in order to
protect the French Language which he argued was already the international language. The
opposition meant the report was accepted apart from the part that approved Esperanto in schools.
Structure of League of Nations
The League had four principal organs, a Secretariat, a Council, an Assembly and a
Permanent Court of International Justice. The League also had numerous Agencies and
Commissions. Authorization for any action required both a unanimous vote by the Council and a
majority vote in the Assembly.
The Secretariat
The Secretariat of the League consisted of the Secretary-General (based in Geneva) who
was appointed by the Council with the approval of the Assembly and such other staff as was
required for its work. The other staff of the Secretariat was appointed by the Secretary-General in
consultation with the Council. There were two Deputy Secretary-General and two Under
Secretaries-General, subordinate to the Secretary-General. The nember-states paid the expenses
of the Secretariat. The Secretariat functioned throught the year in contrast to the Council and the
Assembly.
The Council
The Council of the League comprised of permanent members, non-permanent members
and ad hoc representatives. It began with four permanent members (the United Kingdom, France,
Italy, Japan) and four non-permanent members, which were elected by the Assembly for a three
year period. The first four non-permanent members were Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain.
The United States was meant to be the fifth permanent member, but the United States Senate
voted on March 19, 1920 against the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, thus preventing
American participation in the League. This prompted the United States to go back to policies of
isolationism.
The initial composition of the Council was subsequently changed a number of times. The
number of non-permanent members was first increased to six on September 22, 1922, and then to
nine on September 8, 1926. Germany also joined the League and became a fifth permanent
member of the Council on the latter date, taking the Council to a total of fifteen members. When
43
Germany and Japan later both left the League, the number of non-permanent seats was
eventually increased from nine to eleven. The Council met on average five times a year, and in
extraordinary sessions when required. In total, 107 public sessions were held between 1920 and
1939. every member of the Council had only one vote.
The Council was required to deal with any matter within the sphere of action of the
League or affecting the peace of the world. The main function of the Council was the settlement
of disputes among the various countries of the world. It was required to formulate plans for
disarmanent by various states. It was to recommed methods by which the territorial integrity of
the states could be guaranted.
The General Assembly
The League of Nations' Assembly was a meeting of all the Member States, with each
state allowed up to three representatives and one vote. It was required to meet at least once a
year. In case of necessity, there could be additional meetings of the Assembly. It was given the
authority to deal with any matter within its sphere of action or which affected the peace of the
world. It could not discuss those matters which were exclusively reserved for the Council. It
could admit new members of the League by two-third majority. Every year it elected a certain
member of non-permanent members of the Council. The Judges of the Permanent Court of
International Justice were elected by the Assembly for a certain number of years. The Assembly
revised the budget prepared by the Secretariat and also supervised the work of the Council.
Permanent Court of International Justice
The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), sometimes called the World Court,
was the international court of the League of Nations, established on15th February 1922 under
Article XIV of the Covenant of the League of Nations. The PCIJ began its preliminary session in
the Hague in January 1922 and heard its first case, an advisory opinion, in May 1922. Between
1922 and 1940 the Court dealt with 38 contentious cases between States and delivered 27
advisory opinions. It was replaced in 1946 by the International Court of Justice when the United
Nations was organized.
Technically speaking, the PCIJ was not an organ of the League of Nations, although the
Court's existence was closely connected to the League. The jurisdiction of this Court extended to
all the cases which the party referred to it and all matters specially provided for in the treaties
and conventions in force. The members were allowed to accept the optional clause by signing the
separate protocol and that gave the Court jurisdiction in matters concerning the interpretation of
any treaty, questions of international law, any dispute which involved a violation of international
law etc. While making decisions, the Court applied the international convention recognized by
the states in conflict, international customs, general principles of law recognized by the civilized
states, judicial decisions, and the teachings of highly qualified publicists of the various states.
The Court was also required to give its advisory opinion in certain matters. The judgment of the
Court was final and there was no provision for appeal. However, the Court could review its
previous decisions in the light of new facts brought before it, provided those facts were not
known to the parties at the time of decision.
Second World War marked the end of the Permanent Court of International Justice. The
Court held its last wartime session in the Hague in February 1940, before the German invasion of
the Netherlands. With the search for a new post-war international order, delegates at the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC (August-October 1944) discussed the

44
development of a new International Court of Justice, which would work in association with the
new United Nations Organization. Delegates at the San Francisco Conference approved the new
International Court of Justice (June 1945) as one of the principal organs of the United Nations
(Article VII) and as the UN's chief judicial organization. In October 1945, the members of the
PCIJ held their last session in the Hague and on January 31, 1946, the judges of the Permanent
Court of International Justice resigned.
Other bodies
Several other agencies and commissions were created by the League to deal with major
international problems.These were the Disarmament Commission, the Health Organization, the
International Labour Organization, the Mandates Commission, the International Commission on
Intellectual Cooperation (ancestor of the UNESCO), the Permanent Central Opium Board, the
Commission for Refugees, and the Slavery Commission. Several of these institutions were
transferred to the United Nations after the Second World War. In addition to the International
Labour Organization, the Permanent Court of International Justice became a UN institution as
the International Court of Justice, and the Health Organization was restructured as the World
Health Organization.
The League's health organization had three bodies, a Health Bureau, containing
permanent officials of the League, an executive section the General Advisory Council or
Conference consisting of medical experts, and a Health Committee. The Committee's purpose
was to conduct inquiries, oversee the operation of the League's health work, and get work ready
to be presented to the Council. This body focused on ending leprosy, malaria and yellow fever,
the latter two by starting an international campaign to exterminate mosquitoes. The Health
Organization also worked successfully with the government of the Soviet Union to prevent
typhus epidemics including organising a large education campaign about the disease.
In 1919 the International Labour Organization was created as a part of the Versailles
Treaty and became part of the League's operations with Albert Thomas as its first director. It
successfully convinced several countries to adopt an eight-hour work day and forty-eight hour
working week. It also worked to end child labour, increase the rights of women in the workplace,
and make shipowners liable for accidents involving seamen. The organization continued to exist
after the end of the League, becoming an agency of the United Nations in 1946.
The League wanted to regulate the drugs trade and established the Permanent Central
Opium Board to supervise the statistical control system introduced by the second International
Opium Convention that mediated the production, manufacture, trade and retail of opium and its
by-products. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations
for the legal international trade in narcotics.
The Slavery Commission sought to eradicate slavery and slave trading across the world,
and fought forced prostitution. Its main success was through pressing the countries who
administered mandated countries to end slavery in those countries. The League also secured a
commitment from Ethiopia, as a condition of joining the League in 1926, to end slavery and
worked with Liberia to abolish forced labour and inter-tribal slavery. It succeeded in gaining the
emancipation of 200,000 slaves in Sierra Leone and organized raids against slave traders in its
efforts to stop the practice of forced labour in Africa. It also succeeded in reducing the death rate
of workers constructing the Tanganyika railway from 55% to 4%. Records were kept to control
slavery, prostitution, and the trafficking women and children. Led by Fridtjof Nansen the
Commission for Refugees looked after the interests of refugees including overseeing their
45
repatriation and, when necessary resettlement. At the end of the First World War there were two
to three million ex-prisoners of war dispersed throughout Russia, within two years of the
commission's foundation, in 1920, it had helped 425,000 of them return home. It established
camps in Turkey in 1922 to deal with a refugee crisis in that country and to help prevent disease
and hunger. It also established the Nansen passport as a means of identification for stateless
peoples. The Committee for the Study of the Legal Status of Women sought to make an inquiry
into the status of women all over the world. It was formed in April 1938 and dissolved in early
1939.
The Mandate System
League of Nations Mandates were established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the
League of Nations. Previously, the conquered territories were annexed by the conquerers. In
1919, a new device called Mandate System was adopted according to which conquered territories
were to be put under the guardianship of the League of Nations and certain powers were to be
put in charge of those territories to carry on their administration. While appointing a member
country as a mandatory power, its resources, experience, and geographical positions were taken
into account. The mandated territories were considered as a sacred trust of civilisation. These
territories were former colonies of the German Empire and the Ottoman Empire that were placed
under the supervision of the League following World War I. The Permanent Mandates
Commission supervised League of Nations Mandates, and also organised plebiscites in disputed
territories so that residents could decide which country they would join.
Types of mandates: The exact level of control by the Mandatory power over each mandate was
decided on an individual basis by the League of Nations. However, in every case the Mandatory
power was forbidden to construct fortifications or raise an army within the mandate and was
required to present an annual report on the territory to the League of Nations. Despite this,
mandates were seen as de facto colonies of the empires of the victor nations.The mandates were
divided into three distinct groups based upon the level of development each population had
achieved at that time.
Class A mandates: The first group or Class A mandates were areas formerly controlled by the
Ottoman Empire deemed to "...have reached a stage of development where their existence as
independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative
advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes
of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the Mandatory."
The Class A mandates were:
• Iraq (United Kingdom), 10 August 1920 - 3 October 1932, then an independent kingdom.
• Palestine (United Kingdom), from 25 April 1920 (effective 29 September 1923 - 14 May
1948 to the independence of Israel), till 25 May 1946 including Transjordan (the
Hashemite emirate, later kingdom of Jordan).
• Syria (France), 29 September 1923 - 1 January 1944, including Lebanon; Hatay (a former
Ottoman Alexandretta sandjak) broke away from it and became a French protectorate,
until it was ceded to the republic Turkey.
By 1948 these mandates had been replaced by new monarchies (Iraq, Jordan) and republican
governments (Israel, Lebanon, Syria).

46
Class B mandates:The second group or Class B mandates were all former German territories in
the SubSaharan regions of West and Central Africa, which were deemed to require a greater
level of control by the mandatory power: "...the Mandatory must be responsible for the
administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and
religion". The mandatory power was forbidden to construct military or naval bases within the
mandates.
The Class B mandates were :
• Ruanda-Urundi (Belgium), formerly two separate German protectorates, joined as a
single mandate from 20 July 1922, but 1 March 1926 - 30 June 1960 in administrative
union with the colony Belgian Congo, since 13 December 1946 a United Nations Trust
Territory (till their separate Independences on 1 July 1962)
• Tanganyika (United Kingdom) from 20 July 1922, 11 December 1946 made a United
Nations trust territory; from 1 May 1961 enjoys self-rule, on 9 December 1961
independence (as dominion), on 9 December 1962 a Republic, in 1964 federated with
Zanzibar, and soon renamed together Tanzania
and two former German territories, each split in a British and a French League of Nations
mandate territory, according to earlier military occupation zones:
• Kamerun was split on 20 July 1922 into British Cameroons (under a Resident) and
French Cameroun (under a Commissioner till 27 August 1940, then under a Governor),
on 13 December 1946 transformed into United Nations Trust Territories, again a British
(successively under senior district officers officiating as Resident, a Special Resident and
Commissioners) and a French Trust (under a Haut Commissaire)
• the former German colony of Togoland was split in British Togoland (under an
Administrator, a post filled by the colonial Governor of the British Gold Coast (present
Ghana) except 30 September 1920 - 11 October 1923 Francis Walter Fillon Jackson) and
French Togoland (under a Commissioner) (United Kingdom and France), 20 July 1922
separate Mandates, transformed on 13 December 1946 into United Nations trust
territories, French Togo Associated Territory (under a Commissioner till 30 August 1956,
then under a High Commissioner as Autonomous Republic of Togo) and British
Togoland (as before; on 13 December 1956 it ceased to exist as it became part of Ghana)
Class C mandates: A final group, the Class C mandates, including South-West Africa and
certain of the South Pacific Islands, were considered to be "best administered under the laws of
the mandatory as integral portions of its territory"
The Class C mandates were former German possessions:
• former German New Guinea (Australia) from 17 December 1920 under a (at first
Military) Administrator; after (wartime) Japanese/U.S. military commands from 8
December 1946 under UN mandate as North East New Guinea (under Australia, as
administrative unit), until it merged into present Papua New Guinea.
• Nauru, formerly part of German New Guinea (Australia in effective control, formally
together with United Kingdom and New Zealand) from 17 December 1920, 1 November
1947 made into a United Nations trust territory (same three powers) till its 31 January
1968 independence as a Republic - all that time under an Administrator

47
 • former German Samoa (New Zealand) 17 December 1920 a League of Nations mandate,
renamed Western Samoa (as opposed to American Samoa), from 25 January 1947 a
United Nations trust territory till its 1 January 1962 independence
• South Pacific Mandate (Japan)
• South-West Africa (South Africa);
o from 1 October 1922 Walvisbaai's administration (still merely having a
Magistrate until its 16 March 1931 Municipal status, thence a Mayor) was also
assigned to South West Africa Mandate
According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August 1920 "draft
mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated Powers would not be definitive until they had
been considered and approved by the League ... the legal title held by the mandatory Power must
be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers and the other conferred by the League of
Nations,"
Three steps were required to establish a Mandate under international law: (1) The
Principal Allied and Associated Powers confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third
power; (2) the principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations that a
certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain defined territory; and (3) the
council of the League of Nations takes official cognisance of the appointment of the mandatory
power and informs the latter that it [the council] considers it as invested with the mandate, and at
the same time notifies it of the terms of the mandate, after assertaining whether they are in
conformance with the provisions of the covenant.The Mandate System was critisized as “a
hallow mockery”, “ a hypocritcal sham and designed to disguise old imperialistic wolves in new
sheep’s clothing”.
The Successes of the League
It would be unjust to dismiss the League as a total failure; in fact many of its
commissions and committees achieved valuable results and much was done to foster
international co-operation. One of the most successful was the International Labour Organisation
under its French socialist director, Albert Thomas. Its obejective was to improve the conditions
of labour all over the world by persuading governments to fix maximum working day and week,
specify adequate minimum wages and introduce sickness and unemployment benefits and old
age pensions. It collected and published a vast amount of information and many governments
were prevailed to take upon action. The Refugee Organisation led by a Norweign explorer,
Fridtjof Nansen solved the problems of thousands of war prisoners marooned in Russia after the
war ended. The Health Organisation did good work in investigating the causes of epidemics and
was particularly successful in combating a typhus epidemic in Russia which at one time seemed
likely to engulf Europe. The Mandates Commission supervised the government of the territories
taken away from Germany and Turkey, while another commission was resposible for
administering the Saar to be returned to Germany. Not all were successful, however, the
Disarmament Commission made no progress in the near impossible task of persuading member
states to reduce armaments, though they had all promised to do so when they agreed to the
covenant.
Many political disputes were referred to the League in the early 1920s; in all but two of
the League’s decisions were accepted. For example in the dispute between Sweden and Finland
over the Aland Islands, the decision was in favour of Finland (1920); over the rival claims of
48
Germany and Poland to the important industrial area of Upper Silesia, the League decided that it
should be partitioned between the two (1921). When the Greeks invaded Bulgaria after some
shooting incidents on the frontier, the League swiftly intervened: Greek troops were withdrawn
and damages paid to Bulgaria (1925). When Turkey claimed the province of Mosul, part of the
Britain mandated territory of Iraq, the League decided in favour of Iraq. Even further afield,
squabbles were settled between Peru and Columbia and between Bolivia and Paraguay. It is
significant, however, that none of these decisions went against a major state, which might have
challened the League’s verdict. In fact during this same period the League twice found itself
overruled by the Conference of Ambassadors based in Paris, which was intended to deal with
problems arising out of the Treaty of Versailles. There were first the rival claims of Poland and
Lithuania to Vilna (1920) followed by the Corfu Incident, a quarrel between Italy under
Mussolini and Greece (1923). The fact that the League seemed unable or unwilling to respond to
these affronts was not a promising sign.
Failure of League of Nations
Although The League of Nations has done much that it should be proud of, its failures are
much too noticeable to turn a blinds eye on. At the time of Corfu Incident in1923, many people
wondered what would happen if a powerful state were to challenge the League on an issue of
major importance, for example by invading an innocent country. How effective would League be
then? Unfortunately several such challenges occurred during the 1930s, and on every ocassion
the League was found wanting. Reasons ascribed for this failure are discussed below:
1. An initial disadvantage of the League was that it was too closely linked with the Treaty of
Versailles, giving it the air of being an organisation for the benefit of the victorious powers.
In addition, it had to defend the peace settlement which was far from perfect. Some of the
provisions were bound to cause trouble- for example, the disappointment of Italy and the
inclusion of Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

2. The League was dealt a severe blow in March 1920 when the United States Senate rejected
the Versailles Settlement and the League. There were many reasons behind this decision:
many Americans wanted to return to a policy of isolation and feared that membership of the
League might cause them to be embroiled in another war; the Republicans, now in majority
in the Senate, strongly opposed Woodrow Wilson(a Democrat), but he refused to
compromise over either the League Covenant or the terms of the treaties. Thus the League
was deprived of a powerful member whose presence would have been of great psychological
and financial advantage.
3. Germany was not allowed to join the League until 1926 and the USSR became its member
only in 1934(when Germany left), so that for the first few years of its existence the League
was deprived of three of the world’s most important powers.
4. In the early years, the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris was an embarrassment. It was
intended to function only until the League machinery was established, but it lingered on, and
on several ocassion took precedence over League. In 1920 the League supported Lithuania in
her claim to Vilna which had just been taken away from her by the Poles, but then allowed
the Ambassadors to award Vilna to Poland. A later example was the Corfu Incident(1923)
which arose from the boundary dispute between Greece and Albania, in which three Italian
officers working on the boundary commission were killed. Mussolini blamed the Greek

49
 Island of Corfu. Greece appealed to the League, Mussolini refused to recognize its
competence to deal with the problem and threatened to withdraw from the League,
whereupon the Ambassadors ordered Greece to pay the full amount demanded. At this early
stage, however, supporters of the League dismissed these incidents as teething troubles.
5. There were serious weaknesses in the Covenant making it difficult to ensure that decisive
action was taken against any aggressor. It was difficult to achieve unanimous decisions. The
League had no military of its own and through Article 16 expected member states to supply
troops if necessary, a resolution was passed in 1923 that each member would decide for itself
whether or not to fight in a crisis. This clearly made nonsense of the idea of collective
security. Several attempts were made to strengthen the Covenant but these failed because a
unanimous decision was needed to change it and this was never achieved. The most notable
attempt was made in 1924 by the British Labour Prime Minister, Ramsay McDonald, in a
resolution known as Geneva Protocol which pledged members to accept arbitration and help
any victim of unprovoked aggression. With supreme irony, the Conservative government
which followed McDonald informed the League that they could not agree to the protocol;
they were reluctant to commit Britain and the dominions to the defence of all the 1919
frontiers. Unfortunately this left the League as its critics remarked, ‘lacking teeth’.
6. The continued absence of the USA and the USSR plus the hostility of Italy made the League
very much a Franco-British affair, but as their rejection of Geneva Protocol showed, the
British Conservatives were never enthusiastic about the League and preferred to sign the
Locarno Treaties(1925) outside the League instead of conducting negotiations within it.
None of these weaknesses necessarily doomed the League to failure, however, provided all
the members were prepared to refrain from aggression and accept League decisions; between
1925 and 1930 events ran fairly smoothly but unfortunately dictators rose to power in Japan
and Germany together with Italy; they refused to keep up the rules and pursued a series of
actions which revealed the League’s weaknesses.
7. In 1931 Japanese troops invaded the Chinese territory of Manchuria. China appealed to the
League which condemned Japan and ordered her troops to be withdrawn. When Japan
refused, the League appointed a commission under Lord Lytton in1932 which decided that
there were faults on both sides and suggested that Manchuria be governed by the League.
However, Japan rejected this and withdrew from the League (March 1933). The question of
economic sanctions let alone military ones was not raised because Britain and France had
serious economic problems and were reluctant to apply a trade boycott of Japan in case it led
to war, which they were ill-equipped to win, especially without American help. Japan had
sucessfully defied the League, and its prestige was damaged though not yet fatally.
8. The failure of the World Disarmament Conference(1932) which met under the auspices of the
League was a grave disappointment. The Germans asked for equality of armaments with
France, but when the French demanded that this should be postponed for at least eight years,
Hitler was able to use the French attitude as an excuse to withdraw Germany from the
conference and later from the League.
9. The most serious blow was the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in October 1935. The League
condemned Italy and introduced economic sanctions which, however, did not include a ban
on exports of oil, coal and steel to Italy. So half-hearted were the sanctions that Italy was able
to complete the conquest of Abyssinia without too much inconvenience in May 1936. A few
weeks later sanctions were abandoned and Mussolini had flouted the League. Again Britain
and France must share the blame for League’s failure. Their motives was the desire not to
50
 antagonise Mussolini too much so as to keep him as an ally against the real danger-Germany,
but the results were disastrous: Mussolini was annoyed by the sanctions anyway and began to
draw closer to Hitler. In this way the small states lost all faith in the League and Hitler
himself was encouraged to break the Versailles Treaties. After 1935, therefore, the League
was not taken seriously again.
Demise and Legacy
As the situation in Europe deteriorated into war, the Assembly transferred, on 30
September 1938 and 14 December 1939, enough power to the Secretary General to allow the
League to continue to legally exist and continue with operations on a reduced scale. After this
was completed, the headquarters of the League remained unoccupied for nearly six years until
the Second World War had ended. The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in April
in Geneva. Delegates from 34 nations attended the assembly where their first act was the closure
the twentieth meeting, adjourned on 14 December 1939, and opened the twenty-first. This
session concerned itself with liquidating the League, the Palace of Peace was given to the UN,
reserve funds were returned to the nations that had supplied them and the debts of the League
were settled. Robert Cecil is said to have summed up the feeling of the gathering during a speech
to the final assembly when he said: “aggression where it occurs and however it may be defended,
is an international crime, that it is the duty of every peace-loving state to resent it and employ
whatever force is necessary to crush it ... that every well-disposed citizen of every state should be
ready to undergo any sacrifice in order to maintain peace ... I venture to impress upon my hearers
that the great work of peace is resting not only on the narrow interests of our own nations, but
even more on those great principles of right and wrong which nations, like individuals,
depend.”The motion that dissolved the League, stating that "The League of Nations shall cease
to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its affairs" passed unanimously. The motion
also set the date for the end of the League as the day after the session was closed. On the 18
April 1939 the President of the Assembly, Carl J. Hambro of Norway, declared "the twenty-first
and last session of the General Assembly of the League of Nations closed." As a result the
League of Nations ceased to exist on 19 April 1939.
With the onset of World War II, it had been clear that the League had failed in its purpose
– to avoid any future world war. During the war, neither the League's Assembly nor Council had
been able or willing to meet, and its Secretariat in Geneva had been reduced to a skeleton staff,
with many offices moving to North America. At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers
agreed to create a new body to replace the League. This body was to be the United Nations.
Many League bodies, such as the International Labour Organization, continued to function and
eventually became affiliated with the UN. The League's assets of $22,000,000 were then
assigned to the U.N.
The structure of the United Nations was intended to make it more effective than the
League. The principal Allies in World War II (UK, USSR, France, U.S., and China) became
permanent members of the UN Security Council, giving the new "Great Powers" significant
international influence, mirroring the League Council. Decisions of the UN Security Council are
binding on all members of the UN; however, unanimous decisions are not required, unlike the
League Council. Permanent members of the UN Security Council were given a shield to protect
their vital interests, which has prevented the UN acting decisively in many cases. Similarly, the
UN does not have its own standing armed forces, but the UN has been more successful than the
League in calling for its members to contribute to armed interventions, such as the Korean War,
and peacekeeping in the former Yugoslavia. However, the UN has in some cases been forced to
51
rely on economic sanctions. The UN has also been more successful than the League in attracting
members from the nations of the world, making it more representative.
Conclusion
According to Pat Buchnan, in the final analysis, it was not the League that failed. It was
the Allies that failed. Neither Britain nor France—nor the United States—was willing to risk war
for high principle, if authenticated that principle jeopardized vital interests. None of the three had
a vital interest in whether or not Japan (or Russia or China) controlled Manchuria. And if the
United States refused to join the League, how could nations object if Germany walked out? As
for Ethiopia, was upholding the principle of non-aggression in Africa worth a war that might
drive Italy into the arms of Nazi Germany? Indeed, the limited sanctions imposed on Italy helped
to create the Rome-Berlin Pact of Steel, that first Axis of Evil. As for Hitler’s military
occupation of the Rhineland, this was a direct challenge to France. But if France, with its huge
army, would not act militarily in its own vital interests, why should anyone else?
Although the League was called a ‘League of Notions’ or a ‘League of Robbers’ and it
was believed that the League could only bark and did not bite, yet it did a lot of work which
proved very significant. There were some quarrels, which the League settled very successfully,
yet it had to come forth a number of problems, which it failed to settle at all. On the whole,
according to F.P. Walters, “The League as a working institution is dead, but the ideals which it
sought to promote, the hopes to which it gave rise, the method it devised, the agencies it created,
have become an integral part of the political thinking of the civilized world.”

Suggested Readings
1.Andrew J. Williams, Failed Imagination?: New World Orders of the Twentieth Century,
Manchester University Press, 1998.
2. F. P Walters, A History of the League of Nations, Vol.2, O.U.P, London, 1952.
3. F.S Northedge, The League of Nations: Its Life and Times, 1920–1946. New York: Holmes &
Meier, 1986.
4. Frank McDonough, The Origins of the First and Second World Wars(Cambridge Perspectives
in History), 1997.

52
 UNIT 3
Lesson 1

ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF 1917

Dr.Naveen Vashishta
Introduction
The Russian Revolution was a pivotal event in the history of the twentieth century. It
ushered in an era of ideological conflict culminating in the Cold War and remained an especially
politicized historical event. Only the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 finally
transformed the Russian Revolution into an historical fact. The Russian Revolution of 1917
actually refers to a series of events in imperial Russia that culminated in 1917 with the
establishment of the Soviet state that became known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR). The two successful revolutions of 1917 are referred to collectively as the Russian
Revolution. The first revolution overthrew the autocratic imperial monarchy. It began with a
revolt on February 23 to 27, 1917, according to the Julian, or Old Style, calendar then in use in
Russia21. The second revolution, which opened with the armed insurrection of October 24 and
25, organized by the Bolshevik Party against the Provisional Government, effected a change in
all economic, political, and social relationships in Russian society; it is often designated as the
Bolshevik, or October Revolution.
Causes of the Russian Revolution
Although the events of the Russian Revolution happened abruptly, the causes may be
traced back nearly a century. Prior to 1917 Russian society was undergoing significant changes
that resulted in the crisis of the old order. The new social and economic forces generated by these
changes had different interests and desires. Therefore, by 1917 there emerged an extreme
contradiction and divergence between the old and new Russia. The Russian Revolution
represented the democratic ambitions of these new forces. The Russian state on the other hand
represented the interests of the old ruling classes. The Russian autocracy remained strong on the
support of landed nobility. So there emerged, by 1917, a crisis not only between the old and new
forces but also between these new forces and the Russian state. According to Richard Pipes “The
Russian Revolution of 1917 was not an event or even a process, but a sequence of disruptive and
violent acts that occurred more or less concurrently but involved actors with differing and in
some measure contradictory objectives.” So what were the long and short term causes that led to
this milestone in history? Let us examine these in detail.
1. Autocratic rule and inefficiency of the Tsar
The government in Russia was autocratic without being efficient. The Tsar’s
administration was weak and corrupt. His autocracy had outlived the purpose. The spread of
western ideas led to the development of progressive ideas among the people. The demand for
truly representative body with adequate powers to satisfy the needs of the people was a gathering

21
On January 31, 1918, the Soviet government adopted the Gregorian, or New Style, calendar, which
moved dates by thirteen days; therefore, in the New Style calendar the dates for the first revolution would be March
8 to 12.

53
force. Instead of fulfilling the demands of the people, Tsar Nicholas II of Romanov dynasty,
announced that he would preserve the principles of autocracy as firmly and unwaveringly as his
predecessor. He kept Constantine Pobedonostev22, the evil genius of Russia, in power. Another
evil genius who exercised great influence on the administration of the Tsar was Gregory
Rasputin.23 The government was run by the bureaucracy who was inflexible and inefficient. It is
true that Russia did come to have its first Parliament (Duma) in 1906. But it did not lead to the
establishment of parliamentary institutions on the English model. It did not have full authority
over legislation and finance. It had no control over the ministry. Even the budget was
safeguarded from parliamentary interference. Due to successive interference of the imperial
government in the elections, the Duma became a reactionary body. All kinds of restrictions were
placed on the individual freedom as well as the freedom of press.
Another weakness of the autocracy was the personality of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas
II himself. Poorly educated, narrow in intellectual perspective, a bad judge of people, isolated
from the Russian society at large and in contact only with the most narrow military and
bureaucratic circles, intimidated by the ghost of his imposing father and helpless under the
destructive influence of his endlessly unfortunate wife: Nicholas II was obviously inadequate to
the demands of his high position and this was an inadequacy for which no degree of charm, of
courtesy of delicacy of manner, could compensate. He was short-sighted and his lack of grasp of
the realities of the life of the country interfering with political process in ways that were for him
absolutely suicidal.
2. Discontent of the Peasantry
The Russian peasants were dissatisfied with the conditions of their life. They were not
happy with the terms of the emancipation settlement24 which freed them from serfdom in 1861
but required them to pay compensation to the landlords for the loss of their labor rights. The
problem was further compounded by the failure of Witte's land reforms of the early 1900s. The
serfs claimed that the release of landlords from their military commitments in the 18th century
should have automatically liberated them from their periodical obligations which they owed to
the landlords. So they resented the imposition of financial burdens in lieu of labor burdens as a
violation of an implied contract. The exaction of these redemption payments25 was maintained up
to 1907. Further the peasants were assigned less land than they had previously possessed. The
situation deteriorated because of their inability to make the best use of the soil which they
occupied. The system of cultivation in Russia was backward. The peasants lacked the capital and
technique to raise it to a higher level by adopting the methods of intensive cultivation. The scope

22
Pobedonostev was a strong monarchist with fervent beliefs about which path was in the best interest of Russia. He
was a reactionary and he passed these beliefs to Alexander and then later to Nicholas. According to Pobedonostev,
the monarch's absolute rule was ensured by God. He believed that any infringement on this power was against God's
wishes. He instilled in Nicholas the belief that his most important job was to pass along to his heir the same form of
absolute power which had been passed to him. "Pobedonostev did succeed in getting some of his ideas into
Nicholas' head, and especially this one: that it was the duty of a Tsar-autocrat to pass on all his powers intact to his
son.”
23
Another figure that played a significant part in causing the Russian revolution. He was a monk in the Russian
Orthodox Church and had increasing importance and influence on the Tsar.
24
It was introduced by Alexander II (1855-1881), the Russian Tsar.
25
The peasants were to pay an annual sum for 49 years to the government, at the end of which time the land was to
be their property.
54
for individual action was further reduced by the system of land ownership which was assigned to
the mir26, by the intermixture of strips into which many of the holdings were divided and by the
status of the peasant household as legal representatives of its members in all property relations.
The root cause of the dissatisfaction of the Russian peasants was the shortage of land.
The peasants cast hungry eyes upon the estates of big landlords. Long before the revolution they
pressed for a fresh allocation of land. Peter Stolypin, prime minister from 1906 to 1911, made
determined efforts to win over the peasants believing that given twenty years of peace there
would be no question of revolution. Redemption payments were abolished and peasants were
encouraged to buy their own land (about 2 million had done so by 1916 and another 3.5 million
had immigrated to Siberia where they had their own farms). As a result there emerged a class of
comfortably-off peasants (called kulaks) whom, Stolypin hoped; the government could rely on
for support against revolution. By 1911 it was becoming clear that Stolypin's land reforms would
not have the desired result, partly because the peasant population was growing too rapidly (at the
rate of 1.5 million a year) for his schemes to cope with, and because farming methods were too
inefficient to support the growing population comfortably. The assassination of Stolypin in
1911 removed one of the few really able tsarist ministers and perhaps the only man who could
have saved the monarchy
3. Discontent of the Workers
During the concluding years of the 19th century, the Russian industry developed a great
deal. It was owing to several factors. The emancipation of serfs made available a plentiful supply
of cheap labor for the industry. The creation of railways opened up the means of communication
and increased the facilities of transport. Foreign loans provided the necessary basis for large
industrial undertakings. As a result of exceptional growth of industry, factory system grew
rapidly. The industrial workers are always more intelligent and less conservative in their nature
than the rural laborers. The factory system had done away with the isolation of the worker and
brought the great masses of men together. It also gave them an insight of their economic power.
The workers suffered from long hours of work, low wages, brutality, and a system of rapacious
fines. The government was generally blind to the sufferings of the workers. The capitalists
blocked the path of factory reform on the ground of what they termed freedom of the people’s
labor which actually meant the freedom of the strong to exploit the weak. The Russian workmen
sought to redress their grievances through strikes.
The expansion of industry not only created an industrial proletariat, but also called into
existence a class of wealthy manufacturers. Russia thus passed into the stage of capitalism. She
had fallen into the line with western industrialism. Labor for the fast developing industries was
continuously recruited from the rural population. Their abrupt divorce from the land and their
isolation from the educated classes, made the Russian workers hospitable to the revolutionary
ideas. But this advantage was off-set by their illiteracy, backwardness, lack of organizational
abilities and absence of system in labor.
Apart from this, the Russian industry in its techniques and capitalist structure stood at the
level of the advanced countries and even outperformed them in some respects. There was a great
concentration of industry in Russia. Enterprises employing more than a thousand workers
employed 41.4 percent of the Russian labor which meant that there was no transitional layer
between the capitalists and the workers.

26
The village community
55
 Sheila Fitzpatric in her book ‘The Russian Revolution’ states that "...the factory
committees took over [the factories in order] to save the workers from unemployment, when the
owner or manager abandoned the plant or threatened to close it because it was losing money. As
such events became more common, the definition of workers' control moved closer to something
like workers' self-management." She notes that because of the growing disagreement between the
workers and the government, that real grievances were developed and that a program of self-
management became every more necessary in the eyes of the working classes. Instead of foreign
anarchistic elements conspiring to get worker support, it was the conditions in Petrograd that
caused the workers to become more rebellious. Workers angered by "...the Bolsheviks [who had
gained] influence in the factory committees...[that] there was an emerging sense in the working
class that 'soviet power' meant that the workers should be sole masters in the district, the city,
and perhaps the country as a whole...this was closer to anarchism or anarcho-syndicalism than to
Bolshevism, and the Bolshevik leaders did not in fact share the view that direct workers’
democracy through factory committees and the soviets was a plausible or desirable alternative to
their own concept of party-led 'proletarian dictatorship."
4. Spread of Socialism
As the industrialization of Russia began to make great progress there arose a new
generation of industrial workers who had to work hard in the crowded towns under
circumstances which made their lives an intolerable burden. Naturally it was from this class that
the message of socialism met with a heavy response. In the 1890’s the teachings of Marx27 were
popularized and spread by radicals like the novelist Maxim Gorkey, and revolutionary socialism
made rapid progress among factory workers, winning over many of the intelligentsia, to its
cause. In 1895 was founded the Workmen’s Social Democratic Party with a programme similar
to that of the socialists in other countries. The peasantry now led by middle-class radicals,
emulated the example of the urban proletariat and in 1901 organized a Social Revolutionary
Party with a platform that included the confiscation of the large estates of the nobility and their
division into small individual holdings. The party believed in terrorism as a weapon, though they
kept it for the present in reserve. Thus was set on foot a revolutionary movement which aimed at
reconstructing the social and political systems of Russia on socialist principles. In 1903 there
was a split in the Social Democratic Party on the questions of party discipline and tactics, and its
radical section led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov popularly known as Lenin, seceded from the main
body. This section came to be known as Bolsheviks (men of majority) and the more moderate
wing of the party came to be known as Mensheviks (minority men). As a party the Bolsheviks
remained far inferior in numbers to the Mensheviks, although they had secured the majority on
the questions which caused their secession. Both believed in strikes and revolution, but the
Bolsheviks felt it was essential to win the support of peasants as well as industrial workers,
whereas the Mensheviks, doubting the value of peasant support, favored close co-operation with
the middle class; Lenin was strongly opposed to this. In 1912 appeared the new Bolshevik
newspaper Pravda (Truth), which was extremely important as a means of publicizing Bolshevik
ideas and giving political direction to the already developing strike wave.

27
Karl Marx wrote “Communist Manifesto” which is known as the ‘Bible of Russian Revolution’. In this book
Marx declared that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. He predicted that in the
ongoing struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the latter was bound to win, leading to the
establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat which in turn would finally give place to a classless society.
56
5. Demands for liberal reforms by the new middle classes
When the twentieth century opened the challenge to autocracy in Russia came more from
liberalism than socialism. The industrial revolution had created well-developed and energetic
middle class, and merchants, factory-owners and other businessmen joined hands with
intellectual liberals in demanding some system of representative government. The Zemstva28 also
became active and drew up a definite programme of reform demanding a freely elected national
assembly, a responsible ministry, equality of all citizens and freedom of the press, of religion and
of speech. But Tsar Nicholas II, who was under the influence of the reactionary minister Plehve,
turned a deaf ear to these demands. The Russian government failed to recognize that the people
had outgrown the necessity of an autocrat and that the old bottles would not contain the new
wine. Hence it continued to be oppressive and repressive quite unmindful of the gathering storm.
The stubbornness of the Tsar and his blindness to the potential strength of the new forces that
were surging around him, were among the important causes which produced the Russian
Revolution.
6. The Revolution of 1905
The Revolution of 1905 proved a dress rehearsal of the Revolution of 1917. The storm
that had been brewing burst forth in 1905 when the government stood discredited by its failure in
the Russo-Japanese War. The Russian army suffered heavy reverses in the war. This had further
strength the revolutionary movement in Russia. There were agitations and disturbances all over
the country. On 9th January 1905, a mass of peaceful workers with their wives and children was
fired at in St. Petersburg while on its way to the Winter Palace to present a petition to the Tsar.
More than a thousand of them were killed and thousand of others were wounded. This day is
known as Bloody Sunday. The news of the killings provoked unprecedented disturbances
throughout Russia. Even the sections of the army and navy revolted. A new form of organization
called the ‘Soviet’, or the council of worker’s representatives was developed in this revolution
which proved decisive in the upheaval of 1917. Soviet of peasants was also formed. The
Zemstvos demanded reforms, the workman struck work, and the peasantry plundered the
landlords. Unable to suppress the growing disorders the Tsar promised reforms and announced
the summoning of a Duma or national assembly29. But the experiment of reconciling
parliamentary government with autocracy ended in failure. Taking advantage of the divisions in
the rank of the opposition the Tsar reduced the Duma to a mere consultative body and was able
to secure the triumph of autocracy. By 1906, the revolutionary wave had spent its main force and
reaction was in full swing. The government under the influence of Stolypin continued the policy
of alternate (sometimes combined) repression and concession, and the hatred aroused by the
former more than undid any benefits from the latter.
7. The attempt to diminish the power of the Duma (Russian Parliament)
No sooner had the 1905 Revolution died out than Nicholas II thought of withdrawing the
liberal concessions from the people. Before the first Duma met, the government propagated the
constitution the Fundamental Laws. The Tsar was described as 'the supreme autocratic power' in
28
The reform of 1864 created district and provincial assemblies (Zemstva). The members of the district assemblies
were elected by the inhabitants of each rural district, peasants and nobles alike. Members of the district assemblies
then elected delegates of the provincial assemblies. This system of election tended to cut down the power of the
nobles and gave more political right to the non-noble classes.
29
This was a supposed ‘parliament’ that could only give advice to the Tsar and this was ignored – members who
opposed the Tsar were executed or imprisoned.
57
the constitution. He kept huge executive and legislative powers, including the control of the army
and foreign policy, the right to dissolve the Duma and to dismiss his ministers.
The Duma was to consist of the Upper and Lower Chambers. Half of the members of the
Upper Chamber were appointed by the Tsar. Although the Lower Chamber was elected by wide
male suffrage and secret voting, the elaborate system of indirect voting favored the wealthier
class. The voters first voted for the electors who then voted for those further electors who could
finally vote for the members of the Duma. This system of election favored the wealthier class
who had the freedom to take part in a series of elections. The wealthier class was usually
conservative in their political outlook and inclined to support the Tsar. Thus the autocratic power
of the Tsar was well-protected by the undemocratic provisions of the constitution.
The First Duma took place in May-July 1906. Even though indirect voting favoured the
wealthier and politically conservative classes30, the majority of the people elected to sit in the
First Duma were anti-government. The First Duma consisted of the members of the following
groups: the Constitutional Democrats or Cadets31, the Octobrists32, the national groups, the labor
group, the peasant members33, a few Social Democrats (The socialist parties boycotted the first
election because they had not forgotten the suppression of St. Petersburg and the Moscow
Soviets. But a few Social Democrats disobeyed the order of the Party and took part in the
elections.) The largest party was the Cadets. These political groups and parties demanded
ministerial responsibility and full control of all affairs of the state, including taxation. In other
words, they wanted a constitutional monarchy. The Tsar promptly dissolved the Duma. On the
whole the First Duma lasted for 73 days.
In the election of the Second Duma the Tsar intimidated many anti-government voters to
give up their candidature or their right to vote. But intimidation was useless. Many anti-
government candidates were elected to the Second Duma. Most threatening to the Tsar, 65 Social
Democrats were elected. The Social Democrats made demands to liberalize the Tsarist
government. As a result, the Second Duma met the same fate as the First Duma. Within 3 months
(March-June, 1907), it was again dissolved by the Tsar.
The Tsar was firm not to face a rebellious Duma again. He altered the franchise to
deprive many of the peasants and non-Russian nationalities of the vote and to give so many votes
to the wealthy landowners as to assure that 60 percent of the seats of the Duma were taken up by
them34. Because of the new franchise system, most of the men elected into the Duma were
government supporters.

30
The conservative classes comprised the landowners, rich merchants and pro-Tsarist supporters.
31
The Cadets comprised liberals who demanded the establishment of a parliament, with legislative power. Their
views were very much like those of the British liberals.
32
The Octobrists were the right-wing liberals. They were well-satisfied with the October Manifesto and would not
ask for more political rights.
33
The national groups represented the national minorities. The labour group and the peasant members represented
those peasants and workers who did not join the Social Revolutionary Party and the Social Democratic Party
34
According to the government decree of 1907, the Duma should be elected on a class basis by a number of
electoral colleges. The wealthier landowners were to choose 60 per cent of the electors, the peasants 22 per cent, the
merchants 15 per cent, and the working men 3 per cent.
58
 The Third Duma (1907-1912) and the Fourth Duma (1912-1917) served their period of
office of five years. They were dominated by the Octobrists and the Monarchists. The Cadets and
the handful of socialists occupied about one quarter of the seats in the Duma. As the Duma grew
conservative in its composition, the frustration among the Russian masses found little chance of
expression in the Duma. Many of the Russian people turned against Tsardom again.
Despite the promises of the October Manifesto that civil liberties would be granted to the
people, a policy of repression was adopted by Stolypin, Prime Minister from 1906 to 1911. He
was infamous for persecuting the Jews and ruthless treatment of rioters in the countryside. To
punish the Finnish nationalists, he deprived Finland of independence. Many Social Democrats,
including Lenin, were deported.
8. Discontent of the non-Russian National Minorities
The Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic Empire. Nearly half of the population of Russia
was made up of national minorities like Poles, Finns, Jews, Latvians and Lithuanians. If the
Russian government had wished it could have done everything to reconcile them to the Russian
state and play them off against potential rebellious central Great Russian group. But the Tsar’s
government did neither; it instead followed the policy of forceful ‘Russification’35 towards them.
The publication of newspapers and books in the languages of non-Russian nationalities was
completely forbidden. Instructions could not be imparted to students in the schools in their native
languages. Russian government intentionally promoted contempt and hatred for the non-
Russians. Russian population was made to look upon them as aliens and as inferior races. Most
of the highly placed government officials were Russians and the entire business in the numerous
organs of the administration was conducted in the Russian language. Russian officials spared no
effort in insulting, humiliating and oppressing the non-Russian nationalities. They had to suffer
untold miseries at the hands of Tsardom, which has rightly called as the ‘hangman and torturer of
the non-Russian peoples.’ As a result a high percentage of members of national minorities
participated in the revolution.
Freedom from national oppression in the Tsarist Empire coincided with the victory of the
socialist revolution. Apart from the disaffection felt by the peoples of the Baltic region, Central
Asia, Transcaucasia and other areas as a result of political and cultural bias, the economic
backwardness that Tsarist economic policies involved for these regions ensured that they
remained primarily agricultural with a strong stake in the land question. There surfaced strong
movements for national self-determination, demanding rights for their own languages, culture,
equal opportunities and even a separate political identity. The Bolsheviks supported land for the
peasant as well as the right to secession and a voluntary union. The peasantry in these areas
played a vital role in the victory of the socialist alternative to the Tsarist autocracy, completely
evading all liberal solutions to nationalist objectives.
9. Economic Crisis
The economic causes of the Russian Revolution were based mainly on the Tsar's mis-
management, compounded by World War I. More than fifteen million men joined the army,
which left an insufficient number of workers in the factories and on the farms. The result was
widespread shortages of food and materials. Factory workers had to bear terrible working
conditions, including twelve to fourteen hour days and low wages. Many riots and strikes for

35
It means suppression of the languages and literatures and cultures of other nationalities.
59
better conditions and higher wages broke out. Although some factories agreed to the requests for
higher wages, wartime inflation quashed the increase. Prices rose high because all kinds of goods
and food became scarce during the war. In general, the price rose by 500 - 700 per cent between
1914 and 1917. The scarcity of food and all kinds of goods were due to the following reasons: (i)
Russia was cut off from outside aid by the blockade of the Central Powers; (ii) the transport
system was poor; (iii) the devastation of the wheat-growing Ukraine early in the war; (iv) the
factories had to manufacture military goods to meet the needs of the unnaturally large army36.
Because of the exorbitant prices of bread, many Russian people were hungry. Hunger led to
waves of strikes of workers who cried out not only economic demands but also political
demands: "Down with the Tsar".
There was one protest to which Nicholas II responded with violence in response,
industrial workers went on strike and effectively paralyzed the railway and transportation
networks. What few supplies were available could not be effectively transported. As goods
became more and more scarce, prices skyrocketed. By 1917, famine threatened many of the
larger cities. Nicholas's failure to solve his country's economic suffering and communism's
promise to do just that comprised the core of the revolution.
10. The Impact of the First World War
The outbreak of war in August 1914 initially served to quiet the prevalent social and
political protests, focusing hostilities against a common external enemy, but this patriotic unity
did not last for very long. As the war dragged on inconclusively, war-weariness gradually took
its toll. More important, though, was this deeper fragility: although many ordinary Russians
joined anti-German demonstrations in the first few weeks of the war, the most popular reaction
appears to have been skepticism and fatalism. Hostility toward the Germany and the desire to
defend their land and their lives did not necessarily translate into enthusiasm for the Tsar or the
government.
Russia's first major battle of the war was a disaster: in the 1914 Battle of Tannenberg,
over 120,000 Russian troops were killed, wounded or captured, while Germany suffered just
20,000 casualties. In the autumn of 1915, Nicholas II had taken direct command of the army,
personally overseeing Russia's main theatre of war and leaving his ambitious but incapable wife
Alexandra in charge of the government. Reports of corruption and incompetence in the Imperial
government began to emerge, and the growing influence of Gregori Rasputin in the Imperial
family was widely resented. In 1915, things took a critical turn for the worse when Germany
shifted its focus of attack to the Eastern front. The superior German army which was better led,
trained and supplied was terrifyingly effective against the ill-equipped Russian forces, and, by
the end of October 1916, Russia had lost between 1,600,000 and 1,800,000 soldiers, with an
additional 2,000,000 prisoners of war and 1,000,000 missing, all making up a total of nearly
5,000,000 men. These staggering losses played a definite role in the mutinies which began to
occur and, in 1916, reports of fraternizing with the enemy started to circulate. Soldiers went
hungry, and they lacked shoes, munitions, and even weapons. Widespread discontent lowered
morale, only to be further undermined by a series of military defeats.

36
Because Russia was industrially backward, she found it necessary to recruit a large army to fight against Germany
so that her superiority in numbers could compensate her deficiency in equipment. By 1917 about fifteen million
were recruited 37% of the male population of working age. This led to labor shortage and less production in
factories.
60
 Casualty rates were the most vivid sign of this disaster. Already, by the end of 1914, only
five months into the war, nearly 400,000 Russian men had lost their lives and nearly 1,000,000
were injured. Far sooner than expected, scarcely-trained recruits had to be called up for active
duty, a process repeated throughout the war as staggering losses continued to mount. The officer
class also saw remarkable turnover, especially within the lower echelons, which were quickly
filled with soldiers rising up through the ranks. These men, usually of peasant or worker
backgrounds, were to play a large role in the politicization of the troops in 1917.
The huge losses on the battlefields were not limited to men, however. The army quickly
ran short of rifles and ammunition (as well as uniforms and food), and, by mid-1915, men were
being sent to the front bearing no arms; it was hoped that they could equip themselves with the
arms that they recovered from fallen soldiers, of both sides, on the battlefields. With patently
good reason, the soldiers did not feel that they were being treated as human beings, or even as
valuable soldiers, but, rather, as raw materials to be squandered for the purposes of the rich and
powerful. By the spring of 1915, the army was in steady retreat -- and it was not always orderly:
desertion, plunder and chaotic flight were not uncommon. By 1916, however, the situation had
improved in many respects. Russian troops stopped retreating, and there were even some modest
successes in the offensives that were staged that year, albeit at great loss of life. Also, the
problem of shortages was largely solved by a major effort to increase domestic production.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1916, morale among soldiers was even worse than it had been during
the great retreat of 1915. The fortunes of war may have improved, but the fact of the war, still
draining away strength and lives from the country and its many individuals and families,
remained an oppressive unavoidability. The crisis in morale (as was argued by Allan Wildman, a
leading historian of the Russian army in war and revolution) "was rooted fundamentally in the
feeling of utter despair that the slaughter would ever end and that anything resembling victory
could be achieved."
The war was devastating, of course, and not only to soldiers. By the end of 1915, there
were many signs that the economy was breaking down under the heightened strain of wartime
demand. The main problems were food shortages and rising prices. Inflation propelled real
incomes down at an alarmingly rapid rate, and shortages made it difficult to buy even what one
could afford. These shortages were especially a problem in the capital, Petrograd37, where
distance from supplies and poor transportation networks made matters particularly bad. Shops
closed early or entirely for lack of bread, sugar, meat and other provisions, and lines lengthened
massively for what remained. It became increasingly difficult both to afford and actually buy
food. Not surprisingly, strikes increased steadily from the middle of 1915, and so did crime; but,
for the most part, people suffered and endured -- scourging the city for food -- working-class
women in Petrograd reportedly spent about forty hours a week in food lines --, begging, turning
to prostitution or crime, tearing down wooden fences to keep stoves heated for warmth,
complaining about the rich, and wondering when and how this would all come to an end. With
good reason, the government officials responsible for public order worried about how long the
people's patience would last. A report by the Petrograd branch of the security police, the
Okhrana, in October 1916, warned quite bluntly of "the possibility in the near future of riots by
the lower classes of the empire enraged by the burdens of daily existence.”
Nicholas II was blamed for all of these crises, and what little support he had left began to
crumble. As discontent grew, the State Duma issued a warning to Nicholas in November 1916. It
stated that, inevitably, a terrible disaster would grip the country unless a constitutional form of

37
Formerly the City of St. Petersburg
61
government was put in place. In typical fashion, however, Nicholas ignored them, and Russia's
Tsarist regime collapsed a few months later during the February Revolution of 1917. One year
later, the Tsar and his entire family were executed. Ultimately, Nicholas's inept handling of his
country and the War destroyed the Tsars and ended up costing him both his rule and life.
Conclusion
In conclusion we can say that there were many reasons for a revolution in Russia. Some
were political, others were social and economic, but they all had something in common - they all
helped to dethrone Tsar Nicholas II. Russia in the early 20th century covered a huge area that
was a large proportion of the Asian continent and one very powerful man, the Tsar Nicholas II,
ruled it all. Most of the country was living in poverty in overcrowded areas, working with the
same system as in medieval times, and being paid very little. There were only two industrial
cities, Petrograd and Moscow, with the rest of it countryside slums. Nicholas had a tough time
ruling over this huge country, nearly 8000km across with tens of millions of people, which
stretched from Poland nearly to Alaska. We can be sympathetic towards him because of the size
of his empire but some of his problems were his own fault. He was a strict autocrat - giving the
people no power or control over their lives. His decision to go to the war in 1914 proved
disastrous for the imperial regime. According to Richard Pipes “Had it not been World War 1,
the Russian Imperial government might have muddled through and in time yielded to some kind
of parliamentary regime. ”

Suggested Readings
1. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1994
2. Orlando Figes, A People’s tragedy: the Russian Revolution 1891-1924, London, 1996.
3. Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution 1899-1919, London, 1990.
4. J.L.H.Keep, The Russian Revolution a Study in Mass Mobilization, London 1976.
5. John Merriman, History of Modern Europe, From French Revolution to the Present, Vol.II,
1996.
6. Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern World History(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).
7. Clive Emsley, Conflict and Stability in Europe, Routledge, 1979
8. IGNOU Study Material, EHI-01 & EHI-07.

62
 Lesson 2

COURSE OF RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AND ITS IMPACT ON

RUSSIA AND WORLD
Dr.Naveen Vashishta
Stages of Russian Revolution
A. The First Stage – The Fall of Tsardom
On March 8, 1917, the first street disturbances broke out in Petrograd. It was sparked off
by the shortage of bread. After a few days came the demand; ‘Down with the Autocracy’. There
were red flags all over the city. Soon it spread to other cities and also to the countryside. The
Tsar ordered his troops to suppress the strikers. The troops at first fired on the strikers but then
refused to do so and fraternized instead. When the Petrograd troops turned to the side of these
hungry strikers on March 10, it meant that the army which had been used to preserve the
autocratic monarchy would not protect the Tsar. On March 12, the Tsar ordered the Fourth Duma
to suspend its sessions. The Duma refused to obey the orders. Since both the upper and lower
classes did not accept the rule of the Tsar, his rule was over.
The top generals of the army informed the Nicholas II that the well-being of the nation
and the successful pursuit of war required his abdication so in order to pacify the discontent of
his people he renounced the throne in favour of his brother Grand Duke Mikhail Aleksandrovich
(1878–1918). The latter, however, decided against accepting the crown saying that he would do
so only at the request of a future constituent assembly. The provisional government, except for
the addition of the socialist leader Kerensky, was made up of the same liberal leaders who had
organized the progressive bloc in the Duma in 1915. The prime minister, Prince Lvov, was a
wealthy landowner and a member of the Constitutional Democratic (or Cadet) party, which
favored an immediate constitutional monarchy and ultimately a republic. Lvov was largely a
figurehead; the outstanding personality in the government was Milyukov (1859–1943), minister
of foreign affairs and strongest leader of the Cadet party since its founding in 1905. He played
the principal role in formulating policy. Kerensky, the minister of justice, who had been leader of
the Trudovik (“laborite”) faction in the Duma, was the only representative of moderate socialist
opinion in the provisional government. But his brother knew that there was widespread hatred of
Tsardom. Thus on March 16, 1917, the Romanov dynasty came to an end and Russia lost the
pivot around which its political life revolved for three centuries (1613-1917).
The March Revolution was a spontaneous revolution set off by the lower classes. It came
as a result of their deep-seated hatred of the Tsars who deprived them of political freedom, and
brought them severe economic sufferings and military defeats. The First World War brought the
dissatisfaction of the Russians to a head. The Russian masses made the revolution impulsively
without any leadership from the revolutionary parties.

63
B. The Second Stage – Dual Power (dvoevlastie)
(1) Two Parallel Developments
On March 12, a group of Duma deputies, rejecting the Tsar's order to dissolve,
constituted a Provisional Government and assumed the interim responsibility for public order.
On March 11, the hungry strikers and the Petrograd troops had set up the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Workers and soldiers in other places followed their example
and also set up soviets to take over functions of local governments. These soviets were popularly
elected by the masses and so enjoyed more popular support than the Provisional Government
which represented the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landlords. This situation was one of
‘dual power’.
The Provisional Government, formed under the premiership of Prince Lvov, was
recognized as the legal authority by both the foreign governments and the soviets in Russia. The
foreign governments recognized the Provisional Government because it advocated those
democratic principles close to British and American democracy. The soviets accepted the
legality of the Provisional Government on condition that it did not go against the aims of the
soviets. A curious situation arose: the Provisional Government ruled the country with full
support only of the middle classes; the soviets got the majority support from the people but did
not want to rule the country. Thus, the rule of the Provisional Government had to depend upon
the conditional support of the soviets.
(2) The Attempts of the Provisional Government to Preserve Its Own Power
The Provisional Government tried to strengthen its authority by various means but all of
her efforts gave more chances for the political opponents to attack it.
(i) The granting of political freedom- Many of the members of the Provisional Government
were middle-class liberals. They believed in political democracy. Thus the Provisional
Government granted an official pardon to political prisoners, cancelled the discriminatory
legislation, introduced the eight-hour day, legalized strikes, and granted freedom of the press,
speech and assembly. The ethnic minorities received autonomy. The political prisoners were
allowed to return to Russia. Thus the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks had full freedom to attack the
Provisional Government as soon as they returned from their exiles.
(ii) Compromise with the Soviets-The Petrograd Soviet declared that it would support the
Provisional Government if it approved the latter's action. On March 14, the Soviet issued the
Army Order No. 1. According to this order, the soldiers should send their representatives to the
Petrograd Soviet should elect their own committees to run their military units and should take
orders only from the Petrograd Soviet. In short, the Provisional Government had to share her
control of the Russian army with the Petrograd Soviet. Since the Petrograd Soviet did not
encourage the army to fight and so there was a further decline in the fighting spirit of the army.
(iii) The continuation of the war-The Provisional Government decided to continue the war.
They still thought that if they could win the war, they could gain the support of the Russian
people. Moreover, they hoped to honor their international obligations with the Allied countries--
Britain and France, for example, the Anglo-Russian Entente and the French-Russian Alliance. .
Besides all these, the Provisional Government hoped to get Constantinople. Thus the Provisional
Government fought many battles in May and June, although the Russian army was unwilling to
fight.

64
 In July, the Russian forces were mobilized for a 'July offensive in Galacia'. Russian
forces suffered heavy losses. People at the front and behind the front turned to the Bolsheviks
because they demanded the immediate ending of the war.
(iv) The calling of the Constituent Assembly-Soon after the March Revolution, the Provisional
Government promised to call a Constituent Assembly to be elected by universal manhood
suffrage. The general public hoped that the election for the Constituent Assembly would be held
as soon as possible.
The peasants expected that once the Constituent Assembly was called, it would legalize
the confiscation and distribution of the landlords' estates. To the great disappointment of the
Russian people, the Provisional Government hesitated to call the Constituent Assembly due to
the turmoil within the country. Meanwhile the prices of food and other daily necessities
continued to rise, this turned many Russians against the Provisional Government.
To sum up, the Provisional Government which had support from the upper and middle
classes could only prolong its rule by getting the support from the masses. The continuation of
the war and the failure to tackle with the economic questions of the day alienated the masses
from the Provisional Government. Under this situation, any political party professing to satisfy
these needs of the masses would be welcomed and could easily seize political power. The
Bolsheviks led by Lenin seized this opportunity.
C. The Third Stage – Lenin’s return (April 1917) and internal split within the Provisional
Government (August 1917)
(1) Lenin's Return- When the March Revolution broke out, the prominent leaders of the
Bolshevik Party were in exile. In April, Lenin returned to Russia with the help of the German
government because the latter thought that they could make use of Lenin's anti-war propaganda
to weaken the Provisional Government's will and ability to fight38. As expected, Lenin
immediately launched his antiwar attack on the Government upon his arrival at Finland Station
in Russia. He demanded the Provisional Government to give 'All power to the Soviets'39. He
convinced his Bolshevik supporters that the seizure of power by the soviets would be the signal
for a European-wide socialist revolution. To prepare for the seizure of power, his Bolshevik
supporters set out to win support from the masses in the soviets. Up to June, their efforts were
not very successful. When the First All Russian Congress of Soviets met in the capital, the Social
Revolutionaries (285 deputies) and the Mensheviks (245 deputies) still dominated the soviets40.
The Bolsheviks had 105 deputies in the Congress.
From June onwards the situation began to change. A number of moderate Socialists took
part in the Provisional Government. Kerensky, a leading member of the Social Revolutionary

38
Being a socialist, Lenin adopted an antiwar policy during the First World War. He advocated that the First World
War was a fight among the capitalistic government for influence and power. The workers should not assist them. As
a proponent of withdrawing Russia from the Great War, the Germans were willing to facilitate Lenin's passage back
via a 'sealed train'.

39
Other demands of Lenin included the speedy conclusion of the war without annexation, the renunciation of all
secret diplomatic agreements, the control of factories by workers and the immediate seizure of land by peasants.)
40
Soon after the Revolution, the soviets of the masses came under the control of the Social Revolutionaries,
Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.
65
Party, even became the Prime Minister of the government. He was responsible for continuing to
send the poorly-equipped troops into battle and inviting the Mensheviks to take part in the
administration. Thus the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks were discredited in the eyes
of the Russian people as they were identified with the unpopular Provisional Government.
Although the Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks represented the interests of the people
but they failed to realize that the time was ripe for the socialist revolution i.e. the second stage of
the revolution. They did not see that the bourgeoisie was already in opposition to a further
progress of the revolution. Only the Bolsheviks realized all this. They were the only political
party to give voice to the aspirations of the people and put forward the demand of the time. The
popularity of the Bolshevik Party rose as a result of its antiwar policy. They demanded land for
the peasants; workers control over industries; the right of nations to self-determination; and
above all bread. ‘Peace! Land! Bread! Democracy!’ became the popular slogans. Thus the
Bolsheviks had a popular base.
(2) Lenin's setback- The Bolsheviks were soon involved in a spontaneous rising of the workers
in July. Kerensky immediately seized this opportunity to suppress the Bolshevik Party. Lenin
escaped to Finland and Trotsky was imprisoned41. The Bolshevik newspaper, Pravda, was
suppressed. The growing influence of the Bolsheviks came to a halt for a short while, but soon
the Bolsheviks had their chance to seize power again.The Bolsheviks quickly revived their
influence when the Provisional Government had to make use of the military support of the
Bolshevik workers in Petrograd to defeat a coup d'etat by a right-wing politician named Kornilov
in August42.
D. The Fourth Stage-The November Revolution (September-November 1917)
Kornilov's coup, combined with more battle defeats by the Germans and the failure of the
government to solve the economic problems of the workers and peasants, produced a decisive
swing of opinion in Petrograd towards the Bolsheviks. In September, the Bolsheviks, for the first
time, won a majority in both the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. Trotsky, released from prison,
was elected as the President of the Petrograd Soviet. Seeing that the prestige of the Provisional
Government was at its lowest ebb, Lenin made the decision to seize power on October 20. A
'Military Revolutionary Committee' was set up for the coup d'etat.
On November 6, under the direction of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the Red
Guards and the regular troops occupied the key points in Petrograd. (The regular troops in
Petrograd and Moscow were won over because of the propaganda against the war policy of Lvov
and Kerensky.) The Provisional Government, like the Tsarist government before them, offered
almost no resistance. Kerensky escaped from Russia and power passed to the soviets.
On November 7, in the evening, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets met in
Petrograd and approved by a two-thirds of the coup. (Lenin had manipulated the Congress in
such a way as to dominate it.) The Congress elected the Council of People's Commissars as the

41
Trotsky was a Marxist and for a long time worked as an independent revolutionary in Russia. Before 1914 he had
attempted to bring about great cooperation between the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks, but he failed. In 1917, after
the March Revolution, he returned from exile in America. In July, he decided to join the Bolsheviks.
42
The right-wing politicians believed that a left-wing revolution was imminent. So Kornilov decided to move his
troops towards Petrograd. He wanted to set up a military dictatorship to forestall a left-wing revolution.

66
executive body of the Soviets. Lenin was the Chairman of the Commissars, Trotsky was the
Commissar for Foreign Affairs and Stalin was the Commissar for Nationalities43.
Summary of the 1917 Revolutions
The two revolutions in 1917 were of different character. The first was a spontaneous
revolution made by the masses. They hated the reactionary monarchy for its suppression of
personal liberty and its general backwardness. The Provisional Government, soon set up,
consisted chiefly of liberal bourgeoisie44. They wanted to create a democratic republic similar to
that of the United States and France. They wanted to give to the Russians those political liberties
and civil liberties as enjoyed by the Western countries. They regarded Russia as an ally of the
western democratic nations and deemed it necessary to continue the war against Germany. But
the middle class had neglected the land hunger and war-weariness of the masses.
The masses gradually turned to the Bolsheviks. The peasants welcomed the Bolsheviks'
slogan 'peace, land and bread'. The workers welcomed the Bolsheviks slogan 'All power to the
Soviets'. Popularity of the Bolsheviks increased when there was rapid inflation at home and more
military defeats at the front. The number of party members increased tenfold between January
and August 191745. When the Provisional Government was digging its own grave by an internal
split in August, Lenin made use of his well-organized and highly disciplined party to seize power
at once46. Lenin's coup d'etat was a planned revolution and his intention was to set up a socialist
society in Russia. This was how the first communist government set up in the world.

43
Stalin arrived from Siberia after the March Revolution and took a leading role in carrying out the coup d'etat.
44
The Social Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks joined the Provisional Government only after July 1917.
45
The Bolsheviks had 200,000 members in August.
46
The other socialist parties (the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries) had a wrong belief that their historical
hours had not yet arrived. They allowed the bourgeois government to stay in power. They still thought a socialist
revolution would only take place after a period of bourgeois rule.
67
Brief Chronology Leading to Revolution of 191747
Date(s) Event(s)
1855 Start of reign of Tsar Alexander II.
1861 Emancipation of the serfs.
1874–81 Growing anti-government terrorist movement and government reaction.
1881 Alexander II assassinated by revolutionaries; succeeded by Alexander III.
1883 First Russian Marxist group formed.
1894 Start of reign of Nicholas II.
1898 First Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
1900 Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR).
1903 Second Congress of Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Beginning of split between
Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.
1904–5 Russo-Japanese War; Russia loses war.
1905 Russian Revolution of 1905.
January: Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg.
June: Battleship Potemkin uprising at Odessa on the Black Sea
October: general strike, St. Petersburg Soviet formed; October Manifesto: Imperial agreement on
elections to the State Duma.
1906 First State Duma. Prime Minister: Peter Stolypin. Agrarian reforms begin.
1907 Second State Duma, February–June.
1907 Third State Duma, until 1912.
1911 Stolypin assassinated.
1912 Fourth State Duma, until 1917. Bolshevik/Menshevik split final.
1914 Germany declares war on Russia.
1915 Serious defeats, Nicholas II declares himself Commander in Chief. Progressive Bloc
formed.
1916 Food and fuel shortages and high prices.
1917 Strikes, mutinies, street demonstrations lead to the fall of autocracy.

47
Dates are correct for the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia until 1918. It was twelve days behind the
Gregorian calendar during the 19th century and thirteen days behind it during the 20th century.

68
Expanded chronology of Revolution of 1917

Gregorian Date Julian Date Event

January Strikes and unrest in Petrograd

February February Revolution

March 8th February 23rd International Women's Day: Strikes and demonstrations in
Petrograd, growing over the next few days.

March 11th February 26th 50 demonstrators killed in Znamenskaya Square. Tsar

Nicholas II prorogue the State Duma and orders
commander of Petrograd military district to suppress
disorders with force.

March 12th February 27th Troops refuse to fire on demonstrators, desertions. Prison,
courts, and police stations attacked and looted by angry
crowds.
Okhranka buildings set on fire. Garrison joins
revolutionaries.
Petrograd Soviet formed.
Formation of Provisional Committee of the Duma by
liberals from Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets).

March 14th March 1st Order No.1 of the Petrograd Soviet

March 15th March 2nd Nicholas II abdicates. Provisional Government formed

under Prime Minister Prince Lvov.

April 16th April 3rd Return of Lenin to Russia. He publishes his April Thesis

May 3rd–4th April 20th–21st "April Days": mass demonstrations by workers, soldiers,
and others in the streets of Petrograd and Moscow
triggered by the publication of the Foreign Minister
Miliukov's note to the allies, which was interpreted as
affirming commitment to the war policies of the old
government. First Provisional Government falls

May 18th May 5th First Coalition Government forms when socialists,
representatives of the Soviet leadership, agree to enter the
cabinet of the Provisional Government. Kerensky, the
only socialist already in the government, made minister of
war and navy.

69
June 16th June 3rd First All-Russian Congress of Workers' and Soldiers'
Deputies opens in Petrograd. Closed on 24th. Elects
Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK), headed
by Mensheviks and SRs.

June 23rd June 10th Planned Bolshevik demonstration in Petrograd banned by

the Soviet.

June 29th June 16th Kerensky orders offensive against Austro-Hungarian

forces. Initial success only.

July 1st June 18th Official Soviet demonstration in Petrograd for unity is
unexpectedly dominated by Bolshevik slogans: "Down
with the Ten Capitalist Ministers", "All Power to the
Soviets".

July 15th July 2nd Russian offensive ends. Trotsky joins Bolsheviks.

July 16th–17th July 3rd–4th The "July Days"; mass armed demonstrations in
Petrograd, encouraged by the Bolsheviks, demanding "All
Power to the Soviets".

July 19th July 6th German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attack. Russians

retreat in panic, sacking the town of Tarnopol. Arrest of
Bolshevik leaders ordered.

July 20th July 7th Lvov resigns and asks Kerensky to become Prime
Minister and form a new government. Established July
25th.

August 4th July 22nd Trotsky and Lunacharskii arrested

September 8th August 26th Second coalition government ends

September8th–12th August 26th– "Kornilov mutiny". Begins when the commander-in-chief

30th of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov, demands (or
is believed by Kerensky to demand) that the government
give him all civil and military authority and moves troops
against Petrograd.

September 13th August 31st Majority of deputies of the Petrograd Soviet approve a
Bolshevik resolution for an all-socialist government
excluding the bourgeoisie.
70
September 14th September 1st Russia declared a republic

September 17th September 4th Trotsky and others freed.

September 18th September 5th Bolshevik resolution on the government wins majority
vote in Moscow Soviet.

October 2nd September Moscow Soviet elects executive committee and new
19th presidium, with Bolshevik majorities, and the Bolshevik
Viktor Nogin as chairman.

October 8th September Third coalition government formed. Bolshevik majority in

25th Petrograd Soviet elects Bolshevik Presidium and Trotsky
as chairman.

October 23rd October 10th Bolshevik Central Committee meeting approves armed
uprising.

October 24th October 11th Congress of Soviets of the Northern Region, until October
13th.

November 2nd October 20th First meeting of the Military Revolutionary

Committee(MRC) of the Petrograd Soviet.

November 7th October 25th October Revolution is launched as MRC directs armed
workers and soldiers to capture key buildings in
Petrograd. Winter Palace attacked at 9:40pm and captured
at 2am. Kerensky flees Petrograd. Opening of the 2nd All-
Russian Congress of Soviets.

November 8th October 26th Second Congress of Soviets: Mensheviks and right SR
delegates walk out in protest against the previous day's
events. Congress approves transfer of state authority into
its own hands and local power into the hands of local
soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies,
abolishes capital punishment, issues Decree on Peace and
Decree on Land, and approves the formation of an all-
Bolshevik government, the Council of People's
Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as chairman.

Impact of the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth
century. The revolution and its consequences remains a living topic, attitudes towards it being
woven into the fabric of liberal capitalist self-justification and into socialist ideas of all varieties,
not least the shrill polemics of radical groups which trace their lineage back to one form of

71
Bolshevism or another. It has very much been a case of ‘tell me what you think of the Russian
revolution and I’ll tell you who you are.’48 The revolution that Lenin led marked one of the most
radical turning points in Russia’s history: it affected economics, social and political structure,
international relations, and most any other benchmark by which one might measure a revolution.
Although the new government would prove to be at least as repressive as the one it replaced, the
country’s new rulers were drawn largely from the intellectual and working classes rather than
from the aristocracy—which meant a considerable change in direction for Russia.
Economic Impact
The Russian Revolution radically altered Russia’s economic structure. It meant an end of
private property, and the change to ownership of all property by the state. It also established the
control of workers over industries. There was an introduction of centralised economy keeping in
mind the needs of the whole country, especially the working people. Through a centralised
economy they sought to guarantee a much faster pace of economic development and the fruits of
that development to a vast majority of the people. Through it they sought to prevent an anarchy
in production, and also avoid wastage. The First Five Year Plan, however was introduced much
later but planning was an important contribution of Russian Revolution to the world. The Decree
of Land envisaged the immediate abolition of landed estates(including crown, monastery, and
churchn lands) and their transfer to the peasantry for hereditary use. Small private farms however
still existed there.
Social Impact
The Russian Revolution also destroyed the roots of social inequality. It laid the
foundations of a classless society. The new social set-up was formed on the basis of equality,
justice and Communism. “Everyone according to his ability and everyone according to his work”
was the principle that was followed now. It narrowed the gap between the salaries of the workers
and the owners of the factories. A step of tremendous significance was the publication of the
Declaration of the Rights of the People of Russia by the constitution. These included, among
others, the right to self-determination, an eight-hour working day, and insurance against
unemployment. It also guaranteed certain social benefits to all citizens, such as free medical care,
free and equal education for all, equal access to culture and cultural advancement. All this was
gradually made available to the people as production and infrastructure for these provisions were
being simultaneously created.
The roles of Russian women have changed drastically because of the revolution. The
women were given more freedom and therefore were successful in achieving independence
followed by a higher standing in society. Before the 1917 revolution, women were treated to be
beneath men in almost every aspect in life. However, due to active women’s right movements,
and more opportunities the war gave them, women were finally able to declare their
independence and be appreciated as individuals. The Bolsheviks came to power with the idea of
liberation of women and transformation of the family. They were able to equalize women’s legal
status with men’s by reforming certain laws such as the Code on Marriage, the Family, and
Guardianship ratified in October 1918 which allows both spouses were to retain the right to their
own property and earnings, grant children born outside wedlock the same rights as those born
within, and made divorce available upon request. Equality for women was also envisaged in the
constitution. There was a provision for six-month maternity leave, crèches and public canteens at

48
Dr. Christopher Read, Review Article, Writing the History of the Russian Revolution
72
places of work. All this was aimed at making possible greater participation of women in public
life. These measures had a great impact on capitalist societies. In order to meet the challenges of
the socialist society, they were also forced to grant certain welfare schemes. In fact the concept
of a welfare state in the west was a direct response to the Russian Revolution.
The Revolution also separated religion from politics. Religion was made a purely private
affair. No religious education was imparted in the educational institutions and no public utility
was given in the name of religion.
Political Impact
The Russian Revolution resulted in the establishment of a state of the working people
embodied in the notion of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. It was recognized that the opponents
of the revolution could still harm the interests of the people. The Russian Revolution was infact
immediately followed by the intervention of many other countries on the side of Russian nobility
and bourgeoisie against the revolution and workers of Russia. Therefore, it was essential, for
sometime, to have a political system dominated by the working class.
But this state was much more democratic than the states of bourgeois countries because it
guaranteed the rule of the majority (i.e. workers) over a minority which held civil liberties in the
pre-revolutionary Russia. Thus bourgeois democracy was thus to be transformed into socialist
democracy.
Impact of the Revolution on World
The Bolshevik revolution was by no means a specifically "Russian" phenomenon. As
Lenin was later to put it, Bolshevism had become "World Bolshevism" by virtue of its
revolutionary tactics, theory and program. By indicating the "right road of escape from the
horrors of war and imperialism…Bolshevism can serve as a model of tactics for all." The
"proletariat, the soldiers and peasants lined up against the bourgeoisie." This was the essence of
the Russian Revolution. October was not a coup conducted by a secretive and elitist band. Above
all, the revolution was about the mobilization of the mass of ordinary Russians—workers,
soldiers and peasants—in a struggle to change their world. That is to this day the most important
legacy of the Russian revolution. The greatest historian of the revolution, and one of its most
important participants, Leon Trotsky, described the significance of revolution: “The most
indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events. In
ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and
history is made by specialists in that line of business—kings, ministers, bureaucrats,
parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no
longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political
arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the
initial groundwork for a new regime. Whether this is good or bad we leave to the judgment of
moralists. We ourselves will take the facts as they are given by the objective course of
development. The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of
the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.” Passivity gave way to self
activity. As historian Marc Ferro put it, "the citizens of the new Russia, having overthrown
Tsardom, were in a state of permanent mobilization." "All Russia," wrote Sukhanov, "was
constantly demonstrating in those days."
The Russian Revolution represented an important landmark in international relations. The
Bolsheviks abolished all the old secret treaties signed by the autocracy and the Provisional
Government with different countries. It was increasingly being felt that the people should have
73
the right to know what their rulers are doing and the people of any country should have the right
to influence the foreign policy of their country through debate and intervention.
The Revolution marked the beginning of the decline of imperialism and the rise of
socialism. As the first successful socialist revolution the Russian Revolution was bound to have
repercussions for the future. The world as a whole was sure to feel the onset of the completely
new type of social and economic system. The Communist International or Comintern, organized
on the lines of First and Second International, was the means of promoting revolutions on an
international scale. The revolution ended the domination and exploitation of the peasants by the
landlords. It made possible to uplift the material and cultural standards of life of the working
people. It helped to destroy the old exploitative and oppressive state machine dominated by the
minority of capitalists and landlords and replaced it by a new type of state-dictatorship of the
proletariat. Lenin and Trotsky said that the goal of socialism in Russia would not be realized
without the success of the world proletariat in other countries, e.g. without German Revolution.
The Bolsheviks recognized the right to self-determination including the right to succession of all
the oppressed nationalities inhabiting the boundaries of the Tsarist Empire and made them equal
partners in socialist construction and overcoming social and economic backwardness
The Russian Revolution inspired all over the world, the struggles of the colonial people
and nations for independence from the Western imperialist countries. The Indian National
Movement, for example, was profoundly affected by the November Revolution. It gathered
momentum and a certain direction from the Russian Revolution. The revolution acted as a
catalytic agent who transformed the national movements all over the world to assume a definite
shape and thus facilitated the early shattering of the stranglehold of the Western imperial power
over Asia and Africa, the two continents, where their imperial supremacy was most widespread
and most oppressive. By rendering active material and political assistance in anti-imperialist
struggles, the revolution had greatly contributed in bringing the downfall of imperialism.
Conclusion
In conclusion we can say that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was a movement that
endorsed equality, though more economically than politically. This revolution was in part a
ripple caused by the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization sharply divided society into the
owners and the workers, with the latter comprising the majority of the population. This division
influenced Marx's principles of socialism, which in turn inspired the Russian Revolution. In its
effort to reject economic despotism, the revolution set hopes of equality for all those in the world
who felt disempowered by capitalism. Today, the Western economy remains heavily capitalist;
the fundamental ideas of the Russian Revolution are still followed by those who believe that a
redistribution of economic power is necessary for the well-being of the working people. The
1917 Russian revolution was powerful in spreading socialist ideas and astonishing in its scope of
immediate impact, but ultimately it was a failed attempt at a political and economic reform. The
socialist ideals could not be achieved in practice and the communist Soviet government was
dissolved in less than a century. Furthermore, in spite of the reactionary wave created by the
1917 revolution that extended until 1923, no other Marxist movement was successful in
achieving or keeping real power.

74
 UNIT 4
LESSON 1
THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS, 1929-34

--Prabhat Kumar
School of Open Learning
University of Delhi

Profound questions are sometimes very simply and innocently put. When Queen
Elizabeth of England recently met a group of bankers and economists she asked them in the
context of the current global economic crisis that if there was such a huge problem round the
corner how could they not foresee it. This sense of bewilderment is as much true for the present
crises as for the one that engulfed the world economy in 1929, though a few years preceding
1929 were indeed marked by a certain sense of anxiety and some desperate, albeit not very
profound and wise, measures taken by some countries to arrest the fall.

Many parallels exist between what we are seeing now and what happened in 1929. In a
way, the crisis of 1929 was the crisis of the modern world. A great living economist at the time,
J.M. Keynes, remarked, ‘We are today in the middle of the greatest economic catastrophe - the
greatest catastrophe due almost entirely to economic causes – of the modern world.

The epicenter of the problem in 1929, as the one happening eight decades later, was the
United States of America. The crisis was signaled by the Wall Street Crash on 24 October, 1929.
Buyers’s loss of confidence in the stock market first showed up in September, 1929, which was
reflected in the slowing down of the purchase of shares. It soon reached a panick proportion with
fear gripping the shareholders that not only could the share markets not to be further milked but
that they might eventually crash washing away all profits. The panick was not merely confined to
the stock market but rapidly spread elsewhere. First if affected the banks from where people
were forced to withdraw their savings in the time of dire financial straits. Consequently, many
banks were forced to close down. Further, in the absence of buyers the factories churning out
prosperity in the previous decade had to put brakes on production. Factories, therefore, had to be
wound up and unemployment stared in the face. People with a deeper economic insight soon
realised that the boom that they had hoped to last forever was not to be. The faith in the future
wavered and the investors rushed to the share market to heave off their shares. What began as a
trickle soon swelled into a huge wave reaching a nervous peak on 24 October, 1929, also
remembered as Black Thursday, when nearly 13 million shares were disposed off at a very low
price very soon they were valued at about 25 percent of their boom level. The slide further
continued.

This primarily American economic disaster was contagious enough to affect the whole
world very soon. The world economies were now too closely linked not to be affected by the
financial indiscretion of the major economy of the world. Through the nineteenth century of
system of financial interdependence had developed by the growing volume of international trade
for the purchase of raw materials and for the selling of manufactured goods and for capital
investment. This interdependence was briefly affected during the First World War but soon
bounced back into place once the war was over. A network, therefore, existed through which
problems could as easily spread as prosperity.
 The world economies were also marked by a differentiation of sorts. Though a large part
of industrial production in European countries centered on coal, ship building and steel, the
United States of America specialized more in the production of consumer goods. It did
remarkably well in the motor vehicle industry. This economic imbalance in production affected
the volume of foreign trade which came to be dominated by American goods while the share of
European countries declined. Technological innovations in the field of agriculture increased
production and reduced prices. As a result people had less money now to buy manufactured
goods.

A similar story unfolded in the field of industrial production of manufactured goods in

America. Mechanisation augmented the volume of production giving a huge profit margin to
American industrialists inducing further greed. They filed to realize that they were producing far
too much than what could be bought by the domestic consumers while the foreign markets had
started drying up. Unemployment in agriculture, coupled with the laying off of factory workers,
gave rise to an awesome mass of people, who, in the absence of any unemployment benefit,
simply bought less thus further shrinking the domestic market.

The imbalance in the domestic economy can be understood by the uneven growth index.
In the years 1923 to 1929 the salary of industrial labourers rose by about 8 percent but the
increase in industrial profits during the time was 72 percent. The industrialists, therefore, were
seemingly not willing to share their profits with the workers. They failed to read the writing on
the wall and it soon led to a dreadful recession. One idea of the living standard of America at the
time can be had from the fact that even before the slump began a large number of Americans
were too poor to buy a radio, a washing machine or a car. For long they had lived in a blissful
self-deception that the boom would last forever. This innocent conceit proved fatal.

The vicious economic circle was in operation in international trade too. The Fordney –
McCumber tariff of 1922 had raised barriers against foreign goods and in the process the
European economics were so badly hit that their capacity to buy American manufactured
products declined some states also took retaliatory measures by raising tariff barriers against
American products.

Crucial to the process of economic growth is the ready availability of capital. European
economies needed capital both for production as well as for war reparations. The Treaty of
Versailles had imposed a huge financial burden on Germany which was obliged to fulfill its
obligations to Britain and France. It was able to discharge this only with the help of American
capital. Britain and France too needed America’s help to repay interest on American financial
assistance rendered during the war. This led to what is called a ‘cycle of indebtedness’. Further,
many countries of the world needed more American loans to pay back previous loans.
Repayment was to be done in gold reserves and, as a result, by 1929, America was in possession
of a major part of gold’s supply in the world.

This problem of a severe imbalance in international economy was addressed to by

different countries through the 1920s. Britain reverted to the gold standard from sterling in 1925
and the other countries followed suit by 1928, though this led to increased instability. The
Geneva Conference was convened in 1927 to solve the problem but it could not measure up to

2
the task. Consequently, financial imagination of the beleaguered nations cold no go beyond
protective legislation. This was obviously no solution to the problem.

The Wall Street crash started a chain reaction which in a condition where the world
economies were closely interlinked soon went beyond America and gripped the whole world
with the exception of only the USSR which had been kept away from all this by Stalin’s
economic policies. The gold reserves of France helped it withstand the crisis till 1934 after which
it also gave way.

Unemployment figures rose to 13.7 million in the USA, 5.6 million in Germany and 2.8
million in Britain. The number of banks in America dwindled from 25,000 in 1929 to 15,000 in
1933 mopping up the savings of the common man. By 1933 industrial production was halved.
One out of eight farmers was left with no property at all. It led to increased queues for bread and
for charity soup kitchens.

What was being realized all over now was the need for a comprehensive and concerted
economic planning. Yet the World Economic Conference convened in London in 1933 failed to
provide any convincing solution. Individual nations, therefore, were left to devise their own
polices, quite often in conflict with each other, to deal with the crisis. One common thread
running through these measures was the spirit of economic nationalism. When problems could
not be solved in unison they had to tackle it in their own way. Protective tariffs was one answer
to it to insulate domestic industries from competitive foreign imports. The Import Duties Act of
1932 raised tariff walls in Britain ending years of liberalised economic regime and similar
tightening of controls was witnessed all over Europe. Free trade gave way to bilateral
agreements between nations for an economic arrangement they were more comfortable with.

Financial extravagance was sought to be checked in Germany and France through

deflationary policies whereby wage ceiling was imposed and public expenditure curtailed.
Britain, on the other hand, resorted to budgetary control. But more than this it was the growth of
private enterprise and a demand for consumer goods, coupled with a spurt in house building and
motor vehicle industry, which lifted the British economy at the time.

Germany took a different route to recovery. It solved the problem of unemployment

through public works and by promoting heavy industries, causing it to fall from 44 percent to 1
percent. The other measures that the Nazis resorted to were to set up a series of markets and to
enter into bilateral trade relations with South Eastern Europe. The combined effect of all this was
so salubrious on Germany economy that its recovery in the 1930s was the most spectacular.

The economic nightmare of the early 1930s led to the political nightmare of a later
period. The political system formed on the principles of parliamentary democracy in the post
First World War period atrophied and came to be replaced by a system based on a more strident
totalitarian thinking. The phenomena of the rise of Mussolini in Italy, of Hitler in Germany and
of militarism in Japan, largely the result of international economic instability, introduced a new
element of hatred, distrust and aggrandizement in international relations.

3
 UNIT 6
LESSON 2

THE COLD WAR

--Satish K. Jha
Reader in Political Science
RLA (E) College, Delhi University

The Second World War unleashed new forces and new powers in World Politics. In
1945, the allied forces led by the US, Soviet Union, Britain and France defeated the axis powers
led by Germany, Italy and Japan. Thereafter, the world witnessed the rise of two centres of
power – the US and the USSR. Gradually these two centres of power turned into power blocs –
The Western camp led by the US and the Eastern camp led by the USSR. The two groupings in
The World Politics for the first time in human history got organized on ideological lines. The
rivalry between the two became intense setting the new type of warfare in operation, which came
to be known as Cold War.
The Cold War was different from earlier wars in the sense that no military conflict
between the US and the USSR took place. It was an ideological warfare in which power rivalries,
military alliances and new type of balance of power equations were tried. The western alliance
led by the US and its allies like Britain and France represented the ideology of liberal
democracy, were as the Soviet Union championed the ideology of socialism and communism.
The struggle for the power and the strategic superiority which this period witnessed was
ideological warfare between the ideological blocks, known as the Western and the Eastern blocs.
The bipolar division of World had a strategic dimension as well which got manifested in military
alliances like NATO and Warsaw pact. The Cold War was a state of tension in which each side
adopted policies designed to strengthen itself and weaken the other but it always fell short of
actual war. In fact it involved all means of warfare except direct arm conflict, thereby, pushing
the World in a state of uneasy peace.
Thus, the Cold war was central defining feature of post world war politics. However,
what precisely caused this war and who were principally responsible for this conflict has been a
debatable question. There are different theories and interpretations of events leading to the Cold
War.
Western scholars talk of soviet expansionism, its occupation of Eastern Europe and their
design to impose communism on nation after nation to be primarily responsible for compelling
the U.S. to take defensive measures. On the other hand, scholars who were sympathetic to the
Soviet Union held American Scheme of global domination and its imperialist design to be
responsible for it. However, there is a third approach which believes that both were responsible
and they give the example of Soviet refusal to allow elections in East Germany, their refusal to
withdraw army from Iran after the war as to be provocative action. Similarly, they hold the US
responsible for Cold War in the sense that it hardly ever missed an opportunity to prick Soviet
Union and it could be seen from dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima to ‘Iron Curtain’ speech
of Churchill.
Williams, has opined that the Soviet Union was not interested in expansionism as it is
believed to be what it was doing was building friendly relationships with neighbours in Eastern
Europe and it was primarily interested in rebuilding its War- ravaged economy.
4
 Fleming, on the other hand feels that it was not the role of ideology which caused Cold
War. Had president Roosevelt of the US been alive, the policy of co-operation would have
continued with the Soviet Union. In his opinion, it was President Truman and his advisers who
adopted the policy of confrontation leading to the Cold War.
Albert Carry is of the opinion that the Cold War was the result of changes in balance of
power equations. He feels that Europe which was the earlier centre of World Politics, had been
eliminated from central position without blaming either the US or Russia, he says that demotion
of Europe and emergence of the US and the USSR as major actors of World Politics were
responsible for the Cold War.
Louis Halle feels that Cold War was caused by Russia. He does not blame either Stalin or
Communism as responsible for the Cold War. In his opinion whenever balance of power in
world politics had been disturbed, a combination of forces emerged to restore it and at that time
Stalin was disturbing it. Hence, a combination of nations emerged to check it. Halle condemns
Russia for having Russian behaviour and not communist behavior under communism. The Soviet
Union continued to practice Tsarist culture, which was authoritarian and non-conciliatory.
Causes of Cold War
There is no unanimity among scholars about the origin and the precise reasons of Cold
War. Some of them have traced its origin to Bolshevik revolution of 1917. While for others, the
cold war started about the time the three powers namely U.S., Soviet Union and Britain started a
conference in 1945 at Post Dam to discuss the future shape of World Politics. The mutual
mistrust between the east and the west (Russia and the USA/Britain) got reflected in this
conference itself. But some scholars seem to believe that the immediate reasons of the Cold War
lay in the very circumstances under which the Second World War came to an end. Few of them
also attribute it to the law of history, i.e., the victorious powers always tend to fall out among
themselves when the conflict which earlier had brought them together ceases to exist.
But on the basis of what happened in 50s, 60s and to some extent even in 70s, some
factors can be mentioned which in one way or the other contributed towards plunging the entire
World into the Cold War.
Bolshevik Revolution
Once communist revolution took place in Russia, the Western powers were
uncomfortable with this development in the middle of the Europe. Though Western powers and
the communist Russia fought against Nazi Germany together during the Second World War. But
the western world always looked at Stalin and his communist ideology as dangerous as Nazism
and Fascism.
Hence, the U.S. and its allies were not ready to accept the Soviet Union in the emerging
framework to govern the world order. This mistrust between the two superpowers was at the root
of all that transpired during the Cold War.
Question of Second Front
During the Cold War, Hitter had started fighting on the two fronts. On the eastern front
Soviet Union solely bore the brunt of fighting Hitter whereas on the western front, the western
powers were jointly dealing with Germany. Stalin, who was finding difficult to neutralize Hitter
alone, requested the western powers to join the Second Front along with Russian army in order

5
to take the pressure off from Russia. However, the western powers turned it down thus making
Stalin quite suspicious about western intentions and their strategic designs.

Atom Bomb
It was decided during the war itself that the two superpowers will together attack Japan
after the conclusion of war but the US in order to demonstrate its strategic and military
superiority over the Soviet Union dropped and atom bombs in 1945 on Japan. This action was
meant to send signal to the Soviet Union that the U.S.A. was the nuclear power and hence would
dictate terms – in the post Second World War world politics. Besides this, the U.S.A. had also
concealed the research that was going on during Second World War to develop nuclear weapons
particularly from Soviet Union.
Germany and Eastern Europe
The future of Europe in general and Germany in particular added new dimensions to
already existing tensed political climate. At the conference four powers occupation of Germany
and Berlin had been agreed upon. But the fact of the matter is that both the camps were
strategizing to enhance their respective influence and control over Germany. Similarly Russia
wanted that the Eastern Europe which was closer to its borders to be communized and by
February 1948, Stalin succeeded in this endeavour when Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and
Poland were brought under Russian security umbrella. This communization of Eastern Europe
triggered reactions in the rival camp and they reacted with equally provocative policy measures.
Iran and Turkey
Soviet armies, it is well known were kept in both Iran and Turkey for much longer period
than it was stipulated earlier in the agreement. This action confirmed the western suspicion that
the Soviet Union was interested in expanding its arena of influence to encircle the western
democracies with ideological and strategic alliances and influence.
Churchill’s Foulton Speech
British former Prime Minister Churchil who delivered his greatest policy speech at
Foulton in the U.S. Prepared a ground for post war ideological confrontation of the Cold War. In
this speech Churchill called Stalin and communism to be one of the greatest scourge for
humanity. During this speech he also used the term ‘Iron curtain’ to explain how Russia had
created barriers in Europe to protect its sphere of influence. Many scholars today believe that this
Foulton speech was primarily responsible for starting the Cold War.
Growth and Evolution
The Cold War progressed through different phases till it was formally over after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union, one of the main players in this game of Politics.
First phase (1947-1950)
The formal beginning of the Cold War was made with the initiation of the Truman
doctrine, which put Cold War in action. Truman’s ‘Policy of Containment’ was based on its
assessment of the Soviet Union as inherently hostile to western interests and which is hell bent
on expanding its area of influence.

6
 The Truman doctrine was accompanied by a strategy known as the ‘Marshall Plan’. This
plan was meant for economic recovery and reconstruction of Europe. The idea behind this plan
was to extend help to those European nations which had been devastated during the World War
and who were interested in accepting economic assistance. What worried the U.S. at that time
was that for poverty stricken people in Western Europe communism might appear very attractive
and hence they might go the Soviet way. Hence, the Marshall Plan was proposed to neutralize
such danger of more and more European power sliping into Stalin’s ideological framework. In
other words one can say that the Marshall Plan was the economic version of the policy of
containment propounded through the Truman doctrine.
In reaction to these measures, Stalin reactivated com inform to co-ordinate the activities
of its allies. It was meant to tighten Soviet’s control over the Eastern Europe.
Hence, we find that the Cold War was in full swing with these measures and counter-
measures and the ideological warfare spread throughout the Europe. The Berlin blockade was the
first indication of a confrontationist political climate and the subsequent creation of NATO in
1949 was further vindication of this politics. Apart from this, the thirty-years long Chinese civil
war led to victory of the communists. This had a major impact in Asian affairs and perception in
both Moscow and Washington.

Second Phase (1950-1953)

The Cold War entered into second phase with the Korean crisis which also took the Cold
War outside the borders of Europe. Through this war did not bring any significant change in
power equations but it certainly globalised the containment policy as well as the cold war. This
period is also significant for the Soviet Union as it exploded its atom-bomb and attained strategic
party with the U.S., forcing many scholars to observe that it was beginning of an era of balance
of terror. Because both the superpowers now possessed the nuclear arsenals.

Third Phase (1953-1957)

The third phase of Cold War was marked by death of Stalin in 1953. There was also a
change in Presidency in the U.S., as Eisenhower replaced Truman. In this period it is to be
recalled that the US shifted its policy from simple containment to massive retaliation, to liberate
people from communist dictatorship.
In Russia, interestingly a process of de Stalinisation was started by Khrushchev. This
opened however of a possibility of some mitigation in the hostility. But very soon these hopes
got shattered and the Cold War was transported to another part of Asia i.e., Indo-China and
Vietnam. Militarily, this phase was marked by the signing of Warsaw Pact among Russian allies
and the formal division of Germany into East and West.
The death of Stalin in 1953 signified many developments for the USSR at home as well
as in foreign affairs : Khrushchev policy let loose reformist forces in the Eastern Europe. Though
Poland was controlled but situation in Hungary became worrisome for the Soviet Regime. In
1956, Soviet intervention in Hungary led to blood shed and heated up the Cold War temperature.
The Soviet intervention in Hungary coincided with an attack on Egypt by Britain, France
and Israel, which was precipitated by Colonel Nasser’s seizure of Suez Canal. Though American
president Eisenhower was not in support of his allies act in Egypt as it deflected the attention
from the Soviet action in Hungary. But, still the Suez crisis took the Cold War politics to the
Middle East, which was smoldering since the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Though
7
both the USA and the USSR had supported the creation of a Jewish State. But in 1950’s, the
Soviet foreign policy supported Arab nationalism. Nasser moved towards a form of socialism,
though not of Marxist-Leninist brand. In the meanwhile, Israel developed relations with British
and the French leading to a secret understanding to attack Egypt is 1956. The signing of Baghdad
Pact (1955) later known as CENTO was a fall out of these events. Before this, in 1954, the
SEATO had already come into existence in the South East Asia after the defeat of the French by
the Vietnamese and the subsequent division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel.

Fourth Phase (1957-1962)

This phase was marked by two extreme trends – one in direction of the principle of co-
existence, while the other pulling in another direction of bellicosity as reflected in the Cuban
Missile crisis which brought the entire world on the brink of nuclear war.
The crisis over Cuba in 1962 was the most dangerous moment is the Cold War. The
superpowers, perhaps, for the first time, stood in eye ball to eye ball confrontation. But both
American President Kennedy and the Soviet President Khrushchev became anxious to reach at a
diplomatic settlement. Finally Khrushchev decided to withdraw the missiles, which he has
installed is Cuba in return of assurance that America would not invade Cuba.

Fifth Phase (1962-1969)

The happenings of 1962 were followed by a period of both competition and coexistence.
Though nuclear armaments continued to grow and some new nuclear weapons states came into
existence – Britain, France and China. But this was period was marked by the new realization
that nuclear weapons were not good for peace and humanity. Hence Partial Test Bar Treaty
(PTBT) was negotiated in 1963, which banned testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere.
Simultaneously, the growing concern over the spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons
culminated into the negotiation of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat (NPT) in 1968. Under this
treaty, the states, which possessed nuclear weapons, committed themselves to stop arms race,
while those who did not have, resolved not to develop them ever. In this period, Khrushchev
talked of peaceful coexistence and carried it forward by visiting America.

Sixth Phase (1969-1978)

This phase is remembered for ‘Détente’ which was cessation of tensions. Interestingly,
whereas the USSR and the USA began a new era of co-peration. On the other side of spectrum, a
new rift started between two ideological friends and partners – the USSR and China known as
Sino-Soviet conflict.
We will do well to remember that in spite of superpower ‘Détente’ they meddled in local
conflicts, as for e.g, Indo-Pak war of 1971 is a case to be mentioned.
This period would be remembered for the ‘Détente’ between the USSR and the USA and
rapprochement between China and the USA on the other. While America’s involvement in
vietnam was deepening, the Soviet-Chinese relations were also becoming strained. By 1969,
China and the Soviet Russia had fought a minor border war due to territorial dispute. This Sino-
Soviet Conflict became a major turning point in the history of Cold War, as it became in
compatible with the ideological pattern of the Cold War Politics.
The American president Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger were instrumental in the
US-USSR ‘Détente’ as well as the Sino-American rapprochement. Though it is to be
8
remembered that this new phase in the Soviet-American relations did not lead to cessation of all
political conflict. Both superpowers supported and patronized friendly regimes and movement,
while at the same time tried to subvert their adversaries. And most notably, the third world
countries became the theatre of such activities. The Indo-Pak war of 1971 and the upheavals in
Ethiopia in 1975 and Aagola in 1978 are case in point when the two superpowers pursued their
political goals by meddling into local conflicts.

Seventh Phase (1979-1987) : The New Cold War

The new Cold War started with Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979 as it marked
the end of the period of ‘Détente’. The new cold war phase witnessed massive arms race and it
also reached the outer space which was done through American President Reagan’s ‘Star-war
programme’.
The new or the second cold war, which followed the short peiod of detente in super
power relationship is associated this period. The critics of détente in the west got vindicated
when the Soviet forces occupied Afghanistan is 1979 and which is considered to be the
beginning of the second cold war. The Western critics of détente, from the very beginning, were
arguing that Soviet Union was only buying time to acquire nuclear superiority. The subsequent
strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which become popular as “Star Wars” and which was defence
related research programme designed to explore the possibility of space based defence against
missiles, was the immediate fall out of the second cold war.
The USA, under its new president Regan made significant departure on Nuclear Weapons
and its intervention is Grenada (1983) and Libya (1986). Regan’s support to rebels in Nicaragua
and his doctrine for Latin America triggered fresh controversies.
The Soviet were not for behind. In 1983 its air defences shot down a South Korean
civilian airlines in its air space.
But with a peculiar twist of history, Mikhail Gorbachev became president of the USSR in
1985. His new thinking and reformist approach in foreign policy along with his initiative for
domestic reforms created a sort of new revolution both within the Soviet Union and its relations
with the USA and the Western powers. His policy of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika
(restructuring) unleashed forces for change, which facilitated a new ‘Détente’ with the west.

End of the Cold War

The advent of Gorbachev on the Soviet scene and his reform policies of Glasnost and
Perestroika in domestic matters and his desire to engage the west into peace negotiations
transformed the international politics of the Cold War days. He paved the way for agreements on
nuclear weapons and conventional forces. In 1987, Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty, which banned intermediate-range nuclear missiles, including cruise and
perishing II. Later the American President George Bush and Gorbachev concluded a strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty (START) agreement, which reduced long-range nuclear weapons. But
this phase of new détente did not last long as due to quick succession of events and crises, the
Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 and formally ended a long chapter in international politics,
that was the cold war.

9
Impact of the Cold War on International Politics

The Cold War impacted the World Politics to the same extent as the two world wars had
done. The fear psychosis in international politics was triggered which set the nation-states on
path of arms race. The division of the globe into rival camps-ideological and strategic – was the
result of the cold war. The formation of military alliances – NATO and Warsaw Pact – and the
covert and overt interventions in different regions were the manifestations of the cold war
politics, which adversely affected both development and progress in the world. The nation-states
diverted their resources from development to armament which sustained the military – industrial
complexes which had come up in the developed countries of the west.
But the Cold War Politics also met with some resistance and reaction. The non-aligned
movement (NAM) was one such protest movement in the world politics, which championed
constructive dissociation from active power politics in context of the cold war and caught the
imagination of many countries. It questioned the policies of the super power and tried to bring
back the agenda of development and disarmament before the world community. The demand for
New International Economic Order (NIEO) was the offshoot of this politics.
The cold war also made the United Nations which was created to enforce collective
security totally ineffective and country after country looked towards the super powers and their
security umbrella for their protection than relying on the U.N. system.
But the end of the Cold War has equally transformed the politics of the globe. The end
of it has impacted international politics as massively as its on set had done. Some of its impacts
are :
(a) It has destroyed the bi-polarity in the world.
(b) It has put question mark on the relevance of NAM.
(c) The Third World Countries have become more vulnerable to arm twisting by the big
powers.
(d) The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the new dominance of the USA which is now
called new Pax-Americana, has a created new structures of dominance and resistance.
(e) The establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and creation of new terms for
trade and development which are loaded in favour of more developed countries are some
of the indications of the post cold war world system.
(f) Proliferation of nuclear weapons and the rise of ethnic nationalism and religious
fundamentalism in different parts of the world and their confrontation with the secular
states, which is some time referred as the ‘New Cold War”, are emerging sites of threat to
world peace and have become new menace in post cold war world politics.

10
 SUGGESTED READINGS
1. Fred Halliday – Making of the Second Cold War
(London, Verso, 1983)
2. John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia oweas – The Globalisation of World Politics: An
introduction to International Relations
(London, Oxford university Press, 2004)
3. J.Young and J.Kent – International Relations since 1945
(London, oxford university Press, 2003).
4. Northedge and Grieve – One harded years of international relations
(New York: Praeger, 1971)
5. Peter Calvocoressi – World Politics since 1945
(London, Longman, 2001)

11
 LESSON 3

CAREER OF SOCIALIST STATES OF SOVIET UNION

--Satish K. Jha
Reader in Political Science
RLA (E) College, Delhi University
The human history has witnessed many revolutions which were brought to better human
life. But the socialist revolution of 1917 in the Tsarist Russia, which created the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR) stands out as landmark in history. The revolution was not only
inspired by the Marxian ideals of socialism and communism, but had also for the first time in
known history consciously and programmatically tried to reorder and remodel a society to get rid
of private property and bring about equality and justice. This revolutionary attempt was
significant as the earlier theories of socialism were considered utopian with little feasibility and
practical value. But when the Bolshevik revolution happened, it vindicated the Marxian claim
that it was scientific socialism, which could offer a viable framework of governance.
The new socialist regime in the Soviet Union, as it came to be known after the revolution,
was headed by Vladimir Lenin, who as the founder of the Bolshevik Communist party had led
the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin was a great Marxist ideologue, who turned out to be
equally great practitioner of Marxism when he successfully presided over the Soviet system in its
most difficult period (1917-24). Later it was the ideas of Lenin along with that of Marx and
Engels that the socialist system in the USSR primarily drew upon.
But the career of the socialist regime in the USSR witnessed many twists and turns of
history till it finally got disintegrated in 1991. Defying the Marxian principle that the socialist
revolution should take place in advanced capitalist society, the Bolshevik Party under Lenin
decided to bring revolution in a relatively under-developed society that was Tsarist Russia.
Hence, the socialist state started with a tragic note as it had to under take many responsibilities
which according to Marxist theory, the capitalism would accomplish including the painful job of
‘primitive accumulation’ of capital for economic development. Consequently the Soviet system
paid the price of short-circuiting history.
The soviet state apparatus which became the axis of development became centralized and
authoritarian. The critiques even called it a totalitarian system. It turned highly bureaucratic to
the extent that it throttled freedom of people. It did not allow democracy to take root. What was
celebrated in name of ‘peoples democracy’ was monopoly on power by one Political Party that
was the communist party of the Soviet Union. It stifled people’s genuine democratic aspirations.
The state and the party became synonymous with each other and no political dissent was
allowed. The Political institutions lacked accountability as the communist party exercised tight
control over both society and politics. The federal arrangement, which tied the fifteen republics
into the Soviet Union, did not allow the people either the cultural space for self-expression or
decentralized the Political authority. Even in the federal union, Russian dominance in all matters
in spite of the principle of equality of status for all republics, became operative reality. People
from other republics felt suffocated and neglected.
Even ideologically the Bolshevik communist Party, which oversaw the functioning of the
Soviet system, paid only lip service to the Marxist-Leninist ideology, particularly after Joseph
Stalin took over in 1924. During 1924-53, when Stalin was at the helm of affairs, the Soviet

12
Union, although witnessed massive industrialization and success of planned development and the
Soviet economy became more developed than the rest of the world except that of the US. But
this was achieved at heavy cost. The forcible collectivization of agriculture, liquidation of
opponents, suppression of dissent and censure on freedom of speech were ordered, defaming
both socialism and Marxism.
But there is no gainsaying the fact that during Stalin’s leadership, the Soviet Union saw
massive development. It became a great power after the Second World War and took on the
mighty United States of America single-handedly. The cold war, which began after the Second
World War was reflection of new achieved power of the Soviet economy and the growing appeal
of its planned development world over. The Soviet path of development was being seen as a
miracle on the earth, which many developing countries wanted to emulate. The Soviet Union, in
a short span of time, built impressive communication network, vast energy resources like oil and
got iron and steel. It also produced machines of different types. Its own consumer industry was
producing everything from small pins to big cars. It was not dependent on other economies for
its bare necessities. Rather it was catering to the need of its allies and dependents, mostly from
the East European countries which constituted its core strategic allies in the cold war Politics.
Later, it also acquired nuclear capability and challenged American dominance in the
international politics to the extent that it gradually acquired the fame of one of the two
superpowers in world politics.
What impressed the world most was the Soviet state’s welfare activities for its people as
it ensured a minimum standard of living for all citizens. It subsidized basic necessities of people
like health, education and child-care. It took good care of unemployment and guaranteed right to
work. The state not only preached the socialist principle of “each according to his ability and
each according to her work” but tried to operationalise it to a great extent. Though one may say
that the quality of life of the people was compromised if it were compared with the western
capitalist countries. But still it adhered to the socialist commitment of bread, clothing and shelter.
In the global politics, the Soviet Union offered stiff competition to the US and the
western bloc. In the bi-polar politics of the post-second world war period, the USSR acted as one
of the super powers and balanced the global power equations by closely matching the US in both
arms race and strategic manoeuvering. When the centre of gravity was shifting to the third world
countries, the Soviet Union was successful in befriending many of them so much so that the non-
aligned movement at one point of time debated the issue of declaring the USSR as its natural
ally.
But the super power rivalry cost dearly for the Soviet Union. In order to deter American
hegemony in global politics, it had to join the arms race. This led to massive diversion of
resources to arms industry as it could not depend on other nations. Besides this, it also had to
look after its dependencies in the Eastern Europe in particular and allies elsewhere.
Consequently, it slipped behind to the west in technology and infrastructure. Although, the
wages of the people were decently growing, but both productivity and technology were lagging
behind. There also happened shortage of consumers goods. It also could not address the political
and economic aspirations of its own people.
The Soviet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979 proved to be the last straw on the camel’s
back. The Soviet system started tattering due to its involvement in Afghanistan.
Though, Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev had realized the shortcomings of the
system and had set out to reform it way back in 1956. What came to be known as “de-
13
Stalinisation” under Khrushchev, he initiated number of measures to rectify the maladies of the
Soviet Union. But his initiatives turned out to be more effective in the sphere of foreign policy
than domestic affairs. This policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the west, which culminated into
the super power detente, bore fruits. But his action in the eastern Europe, when the suppressed
popular rebellion in Hungary which did not sit well with his reform agenda and prevented him to
do anything. Politically and economically significant on domestic front, which could have
arrested the process of rot in the system. The rift in the socialist camp, known as Sino-Soviet
conflict was another hurdle during his time, which ideologically robbed the socialist bloc of
manoeuverability.
Throughout the 70’s and 80’s, the Soviet Union was grappling with succession and
ageing Political leaders. Though Leonid Brezhnev had long tenure (1964-82) and he got actively
associated with the “detente” with the US. But he did not show much interest in reforms. Rather,
he preferred suppressing a popular uprising in Czechoslovakia and got involved in Afghanistan
invasion. Subsequent leaders like Andropov and Chernenko were only struggling with their ill-
health and could hardly do anything for the ailing economy and polity.
Things started changing dramatically after Mikhail Gorbachev at a relatively younger age
took command and became president in 1985. His new thinking, in both foreign policy and
domestic politics, created s revolution of sort. His policy of “Glasnost” or openness along with
Perestroika (or restructuring) at home along with initiation of new detente with the west
unleashed forces, which although unfortunately became uncontrollable and which ultimately led
to disintegration of the Soviet Socialist Republics.
Gorbacher’s democratic reforms were intended to treat the bleeding wound of the Soviet
people. But to his dismay it stirred the hornest nest and opened the Pandora box all over. This
foreign policy initiatives were meant to harmonise relations with the US and the west and to
divert the attention on addressing the needs and aspirations of its own people, who were getting
restive and were clamouring for change as the quality of life and living standard were fast
deteriorating. The new communication revolution had made them more aware about the failings
of the socialist system which was being compared to its western capitalist counter-parts.
Gorbachev’s domestic agenda proved to be double-edged sword as it acted as a catalyst
for change in the Eastern Europe which was equally crying for reforms. When the turmoil broke
out in the Eastern Europe, Gorbachev unlike his predecessors Khrushchev and Brezhnev decided
not to interfere. Instead, he allowed the East Europeans to do and go their own way, which led to
the fall of the socialist regimes there by 1989, one after another. Even the two Germany, which
were divided during the cold war, were allowed to be re-united in 1989 and the East Germany
(The German democratic Republic) disappeared from the global map.
Gorbachev’s reform agenda was quite broad which tried to deal with number of
problems. Apart from restructuring the economy and catching up with the west it also sought to
open the soviet society and loosen the administrative system in order to get back popular backing
which had been eroded. The alienation of ordinary people due to corruption and unaccountable
administration was deep rooted. The centralized authority of the communist party was stifling
which Gerbachev vowed to rectify. In 1990 he enacted a law which ended the monopoly of the
communist party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] over the state. This was the beginning of multi-
party political process after 73 years. He also dismantled the state-controlled economy and
moved in direction of free enterprises and recognized private ownership. He de-controlled the
economy and paved the way for trade and commerce with other countries of the world.

14
 Though Gerbachev justified the collectivization and Industrialization of thirties as
indispensable for that time as otherwise, in his opinion, the country would not have been
rehabilitated. He used Marxist and Leninist canons, which prescribe creative reassessment of
objective conditions, to justify his new reforms. He argued that what happened in twenties and
thirties were dictated by the then prevailing objective conditions. But that no longer existed in
the Soviet Union. Hence new reality required new interpretation and new measures. The
Glasnost and Perestioka precisely addressed this question in Gorbachev’s scheme of things.
Gorbachevism opened a new chapter of freedom to the nationalities in the post-1917
USSR. It was a multi-national society where approximately sixty three nationalities lived. Before
the Bolshevik revolution, the communist party had promised that the revolution would liberate
them from the tsarist autocracy. Lenin’s theory of self-determination, which stood for autonomy
and freedom for different nationalities, looked quite attractive and promising to these
nationalities. But things happened differently after the revolution. Although, the Soviet
Constitution talked about the right to secession for all republics in the federal union and preached
Leninist idea of self-determination. But in practice, due to centralized political arrangement it
carried little value. Excessive concentration of power under the garb of “democratic centralism”
robbed different regions of their cultural freedom and aspirations. Hence, when the reform was
started, the nationality issue became most intractable and ultimately the Soviet Union
disintegrated due to this in 1991 with the republics of the Soviet Union declaring independence,
which formally dissolved the Soviet Union by forming a new commonwealth of independent
states.
Gorbachev also extended his Glasnost and perestroika in the sphere of foreign relations.
He decided to unilaterally stop nuclear tests in 1990. He allowed the US experts to visit the
Soviet Nuclear plants and removed medium range nuclear missiles in tandem with the US. He
also drastically cut conventional arms and withdrew from Afghanistan, besides reestablishing
relations with China and cooperating with the US and the western powers within the UN to usher
in new era of peace in international politics.
But, in spite of, correct diagnosis of the problems afflicting the Soviet system, the
situation continued to worsen and many people thought that the condition of the people was as
bad as 1930 depression – unemployment, hunger and poverty. Once the motion of change was
set in and expectations of people grew, it became impossible to control it. Even Gorbachev could
not foresee its intensity. Interestingly, Gorbachev’s leadership failed to assuage the feelings of
both the pro-changers and the no-chargers. Those who wanted reforms believed that Gorbachev
was not moving fast enough on his agenda and were getting impatient with his method. For them
Boris Yeltsin, a Gorbachev’s protégé and who was made by him the mayor of Moscow appeared
more promising to deliver on reforms. The members of the communist party, the no-changers,
were also unhappy as they found that their power and privileges were slipping and thought that
Gorbachev was moving too fast. Thus, Gorbachev was losing support on all sides.
The west, on the other hand, was disinterested is bailing out a beleaguered Gorbachev.
They were making only false promises and were not sincere in their commitments. They were in
fact eagerly waiting for the liquidation of the socialist bloc. In July 1991, the USSR had asked
for a full membership of the IMF and the World Bank in order to be able to use their resources to
deal with the growing economic miseries. But American President Bush was insisting on prior
economic reforms as a condition for west’s assistance, knowing perhaps well that Gorbachev
would not be able to survive the growing discontent.

15
 Finally, a coup was staged in August 1991 which was stage managed by the communist
party hardliners and proved to be Achilles heel. It failed to get support of the people as the
society which had tasted freedom, was not ready to revert back to old style centralized
authoritarian rule. During the coup Yeltsin hogged the limelight as he led the protest against the
communist hardliners. Thereafter he grew in stature and became national hero and representative
of pro-reform forces, replacing Gorbachev.
After the coup, Gorbachev quit the post of the CPSU Chief and also disbanded the central
committee of the CPSU. He asked the democratically inclined communists to set up a new party
along with other progressive forces for democratic transformation of the society.
After the coup, Gorbachev began to lose ground and Yeltsin exploited it to his advantage.
He became darling of the west and openly started discrediting Gorbachev and socialism. By
November 1991, he issued decrees of radical economic reforms which, in essence were aimed at
ushering in free market mechanism. Yeltsin danced to the tunes of western powers and signed a
protocol with Germany under which Germany promised to help Russia develop a market
economy.
The countdown of the Soviet disintegration began. The central authority was in disarray
and Gorbachev was struggling to convince his countrymen to stay together as an Union and shun
the secessionist moves. He even proposed a new union treaty to hold the nation together in form
of a loose confederation. But all this fell on deaf ear. On 1st December 1991, Ukraine voted for
its independence. Yeltsin was quick to recognize it. By December 8 1991, Ukraine, Byelorussia
and Russia declared the formation of the so called commonwealth of independent states.
Gorbachev reacted by declaring that he might hold a referendum on the future of the Soviet
Union. But by December 14 1991, five central Asian Republics – Kazakhistan, Kughizia,
Tadzhikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – offered to be part of new commonwealth as
cofounders. By then Gorbachev realized that the break up of the Soviet Union was imminent.
But he advised the country men to go slow in order to prevent chaos. Things started moving very
fast and the new “commonwealth of states” was proclaimed by 18th December 1991 with 11
republics as constituents. Georgia took time to decide. In short, the first socialist experiment in
human history was dying an unceremonious death as the Soviet Union was being formally
dissolved.
If the causes of the disintegration are analysed some factors seem to have played their
role in hastening the destruction of the socialist edifice. They may be put as the following:
1. Weakness of Soviet Economy:
The command economy and planned development is the Soviet Union initially did
miracle. The first five year plan started in 1928 and by 1935, when the second five year plan was
announced, the Soviet Economy had been transformed into a developed industrial society. It
became a self reliant economy which registered massive growth which was producing goods of
different types. But this does not mean that there were no shortcomings – they were in plenty
which gradually became responsible for its liquidation.
The command economy with strong centralizing featres was the biggest weakness of the
Soviet planning process. In such a vast country, all decisions were centralized and there was
hardly any local initiative. The diversity of social-cultural situations demanded a better
mechanism of plan formulation and decision making where local needs and aspirations could be
addressed. But this did not happen. In the absence of market mechanism, the state used to fix

16
prices as well as assessed the demand. The artificiality of price fixation affected the economy
adversely, which gradually snow balled into crisis.
Apart from this, the Soviet policy makers gave importance to heavy industries and
infrastructure building. But the consumer sector was neglected, leading to shortage of consumer
goods. As a result, the quality of life of the people could not be upgraded. Even in the food sector
problems remained. In spite of many experimentations; the enormity of food problem remained.
The cooperatives and the collectivization of land only led to spiral of violence. But no lasting
solution could be found.
The inefficiency of the state personnel, who were managing both agriculture and
industrial sectors, took its own toll. By the time it was realized by Gorbachev it was too late. In
the end he decided to de-control the economy and encourage private initiatives under his policy
of Perestrika.
2. Militarisation and Arms Race
The Soviet’s active involvement in the second world war led to a new set of problems.
The western powers distrust towards Soviet establishment became known to Stalin during the
war itself. Hence, the post-second world war period marked by changed priorities in the Soviet
policy making. There was great amount of focus on military preparedness and armaments. The
aim was to match the western powers military might during the cold war. Its attempt to establish
satellite regimes in the eastern Europe also required massive investments in arms sector. Later,
when it became a nuclear power and leader of Warsaw Pact alliance grouping, there was no way
it could run away from militarization of its economy.
All these factors led to massive diversion of resources from other priorities including the
foremost commitment of the socialist regime to address the basic needs of the people. Competing
with the capitalist country like the USA and its military industrial complex for a recently
developed economy like the USSR had its own limitation. But the post-second world war history
of the world imposed its own logic and did not leave much options before it. The Afghan
invasion and the onset of the new cold war was the last nail in its coffin. Due to this involvement
it finally bled to death.
3. Absence of Political Pluralism and Rejection of Democracy
The Soviet Union’s biggest weakness was its distaste for democracy. Confusing
democracy for capitalism proved fatally dangerous for it. Marx had criticized capitalism and
distortions of democracy within market society. But the Soviet leaders, particularly Stalin,
misunderstood it and threw the baby with the bath water. The lack of democratic engagement in
the Soviet system led to authoritarian tendencies taking firm root in the state apparatus. There
was hardly any discourse on democratic institution-building. Whatever institutions were
developed during Lenin’s life time were robbed of their democratic potential and meaning. In
spite of the guarantee of fundamental rights in the constitution, people did not have freedom and
right to expression. Emphasis on socio-economic rights were not duly balanced with equal
attention to other types of right. The human rights violation were rampant and the dissent was,
dealt with force and violence. Political opponents during Stalin period were put in the
concentration camp. Political pluralism was not allowed and the communist party monopolized
all power and authority in name of farcical people’s democracy. Rules of a accountability were
not put in place and the dictatorship of proletariat became an excuse for few individuals to
arrogate to themselves all powers and privileges.

17
4. Ethnicity and Nationality Problem
The tsarist Russia was multi-ethnic and multi-national society. According to one
estimate, approximately 63 nationalities inhabited that land. The allurement of getting rid of the
tsarist authoritarian rule had been primarily responsible for many nationalities to support the
communist revolution of 1917. Lenin understood it fully well. Hence he came out with his theory
of right to self determination. The Soviet constitution also recognized it and gave the right to
secede to all the republics in the union.
But in practice it did not materialize. The Soviet federal system turned out to be imperfect
arrangement in containing the disenchantment of the people. Cultural minorities felt suffocated.
In absence of open society, people did clandestine observance of cultural and religious rites.
People did not consider their socialist identity as a substitute for other cultural markers. The
national identity turned out to be most durable and triggered whole host of crises, which finally
led to its disintegration.
5. Corruption
In spite of the ideological framework of governance that was socialism, the Soviet system
failed to offer a transparent administration. The huge state structure which was created led to
massive expansion of bureaucracy, which developed its own vested interest in protecting its
position and privileges at the cost of people’s welfare. The dictatorship of proletariat was turned
into the dictatorship of a “new middle class,” which was corrupt and inefficient and lived off the
state’s resources. Gorbachev tried to dismantle their strangle hold over the system under
Glasnost.
6. Glasnost and Perestroika
It is irony of history that what came as treatment for the illness became the immediate
cause of the disintegration. Gorbachev diagnosed the ailments correctly but not timely. Things
had gone out of control by the time he got the opportunity to address the maladies of the Soviet
system through his reform agenda Glasnost and Perestrika were meant to bring back the ailing
society and a stagnant economy to track. But, unfortunately before that could have happened,
other hidden wounds got opened up which became difficult to be balmed. The denial of freedom
to Soviet people proved fatal. The moment they tasted a new environment their clamour for
change became unstoppable. Gorbachev’s reform agenda could not keep pace with the new
aspirations which were sky rocketing. As a result, Glasnost and Perestroika became new inputs
in the Soviet crisis.
The abovementioned factors contributed in its disintegration in major way. But there
were many more. The career of the socialist state in the Soviet Union thus came to an end in
1991. But the Soviet disintegration, apart from belying the hope of creating true humane society
on the earth in form of socialism, has led to many other implications and ramifications for the
world. Some of them can be put as the following:
1. Ideological A Triumph of Capitalism
The liquidation of socialism has given a sense of moral victory and superiority to the
liberal capitalist countries of the west. The ideological challenge, which they got from the
socialist bloc, is no longer there. It is because of this that “end of history” thesis has been openly
propounded by apologists of the capitalist system implying that there is nothing beyond
capitalism.

18
2. Question Mark on the Claim of Scientific Socialism
Karl Marx was not the first thinker to have talked about socialism. There has been a rich
tradition of socialist thought. But most of them were called Utopian idea due to their
predominant academic value with little practicability. But when Lenin brought about revolution
in the Soviet union it proved beyond all shadow of doubt that Marxian socialism was different
and, as claimed by the Marxists, scientific too, which could be turned into framework of
governance. But the collapse of the Soviet brand of socialism has put a question mark on this
claim. How can it prove now that it is not Utopian?
3. Power Vacuum in World Politics
The disintegration has also created power vacuum in international politics. Since it
enjoyed the status of a superpower, its disappearance from the world scene has upset the global
balance. The new pax-Americana in today’s world can be seen as a fall out this disintegration. The third
world countries suffer most due to this disturbance in the global power equations.
SUGGESTED READINGS
1. A.Z. Rubinstein – The foreign Policy of the Soviet Union. (New York, Random House, 1960).
2. A Brown and N. Kaser – The Soviet Union since the fall of Khrushchev (London, Verso, 1975).
3. E.H. Carr – A History of Soviet Russia : The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-23, 3 volumes (Perugia,
London, 1966).
4. Hobsbawm – The age of Extreme (London, Penguin, 1994).
5. Joha Baylis, Steve Smith, Patricia oweas – The Globalisation of World Politics – An introduction to
International Relations. (London, Oxford University Press, 2008)
6. Z.K. Brzeariska – The Soviet Bloc (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960).

19
 LESSON 4
GLOBALIZATION
Karunakar Patra
Dayal Singh College
University of Delhi

Introduction
Globalization is a buzz-word in every day life of today. Across the disciplines, people of
different professions are now enmeshed with the process of globalization. Some people,
however, stressed the need to adopt to globalization, and others to resist it. But what does it mean
to be living with globalization? How do we experience and engage with its processes? And how
are governments, societies and groups responding to it and contributing to it? Thinking about
globalization leads us to pay a closer attention to how its numerous flows and processes are
encountered and informed by different actors and agencies in a range of cultural, political, social
and technological contexts. The latter might be regional, national, local, religious, institutional
and so forth. As a result of this interplay between these different forces and groups within these
different settings, we perhaps should not be surprised that complexity and heterogeneity are the
recurring tendencies that emerge from living with globalization. In addressing these themes we
shall discuss various dimensions of globalization. Before discussing the important dimensions of
globalization it is suggestive to look into some of the definitional aspects of it.
Any study of globalization is immediately confronted with the considerable problems of
the lack of the agreement over what it is, with some commentators doubting its existence and
others simply dismissing it al together. The discourse of globalization is interpreted by three
broad schools of thought: globalists, skeptics and transformationalists (Held, et al. 1999).They
have focused on each and every aspects of globalization and also have distinctive positions on its
economic, political, cultural, technological and military and other dimensions.
Globalists consider that contemporary developments and processes constitute a new
condition or phase within human history. They view that the emergence of an integrated global
economy that emphasizes on open market economy by breaking down the national borders.
Production is simply viewed as a global process evident, it is claimed, in the growing volume of
international trade, the greater mobility of finance and capital, increased levels of foreign direct
investment (FDI) and heightened importance of multinational corporations (MNCs) and
transnational corporations (TNCs). These developments are considered to pose a number of
challenges to the nation-state, by restricting the autonomy of the national governments to pursue
independent economic management. Some of the hyper globalists like Kenichi Ohmae (1990)
going to the extent by declaring the death of the nation-state.
Sceptics oppose the views advanced by the globalists. They mostly believe in the left of
the politics and consider globalization to be simply a further expansion of international
capitalism. They deny it constitutes a new epoch. They give many examples of labour
exploitation by MNCs and TNCs as examples of what it means for many people to live with
global capitalism. The most important exponent of this school of thought Paul Hirst and
Grahame Thompson (1996, 20000) highlight the myths that have associated with the discourse of
globalization. They maintain that the world economy is far from being genuinely ‘global’. Trade,
investment and financial flows are mostly concentrated in a triangle made by Europe, Japan and
North America and look likely to remain so. These authors therefore contend it is more
appropriate to talk of ‘triadization’ than globalization. Again they argue that genuinely
transnational companies are relatively rare; most companies are nationally based partly it is
costly to relocate. They admit certain developments in the flows of trade, people, finance and
capital investment across societies in the contemporary period but point to historical precedents
such as the period 1870 – 1914 when, they claim, the world economy was even more
internationalized than it is in our own time. Hirst and Thompson, therefore, conclude that
contemporary trends can best be described as a process of economic internationalization rather
than fully developed globalization.
Transformationalists stress the unprecedented nature of current economic, political and
cultural flows and levels of global interconnectedness (Held, et al., 1999). According to Held and
others, the leading advocates of this particular approach are Anthony Giddens (1990) and James
Rosenau (1997). These writers consider the momentum behind globalization to be the combined
forces of modernity. Globalization is, therefore, driven not just by capitalism, but by
industrialization, technology, the Enlightenment, critical thinking and so on. From this position
globalization is seen as a powerful and essentially indeterminate and open-ended transformative
force or process responsible for massive change within societies and world order.
Greater Interconnectedness – Not Simply Global Capitalism
First of all, globalization in our time entails or constituted by more intensive forms of
global interconnectedness than have previously existed. It reflected in increased
interdependency, the formation of global networks, transnationalism, deterritorialization, time-
space compression and the speeding up of everyday life. These developments, though some parts
of the world remain on their margins, are facilitated by advances in communications and
information technologies improvements I travel and the growth of tourism, the expansion of
global finance and trade and shifting patterns of migration. In essence, there, are multiple
globalizing process and flows at work.
The popular conception of globalization is that it is global capitalism and more
specifically neo-liberal global capitalism. It is certainly the case that capitalism is providing
much of the momentum behind contemporary globalization. Profit maximization is the primary
reason that companies that companies seek to expand and develop trade networks through out the
world. Moreover, capitalism is an important constitutive element of the transformationalist
account. However, capitalism is not globalization. Put another way, globalization is more than
simply global capitalism. People are moving across the globe and establishing global
connections and networks for a variety of reasons, beyond the financial and economic. They are
moving and connecting for a range of personal, cultural and sporting reasons, as well as the very
human desire to travel and meet new peoples and enjoy new experiences. The multiple flows and
processes that constitute globalization cannot therefore be reduced to economics, for that matter
to technology or culture.
Furthermore, the equating of global capitalism with global capitalism does not provide a
full explanation of the former. It neglects the forms of global interconnectedness that predate the
advent of capitalism in the modern period. For example, Janet Abu-Lugod (1989, Before
European Hegemony, OUP) identifies the emergence of global process as far back as the
thirteenth century. In fact, there is a considerable debate about when this process began and the
intensity and the extent of forms of global interconnectedness in the pre-capitalist period. While
between different regions if the world varied and was less intensive during this period than in our
time, it is possible to identify a range of different types of connection and interaction, from the
cultural to economic, during the pre-modern phase of globalization. These are evident in the
spread of world religions, the forging of multicultural empires, such as Roman and Islamic
empires, the Silk Route that linked the Western Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Empire
through to Europe’s encounter with the New World, from the late fifteenth century onwards.
21
Indeed, it has been claimed that globalization is the human condition (J. N. Pieterse, 2004,
Globalization and Culture, Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield). From the first human beings
emerging from Africa and spreading out across the globe, human history has been one of
migration. Furthermore, long-distance trading activity and trade-networking existed prior to the
establishment of capitalism and even the emergence of Europe as a major economic centre,
mostly centered on vast cities, such as those in China and India. Furthermore, boundaries and
borders were not as rigid prior to the establishment of nation-state, itself another feature of
modernity, enabling people to move freely and mix together.
In a sense, therefore, globalization is what human beings do. Finally, a further danger
with conceiving of globalization simply in the relation to the history of capitalism is that of
Eurocentrism. While the emergence of capitalism in Europe paved for its engagement with the
rest of the world, notably through European imperial expansion, to focuss only open this would
be to ignore important historical episodes, including the slave trade between Africa and America.
However, apart from this foundational interpretation of globalization, which
acknowledges the long history of global interconnectedness, we have to understand the
contemporary form of globalization. It is marked by an intensification of multiple forms of
global interconnectedness. In this, as it is repeated whilst capitalism is an important dimension of
contemporary globalization, it is not globalization. The present form of globalization facilitated
by neo-liberal capitalism emphasizes on free trade differs from earlier liberal capitalism. The
contemporary operations of neo-liberal globalization can be understood from the different
approaches given below.
A Differentiating and Contextualist Approach to Globalization
The experience of globalization by people through the flows and forms of
interconnectedness is also important in part to understand globalization. In other words, if we are
to gain an informed understanding of globalization it is necessary to employ a differentiating
approach to this study of it, investing the particular ways in which individuals, groups and
societies engage with globalizing processes. General accounts of globalization often fail to
comprehend its complex nature and effects, and the particular ways in which its processes are
operating. Therefore, integral to a differentiating approach towards globalization must be an
examination of how its multiple process are experienced within specific contexts that are shaped
by factors such as geography, history, culture, social conditions, and the degree of economic
development, to cite but a few. Furthermore, there are structural (material) and financial
(agency) demands at work. For example, there is a material dimension to globalization entailing
as it does the increased flows of products and peoples between different parts of the world and
the globalization of production. This in turn can produce structural changes as some regimes and
societies become more fully integrated into the global economy, and others have to restructure
their own economies in order to adjust to the new conditions. The ideational dimension of
globalization stems from how these processes and changes are perceived by different groups,
societies and governments.
The ideas and ideologies about globalization are also an important part of the dynamic
and inform the interacting context. All of which ensures that globalization engenders different
perceptions and responses. Foe example, business people invariably view globalization as the
expansion of the international economy and the prospect of new trading and financial
opportunities. In contrast, for governmental leaders it entails greater economic competition from
new regions and pressures from global financial markets. While ordinary citizens often consider
the most notable aspects of globalization to be the emergence of a global culture, others are more
specific and regard it as simply a form of Americanization. For many religious people and not
22
just fundamentalists, globalization represents the ongoing spread of the forces of modernization,
rationalism and secularism. Many conservatives and nationalists will tend to focuss upon the way
in which globalization challenges their particular nation-state and nationational government. For
those on the extreme right, it means more economic migrants and threats to perceived national
ways of life, while many on the political left think of globalization primarily in terms of the
spread of neoliberal capitalism and/or American economic power. For many living in Arab and
Muslim societies, globalization is experienced as the bombardment of Western ideas and images
via global communications technologies. In short, it matters how globalization is conceived and
who is making judgements about it. This in turn raises questions about power in relation to
globalization.
Globalization as Contested Phenomena
In considering the issue of power in relation to globalization, we need to be aware of how
governments and other agencies will often seek to impose their won agenda upon its process,
constructing narratives to define what it entails, as well as seeking to shape its future course. This
has been evident since 1980s when the Reagan and Thatcher governments along with
organization like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) began to champion
neoliberalism.
Furthermore a truly differentiating approach requires that governments and other
organizations be studied regularly so that changes in their thinking and policy approaches
towards globalization can be detected, In particular, national governments and democracies are
frequently replaced and new governments will bring with them their own ideas and political
agendas. What globalization is and entails is therefore, often contested within countries. At an
international level the nature of globalization processes, flows and forms of interconnectedness is
similarly a source of dispute. In this regard neoliberal globalization is regularly challenged by
anti-globalization protestors at summit meetings of the major global institutions, as well as by
everyday grass-roots activity.
There are also other factors which suggest contemporary globalization as a contested
phenomenon. The emergence of a global discourse surrounding issues, such as international
justice and law-making, and patterns of trade and economic development in which civil society
organizations, such as international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), pressure groups
and social movements are playing a greater role. More significantly in performing this rule these
organizations are increasingly viewed as helping to ensure that the international policy-making is
informed by the sensitive to a wider range of concerns and opinion. For example, civil society
organizations, in particular, human rights groups pushed for the establishment of the
International Criminal Court. They actively campaigned for and helped to design the Ottawa
Convention banning landmines. They have also ensured that human rights, humanitarianism,
global poverty and environmental issues are high up on the international agenda. Likewise,
INGOs and social movements have highlighted and often successfully campaigned for the need
for humanitarian intervention in various places throughout the world. More generally civil
society organization continue to put pressure upon companies and governments to act in an
ethical manner by highlighting and publicizing disreputable business associations, dubious
financial dealings and poor labour practices.
Economic Globalization
International economy global of capitalist system in 1960s and 1970s is severely
different from 1990s because of the importance of global finance is seen as the dominating force
if the world economy. Whether it was called the social democratic economy, the Keynesian

23
economy, or state assisted capitalism, the following features marked most key economies in both
the North and South during the Bretton Woods Era, which extended from 1945 to around the mid
of 1970s: a state managed modus vivendi between labour and capital; limited capital flows;
managed trade; dependence of corporations on retained earnings for investment; strong
regulation of banks and the financial sector; fine tunning of the economy through the use of
monetary and fiscal mechanisms, and fixed exchange rates.
In the financial sector, as a World Bank study noted as recently as the early 1970s few
countries whether industrial or developing were without restriction on capital movements.
Capital control were maintained in Europe well into the 1970s with the IMF’s Articles of
Agreement (Article VI, Section 3) in fact allowing members to exercise such controls as are
necessary to regulate international capital movements.
Several factors, however, led to the liberalization of financial flows. First was the
massive surplus dollars that found their way abroad the international transactions made by the
US. These dollars formed the basis of the Eurodollar or Eurocurrency market centered in
London, which the big commercial banks and other financial institutions tapped to expand their
international and domestic activities – an option that freed them from their dependence on
domestic banking.
Second, Eurocurrency liquidity was massively increased by the recycling of OPEC
money following the oil price raises of the 1970s. Up to 1981, the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries pilled a total of $475 billion investable surplus, and $400 billion of this was
placed in the industrial countries. This was an enormous supply of funds seeking profitable
investment, and pressure fro greater global financial liberalization came from the big commercial
banks, which sought to recycle a lot of these funds via cross-border lending. Much of this
lending went to the Third World because of the relatively unattractive opportunities in the
industrial North during that decade. This preference for offshore lending also contributed to
greater domestic deregulation as governments started to make tax and other concessions to entice
(capital) back onshore.
Third is the rise of the free market hegemony, neoliberal ideology, which gathered steam
with the increasing difficulties, including stagflation, encountered by the Keynesian state.
Liberalization of trade and the capital account were the twin drivers of neoliberalism’s
international programme. Capital account liberalization received a great boost upon Margaret
Thatcher’s assumption of power with her removal of foreign exchange control s in Britain. With
London and Wall Street leading the way, the trinity of deregulation, globalization and
technological revolution combined to transform banking and finance. Global bang is what the
Financial Times called the avalanche sweeping away geographic, institutional, and regulatory
boundaries within the financial services industry.
The Key Features of Finance Capitalism
The wave of liberalization in the 1980s brought many important traits. First, having
become overexposed in the Third World in the 1970s and early 1980s, the commercial banks
pulled back from international lending. At the same time other major players were emerging as
key conduits for cross-border flows of capital. The most important of these were investment
banks like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch, mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds.
Second, this is related to the first that is the role of banks and conventional lending for
raising funds eclipsed by securitization of the transfer of capital via the dale of stocks or bonds.
Thus, while loans accounted for $59.4 billion of lending on international capital markets and
securities for $36.2 billion in 1976- 80, by 1993 the reverse was true, with securities accounting
24
for $521.7 billion and loans for $137.7 billion (Hirst and Thompson, 1990, Globalization in
Question, Polity).
Third, there was an explosion of both old and new activities and instruments such as
arbitrage and derivatives. Arbitrage is taking advantage of foreign exchange of interest rate
differentials to turn a profit, while trading in derivatives refers to buying and selling all the risks
of an underlying asset without trading the asset itself (Ian Cooper, 1998. The World of Futures,
Forwards and Swaps, in Mastering Finance, Financial Times, London). Derivatives are very
esoteric instruments, which are difficult to understand, monitor, or control (Hirst and Thompson,
1990).
Fourth, a great many transactions including those involving derivates were increasingly
hard to monitor because they were made ‘over the counter’ that is, not via the floor of an
exchange but among a few parties by telephone and computers. Monitoring was made all the
more difficult by the fact that many of these transactions, such as forward contracts, were off-
balance sheet or exchanges that were not reflected in the assets and liabilities statement making
the actual financial condition of many institutions very hard to ascertain.
Political Globalization
The process of globalization does have many important political aspects. Commonly
these aspects involve transformations in the relations between political processes and territorial
states. We have a dual process in which nation-states and conditions under which national
policies are formed and constructed and changed, while at the same time multiple international
and transnational political relations develop and intensify, so that the nation-states increasingly
must be seen as components in a large and more complex international political configuration.
Globalization is not only a matter of nation-states facing challenges and opportunities from an
increasingly integrated world economy, but also and significantly a question of the political
institutions of territorially defined national societies becoming integral of an increasingly
interconnected international and global political system.
The core aspect of political globalization is how to deal with global governance. Global
governance is defined empirically and broadly as the institutions and processes that are involved
in transborder regulation of societal activity and in the provision of global public goods, whether
through intergovernmental organizations patterns of cooperation between nation-states, e.g. in
conditions of the willing or international public private ownership.
Political globalization is simply understood as a political process in which political power
authority and kinds of rule take place at the global level. The uniqueness of this change is
marked by the shift of power from the national arena into the global politics. This shift of power
suggests something very important in the sense that a decision taken at one end quickly reaches
at another end by means of fastest techniques of communication. It is obscured in this process
that whatever policy decision is taken at the global level makes an impact at the domestic level.
The scope of global politics challenges the Westphalian tradition of sovereignty. In the
Westphalian structure, the importance of national sovereignty was attached to each independent
nation-state. Thus, in this sense, the internal supremacy and external freedom become the
dominant features of an independent sovereign state. It was also agreed among the nations that
no independent state should interfere in the internal affairs of another independent nation-state.
In this sense the cordial neighbourly relationship among nations get established for the purpose
of peace and stability in the internal order. However, the complexity of inter connectedness
inherent in global politics challenges the supremacy of the nation-state in many aspects of
domestic representation. It may not be completely true, however that, who apparently affirm that
25
the forces of global politics for more than many decades, still nation-states have existed and on
many counts very very protectionist as well as secured.
Global politics, however, is not limited within the rubric of geopolitics, rather its scope
it’s extending to other such spheres like economic, environmental and social. The complexities
of global problems arising out of extensive and intensive interactions of various pressing issues
like pollution, drug, human rights, terrorism, poverty, crime and many others attract the need for
global politics. The intensity as well as depth of such problems cannot be simply addressed by
particular nation-state not because of its prerogatives but for the largeness and unbounded
character of such issuers. The possibility of happening of global politics is taking the concrete
shape largely due to the innovation of communication and media. These peoples, nations and
organizations through out the world organize at the global level. The innovation of information
through technological devices like telephone, television, cable, satellite and jet transportation
have made things very easy. People and organizations in the different parts of the world interact
for the different issues delimiting the national boundaries.
The contemporary global politics is drastically different from premodern and modern
politics. The postmodern global politics has intervened into its arena and has created a change
through global communication in national politics created new experiences and understanding
strongly among the citizens. They no more feel abided by national pressures and obligations. The
communicative network that helps connecting people, however, is an unfinished project. People
in this process are excluded and included into the global network of politics. The development of
new communication opens up avenues at the global level certain types of changes in which some
people get represented and others do not and also regional aspects of it get reinterpreted.
Cultural Globalization
The conventional and social scientific sense of culture is the values, beliefs and lifestyles
of ordinary people in their everyday life. The emerging global culture is diffused through both
elite and popular vehicles. Arguably the most important elite vehicle is what Huntington has
felicitously called the Davos Culture (after the annual World Economics Summit meeting in that
Swiss Mountain Resort), an international culture of business and political leaders. Its basic
engine is international business, the same engine that drives economic and technological
globalization. But it would be misleading to think of this culture only in terms of those few
likely to be invited to Davos; there are millions who would like to be invited and engage in what
sociologists have called ‘anticipatory socialization’.
While cultural globalization between elites, it creates difficulties between these elites and
nonelite populations with whom they must deal. Many moral and ideological conflicts in
contemporary societies pit in elite culture against a resentful mass of culturally accredited and
economically under privileged people. As Huntington points out, these resentments may lead to
the emergence of a nationalist or religious counter-elite. Also, individuals who participate in
‘Davos Culture’ with reasonable success vary in their ability to balance this participation with
other parts of their lives.
Secondly, according to Berger (Peter L. Berger, 2002, Cultural Dynamics of
Globalization) both critics and advocates of contemporary global capitalism mainly think in
terms of the Davos Culture and its ramifications in popular culture (Davos in interaction with
McWorld). Yet there are two quite different types of cultural globalization going on. One of
them is called ‘faculty club’ culture. Essentially, this is the internationalization of the Western
intelligentsia, its values and ideologies.

26
 While this culture has also penetrated the business world, its principal career is not
business. Rather is carries by foundations, academic networks, non-governmental organizations,
governmental and multinational agencies. It is too primarily an elite culture. More importantly,
the faculty club spreads its values and beliefs through the educational system, the legal system,
various therapeutic institutions, think tanks, and media and mass communication. If this culture
internationalizes the Western intelligentsia it also internationalizes the conflict in which this
intelligentsia has engaged on its home territories.
Thirdly, it is popular culture. The McWorld is the best example in this category of
Western civilization. Young people through out the world dance to the American music, wearing
American blue jeans and T-Shirts with messages. Old people watch American sitcoms on
television and to American movies. Everyone loves American food. Here is a symptom of
American cultural hegemony.
The critics of cultural imperialism also understand that the diffusion of popular culture is
not just a mater of outward behaviour. It carries a significant freight of beliefs and values. Rock
music is the best example again. Its attraction is, however, not just due to a particular preference
for loud, rhythmic sound and dangerously athletic dancing. Rock music also symbolizes a whole
cluster of cultural values - concerning self-expression, spontaneity, released sexuality, and
perhaps most importantly, defiance of the alleged stodginess of tradition.
Fourthly, it is evangelical Protestantism. Its globalizing force is best seen by comparing it
with the other dynamic religious phenomenon of out time, that if Islamic resurgence. While the
latter has been limited to countries that have always been Muslim and to Muslim diaspora
communities, Evangelical Protestantism has been exploding in parts of the worlds to which this
religious traditions has always been alien, indeed mostly unknown.
Evangelical Protestantism brings about a cultural revolution in its new territories. It
brings about radical changes in the relations between men and women, in the upbringing and
education of the children, in attitudes towards traditional hierarchies. Most importantly it
includes precisely that Protestant ethic that Max Weber analyzed as an important ingredient in
the genesis of modern capitalism – a disciplined, frugal and rationally oriented approach to work.
It is pluralistic and modernizing culture despite its North Atlantic origin.
Defining Culture
Culture is not static; it varies in time –space moments. It grows out of a systematically
encouraged reverence for selected customs and habits. Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary defines culture as ‘the total pattern of human behaviour and its products embodied in
speech, action, and artifacts and dependent upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations.
Language, religion, political and legal systems, and systems customs are the legacies of
victors and marketers and reflect the judgments of the marketplace of ideas popular history. They
might also rightly be seen as living artifacts, bits and pieces carried forward through the years on
currents of indoctrination, popular acceptance and unthinking adherence to old ways. Culture is
used by the organizations of society, politicians, academics, theologians and families – to impose
and ensure order, the rudiments of which change over time need dictates. It is less often
acknowledged as the means of justifying inhumanity and warfare.
Cultural conflicts can be placed into three broad categories; religious warfare, ethnic
conflict, and conflict between cultural cousins, which amounts to historical animosity between
cultures, that may be similar in some respects but still have significant differences that have used
to justify conflict over issues of proximity.
27
Technological Globalization
The communication revolution is a very smart innovation in our time. The
communication and information have got completely transformed in the post industrial society. It
is because if the changing nature of capitalist economy in the post industrial phase. With the
development of microprocessor, the whole gamut of information and technology in
contemporary period released a new life to the late modern period. Its vastness in scope and
intensive character developed a new kind of interaction across the national territories. The time
and space limitation of modern period virtually extinguished because of the technological
innovation. The current developments in information and communication technologies
internationalizing the exchange of ideas and information in the same way the books, radio,
television and many other communication inventions have done before. However, certain
inherent, unique qualities if the new information and communication technologies indicate that
this communication revolution is different from previous ones.
The qualities of new information and communication technologies are mainly divided
into parts: digitalization, information processing, bandwidth and standards and decentralized
architecture. Let us discuss each of these parts briefly.
Digitization
From the first ancient cave paintings to the mass-produced books, movies, telephone and
television a particular medium has constrained the communication channel it established to a
particular mode and type of message. Paintings are visual and cannot be listened to, a television
conversation cannot be watched and movie cannot be felt. This inherent limitation has forced us
to use a variety of different media to accommodate the many different modes of human
communication.
Digitization changes this. By translating information into a universal binary code any
kind of communication can be handled through time and space medium and transmitted through
its infrastructure. Text, drawings, pictures, sounds and speech, video, and many other types of
information once they are translated into binary code are transmittable through digital networks.
Since different types of information can be sent over and the same network, many traditionally
distinct information and communication uses migrate form dedicated networks to this universal
networks, a development called convergence. Such digital networks even break sown the
traditionally categories of one-to-one (telephone, letter) and one-to-one (television) networks.
The universal digital code is the most important of the new information and
communication technologies. It permits the construction of networks. Which are custom tailored
to a particular kind of information flow but remain open and adaptable form any possible future
use. But digitization would not have been practical without the power of the information
technologies to translate rich information flows into the digital code and back. A digitization is
the theoretical precondition; dramatic increases in information processing power are the practical
necessity to build integrated, digital universal networks.
Information Processing
The development of information processing capacity and power from the early days of
integrated circuits in the 1960s to the twenty first century has been nothing short of breath
taking. In 1965, a young engineer, Gordon Moore, who would later confound Intel, the world’s
largest producer of microprocessors, published a four-page article forecasting that the
information processing capacity of microprocessor would double every eight months, while cost
28
and power consumption would decrease with similar speed. Termed Moore’s Law his prediction
still holds. Today computing speed is million of times faster than in 1965. Experts predict that
processing speed and power will continue to at double every eighteen months until the end of
twenty-first century’s first decade. By then information processing with silicon switches of
electric current will be replaced by optical or biological computing, but as far as we know today
Moore’s Law still hold or be surpassed by even more dramatic increase. Information processing
provides the power the power to transfer ever-richer streams of information into digital code and
back into human absorbable forms, to permit it to be handled and transmitted across digital
networks. Advances in storage and display further enhance this development. In the 1980s,
typical hard disk in a personal computer would store twenty million characters of text.
Bandwidth
Moore’s Law pertains to the processing of data the transformation of almost any kind of
information into a binary code, its easy manipulation and storage, and its translation back into
the analogue kind of information flows that our human senses can grasp. Processing information
efficiently in millions of computers is quite useful. But what makes it more useful is the ability to
move information around. Transformation of digitized information over networks, the necessary
complement to processing power, has kept place. Indeed, network bandwidth – the amount of
information capable of being transmitted over a network – just not just double every eighteen
months – as Moore’s Law predicts for processing speed and power every twelve months. Every
three years, than, processing speed increases fourfold and transmission capabilities, a staggering
twenty-seven fold. Experts expect this annual tripling of bandwidth to continue for at least the
next twenty-five years. Already the prediction is called Gilder’s Law and given a status
comparable to Moore’s Law. Digital storage is so cheap and bandwidth so plentiful that a leading
computer manufacturer announced in early 2000 that it would give each if its more than 30
million customers 20 million characters of free disk storage on its savers, accessible through the
internet to use temporary storage backup, or information sharing.
Standards and Decentralized Architecture
Universality of code, substantial and rapidly increasing processing power, and network
bandwidth created the fertile soil for another, four major quality of the new information and
communication technologies. It permitted the logistical tasks of sending and receiving
information to become part of the communication infrastructures, the networks themselves.
Historically, many communication networks were built around a few central organizational
entities. Newspapers were written, edited, laid out, and printed in one place and depended only
on a peripheral distribution network. The telephone network was controlled by central, regional
and local switches owned and operated by the phone company. Terrestrial television was
originally produced at and transmitted from one location. Like the phone networks, television
networks are controlled buy the television company, its affiliates and business partners.
The most successful of all digital networks, the Internet, is built on an entirely different
paradigm. The Internet’s network is decentralized, almost by definition, because of the
communication standards and protocols that it employs. It is built on the premise that all
elements of the networks, whoever owns and operates them, will work together to function
seamlessly. If one element if the network fails, the Internet protocols are designed to find ways to
circumvent the failing element to re-route information flows around the trouble spot. Embedding
this routing intelligence into the network was made possible only by virtue of the processing
power available to millions of users and the bandwidth increases causes by advances in
transmission technology, particularly but not limited to fibre optics. Technically, loosening
central control over a communication network, like the internet necessitates crafting into the
29
communication protocols and structures of the networks, pragmatic means of network self-
management and self-regulation. The Internet is the living example that such dispersal of control
is not just technically feasible. But working- working very well. The delegation of control to the
communication elements of the communication structures requires, however that these elements
use a common communication standard.
These four interconnected qualities – digitization, processing power (Moore’s Law),
network bandwidth (Gilder’s Law), and networks with a globally standardized but decentralized
communication architecture taken together give the current digital information and
communication networks a character that transcends previous technological innovations. If
revolutions are symbolized by rapid replacement compared with evolutionary, incremental
modifications and additions the current development in the communication arena qualifies as a
particularly strong communication revolution. Unlike previous communication technologies,
digital integrated networks do not just add this existing communication mix but cause substantial
shifts of communication flows from old dedicated networks to the new universal net based on a
globally accepted standard.
The consequences of this communication revolution are as profound as they are complex.
Some of the most basic of these consequences will be felt by all societies affected, with
governments’ forces to react to them. They range from the dependency to network infrastructures
for societal growth and well-being to changes in the global economic order, from consequences
for domestic governance to potential power shifts in international affairs. The following
consequences of communication revolution are discussed bellow.
Network Dependency
With digital networks taking an ever more prominent in our daily lives, from work to
leisure, our society as a whole will become more dependent on the network, its functioning and
integrity. The 1980 ARPANET collapse the nationwide saturation of the AT&T switching
system in 1990, and the global havoc of the ‘iloveyou’ virus in the spring of 2000 provide early
glimpses of how dependent will coincide with an inverse in vulnerability as the network
standards as robust and decentralized as they insecure and open. To counter these insecurities,
policy-makers will have to coordinate efforts domestically and on a global scale, augmenting
their policies with technological additions, such as encryption and digital signatures.
Despite these technological fixes, the fundamental openness of the networks will always
leave it somewhat vulnerable to attacks. The simple provision of a regulatory framework for the
use of tools adding network security will not suffice. Infrastructure protection and disaster
prevention experts and law enforcement will have to understand the stakes. The most dangerous
scenario might be one of hackers using a whole string of little known security loopholes to bring
down essential network parts in a domino effect that does not stop.
Convergence and Mass Customization
Many associate the Internet with globalization, particularly in the business sector. There
is no doubt that global networks supplement international trade and economic globalization, as
they lower the cross-border transaction costs for advertising, marketing and ordering.
Globalization will receive a further boost from the Internet once a substantial part of the
information traded globally is distributed over the network.
There is a second, highly important economic aspect of digital networks. They provide
the framework for moving the economy from mass production, symbolized by Henry Ford’s
assurance that customers could get the Model T car in any colour they wanted so long as it was
black, hinges on predicting demand, producing stock based on the prediction, and then using
30
advertisement to stimulate demand for the products. Mass production is made possible in part
buy the ability of producers to ‘broadcast’ their marketing information to a large number of
potential customers. Existing media have been successfully employed for that purpose.
The digital networks permit a different model of production, which is, at least in theory,
much more efficient. By using the networks’ ability for two way communication, producers now
can querry the consumers have already ordered. Mass customization, a concept made popular by
Stan Davis in 1987 and theoretically refined by Joseph Pine, is now a leading strategy in new
economy. Concrete consumer information leading to customized production substitutes for
massive information outflows from producers to consumers. Already it has made it possible for
large computer companies like Dell or Apple to offer their computers ‘built-in-order’ on their
websites, thus reducing overall inventory to as little as two days supply – a huge efficiency gain
given the steep and fast inventory depreciation in the computer sector. But mass customization is
not limited to the manufacturing sector, it is almost a natural choice for information-oriented
service sectors and information media. The early 1990s predicted a world with 500 television
channels do not carry the day, but, rather, a single highly customized stream of information for
every user – ‘one channel for one’.
This massive restructuring of the underlying business models in the new network
economy poses many new and complex policy issue, including privacy and intellectual property,
as the ability into control and use information becomes the source of wealth.
Virtual Communities
Global network reach, world wide content formatting standards, and continuous drastic
increases in bandwidth will create a ubiquitous information experience for an increasing number
of users. The Internet pricing model, with its disregard for distance, will further facilitate this
development. With the ‘information economy’ moving from delivery if information across
networks, issues of product distribution infrastructures hampering current e-commerce business
in developing economies will becomes less important. The ‘distance’ if the digital networks will
not be physical distances but bottlenecks in bandwidth and processing speeds. People will
experience proximity and distance as the difference between a fast information server connected
to the net with broad bandwidth and a small sever linked to an unreliable and slow network link.
Traditional policymaking is based at least in part on the notion that states bind people
together on the basis of geographic proximity. Almost the entire legal system of the world is
premised on the notion of determinate location. Rules have a certain territorial reach and people
within this reach bound by them. But users of global digital networks will no longer experience
geographic boundaries. Instead they will experience more and more boundaries of self-declared
communities, created by users sharing similar interests or goals. These ‘virtual communities’, a
term made popular by Internet visionary Howard Rheingold in 1993, are not tied together by
geographic proximity but by shared values, goals or experiences. Moreover, while in most cases
one can only be part of one physical community, there is no similar restriction for virtual
community in most cases is much less costly for the individual.
Governance based on geographic proximity, territorial location, and exclusivity of
membership to such physical communities will be fundamentally challenged by the advent of
numerous non-proximity-based, overlapping virtual landscape have been suggested, from
international law to community self-regulation, but how and how well these concepts may blend
with the prevailing state-based governance model remains to be seen.

31
The Digital Divide
Digital networks are rapidly turning into tools of power. Access to networks will be key
to playing a role in the new economy. Technological breakthroughs, for example, in wireless
communications, and Moore’s Law may permit societies with currently limited network access
capabilities to leapfrog into the information age. At the same time, access to networks like the
Internet is not only dependent on the technological infrastructure. People desiring to access the
net also need to know how to navigate and explore a still largely English, text-oriented web
regardless of how easy the actual information access appliances will have become. Some predict
that this education gap will bar a large percentage of the world’s population, especially the
socially disadvantaged, from the full benefits of the net, with the result of further exclusion.
Overcoming the challenges implicit in such an analysis of a two-tier society will pose another
serious governance issue.
Wile digital universal networks are neither the sole nor the primary force of globalization,
they are intimately linked with the move toward globalization, both fueling it and being fueled
by it. The societal consequences will be profound. Network dependency, the shift from mass
production to mass customization, virtual communities, and the decline of the importance of
geographic proximity as a defining element, as well as the potential harms of a global and
societal digital divide, represent four domains of challenge for governance in the twenty-first
century.
Conclusion
The world has changed in truly fundamental ways since the burst of international
institution building that followed the chaos of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
The most important changes are usually summarized in the world interdependence which has
already been something of a cliché in the rhetoric of international meetings. Yet we have not
sufficiently incorporated either out analytical models or our politics.
The multinational corporation and international production reflect a world in which
capital and technology have become mobile while labour has remained relatively immobile.
Continuous changes in comparative advantage among national economics advances in modern
transportation and communications, and favourable government policies encourage corporations
to locate their production facilities in the most advantageous locations around the world. Some of
these advantages include the existence of pools of low-cost skilled labour, proximity to markets
and tax advantages. The result of this internationalization of industrial production has been the
creation of a complex web of interlocking relationships among nation-states and corporations.

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 LESSON 5
HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENTS IN NORTH AND SOUTH
--Karunakar Patra
Dayal Singh College
University of Delhi
A Brief History of Human Rights Movement
The foundations of human rights have a long history. At the dawn of the civilization
various religious scriptures present themselves with human ethos and values. Human rights as a
movement first gained its currency in the form of human freedom characterized in Magna Carta
(1215).The Charter not only made it clear that the rights of the kings or monarchy to interfere in
the civil rights of the individuals but also it made the church free from governmental
interference. Along with these crucial freedoms of human beings it also allowed them with
property rights, widow rights to marry and have property, due process of law and equality before
law. In short, Magna Carta laid the foundation as the most powerful instrument of human
freedom and signpost for future struggle for human freedom.
At the same time the religious and political traditions in the other parts of the world also
proclaimed what have come to be called human rights; calling rulers to rule justly and
compassionately, and delineating limits on their power over lives, property and other civic
activities of their citizens. But such claims became much more focused and pronounced in
eighteenth century, especially in the writings of the numerous western philosophers. They
proposed the concept of natural rights for man claiming that these rights are ascribed from the
law of nature not because of his/her citizenship. This concept was vigorously debated by its
promoters and detractors. With the passage of time, however, two important revolutions shaped
the progress of human rights movements in the western world. In 1976, the American War of
Independence defeated British colonial power, and uttered a famous declaration: ‘We hold these
truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator
with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.’ This
was followed by French Revolution that overthrew monarchy in 1789 and established the First
Republic in France. It also gave a slogan: ‘life, liberty and fraternity are the motto of human
civilization.’ This gave an important contribution to the human society in the form of the ‘Rights
of Man’.
At a latter stage, the natural rights concept fell into disfavour. However, the concept of
universal rights took its place. Thinkers like Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill and Henry David
Thoreau expanded the concept. Thoreau was the first philosopher to have used the term ‘human
rights’ in his treatise – Civil Disobedience – that influenced Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and
Martin Luther King to develop and propagate the concept of non-violence resistance to unethical
governmental action.
The middle and late nineteenth century witnessed a number of issues taking the centre
stage, and many of these issues were named as human rights issues in the late twentieth century.
They included slavery, serfdom, brutal working conditions, starvation, wages, and child labour.
In United States a bloody war took place in the name of slavery. Russia freed its serfs the year
the war begins.
Human rights movement was still at its infancy and largely tied to sectarian and often
narrow ends. Human rights activism was largely tied to political and religious groups and beliefs.
Either group had any credibility with the other and, most had little or no credibility with
uninvolved citizens who got caught in the crossfire, usually cursed both sides. Nonetheless,
many specific civil rights and human rights movements managed to affect profound social
changes during this time. Labour unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike,
establishing minimum work conditions, forbidding or regulating child labour, establishing a forty
hour week in the United States and many European countries, etc. Meanwhile the women rights
movement succeeded in gaining women right to vote. Freedom movements in many Afro-Asian
countries succeeded in overthrowing colonial powers and thereby ending century long
oppression. The most prominent among these movements was one led by M. K. Gandhi against
the British Empire. At a later stage, martin Luther king Jr. led one of the most successful civil
rights movements against racial oppression in twentieth century America.
The most critical period in the whole history of human rights movement came in the
wake of the Second World War. The horrors of the war led to birth and recognition of the
modern human rights movements in the international arena. President Roosevelt’s proclamation
in 1941, of the four freedoms – of speech and expression, of belief, freedom from fear and
freedom from want – as a universally acceptable set of standards. The establishment of United
Nations in 1945, and the subsequent international concern for the commitment of human rights
that widened the scope of this movement. In the post war situation the ‘Declaration of Universal
Human Rights’ (UDHR) on 10th December, 1948 marked one of the greatest event in the last
century. In fact, the UN Declaration emerged in response to changing political context, universal
demand for constitutionalism and representative government, universal suffrage, and popular
education on the other hand, to the emergence of Soviet Republic, Peoples Republic of China
and the Third World Countries who were justly got freed from the colonial rules. Besides, this
was the time that universal principles of human rights found support from everybody irrespective
of ideological differences.
Yet in the history of human rights movements, the most epoch making incident happened
in 1961, when a group of lawyers, journalists, writers and activists felt offended and humiliated
at the sentencing if two Portuguese college students to twenty years in prison for having raised
their glasses in a toast to ‘freedom’ in a bar. The incident led to the formation of Appeal for
Amnesty, which subsequently known as Amnesty International. The appeal was announced on
May 28, in the London Observer’s Sunday Supplement. The appeal narrated the stories of six
‘prisoners of conscience’ from different countries and of different political and religious
background. All jailed for peacefully expressing their political and religious beliefs, and called
on governments everywhere to free such prisoners. It is set forth a simple plan of action, calling
for strictly impartial, non-partisan appeals to be made on behalf of these prisoners and any who
like them had been imprisoned for peacefully expressing their beliefs.
The response to this appeal was larger than any one had expected. The one-year appeal
grew and was extended beyond the year. With this Amnesty International and modern human
rights movements were born. The modern human rights movement did not invent any new
principles. It was different from what preceded it primarily in its explicit rejection of political
ideology and partisanship, and its demand that governments every where, regardless of ideology,
adhere to certain basic principles of human rights in the treatment of their citizens. This appealed
to a larger audience all around the world, many of whom were politically inactive, not interested
in joining a political movement, nor ideologically motivated, and did not care about creating the
perfect society of perfect government. They were simply outraged that any government dared
abuse, imprison, torture, or often kill the human beings whose only crime was in believing
differently from their government and saying so in public. They took to writing letters to
governments and publicizing the plights of these people in hopes of persuading abusive
governments into better behaviour.

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 Taking these concerns more explicitly, many new groups emerged that took the issues of
rights and human freedom to even grater heights. While Amnesty International played a crucial
role in crusading the cause of human rights across the world, there were other groups who
primarily differed in their strategy and orientation from Amnesty formed a coalition called
“Human Rights Watch” in 1978 at Helsinki. Besides, there emerged several regional human
rights groups that often operated under extremely difficult conditions, especially those in Soviet
Block. The Helsinki Watch, which latter merged with other groups to form Human Rights
Watch, stated as a few Russian activists who formed to monitor the Soviet Union’s compliance
with human rights provisions in the Helsinki Accords. Many of its members were shortly
arrested after it was formed and had little chance to be active. The other regional groups formed
after military takeovers in Chile in 1973, in East Timor in 1975, in Argentina in 1976, and after
Chinese democracy Wall Movement in 1979. Although there were differences in philosophy,
focus, and tactics between the groups, for the most part they remained on speaking terms, and a
number of human rights activists belonged to more than one.
Global recognition for human rights movement grew during the 1970’s. For example,
Amnesty International gained permanent observer status as an NGO at the Untied Nations. Its
reports and statements became mandatory reading in legislatures, state departments and foreign
ministries around the world. Its press releases received respectful attention, even when its
recommendations were ignored by the governments involved. In 1971, it was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for its contribution to the cause of human rights.
The impact of this global coalition for promoting human rights cause has been quite
significant. While it put the agenda of human rights as enshrined in the UN Declaration, 1948, it
caught the attention of civil society organizations and individual in the Third World to fight such
precious rights. Numerous civil society organizations emerged in Asia, Africa and Latin America
fighting against oppressive states and basic human rights, whether it is the right to life, or right to
work or right to better working conditions. In short, Amnesty and many other organization
inspired and shaped the alter course of civil liberties movements all-round the world.
The Practice of Human Rights Activism
The practices of human rights activism emerge differently in the development of the
modern and contemporary human rights. Their density, diversity and direction, and their
histories have been a subject of much lively discussion. The rich diversity of human rights
instruments, norms, and standards and unending flows of interpretation complicate further any
presentation of the histories of human rights activism, whether modern or contemporary.
Yet it remains important to understand human rights activism as a set of practices, forms,
and social action that engage the ‘labour transformation (Louis Althuser, 1969). What then do
the practices of human rights activism work with and transform? In the present opinion, human
rights activism works with the raw material of human suffering arising from the denial of
dignity, equal worth and concern for all human beings. Its transformative practices combat
human rightlessness at myriad institutional sites and with divergent ideological orientations.
These remain directed to the normative production of human rights norms and standards at all
levels (local, regional, national, supranational, and transnational/global) and further practices of
preservation, protection, promotion and renovation and repair of human rights norms and
practices. They produce both politics of and for human rights; put differently, they reinforce as
well as reinvent the practices of the ‘politics of production’ and the production of politics.

36
NGOs and Human Rights Activism
Almost all contemporary human rights practices take an associative form, that of non-
governmental organizations. The impact of the NGOs on the making and working of human
rights is so considerable that contemporary human rights may remain unintelligible outside their
networked practices. The NGO-ization of human rights is a pervasive reality.
Reading human rights practices through NGO-ization of the world raises an important
question; how may we distinguish human rights NGOs from others? More specifically put, how
may one read/place, along the axis of domination and resistance, the manifold cross-professional
practices of human rights activism? This question assumes importance on many arenas and sites.
Cooperation as well as ambivalence marks the relational patterns. While activists have
encouraged and welcomed the emergence of activist justices who have, across the north-south
divide, made some distinctive contribution towards securing human rights within that
jurisdictional sphere, they also remain ambivalent concerning the role of adjudicatory power to
ameliorate the reproduction of the old and new forms of human rightlessness. Second, while
transnational human rights advocacy networks seek to foster collaboration with state and policy
actors on a terrain as diverse as ethical or moral foreign policy, or a fair trade and ethical
investment, international regional and financial institutions, and whole networks of aid and
development funding agencies and foundations. Likewise, third, transnational advocacy
networks increasingly accomplish human rights outcomes across a vast range of
intergovernmental sites.
It is, in this context, however, to understand the human rights activism, it is imperative to
look into its complex sociological historic origins. Human rights activist praxes remain both
culturally embedded and autonomous. These also remain enclosed within national political
histories, and processes, even when empowered by networks of transactional human rights
advocacy and action. Often universalistic assertion of human rights norms and standards launch
culture wars in which the ‘national’ human rights traditions confront styles of the ‘global’
imposition of human rights.
Human Rights Wariness
Human rights wariness takes many forms. Normative wariness signifies a state of moral
fatigue with human rights languages and logics. Its dissipated residual energies contest the very
notion of human rights as a moral language and rhetoric in different strokes that hastily
improvise variations on Bentham’s robust attack describing ‘natural rights as nonsense upon
stilts’. The idea that the notion of human rights is itself incoherent leads to the conclusion that
there are no such rights and belief in witches and unicorns. In much the same vein, it is said that
because human rights mean different things to different people, human rights have no ‘robust
ontological identity’ and rights talk only mystify the problem.
The second wariness formation, related to the first, signifies nostalgia for old traditions
for doing ethical and moral theory. The indictment here is that the rights-talk instead of
addressing virtue and goodness, duty and responsibility, fosters conflicted and adversarial
notions of social cooperation, displacing old notions about human perfectibility and
communitarian harmony. To the extent that such displacement occurs, it said, the gulf between
the individual and community widens in ways that promote and enhance ‘atomism’ over
‘connectedness’, abstraction over contextuality, rights over responsibility, independent over
relational, rationality that contradict feminist and communitarian notions concerning human
rights. Human rights wariness can be of different kinds. Let us discuss these human rights
wariness very briefly.

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Types of Representational Power
Rights wariness characterizes the communities of perpetrators of human rights violations
as well as the communities of violated, on whose behalf human activist practices speak to the
world. Articulation of rights wariness involves the problematic of representational power.
Given the logic of sovereign representation of peoples by states, and of states in turn by
political regimes, it becomes often possible for the heads of the states and governments to claim
pre-eminent representational power to speak on behalf of their peoples. And they articulate
typical forms of rights wariness. One form of it provides the representation of contemporary
human rights traditions as a threat to civilizational and cultural values, of which of course the
leaders and the regimes claim to be example guardians and custodians. Another and related form
consists in the representation that condemns contemporary human rights as being itself a form of
radical evil, one that needs to be condemned in the name of God and the Holy. Yet another form
of rights wariness takes an equally strident secular voice: contemporary human rights, western in
their origins, are language of neo-colonization, concealing new designs of a progressive
Eurocentrism.
But this representational character is ambiguous and multiplex, affecting the practices of
what Baxi (2006: 82) calls the politics of and politics for human rights. Vigilant rights wariness,
as an attitude of confrontation with the politics of human rights, often collapse when otherwise
indefensible regimes stand supposed against the imperialism of a solitary superpower. In these
moments, a nationalist defence of state sovereignty and sovereign equality of all states becomes
curiously unproblematic even for the practitioners of the politics for human rights
At other moments, when characteristically repressive and brutal political regimes and
elites seek to monopolize the narrative voice in the idiom and grammar of the Asian, Islamic,
Latin America, or African approaches to human rights, rights wariness remains the only response
available for those engaged in the difficult practices for the politics of human rights. The
invocation of rich and diverse civilizational tradition by wicked regimes or leaders amount to no
more, from the perspective of violated, than an endorsement of power to create and sustain their
own genera of violent social exclusion, by proclaiming lesser human rights for culturally
constituted inferior or despised peoples.
Coalescence
There are other less dramatic occasions when communities of power and of social activist
share a platform of rights wariness. This happens in ideological practices that first, demonstrate
the dualism of standards in the evaluation of human rights performance. Second, it testifies that
the North consistently refuses to assume human rights obligations to South, whether in terms of
reparations of past injuries and mayhems inflicted in the ex-colonial societies and indigenous
peoples of the world or in terms of declaration of even a meager percentage of its resources to
alleviate conditions of extreme global impoverishment caused all too often by its own global
economic domination. Third, it archives the betrayal by the North of its human rights
commitments, especially through its promotion of regimes of indebtedness and policies of
‘structural adjustment’. Fourth, it critiques in the arena of sustainable development policies, the
North’s failure to assume burdens commensurate with its self-assumed leadership role. And
finally, it laments the human rights diplomacy of the North, complicit of the worst violation of
human rights of the peoples of the South both in the Cold War and the now nascent post Cold
War era.

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 The politics of human rights in the South, naturally seeks to use this commonality
between itself and its Other – the politics for human rights – towards its own ends. Rights
wariness, in this context, has to combat on the side of activist thought and praxis, the
extraordinarily rights – denying political appropriation by unscrupulous national regimes, of their
critiques of global order.
Wariness of the Violated
Human rights wariness also increasingly an attribute for the consciousness of the violated
that finds that the perpetrators of the gravest violation all too readily summon the ethic of human
rights to serve their own ends of impunity. The originary habitats of Euro-American culture
provide a safe haven for the worst perpetrators of human rights violation. They feel mystified by
the see-saw of juridical process and power. They weep one day on hearing that the Lord Chief
Justice of the UK, not merely quashes the arrest of Pinochet on the ground that a ‘former
sovereign is entitled to human rights respect but also at the award of the huge legal costs. They
also weep though, with joy, the next day when a narrow majority or the House of Lords carefully
reverses that decision.
Human Right’s Movements
The important question here to ask is whether the practices of human rights activism
amount to social movement and if so how may we understand the relations between human
rights activism and social movements. Understanding of social movements, its forms, practices
and carriers reflect an ambiguous character. They entail ensembles of collective social actors,
located in different times, spaces and geographies. However, as far as human rights and social
movements are concerned they relate to each other as ideology, grievance, and collective identity
as contested sites. Both of these give rise to a potential opportunity that offers some kind of
objective structural potential for collective political action (Baxi, 2006:201). The upsurge of
these movements comes out suddenly of imposed grievances. In addition to this, social
movements marshal master protest frames that is ideological accounts legitimating protest
activity that come to be shared by a variety of social movements.
There is no such agreement as to what constitutes the core content of the notion. The
ideal of social movement as ‘a conscious collective and an organized attempt to bring about, or
resist a large scale change in the social order by non-institutionalized means has proved
contentious.
The notion of social movements, as often remarked, resists overarching definitions or
description. The notion itself is a fuzzy one because of the problem of reading collective
internationalities of those that indicate movements, participate and sustain these. Not all social
movements proceed with a clear conscious and coherent original intent. Nor further so social
movements always constitute fields of resistance to power; often they also contribute to
reinforcement of structures of domination. In any event, the intent undergoes changes as the
movements proceed to acquire some level if internal coherence in time and place but also begin
to marshal a certain level of social legitimacy and political force.
The Emancipatory Character of Human Rights Movements
Human rights movements, as reformist movements, mark struggles to enhance individual
human freedoms against the overweening powers of the modern state formations and the
repressive power of social institutions and cultural processes. Such movements also limit such
aspiration and achievement by the process of negotiation and compromise. Human rights
movements, while seeking to disempower the state in relations to the individual human being
power also seeks to re-empower it in the contexts of ameliorating, even eliminating, some
39
systemic patterns of social, economic, and cultural domination that result in human and social
suffering. But as is well known the re-empowerment of the state for even just human rights
causes does not always lead to the real life achievement of emancipation from the oppressive
structures of power and domination.
The subject of human rights movement (as Marx showed in relation to the histories of
working classes) break away from the ‘iron cage’ only to be further bound in ‘silken strings’.
Michel Foucault expressed a similar idea differently in terms of ‘infrapower’- these regimes of
little powers little institutions that weave a web of macroscopic capillary power… attaching men
to the production apparatus, while making them into agents of production, into workers, and thus
create a synthetic, political linkage between hyperprofit and infrapower (Foucault, 2000).
All this invites the consideration of relationship between human rights movements and
social movements. It is on this register that the complexities of the distinction, rife in
contemporary social movement theory, between the old and new social movements fully emerge
to view. To venture a large generalization, this distinction merely unfolds fresh understandings
of and renewed forms of struggle with, the ‘hyperprofit’ and ‘infrapower’ regimes. However, the
languages of human rights make a difference. One way of stating the difference is that the old
social movements, encased within the manifold rise of industrialism capitalism, led social
movements to generate the articulation of human rights norms and standards, hither to unscripted
and even unknown. They also incrementally but surely fostered new human rights values and
cultures of power and resistance. The new social movements continue a similar order of struggle
against sweatshops and new economic zones, child labour and related forms of exploitation of
outsourced labour practices in the heavily globalized conjunctures. However, the decisive shifts
deserve notice: the old social movements formed historic struggles to articulate altogether new
regimes of human rights; in contrast, the discourse of the new social movements thrives all too
heavily in the language of human rights already in place. All the same, in both forms the place of
human rights movements remains somewhat insecure.
The histories of the old social movements present fully the difficulties of reading the
emancipatory character of human rights movements. How may human rights theory read the now
furiously proclaimed divide between the ‘old and new’ social movements? Much here depends
on what we may wish to regard as paradigmatic of the old social movements. Were we to regard
the struggle of the working classes against the capitalist ones as such, the dominant trends in the
Marxian discourse resist description of human rights movements as emancipatory movements.
The figure of human rights appears in this genre of movement theory only in terms of critique of
extend models of rights, state, and the law. In contrast, were one to locate a paradigmatic of the
old social movements the anti-colonial struggles, we grasp the revolutionary emancipatory
potential of the unique ethical invention of the right to self-determination. But even here as the
exponents of the right to self-determination M. K. Gandhi demonstrated the emancipatory
character of the struggles for self-determination entailed transcendence from the received ethical
languages of human rights; he believed in the virtue of not the virtue of just freedom, not just
freedom (Baxi, 1995). In a further contrast, some different and liberal discursive frames privilege
the narratives of old social movements (such as slavery and slave abolitionist movements and
suffragette movements) the emancipatory potential of human rights movements in terms of
painstaking gradual displacement of status and hierarchy based ancient regime that in the net
result, expands the power of individual choice of life-projects and projects autonomous
constructions of lifeworlds. But even these narratives grasp human rights movements not as ends
but as means to an end, enunciated in different terminologies and diction of democracy.

40
 In contrast, and at first sight, many of the new social movements appear as distinctively
human rights-oriented. Movements confronting patriarchy, environmental degradation, racism in
all its forms, and the politics of imposed identities, for example every where entail recourse to
contemporary languages of human rights values, norms, and standards. These movements are
human rights reinforcing but also at time innovate human rights and standards, and thus remain
jurisgenerative. In the pursuit of the realization of existing human rights values, norms, and
standards, in this, they partake the defining features of the old movements as well.
Human Rights as Juridicalization
Contemporary movement theory approaches to human rights movements need to
negotiate the ineluctable features of legalization and juridicalization. Legalization primarily
consists of the production of lawyers’ law concerning human rights as legislation, interpretation,
implementation and enforcement. Law is itself a complex affair. The complexities aggravate
when we turn to the production of human rights law, central to which is the belief that as legal
codes, human rights norms and standards require constant engagement with renegotiation of
legality and legitimacy of state power. Legal and judicial activism entails the consequence that
human rights movements by definition pursue the tasks of reform and renovation of the law.
Reformation of state and other global structures and practices constitutes a vital part of the very
agenda of human rights movements. At stake, again, are the ways of refashioning or rethinking
the ethical languages of the rule of law. Underlying legalization are forms of what Friedrich
Engels named as – the world judicial outlook that consolidates economic and social
relationships, as being founded on law and created by the state where in all redemptive human
aspirations speak the languages of either to bourgeois or socialist legality. Thus the social
meanings of human rights norms and standards remain complex.
A state centric understanding of human rights law remains contested by the practices of
contemporary human rights activism and the new social movements. In this perspective, the
production of human rights norms and standards may not be understood as a spectacle of state
sovereignty. Peoples in struggle and communities of resistance as repeatedly stressed also
emerge as the markets of human rights norms and standards. How then we may describe the
power of contemporary human rights activism, in conjunction with the new social movements?
Perhaps one way to achieve this is say that most human rights utterances belong to the genre of
performative speech acts that create the very state of affairs is an institutional fact. The
paradigmatic human rights declarations concerning equality and dignity of all human beings
every where signify this performative power. While Tilak inaugurated the Indian struggle for
independence with the motto: ‘Swaraj is my birth right and I shall have it’ and when Gandhi
translated this into a collective feat of Indian independence, they were engaged in a series of
performative act; so were the makers and successors of the UDHR. In each case of human rights
declaration - the state of affairs represented by the prepositional content of the speech act is
brought into existence by the successful performance of that very speech act.
In contrast, juridicalization of human rights, as understood here, helps us to understand
the deep structure of which their legalization is merely the outward manifestation. Thus
understood, human rights remain both language dependent and thought dependent. Human rights
belong ‘by human agreement’ to use the symbolism of language in a shared manner. They are
thought dependent on the sense that all institutional facts can exist only….. if represented as
existing. Juridicalization ordains that these facts can exist only if people have certain sorts of
belief and other mental attitudes. Because they have no existence outside representation, we need
some way of representing them through language. Human rights norms and standards are social

41
objects is the sense that they are constituted by social acts and the object is the continuous
possibility of activity.
The distinction that is made between the modern and contemporary language of human
rights fully demonstrate different histories of juridicalization of human rights. The contemporary
languages (whether through outlaw of slavery, genocide, apartheid, sexism, ethnic
discrimination, for example) create social/institutional facts beliefs and attitudes alien to the
languages of modern human rights. In both, however, a certain tendency toward sefl-
referentiality remains inevitable.
The growing interaction between human rights movements and social movements
increasingly redefine the missions, mandate and methodologies of human rights movements. The
Amnesty International thus redefined in 2001 its mission to embrace aspects of social, economic
and cultural human rights. Increasingly humanitarian NGOs and movements begin to assume a
new human rights orientation. Perhaps the most significant instance of the interaction occurs
when human rights movements, governments and international development agencies pursue ‘a
right-based approach to development, collaborative campaigning by human rights and
development NGOs, and the adoption of economic rights orientation by human rights groups.’
Social movements including cultural, political and even spiritual movements, in contrast,
are not always related to the universe of human rights movements. Not all social movements
ideal typically address concerns to political actors and the sate apparatus. Far from being human
rights-oriented, some social movements indeed shun the rights languages altogether,
emphasizing languages of duties and solidarity. Some harbour deep suspicion concerning
legalization of human rights via languages of law which are at the same time the languages of
power. Intense juridicalization is said to expropriate the power of the voices of the violated
(Baxi, 2004).
The various kinds of issues relating to human rights have been intensely fought both in
North and South. Some of them are right to human dignity, right to livelihood, right against
exploitation and human trafficking, right to shelter, right to privacy, right to education,
protection of the rights of child labour, right of girl children and women, and right to healthy
environment. Let us discuss briefly about these human rights.
Right to Human Dignity
Article 1 of the UDHR reads: ‘All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and
rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in
spirit of brotherhood.’ The right to human dignity in every human society is justified on the basis
of human beings are equal and are subject to equal treatment irrespective of their social origin.
The life of dignity can be maintained by respecting the needs and the abilities of human beings in
the society.
In India, the constitution has vehemently interpreted the Fundamental Rights provision in
respect to the human dignity. Article 21 of the Indian constitution gives meaning to this
provision. The Supreme Court made it very clear that right to dignity includes the right to
adequate conditions of work and life, which further covers the hours of work and leisure, right to
perseveration of physical integrity including occupational safety and health, right to an adequate
nutrition etc. Adequate housing and welfare facilities are also essential to the realization of the
right to living conditions compatible with human dignity.
In a landmark case of Francis Coralie vs. Union of India, the Supreme Court said that
right to life and personal liberty were not merely to cover the bare existence but a life of dignity,

42
which includes at least the bare necessaries of life, such as adequate nutrition, food, clothing and
shelter over the head.
Right to Livelihood
Another important area of concern in which the struggles have been intense is in the
world regarding the right to livelihood. The situation in South is very pathetic. In Africa, Asia
and Latin America the livelihood of the individuals have been a serious concern in the
contemporary period. The colonial past in these places and the post- colonial present dominated
by the globalization process has added salt to the injury. The developed North has also some
implications of the process of globalization and neo-liberal economic policies. Feminization of
labour and child labour in the contemporary situation pave the way for the wretched conditions
of children and women both in North and South.
In India again, the Supreme Court has reinterpreted the contents of right to livelihood. It
reiterated the rights of urban as well as rural poor and the court declared that no person can live
without the means of living. Thus the access to earn a living is implicitly linked to right to life.
The court went on to observe that if the right to livelihood was not treated as a part of the
constitutional right to life, the easier way to deprive a person of his right to life would be to
deprive him if his means of livelihood to the point of abrogation. Such deprivation would not
only denude the life its effective content and meaningfulness but it would make life impossible
to live.
Right against Exploitation and Human Trafficking
In the history of human civilization from the ancient Greek period through the
Enlightenment period to the contemporary postmodern era, we have witnessed the depth and
intensity of human exploitation. In the ancient Greek era human slavery was prevalent end even
today slavery and serfdom in different form practice by the developed North. In United State
slavery was a crucial phenomenon which was fought tooth and nail by its victims. All forms of
slavery and serfdom have been prohibited by the provision of human rights in its declarations. In
work places labourers are exploited whether it is industry, agriculture, household, even a
contemporary spaces like ‘call centres, etc. The exploitation of body and mind by the violators
has been a continuous process in work places. The trade unions and other activists have
consistently opposed this violence. In the present neo-economic policy structures we see quite
often the search by the multinational for cheap labour by the women and children led to the
serious exploitation of them.
In India the problem of bonded labour is seen as a serious offence against labourers. In
due course, from time to time, the report has come up pertaining to the inhuman condition of
workers in different sectors. The Supreme Court has come up very strongly as to the payment of
minimum wages and provision of pure drinking water and medical facilities as some of the basic
rights, which can not be denied to workers. As far as bonded labour is concerned the court has
directed the perpetrators of the rights to rehabilitate them as well as to repay their wages fro the
date of installment into works.
Human trafficking is seen as one of the heinous acts of the civilized society. Trafficking
of Women and girl children for the purpose of prostitution is unbearable for human rights
movements. Earlier it was limited to the borders of the states in which trafficking of women and
children from rural areas to the cities was occurred for the purpose of sex trade. In the present
global situation sex trade has got a world wide business. Cosmopolitan cities in Europe and
North America are the centres of sex trade that happens through human trafficking. All the
constitutions of the world democracies prohibit this act as suppressive and inhuman. The human
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rights acts specifically prevent human trafficking. The struggle for ban on human trafficking as a
practice by brothel leaders and other agencies emphasized on strict state protection of the rights
of the victims.
Right to Shelter
The struggle against homelessness and shelter, in 1998 United Nations Social Summit at
Istanbul, become a series of mandates authorizing whole range of human rights violative-
practices of the construction industries and urban developers. The millions of poor people all
over the world seek the support from the governments of different countries both in North and
South (the situation is disappointing in South) shelter over their heads. A life of dignity which is
the basic rights of all individual becomes unfulfilled if she is deprived of the right to shelter. It
entitles her a peaceful and secured life. All the metropolitan cities in the South are surrounded by
slum-clusters in which the urban poors lead inhuman life. In Mumbai, Dharavi is the biggest
slum-cluster in the world in which millions of people living a distressful and pathetic life. Poor
people in rural areas also deprived of houses. In Africa and lot other palaces where wars are
continuously fought, either in the name of self-determination or terrorists acts, thousands of
people become homeless every year.
Shelter does not mean mere physical protection. It should be a place where one can grow
physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually. Therefore, right to shelter must include
adequate living space, safe and descent structure, clean and descent surroundings, sufficient
light, pure air and water, electricity, sanitation and other civic amenities like road, transport, etc.
Right to Privacy
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights well emphasizes
regarding the rights to privacy. It states that ‘no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful
interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his
honour and reputation. This right to privacy exclusively enriches an individual to have free
private life without the interference of any other agency whether it is state or society at large.
Through out the world this right has been considered as a bone to the individual integrity and
happiness. Unnecessary interference by state agencies in many parts of the world upon human
privacy has been condemned on the basis of human rights.
Right to Education
It is highly important for every human being that he/she must be educated to lead an
intellectual and happy life. As far as the peoples in the third world are concerned they are
deprived of their education because of their poverty and other discrepancies arising out of social
constraints. The education or literacy rate is very less in the South compared to the North. As it is
an important issue for human society, it is imperative for everyone irrespective of social
difference including even gender that every one should be entitled to education. The UDHR in its
declaration, in Article 26 mentions very clearly that (i) every one has the right to education.
Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education
shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and
higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit. And (ii) education shall
be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect
for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and
friendship among all nations, racial, or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the
United Nations for the maintenance of peace. And ultimately (iii) parents have a prior choice the
kind of education that shall be given to their children.

44
 In India the provision for free and compulsory education is inherent in the Directive
principles. These principles are there in Part IV of the constitution that can be an impetus for the
government and policy makers to take care while formulating laws. Articles 41, 45 and 46 of the
constitution make it necessary for the state to provide free and compulsory education for all
children below the age of 14. The Supreme Court of India in its several judgements declared
education is the fundamental rights of the children. The court has mad it clear that importance of
education lies in the fact that it enables a man to understand the meaning of human rights and
weaken him to cultural values adjusting him thereby to the healthy environment of the society.
Therefore, the court in numerous cases has directed the government to fulfill its constitutional
obligations. In this regard, the court has put the onus on the government to persuade the poor
workmen to send their children to nearby school and arrange not only free education, but also
provide free study material for the children.
Rights of Children and Women
Child labour through out the world is a serious phenomenon. It is debarred by the
provisions of the human rights. All forms of child labour have been prohibited by the human
rights acts.
Women’s rights are specifically protected by UN conventions. Women constitute half of
the world’s population and perform two-thirds of the world’s work, receive only one-tenth of its
income, and own less than one-hundredth of its property. Significant numbers of the world’s
population are routinely subjected to torture, starvation, terrorism, humiliation, mutilation and
even murder because they are female. On the basis of gender, women face all kinds of violence.
Article 2 of the UDHR confers on all: ‘ the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration
without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status.’
In 1993, the World Conference on Human Rights concluded that human rights of women
and of the girl-child are inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights. The
full and equal participation of women in political, civil, and economic, social and cultural life at
the national, regional, and international levels and the eradication of all forms of discrimination
on grounds of sex are priority objectives of the international community. The World Conference
urged governments, institutions, and inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations to
intensify their efforts for the protection and promotion of human rights of women and girl-child.
The Convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women is unique
in the sense that it recognizes the role of education of both men and women in changing
attitudes, so that equality of rights and responsibilities become willingly and fully accepted and
prejudices and practices based on tradition are overcome. In the Convention, the discrimination
against women is defined as ‘any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex
which has the effect or purpose of impairing or making the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by
women, irrespective of their marital status, on the basis of equality of men and women, of human
rights and fundamental freedom in political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other.’
Right to Healthy Environment
No one today will dispute that pollution free environment is as necessary for survival in
both developed north and developing south. Most specifically in the context of globalization of
economy, contentious matters of environmental laws call for deeper examination in the context
of WTO. It is now broadly accepted that environmental sustainability and human rights are
mutually dependent and thus developed countries in the North putting great pressures on
developing countries to agree to apply the norms of environment. The governments of the
45
countries of the North have joined by their transnational corporations, their trade unions, and
their NGOs in the field of environment.
However, in the guise of environment cleanliness, developed world is insisting on
environmental laws which are disproportionate for the economic growth of the developing
countries. They are being asked to apply high cost environmental regulations so that their exports
are not able to compete against the developed countries. The developed countries have truly got
benefited from environmentally offensive international trade in the last hundred years and still
continuing their offence. That it is inequitable and impractical to ask the developing countries to
enforce the same rigid environmental standards as the developed nations was recognized on the
subject of trade and environment.
The third world governments are against the social and environmental classes in WTO
because they function as protectionist measures in trade and therefore can be used to deny
market access to developing countries exports. This is precisely why Agenda 21 adopted at the
Rio Conference stressed that a supportive external economic environment is crucial to the
promotion of sustainable development. It is aptly noted that the development process not gather
momentum if the developing countries are weighed down by external indebtedness, if
development finance is inadequate, if barriers restrict access to markets and if commodity prices
and the terms of trade of developing countries remain depressed.
The recent trends in global warming have increased the human rights activists for the
protection of the ecological fragility of the Earth. The danger of the depletion of Ozone layer
leading to global warming necessitating control on the emission of Green House Gases (GHG),
the worst being the carbon dioxide. By the February, 1998, 165 countries have ratified the
Montreal Protocol (1987) which sets out the time schedule for freeze and reduction of the Ozone
Depleting Substances (ODS).
According to the World Resources (1994- 95) carbon dioxide emission per capita of six
major countries that of US is more than 5 MT of carbon followed by Japan of about 2.3 MT,
while that of India is the lowest at 0.02 MT. USA is alone responsible for about 25 percent of the
World’s Green House emissions. It has ironically increased the emissions by 6 percent during the
period 1990-95 that is even after Montreal Protocol (1987) had been signed. The developed
countries make two-thirds of three-fourths of the current emissions.
As far back as in the 1992 at the Earth Summit the principle of pollution pays was
broadly accepted, though, of course, the steps taken in pursuance of this do not show that the
acceptance e was genuine one. 80 percent of the current emissions come from the industrial
nations which have only 20 percent of the world population. The global warming is a world wide
phenomenon not restricted to any part of the world. From that it must follow that human beings
in all parts of the world have an equal interest and right to see and demand that global warming
does not go further but is reduced so as to reach a tolerable limit. But the responsibility for that
has necessarily to be taken by the highest polluters. Some calculations so show that taking the
average cost of reducing emission even at a minimum of US dollars 20 per ton the South is
actually making subsidy of about 60 billions US dollars to the North. It is this amount which the
rich North must make available to the South if it wants that the South should reduce considerably
the emission of GHG – in the absence of such help, the burden cannot be borne by the
developing countries.
Even by any test of sustainable development equity and consistency with the convention
it has to be recognized that the energy needs of the developing countries are very great; that
increased energy consumption and economic growth will be essential if living standards of the

46
poor are to be raised. That without accelerated development in many countries domestic
environmental degradation will worsen, and that the current threat from anthropogenic climate
change is caused much more by the affluent than the poor nations. For all these reasons, the
convention is clear that continued growth of energy and use of fossil fuels in developing
countries is quite consistent with the convention.
Critiques of Human Rights Movements
There is, clearly, much to be celebrated in the achievements if the human rights
movement over the decades. The movement has a respectable pedigree. The horrors of the two
World Wars have been seen by the peoples. This is why the utmost importance of the human
rights today is celebrated. The advances regarding the different conventions passed from time to
time and its achievements although slow but inexorably, to a greater awareness among the
general public around the world about the importance of protecting and promoting human rights,
which is a positive outcome of the post-war human rights movement. Apart from these
advantages, human rights movements are also not free from certain serious criticisms. Let us
discuss them very briefly.
Fragile Consensus
It is not sufficiently understood by many members of the contemporary human rights
movements that the global consensus on human rights is still rather fragile. The importance of a
domestic and international commitment to human rights is not in doubt, nor is its relevance to the
formulation of policies on governance. But the consensus breaks down when we go into the
details, for there is much disagreement globally over the actual content of human rights. The
disagreement cannot, it must be said, always be attributed to bad faith on the part of the
protagonists. The truth is that the way one looks at human rights is usually coloured by one’s
own experiences.
Dogma and Inconsistency
Like other social movements, the human rights movements has a fair share of individuals,
institutions, and many professional human rights activists who are driven by dogma, rather than
by a sense of genuine commitment to the notion of human rights, familiarity with social realities,
and a sense of pragmatism and common sense. There are often inconsistencies in the articulation
of the human rights ideas and principles, which lead to the myriad problems and which threaten
the credibility of the movement. It is important for human rights professional to recognize that
human rights are subject to interpretations. It is entirely possible for different cultures and
societies to interpret human rights differently, in accordance with the values that underpin those
societies. The unwillingness of the many of the human rights movement to accept this reality has
manifested itself, first and foremost, in glaring inconsistencies in their approach to fundamental
issues – inconsistencies which most ordinary people find very difficult to understand or
overlook.
Most human rights groups are, on their own admission, committed to democratic
governance, that is to say, respect for the wishes of the majority. In UK, for example, human
rights activists have been in the vanguard of the campaign to reform the House of Lords, on the
grounds that the hereditary element in the House was anti-democratic. However, confronted with
strong democratic majorities in issues with which they disagree, they are often reluctant to accept
the wishes of the majority.
Economic ideology often plays a deleterious role in the actions of the human rights
movement. An examination of some prescriptions handed down by human rights activists for the
real or imagined ills of the world would show an unmistakable bias towards the re-distributionist
47
philosophy. This is a relatively new phenomenon, because considerations of social equality or
material equality were never traditionally considered a legitimate part of any prevailing creed of
human rights. However, there has been a fundamental transition in the approach of human rights
movement, the benefit of which is questionable. Consider this statement by Amnesty
International in one of its recent annual reports; ‘As globalization spreads, bringing greater
wealth some and destitution and despair to others, human rights activists must promote not just
legal justice but also social justice (Amnesty International Report 2002, Amnesty International,
London).’
The issue of development and other infrastructural projects has become a central issue of
contestation for many human rights campaigners. It is not sufficiently acknowledged by the
human rights community that a number of these projects are aimed at larger social good, even if
they involve some – usually temporary - hardship to a few. Again, this is an area that requires far
more incisive analysis than that is being currently offered by the human rights movement. Both
domestic and international non-governmental organizations have engaged in activism - and not
always peaceful activism with a view to undermining the development goals of projects and in
that process most of the time, there is often only one view that emerges, namely that
developmental projects are against the interests of the people. Unfortunately, this may not be the
case as there may be a good number of beneficiaries, and the human rights movement should
provide the necessary space for other viewpoints to be aired and argued.
Like wise MNCs have been, time and again, criticized for unethical practices,
exploitation of labour, and interferences in the affairs of the government. This is, in fact, to a lot
extent might be true. But there is a paradox in this engagement with this view when it comes to
the domestic multinational corporations. They are even not criticized for their bad acts against
the labour standards and other unethical practices.
Sometimes self-interest rather than altruism guides the actions of some human rights
activists. It is argued by some one that it is used as ‘a weapon of blackmailing’ against others in
the hands of the human rights community leaders. There is often an element of narcissism which
disguises itself as empathy on the part of professional human rights activists. As far as NGO
activism is concerned, it is also not free from illusions. There is lack of accountability,
responsibility, transparency as well as the unrepresentative character among the activists is
observed.
Selectivity in Human Rights Enforcement
Human rights activists also often display a curious selectivity and bias in their campaigns,
which does little credit to their cause. Take for example, the reaction of the global human rights
lobby to the recent events in Zimbabwe, where the government of Robert Mugabe has been
carrying out an organized campaign of brutal violence against that country’s white farmers. It is
the responsibility of the human rights NGOs to ensure consistency and moral coherence in their
actions and not give the impression, as they do, that their response to, say, the human rights
practices of the government of General Pinochet in Chile a few years ago deserves to be more
robust than their response to the government of Mugabe.
One increasingly common reason for such selectivity in the application of human rights
standards by campaigners is the growing tide of political correctness, which decrees that there
are certain favoured groups and communities in the contemporary world who are immune to
criticism, no matter how misguided, wrong or harmful their actions might be.
Political correctness has also resulted in the lack of sufficient recognition for the rights of
victims, which are given second place to the rights of accused persons and criminals. An
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example of political correctness arose from Scotland. A few years ago the parents of an infant
who had smacked their child as a form of mild chastisement for improper behaviour were put
behind bars and prosecuted for battery. These are the serious issues involving parenting and the
rights of children, areas where the global consensus is still weak, and any attempt by human
rights community to force the pace of change may not be best approach to reach a greater
understanding on how to deal with such issues.
Another example of political correctness gone mad is to be found in a recent judgement
of the European Court of Human Rights, which decreed that prisoners serving jail terms should
be allowed to receive hardcore pornography. This said the court, was implicit in their right to
freedom of expression guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The
judgement came after a sustained campaign by Dennis Nilsen, a serial killer jailed in 1983 for
murdering six young men in England, who demanded explicit homosexual material while in jail.
So this is another act of political correctness which needs to be seen.
In India, the selectivity of some human rights activists can be seen in the alacrity with
which they sometimes condemn particular groups or communities for misdemeanors and excuse
others for similar conduct. This has led to the complaints by the members of the Hindu
community, for instance, that those combating communalism usually tend to be harsher on
Hindu or pro-Hindu elements than on Muslim or other minority groups.
Exaggeration and Factual Accuracy
Human rights campaigners are sometimes prone to exaggeration, which also impacts on
their overall credibility. An example of such exaggeration happened during the 190-91 Gulf
Crisis following the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Amnesty International published a report which
stated, among other things, that the invading Iraqi soldiers had removed over 300 premature
babies from their incubators in one of the Kuwaiti hospitals with view to sending the incubators
to Iraq, and further more that at least 72 corpses of such babies had been personally buried by an
unnamed Red Crescent doctor. This story was later known as a false story which was designed
by the Amnesty International for which act it was battered.
Another recent example of exaggeration concerns a statement by Amnesty International
Secretary General, which equated the US military’s detention camp for terrorists in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, with the Soviet Gulag – a comparison which drew instant derision from a number of
commentators. As the Wall Street Journal observed , ‘a human rights group that can not
distinguish between Stalin’s death camps and detention centres for terrorists who kill civilians
can not be taken seriously.’
These issues reflect a growing concern that the human rights movement should reflect on
its inadequacies and how far it had been able to genuinely respond to the social expectations that
it has generated.
Over-Ambitiousness
The human rights movement is also, unfortunately, characterized by a degree of over-
ambitiousness, which cannot but be counterproductive in the long run. Recent years have seen a
huge proliferation of rights some of which are actually antithetical to existing, time-tested civil
liberties and to cherished social arrangements which command widespread support among the
community at large. The right to roam on private land, which has, for example; been asserted by
campaigners in the UK, is clearly at odds with the landowner’s right to hold and enjoy his
property without let or hindrance. The right to circulate pornographic material cannot but have
serious adverse effects in the right of children and other vulnerable groups in society to be
protected from undesirable influences. The right to homosexual marriage would, likewise, be
49
seen by many societies as an affront to the long-standing institution as a stable union between
two persons of the opposite gender.
Another example of over-ambitiousness if human rights campaigners is their advocacy of
‘third-generation of rights’, that is, group rights or collective rights which, they argue, should
exist over and above individual civil and political rights. This argument has profound practical
consequences, such as the threat to the integrity of states and the dilution of existing guarantees
for individual freedom, which many of the activists do not seem to recognize. It is ironic that
such a campaign should be pushed at a time when there is, as noted earlier, no durable consensus
on any of the first and second generation of rights. In the long run, such proliferation of rights
can only lead to the notion of human rights being diminished and to have a large extent
trivialized.
Obliviousness to Cultural Diversity
Many on the contemporary human rights movement often show an insufficient
appreciation of reality and of common sense in other respects too. There is insufficient
appreciation of the fact that we live in a world in which differences and diversities of cultures
abound - differences that cannot be wished away overnight, even with the best will in the world.
Even within the West, there are often sharp differences between nations in their approaches to
human rights. The view which Sweitzerland takes on assisted suicide, or the Netherlands over
‘soft’ drugs, for example, is not the view that is taken in UK, nor is there a congruence in the
approach to sexually explicit material between, say, the Scandinavian countries and Ireland.
There is clearly no escaping the wide chasms in values, practices and morality that
abound in the world today. The ‘class of civilizations’ to which Samuel Huntington has famously
drawn our attention is as real a it is troubling in its implications. To deny or ignore it would be
naïve and not in the best interests of the human rights movement.
Of course the arrangement on diversity should not be allowed to be used as a
smokescreen by tyrants. Where, for example, there is clear evidence that the measures taken by
government have little or no popular support, or where the population in question is denied any
opportunity to express an opinion on a contentious matter, or where the measures are so
outrageous that they offend against basic norms of humanity, the human rights community would
quite justifying in raising its voice against such measures. But otherwise, it would do well to
show a measure of humility and tolerance, and not pretend that we live in a homogenous,
morally pristine world.
Lack of Recognition of Duties
One of the unfortunate failings of the human rights movements is its reluctance to
acknowledge that rights carry with them responsibilities and that unless those responsibilities are
discharged, the stability and order that are necessary for he enjoyment of human rights would
simply vanish. David Selbourne explains this imbalance thus: ‘It is…. routine to find that lip-
service to duty once paid, generally at the outset of discussion, it is rights which are the
dominating subject of course. Duties never or rarely particularized soon forgotten, or alluded to
in token or passing fashion as if their content and implications were taken for granted
(Selbourne, 1994).’ A misguided emphasis on individualism often lies at the root of the rights
lobby’s unwillingness to countenance the idea of duties. Amitai Etzioni, a champion of
communitarianism, draws attention to the absurd lengths to which such extreme individualism
has sometimes been taken, citing the opposition of groups such as the American Civil liberties
union even to measures of public health and safety. Such groups have he says, blocked the
introduction of seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws in many jurisdictions and ensured the repeal
50
of such regulations in several localities where they had been in place, on the specious grounds
that people have a rights to do with their lives what they wish, including endangering them
(Etzioni, 1995)
Conclusion
The human rights practice and activism in both North and South faces challenges is no
doubt about it. However, the serious efforts taken at the UN level as well as governmental levels
are also quite remarkable. In addition to these, that there are also serious movements undertaken
by NGOs and movements from different parts of the world to strengthen the cause of human
rights awareness and protection. The serious steps still required to reach its full height as an
emancipatory movement. The continuity in this direction would somewhere land up one day with
high success.

REFERENCES
Althuser, L. 1969. For Marx. London: Allen Lane.
Baxi, U. 2004. The ‘Just War’ for Profit and War: The Bhopal Catastrophe and the
principle of Double Effect, in Bomman-Larsen and Wiggen (eds.)
Responsibility in World Business: Managing Harmful Side-Effects of
Corporate Activity. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
(2006). The Future of Human Rights. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Foucault, M. 2000. ‘Power: Three Essential Works of Foucault 1954-1984, edited by
James D. Faubion. New York: New York Press.
Etzioni, A.1995. The Spirit of Community, London: Fontana Press.
Selbourne, D. 1994. The Principle of Duty. London: Sinclair-Stevenson.
Iyer, V. 2007. ‘The Human Rights Movement: Time to Turn the Searchlight Inwards’ in
C. Rajkumar and K. Chockalingam (Eds.) Human Rights, Justice and
Constitutional Empowerment. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

51
 UNIT 8
LESSON 6
ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT: NORTH AND SOUTH
Diwakar Kumar Singh
Research Scholar
Department of History
University of Delhi
Introduction
The term ‘environment’ in a broader sense connotes a set of factors such as physical,
biological, psychological, social and cultural which constitute the context in which life (vegetal,
animal and human) has evolved and continues to evolve. The origin of word, can be traced to
the term ‘oecologie’ coined by German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1860, referring to the ‘science
of relation of living organism to their external world, their habitat, parasites, predatators,
exposure to certain types of soil, climate and so forth’ (Arnold, 1996: 3-4).
Environmentalism or the movement to protect the natural environment has had a long
history, but it assumed its institutional prominence only in the recent past. The emergence of this
key phenomenon of world history known as ‘environmentalism’ or ecological movement
encapsulate a cluster of issues pertaining to the human-nature interaction and its causes and
consequences. Thus, the second half of the twentieth century represents a conscious endeavour
to protect the natural environment both from preservationist (those who seek to make the best
use of natural habitats as they are) and conservationist (those who seek to make the best use of
natural resources without doing damage to the environment) perspectives through intellectual
ideas to mass activism.
This chapter is an attempt to review the perspectives on environmental movement as a
phenomenon, which gained momentum both in advanced nations also known as global ‘North’
and poor or less advanced countries also known as global ‘South’.
Environmentalism in the North
Environmental movements both in the North and the South represent similar trends but
differ in their ideological origination. The issues of ecology in the South is seemingly linked
with issues of human rights, ethnicity and distributive justice (Guha, 1997: 18). Their
movements are seldom associated with protection of locality against the state and explicitly lay
emphasis upon the issues of subsistence and survival, whereas in the North, its origination can be
traced outside the production process. In all likelihood, the question of locality too is not as
important as the question of biosphere as whole in the context of the North.
Industrial revolution and its consequences resulted in a rapid exhaustion of resources,
massive production, and a surge in population. As a result, the twentieth century witnessed the
emergence of a deep consciousness towards ecological concerns. Thus, people from all quarters
have effectively mobilized against the destruction of wilderness, making of big dams and
industrial wastes.
It is imperative to understand the intellectual approaches and articulation of ideas, which
have played an important role, as McNeill has rightly argued that ‘for environmental history the
powerful, prevailing ideas mattered more than the explicitly environmental ones’ (McNeill,
2000: 325). Thus, from historiographical perspective, certain important precursors of this
movement needs to be discussed which may help us to develop a broader understanding of

52
environmentalism. Samuel P. Hay’s ‘Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency’ (1959) seems
to be an ostensive documentation of ‘nature’ as embodied in wilderness in the United States this
writings reflect Roosevelt’s Conservation concerns for ecological causes. Moreover, he has
discussed the great change in American attitudes towards the environment in the period after the
Second World War. In his another richly evocative work, ‘Beauty, Health, and Permanence:
Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985’, Hay carefully observes the emergence
of new environmental amenities, recreation, aesthetics, and health – all associated with rising
standards of living and education.
One of the most influential works ‘Silent Spring’ appeared in 1962 authored by Rachael
Carson, a marine biologist. The book was full of details of lethal impact of the use of various
pesticides, most significantly the use of DDT (dichloro-diophenyl-trichloro-ethane). The rapid
use of this pesticide in U.S. shows a quantum jump in its consumption from 1.24 to 6.37 million
pounds between 1947 and 1960.
According to Guha, ‘The consequences of the book were far-reaching. In the wake of
Silent Spring, town ‘reconsidered their foolish herbicidal assault’ on avenue, shrubs and trees;
citizens and officials became more alert about to potential fish kills in rivers; ...a federal
committee on pest control was established to scrutinize new products... (Guha, 2000: 72). The
DDT was banned and the US Governments in order to, control and monitor such harmful
chemicals, brought up many laws such as Pesticide Control Act of 1972 and Toxic Substances
Control Act of 1974. Both from individual and institutional perspectives, the wave of
environmentalism surfaced in US and Europe. The individuals like Barry Commoner argued for
non-polluting technologies to preserve ecology.
The Club of Rome prepared a report in 1964 called “Limits to Growth”, which
categorically manifested the consequences of rapid growth and exploitation of resources, and
moreover, suggested to follow a moderate path for development. A conscious mobilization of
people and their massive procession against pollution and other ecological concerns eventually
culminated into the celebration of ‘Earth day’ on April 1970. The entire decade of seventies has
witnessed an impressive growth of organisations, clubs, societies in the US, primarily concerned
with the conservation movement. Stephen Fox (1985) has shown that there was a phenomenal
growth of membership in these organizations between 70s and 90s. According to Andrew
Jamison, there was a huge participation of youth who stood as ‘the mere impatient with the
political method of their elders’. The environmentalists in North America particularly played a
significant role in raising the issues such as industrial emission, toxic wastes, designating
protected or endangered ecological entities and more importantly, they helped to set up
environmental prosecution agencies which became an integral part of the US environmental
policy.
As a social movement, environmentalism in US encapsulates varieties of ideas. For
instance, ‘Deep Ecology’ expounded by a Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in 1972, gave
emphasis on ‘bio centricism’, which rejects a human-centered perspective by looking at history
from the vantage point of other species and nature as a whole’ (Guha, 2000: 85). In a sense, the
ethics of the wilderness movement posits a greater degree of importance to the nature.
Another interesting dimension of environmental movement seems to appear what has
been described as ‘environmental justice movement’, which largely represents the involvement
of people from lower income groups and ethnic minorities (such as African-American).
The anti-toxic movement of Love Canal is one such striking example of justice
movement. The massive deposition of toxic wastes by Hooker chemical company in and around
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Love Canal in New York caused birth defects, cancer and other health problems in the same
locality which was also inhabited largely by African-Americans. A movement against this was
led by Lois Gibbs to clean up Love Canal, which helped to set up a national co-ordinating body,
the Citizens Clearing House for Hazardous Wastes (CCHW). By 1980, due to the mounting
pressure from affiliated groups and their campaigns, the Government of North America
evacuated thousands of people and officially made it a natural disaster area.
In Europe too, the concerns for bad consequences of industrialization and ecology gained
momentum and there are evidences of many such outcrops of activism. Some of such activism
culminated into political parties. In New Zealand, the Value Party born in the 1960, was the first
explicitly green party.
In 1978, a group of people formed Green Party in Germany. The German Green became a
beacon for environmentalists in other European countries. Consequently, the Green Party made a
strong presence in countries like Belgium, Italy and Sweden. According to Guha, “German Green
stand out for their political victories and for the moral challenge, they offer to the governing beliefs
of industrial civilization” (Guha, 2000: 90).
Movements in the South
Generally, it is believed that environmentalism as a movement emanated from the rich
and industrialised nations. However contrary to such assumption the decade seems to have been
witnessed an equal degree of ecological concern in the South too. The countries such as Brazil,
Kenya, India and Thailand – all underwent the varied wave of environmentalism.
In Brazil, uncontrolled exploitation of its forests between 1960 and 1984, created a huge
deforestation problem and turned larger part of Amazonic region into deserts. In 1976, we come
across a strong ecological movement there, also known as ‘Chico’, as it was led by Francisco
Chico Mendes – a leader of a group of rubber tappers (gatherers of natural latex from rubber
trees). The movement started on March 10, 1976, against the ranchers and loggers who were
supported by the Government involved in displacing more than 10,000 rubber tappers. Those
rancher took over the forest land from tappers and around 6 million hectares of land were under
their possession in the name of development. Mendes along with men, women and children
marched to the forest, joined hands and dared the workers and their chain-saws from proceeding
further’. In December 1988, Chico Mendes was murdered a by land owner but left an enormous
impact. In Kenya, there is another striking example of ecological movement, founded by a
woman Professor of Anatomy, Wangari Matthai, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize. The
movement known as ‘Green Belt’, started in 1977, left a powerful impact. Rooted in common
mass, it shows a brilliant example of plantation in environmental history. ‘The Green Belt
movement proved strong enough to make an impact on the land and provoke a backlash; it had
planted some 20 million trees in Kenya by 1993’ (McNeill, 2000: 352).
In India, we come across some brilliant examples of ecological movements. One of the
earliest and novel examples of ecological movement can be seen as ‘Chipko’ in Garhwal and
Kumaon region in 1970s led by Sunderlal Bahuguna and Chandi Prasad Bhatt. The great
concern for protecting forests resulted into a huge mobalisation of people with an unique mode
of protest involving the hugging the trees by men and women of the village. Although the
protest was for their legitimate claim for subsistence against the commercial exploitation by
outsiders, yet it reflects a great sense of ecological consciousness.
Another fascinating example is Narmada Bachao Andolan led by Medha Patkar, a
woman, social activist. One of the largest ongoing movement against the construction of a dam

54
on Narmada river, it has raised strong protest due to the government’s plan to build 30 large, 135
medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of Narmada and its tributaries. The
consequences of the construction of dam manifest in huge displacement of people and
destruction of their land. More than 250 villages are on the brink of destruction.
There are some other examples of ecological movement in India such as Silent Valley
movement which is also an anti-dam movement. The movement was started in 1970s and got
huge support from Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad. Thus, there are several examples to conclude
that ecological movement appeared simultaneously in the South in its own socio-cultural milieu.
In retrospect, the differences between the Northern and the Southern environmental
movements lie in a set of assumptions. It appears as American environmentalism, according to
Hay, ‘was not a throw back to the primitive, but an integral part of the modern standard of living
as people sought to add new “amenity” and “aesthetic” goals and desires to their earlier
preoccupation with necessities and conveniences’ (Hay, 1982: 21). However, in countries like
India, it has clearly originated from the conflict between competing groups – typically peasants
and industry – over productive resources (Guha & Gadgil, 1995). Even, regarding the modes of
protest and communication of agenda, there is marked difference between the two. In the north
persists generally the language of protest in politically organised and structurally instituted
forms, whereas in the South, it has been oriented in conventional forms of activism.
Global Environmental Debate and the North-South Divide
The decade of seventies shows a paradigm shift in environmentalism. The threat of
ecological crisis was increasingly felt on a wider political platform. The first international
conference on environmental concern was organised at Stockholm in 1972 by the United
Nations. The meeting agreed upon a wide range of issues including a declaration containing 26
principles concerning the environment and development. Since then, many such conferences
have been held to provide an enduring framework, central to environmental problem.
In 1987, the UN established a World Commission on Development chaired by the Prime
Minister of Norway, Grottarteen Brundtland produced a report also known as Brundtland Report.
The report exposed the global patterns of consumption. In a sense, the report offered a key
explanation to understand the relationship between environment and economic development.
The significance of report also lies in the fact that it bears the concept of ‘sustainable
development’ as a remedy for both poverty and environmentalism.
The concept of ‘sustainable development’, according to the report, posits a development
‘that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generation to
meet theirs’. The idea was further elaborated in 1992 at Rio UN Conference on Environment
and Development (UNCED) also known as the Earth Summit. The Summit was organised, in
order to, promote and develop certain principles to provide guidelines on environment and
development. The Rio-Conference proclaimed 27 general principles to guide action on
environment and development. Maurice Strong proposed a document to set out how to make the
planet sustainable which is also known as ‘Agenda 21’. The 400 page-document covers a wide
range of issues such as promoting sustainable urban development, managing fragile mountain
ecosystems and hazardous wastes.
There was sharp disagreement between nations representing the North and the South
(industrialised and poor) on certain issues including bio-diversity. On the question of bio-
diversity, the biasness in favour of the Global North was distinctly clear. The major portion of
biodiversity (70%) lies in countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Zaire,

55
Madagascar, China, Malaysia, India and Australia but due to weak economies, they were more
vulnerable to exploitation.
The developed countries wanted the developing countries to take measures for the
conservation of biodiversity resources. However, the cost of the most protection programmes
was in the range of $ 10 to $ 14 billion per annum, and technological advantage derived from the
genetic resources would go into the pocket of advanced countries. Thus, this principle was
highly contentious and embedded within ambiguous agenda.
Subsequently, in 1997, Kyoto (in Japan) protocol was successfully agreed by many
nations to limit their green house emissions. The EU, USA and Japan respectively committed
themselves to reduce their annual green house gas emissions by 2012 to 8, 7 and 6% less than
1990 level. India too signed and ratified it in year 2000.
Even after rounds of negotiations between the Developed and the Underdeveloped
nations on certain issues, related to protection of environment, there is a wide gap of
understanding between them. The most disappointing fact is that many industrialised and
developed nations want to negotiate certain issues with underdeveloped or developing countries
in the most rigid and hegemonic framework.
The paradox can be understood in the words of Agrawal and Narain (1985: 363) –
“In all those who came from the Third World, there was a sneaking suspicion that the
western countries were up to some trick. The West may simply be pushing the environmental
concern on to an unsuspecting Third World to retard its technological modernisation and
industrial development. It was even argued that having got their riches and affluent life styles,
westerners were now simply asking for more affluence; clear air, clean water, and a large tract of
nature of enjoyment and recreation, many of which were going to be preserved in the tropical
forests and Savannas of Asia, Africa and South America.”
At the international level, in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed to prevent the
depletion of the ozone layer. Thereafter, it led to the 1990 (London), 1992 (Copenhagen) and
1995 (Vienna) Conventions for adopting substantive measures to curtail ozone depleting
substances such as CFC, halons, methylchloropen, carbon tetrachloride etc.
The recent data released by UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
suggests that emission of green house gases has increased upto 10% by rich nations in the last 16
years. The problem lies in the relationship between industrial development and green house
emissions. The North blames the South for using conventional sources of energy which is
principal cause of green house gases. However, industrialized countries are responsible for
about 77% of the accumulated stock of green house gases, a fundamental reason for phenomenon
of climate change. Moreover, the contentions and negotiations over the issues of emission of
green house gases and climate change between the North and the South envelops the causes for
this divide. Due to the enormous emission of green house gases (carbon dioxide, methane, CFC,
nitrous oxides etc.), ozone layer is being depleted day by day and consequently has affected the
ecosystem by rise in temperature, a phenomenon also known as ‘global warming’.
According to McNeill, ‘for the thousand years before 1800, carbon dioxide levels in the
atmosphere varied around 270 to 290 parts per million (ppm). Around 1800, an accelerating
buildup began, reaching about 295 ppm by 1900, 310 to 315 ppm by 1950 and about 360 ppm by
1995’ (McWeill 2001: 109). McNeill outlines two reasons for this enormous increase in the
amount of carbon dioxide-fossil combustion and deforestation.

56
 For the rich countries, it is easier to put such blame on poor; however, it is strange
enough that despite of their claims to have green technology and strong economy, they have
failed to address their own pollution problems. It is true that poor countries are heavily
dependent upon conventional sources of energy and it equipped with technology, and thus, a
wide gap exists between them.
In a nutshell, the effective solution lies in adopting an integrated approach to bridge this
hiatus. Developing or less industrialized countries too need to address this problem in
formidable ways while adopting innovative methods and effective tools to save the environment
from the impending dangers of all kinds of emissions and pollutions.

SUGGESTED READINGS
Agarwal, Anil and Narain, S. (1985). The State of India’s Environment: The Second Citizens’
Report. New Delhi, Centre for Science and Environment.
Arnold, David (1996). The Problem of Nature Environment, Culture and European Expansion.
USA, Blackwell.
Guha, Ramchandra (2000). Environmentalism: A Global History. New Delhi: Oxford.
Guha, Ramchandra and J. Martiner-Alier (1997). Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North
and South. London: Earthscan.
Hay, S.P. (1982). From Conservation to Environment: Environmental Politics in the United
States since World War Two, Environmental Review 6(1).
Hughes, J. Donald (2006). What is Environmental History? UK: Polity Press.
McNeill, J.R. (2000). Something New Under Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-
Century World. London: Allen Lane.
Rangarajan, Mahesh (2007). Environmental Issues in India: A Reader, New Delhi: Pearson
Longman.

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 UNIT 8
LESSON 7

ISSUES IN 20TH CENTURY WORLD-FEMINIST MOVEMENT

--Puja Rani
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
Gargi College
University of Delhi

Although the term ‘Feminism’ is of recent origin (late nineteenth century)

feminist/women’s movement has a long history. Feminist views have been expressed in many
civilizations, long back since Italy’s Christine de Pisan in her Book of the City of Ladies (1405)
advocated for women’s rights. In Europe feminist consciousness began spreading during and
after the French Revolution. However, by the end of the century in England, France and
Germany, the feminist ideas started being expressed by radicals.
The first text of modern Feminism is usually taken from Mary Wollstonecraft’s
Vindication of the Rights of Women ([1792] 1967), written against the backdrop of the French
Revolution. Later in the nineteenth century, women’s nature, capacities and potential became
subjects of heated discussion all over the world. Views on women in India began with social
reform movements that started deploring the wrongs done to women such as practice of sati,
child marriage etc. However, the common starting point of all feminist ideas was the belief that
women are disadvantaged in comparison with men and this disadvantage is not natural or
inevitable result of biological difference but something that can be and should be challenged and
changed.
Nevertheless, the existence of an organized women’s movement could not develop until
the nineteenth century, and it first culminated into a demand of franchise to women. They started
with an assumption that all the forms of sexual discrimination would disappear if women were
given the right to vote. The famous Seneca Falls Convention held in 1848 marked the birth of the
United States (US) women’s rights’ movement. Later in 1869 Stanton and Susan B. Anthony led
to the set up of the National Women’s suffrage Association. In United Kingdom (UK), too,
Women’s Social and Political Union was established in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst.
This struggle for suffrage got its first success in 1893 when New Zealand granted the
voting granted the voting right to women. Correspondingly the UK and the US, too, granted the
same in 1918 and 1920 respectively. However, more importantly, this struggle and its
achievement united the feminists across the world and provided a new inspiration to the
movement. They now also expanded their agenda of political emancipation and became more
coherent in their structure. Soon their interest started growing in liberating women from all other
oppressive aspects too. Political rights, to them now were not sufficient enough to solve all their
questions. So at this stage women’s ideas grew were more radical and started focusing attention
upon the personal, psychological and sexual aspects of female oppression. Kate Millet’s Sexual
Politics (1970) and Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) can be said as the chief
proponent of the radical thought.
By the early twentieth century women’s own autonomous organizations began to be
formed and women’s activism was constructed. Feminist thought after the 1960s became more
diverse. It is believed that feminist movement during this period expanded beyond single goal
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oriented movement and established ‘Feminism’ as an ideology. It was established that women’s
conditions based on birth by accident, cannot be treated as inferior to men. Earlier it was taken
for granted that both the sexes were such that their functions, role, aims and desire were
different. So both the sex has to be treated differently.
Major Themes/ Ideologies of Feminism
With the growth of Feminism as an ideology, it brought into its ambit several major themes.
Some of the important themes of feminism are patriarchy, personal to political, sex and gender,
and equality and difference. In what follows, we will discuss each of these themes in detail.
The term ‘patriarchy’ (pitrasatta- Hindi) is derived from the word ‘patriarch’, which
means that the head of the specific type of male dominated family will always be the eldest man
of the family or the father. This is a very specific type of practice of male domination. Feminist
used the concept of patriarchy to describe the subordinate situation of women in the family
where the father or eldest male is the head of the family. However, later they showed that
patriarchy produces male dominance in all walks of life. Patriarchy includes many things like
preference of male child;, discrimination between girls and boys; lack of educational
opportunities for girls; burden of household work on the shoulder of women and harassment of
women in work place. They also linked patriarchy with women’s property rights. Daughters are
seen as burden, and as a temporary member of their father’s family. Having daughters is equated
with draining of resources and as serving no purpose for family. Male is always considered as
the successor of the family. Continuity of the family is linked through him, only. Feminists
believe that all these practices, mentioned above symbolizes the male supremacy in the structure
of the family and it also decides the gender relations in a society at large. A patriarchy is a
hierarchic society where male is always in the highest order and women are subordinated. Men
under patriarchy enjoy privileges, power and rights by virtue of simply being men.
As feminists believed that men have dominated in all societies, so in order to expose the
whole gender based system of sexism and patriarchal power expressed in social, economic and
political structures; in languages and cultural images of men and women, adopted the term
‘patriarchy’ enthusiastically. They started questioning the repression of their sexuality and male
violence against women. According to Millet (1970) patriarchy contains two principles i.e. male
shall dominate female and elder male shall dominate younger. Patriarchy is therefore a hierarchic
society characterized by both sexual and generational oppression. Thus, they started using
patriarchy in a broader sense of rule of men both within the family and outside. However, they
continued to believe that patriarchal families lie at the heart of a systematic process of male
domination, and in that process, it spreads its dominance in every sphere. Men have moulded
women according to their expectations and needs.
Some feminists do not view the concept of patriarchy as universal, as they say, it is not
practiced everywhere. There is/are evidence of matrilineal society where a woman who is the
head of the family or the tribe. However, this dissenting expression of feminism should not be
confused as an attempt to prove a substantial shift in their stand. It was primarily to denote that
though historically our societies are patriarchal, it does not demonstrate that male domination is
either natural or inevitable. It’s a great challenge for feminist to understand patriarchy as it
operates at many different levels and in all social institutions.
The feminism derives its second important theme around the public-private divide. They
say that sometimes ‘personal is political’, too. This originated as a concept of US civil rights
movement and later gained an enormous significance for modern feminism. Feminists consider

59
that gender division within society is ‘political’ and not ‘natural’. It reflects a power relationship
between men and women. Feminists argue that sexual inequality has been preserved because the
sexual division of labour that runs through society has been thought of as ‘natural’ rather than
political. The book Public Man, Private Woman (1981) by Jean B. Elshtain highlighted this
issue. Since then the feminists have questioning the origin of the division and the politics behind
its sustenance. Simultaneously, they also started to challenge and overthrow the existing thought.
Feminists basically were attempting to break down the resonance of divide between public and
private to that of between men and women. They started saying that emancipation could only be
achieved if some or perhaps all of the responsibilities of private life are transferred to the state or
other public bodies. So in the nineteenth century the idea that the ‘personal’ is ‘political’ was
widely accepted and many issues acquired a central focus.
This can be better understood in the context of family were there is unequal distribution
of domestic labour. Politics has usually been understood as an activity that takes place within the
public sphere of government, institutions or overall in the public platform. Traditionally the
public sphere of life encompassing politics, work and art has been the preserve of men and
women were confined to domestic responsibilities. Women were restricted to private role of
housewife and mother and are excluded from politics. So family is a part of private sphere and
therefore it is non-political. The family has so far been not only relegated to the private realm but
has simply been ignored. So women interests were harmed because it failed to be examined in
the public sphere.
Feminists say politics is found everywhere, but even the conventional political theorists
have upheld the former belief by ignoring gender divisions altogether. So the demarcation of
public and private sphere needs to be changed. Women are confined to household responsibilities
and if politics takes place within the public sphere then the women issues will always be
excluded. Feminists want to have equal access in the public sphere; their role in decision making;
and their will to bring any change in their position. They also want to overcome the barriers
between the public and private spheres and recreate the society, culture and politics in new and
non-patriarchal forms. The political character of male and female relations and the idea that the
‘personal is political’ thus are widely accepted and great changes have taken place.
The third important theme of feminism distinguishes between sex and gender. According
to the feminist theory, sex refers to biological term that distinguishes between men and women.
Therefore it is natural. But, on the contrary, gender is not natural but a cultural term. It means
that the difference between masculinity and feminity is created by the different roles ascribed to
men and women in society. So the gender differences are entirely cultural because it is imposed
upon individuals by the society. There is also a common thread in the way the male and female
are shaped and valued. First women biological factor is linked to women’s social position and
the capacity of child bearing. The result is that, t has acquired values of nurturing, service and
subordination to the need of others, i.e. the reproductive role as a whole is identified with
women, only. On the contrary, men are encouraged to be masculine, assertive, aggressive and
competitive. The activities and attributes provided to men are not just different from those of
women but are valued more highly too.
Anti feminists argue that the gender divisions have been designed by nature and,
therefore, in a way it is natural. In other words, they say that ‘biology is destiny’. However,
feminists believe that sex differences are biological facts of life, but they have no social, political
or economic significance. Women and men should not be judged by their sex but as individuals
or as persons. Gender differences are not natural and can be expunged from the society. Simone
de Beauvoir (The second sex 1949) says “women are made, they are not born”. Thus gendered
60
differences are made by the society by creating certain stereotypes of men and women
behaviour, and are not natural.
The fourth theme of feminism is revolves around the debate of equality and difference.
Despite the fact that the overall goal of feminism is equality between sexes, they have not been
able to come to a concrete conclusion for what does it mean in practical terms. Different schools
of feminist movements (discussed in detail below) have expressed different opinion about the
issue. While some (liberal feminists) believe that women should be treated equally with men, in
political and legal aspects, irrespective of sexual differences and should be given equal
opportunity to compete with men. Some feminists (socialist feminists) add that political and legal
equality should also be complemented with social equality, which in simpler words means
abolition of both sexual and class oppression. However, some feminists oppose this view on the
ground that their struggle should not be equated with ‘equality with men’ as it identifies with a
‘male identified’ norms and practices. They want to build a society that is developed and
achieved completely by women, i.e. ‘women identified’. In other words, they insist on
separatism from men and male society.
According to MacKinnon (Feminism Unmodified, Discourses on life and law, 1987)
sexual equality laws have been ineffective in getting women what they need. They are still
socially prevented from physical security, minimal respect and dignity. Equality could not be
achieved by allowing men to build social institutions according to their interests and ignoring the
women and their role in the institution. According to feminists the problem is that the roles may
be defined in such a way which suited men. Hence there is no guarantee of sexual equality under
these circumstances. If a group is kept out of something for long enough then it is likely that
activities of that sort will develop in a way unsuited to the excluded group. Women are kept out
of many kinds of work and this resulted in the belief that the work is unsuited to them. The most
obvious example is the incompatibility of most work with bearing and raising of children. If
women had been given opportunity or involved in running the society from the starting, then the
division of work would have been sorted out.
Various Schools in Feminism
There are different schools of feminism, viz. liberal, socialist, radical, and feminism of
the women of colour and they disagree, fundamentally on the nature of causes and cure of
women’s inequalities, subordination or oppression.
Liberal feminism talks about equal rights and opportunities to compete with men in all
fields. They believe that women should have same rights and privilege as possessed by men.
They assert the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. According to
liberal feminists, all women are capable of asserting their ability to achieve equality, and
therefore, it is possible to change the society without altering the basis structure of the society.
John Stuart mill a staunch supporter of liberty believed that an individual should be left free for
his or her development. Mill’s ‘On the Subjection of the Women’ was an important work in the
history of feminism. It was written in collaboration with Harriet Taylor and proposed that society
should be based on reason and accidents of birth such as sex should be irrelevant. Liberal
feminists emphasize on the principle of individualism and consider that all individuals are of
equal moral worth.
Liberals demand for equal rights for all and advocates that all individuals are entitled to
participate in or gain access to public or private life. Indeed, the entire suffrage movement in the
early days of feminist movement was based upon liberal individualism and the assumption was
that female emancipation can be achieved, once women enjoy equal voting rights with men.
61
However, in the later days, some of the other important issues raised by liberal feminists include
education, reproductive rights, abortion access, sexual harassment, fair compensation for work,
affordable childcare, affordable health care, and bringing to light the frequency of sexual and
domestic violence against women. Hence liberal feminists are understood as reformists and it
seeks to open up public life to equal competition between men and women. Betty Friedan and
Mary Wollstonecraft stand high on the list of the liberal feminist.
Radical feminism considers patriarchy as a root of all problems. It believes that the
complexity of relationship between men and women emerge from the family. This is based on
the male supremacy and this supremacy is used to oppress the women. Radical feminism aims to
challenge and to overthrow patriarchy by opposing the standard gender role. They view it as the
main reason for all kinds of male oppression on women, and calls for a radical reordering of the
society. According to Kate Millet (1970) patriarchy should be challenged through a process of
‘consciousness raising’, and this can be achieved through discussions and women education.
This would help women understand the situation and then they will be able to challenge the
society. Women’s liberation requires a revolutionary change where the sexual and psychological
oppression have to be destroyed at all levels of society.
Though Millet saw the roots of patriarchy in social conditioning, Shulamith Firestone in
her work Dialectic of Sex (1972) argued that gender inequality forced on women, originated in
patriarchy through their biology. The physical, social and psychological disadvantages have
made them imposed of pregnancy, childbirth, and subsequent child-rearing. She said that society
could be understood not as Marx had claimed through the process of production but through the
process of reproduction. She also tried to explain the social and historical processes in terms of
sexual divisions. However, Firestone believed that modern technology will relieve the women of
the burden of childbirth and pregnancy.
Socialist feminism focuses upon both the public and private spheres of a woman's life
and argues that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural
sources of women's oppression. According to Socialist feminists, patriarchy can only be
understood in the light of social and economic factors. It seeks to combine the radical perspective
of patriarchy with the Marxist class analysis by exploring the relationship between capitalism
and patriarchy. Engels (The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State; [1884] 1976)
suggested that position of women has changed in the capitalist society. As capitalism is based
upon the ownership of private property by men so the position of women has changed in this
system. Engels argued that bourgeois family is always patriarchal and oppressive because the
successor of property will only be passed to their sons. He believed that marriage should be
dissolved and once private property is dissolved than features of patriarchy will also disappear.
He suggested that class exploitation is a deeper and more significant process than sexual
oppression. Women are exploited not by men but by capitalism and private property. So through
revolution capitalism should be overthrown and replaced by socialism.
Feminism of the Women of Colour pointed towards the more intense kind of oppression
of black women on the hands of white women. Feminists of this school contend that the
liberation of black women entails freedom for all people, since it would require the end of
racism, sexism, and class oppression. It was a struggle for recognition not only from men in their
own culture, but also from White women. Black women, though, faced the same struggles as
white women; however, they had to face issues of diversity on top of inequality. Black feminist
organizations emerged during the 1970s and started fighting against suppression from the larger
movements in which many of its members came from. However, the Black feminists had to
overcome double challenges than any other feminist organization: one was to “prove to other
62
black women that feminism was not only for white women”, two, they also had to demand that
white women “share power with them and affirm diversity”.
Besides the various schools of feminism discussed above, when the feminist theory
reached a high point of creativity in the 1960’s and 1970’s, there emerged some others schools,
too. This was the period of modern women movement. However, modern women movement was
so heterogonous that there was hardly any unified structure on the basis of which certain thought
could be easily categorized. There were several issues, such as eco-feminism, lesbianism,
separatism and many more.
Feminist/Women’s Movement in India
Movements related to women’s rights have not existed as a single movement in India. It
has rather, over the years, surfaced as a part of various social movements, both in the pre-
Independence and the contemporary era. However, this does not mean that there hasn’t been any
existence of a self-conscious women’s movement in the country. Despite being a part of broader
social movements it has always maintained distinctiveness for itself. For the purpose of this
paper, the discussion on women’s movement in India is presented in two parts.
The Historical Context
During the pre-Independence phase, women’s issues came to forefront in the context of
the colonial encounters. The social reformers who emerged in the late nineteenth century were
western educated elites and it was they who, for the first time raised the question of women’s
oppression. During this time there emerged several groups, such as the Brahmo Samaj, the
Prarthana Samaj, the Arya Samaj, the Theosophical society etc. that started working largely for
social reform, but also included the issues of woman. However, women themselves remained
largely absent from these campaigns (except in few examples such as the Theosophical society in
southern India). These movements were largely comprised of men, and therefore, the laws that
emerged from them in many ways, were in continuation of patriarchy.
Some of the important issues raised in this period were sati, women’s education, widow
remarriage, female infanticide, child marriage, and purdah system. Raja Ram Mohan Roy,
considered as the modern man of India was the first man to raise his concern against sati. He said
that sati is a social evil and it should be abolished. Though for the initial years, British
parliament refused to make law against sati, on the ground that it would amount to interference
in the religious affairs of the Hindus, they finally accepted Roy’s demand in 1829 and passed the
Abolition of Sati Act.
With the achievement against sati, social reformers also started raising issues like
women’s education. They wanted to create a new Indian woman who would have new approach
to life. The schools for girls were first started by English and American missionaries in the 1810.
However, in the year 1827, there numbers increased upto twelve (in Calcutta). By the mid
nineteenth century women’s education had become an issue and it was supported by many
unorthodox students of Bengal. Later these educated women formed different groups like Indian
Women’s Association; National Council of Indian Women etc. and started pressurizing the
governments for their demands.
The mid-nineteenth century social reformist also raised the issue like widow remarriage.
I.C. Vidyasagar launched a campaign to remove the ban on widow remarriage. He debated the
issue with Hindu pundits and showed them that widow remarriage was accepted by shastras. The
act for widow remarriage was passed in 1890s and the widow remarriage society conducted
several widow remarriage after that. By the late nineteenth century social reform movements
63
created a great impact and as a result role of woman in public spheres increased considerably.
Names of such few women leaders during this period were Anandibai Joshi, Jyotiba Phule, and
Tarabai Shinde.
Soon, there came into light the issue of child marriage. In the 1920s, organizations started
campaigning for an increase in the minimum age of marriage. This campaign became successful
by the passage of the Child Marriage Restraint Act (1929) that increased the age of marriage for
women to 14 and that for men to 18. However, with the advent of the new century there also had
begun the movement for freedom struggle. The women’s organizations such as the All India
Women’s Conference established in 1927, during this period though began taking up ‘women’s
issues’, they were subdued by the nationalist fervour. Thus, these organizations became a part of
the larger freedom movement. Women started participating in the movement with full vigour.
They did not even hesitate in taking the leadership on many occasions. Later when Mahatma
Gandhi joined the freedom struggle, women’s participation reached to its zenith. Gandhi’s
believed that women have the great capacity of self sacrifice and the role of tolerance and self
sacrificing attitude will play an important role in non-violent nationalist struggle. Thus, he
intentionally started making appeals to the women to participate in the freedom struggle.
Responding to Gandhi’s call for satyagraha and civil disobedience movement, women came out
in large numbers from their houses. The salt satyagraha also saw huge participation of women.
Gandhi’s support for the women participation in the politics led the congress party to draft the
Fundamental Rights Resolution at the Karachi session in 1931 and it passed the resolution of
equality of the sexes. Later, when India became independent, it incorporated this resolution in
our constitution.
Women’s Movements in Contemporary India
Women’s movement in contemporary India is multi-associational, ideologically diverse,
regionally broad, and concerned with a vast array of issues. As a new independent country there
were lots of hope it would improve the women’s position in society. The period between the
1950s and 1970s saw women organizing in different parts of the country on specific issues
relating to their livelihood and the well-being of their families. Women’s movement activists re-
emerged briefly in the 1950s during debates surrounding the passage of a Hindu Code Bill.
Demands for a comprehensive and uniform law to reform Hindu personal laws were made by
women’s organisations in the 1930s. However, no action was taken on this issue until after
Independence, when a committee was appointed by the government in order to look into the
matter. This committee followed the recommendation made by feminists earlier and introduced
the Hindu Code Bill, which raised the age of consent, and to give women the rights to divorce,
maintenance and inheritance. Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar (as Law Minister during the time)
defended the idea of women’s equality in matters related to marriage, divorce, adoption and
property rights. However, the bill despite the support amongst feminists and the Congress could
not get passed because of objections raised by Hindu revivalists. In order to appease the
opposition, the Bill was watered down and passed in the form of four different acts in 1955-56,
the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act,
and the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance.
The women issue rose again with the rise of the leftist struggles in different parts of the
country. It once again saw the support of women in large numbers. The Telangana Movement
that occurred between 1946 and 1951 in Andhra Pradesh for widespread changes in the land
distribution system saw thousands of women involved in the struggle. Later, there came into
being several individuals, groups and networks that started working locally and nationally on a

64
range of gender-related issues. The contemporary Indian women’s movement emerged in the
1970s in response to wider political changes that were occurring at the time.
One such important precursor to the contemporary women’s movement was the
formation of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in Gujarat. SEWA was one of
the first attempts at organizing women’s trade union and was started by Ela Bhatt, a member of
the Gandhian Socialist Textile Labour Association. It was formed in 1972 in Ahmedabad. Sewa
focused on the issue of exploitation and low wages paid to women in informal sector. It
advocated that the work of women was not even recognized. It was a big achievement since its
members did not work either in a factory or for a particular employer. The Chipko movement of
the 1970s was another important movement that saw the participation of women in large
numbers. It was an environmental movement to save the trees of the Uttranchal.
Later in the year 1970s, there grew an international concern for women’s issues all across
the world and India too. This was marked by the UN’s declaration of 1975 as the International
Year of Women, which was then followed by the UN’s Decade of Women. In preparation for
this event, the Indian government appointed a Committee on the Status of Women, which
published their report, Towards Equality in 1974. This event was a watershed in the
development of the contemporary women’s movement. The findings of the report revealed major
disparities in terms of the status of women, and especially poor women, in terms of employment,
health, education, and political participation as well as drawing attention to the declining sex
ratio.
However, in the later decades, the focus of the India’s women’s movement kept
revolving around the issue of violence perpetrated against women. The issue of violence in the
form of rape, dowry, and the problem of female infanticide were issues that brought the women’s
movement together on a national scale. Though these issues were not new to the Indian context,
its ability to mobilize significantly around such isues, was certainly new. Violence against
women was perpetrated by power-holders at various levels of society, including the agents of the
state, local landlords, family members. These mobilizations highlighted the gender-specific
nature of women’s oppression. In the mid 1980s, the women movement was focused around the
Shah Bano controversy. However, this led women’s movement in India to reach an impasse with
regards to the rights of Muslim women. Furthermore, the Supreme Court judgement called for
the creation of a Uniform Civil Code, reopening a long-standing debate over the relationship
between the state and religious groups.
In the year 1981, the Communist party of India (Marxist) established the All India
Democratic Women's Association and it started working for women's education, employment
and status. Simultaneously, there came into being many more issues and campaigns such as
reservation, family laws, environment, and women’s land rights that became part of women’s
movement in India. Besides these issues there were legal and constitutional reforms which
helped in women empowerment. The Government of India in the year 1992 established a
statutory body for women, National Commission for Women (NCW).
The most significant development for women in the last few decades, perhaps, has been
the empowerment of women at the Panchayat level. The government of India, responding to the
various concerns, passed the seventy third amendment (22nd December 1992, came into effect
from 24th April 1993) that allowed thirty three per cent reservation for women at grass root level.
This gave the women of India a platform to raise their voice and become a part of decision
making. However, women still is not represented in the legislatures and the Parliament
adequately, and they are fighting for their quota in the Lok Sabha. According to them a greater
presence of women will be a step towards empowerment of Indian women. Reserving one third
65
of seats (33 per cent) in the Parliament will undoubtedly bestow special power and privileges and
many women on the strength of quota system will reach to the highest law making body.
The women's movement in India has reached today to a rich and vibrant phase of the
movement. It has spread to various parts of the country. Though, critics say now that there
doesn’t exist a single cohesive movement in the country, they cannot deny the fact that there are
a number of fragmented campaigns that are struggling for the issue of women. Women
movement sees this as one of the strengths of the movement which takes different forms in
different times. Today women have reached to a position where they can take leadership in their
own hands not only for their causes, but also for larger issue of mankind and humanity. Medha
Patkar (for her role in Narmada Bachao Aandolan), who is fighting for poor people is a well
known example of this kind. While the movement may have gone scattered, it has nonetheless
become a strong and plural force.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Bhasin, Kamala (1986). What Is Patriarchy? New Delhi: Kali for Women
Geetha, V (2002). Gender. Calcutta: Stree.
Kumar, Radha (1998). The History of Doing. New Delhi: Kali for Women
Mehrotra, Deepti Priya (2001). Bhartiya Mahila Andolan: Kal, Aaj aur Kal , Delhi: Books for
Change.
Menon. Nivedita (ed.) (1999). Gender and Politics in India, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press.

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 UNIT 9

LESSON 8

MODERNITY IN THE LIGHT OF CHANGING CULTURAL

SCENARIO
--Shubhankita Ojha
Department of History
University of Delhi
Modernity is a term that very simply speaking, refers to the modern era. Modernity
means different things to different people. Some schools of thought hold that modernity ended in
the late 20th century, replaced by post-modernity, while others would extend modernity to cover
the developments denoted by post-modernity and into the present. The term modern period or
modern era (sometimes also modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle
Ages. The 1500s is usually taken as an approximate starting period for the modern era. Many
major events caused the Western world to change around the turn of the 16th century: from the
Fall of Constantinople (1453), the fall of Muslim Spain, and Christopher Columbus's voyage to
the Americas (both 1492), to the Protestant Reformation begun with Martin Luther's Ninety-Five
Theses (1517). Modern history may contain references to the history of Early modern Europe
from the turn of the 15th century until the late 18th century, but generally refers to the history of
the world since the advent of the Age of Reason and the Age of Enlightenment in the 17th and
18th centuries and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The concepts and ideas developed
since then are part of the modern era. This terminology is a historical periodization that is
applied primarily to Western history.

Portrayed in more detail, it is associated with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the
world, the idea of the world as open to transformation by human intervention; (2) a complex of
economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market economy; (3) a certain range
of political institutions, including the nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of
these characteristics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social order. It
is a society—more technically, a complex of institutions—which unlike any preceding culture
lives in the future rather than the past.1
Modernity of all things involves positive attitude towards change and attempts to make
progress in technology, economics and military power. It is a positive attitude towards
experimentation with new forms of government, including democracy or that of a republic,
combined with a realistic attitude towards extant institutions, such as that of monarchies,
assessing their strengths and weaknesses based on their record of accomplishments and failures.

Aspects of modernity
One of the most important aspects of modernity is the encouragement of advance or
progress in useful sciences and arts. Revolutions in science and technology have been no less
influential than political revolutions in changing the shape of the modern world. The scientific
revolution, beginning with the discoveries of Johannes Kepler and Galileo, and culminating with

1
Giddens, A., The Consequences of Modernity, Cambridge, England, Polity Press (1990).
67
Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), changed the way in
which educated people looked at the natural world.

What is now called technology is the most obvious success of modernity. Mechanical and
scientific invention has changed human health and all aspects of human society: economic,
religious, social, and theoretical. For example, modern machines in Britain sped up the
manufacture of cloth and iron. The horse and ox were no longer needed as beasts of burden. The
newly invented engine powered the car, train, ship, and eventually the plane, revolutionizing the
way people travelled. Newly discovered energy sources such as petroleum and nuclear power
could power the new machines. Raw goods could be transported in huge quantities over vast
distances; products could be manufactured quickly and then marketed all over the world, a
situation that Britain, and later the US, Europe and Japan all used to their advantage.

Progress continued as science saw many new scientific discoveries. The telephone, radio,
X-rays, microscopes, electricity all contributed to rapid changes in life-styles and societies.
Discoveries of antibiotics such as penicillin brought new ways of combating diseases. Surgery
and various medications made further progress in medical care, hospitals, and nursing. New
theories such as evolution and psychoanalysis changed humanity's "old fashioned" views of
itself. The theory of evolution, the law of the progress of species and races, and the various new
theories of the laws of the progress of history, also set the stage for the ideas of racism and
ethnological superiority to be used as a basis for nationalism and political systems.

From about 1700 there was a rapid population explosion. Between 1650 and 1850 the
average annual rate of increase of the world’s population doubled, it doubled again by the 1920s,
and more than doubled, once more, by the 1970s. With industrialisation, improvements in
medical knowledge and public health, together with a more regular food supply, bring about a
drastic reduction in the death rate but no corresponding decline in the birth rate. The result was a
population explosion, as experienced in 19th century Europe. The same held good for the
developing societies as well.

Warfare changed with the advent of new varieties of rifle, cannon, gun, machine gun,
armor, tank, plane, jet, and missile. Weapons such as the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb,
known along with chemical weapons and biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction,
actually made the devastation of the entire planet possible in minutes. All these are among the
markings of the Modern World.

New attitudes towards religion, with the church diminished, and a desire for personal
freedoms, induced desires for sexual freedoms, which were ultimately accepted by large sectors
of the Western World. Theories of "free love" and uninhibited sexual freedom were advanced
only later in the 1960s. These are the broad effects of modernity which may be seen as a
complex of the polical, social, economic and the cultural and shall be seen in such a light ahead
in the chapter.

Meanings of Modernity
Modernity implies modernization, a continuous process of improvement in the capacity of
humanity to manage and control its physical, social and cultural environment for its own benefit.

68
According to Malcolm Waters2, modernity is a stable, long term, sociocultural configuration that
has the following characteristics:

• Production systems are industrial, that is relatively large in scale, internally specialized
into occupations, externally specialized by product, and mechanized.
• An increasing proportion of interpersonal practices are self-interested, rational and
calculating.
• Physical and social objects, including human labour, are defined as commodities, that is
they are alienable and can be exchanged in markets.
• Control of the state if specified by social role rather than by personal characteristics and
is subject to periodic constituency legitimation.
• Social units— families, schools, governments, firms, churches, voluntary associations,
etc.— are differentiated from one another, that is separated and distinguished from one
another.

A more elaborate definition is given by Stuart Hall who explains the transition to modernity
in terms of interaction between four processes— the political ( the rise of the secular state and
polity), the economic ( the global capitalist economy), the social (formation of classes and an
advanced sexual and social division of labour) and the cultural (the transition from a religious to
a secular culture). One effect of the operation of these processes is to give modern societies a
distinctive shape and form, making them not simply “societies”(a loose ensemble of social
activities) but social formation (societies with a definite structure and a well defined set of social
relations).

According to him, the defining features or characteristics of modern societies are:

1. The nation-state and an international system of states.

2. The dominance of secular forms of political power and authority and conceptions of
sovereignty and legitimacy, operating within defined territorial boundaries, which are
characteristic of the large, complex structures of the modern nation-state.
3. A monetarized exchange economy, based on the large scale production and consumption
of commodities for the market, extensive ownership of private property and the
accumulation of capital on a systematic, long term basis.
4. Growth of large scale administrative and bureaucratic systems of social organization and
regulation.
5. Decline of the traditional social order, with its fixed social hierarchies and overlapping
allegiances, and the appearance of a dynamic social and sexual division of labour. In
modern capitalist societies, this was characterised by new class formations, and
distinctive patriarchal relations between men and women.
6. Decline of the religious world-view typical of traditional societies and the rise of a
secular and materialistic culture, exhibiting those individualistic, rationalist, and
instrumental impulses now so familiar to us.

2
Waters, Malcolm.(ed.), Modernity: Critical Concepts, Vol.1, Routledge, 1999.
69
 7. Formal separation of the “private” from the “public”.

Apart from these, for Hall there exist two other aspects of modernity which he includes under
the rubric of “the cultural”. The first refers to ways of producing and classifying knowledge. The
emergence of modern societies was marked by the birth of a new intellectual and cognitive
world, which gradually emerged with Reformation, the Renaissance, the scientific revolution of
17th century and the Enlightenment of 18th century. This shift in Europe’s intellectual and moral
universe was dramatic, and as constitutive for the formation of modern societies as early
capitalism or the rise of the nation-state. Second, is the construction of cultural and social
identities as part of the formation process. This refers to the construction of a sense of belonging,
which draws people together into an ‘imagined community’ and the construction of symbolic
boundaries which define who does not belong or is excluded from it. So the formation of modern
societies as in Europe had to include the construction of the language, the images and symbols
which defined these societies as ‘communities’ and set them apart, in their represented
differences from others.

Beginnings of Modernity
There is considerable debate about when the modern era began. Many historians and
social scientists accept that the originating society for modernity was Britain and its colonies.
They date the early modern period from the sixteenth century. They make their argument on the
grounds that during this period many mercantile capitalists rose to prominence, that there was
some constitutionalization of monarchies, that the puritan reformation established the individual
as the primary site of moral responsibility, and that there was some autonomization of the value
spheres in so far as science was establishing itself independently of religion. However, against
this many sociologists argue that the modern era did not begin until what is known as the
‘Industrial Revolution’ occurred in Britain between about 1750 and about 1820, and political
revolutions that had the effect of overturning monarchical power occurred in the American
colonies in 1776 and in France in 1789. These sociologists consider that the advent of mercantile
capitalism is insufficient to meet the criterions of modernity. By and large, we can say that while
modern societies began to emerge in Europe in the fifteenth century, modernity in the true sense
could hardly be said to exist in any developed form until the idea of “the modern” was given a
decisive formulation in the discourses of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century.In the
nineteenth century, modernity became identified with industrialism and the sweeping social,
economic, and cultural changes associated with it. By the twentieth century, modernity became a
progressively global phenomenon.

The analysis of modernity was the primary impetus for the development of social science
in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe. Peter Hamilton in “The Enlightenment & the Birth
of Social Science”3 examines the explosion of intellectual energy in eighteenth century Western
Europe which became known as “the Enlightenment”. This movement gave definition to the very
idea of ‘modernity’ and is often described as the original matrix of the modern social sciences.
Ofcourse in one sense, the study of society was not new. Observations about social life had been
going on since long. But the idea of ‘the social’ as a separate and distinct form of reality, which
could be analyzed in entirely “this worldly”, material terms and laid out for rational investigation
and explanation, is a distinctly modern idea which only finally crystallized in the discourses of

3
Hamilton, Peter, “The Enlightenment and the birth of Social Science” in Stuart Hall et al. (ed.) Modernity: An
introduction to modern societies, Polity Press,1995.
70
the Enlightenment. The “birth of the social” as an object of knowledge made possible for the first
time the systematic analysis and the practices of investigation we call “the social sciences”.
Enlightenment opened the prospect of an unending era of material progress and prosperity, the
abolition of prejudice and superstition and the mastery of the forces of nature based on the
expansion of human knowledge and understanding.

In the emergence of distinctively modern societies, two upheavals of the 18th century
played an important role. One was political while the other was economic. The first helped
provoke political revolutions in America and France. The social and political transformations
which occurred in the American and French Revolutions of 1776 and 1789 appear to be
intimately linked. They were widely represented as thresholds between traditional and modern
society, symbolising the end of feudalism and absolutism and rise of the bourgeoisie as the
dominant class in capitalist society, as well as major steps along the roads to both liberal
democracy and totalitarianism. These revolutions estalished the political character of modern
society as constitutional and democratic. Now it became clear that no political system could now
claim legitimacy that was not in some sense based on “the will of the people”. Crucial
innovations of the modern state are territoriality, control of the means of violence, impersonal
structure of power and legitimacy. The second, created an atmosphere conducive to
technological innovations— one of the chief elements in the emergence of the Industrial
Revolution in Great Britain. Although the transition from the absolutist to the modern state was
marked by dramatic events and processes such as the English (1640-88) and French (1789)
Revolutions, an exclusive focus on these hinders an understanding of the way in which the
absolutist state itself was crucial in the development of modern political rule. It was the
confluence of “internal” transformation in European states with shifting geopolitical relations
and forces which provided a key impetus to the formation of the modern state.

Ideas of progress and enlightenment had already established themselves in the eighteenth
century and had manifested themselves in the French Revolution of 1789 and the American
Revolution of 1776. However, the Industrial Revolution set off an altogether more complex and
impressive set of developments. Industrializing societies made rapid material progress. Their
productive capacity increased massively, enriching new sections of the population, expanding
capital and setting off a chain search of scientific and technological innovation. Nations that
industrialized had the clear capacity to dominate and even colonize nations that were less
industrialized, and the European nations established colonial empires that both further enriched
them and further convinced them of their superiority. Moreover, the reorganization of production
altered radically the fabric of everyday social life. It created population movements that
disrupted established patterns of kinship and community. It caused people to separate their work
life from their home life. It placed workers in authority systems that were based on rules and
monetary coercion rather than long-standing relationships.

In the economic life there is an emergence of a distinct sphere, governed by new

economic relations, and regulated and represented by new economic ideas. There is a gradual
spread of commerce and trade, the expansion of markets, the new division of labour, and the
growth of material wealth and consumption— starting in eighteenth century with British society
consequent upon the rise of capitalism in Europe and the gradual transformation of the traditional
economy. By the eighteenth century, however, laissez-faire and the market forces of the private
economy were beginning to unleash the productive energies of the capitalist system. Engines of
this development were the commercial and agrarian revolutions.

71
Robert Bocock in “Cultural Formations of Modern Society”4 discusses three key cultural themes
in the transition to modernity: 1st, the shift from a religious to a secular worldview, and from a
“sacred” to a “profane” foundation for social and moral values, which characterizes the passage
from traditional to modern society; 2nd, the role which religion played in the formation of the
‘spirit of capitalism’; 3rd, the growing awareness among western philosophers and social
theorists of the costs of modern culture— what Freud called “civilization’s discontent” and
Weber saw as the consequences of the increasing rationalization and disenchantment of the
modern world.

One might raise questions about how Europe particularly the north-western part of the
continent suddenly leapt to modernity. Northwestern Europe early in the 16th century was
backward, technically and culturally. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was still absorbing the
commercial and artistic innovations of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance. Yet it was here
that the changes took place that propelled those particular societies into the forefront of world
development. One reason for this could have been the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century
here which valued frugality and hard work suited to the development of industrial capitalism.
The Protestant work ethic has similarly been linked to the development of modern science. What
was crucial was the rationalist culture and the scientific habits of mind that this culture nurtured.
Moreover, the scientific method of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and verification
could be applied not only to nature but also to society. Eventually, toward the end of the 18th
century, what would later be called social science— economics and sociology— began to find a
place alongside natural science. Already, by the17th century, western Europe had embarked on
the course of transoceanic exansion that was to become one of its most notable features in the
succeeding centuries.

Modern societies are especially marked by their complexity. It offers a proliferation of

consumer products and a variety of lifestyles. The hold of tradition has weakened in favour of
individual choice and the individual is increasingly aware of the possibility of constructing new
identities. Nevertheless, this greater cultural pluralism and individualism has been accompanied
by a growth of organizations seeking greater regulation and surveillance of social life.

Modernity in the 20th century

What remains to be explained is the fact that what was modern about the twentieth
century particularly? Twentieth century started against a backdrop of the first world war and in
no time the world was caught up between the two great wars. In terms of class and gender
relations, society that was divided on class lines in the industrial capitalist economy did not make
much progress. Nevertheless it did bring forth the question of “rights”. One of the defining
stories of the 20th century was the struggle for women’s emacipation and equality. The war saw
an important change in the position of women in society. With men away at war, women were
needed to work in a variety of jobs from farming to heavy engineering. Before the war, some
women, the “suffragettes” had been carrying out a campaign of violence against the government
to win the vote for women. It was in response to the suffragettes’ contribution to the war effort
that in 1918 won them the right to vote. Though the idea of universal adult franchise shall take
many years more and voting by and large was restricted to women aged 30 while men voted at
21. Despite the fact that the legal framework of patriarchy was being dismantled, male control of

4
Bocock, R., “Cultural Formations of Modern Society”, in Stuart Hall et al (ed.) Modernity: An introduction to
Modern Societies. Polity Press 1995.
72
the public sphere was nevertheless furthered by the rigidifying of the sexual division of labour.
Politically speaking the period after 1945 saw the eventual culmination of major ideas of
modernity and social formations underwent dramatic changes. That although patriarchy has been
greatly eroded and the class structure further fragmented, class and gender hierarchies still exist
can certainly not be negated.
It is the same mid decades of the twentieth century that ushered in the wave of anti-
colonialism and anti-imperialism in major parts of the world. These drew primarily from the so
called ‘modern ideas’ of earlier times transmitted from the West and the construction of a
national community belonging to a particular nation-state starts taking shape even in the
developing parts of the world.
Towards the end of twentieth century and even today in the first decade of 21st century,
satellite images from space of planet Earth as a single place has reawakened intellectual interest
in Enlightenment notions of a universal community of humankind. Further on as the last century
developed, the growing internationalization of the industrial economy made nation-states
increasingly subordinate to the world economic developments. This process led up to the
formation of a ‘global economy’ which integrated different parts of the world into a single
whole.
Quite obviously modernity has a dark side too. Demographically, it leads to crowding,
pollution and environmental destruction. At the same time the competitive modern order that
stimulates unreal expectations provides insufficient and unequal means for their realization. As
according to Krishan Kumar, “Industrial work exacts a high price for the enormous increase in
productivity brought about by the intensified division of labour.”5 This estranged him from his
work because his task became fragmented, undemanding and meaningless.
Though most of what has already been said so far in the chapter acknowledges
differences between different societies, the story is largely looked at from within Western Europe
(the West) where such processes of formation first emerged. This makes the concept of
modernity to some extent “eurocentric”. However, this formation was also a ‘global’ process.
The cultural and ideological dimensions of the West’s expansion need to be taken into
consideration. For if the Rest of the World was necessary for the political, economic, and social
formation of the West, it was also essential to the West’s formation both of its own sense of
itself— a ‘western identity’— and of western forms of knowledge. The formation of the modern
state has to be related to at least two overarching phenomenon: the structures of political and
social groups and classes, and the relations among states – “their position relative to each other,
and their overall position in the world”. Struggles among social collectivities at home and
conflicts among states/nations abroad have had a dramatic impact on the nature, organization and
dynamics of individual states/nations.
Whether the effects of forces that pushed a developing Western Europe to expand
outwards into the “new world” have been socially progressive is debatable. Colonization and
Imperialism have not promoted economic and social development in many societies, most of
which remain profoundly under-developed. The destruction of indigenous cultural life by
western culture is for most of them, a mixed blessing. And as the human, cultural, and ecological
consequences of this form of ‘western development’ become more obvious, the question of
whether there is only one path to modernity is being debated with increased urgency.

5
Krishan Kumar, “Modernization and Industrialization” in Malcolm Waters (ed.) Modernity: Critical Concepts
Vol.1, Routledge, 1999.
73