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| History
Essay
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The historical development of the world in the 20th century
was marked by the paradoxical difference between the declared
objectives of the ruling elites and the actual situation in
the world. In fact, the 20th century was the century of the
ideological conflict. The variety of antagonistic ideologies,
such as fascism and communism sprang and grew in power but
they were so antagonistic that these ideologies contributed
to the irrational and rather emotional view on international
relations and the system of the existing social order. As
a result, each ideology, developed its own concept of the
world order which had little in common with rational view
of the world and, what is more, the absurdity of ideologies
was the ideological basis for the inspiration of conflicts
between countries supporting different ideologies. These conflicts
eventually resulted in destructing wars leading to thousands
and millions of deaths. In such a way, the history of the
world has developed cyclically when the irrationality of certain
ideology reached its apogee was follow by the outbreak of
a conflict between antagonistic countries having different
ideologies. In this respect, the most important and paradoxical
point is the actual devaluation of human life, while practically
all ideologies put human life, or at least the life of certain
group of people, as the major priority and highest value.
The gap between the actual value of human life and the value
declared by various ideologies perfectly illustrates the extent
to which irrationality could be destructing when it starts
to dominate in the ideology of a country.
On analyzing the development of the world in the 20th century,
it is important to underline that the mankind made little
efforts to learn the mistakes which were made in the beginning
of the century. To put it more precisely, the strife of leading
countries of the world for the domination in global terms
and the ignorance of interests of small and insignificant
states resulted in the outbreak of World War I, which was
the largest military conflict at the epoch. Obviously, the
reasons of the war were based on socioeconomic and political
ground, but the ideological basis of the war laid emphasis
on the belief of the possibility of the domination of certain
countries in the world. In such a way, the imperialistic struggle
of leading countries resulted, which did not have any rational
ground, resulted in World War I which took thousands and millions
of lives. However, the war had not really changed the world
dramatically since not a single superpower got the dominance
in the world.
In stark contrast, World War I led to the defeat of Germany
and its allies, which, though, did not prevent the country
from its revanchist plans and desire to restore its power
in the world. Moreover, the defeat of Germany lead to the
emergence of new ideology, fascism, which incorporated the
dissatisfaction of Germany with the results of World War I
and was supported by German population because it targeted
at the creation of the new Reich, a powerful and prosperous
Germany (Keylor and Bannister, 183). In fact, this idea was
a milestone of the Nazi ideology and program and it is this
idea which actually brought Hitler and his party to the power
in Germany. At the same time, its former allies, such as Italy,
also developed fascist ideology, which was based on similar
principles and targeted at the consistent improvement of the
position of Italian people.
Thus, the need to improve socioeconomic situation in countries
which were defeated in World War I was so burning that the
population of these countries readily supported the most radical
and, to a significant extent, irrational ideologies. For instance,
it is obvious that, from a rational point of view, the policy
of nationalism could not have solved problems of Germany because
representatives of non-German ethnic groups, such as Jews,
could not be the cause of all problems of German people. But
the Nazi ideology stated that it is non-Germans who deprive
Germans of the life space and are the major cause of socioeconomic
problems. As a result, the aggressive policy of German elite
and the excessive use of propaganda led the country to World
War II.
On the other hand, the policy of allies which won World War
I was not more rational. In this respect, the policy of appeasement
of Hitler is a sample of absurdity of the policy of the UK
and France as the major powers in Europe. This policy resulted
in the Munich Agreement of 1938, which actually satisfied
Hitler ambitions to occupy a part of Czechoslovakia and paved
him the way to the occupation of other countries of Europe
(Keylor and Bannister,201). This step was absolutely irrational
because it strengthened Germany and demonstrated the weakness
of the UK and France. At the same time, the USSR also contributed
to the growing ambitions of Germany because it also signed
an agreement, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which actually divided
Eastern Europe between Germany and the USSR (Keylor and Bannister,
219). This step practically invited Germany for the further
expansion eastward and, therefore, made the war between the
USSR and Germany practically inevitable. As a result, World
War II had started in 1939 and ended in 1945 bringing millions
of deaths and unprecedented destructions.
In this respect, Europe was particularly affected by the war.
Nevertheless, allies, including the USSR, the USA and the
UK, during the Yalta Conference, had decided to restore Europe
estimating the necessity of “the establishment of order
in Europe, and the rebuilding of national economic life”
(Keylor and Bannister, 227). But, in actuality, the restoration
of Europe resulted in the new conflict of two systems based
on the communist and democratic ideologies. Instead of the
restoration after World War II, the world came to Cold War
which separated the world into pro-Soviet and pro-American
blocs. The latter created the NATO while the former signed
the Warsaw pact (Gearson and Schake, 179). Both, the NATO
and the Warsaw pact marked the division of the world into
a democratic or capitalist system and socialist system respectively.
The antagonism of two ideologies, capitalism and communism
grew absolutely irrational leading to the increasing militarization
of the world, though, technically, the USSR and the US military
potentially was sufficient to destroy not only the opponent,
but also the entire world along with the mankind (Gearson
and Schake, 204). As a result, Cold War was accompanied by
the struggle of two systems worldwide causing death of people
in numerous military conflicts, though, potentially, two systems
could co-exist, but their ambitions and desire to dominate
in the world outweighed all rational arguments.
Thus, it is possible to conclude that the strife for the domination
in the world became one of the major concerns of leading powers
in the world in the 20th century that led to the formation
of absolutely irrational beliefs and caused numerous military
conflicts.
Works cited:
Gearson, J. and Schake, K., ed. The Berlin Wall Crisis: Perspectives
on Cold War Alliances. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Keylor, W.R. and J. Bannister. The Twentieth Century World.
New York: Random House, 2004.
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