Napoleon
Robert E. Lee
Lincoln
Elisabeth Sisi
Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson
Gandhi
Lenin
Churchill
Stalin
Atatürk
Franklin Roosevelt, Eisenhauer
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821)
Napoleon was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and again in 1815. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. One of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. He also remains one of the most celebrated and controversial political figures in human history.
He was born in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the French Revolution broke out deposing the monarchy in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an artillery officer in the French army. He quickly capitalized on the new political situation by returning to Corsica in hopes of starting a political career. After that venture failed, he came back to the military and rose rapidly through the ranks, ending up as commander of the Army of Italy after saving the governing Directory by suppressing a revolt from royalist insurgents.
At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies, scoring a series of decisive victories, conquering the Italian Peninsula for France in a year, and becoming a national hero. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. A year later, he engineered a coup and became First Consul of the Republic. His rising ambition inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. He faced many coalitions against him which he shattered with decisive victories and which led to the elimination of the Holy Roman Empire. Hoping to extend his empire, he needed to choke off British goods from the European mainland. Napoleon invaded Spain and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support and were able to win after 6 years with extensive guerrilla warfare.
The French launched a major invasion of Russia in 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of Napoleon's army, the destruction of Russian lands and cities following the “scorched earth policy” so often successfully used in the past, and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. Napoleon hoped to compel Tsar Alexander I of Russia to cease trading with British merchants in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace and to liberate Poland from Russian threat. With his army of 680,000 soldiers, he hoped the battle would be short so failed to equip his troops for winter warfare and failed to provide sufficient food and medicines.
But the Russian army continued to retreat and Napoleon continued to follow. As the Russian army fell back, Cossacks were given the task of burning villages, towns and crops. This was intended to deny the invaders the option of living off the land. Starvation and privation compelled French soldiers to leave their camps at night in search of food. These men were frequently confronted by parties of Cossacks, who captured or killed them. When Napoleon entered Moscow, the Russians had evacuated the city, and several strategic points in Moscow were set ablaze. His troops exhausted, with few rations, no winter clothing, and his remaining horses in poor condition, Napoleon was forced to retreat. He had lost some 380,000 men dead and 100,000 captured. A year later, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in defeating Napoleon.
France was invaded and Paris was captured forcing Napoleon to abdicate. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he spent the remainder of his life until his death at the age of 51.
Napoleon had an extensive and powerful influence on the modern world, bringing liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled. He implemented fundamental liberal policies in France and throughout Western Europe. His legal achievement, the Napoleonic Code, has influenced the legal systems of more than 70 nations around the world. The ideas that underpin our modern world - meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, and sound finances - were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Robert E. Lee (1807 – 1870)
Robert E. Lee was an American and Confederate soldier, best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army. He commanded in the American Civil War from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. A son of Revolutionary War officer, Lee was a top graduate of the United States Military Academy and an exceptional officer and military engineer in the United States Army for 32 years. During this time, he served throughout the United States, distinguished himself during the Mexican–American War, and served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy.
When Virginia declared its secession from the Union in 1861, Lee chose to follow his home state, despite his desire for the country to remain intact and an offer of a senior Union command. During the first year of the Civil War, Lee served as a senior military adviser to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Once he took command of the main field army in 1862 he soon emerged as a shrewd tactician and battlefield commander, winning most of his battles, all against far superior Union armies.
Lee's strategic foresight was more questionable, and both of his major offensives into Union territory ended in defeat. His aggressive tactics, which resulted in high casualties at a time when the Confederacy had a shortage of manpower, have come under criticism. He surrendered his entire army to Ulysses S. Grant in 1865 and accepted "the extinction of slavery" provided for by the Thirteenth Amendment, but publicly opposed racial equality and granting African Americans the right to vote and other political rights.
Lee opposed the construction of public memorials to Confederate rebellion on the grounds that they would prevent the healing of wounds inflicted during the war. Nevertheless, after his death, he became an icon used by promoters who sought to romanticize the Confederate cause and strengthen white supremacy in the South. He had become the embodiment of the Southern cause. A generation later, he was a national hero. As a result, the 1890s and early 20th century witnessed the consolidation of white supremacy.
Lee was son of the Governor of Virginia. One of Lee's great grandparents was a prominent Virginian colonist who left many descendants. He was also related to Helen Keller through Helen's mother. In 1812, Lee's father was badly injured in a political riot in Baltimore and traveled to the West Indies. He would never return, dying when his son Robert was 11 years old.
Lee entered West Point in 1825, when he was 18. At the time, the focus of the curriculum was engineering; the head of the Army Corps of Engineers supervised the school and the superintendent was an engineering officer. Cadets were not permitted leave until they had finished 2 years of study, and were rarely allowed off the Academy grounds. He graduated second in his class. After graduation, while awaiting assignment, he returned to Virginia to find his mother on her deathbed.
While home in 1829, Lee courted Mary whom he had known as a child. He obtained permission to write to her before leaving for Georgia, though Mary warned Lee to be "discreet" in his writing, as her mother read her letters, especially from men. The 2 were wed in 1831. Although the 2 were devoted to each other, they were different in character: Lee was tidy and punctual, qualities his wife lacked. Mary also had trouble transitioning from being a rich man's daughter to having to manage a household with only one or two slaves.
Lee distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War (1846-48). He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer. He found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable. For the first time, Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met and worked with each other during the Mexican-American War. Close observations of their commanders constituted a learning process for both Lee and Grant.
The 1850s were a difficult time for Lee, with his long absences from home, the increasing disability of his wife, troubles in taking over the management of a large slave plantation, and his often morbid concern with his personal failures. In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point. He was reluctant to enter what he called a "snake pit", but the War Department insisted and he obeyed. His wife occasionally came to visit. During his 3 years at West Point, Lee improved the buildings and courses and spent much time with the cadets.
In 1857, his father-in-law Custis died creating a serious crisis when Lee took on the burden of executing the will. Custis's will encompassed vast landholdings and hundreds of slaves balanced against massive debts, and required Custis's former slaves "to be emancipated by my executors in such manner as to my executors may seem most expedient and proper, the said emancipation to be accomplished in not exceeding 5 years from the time of my decease."
The estate was in disarray, and the plantations had been poorly managed and were losing money. Lee tried to hire an overseer to handle the plantation in his absence, writing to his cousin, "I wish to get an energetic honest farmer, who while he will be considerate & kind to the negroes, will be firm & make them do their duty." But Lee failed to find a man for the job, and had to take a 2-year leave of absence from the army in order to run the plantation himself.
Lee's cruelty on the plantation nearly led to a slave revolt, since many of the slaves had been given to understand that they were to be made free as soon as Custis died, and protested angrily at the delay. Lee ruptured the Custis tradition of respecting slave families and by 1860 he had broken up every family but one on the estate. Lee freed the Custis slaves after the end of the 5-year period.
While Lee protested he had sympathetic feelings for blacks, they were subordinate to his own racial identity. While Lee held slavery to be an evil institution, he also saw some benefit to blacks held in slavery. While Lee helped assist individual slaves to freedom in Liberia, and provided for their emancipation in his own will, he believed the enslaved should be eventually freed in a general way only at some unspecified future date as a part of God's purpose. Slavery for Lee was a moral and religious issue, and not one that would yield to political solutions. Emancipation would sooner come from Christian impulse among slave masters. Countering southerners who argued for slavery as a positive good, Lee in his well known analysis of slavery from an 1856 letter called it a moral and political evil. While Lee was disgusted with slavery, he also defended it against Abolitionist demands for immediate emancipation for all enslaved.
Like Washington, Lee's father-in-law freed his slaves in his will. In the same tradition, before leaving to serve in Mexico, Lee had written a will providing for the sale of the slaves he owned. Lee's father-in-law was a member of the American Colonization Society established to gradually end slavery by establishing a free republic in Liberia for African-Americans, and Lee assisted several ex-slaves to emigrate there.
Lee's private views on race and slavery were entirely unremarkable in Lee's world. No visionary, Lee nearly always tried to conform to accepted opinions. His assessment of black inferiority, of the necessity of racial stratification, the primacy of slave law, and even a divine sanction for it all, was in keeping with the prevailing views of other moderate slaveholders and a good many prominent Northerners.
Lee claimed that he found slavery bothersome and time-consuming as an everyday institution to run. In an 1856 letter to his wife he maintained that slavery was a great evil, but primarily due to adverse impact that it had on white people.
“In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race. While my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the blacks, my sympathies are more strong for the whites. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence”.
After the War, Lee told a congressional committee that blacks were "not disposed to work", and did not possess the intellectual capacity to vote and participate in politics. Lee also said to the committee that he hoped that Virginia could "get rid of them," referring to blacks. Lee was urged to condemn the white supremacy terrorist organization Ku Klux Klan, but opted to remain silent.
John Brown led a band of 21 abolitionists who seized the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, hoping to incite a slave rebellion. President Buchanan gave Lee command of detachments of militia, soldiers, and United States Marines, to suppress the uprising and arrest its leaders. By the time Lee arrived that night, the militia on the site had surrounded Brown and his hostages. At dawn, Brown refused the demand for surrender. Lee attacked, and Brown and his followers were captured after 3 minutes of fighting. Lee's summary report of the episode shows Lee believed it was the attempt of a fanatic or madman. Lee said Brown achieved temporary success by creating panic and confusion and by magnifying the number of participants involved in the raid.
When Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, General Twiggs surrendered all the American forces, about 4,000 men, including Lee, to the Texans. Twiggs immediately resigned from the U.S. Army and was made a Confederate general. Lee stayed in Washington and was appointed Colonel of the First Regiment of Cavalry.
Unlike many Southerners who expected a glorious war, Lee correctly predicted it as protracted and devastating. He privately opposed the new Confederate States of America in letters in early 1861, denouncing secession as "nothing but revolution" and an unconstitutional betrayal of the efforts of the Founding Fathers. Despite opposing secession, Lee said that "we can with a clear conscience separate if all peaceful means failed”. He agreed with secessionists in most areas, such as dislike of Northern anti-slavery criticisms and prevention of expanding slavery to new territories, and fear of its larger population.
Lee's objection to secession was ultimately outweighed by a sense of personal honor, reservations about the legitimacy of a strife-ridden "Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets", and duty to defend his native Virginia if attacked. He was asked while leaving Texas by a lieutenant if he intended to fight for the Confederacy or the Union, to which Lee replied, "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty".
At the outbreak of war, Lee was appointed to command all of Virginia's forces, but upon the formation of the Confederate States Army, he was named one of its first five full generals. He did not intend to wear a general's insignia until the Civil War had been won and he could be promoted, in peacetime, to general in the Confederate Army. The critical decisions came in 1863, after Lee's smashing victory. The western front was crumbling, as multiple uncoordinated Confederate armies were unable to handle General Ulysses S. Grant's campaign. General Grant, sought to use his large advantages in manpower and material resources to destroy Lee's army by attrition, pinning Lee against his capital of Richmond. Lee successfully stopped each attack, but Grant with his superior numbers kept pushing each time a bit farther to the southeast.
Grant eventually was able to stealthily move his army across the James River. After stopping a Union attempt to capture Petersburg, Virginia, a vital railroad link supplying Richmond, Lee's men built elaborate trenches and were besieged in Petersburg, a development which presaged the trench warfare of WWI. The Siege lasted from 1864 until 1865, with Lee's outnumbered and poorly supplied army shrinking daily because of desertions by disheartened Confederates. In 1865, Lee was promoted to general-in-chief of Confederate forces.
As the South ran out of manpower the issue of arming the slaves became paramount. Lee explained, "We should employ them without delay along with gradual and general emancipation." The first units were in training as the war ended. As the Confederate army was devastated by casualties, disease and desertion, the Union attack on Petersburg succeeded. Lee abandoned Richmond and retreated west. Lee then made an attempt to escape to the southwest however his forces were soon surrounded and he surrendered them to Grant. Other Confederate armies followed suit and the war ended.
Lee resisted calls by some officers to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war. He insisted the war was over and energetically campaigned for inter-sectional reconciliation. "So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South."
After the war, Lee was not arrested or punished, but he did lose the right to vote as well as some property. Lee's prewar family home was seized by Union forces during the war and turned into Arlington National Cemetery, and his family was not compensated until more than a decade after his death.
Lee supported a system of free public schools for blacks, but forthrightly opposed allowing blacks to vote. "My own opinion is that, at this time, they cannot vote intelligently, and that giving them the vote would lead to a great deal of demagogism, and lead to embarrassments in various ways."
Lee hoped to retire to a farm of his own, but he was too much a regional symbol to live in obscurity. President Andrew Johnson issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to persons who had participated in the rebellion against the United States. Lee told a colleague that the greatest mistake of his life was taking a military education.
Lee suffered a stroke and he died at 62 years of age.
Lincoln was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States for 4 years, from 1861 until his assassination. Lincoln led the United States through its American Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
Born in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up largely self-educated. He became a lawyer in Illinois, a Whig Party leader, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives, in which he served for 8 years. The Whig party was rival to the Democratic Party and stood for the 'sovereignty of the people' as expressed in popular demonstrations, constitutional conventions, and majority rule as a general principle of governing.
The Whigs advocated the rule of law, written and unchanging constitutions, and protections for minority interests against majority tyranny. Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1846, Lincoln promoted rapid modernization of the economy through banks, tariffs, and railroads. Because he had originally agreed not to run for a second term in Congress, and because his opposition to the Mexican–American War was unpopular among Illinois voters, Lincoln returned to Springfield and resumed his successful law practice.
The Mexican–American War was an armed conflict between the United States of America and the United Mexican States from 1846 to 1848. It followed in the wake of the 1845 US annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution.
After Mexico's independence in 1821 and brief experiment with monarchy, Mexico became a republic in 1824. It was characterized by considerable instability, so that when war broke out in 1846, Mexico was ill-prepared for this conflict. The war with the United States followed in the wake of decades of Indian raids in the sparsely settled north of Mexico, which prompted the Mexican government to sponsor American migration to the Mexican province of Texas to act as a buffer. Americans and some Mexicans revolted against the Mexican government in the 1836 Texas Revolution, creating a republic not recognized by Mexico, which still claimed it as its national territory. The 1845 expansion of US territory with its annexation of Texas escalated the dispute between the United States and Mexico to open war.
In 1844 USA made a proposition to Mexico to purchase the disputed lands. When that offer was rejected, troops from the United States were moved into the disputed territory. These troops were then attacked by Mexican troops, killing 12 American troops and taking 52 prisoners. This resulted in the loss of much of Mexico's northern territory.
Reentering politics in 1854, Lincoln became a leader in building the new Republican Party, which had a statewide majority in Illinois. In 1860, Lincoln secured the Republican Party presidential nomination. Though he gained very little support in the slave-holding states of the South, he swept the North and was elected president. Lincoln's victory prompted 7 southern slave states to form the Confederate States of America before he moved into the White House - no compromise or reconciliation was found regarding slavery and secession.
Subsequently in 1861 a Confederate attack inspired the North to enthusiastically rally behind the Union. As the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South. Politically, Lincoln fought back by pitting his opponents against each other, by carefully planned political patronage, and by appealing to the American people with his powers of oratory.
The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865. 4 years of intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers dead, a higher number than the American military deaths of WWI and WWII combined, and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure. The Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished in the entire country. The Reconstruction Era between 1863 and 1877 overlapped and followed the war, with its fitful process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and granting civil rights to the freed slaves.
Lincoln initially concentrated on the military and political dimensions of the war. His primary goal was to reunite the nation. He suspended habeas corpus that protects citizens charged with crime from being unlawfully detained without a court order or the rights to be represented by a lawyer.
Lincoln closely supervised the war effort, especially the selection of top generals, including his most successful general, Ulysses S. Grant. As the war progressed, his complex moves toward ending slavery included the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863; Lincoln used the U.S. Army to protect escaped slaves, encouraged the Border States to outlaw slavery, and pushed through Congress the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which permanently outlawed slavery.
The Gettysburg Address is one of the best-known in American history. It was delivered by Lincoln and became an iconic endorsement of the principles of nationalism, republicanism, equal rights, liberty, and democracy.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”
“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Any money that the USA government needed for public works was borrowed at an interest rate from the banking system. Fighting the Civil War required the government to borrow vast amounts of money and Lincoln refused to pay the phenomenal levels of interest charged by the banks. He began to print interest-free money called ‘greenbacks’ to fund the North in the American Civil War. The Greenback system worked so well that Lincoln proposed making “greenbacks” the permanent means of government finance. This was the worst nightmare for the Rothschilds who controlled the banks and who were funding both sides in the Civil War, as they do in all the wars they engineered.
Five days after, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth and the greenback policy died with him.
President Lincoln and President Kennedy, who served as President 100 years later, share very strange coincidences.
- Both were tragically assassinated during their term in office. Both were admired by many and hated by those who opposed his political views. Both were directly concerned with Civil Rights. Both had a child who died while they were in the White House.
- Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 and 14 years later to the presidency. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946 and 14 years later to the presidency.
- Lincoln was shot in a theater in the back of the head on a Friday by John Wilkes Booth in the presence of his wife. Kennedy was shot in Dallas in the back of the head on a Friday by Lee Harvey Oswald in the presence of his wife.
- Lincoln`s secretary, named Kennedy warned him not to go to the theater. Kennedy`s secretary, named Lincoln, warned him not to go to Dallas.
- Booth shot Lincoln in the Ford Theater, attending a play with his wife sitting in box number 7. Oswald shot Kennedy riding in a Lincoln limousine made by Ford with his wife sitting in car number 7.
- Booth fled to a warehouse after shooting Lincoln in a theater. Oswald fled to a theater after shooting Kennedy from a warehouse.
- Both Booth and Oswald were killed before being brought to trial and both were suspected to be part of a greater conspiracy.
- Lincoln's successor was Andrew Johnson, born in 1808 and died in 1875. Kennedy's successor was Lyndon Johnson born in 1908 and died 10 years after 1975.
- Both proposed that the federal government be able to issue interest-free currency instead of borrowing money at interest from private banks.
Elisabeth of Bavaria was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary by marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I. Nicknamed "Sisi", she enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying Emperor Franz Joseph I at the age of 16. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Hapsburg court life, for which she was unprepared and which she found uncongenial. Early in the marriage she was at odds with her mother-in-law Sophie, who took over the rearing of Elisabeth's daughters.
The birth of a male heir improved her standing at court, but her health suffered under the strain, and she would often visit Hungary for its more relaxed environment. She came to develop a deep kinship with Hungary, and helped to bring about the dual monarchy of Austria–Hungary in 1867.
The death of her only son and his mistress in a murder-suicide at his hunting lodge in 1889 was a blow from which Elisabeth never recovered. She withdrew from court duties and traveled widely, unaccompanied by her family. In 1890, she had a palace built on the Greek Island of Corfu that she visited often. The palace featured an elaborate Greek mythological motif and served as a refuge. She was obsessively concerned with maintaining her youthful figure and beauty, which were already legendary during her life.
Born in Munich, Bavaria, she was the fourth child. Her father was considered to be rather peculiar. He had a childish love of circuses and traveled the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties. "Sisi" and her siblings grew up in a very unrestrained and unstructured environment; she often skipped her lessons to go riding about the countryside.
In 1853, Princess Sophie of Bavaria, the domineering mother of 23-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph, arranged a marriage between her son and “Sisi`s older sister, Helene. Helene was a pious, quiet young woman, and she and Franz Joseph felt ill at ease in each other's company, but he was instantly infatuated with her younger sister. He did not propose to Helene, but defied his mother and informed her that if he could not have Elisabeth, he would not marry at all. 5 days later their betrothal was officially announced. The couple were married 8 months later.
After enjoying an informal and unstructured childhood, Elisabeth, who was shy and introverted by nature, and more so among the stifling formality of Hapsburg court life, had difficulty adapting to the rigid protocols and strict etiquette. Within a few weeks, Elisabeth started to display health problems with fits of coughing.
She was surprised to find she was pregnant and gave birth to her first child, a daughter just 10 months after her wedding. Sophie, who often referred to Elisabeth as a "silly young mother", not only named the child after herself without consulting the mother, but took complete charge of the baby, refusing to allow Elisabeth to breastfeed or otherwise care for her own child. When a second daughter was born a year later, Sophie took the baby away from Elisabeth as well. The fact that she had not produced a male heir made Elisabeth increasingly unwanted in the palace.
Unlike Sophia who despised the Hungarians, Elisabeth felt such an affinity for them that she began to learn Hungarian. The country reciprocated in its adoration of her. In 1857 Elisabeth visited Hungary for the first time with her husband and 2 daughters, and it left a deep and lasting impression upon her, probably because in Hungary she found a welcome respite from the constraints of Austrian court life. It was the first time that Elisabeth had met with men of character in Franz Joseph's realm, and she became acquainted with an aristocratic independence that scorned to hide its sentiments behind courtly forms of speech. She felt her innermost soul reach out in sympathy to the proud, steadfast people of this land.
This same trip proved tragic as both of Elisabeth's children became ill with diarrhea. While Gisela recovered quickly, 2-year-old Sophie grew steadily weaker, then died. Her death pushed Elisabeth, who was already prone to bouts of melancholy, into periods of heavy depression, which would haunt her for the rest of her life. She turned away from her living daughter, began neglecting her, and their relationship never recovered.
In 1857 Elisabeth became pregnant for the third time in as many years. Elisabeth was strongly attached to her parents, especially to her mother. She had no control in her new life and was unable to identify herself as both the spouse of the emperor and a young mother. As a result, she attempted to recreate her childhood with its lack of obligations. The only quality for which she felt herself appreciated, and over which she had control, was her physical appearance, so she started cultivating this as the primary source of her self-esteem. Elisabeth was reported to be obsessively achievement-oriented and almost compulsively perfectionistic in her attitudes. Her emotional well-being was dependent on her own beauty and image.
In deep mourning after her daughter Sophie's death, Elisabeth refused to eat for days; a behavior that would reappear in later periods of melancholy and depression. Whenever her weight threatened to exceed a "fasting cure" or "hunger cure" would follow, which involved almost complete fasting.
The empress developed extremely rigorous and disciplined exercise habits. Every castle she lived in was equipped with a gymnasium and mats and balance beams were installed in her bedchamber so that she could practice on them each morning. The imperial villa at Ischl was fitted with gigantic mirrors so that she could correct every movement and position. She took up fencing in her 50s with equal discipline. A fervent horsewoman, she rode every day for hours on end, becoming probably the world's best, as well as best-known, female equestrian at the time.
In the last years of her life, Elisabeth became even more restless and obsessive, weighing herself up to 3 times a day. She regularly took steam baths to prevent weight gain. In addition to her rigorous exercise regimen Elisabeth practiced demanding beauty routines. Daily care of her abundant and extremely long hair, which in time turned from the dark blonde of her youth to chestnut brunette, took at least 3 hours. Her hair was so long and heavy that she often complained that the weight of the elaborate double braids and pins gave her headaches. When her hair was washed with a combination of eggs and cognac once every 2 weeks, all activities and obligations were canceled for that day. Elisabeth used these captive hours during grooming to learn languages; she spoke fluent English and French, and added modern Greek to her Hungarian studies.
Unlike other women of her time, Elisabeth used cosmetics and perfume sparingly, as she wished to showcase her natural beauty, but she tested countless beauty products prepared in the court pharmacy, or prepared by a lady-in-waiting in her own apartments, to preserve it. After age 32, she did not sit for any more portraits, and would not allow any photographs of her to be taken, so that her public image of the eternal beauty would not be challenged.
Franz Joseph was passionately in love with his wife, but she did not reciprocate his feelings fully and felt increasingly stifled by the rigidness of court life. He was an unimaginative and sober man, a political reactionary who was still guided by his strict mother and her adherence to the strict rules. Elisabeth inhabited a different world altogether. Restless to the point of hyperactivity, naturally introverted, and emotionally distant from her husband, she fled him as well as her duties of life at court, avoiding them both as much as she could. He indulged her wanderings, but constantly and unsuccessfully tried to tempt her into a more domestic life with him.
Elisabeth slept very little and spent hours reading and writing at night, and even took up smoking, a shocking habit for women which made her the further subject of already avid gossip. She had a special interest in history, philosophy, and literature.
Elisabeth was interested in the treatment of the mentally ill. In 1871, when the Emperor asked her what she would like as a gift, she listed a young tiger and a medallion, but: "...a fully equipped lunatic asylum would please me most".
In 1858, Elisabeth finally gave birth to an heir. Her interest in politics had developed as she matured. She was liberal-minded, and placed herself decisively on the Hungarian side in the increasing conflict of nationalities within the empire.
Elisabeth was a personal advocate for Hungarian Count Andrássy, who also was rumored to be her lover. Whenever difficult negotiations broke off between the Hungarians and the court, they were resumed with her help. During these protracted dealings, Elisabeth suggested to the emperor that Andrássy be made the Premier of Hungary as part of a compromise.
When Elisabeth was still blocked from controlling her son's upbringing and education, she openly rebelled. Due to her nervous attacks, fasting cures, severe exercise regime, and frequent fits of coughing, the state of her health had become alarming. It was feared that she had tuberculosis and advised a stay on the island of Madeira. Six months later, a fresh rest cure was advised, this time on Corfu, where she improved almost immediately. In 1862 she had not seen Vienna for a year. Her feet were sometimes so swollen that she could walk only laboriously, and with the support of others.
Elisabeth fell into her old pattern of escaping boredom and dull court protocol through frequent walking and riding, using her health as an excuse to avoid both official obligations and sexual intimacy. Preserving her youthful appearance was also an important influence in her avoidance of pregnancies:
"Children are the curse of a woman, for when they come, they drive away beauty, which is the best gift of the gods".
She became more assertive in her defiance of her husband and mother-in-law than before, openly opposing them on the subject of the military education of her son Rudolf who, like his mother, was extremely sensitive and not suited to the life at court.
After having used every excuse to avoid pregnancy, Elisabeth later decided that she wanted a fourth child. Her decision was at once a deliberate personal choice and a political negotiation. By returning to the marriage, she ensured that Hungary, with which she felt an intense emotional alliance, would gain an equal footing with Austria. The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created the dual monarchy of Austria–Hungary. Andrassy was made the first Hungarian prime minister and in return, he saw that Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were officially crowned King and Queen of Hungary.
She gave birth to a daughter. Determined to bring this last child up by herself, Elisabeth finally had her way. She poured all her repressed maternal feelings on her youngest daughter to the point of nearly smothering her. After having achieved this victory, Elisabeth did not stay to enjoy it, but instead embarked on a life of travel, and saw little of her children.
In 1889 Elisabeth's life was shattered by the death of her only son Rudolf, who was found dead together with his young lover Baroness Mary Vetsera, in what was suspected to be a murder-suicide on Rudolf's part. Elisabeth never recovered from the tragedy, sinking further into melancholy. Within a few years, she had lost her father, her only son, Rudolf, her sister, and her mother. After Rudolf's death she was thought to have dressed only in black for the rest of her life. To compound her losses, Count Andrássy died a year later.
In 1898, despite warnings of possible assassination attempts, the 60-year-old Elisabeth traveled incognito to Geneva, Switzerland. She was walking along the promenade when the 25-year-old Italian anarchist approached and stabbed her to death. Elisabeth was the longest serving Empress of Austria at 44 years.
Theodore Roosevelt was an American statesman, author, explorer, soldier, naturalist, and reformer who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909. As a leader of the Republican Party during this time, he became a driving force for the Progressive Era in the United States in the early 20th century. As president, Theodore Roosevelt made building up a world-class fighting fleet a high priority, sending his "white fleet" around the globe to make sure all the naval powers understood the United States was now a major player. Building the Panama Canal was designed not just to open Pacific trade to East Coast cities, but also to enable the new Navy to move back and forth across the globe.
As a leader of the Progressive movement, he championed his domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. Making conservation a top priority, he established many new national parks, forests, and monuments intended to preserve the nation's natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America, where he began construction of the Panama Canal. He expanded the Navy and sent a fleet on a world tour to project the United States' naval power around the globe. His successful efforts to broker the end of the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize. He avoided the controversial tariff and money issues.
Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City. He was the second of 4 children born to his socialite mother and his businessman and philanthropist father. Theodore's distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president 14 years after he died. Theodore's youth was largely shaped by his poor health and debilitating asthma. He repeatedly experienced sudden nighttime asthma attacks that caused the experience of being smothered to death, which terrified both Theodore and his parents. Doctors had no cure. Nevertheless, he was energetic and mischievously inquisitive.
His lifelong interest in zoology began at age 7. At age 9, he recorded his observation of insects in a paper entitled "The Natural History of Insects". Theodore's father significantly influenced him. He was a prominent leader in New York's cultural affairs. When he inherited enough to live comfortably for the rest of his life from his father's will, he moved back into his family's home in New York City and decided to attend Law School. He soon decided to drop out of law school, later saying, "I intended to be one of the governing class."
On his 22nd birthday in 1880, Theodore married a socialite. For their honeymoon, they went on a European tour, which was particularly energetic for Theodore who often walked alongside his wife's carriage or horse. Guides led Theodore when he climbed the Jungfrau, the Matterhorn, and a small string of minor peaks. Their daughter was born 2 years later, and 2 days after giving birth, his wife died. His mother had died 11 hours earlier in the same house.
Roosevelt was soon put forth as the Republican Party’s candidate for the District's House seat in Albany. He immediately began making his mark, specifically in corporate corruption issues. He assumed a high and positive political profile in multiple New York publications. His anti-corruption efforts helped him win re-election in 1882 by a margin greater than 2 to 1. In 1886, Theodore married his childhood and family friend. The couple had 5 children.
President Harrison appointed Roosevelt to the United States Civil Service Commission, where he served until 1895 and demanded enforcement of civil service laws. He was offered a position on the board of the New York City Police Commissioners and he radically reformed the police force. The New York Police Department was reputed as one of the most corrupt in America. Theodore made a habit of walking officers' beats late at night and early in the morning to make sure that they were on duty.
He called for a build-up in the country's naval strength, particularly the construction of battleships. Roosevelt also began pressing his national security views regarding the Pacific and the Caribbean. Roosevelt was particularly adamant that Spain be ejected from Cuba, to foster the latter's independence and to demonstrate the U.S. resolve to reinforce the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
The Monroe Doctrine was a United States policy of opposing European colonialism in The Americas when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese and Spanish Empires. It stated that further efforts by European nations to take control of any independent state in North or South America would be viewed as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the U.S. would recognize and not interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries.
Theodore served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President William McKinley. Returning a war hero, he was elected Governor of New York in 1898. Roosevelt campaigned vigorously as vice president for McKinley and they won a landslide victory based on a platform of peace, prosperity, and conservatism. McKinley and Roosevelt were elected for a second term in 1900. When McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist a year later, Roosevelt became the youngest president at age 42.
Elected as president in 1904, Theodore Roosevelt continued to promote progressive policies, but many of his efforts and much of his legislative agenda were eventually blocked in Congress. He successfully groomed his close friend Taft who won the 1908 presidential election to succeed him. Frustrated with Taft's conservatism, Theodore belatedly tried to win the 1912 Republican nomination. He failed, walked out, and founded a third party which called for wide-ranging progressive reforms. The split allowed the Democrats to win the White House.
When the United States and Spain declared war against each other in 1898, Theodore volunteered to fight and returned home a war hero. He was asked to run as governor for the Republican Party. As governor, he learned much about ongoing economic issues and political techniques that later proved valuable in his presidency. He was exposed to the problems of trusts, monopolies, labor relations, and conservation. By holding twice-daily press conferences, which was an innovation, he remained connected with his middle-class political base. He successfully pushed a tax bill which taxed public franchises granted by the state and controlled by corporations, declaring that "a corporation which derives its powers from the State, should pay to the State a just percentage of its earnings as a return for the privileges it enjoys".
As governor, Theodore Roosevelt developed the principles that shaped his presidency, especially insistence upon the public responsibility of large corporations, publicity as a first remedy for trusts, regulation of railroad rates, mediation of the conflict of capital and labor, conservation of natural resources and protection of the less fortunate members of society. He sought to position himself against the excesses of large corporations on the one hand and radical movements on the other.
As the chief executive of the most populous state in the union, he was widely considered a potential future presidential candidate. He ran as McKinely`s running mate for vice president and claimed that McKinley had brought America peace and prosperity and deserved reelection. With the nation basking in peace and prosperity, the voters gave conservative McKinley an even larger landslide than in 1896.
When McKinley was assassinated, Theodore became president and served his first term without a vice president. He assured party leaders that he intended to adhere to McKinley's policies, and he retained McKinley's Cabinet. Nonetheless, he sought to position himself as the party's undisputed leader, seeking to bolster the role of the president and position himself for the 1904 election. As the new president, he shifted the Republican Party to a more populist direction by increasing anti-trust prosecutions and asked Congress to curb the power of large corporations called "trusts". He also supported organized labor and he endorsed the gold standard, protective tariffs and lower taxes. For his aggressive use of 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, he became mythologized as the "trust-buster"; but in reality he was more of a trust regulator.
The Sherman Antitrust Act allowed certain business activities that federal government regulators deem to be competitive, and recommended the federal government to investigate and pursue trusts. The law refers to a type of trust which combines several large businesses as cartels for monopolistic purposes to exert complete control over a market. The law attempts to prevent the artificial raising of prices by restriction of trade or supply. Theodore Roosevelt viewed big business as a necessary part of the American economy, and sought only to prosecute the "bad trusts" that restrained trade and charged unfair prices. He brought 44 antitrust suits, breaking up the Northern Securities Company, the largest railroad monopoly; and regulating Standard Oil, the largest oil and refinery company.
In 1902, anthracite coal miners went on strike, threatening a national energy shortage. After threatening the coal operators with intervention by federal troops, Theodore Roosevelt won their agreement to an arbitration of the dispute by a commission, which succeeded in stopping the strike. The accord with J.P. Morgan resulted in the miners getting more pay for fewer hours, but with no union recognition. During his second year in office it was discovered there was corruption in the Indian Service, the Land Office, and the Post Office Department. Theodore had a high sense of morality and national purpose and investigated and prosecuted corrupt Indian agents who had cheated the Creeks and various tribes out of land parcels. Land fraud and speculation were found involving Oregon federal timberland. Merchants complained that some railroad rates were too high and in 1906 Theodore passed a bill to give the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to regulate rates and to replace existing rates with "just-and-reasonable" maximum rates.
Theodore responded to public anger over the abuses in the food packing industry by pushing Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Meat Inspection Act banned misleading labels and preservatives that contained harmful chemicals. The Pure Food and Drug Act banned food and drugs that were impure or falsely labeled from being made, sold, and shipped.
The Panic of 1907 was a United States financial crisis that took place over a 3 week period when the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% from its peak the previous year. Panic occurred, as this was during a time of economic recession, and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The 1907 panic eventually spread throughout the nation when many state and local banks and businesses entered bankruptcy. The panic was triggered by the failed attempt to corner the market on stock of the United Copper Company. When this bid failed, banks that had lent money to the cornering scheme suffered runs that later spread to affiliated banks and trusts. Regional banks withdrew reserves from New York City banks. Panic extended across the nation as vast numbers of people withdrew deposits from their regional banks.
The panic might have deepened if not for the intervention of financier J. P. Morgan, who pledged large sums of his own money, and convinced other New York bankers to do the same, to shore up the banking system. This highlighted the impotence of the nation's Independent Treasury system, which managed the nation's money supply, yet was unable to inject liquidity back into the market.
The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. The Republicans sought a response to the money supply through the bankers, whereas the Democrats sought government control. Roosevelt was unsure, but leaned towards the Republican view while continuing to denounce corporate corruption.
Of all Theodore Roosevelt's achievements, he was proudest of his work in conservation of natural resources, and extending federal protection to land and wildlife. He established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of 5 National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, 4 game preserves, and 150 National Forests.
Theodore was the first President to issue over 1,000 executive orders - almost as many executive orders as all of his predecessors combined. He used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as President. By the end of his second term in office, he used executive orders to establish 150 million acres of reserved forestry land. Roosevelt was unapologetic about his extensive use of executive orders to protect the environment despite the perception in congress that he was encroaching on too many lands and was prevented from reserving any further land. His willingness to make extensive use of executive orders pertaining to land conservation may have been fueled by his belief that the preservation of the forests and waterways was the most important domestic issue facing the country in that period.
In the late 1890s, Theodore had been an ardent imperialist, and vigorously defended the permanent acquisition of the Philippines in the 1900 election campaign. After the rebellion ended in 1901, he largely lost interest in the Philippines and Asian expansion in general, despite the contradictory opinion of his Secretary of War, William Howard Taft. As president, he primarily focused the nation's overseas ambitions on the Caribbean, especially locations that had a bearing on the defense of his pet project, the Panama Canal. Roosevelt also increased the size of the navy, and by the end of his second term the United States had more battleships than any other country besides Britain.
In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt mediated a treaty to end the Russo-Japanese War and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for balancing Russian and Japanese power in the Orient, where the supremacy of either constituted a threat to growing America. His presidency saw the strengthening of ties with Great Britain. It begun with British support of the United States during the Spanish-American War, and it continued as Britain withdrew its fleet from the Caribbean in favor of focusing on the rising German naval threat. He was able to resolve unpleasant racial tensions with Japan. Tokyo was angered over the segregation of Japanese children in San Francisco schools. The tensions were ended, but Japan also agreed not to allow unskilled workers to emigrate to the U.S.
Theodore Roosevelt's attention concerning Latin American turmoil was heightened by his plans for building a canal. In 1902, the Germans, British, and Italians sought to impose a naval blockade against Venezuela in order to force the repayment of delinquent loans. He was particularly concerned with the motives of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm. He succeeded in getting the aggressors to agree to arbitration by a tribunal at The Hague. The episode contributed to the development of the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. It asserted a right of the United States to intervene to "stabilize" the economic affairs of small states in the Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international debts, in order to preclude European intervention to do so.
The pursuit of a canal in Central America to bridge the Atlantic with the Pacific focused on 2 possible routes, Nicaragua and Panama, which was then a rebellious district within Colombia. He convinced Congress to approve the Panamanian alternative, and a treaty was approved, only to be rejected by the Colombian government. When the Panamanians learned of this, a rebellion followed, was supported by Roosevelt, and succeeded. A treaty with the new Panama government for construction of the canal was then reached in 1903. Theodore received criticism for paying the bankrupt Panama Canal Company and the New Panama Canal Company for the rights and equipment to build the canal. Critics charged that an American investor syndicate allegedly divided the large payment among themselves. He denied charges by the paper New York World of corruption concerning the canal.
Building on McKinley's effective use of the press, Theodore Roosevelt made the White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the reporters huddled outside the White House in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded him with ample coverage. He normally enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base.
While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors, and writers. He drew the line, however, at expose-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who, during his term, set magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Theodore himself was not usually a target, but his speech in 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. He called them liars who are no better and even can be worse than thieves.
The press did briefly target him in one instance. Ever since 1904, he had been periodically criticized for the manner in which he facilitated the Panama Canal. In the least judicious use of executive power, near the end of his term, Theodore demanded that the Justice Department bring charges of criminal libel against the New York World. The publication had accused him of "deliberate misstatements of fact”. The case was ultimately dismissed in federal court.
He faced little effective opposition for the 1904 nomination for president. He attempted to manage the press's release of White House statements by restriction of further access to any journalist who repeated a statement made by the president without approval. Democratic newspapers charged that Republicans were extorting large campaign contributions from corporations, putting ultimate responsibility on Theodore himself. Allegations from the Democrats, however, had little impact on the election, as Roosevelt promised to give every American a "square deal". Theodore won the Electoral College vote, 336 to 140. A Senate investigation into the 1904 election showed that the Republicans received more than 3 times more contributions than the Democratic Party from large corporations like Standard Oil, U.S. Steel, J.P. Morgan & Co., and railroad conglomerates.
As his second term progressed, Roosevelt moved to the left of his Republican Party base and called for a series of reforms that were mostly not passed. Roosevelt's influence waned as he approached the end of his second term, as his promise to forego a third term made him a “lame duck” and his concentration of power provoked a backlash from many Congressmen.
He called for a federal income tax, but the Supreme Court in the 1890s had ruled any income tax would require a constitutional amendment. Theodore sought an inheritance tax so the great fortunes could not pay out in perpetuity. In the area of labor legislation, he called for limits on the use of court injunctions against labor unions during strikes. Injunctions were a powerful weapon that mostly helped business. He wanted an employee liability law for industrial injuries. He called for an 8-hour work day for federal employees. In other areas he also sought a postal savings system to provide competition for local banks, and he asked for campaign reform laws. Eventually some of his proposals were enacted under his successors.
The election of 1904 continued to be a source of contention between Republicans and Democrats. Senators beholden to Standard Oil lobbied Roosevelt, in the summer of 1904, to authorize the leasing of Indian oil lands by Standard Oil subsidiaries. Roosevelt overruled his Secretary of Interior and granted a pipeline franchise to run through the Osage lands to the Prairie Oil and Gas Company.
Roosevelt realized that lowering the tariff could create severe tensions inside the Republican Party by pitting producers, manufacturers and farmers, against merchants and consumers. Taft ignored the risks and enforced the tariff boldly, alienating all sides.
In 1907, Roosevelt became embroiled in a widely publicized literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy. A few years earlier, naturalist John Burroughs had published an article attacking popular writers of the day for their fantastical representations of wildlife. Roosevelt agreed with Burroughs' criticisms, and published several essays of his own denouncing the booming genre of "naturalistic" animal stories.
Roosevelt intensely disliked being called "Teddy", and was quick to point out this fact to those who referred to him as such, though it would become widely used by newspapers during his political career. He attended church regularly. In 1907, concerning the motto "In God We Trust" on money, he wrote, "It seems to me eminently unwise to cheapen such a motto by use on coins, just as it would be to cheapen it by use on postage stamps, or in advertisements." He was also a member of the Freemasons. In 1909, shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt went on a safari in east and central Africa. Although the safari was ostensibly conducted in the name of science, it was as much a political and social event as it was a hunting excursion.
He had mixed feelings about a third term, as he enjoyed being president and was still relatively youthful, but felt that a limited number of terms provided a check against dictatorship. He ultimately decided to stick to his 1904 pledge not to run for a third term. Returning from Europe, he urged progressives to take control of the Republican Party at the state and local level, and to avoid splitting the party in a way that would hand the presidency to the Democrats in 1912. Advocating a program of "New Nationalism", he emphasized the priority of labor over capital interests, a need to more effectively control corporate creation and combination, and proposed a ban on corporate political contributions.
He campaigned for the Republicans in the 1910 elections, which saw the Democrats gain control of the House for the first time since the 1890s. Among the newly elected Democrats was his younger cousin New York state senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Republican progressives interpreted the 1910 defeats as compelling argument for the complete reorganization of the party in 1911. A group of Ohio Republicans endorsed Theodore for the party's nomination for president. Soon thereafter, Theodore proclaimed, "I am really sorry for our president Taft... I am sure he means well, but he means well feebly, and he does not know how! He is utterly unfit for leadership and this is a time when we need leadership." Taft replied “such extremists like Roosevelt are not progressives- they are political emotionalists or neurotics”.
Theodore began to envision himself as the savior of the Republican Party from defeat in the upcoming Presidential election. Once his defeat as the Party nominee was probable, he announced that he would accept the progressive nomination on a progressive platform and fight to the end, win or lose. Then Theodore along with key allies created the Progressive Party, structuring it as a permanent organization that would field complete tickets at the presidential and state level.
It was popularly known as the "Bull Moose Party", after Theodore told reporters, "I'm as fit as a bull moose". At the 1912 Progressive National Convention, Roosevelt cried out, "We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord." His platform echoed his 1907–8 proposals, calling for vigorous government intervention to protect the people from the selfish interests.
In 1912, while campaigning, Theodore was shot by a saloon-keeper. The bullet lodged in his chest after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a 50 page thick folded copy of the speech which he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not reached his lung, and he declined suggestions to go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for 90 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose."
Afterwards, probes and an x-ray showed that the bullet had lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle and Doctors concluded that it would be less dangerous to leave it in place than to operate to remove it. He soon became obese and carried the bullet with him for the rest of his life.
The Democrats nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson. Theodore respected Wilson, but the 2 differed on various issues. Wilson opposed any federal intervention regarding women's suffrage or child labor considering these as state issues. He attacked Theodore's tolerance of large businesses. Wilson gained 6.3 million votes (42% of the total), enough for a massive landslide in the Electoral College, with 435 electoral votes. Theodore won only 88 electoral votes.
When WWI began in 1914, Theodore strongly supported the Allies and demanded a harsher policy against Germany, especially regarding submarine warfare. He angrily denounced the foreign policy of President Wilson, calling it a failure regarding the atrocities in Belgium and the violations of American rights. In 1916, while campaigning for Republicans, he repeatedly denounced Irish-Americans and German-Americans whom he described as unpatriotic, saying they put the interests of Ireland and Germany ahead of America's by supporting neutrality. He insisted that one had to be 100% American, not a "hyphenated American" who juggled multiple loyalties. Wilson won the 1916 election by a narrow margin and the Progressives disappeared as a party as Theodore and many of his followers re-joined the Republican Party.
Theodore Roosevelt attacked Wilson's stance on Germany for not calling for its unconditional surrender. He was cautiously optimistic about Wilson's proposed League of Nations, but had reservations about its impact on US sovereignty. Theodore was popular enough to contest the 1920 Republican nomination, but his health was broken by 1918, because of the lingering malaria. Roosevelt suffered breathing problems and died in his sleep.
Before he died, Theodore Roosevelt explained how little people know of how government really operates:
"Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people. From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856 -1924)
Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the president of the United States from 1913-21 as a member of the Democratic Party. As president, he oversaw the passage of progressive legislative policies unparalleled until the New Deal in 1933. He also led the United States into WWI in 1917, and was the leading architect of the League of Nations. During his first term, Wilson presided over the passage of his progressive New Freedom domestic agenda. His first major priority was the passage of the Revenue Act of 1913, which lowered tariffs and implemented a federal income tax. Later tax acts implemented a federal estate tax and raised the top income tax rate to 77%. Wilson also presided over the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, which created a central banking system in the form of the Federal Reserve System. Two major laws were passed to regulate and break up large business interests known as trusts. To the disappointment of his African-American supporters, Wilson allowed some of his Cabinet members to segregate their departments. Upon the outbreak of WWI in 1914, Wilson maintained a policy of neutrality between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers. He won re-election by a narrow margin in the presidential election of 1916. In 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany after it implemented a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, and Congress complied. Wilson presided over war-time mobilization but devoted much of his efforts to foreign affairs. After Germany signed an armistice in 1918, Wilson and other Allied leaders took part in the Paris Peace Conference. The resulting League of Nations was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles and other treaties with the defeated Central Powers, but Wilson was subsequently unable to convince the Senate to ratify that treaty or allow the United States to join the League. Wilson suffered a severe stroke in 1919 and was incapacitated for the remainder of his presidency.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born to a family of Scots-Irish and Scottish descent. He was the third of four children growing up in a home where slave labor was utilized. He studied political philosophy and history. In 1883, 27 years old, Wilson met and fell in love with the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and they had 3 children. Wilson entered Johns Hopkins University and during his academic career, he authored several works of history and political science. Wilson believed the Constitution had a "radical defect" because it did not establish a branch of government that could "decide at once and with conclusive authority what shall be done." Wilson wrote that governments could legitimately promote the general welfare "by forbidding child labor, by supervising the sanitary conditions of factories, by limiting the employment of women in occupations hurtful to their health, by instituting official tests of the purity or the quality of goods sold, by limiting the hours of labor in certain trades, by a hundred and one limitations of the power of unscrupulous or heartless men to out-do the scrupulous and merciful in trade or industry." He also wrote that charity efforts should be removed from the private domain and "made the imperative legal duty of the whole," laying the groundwork for the modern welfare state.
In 1902, he was appointed president of Princeton University and worked to keep African Americans out of the school, even as other Ivy League schools were accepting small numbers of blacks. He at the same time attempted to curtail the influence of social elites at Princeton by abolishing the upper-class eating clubs. Wilson became disenchanted with his job due to the resistance to his recommendations, and he began considering a run for office. Wilson's campaign focused on his promise to be independent of party bosses. He quickly shed his professorial style for more emboldened speech-making and presented himself as a full-fledged progressive. Wilson position himself as an independent force in the New Jersey Democratic Party. By the time Wilson took office, New Jersey had gained a reputation for public corruption; the state was known as the "Mother of Trusts" because it allowed companies like Standard Oil to escape the antitrust laws of other states. Wilson and his allies quickly won passage of a bill, which undercut the power of the political bosses by requiring primaries for all elective offices and party officials. A corrupt practices law and a workman's compensation statute that Wilson supported won passage shortly thereafter. For his success in passing these laws during the first months of his gubernatorial term, Wilson won national and bipartisan recognition as a reformer and a leader of the Progressive movement. He won passage of laws that restricted labor by women and children and increased standards for factory working conditions. A new State Board of Education was set up with the power to conduct inspections and enforce standards, regulate districts' borrowing authority, and require special classes for students with handicaps. Shortly before leaving office, Wilson signed a series of antitrust laws and removed the power to select juries from local sheriffs.
Roosevelt emerged as Wilson's main challenger, and Wilson and Roosevelt largely campaigned against each other despite sharing similarly progressive platforms that called for an interventionist central government. Wilson refused to accept contributions from corporations and to prioritize smaller donations from the widest possible quarters of the public. During the election campaign, Wilson asserted that it was the task of government "to make those adjustments of life which will put every man in a position to claim his normal rights as a living, human being." He developed his New Freedom platform, focusing especially on breaking up trusts and lowering tariff rates. Wilson rejected Roosevelt's proposal to establish a powerful bureaucracy charged with regulating large corporations, instead favoring the break-up of large corporations in order to create a level economic playing field. Wilson engaged in a spirited campaign, criss-crossing the country to deliver numerous speeches. Ultimately, he took 42% of the popular vote and 435 of the 531 electoral votes. Wilson's victory made him the first Southerner to win a presidential election since the Civil War,
He had 4 major domestic priorities: the conservation of natural resources, banking reform, tariff reduction, and equal access to raw materials, which would be accomplished in part through the regulation of trusts. Though foreign affairs would increasingly dominate his presidency starting in 1915, Wilson's first 2 years in office largely focused on the implementation of his New Freedom domestic agenda.
Democrats had long seen high tariff rates as equivalent to unfair taxes on consumers, and tariff reduction was President Wilson's first priority. He argued that the system of high tariffs "cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the government a facile instrument in the hands of private interests." Shortly before Wilson took office, the Sixteenth Amendment, which authorized Congress to impose an income tax without apportioning the tax among the states, was ratified by the requisite number of states.
The Revenue Act of 1913 reduced the average import tariff rates from approximately 40% to approximately 26% and restored a federal income tax for the first time since 1872 The Act imposed a 1% tax on incomes above $3,000, affecting approximately 3% of the population. Congress later passed the Revenue Act of 1916, which reinstated the federal estate tax, established a tax on the production of munitions, raised the top income tax rate to fifteen%, and raised the corporate income tax from 1% to 2%.The policies of the Wilson administration had a durable impact on the composition of government revenue, which after the 1920s would primarily come from taxation rather than tariffs.
By the time Wilson took office, countries like Britain and Germany had established government-run central banks, but the United States had not had a central bank since the Bank War of the 1830s. In the aftermath of the Panic of 1907, there was general agreement among leaders in both parties of the necessity to create some sort of central banking system to provide a more elastic currency and to coordinate responses to financial panics. Wilson sought a middle ground between progressives and conservative Republicans like Nelson Aldrich, who put forward a plan for a central bank that would give private financial interests a large degree of control over the monetary system. Wilson declared that the banking system must be "public not private, must be vested in the government itself so that the banks must be the instruments, not the masters, of business." A compromise plan in which private banks would control twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, but a controlling interest in the system was placed in a central board filled with presidential appointees was agreed to. Wilson believed that the plan met the demands for an elastic currency because Federal Reserve notes would be obligations of the government. The bill passed the House in 1913 and began operations in 1915, and it played an important role in financing the Allied and American war effort in WWI.
Having passed major legislation lowering the tariff and reforming the banking structure, Wilson next sought antitrust legislation to enhance the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Sherman Antitrust Act barred any contract, combination...or conspiracy, in restraint of trade, but had proved ineffective in preventing the rise of large business combinations known as trusts. An elite group of businessmen dominated the boards of major banks and railroads, and they used their power to prevent competition by new companies. Wilson eventually passed a bill defining and banning several anti-competitive practices.
Wilson's labor policy focused on using the Labor Department to mediate conflicts between labor and management. Wilson incorporated an 8-hour work day, health and safety measures, the prohibition of child labor, and safeguards for female workers. He also favored a minimum wage for all work performed by and for the federal government.
In 1914, he established government subsidies allowing farmers voluntarily experiment with farming techniques favored by agricultural experts. He created 12 regional banks empowered to provide low-interest loans to farmers and provided federal subsidies to road-building efforts in rural areas and elsewhere.
Immigration was a high priority topic in American politics during Wilson's presidency, but he gave the matter little attention. Wilson's progressivism encouraged his belief that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, though often poor and illiterate, could assimilate into a homogeneous white middle class, and he opposed the restrictive immigration policies that many members of both parties favored.
Wilson vetoed the Immigration Act of 1917, but Congress overrode the veto. The act's goal was to reduce immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe by requiring literacy tests, and it was the first U.S. law to restrict immigration from Europe.
The Wilson administration sent troops to occupy the Dominican Republic and intervene in Haiti, and Wilson also authorized military interventions in Cuba, Panama, and Honduras. The Panama Canal opened in 1914, fulfilling the long-term American goal of building a canal across Central America. The canal provided relatively swift passage between the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean, presenting new economic opportunities to the U.S. and allowing the U.S. Navy to quickly navigate between the two oceans.
WWI broke out in July 1914, pitting the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria against the Allied Powers of Britain, France, and Russia. Wilson's primary foreign policy objective was to keep the United States out of the war in Europe and to broker a peace agreement. He insisted that all government actions be neutral, stating that the United States "must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another." The United States sought to trade with both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers, but the British imposed a blockade of Germany. After a period of negotiations, Wilson essentially assented to the British blockade. In response to the British blockade of the Central Powers, and over Wilson's protest, the Germans launched a submarine campaign against merchant vessels in the seas surrounding the British Isles.
In 1915, the Germans sank 3 American ships; Wilson took the view, based on some reasonable evidence, that incidents were accidental, and that a settlement of claims could be postponed to the end of the war. A German submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner killing 1,198, including 128 American citizens. Wilson publicly responded by saying, "there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right". He also sent a protest to Germany which demanded that the German government "take immediate steps to prevent a recurrence." In 1916, an unarmed ferry under the French flag, was torpedoed in the English Channel and 4r Americans were counted among the dead. Wilson extracted from Germany a pledge to constrain submarine warfare to the rules of cruiser warfare, which represented a major diplomatic concession.
Wilson was renominated at the 1916 Democratic National Convention without opposition. The election outcome was in doubt for several days and was determined by several close states. Wilson won 277 electoral votes and 49.2% of the popular vote. while his opponent won 254 electoral votes and 46.1% of the popular vote.
In 1917, the Germans initiated a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against ships in the seas around the British Isles. German leaders knew that the policy would likely provoke U.S. entrance into the war, but they hoped to defeat the Allied Powers before the U.S. could fully mobilize. After a series of attacks on American ships, Wilson held a Cabinet meeting and all Cabinet members agreed that the time had come for the United States to enter the war. He requested a military draft to raise the army, increased taxes to pay for military expenses, loans to Allied governments, and increased industrial and agricultural production. He stated, "we have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion... no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of the nations can make them." By the end of the war, 116,000 American soldiers had died, and another 200,000 had been wounded.
In addition to spending on its own military build-up, the United States provided large loans to the Allied countries, helping to prevent the economic collapse of Britain and France. By the end of the war, the United States had become a creditor nation for the first time in its history. Seeking to avoid the high levels of inflation that had accompanied the heavy borrowing of the American Civil War, the Wilson administration imposed further increase taxes during the war. The War Revenue Act of 1917 and the Revenue Act of 1918 raised the top tax rate to 77%, greatly increased the number of Americans paying the income tax, and levied an excess profits tax on businesses and individuals. Despite these tax acts, the United States was forced to borrow heavily to finance the war effort. War bonds were issued and proved so popular among investors that many borrowed money in order to buy more bonds. The purchase of bonds, along with other war-time pressures, resulted in rising inflation, though this inflation was partly matched by rising wages and profits.
To shape public opinion, Wilson established the first modern propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). To suppress anti-British, pro-German, or anti-war statements, Wilson pushed through Congress the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Because of the lack of a national police force, the Wilson administration relied heavily on state and local police forces, as well as voluntary compliance, to enforce war-time laws. Anarchists, communists, Industrial Workers of the World members, and other antiwar groups attempting to sabotage the war effort were targeted by the Department of Justice; many of their leaders were arrested for incitement to violence, espionage, or sedition. In response to concerns over civil liberties, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a private organization devoted to the defense of free speech, was founded in 1917. After the signing of the armistice, Wilson traveled to Europe to lead the American delegation to Paris Peace Conference, thereby becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. Republicans and even some Senate Democrats complained about their lack of representation in the American delegation. Save for a 2-week return to the United States, Wilson remained in Europe for 6 months, where he focused on reaching a peace treaty to formally end the war.
Unlike other Allied leaders, Wilson did not seek territorial gains or material concessions from the Central Powers. His chief goal was the establishment of the League of Nations, which he saw as the "keystone of the whole programme." Wilson himself presided over the committee that drafted the Covenant of the League of Nations, The Covenant of the League of Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war with Germany. Aside from the establishment of the League of Nations and the establishment of a lasting peace, Wilson's other main goal at the Paris Peace Conference was to use self-determination as the primary basis of international borders. However, in pursuit of his League of Nations, Wilson conceded several points to the other powers present at the conference. Germany was required to pay war reparations and subjected to military occupation in the Rhineland. Additionally, a clause in the treaty specifically named Germany as responsible for the war. Wilson agreed to the creation of mandates in former German and Ottoman territories, allowing the European powers and Japan to establish de facto colonies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Several new states were created in Central Europe and the Balkans, including Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. For his peace-making efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.
He suffered a stroke, leaving him paralyzed on his left side, and with only partial vision in the right eye. Wilson's leadership in domestic policy in the aftermath of the war was complicated by his focus on the Treaty of Versailles, opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress, and his illness. Demobilization was chaotic and violent; 4,000,000 soldiers were sent home with little planning, little money, and few benefits. Major strikes in the steel, coal, and meatpacking industries disrupted the economy in 1919. Some of the strikes turned violent, and the country experienced further turbulence as a series of race riots, primarily whites attacking blacks, broke out. The country was also hit by the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed over 600,000 Americans. After the expiration of wartime contracts, the U.S. plunged into a severe economic depression, and unemployment rose to 11.9 %.
Following the Revolution in the Russian Empire, many in the United States feared the possibility of a Communist-inspired revolution in the United States. Fears over left-wing subversion, combined with a patriotic national mood, led to the outbreak of the so-called "First Red Scare." Prohibition developed as an unstoppable reform during the war, but Wilson played only a minor role in its passage. After decades of advocacy, in 1917 temperance groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League convinced both houses of Congress to pass a constitutional amendment imposing nationwide Prohibition. The amendment was ratified by the states becoming the Eighteenth Amendment. Wilson vetoed the legislation designed to enforce Prohibition, but his veto was overridden by Congress. The manufacture, importation, sale, and transport of alcohol were prohibited, except in specific cases, such as wine used for religious purposes. Wilson personally favored women's suffrage, but early in his presidency he held that it was a state matter, partly because of strong opposition in the South to any constitutional amendment. The increasingly prominent role women took in the war effort in factories and at home convinced Wilson and many others to fully support women's suffrage. The House passed a constitutional amendment providing for women's suffrage nationwide, but the amendment stalled in the Senate. Wilson continually pressured the Senate to vote for the amendment, telling senators that its ratification was vital to winning the war. The Senate finally approved the amendment as the Nineteenth Amendment. Despite his ill health, Wilson continued to entertain the possibility of running for a third term. While the convention strongly endorsed Wilson's policies, Democratic leaders were unwilling to support the ailing Wilson for a third term. Wilson's health did not markedly improve after leaving office and he died in 1924.
Wilson took steps towards the creation of a strong federal government that would protect ordinary citizens against the overwhelming power of large corporations. Many of Wilson's accomplishments, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the graduated income tax, and labor laws, continued to influence the United States long after Wilson's death.
Before he died, Woodrow Wilson revealed:
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Forced to react to the continuing bank failures and financial panics, Wilson set up a private bank called the Federal Reserve (FED) as the bank for all banks. The FED acted as a lender of last resort to support failing banks, to make loans to the Allies fighting the Central powers in WW1 and to fund participating in the war to ensure the Allies would win and repay all those loans. He later regretted this decision:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation therefore and all of our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by the vote of the majority, but by the opinion of a small group of dominant men“.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born to a family of Scots-Irish and Scottish descent. He was the third of four children growing up in a home where slave labor was utilized. He studied political philosophy and history. In 1883, 27 years old, Wilson met and fell in love with the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and they had 3 children. Wilson entered Johns Hopkins University and during his academic career, he authored several works of history and political science. Wilson believed the Constitution had a "radical defect" because it did not establish a branch of government that could "decide at once and with conclusive authority what shall be done." Wilson wrote that governments could legitimately promote the general welfare "by forbidding child labor, by supervising the sanitary conditions of factories, by limiting the employment of women in occupations hurtful to their health, by instituting official tests of the purity or the quality of goods sold, by limiting the hours of labor in certain trades, by a hundred and one limitations of the power of unscrupulous or heartless men to out-do the scrupulous and merciful in trade or industry." He also wrote that charity efforts should be removed from the private domain and "made the imperative legal duty of the whole," laying the groundwork for the modern welfare state.
In 1902, he was appointed president of Princeton University and worked to keep African Americans out of the school, even as other Ivy League schools were accepting small numbers of blacks. He at the same time attempted to curtail the influence of social elites at Princeton by abolishing the upper-class eating clubs. Wilson became disenchanted with his job due to the resistance to his recommendations, and he began considering a run for office. Wilson's campaign focused on his promise to be independent of party bosses. He quickly shed his professorial style for more emboldened speech-making and presented himself as a full-fledged progressive. Wilson position himself as an independent force in the New Jersey Democratic Party. By the time Wilson took office, New Jersey had gained a reputation for public corruption; the state was known as the "Mother of Trusts" because it allowed companies like Standard Oil to escape the antitrust laws of other states. Wilson and his allies quickly won passage of a bill, which undercut the power of the political bosses by requiring primaries for all elective offices and party officials. A corrupt practices law and a workman's compensation statute that Wilson supported won passage shortly thereafter. For his success in passing these laws during the first months of his gubernatorial term, Wilson won national and bipartisan recognition as a reformer and a leader of the Progressive movement. He won passage of laws that restricted labor by women and children and increased standards for factory working conditions. A new State Board of Education was set up with the power to conduct inspections and enforce standards, regulate districts' borrowing authority, and require special classes for students with handicaps. Shortly before leaving office, Wilson signed a series of antitrust laws and removed the power to select juries from local sheriffs.
Roosevelt emerged as Wilson's main challenger, and Wilson and Roosevelt largely campaigned against each other despite sharing similarly progressive platforms that called for an interventionist central government. Wilson refused to accept contributions from corporations and to prioritize smaller donations from the widest possible quarters of the public. During the election campaign, Wilson asserted that it was the task of government "to make those adjustments of life which will put every man in a position to claim his normal rights as a living, human being." He developed his New Freedom platform, focusing especially on breaking up trusts and lowering tariff rates. Wilson rejected Roosevelt's proposal to establish a powerful bureaucracy charged with regulating large corporations, instead favoring the break-up of large corporations in order to create a level economic playing field. Wilson engaged in a spirited campaign, criss-crossing the country to deliver numerous speeches. Ultimately, he took 42% of the popular vote and 435 of the 531 electoral votes. Wilson's victory made him the first Southerner to win a presidential election since the Civil War,
He had 4 major domestic priorities: the conservation of natural resources, banking reform, tariff reduction, and equal access to raw materials, which would be accomplished in part through the regulation of trusts. Though foreign affairs would increasingly dominate his presidency starting in 1915, Wilson's first 2 years in office largely focused on the implementation of his New Freedom domestic agenda.
Democrats had long seen high tariff rates as equivalent to unfair taxes on consumers, and tariff reduction was President Wilson's first priority. He argued that the system of high tariffs "cuts us off from our proper part in the commerce of the world, violates the just principles of taxation, and makes the government a facile instrument in the hands of private interests." Shortly before Wilson took office, the Sixteenth Amendment, which authorized Congress to impose an income tax without apportioning the tax among the states, was ratified by the requisite number of states.
The Revenue Act of 1913 reduced the average import tariff rates from approximately 40% to approximately 26% and restored a federal income tax for the first time since 1872 The Act imposed a 1% tax on incomes above $3,000, affecting approximately 3% of the population. Congress later passed the Revenue Act of 1916, which reinstated the federal estate tax, established a tax on the production of munitions, raised the top income tax rate to fifteen%, and raised the corporate income tax from 1% to 2%.The policies of the Wilson administration had a durable impact on the composition of government revenue, which after the 1920s would primarily come from taxation rather than tariffs.
By the time Wilson took office, countries like Britain and Germany had established government-run central banks, but the United States had not had a central bank since the Bank War of the 1830s. In the aftermath of the Panic of 1907, there was general agreement among leaders in both parties of the necessity to create some sort of central banking system to provide a more elastic currency and to coordinate responses to financial panics. Wilson sought a middle ground between progressives and conservative Republicans like Nelson Aldrich, who put forward a plan for a central bank that would give private financial interests a large degree of control over the monetary system. Wilson declared that the banking system must be "public not private, must be vested in the government itself so that the banks must be the instruments, not the masters, of business." A compromise plan in which private banks would control twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, but a controlling interest in the system was placed in a central board filled with presidential appointees was agreed to. Wilson believed that the plan met the demands for an elastic currency because Federal Reserve notes would be obligations of the government. The bill passed the House in 1913 and began operations in 1915, and it played an important role in financing the Allied and American war effort in WWI.
Having passed major legislation lowering the tariff and reforming the banking structure, Wilson next sought antitrust legislation to enhance the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The Sherman Antitrust Act barred any contract, combination...or conspiracy, in restraint of trade, but had proved ineffective in preventing the rise of large business combinations known as trusts. An elite group of businessmen dominated the boards of major banks and railroads, and they used their power to prevent competition by new companies. Wilson eventually passed a bill defining and banning several anti-competitive practices.
Wilson's labor policy focused on using the Labor Department to mediate conflicts between labor and management. Wilson incorporated an 8-hour work day, health and safety measures, the prohibition of child labor, and safeguards for female workers. He also favored a minimum wage for all work performed by and for the federal government.
In 1914, he established government subsidies allowing farmers voluntarily experiment with farming techniques favored by agricultural experts. He created 12 regional banks empowered to provide low-interest loans to farmers and provided federal subsidies to road-building efforts in rural areas and elsewhere.
Immigration was a high priority topic in American politics during Wilson's presidency, but he gave the matter little attention. Wilson's progressivism encouraged his belief that immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, though often poor and illiterate, could assimilate into a homogeneous white middle class, and he opposed the restrictive immigration policies that many members of both parties favored.
Wilson vetoed the Immigration Act of 1917, but Congress overrode the veto. The act's goal was to reduce immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe by requiring literacy tests, and it was the first U.S. law to restrict immigration from Europe.
The Wilson administration sent troops to occupy the Dominican Republic and intervene in Haiti, and Wilson also authorized military interventions in Cuba, Panama, and Honduras. The Panama Canal opened in 1914, fulfilling the long-term American goal of building a canal across Central America. The canal provided relatively swift passage between the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean, presenting new economic opportunities to the U.S. and allowing the U.S. Navy to quickly navigate between the two oceans.
WWI broke out in July 1914, pitting the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria against the Allied Powers of Britain, France, and Russia. Wilson's primary foreign policy objective was to keep the United States out of the war in Europe and to broker a peace agreement. He insisted that all government actions be neutral, stating that the United States "must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another." The United States sought to trade with both the Allied Powers and the Central Powers, but the British imposed a blockade of Germany. After a period of negotiations, Wilson essentially assented to the British blockade. In response to the British blockade of the Central Powers, and over Wilson's protest, the Germans launched a submarine campaign against merchant vessels in the seas surrounding the British Isles.
In 1915, the Germans sank 3 American ships; Wilson took the view, based on some reasonable evidence, that incidents were accidental, and that a settlement of claims could be postponed to the end of the war. A German submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner killing 1,198, including 128 American citizens. Wilson publicly responded by saying, "there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right". He also sent a protest to Germany which demanded that the German government "take immediate steps to prevent a recurrence." In 1916, an unarmed ferry under the French flag, was torpedoed in the English Channel and 4r Americans were counted among the dead. Wilson extracted from Germany a pledge to constrain submarine warfare to the rules of cruiser warfare, which represented a major diplomatic concession.
Wilson was renominated at the 1916 Democratic National Convention without opposition. The election outcome was in doubt for several days and was determined by several close states. Wilson won 277 electoral votes and 49.2% of the popular vote. while his opponent won 254 electoral votes and 46.1% of the popular vote.
In 1917, the Germans initiated a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against ships in the seas around the British Isles. German leaders knew that the policy would likely provoke U.S. entrance into the war, but they hoped to defeat the Allied Powers before the U.S. could fully mobilize. After a series of attacks on American ships, Wilson held a Cabinet meeting and all Cabinet members agreed that the time had come for the United States to enter the war. He requested a military draft to raise the army, increased taxes to pay for military expenses, loans to Allied governments, and increased industrial and agricultural production. He stated, "we have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion... no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and freedom of the nations can make them." By the end of the war, 116,000 American soldiers had died, and another 200,000 had been wounded.
In addition to spending on its own military build-up, the United States provided large loans to the Allied countries, helping to prevent the economic collapse of Britain and France. By the end of the war, the United States had become a creditor nation for the first time in its history. Seeking to avoid the high levels of inflation that had accompanied the heavy borrowing of the American Civil War, the Wilson administration imposed further increase taxes during the war. The War Revenue Act of 1917 and the Revenue Act of 1918 raised the top tax rate to 77%, greatly increased the number of Americans paying the income tax, and levied an excess profits tax on businesses and individuals. Despite these tax acts, the United States was forced to borrow heavily to finance the war effort. War bonds were issued and proved so popular among investors that many borrowed money in order to buy more bonds. The purchase of bonds, along with other war-time pressures, resulted in rising inflation, though this inflation was partly matched by rising wages and profits.
To shape public opinion, Wilson established the first modern propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information (CPI). To suppress anti-British, pro-German, or anti-war statements, Wilson pushed through Congress the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. Because of the lack of a national police force, the Wilson administration relied heavily on state and local police forces, as well as voluntary compliance, to enforce war-time laws. Anarchists, communists, Industrial Workers of the World members, and other antiwar groups attempting to sabotage the war effort were targeted by the Department of Justice; many of their leaders were arrested for incitement to violence, espionage, or sedition. In response to concerns over civil liberties, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a private organization devoted to the defense of free speech, was founded in 1917. After the signing of the armistice, Wilson traveled to Europe to lead the American delegation to Paris Peace Conference, thereby becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. Republicans and even some Senate Democrats complained about their lack of representation in the American delegation. Save for a 2-week return to the United States, Wilson remained in Europe for 6 months, where he focused on reaching a peace treaty to formally end the war.
Unlike other Allied leaders, Wilson did not seek territorial gains or material concessions from the Central Powers. His chief goal was the establishment of the League of Nations, which he saw as the "keystone of the whole programme." Wilson himself presided over the committee that drafted the Covenant of the League of Nations, The Covenant of the League of Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war with Germany. Aside from the establishment of the League of Nations and the establishment of a lasting peace, Wilson's other main goal at the Paris Peace Conference was to use self-determination as the primary basis of international borders. However, in pursuit of his League of Nations, Wilson conceded several points to the other powers present at the conference. Germany was required to pay war reparations and subjected to military occupation in the Rhineland. Additionally, a clause in the treaty specifically named Germany as responsible for the war. Wilson agreed to the creation of mandates in former German and Ottoman territories, allowing the European powers and Japan to establish de facto colonies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Several new states were created in Central Europe and the Balkans, including Poland, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia. For his peace-making efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize.
He suffered a stroke, leaving him paralyzed on his left side, and with only partial vision in the right eye. Wilson's leadership in domestic policy in the aftermath of the war was complicated by his focus on the Treaty of Versailles, opposition from the Republican-controlled Congress, and his illness. Demobilization was chaotic and violent; 4,000,000 soldiers were sent home with little planning, little money, and few benefits. Major strikes in the steel, coal, and meatpacking industries disrupted the economy in 1919. Some of the strikes turned violent, and the country experienced further turbulence as a series of race riots, primarily whites attacking blacks, broke out. The country was also hit by the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed over 600,000 Americans. After the expiration of wartime contracts, the U.S. plunged into a severe economic depression, and unemployment rose to 11.9 %.
Following the Revolution in the Russian Empire, many in the United States feared the possibility of a Communist-inspired revolution in the United States. Fears over left-wing subversion, combined with a patriotic national mood, led to the outbreak of the so-called "First Red Scare." Prohibition developed as an unstoppable reform during the war, but Wilson played only a minor role in its passage. After decades of advocacy, in 1917 temperance groups such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League convinced both houses of Congress to pass a constitutional amendment imposing nationwide Prohibition. The amendment was ratified by the states becoming the Eighteenth Amendment. Wilson vetoed the legislation designed to enforce Prohibition, but his veto was overridden by Congress. The manufacture, importation, sale, and transport of alcohol were prohibited, except in specific cases, such as wine used for religious purposes. Wilson personally favored women's suffrage, but early in his presidency he held that it was a state matter, partly because of strong opposition in the South to any constitutional amendment. The increasingly prominent role women took in the war effort in factories and at home convinced Wilson and many others to fully support women's suffrage. The House passed a constitutional amendment providing for women's suffrage nationwide, but the amendment stalled in the Senate. Wilson continually pressured the Senate to vote for the amendment, telling senators that its ratification was vital to winning the war. The Senate finally approved the amendment as the Nineteenth Amendment. Despite his ill health, Wilson continued to entertain the possibility of running for a third term. While the convention strongly endorsed Wilson's policies, Democratic leaders were unwilling to support the ailing Wilson for a third term. Wilson's health did not markedly improve after leaving office and he died in 1924.
Wilson took steps towards the creation of a strong federal government that would protect ordinary citizens against the overwhelming power of large corporations. Many of Wilson's accomplishments, including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the graduated income tax, and labor laws, continued to influence the United States long after Wilson's death.
Before he died, Woodrow Wilson revealed:
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Forced to react to the continuing bank failures and financial panics, Wilson set up a private bank called the Federal Reserve (FED) as the bank for all banks. The FED acted as a lender of last resort to support failing banks, to make loans to the Allies fighting the Central powers in WW1 and to fund participating in the war to ensure the Allies would win and repay all those loans. He later regretted this decision:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation therefore and all of our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by the vote of the majority, but by the opinion of a small group of dominant men“.
Mahatma Gandhi was the leader of the Indian independence movement against British rule. Employing nonviolent resistance and nonviolent civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilization of the 3rd millennium BC (between 3,000BC and 2,000BC). In the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BC, and Buddhism and Jainism arose. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, and Sikhism emerged, all adding to the region's diverse culture. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal Empire. In the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance and led to India's independence in 1947.
Gandhi first employed nonviolent civil disobedience as an expatriate lawyer in South Africa, in the resident Indian community's struggle for civil rights. After his return to India in 1915, he set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban laborers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination. Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for various social causes and for achieving self-rule.
Gandhi's vision of an independent India based on religious pluralism, however, was challenged in the early 1940s by a new Muslim nationalism which was demanding a separate Muslim homeland carved out of India. Eventually, in 1947, Britain granted independence, but the British Indian Empire was partitioned into two dominions, a Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. As many displaced Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs made their way to their new lands, religious violence broke out.
Mahatma Gandhi was born and raised in a Hindu merchant caste family in western India. As a child, Gandhi was as restless as mercury, either playing or roaming about. Although his father only had an elementary education and had previously been a clerk in the state administration, he became a chief minister. At age 9, he entered the local school near his home. There he studied the rudiments of arithmetic, history, the Gujarati language and geography. He was an average student, won some prizes, but was a shy and tongue tied student, with no interest in games. His only companions were books and school lessons.
In 1883, the 13-year-old Gandhi was married to a 14-year-old in an arranged marriage, according to the custom of the region at that time. In the process, he lost a year at school, but was later allowed to make up by accelerating his studies. His wedding was a joint event, where his brother and cousin were also married. However, as was prevailing tradition, the adolescent bride was to spend much time at her parents' house, and away from her husband. Writing many years later, he described with regret the lustful feelings he felt for his young bride. When he was 16 years old, his father died and he and his 17 year old wife had their first baby, who survived only a few days. The 2 deaths anguished Gandhi. The Gandhi couple had 4 more children, all sons.
In 1887, the 18-year-old Gandhi graduated from high school and left Bombay for London where he studied law. 4 years later he graduated and left London for India, where he learned that his mother had died while he was in London and that his family had kept the news from him. His attempts at establishing a law practice in Bombay failed because he was psychologically unable to cross-examine witnesses. He returned to a modest living drafting petitions for litigants, but he was forced to stop when he ran foul of a British officer.
In 1893, a Muslim merchant offered him a job for 1 year in South Africa, also a part of the British Empire. He ended up staying 21 years developing his political views, ethics and politics. Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin color and heritage, like all people of color. He was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver. He was beaten when he refused. He was thrown off a train after refusing to leave the first-class. He sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights. He chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the next day. Gandhi thought of himself as a Briton first, and an Indian second. The prejudice against him and his fellow Indians from British people that Gandhi experienced and observed deeply bothered him. He found it humiliating, struggling to understand how some people can feel honor or superiority or pleasure in such inhumane practices.
A new government discriminatory proposal led to Gandhi extending his original 1 year period of stay in South Africa. He planned to assist Indians in opposing a bill to deny them the right to vote, a right then proposed to be an exclusive European right. Though unable to halt the bill's passage, his campaign was successful in drawing attention to the grievances of Indians in South Africa. He helped found the Natal Indian Congress in 1894, and through this organization, he molded the Indian community of South Africa into a unified political force. In 1897 a mob of white settlers attacked him and he escaped only through the efforts of the wife of the police superintendent. However, he refused to press charges against any member of the mob.
During the Boer War, Gandhi volunteered in 1900 to form a group of stretcher-bearers as the Natal Indian Ambulance Corps. Both the Dutch settlers called Boers and the imperial British at that time discriminated against the colored races they considered as inferior.
The Boer War (1899-1902) was fought between the British Empire and 2 Boer states over the Empire's influence in South Africa. Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for "farmer". Boars were the descendants of the Dutch-speaking settlers. The Dutch East India Company controlled this area, but it was eventually incorporated into the British Empire. Initial Boer attacks against the British were successful, and though British reinforcements later reversed these, the war continued for years with Boer guerrilla warfare, until harsh British counter-measures brought them to terms. As guerrillas without uniforms, the Boer fighters easily blended into the farmlands, which provided hiding places, supplies, and horses.
Britain's solution was to set up complex nets of block houses, strong points, and barbed wire fences, partitioning off the entire conquered territory. The civilian farmers were relocated into concentration camps, where very large proportions died of disease, especially the children, who mostly lacked immunities. Then Britain's mounted infantry units systematically tracked down the highly mobile Boer guerrilla units. In 1902, the British successfully won over the Boer leaders, who now gave full support to the new political system. Both former republics were incorporated into the Union of South Africa in 1910, which Boers controlled.
Gandhi raised 1,100 Indian volunteers, to support British combat troops against the Boers. They were trained and medically certified to serve on the front lines. They helped a White volunteer ambulance corps and Gandhi moved to the front line and had to carry wounded soldiers to field hospitals because the terrain was too rough for the ambulances.
In 1906, the government promulgated a new Act compelling registration of the colony's Indian and Chinese populations. At a mass protest meeting Gandhi adopted his still evolving methodology of nonviolent protest, for the first time. The idea of nonviolence was ultimately bolstered when he was inspired by a letter by the Russian pacifist Leo Tolstoy. He urged Indians to defy the new law and to suffer the punishments for doing so. His ideas of protests, persuasion skills and public relations had emerged. While in South Africa, he focused on racial persecution of Indians, ignored those of Africans and argued that Indians should not be grouped with the Africans.
In 1909, Gandhi, aged 40, declared that British rule was established in India with the co-operation of Indians and had survived only because of this co-operation. He claimed that if Indians refused to co-operate, British rule would collapse and self-rule would come. In 1915, he returned to India with an international reputation as a leading Indian nationalist, theorist and community organizer. 5 years later, he joined the Indian National Congress and he became its leader. In 1918, during the latter part of WWI, the Viceroy invited Gandhi to a War Conference in Delhi where he recruited Indians for the war effort.
Gandhi's first major achievement came in 1917 with the local peasantry complaints against their largely British landlords who were backed by the local administration. The peasantry was forced to grow Indigo, a cash crop used to coloring cotton, wool and silk blue. Due to newly available chemical dyes, its demand had been declining over 2 decades. Unhappy with this, the peasantry appealed to Gandhi. Pursuing a strategy of nonviolent protest, Gandhi took the administration by surprise and won concessions from the authorities. The peasantry was demanding relief from taxes during the periods of floods and famine. Using non-co-operation as a technique, Gandhi initiated a signature campaign where peasants pledged non-payment of revenue even under the threat of confiscation of land. After 5 months of negotiations, the government gave way on important provisions and relaxed the conditions of payment of revenue tax during famines.
In 1919, at the end of WWI, Gandhi then aged 49 sought political co-operation from Muslims in his fight against British imperialism by supporting the Ottoman Empire that had been defeated in the War. Before this initiative of Gandhi, communal disputes and religious riots between Hindus and Muslims were common in British India. Gandhi had already supported the British crown with resources and by recruiting Indian soldiers to fight the war in Europe on the British side. This effort of Gandhi was in part motivated by the British promise to reciprocate the help with self-government to Indians after the end of WWI. The British government, instead of self-government, had offered minor reforms disappointing Gandhi. He announced his civil disobedience intentions. The British colonial officials made their counter move by passing an Act that allowed the British government to treat civil disobedience participants as criminals and gave it the legal basis to arrest anyone for preventive indefinite detention, incarceration without judicial review or any need for a trial. Gandhi cautioned the Viceroy of India that if the British were to pass the Act that he will appeal Indians to start civil disobedience.
The British government ignored him, passed the law stating it will not yield to threats. Civil disobedience followed with people assembling to protest. British law officers opened fire on an assembly of unarmed people, peacefully gathered in Delhi. People rioted in retaliation. On a Hindu festival day, Gandhi asked a crowd to remember not to injure or kill British people, but express their frustration with peace, to boycott British goods and burn any British clothing they own. He emphasized the use of non-violence to the British and towards each other, even if the other side uses violence. Communities across India announced plans to gather in greater numbers to protest. When Gandhi was arrested, people rioted. People including women with children gathered in an park, and the British troops massacred hundreds of Sikh and Hindu civilians on the grounds of rioting which broke out. Gandhi did not criticize the British and instead criticized his fellow countrymen for not exclusively using love to deal with the hate of the British government. Gandhi demanded that people stop all violence, stop all property destruction, and went on fast-to-death to pressure Indians to stop their rioting.
The massacre and Gandhi's non-violent response to it moved many, but also made some Sikhs and Hindus upset that the British were getting away with murder. Investigation committees were formed by the British, which Gandhi asked Indians to boycott. The unfolding events, the massacre and the British response, led Gandhi to the belief that Indians will never get a fair equal treatment under British rulers, and he shifted his attention to self rule and political independence for India.
Gandhi felt that Hindu-Muslim co-operation was necessary for political progress against the British. He leveraged a movement wherein Sunni Muslims in India championed the Turkish Caliph as a solidarity symbol of Sunni Islamic community. They saw the Caliph as their means to support Islam and the Islamic law after the defeat of Ottoman Empire in WWI. The increasing Muslim support for Gandhi, after he championed the Caliph's cause, temporarily stopped the Hindu-Muslim communal violence. It offered evidence of inter-communal harmony in demonstration rallies, raising Gandhi's stature as the political leader to the British.
In 1921, Gandhi became the leader of the Indian National Congress. He reorganized the Congress. With Congress behind him, and Muslim support triggered by his backing to restore the Caliph in Turkey, Gandhi had the political support and the attention of the British monarchy ruling India. Gandhi expanded his nonviolent non-co-operation platform to include the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods. Linked to this was his advocacy that homespun cloth be worn by all Indians instead of British-made textiles. Gandhi exhorted Indian men and women, rich or poor, to spend time each day spinning their cloth in support of the independence movement. In addition to boycotting British products, Gandhi urged the people to boycott British institutions and law courts, to resign from government employment, and to forsake British titles and honors. Gandhi thus began his journey aimed at crippling the British India government economically, politically and administratively.
By 1922 Turkey's Ataturk had ended the Caliphate. The Caliph he had championed died and Muslim support for Gandhi largely evaporated. Muslim leaders and delegates abandoned Gandhi and his Congress. Hindu-Muslim communal conflicts reignited and deadly religious riots re-appeared in numerous cities. The appeal of "non-cooperation" grew. Its social popularity drew participation from all strata of Indian society. Gandhi was arrested, tried for sedition, and sentenced to 6 years' imprisonment. With Gandhi isolated in prison, the Indian National Congress split into 2 factions, one, those favoring party participation in the legislatures, and those opposing this move. Co-operation among Hindus and Muslims ended as Khilafat movement collapsed with the rise of Ataturk in Turkey. Muslim leaders left the Congress and began forming Muslim organizations. The political base behind Gandhi had broken into factions. Gandhi was released in 1924 for an appendicitis operation, having served only 2 years.
In 1928, Gandhi continued to pursue self-rule. He pushed through a resolution at the Calcutta Congress calling on the British government to grant India dominion status or face a new campaign of non-co-operation with complete independence for the country as its goal. After his support for the WWI with Indian combat troops, and the failure of Khilafat movement in preserving the rule of Caliph in Turkey, followed by a collapse in Muslim support for his leadership, some questioned his values and non-violent approach. While many Hindu leaders championed a demand for immediate independence, Gandhi revised his own call to a one-year wait, instead of two.
The British did not respond favorably to Gandhi's proposal. British political leaders such as Winston Churchill announced opposition to "the appeasers of Gandhi", in their discussions with European diplomats who sympathized with Indian demands. In 1929, the flag of India was unfurled in Lahore and the Gandhi led Congress celebrated India's Independence Day. Gandhi then launched a new fight to defy the British salt taxes and monopoly on salt mining. He marched 388 km to the sea along with thousands of Indians to make salt himself. This campaign was one of his most successful at upsetting British hold on India. Britain responded by imprisoning over 60,000 people.
In 1930 the Indian National Congress declared the independence of India. The British did not recognize the declaration but negotiations ensued. A year after, the government decided to negotiate with Gandhi and agreed to free all political prisoners, in return for the suspension of the civil disobedience movement. Gandhi expected to discuss India's independence, while the British side focused on the Indian princes and Indian minorities rather than on a transfer of power. Gandhi was again arrested to completely isolate him from his followers.
Winston Churchill, a prominent Conservative politician became a vigorous and articulate critic of Gandhi and opponent of his long-term plans. Churchill often ridiculed Gandhi, saying that it was alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace....to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. He claimed that Gandhi's evil genius and multiform menace was attacking the British Empire. Churchill called him a dictator, a "Hindu Mussolini", fomenting a race war, trying to replace the Raj with cronies, playing on the ignorance of Indian masses, all for selfish gain. Churchill attempted to isolate Gandhi, and his criticism of Gandhi was widely covered by European and American press. It gained Churchill sympathetic support, but it also increased support for Gandhi among Europeans.
Gandhi, now aged about 62, sought constitutional reforms as a preparation to the end of colonial British rule, and begin the self-rule by Indians. The British side sought reforms that would keep Indian subcontinent as a colony. The British negotiators proposed constitutional reforms on a British Dominion model that established separate electorates based on religious and social divisions. The British questioned Congress party and Gandhi's authority to speak for all of India. They invited Indian religious leaders, such as Muslims and Sikhs, to press their demands along religious lines, as well as the representative leader of the untouchables.
Gandhi vehemently opposed a constitution that enshrined rights or representations based on communal divisions, because he feared that it would not bring people together but divide them, perpetuate their status and divert the attention from India's struggle to end the colonial rule.
In 1934 Gandhi resigned from Congress party membership. He did not disagree with the party's position but felt that if he resigned, his popularity with Indians would stir up the party's membership, which actually varied, including communists, socialists, trade unionists, students, religious conservatives, and those with pro-business convictions. Gandhi believed that if he resigned that these various voices would get a chance to make themselves better heard. Gandhi returned to active politics again 2 years later with the Nehru presidency. Although Gandhi wanted a total focus on the task of winning independence and not to speculate about India's future, he did not restrain the Congress from adopting socialism as its goal.
Gandhi opposed providing any help to the British war effort and he campaigned against any Indian participation in WWII. Gandhi's campaign did not enjoy the support of Indian masses and many Indian leaders. His campaign was a failure and over 2.5 million Indians ignored Gandhi, volunteered and joined the British military to fight on various fronts of the allied forces. Gandhi's opposition to the Indian participation in the war was motivated by his belief that India could not be party to a war ostensibly being fought for democratic freedom while that freedom was denied to India itself. He also condemned Nazism and Fascism, a view which won endorsement of other Indian leaders.
Gandhi and the Congress withdrew their support of the monarchy when the Indian Viceroy declared war on Germany in 1939 without consultation. Tensions escalated until Gandhi demanded immediate independence in 1942 and the British responded by imprisoning him and tens of thousands of Congress leaders. Meanwhile, the Muslim League co-operated with Britain and moved, against Gandhi's strong opposition, to demands for a totally separate Muslim state of Pakistan.
As the war progressed, Gandhi intensified his demand for independence, calling for the British to leave India. The British government responded and within hours arrested Gandhi and all the members of the Congress Working Committee. His countrymen retaliated the arrests by damaging or burning down hundreds of government owned railway stations, police stations, and cutting down telegraph wires.
In 1942, Gandhi, already 73, urged his people to completely stop co-operating with the imperial government. In this effort, he urged that they neither kill nor injure British people, but be willing to suffer and die if violence is initiated by the British officials. He clarified that the movement would not be stopped because of any individual acts of violence, saying that the "ordered anarchy" of "the present system of administration" was "worse than real anarchy."
At the end of the war, the British gave clear indications that power would be transferred to Indian hands. At this point Gandhi called off the struggle, and around 100,000 political prisoners were released, including the Congress's leadership. Gandhi insisted on a united religiously plural India which included Muslims and non-Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. The Muslims rejected this proposal and insisted instead for partitioning the subcontinent on religious lines to create a separate Muslim India called Pakistan. Gandhi opposed partition of the Indian subcontinent along religious lines. He suggested an agreement which required the Congress and the Muslim League to co-operate and attain independence under a provisional government, thereafter, the question of partition could be resolved by a plebiscite in the districts with a Muslim majority. The Muslims rejected Gandhi's proposal and gather in cities and support his proposal for partition of Indian subcontinent into a Muslim state and non-Muslim state. This triggered a mass murder of Calcutta Hindus and the torching of their property, and holidaying police were missing to contain or stop the conflict. The British government did not order its army to move in to contain the violence and this led to retaliatory violence against Muslims across India. Thousands of Hindus and Muslims died and tens of thousands were injured in the cycle of violence in the days that followed.
The British reluctantly agreed to grant independence to the people of the Indian subcontinent and accepted the proposal of partitioning the land into Pakistan and India. In 1947 the British partitioned the land with India and Pakistan each achieving independence on terms that Gandhi disapproved. The partition was controversial and violently disputed. More than half a million were killed in religious riots as 10–12 million non-Muslims (Hindus, Sikhs mostly) migrated from Pakistan into India, and Muslims migrated from India into Pakistan, across the newly created borders of India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan.
A year later, Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu nationalist because of his complacence towards Muslims. He was blamed for the frenzy of violence and sufferings during the subcontinent's partition into Pakistan and India. Gandhi's death was mourned nationwide. Over 2 million people joined the 8 km long funeral procession that took over 5 hours to reach his coffin.
Gandhi's assassination dramatically changed the political landscape. Nehru became his political heir. Nehru used Gandhi's martyrdom as a political weapon to silence all advocates of Hindu nationalism as well as his political challengers. He linked Gandhi's assassination to politics of hatred and ill-will. Nehru and his Congress colleagues called on Indians to honor Gandhi's memory and even more his ideals. Nehru used Gandhi's assassination to consolidate the authority of the new Indian state. Gandhi's death helped marshal support for the new government and legitimize the Congress Party's control, leveraged by the massive outpouring of Hindu expressions of grief for a man who had inspired them for decades.
Two books that influenced Gandhi most in South Africa were Henry David Thoreau's “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” and Leo Tolstoy's “The Kingdom of God Is Within You” . Gandhi saw himself a disciple of Tolstoy, for they agreed regarding opposition to state authority and colonialism; both hated violence and preached non-resistance. However, they differed sharply on political strategy. Gandhi called for political involvement; he was a nationalist and was prepared to use nonviolent force. He was also willing to compromise.
Lenin was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of the government from 1917 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism.
Born to a wealthy influential family in the nobility, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tzarist regime, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled for 3 years, where he married. He was only 27. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications.
In 1903, when he was 33, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction. Encouraging insurrection during Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he later campaigned for WWI to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, Lenin returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime. He was 47 years old.
Lenin's government was led by the Bolsheviks, later renamed the Communist Party, with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. The new government called elections for the Constituent Assembly and then abolished it, withdrew from WWI by signing a treaty with the Central Powers, and granted independence to non-Russian nations under Russian control. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalized banks and large scale industry. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services. Tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies established by both right and left-wing groups were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. He was already 51. One year later, seeking to promote world revolution, Lenin's government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, and united Russia with neighboring nations to form the Soviet Union. In increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at 54 years old.
Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive individual, Lenin is viewed by Marxist-Leninists as a champion of socialism and the working class, while critics on both the left and right see him as the founder of a totalitarian dictatorship responsible for mass human rights abuses.
Both of Lenin`s parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives, being committed to the emancipation reform of 1861 introduced by the reformist Tzar Alexander II. Alexander II was the Emperor of Russia from 1855 until his assassination in 1881. His most significant reform as emperor was emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as “Alexander the Liberator”. He was responsible for other reforms, including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government, imposing universal military service, ending some privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education. He sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there were another war. He sought peace. Among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements when he was assassinated in 1881. Alexander II was succeeded by his son Tzar Alexander III who ruled until his death in 1894. He was highly conservative and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father. During his reign Russia fought no major wars, for which he was known as "The Peacemaker".
Lenin's father died when Lenin was 16 years old. Lenin's elder brother Alexander joined a revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tzar and was selected to construct a bomb. Before the attack could take place the conspirators were arrested and tried, and his brother Alexander was executed by hanging. Upon entering Kazan University in 1887, Lenin took part in a demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested him and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration. He was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's estate.
Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalization, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of Kazan, although not to the university. On his return, he joined a revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's book “Capital”. This sparked his interest in Marxism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle, and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then to communist society. Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. However, he had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.
In 1889, the family moved to the city of Samara, where Lenin joined the socialist discussion circle. Lenin adopted Marxism, and translated Marx and Friedrich Engels' 1848 political pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto”, into Russian. He began to read works of Russian Marxists who predicted that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat, or urban working class, rather than the peasantry. This Marxist view contrasted with the view of the agrarian-socialist movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement. Although Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument, he was influenced by agrarian-socialists and befriended them.
In 1890, his mother, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honors. Lenin devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in the socialist discussion group. He formulated ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia.
In 1893, when he was 27, Lenin encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centers. He started leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks, knowing that police spies tried to infiltrate the movement. Lenin hoped to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and a group of Russian Marxist émigrés based in Switzerland. Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa. Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he traveled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers. While involved in producing a news sheet, he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition. Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing. He spent this time theorizing and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness, which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow Tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletariat state that would move toward socialism.
In 1897, he was sentenced without trial to 3 years exile in eastern Siberia. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to a peasant's hut where he was kept under police surveillance. He was nevertheless able to correspond with other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him. One year later, his girlfriend having been arrested the year before for organizing a strike, claimed she was engaged to Lenin and was able to join him in exile to marry him. The couple translated English socialist literature into Russian. Keen to keep up with developments in German Marxism – where there had been an ideological split with some advocating a peaceful, electoral path to socialism – Lenin remained devoted to violent revolution. He wrote a book that criticized the agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development.
In 1900, at age 30, Lenin began raising funds for a newspaper, “Spark”, a new organ of the Russian Marxist party – the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP). He traveled to Switzerland where he met other Russian Marxists and they agreed to launch the paper from Munich and smuggle it into Russia. It became the country's most successful underground publication for 50 years. He adopted the pseudonym "Lenin" and published the political pamphlet “What Is To Be Done?”. It was his most influential publication dealing on the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat to revolution. His wife joined Lenin in Munich, becoming his personal secretary. They continued their political agitation. Lenin attacked ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), an agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry. To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London becoming friends with fellow Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky. In London, Lenin fell ill. In his absence, the editorial board moved its base of operations to Geneva.
The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in 1903. At the conference, a schism emerged concerning if party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership. Lenin disagreed, emphasizing the need for a strong leadership with complete control over the party. The majority who supported Lenin's views called themselves the Bolsheviks which in Russian meant the "majoritarians". The minority who opposed Lenin called themselves the Memsheviks which in Russian meant the "minoritarians". Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat. Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the editorial board and in 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back”. The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he went on a hiking holiday in rural Switzerland. The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by the spring, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik, and they founded the newspaper they named “Forward”.
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1894 until his forced abdication in 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. There were many steps leading to his fall. One was the human stampede that occurred in Moscow during the festivities following his coronation which resulted in the deaths of 1,389 people. Another was his anti-Semitic pogroms. Still another was called Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg, when unarmed demonstrators were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched to present a petition to him. It provoked public outrage and a series of massive strikes that spread quickly throughout the industrial centers of the Russian Empire and was considered to be the start of the active phase of the Revolution of 1905 and one of the key events which led to the Russian Revolution of 1917.
The Russian Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire, some of which was directed at the government. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies. It led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906. Because of Nicolas` violent suppression of the 1905 Revolution with the execution of political opponents and his perceived responsibility for the defeat suffered in the Russo-Japanese War, he was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody by his political enemies.
When Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto in response to the revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to St. Petersburg. He joined the editorial board of a radical but legal newspaper and encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership. He advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing it necessary for a successful revolution. Recognizing that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathizers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. A group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions. In 1907, a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Georgia. Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth Party Congress, held in Stockholm. The Tsarist government cracked down on opposition. They disbanded Russia's legislative assembly and ordered its secret police to arrest revolutionaries. Lenin fled to Switzerland. It was decided to relocate the Bolshevik Center to Paris. Lenin advocated that a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia were needed to lead the working-classes in revolution.
Nicholas approved the Russian mobilization in 1914, which led to Germany declaring war on Russia that resulted in 3.3 million Russians to be killed in WWI. The Imperial Army's severe losses, incompetent management, lack of food and supplies, were the leading causes of the fall of the Romanov dynasty that reigned from 1613 until his abdication in 1917 when he and his family were imprisoned and executed by the Bolsheviks.
The last thing the Germans wanted as they were fighting Europe in the East was to have to fight the Russians on the West. The Germans knew that Tzar Nicholas II was eager and ready to go to war and push the Austrians out of the Balkans, so they supported Lenin who was opposed to war with Germany and who promised to depose the Tzar Nicholas II. But in 1915, Nicholas II started to mobilize which led to Germany declaring war on Russia and eventually to the downfall of the Russian monarchy, just like Rasputin warned.
During WWI, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals to agree to stop the fighting in exchange for Russian-controlled territories. Lenin argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position. The German Army relaunched the offensive, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory. At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands. However, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia must recognize German control not only of Poland and the Baltic States but also Ukraine, or face a full-scale invasion of Russia. Russia agree to Germany's ultimatum. It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and 75% of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control. Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum, and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist Revolutionaries resigned from the government in protest. In 1918 the German Emperor Wilhelm II resigned and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies and Russia proclaimed the agreement they signed with Germany void.
In 1917, Lenin published “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, which argued that imperialism was a product of monopoly capitalism, as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established.
The “February Revolution” broke out in St. Petersburg as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia. With Nickolas gone, the State Duma took over control of the country, establishing a Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic. When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he returned to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks.
Considering the government to be just as imperialist as the Tzarist regime was, Lenin advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalization of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war. Over the coming months, he campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper “Pravda”, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.
Lenin began work on the book that predicted that the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution defeated the state leaving behind a pure communist society. He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, although at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected. Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathizers.
While Lenin was in Finland, the Russian Army was sent to Petrograd in what appeared to be a military coup attempt against the Provisional Government. Premier Alexander Kerensky turned to the Petrograd Soviet including its Bolshevik members for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organize workers as Red Guards to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, although the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena. Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressuring the government to normalize relations with the Bolsheviks. Both the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war.
The Bolsheviks capitalized on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets. Recognizing that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd. There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with 10 votes against 2. Critics of the plan argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. The party began plans to organize the offensive. This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during the attempted coup.
The MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed. Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace, and overcame it and arrested its ministers. During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown. The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented. Mensheviks condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war. In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers. Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe.
Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties. In 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the "Russian Social Democratic Labor Party" to the "Russian Communist Party", as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasize its ultimate goal: a communist society. The Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time. During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries from the soviets. Russia had become a one-party state. Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, the government relocated to Moscow and Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin. Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees.
- The decree on Land declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalized and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivization but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred.
- The decree on the Press closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter-revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary, although the decree was widely criticized, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press.
- The Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to cede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states. As a result Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Estonia, Transcaucasia, and Poland declared independence. Soon the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states.
- The decree abolishing Russia's legal system. The courts were replaced by a 2-tier system: Revolutionary Tribunals to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes, and People's Courts to deal with civil and other criminal offenses.
- a decree limiting work hours for everyone in Russia to 8 hours per day.
- The decree on Popular Education stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia, and
- a decree establishing a system of state orphanages.
- To combat mass illiteracy, a literacy campaign was initiated; an estimated 5 million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926.
- Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce.
- The separation of church and state prohibited religious instruction in schools.
- The decree on Workers' Control called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management.
Lenin saw all these decrees as major steps toward socialism.
A series of nationalizations were undertaken. An order was issued to requisitioning the country's gold. It became illegal to hold on to gold bullion. The banks were nationalized. All foreign debts and interest owed on them were canceled. Public utilities, railways, and factories for engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining were all nationalized. Many were state-owned in name only, as full-scale nationalization did not take place until 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.
The Julian calendar, introduced by Julius Caesar in 46BC was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect in 45BC shortly after the Roman conquest of Egypt. It was the predominant calendar in the Roman world, most of Europe, and in European settlements in the Americas and elsewhere, until it was refined and gradually replaced by the Gregorian calendar, promulgated in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. The difference in the average length of the year between Julian (365.25 days) and Gregorian (365.2425 days) is 0.002%. The motivation for the reform was to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the lunar cycle used to calculate the date for Easter celebrations. Transition to the Gregorian calendar restored the holiday to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when introduced by the early Church.
A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "Left Communists" criticized the government's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalization of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication. Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage, and that the government should only nationalize Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalized. Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about economic organization. Lenin promoted centralization. He argued that centralized economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a syndicalist approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.
The Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia. Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism. In particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy.
Many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages. Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. Lenin order armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning. This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war. Insurrections by kulaks were dealt with by public hangings of hundreds of them. Kulaks responded by refusing to produce more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped. A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy, and Lenin called on speculators, black marketers and looters to be shot. Both the Socialist Revolutionaries and Left Socialist Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain. Realizing that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, Lenin stopped his policy of persecution.
Lenin repeatedly emphasized the need for terror and violence to overthrow the old order and for the revolution to succeed. He declared that
"…the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want ... to organize violence in the interests of the people”.
He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment. Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration; Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, a political police force called Cheka. The government passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of oppression orchestrated by Cheka. Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie, Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule. The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tzarist administration; however others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes.
Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals. Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia, Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers - as many as 140,000 perished in the Red Terror.
Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand, and publicly distanced himself from it. His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, although he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes. Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organization’s apparent un-accountability. The Party brought in attempts to restrain its activities in 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law. By 1920, Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.
A decree in 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to Cheka, although they were later administered by a new government agency, referred to as the Gulag. By 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners. By 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates. Those interned in the camps were used as slave labor. From 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether. Lenin personally scrutinized the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner. In 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths. Although Russian Orthodox Christians were affected the most, the government's anti-religious policies also impacted on Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims.
Although Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organize them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict. In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia. The ensuing Russian Civil War pitted the pro-Bolshevik Reds against the anti-Bolshevik Whites, but also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders and conflict between both Red and White armies and local peasant groups, the Green armies, throughout the former Empire.
The White armies were established by former Tzarist military officers and were backed by Western governments who feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution. Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and with his support, Trotsky organized a Revolutionary Military Council. The Reds held control of Russia's 2 largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of Great Russia, while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries. Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the White Terror, a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters, although this was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror. Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of anti-Semitism, which he blamed on capitalist propaganda.
After the Armistice on the Western Front, Lenin believed that the breakout of European revolution was imminent. Seeking to promote this, the government supported the establishment of Béla Kun's Communist government in Hungary. During Russia's Civil War, the Red Army was sent into the newly independent national republics on Russia's borders to aid Marxists there in establishing soviet systems of government. In Europe, this resulted in the creation of new Communist-led states in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, all of which were officially independent of Russia. Further east it led to the creation of Communist governments in Georgia, and then in Outer Mongolia. Various senior Bolsheviks wanted these absorbed into the Russian state. Lenin's predicted world revolution did not materialize, as the Hungarian Communist government was overthrown and the German Marxist uprisings were suppressed.
Within the Communist Party, there was dissent which accused the Russian state of being too centralized and bureaucratic. The Workers' Opposition Faction were angered by Trotsky's suggestion that the trade unions be eliminated. Trotsky deemed the unions to be superfluous in a "workers' state", but Lenin disagreed. Most Bolsheviks embraced Lenin's view. To deal with dissent; Lenin introduced a ban on factional activity within the party, under pain of expulsion.
Caused in part by a drought, the Russian famine of 1921 was the most severe that the country had experienced since that of 1891. It resulted in around 5 million deaths. The famine was exacerbated by government requisitioning, as well as the export of large quantities of Russian grain. To aid the famine victims, the U.S. government established an American Relief Administration to distribute food, although Lenin was suspicious of this aid and had it closely monitored. During the famine, the Orthodox churches were called to sell unnecessary items to help feed the starving. In 1922 the government went further by calling on all valuables belonging to religious institutions to be forcibly appropriated and sold. Many clergy resisted the appropriations, resulting in violence.
Local opposition to requisitioning resulted in anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings breaking out across Russia, although these were suppressed by the Red Army. Workers went on strike in Petrograd, resulting in the government proclaiming martial law in the city and sending in the Red Army to quell demonstrations. There was a revolt against the Bolshevik government, demanding that all socialists be allowed to publish freely, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly and that peasants be allowed free markets and not be subject to requisitioning. Lenin declared that the mutineers had been misled by the Socialist Revolutionaries and foreign imperialists, calling for violent reprisals. Under Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army put down the rebellion resulting in thousands of deaths and the internment of survivors in labor camps.
Lenin introduced a New Economic Policy (NEP) to the Politburo. The NEP allowed some private enterprise within Russia, permitting the reintroduction of the wage system and allowing peasants to sell produce on the open market while being taxed on their earnings. The policy also allowed for a return to privately owned small industry, although basic industry, transport and foreign trade remained under state control. Lenin termed this "state capitalism", and many Bolsheviks thought it to be a betrayal of socialist principles. The government brought in universal labor conscription, ensuring that all citizens aged between 16 and 50 had to work. Lenin also called for a mass electrification project.
When the Socialist Revolutionary Party's leadership was found guilty of conspiring against the government in a trial, Lenin called for their execution. They were instead imprisoned indefinitely, only being executed during the Great Purges of Stalin's leadership. With Lenin's support, the government also succeeded in expelling all Mensheviks from state institutions and enterprises and then imprisoning the party's membership in concentration camps. Lenin recommended that Stalin be removed from the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, deeming him ill-suited for the position. Instead he recommended Trotsky for the job, describing him as the most capable man in the present Central Committee. When Lenin was absent due to illness, Stalin began consolidating his power both by appointing his supporters to prominent positions, and by cultivating an image of himself as Lenin's closest intimate and deserving successor.
In 1922, Stalin took responsibility for Lenin's regimen, being tasked by the Politburo with controlling who had access to him. Lenin was however increasingly critical of Stalin. While Lenin was insisting that the state should retain its monopoly on international trade, Stalin was leading a number of other Bolsheviks in unsuccessfully opposing this. The most significant political division between the 2 emerged during the Georgian Affair. Stalin had suggested that both Georgia and neighboring countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia should be merged into the Russian state, despite the protestations of their national governments. Lenin saw this as an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Stalin and his supporters, instead calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union.
In 1923, Lenin suffered a third stroke and lost his ability to speak and after a few months died at the age of 54.
Lenin was a fervent believer in Marxism, and believed that his interpretation of Marxism - termed "Leninism" was the sole authentic and orthodox one. According to his Marxist perspective, humanity would eventually reach pure communism, becoming a stateless, classless, egalitarian society of workers who were free from exploitation and alienation, controlling their own destiny, and abiding by the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". Lenin deeply and sincerely believed that the path he was setting Russia on would ultimately lead to the establishment of this communist society.
Lenin's Marxist beliefs however led him to the view that society could not transform directly from its present state to communism, but must first enter a period of socialism, and so his main concern was how to convert Russia into a socialist society. To do so, he believed that a dictatorship of the proletariat was necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and develop a socialist economy. He defined socialism as "an order of civilized co-operators in which the means of production are socially owned", and believed that this economic system had to be expanded until it could create a society of abundance. To achieve this, he saw bringing the Russian economy under state control to be his central concern, with – in his words – "all citizens" becoming "hired employees of the state".
Lenin's interpretation of socialism was centralized, planned, and statist, with both production and distribution strictly controlled. He believed that all workers throughout the country would voluntarily join together to enable the state's economic and political centralization. In this way, his called for workers' control of the means of production referred not to the direct control of enterprises by their workers, but the operation of all enterprises under the control of a workers' state. This resulted in 2 conflicting themes within Lenin's thought: popular workers' control, and a centralized, hierarchical, coercive state apparatus.
Lenin's ideas were heavily influenced both by pre-existing thought within the Russian revolutionary movement, and by theoretical variants of Russian Marxism, which had focused heavily on how Marx and Engels' writings would apply to Russia. Accordingly, Lenin was also influenced by earlier currents of Russian socialist thought such as those of the agrarian-socialists. Conversely, he derided Marxists who adopted ideas from contemporary non-Marxist philosophers and sociologists. In his theoretical writings, particularly “Imperialism”, he examined what he thought were the developments in capitalism since Marx's death, arguing that it had reached a new stage, state monopoly capitalism. Before taking power in 1917, he believed that while Russia's economy was still dominated by the peasantry, the fact that monopoly capitalism existed in Russia meant that the country was sufficiently materially developed to move to socialism.
Lenin was an internationalist and a keen supporter of world revolution, deeming national borders to be an outdated concept and nationalism a distraction from class struggle. He believed that under revolutionary socialism, there would be the inevitable merging of nations and the ultimate establishment of a United States of the World. He opposed federalism, deeming it to be bourgeois, and instead emphasized the need for a centralized unitary state. Lenin was anti-imperialist, and believed that all nations deserved the right of self-determination. He thus supported wars of national liberation, accepting that such conflicts might be necessary for a minority group to break away from a socialist state, because socialist states are not holy or insured against mistakes or weaknesses.
He expressed the view that Soviet government is many millions of times more democratic than the most democratic-bourgeois republic, the latter of which was simply a democracy for the rich. He deemed his dictatorship of the proletariat to be democratic through the election of representatives to the soviets, and by workers electing their own officials, with regular rotation and involvement of all workers in the administration of the country. Lenin believed that the representative democracy of capitalist countries had been used to give the illusion of democracy while maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
When describing the representative democratic system of the United States, he referred to the spectacular and meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties, both of whom were led by astute multimillionaires that exploited the American proletariat. He also opposed liberalism, exhibiting a general antipathy toward liberty as a value, and believing that liberalism's freedoms were fraudulent because it did not free laborers from capitalist exploitation. Lenin saw himself as a man of destiny, and firmly believed in the righteousness of his cause and his own ability as a revolutionary leader.
Winston Churchill was a British statesman who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill was also an officer in the British Army, a non-academic historian, a writer and an artist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 for his overall, lifetime body of work.
Churchill was born into the family of the Dukes of Marlborough, a branch of the Spencer family. As a young army officer, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, and the Second Boer War. He gained fame as a war correspondent and wrote books about his campaigns. At the forefront of politics for 50 years, he held many political and cabinet positions. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between the years 1924 - 1929. He returned the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy.
Out of office and politically "in the wilderness" during the 1930s because of his opposition to increased home rule for India and his resistance to the 1936 abdication of Edward VIII, Churchill took the lead in warning about Nazi Germany and in campaigning for rearmament. At the outbreak of WWII, he was again appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain in 1940, Churchill became Prime Minister. His speeches and radio broadcasts helped inspire British resistance, especially during the difficult days of 1940–41 when the British Commonwealth and Empire stood almost alone in its active opposition to Adolf Hitler. He led Britain as Prime Minister until victory over Nazi Germany had been secured.
After the Conservative Party lost the 1945 election, he became Leader of the Opposition to the Labor Government. He publicly warned of an "Iron Curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. After winning the 1951 election, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His second term was preoccupied by foreign affairs. Domestically his government laid great emphasis on house-building. Churchill suffered a serious stroke in 1953 and retired as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained a Member of Parliament until 1964.
He died at age 91.
“The battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state.
Stalin was one of the 7 members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin and Trotsky. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the party's Central Committee in 1922. He managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Lenin by suppressing Lenin's criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, concurrently serving as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 onward.
Under Stalin's rule the concept of "Socialism in One Country" became a central tenet of Soviet society, contrary to Leon Trotsky's view that socialism must be spread through continuous international revolutions. He replaced the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin in the early 1920s with a highly centralized command economy, launching a period of industrialization and collectivization that resulted in the rapid transformation of the USSR from an agrarian society into an industrial power. The economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labor camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33.
Between 1934-1939 he organized and led the "Great Purge", a massive campaign of repression of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the working class" were imprisoned, exiled or executed, often without due process. Major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were killed after being convicted of treason in show trials. 1,548,366 persons were detained, of whom 681,692 were shot – an average of 1,000 executions a day.
In 1939, after failed attempts to conclude anti-Hitler pacts with other major European powers, Stalin entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that divided their influence and territory within Eastern Europe, resulting in their invasion of Poland of that year. Stalin violated the pact by invading Bucovina in 1940. A Year later, Germany launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion. After defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of 2 recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States. Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had close relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-Sung in North Korea.
Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War. During this period, the USSR became the second country in the world to successfully develop a nuclear weapon. In the years following his death, Stalin and his regime have been condemned on numerous occasions, most notably in 1956 when his successor Nikita Khrushchev denounced his legacy and initiated a process of de-Stalinization and rehabilitation to victims of his regime.
Mustafa Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and founder of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president for 15 years from 1923 until his death. He was a secularist and a nationalist. Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli during WWI. Following the Empire's defeat and subsequent dissolution, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted against the mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the Turkish capital Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus, emerging victorious from what is later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the Ottoman Empire and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a modern and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency ahead of many Western countries.
His government carried out an extensive policy of Turkification trying to create a homogeneous nation. Under Atatürk, non-Turkish minorities were actively encouraged to speak Turkish instead of their own languages in public, native non-Turkish names of places were abolished and changed into Turkish, and the last names of non-Turkish minorities had to be changed to Turkish renditions. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic.
The area of Turkey has been inhabited since the stone age more than 10,000 years ago. After Alexander the Great conquered these lands, the area was greatly influenced by Greek culture. Under the Roman Empire it was influenced by Roman culture. The Seljuk Turks ruled by a Sunni Muslim dynasty began migrating into the area in the 11th century, starting the process of Turkification, which was accelerated by the Seljuk victory over the Byzantines in 1071. After the Mongol invasion in 1243, it disintegrated into small principalities. From the end of the 13th century the Ottomans started uniting Anatolia and created an empire that encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa. The Ottoman Empire reached its peak land mass and became a world power during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent.
It remained powerful and influential for 2 more centuries, until important setbacks in the 17th and 18th century forced it to cede strategic territories in Europe, which signaled the loss of its former military strength and wealth. After the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état, the Ottoman Empire decided to join the Central Powers during WWI. The Central Powers were ultimately defeated by the Allied Powers, despite Turkish victories over them during the war. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian and Greek citizens. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. The Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allies, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president. Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of western thought, philosophy, and customs into the new form of Turkish government.
Turkey`s location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history. Turkey's administration headed by president Erdoğan has reversed many of the country's earlier reforms which had been in place since the founding of the modern republic of Turkey, such as Freedom of the Press, and a Legislative System of Checks and Balances. A set of standards for secularism in government, as first enacted by Atatürk have also diminished in favor of conservative governance.
Atatürk`s father was a Muslim Turk of Albanian descent who became militia officer, title-deed clerk and lumber trader. In his early years, his mother encouraged Mustafa Kemal to attend a religious school, something he did reluctantly and only briefly. Later, he attended a private school with a more secular curriculum at the direction of his father. His parents wanted him to learn a trade, but without consulting them, Atatürk took the entrance exam for a Military School when he was 12 years old and graduated 6 years later. Shortly after graduation, he was arrested by the police for his anti-monarchist activities. After his release, Atatürk joined a small secret revolutionary society of reformist officers.
He joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), although in later years he became known for his opposition to, and frequent criticism of, the policies pursued by the CUP leadership. In 1908, he played a role in the Young Turk Revolution which seized power from Sultan and restored the constitutional monarchy.
He proposed depolitization in the army, a proposal which was disliked by the leaders of the CUP. As a result, in 1908 he was sent away to Libya - an Ottoman territory - under the pretext of suppressing a tribal rebellion. A year later, a group of soldiers in İstanbul began a counter revolution and he was instrumental in suppressing the revolt. In 1910 he was called to the Ottoman provinces in Albania because of the uprisings in Kosovo and the revolts in Albania. A year later he was assigned to Libya to fight in the Italo-Turkish War.
A short time before Italy declared war, a large portion of the Ottoman troops in Libya were sent to the Ottoman province of Yemen in order to put down the rebellion there, so the Ottoman government was caught with inadequate resources to counter the Italians in Libya; and the British government, which militarily controlled the Ottoman provinces of Egypt and Sudan in 1882, did not allow the Ottoman government to send additional Ottoman troops to Libya through Egypt. Ottoman soldiers like Atatürk went to Libya either dressed as Arabs risking imprisonment if noticed by the British authorities in Egypt, or through very few available ferries. Despite all the hardships, Atatürk 's forces in Libya managed to repel the Italians on a number of occasions.
He became the Commander of the Ottoman forces in the region and managed to defend and retain the region until the end of the war. He returned to Ottoman Europe following the outbreak of the Balkan Wars which resulted in the Ottoman government agreedment to surrender Libya to Italy.
In 1913, during the Second Balkan War, he took part in the Ottoman Army forces that recovered Adrianople, the capital city of the Ottoman Empire between 1365 and 1453, thus of utmost historic importance for the Turks together with most of eastern Thrace from the Bulgarians. A year later the Ottoman Empire entered the European and Middle Eastern theatres of WWI allied with the German led Central Powers. During the Battle of Gallipoli, Atatürk became the front-line commander after correctly anticipating where the Allies would attack and holding his position until they retreated. Following the Battle of Gallipoli, Atatürk was sent to the Caucasus Campaign after the massive Russian offensive had reached key Anatolian cities. He rallied his troops and mounted a counteroffensive. The Czar's armies were withdrawn and sent home to protect the monarchy when the Russian Revolution erupted.
In 1918, when Mehmed VI became the new Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Atatürk was sent to Constantinople, and assigned to Palestine. Atatürk was the only Turkish general in the war who never suffered a defeat. Atatürk returned to an occupied Constantinople, the Ottoman capital. For a period he worked at the headquarters of the Ministry of War in Constantinople.
Along the established lines of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies consisting of British, Italian, French and Greek forces occupied Anatolia. The occupation of Anatolia and Constantinople sparked the establishment of the Turkish National Movement and the Turkish War of Independence. His first goal was the establishment of an organized national movement against the occupying forces. In 1919, he warned that the independence of the country was in danger. He resigned from the Ottoman Army and the Ottoman government issued a warrant for his arrest. Later, he was condemned to death.
He assembled and was appointed as the head of the executive committee. This gave Atatürk the legitimacy he needed for his future politics. In 1920, the treaty for the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire was signed. It including the regions that Turkish nationals viewed as their heartland. Atatürk insisted on the country's complete independence and the safeguarding of interests of the Turkish majority on "Turkish soil". He organized a National Army to face the Caliphate army propped up by the Allied occupation forces. Atatürk fought the Armenian forces in the Eastern Front and the Greek forces advancing eastward on the Western Front. The battle resulted in a Turkish victory alongside the massacres of 12,000 Armenians spelling the end of the remaining Armenian population in the region. Atatürk `s successes against the Democratic Republic of Armenia and later against the Greeks were made possible by a steady supply of gold and armaments from the Russian Bolshevik government. After a series of battles during the Greco-Turkish war, the Greek army advanced but was defeated in 1921.
In 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. With the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, efforts to modernize the country started. The new government analyzed the institutions and constitutions of Western states such as France, Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland and adapted them to the needs and characteristics of the Turkish nation.
Atatürk capitalized on his reputation as an efficient military leader and spent the following years, up until his death, instituting political, economic, and social reforms. In doing so, he transformed Turkish society from perceiving itself as a Muslim part of a vast Empire into a modern, democratic, and secular nation-state. This had a positive influence on human capital because teaching of Islam was removed from schools and concentrated in mosques and religious places.
Atatürk 's basic tenet was the complete independence of the country. He clarified his position:
“...by complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, financial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence.”
He led wide-ranging reforms in social, cultural, and economical aspects, establishing the new Republic's backbone of legislative, judicial, and economic structures. Though he was later idealized by some as an originator of sweeping reforms, many of his reformist ideas were already common in Ottoman intellectual circles at the turn of the 20th century, and were expressed more openly after the Young Turk Revolution restored the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and ushered in multi-party politics.
Atatürk made Ankara the country's new capital and the once provincial town deep in Anatolia was turned into the center of the independence movement. Atatürk wanted a direct government by the Assembly and visualized a representative democracy, parliamentary sovereignty, where the National Parliament would be the ultimate source of power.
The revolutionaries faced challenges from the supporters of the old Ottoman regime, and also from the supporters of newer ideologies such as communism and fascism. Atatürk saw the consequences of fascist and communist doctrines in the 1920s and 1930s and rejected both. He prevented the spread into Turkey of the totalitarian party rule which held sway in the Soviet Union, Germany and Italy. Some perceived his opposition and silencing of these ideologies as a means of eliminating competition; others believed it was necessary to protect the young Turkish state from succumbing to the instability of new ideologies and competing factions.
The heart of the new republic was the Grand National Assembly (GNA), established during the Turkish War of Independence by Atatürk . The elections were free and used an egalitarian electoral system that was based on a general ballot. Deputies at the GNA served as the voice of Turkish society by expressing its political views and preferences. It had the right to select and control both the government and the Prime Minister. Initially, it also acted as a legislative power, controlling the executive branch and, if necessary, acted as an organ of scrutiny under the Turkish Constitution of 1921. The Turkish Constitution of 1924 set a loose separation of powers between the legislative and the executive organs of the state, whereas the separation of these two within the judiciary system was a strict one. Atatürk, then the President, occupied a powerful position in this political system. The one-party regime was established de facto in 1925 after the adoption of the 1924 constitution. The only political party of the GNA was the "Peoples Party" founded by Atatürk.
Abolition of the Caliphate, a state under the rule of a Islamic religious leader, was an important dimension in Atatürk's drive to reform the political system and to promote the national sovereignty. By the consensus of the Muslim majority in early centuries, the caliphate was the core political concept of Sunni Islam. Abolishing the sultanate, a monarchy, was easier because the survival of the Caliphate at the time satisfied the partisans of the sultanate. This produced a split system with the new republic on one side and an Islamic form of government with the Caliph on the other side. Atatürk worried that it nourished the expectations that monarchy would return under the guise of a Caliphate.
The caliph had his own personal treasury and also had a personal service that included military personnel. Atatürk claimed that there was no "religious" or "political" justification for this. He believed that the Caliph was following in the steps of the sultans in domestic and foreign affairs. That was responding to foreign representatives and participating in official ceremonies and celebrations. Atatürk wanted to integrate the powers of the caliphate into the powers of the GNA. He claimed that Islam would be elevated if it would cease to be a political instrument. In 1924, the caliphate was officially abolished and its powers within Turkey were transferred to the GNA. Sharia courts upholding religious laws based on religious precepts of Islam, particularly the Quran, were abolished.
The removal of the caliphate was followed by an extensive effort to establish the separation of governmental and religious affairs. Education was the cornerstone in this effort. In 1923, there were 3 main educational groups of institutions. The most common institutions were madrasas based on the Qur'an and memorization. The second type of institution was the reformist schools. The last group included colleges and minority schools in foreign languages that used the latest teaching models in educating pupils. The old madrasa education was modernized. Atatürk changed the classical Islamic education for a vigorously promoted reconstruction of educational institutions. He linked educational reform to the liberation of the nation from dogma.
The public education reforms aimed to prepare citizens for roles in public life through increasing the public literacy. Atatürk wanted to institute compulsory primary education for both girls and boys. He pointed out that one of the main targets of education in Turkey had to be raising a generation nourished with what he called the "public culture". The state schools established a common curriculum. All schools submitted their curriculum to the "Ministry of National Education", a government agency modeled after other countries' ministries of education.
Atatürk encouraged the Turks to wear modern European attire. The “Hat Law of 1925” introduced the use of Western-style hats instead of the fez, a short cylindrical peak-less hat. Guidelines for the proper dressing of students and state employees were passed during his lifetime. The “Law Relating to Prohibited Garments of 1934”, emphasized the need to wear modern Western suits with neckties instead of antiquated religion-based clothing such as the veil and turban. Even though he personally promoted modern dress for women, Atatürk never made specific reference to women's clothing in the law, as he believed that women would adapt to the new clothing styles of their own free will.
Atatürk 's view on religious insignia used outside places of worship was:
“In the face of knowledge, science, and of the whole extent of radiant civilization, I cannot accept the presence in Turkey's civilized community of people primitive enough to seek material and spiritual benefits in the guidance of tribal rulers and their symbols. The best, the truest order is the order of civilization. To be a man it is enough to carry out the requirements of civilization. The leaders of dervish orders will understand the truth of my words, and will themselves close down their lodges and admit that their disciplines have grown up.”
The government issued a decree closing down mystical orders such as the Sufi orders. Atatürk ordered their dervish lodges to be converted to museums and the institutional expression of Sufism became illegal in Turkey. A politically neutral form of Sufism, functioning as social associations, was permitted to exist. The abolition of the caliphate and other cultural reforms were met with fierce opposition. The conservative elements were not happy and they launched attacks on the reformists.
In 1924, Sheikh Said, a wealthy Kurdish tribal chief began to organize a rebellion. He not only opposed the abolition of the Caliphate, but also the adoption of civil codes based on Western models, the closure of religious orders, the ban on polygamy, and the new obligatory civil marriage. Sheikh stirred up his followers against the policies of the government, which he considered anti-Islamic. In an effort to restore Islamic law, Sheik's forces moved through the countryside and seized government offices. Members of the government saw this as an attempt at a counter-revolution and urged immediate military action to prevent its spread. The "Law for the Maintenance of Public Order" was passed to deal with the rebellion giving the government exceptional powers and included the authority to shut down subversive groups.
There were also parliamentarians in the GNA who were not happy with these changes. So many members were denounced as opposition sympathizers at a private meeting of the Republican People's Party (CHP) that Atatürk expressed his fear of being among the minority in his own party. He decided not to purge this group. The breakaway group established the Progressive Republican Party (PRP) and the first multi-party system began. Some of Atatürk 's closest associates who had supported him in the early days of the War of Independence were among the members of the new party. The PRP's economic program suggested liberalism, in contrast to the state socialism of CHP, and its social program was based on conservatism in contrast to the modernism of CHP. Leaders of the party strongly supported the Atatürk revolution in principle, but had different opinions on the cultural revolution and the principle of secularism. A plot to assassinate Atatürk was uncovered. The sweeping investigation brought a number of political activists before the tribunal, including the leader of PRP and a handful were found guilty of treason and hanged. The investigations found a link between the members of the PRP and the Sheikh Said Rebellion. The PRP was dissolved following the outcomes of the trial. The pattern of organized opposition, however, was broken. This action was the only broad political purge during Atatürk's presidency.
In the years following 1926, Atatürk introduced a radical departure from previous reformations established by the Ottoman Empire. For the first time in history, Islamic law was separated from secular law, and restricted to matters of religion. Ottoman practice discouraged social interaction between men and women in keeping with Islamic practice of sex segregation. Atatürk began developing social reforms very early. He and his staff discussed issues like abolishing the veiling of women and the integration of women into the outside world.
Atatürk needed a new civil code to establish his second major step of giving freedom to women. The first part was the education of girls and was established with the unification of education. In 1926, the new Turkish civil code passed. It was modelled after the Swiss Civil Code. Under the new code, women gained equality with men in such matters as inheritance and divorce. Atatürk did not consider gender a factor in social organization. According to his view, society marched towards its goal with men and women united. He believed that it was scientifically impossible to achieve progress and to become civilized if the gender separation continued as in Ottoman times.
In 1928, Atatürk met in Ankara with several linguists and professors from all over Turkey where he unveiled to them a plan of his to implement a new alphabet for the written Turkish language based on a modified Latin alphabet. The new Turkish alphabet would serve as a replacement for the old Arabic script and as a solution to the literacy problem in Turkey, as the Arabic script does not feature any vowels (a,e,i,o,u,y) while the Turkish language has eight. When he asked the scholars how long it would take to implement the new alphabet into the Turkish language, most guessed between 3-5 years. Atatürk was said to have scoffed and stated, "we shall do it in 3-5 months".
Over the next several months, Atatürk pressed for the introduction of the new Turkish alphabet as well as made public announcements to the upcoming overhaul of the new alphabet. In 1928 he introduced the new Turkish alphabet and abolished the use of Arabic script. At the time, illiteracy rates were as high as 90% and learning how to read and write in Turkish with the Arabic script took roughly 3 years with rather strenuous methods at the elementary level. The first Turkish newspaper using the new alphabet was published in 1928. Atatürk himself traveled the countryside in order to teach citizens the new alphabet. After vigorous campaigns, the illiteracy rate decrease from 90% in 1927 to 80% in 1940. A number of congresses were organized on scientific issues, education, history, economics, arts and language. Libraries were systematically developed, mobile libraries and book transport systems were set up to serve districts and remote places.
Atatürk promoted modern teaching methods at the primary education level. He was interested in adult education for the goal of forming a skill base in the country. Turkish women were taught not only child care, dress-making and household management, but also skills needed to join the economy outside the home. Turkish education became a state-supervised system, which was designed to create a skill base for the social and economic progress of the country. This "unified" education program was designed to educate responsible citizens as well as useful and appreciated members of society. Turkish education became an integrative system, aimed to alleviate poverty and female education was used to establish gender equality. Atatürk himself put special emphasis on the education of girls and supported coeducation, introducing it at university level in 1924 and establishing it as the norm throughout the educational system by 1927. Atatürk's reforms on education made education much more accessible.
Atatürk supported and encouraged the visual and the plastic arts, which had been suppressed by the Ottoman leaders, who regarded depiction of the human form as idolatry. Many museums opened, architecture began to follow modern trends, and classical Western music, opera, and ballet, as well as the theater, also took greater hold. Book and magazine publications increased as well, and the film industry began to grow.
Atatürk's foreign policy followed his motto, "peace at home, peace in the world". The Turkish War of Independence was the last time Atatürk used his military might in dealing with other countries. Foreign issues were resolved by peaceful methods during his presidency. The dispute with the British over control of Mosul Province, was one of the first foreign affairs-related controversies of the new Republic. In 1923, Atatürk tried to persuade the GNA that accepting the arbitration of the League of Nations over Mosul did not mean relinquishing Mosul, but rather waiting for a time when Turkey might be stronger. The artificially drawn border had an unsettling effect on the population on both sides. Turkey began where oil ended, as the border was drawn by the British geophysicists based on the oil reserves. England wanted oil and Mosul and Kurds were the key.
In his message to Lenin, the Bolshevik leader and head of the Russian government, Atatürk promised to coordinate his military operations with the Bolsheviks' fight against imperialist governments and requested gold as well as armaments "as first aid" to his forces. In 1921, the GNA signed the "Friendship and Brotherhood" Treaty with Soviet Russia.
Relations between the 2 countries were friendly, but were based on the fact that they were fighting against a common enemy: Britain and the West. Atatürk claimed that
"Friendship with Russia is not to adopt their ideology of communism for Turkey. Communism is a social issue. Social conditions, religion, and national traditions of our country confirm the opinion that Russian Communism is not applicable in Turkey. Our amicable relations with our old friend the Soviet Russian Republic are developing and progressing every day. As in past our Republican Government regards genuine and extensive good relations with Soviet Russia as the keystone of our foreign policy."
Atatürk and the Shah of Iran, Reza Shah, had a common approach regarding British imperialism and its influence in their region, creating a slow but continuous rapprochement between Ankara and Tehran. Both governments sent diplomatic missions and messages of friendship to each other during the Turkish War of Independence. The policy of the Ankara government in this period was to give moral support in order to assure Iranian independence and territorial integrity. The relations were strained after the abolishment of the Caliphate. Iran's Shi'a clergy did not accept Atatürk’s position. Iranian religious power centers perceived the real motive behind Atatürk's reforms was to undermine the power of the clergy. By the mid-1930s, Reza Shah's efforts had upset the clergy throughout Iran, thus widening the gap between religion and government. Atatürk feared the occupation and dismemberment of Iran as a multi-ethnic/multi-tribal society by Russia or Great Britain.
In 1923, a Treaty stated that the Dardanelles should remain open to all commercial vessels and that the waterway was to be demilitarized. The demilitarized zone heavily restricted Turkey's domination and sovereignty over the Straits. The defense of Constantinople was impossible without having the sovereignty over the water that passed through it. A year later the first Turkish bank was established.
The bank's creation was a response to the growing need for a truly national establishment which was capable of backing up economic activities, managing funds accumulated as a result of policies providing savings incentives, and, where necessary, extending resources which could trigger industrial impetus. 3 years later, Turkish State Railways was established.
Because Atatürk considered the development of a national rail network as another important step in industrialization, it was given high priority. This institution developed an extensive railway network in a very short time. Atatürk also ordered the integration of road construction goals into development plans. Prior to this, the road network had consisted of 13,885 km of ruined surface roads, 4,450 km of stabilized roads, and 94 bridges.
In 1929, Atatürk signed a treaty that resulted in the restructuring of the nation's debt instead of defaulting. He had to deal with the turbulent economic issues of the Great Depression along with the payment of the high public debt. Until the early 1930s, Turkish private business could not acquire exchange credits. It was impossible to integrate the Turkish economy without a solution to this problem. This increased the credibility of the new Republic. Two years later Ataturk's intention to establish the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey was realized. The bank's primary purpose was to have control over the exchange rate.
Until the early 1930s, Turkey followed a modern neutral foreign policy with the West by developing joint friendship and neutrality agreements. These bilateral agreements were aligned with Ataturk's worldview. The most important factor in driving Turkish foreign policy from the mid-1930s onward was the fear of Italy. Benito Mussolini had frequently proclaimed his intention to make the entire Mediterranean under Italian control. Both the Turks and the various Balkan states felt threatened by Italian ambitions.
In 1936, Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland gave Atatürk the opportunity to resume full control over the Straits. A year later Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan signed a treaty that undertook to preserve their common frontiers, to consult together in all matters of common interest and to commit no aggression against one another's territory. The treaty outlined 3 aspects:
- greater Oriental-Middle Eastern cooperation,
- Reza Shah's goal in securing relations with Turkey that would help Iran free itself from Soviet and British influence, and
- Atatürk 's foreign policy of securing stability in the region.
The immediate outcome was to deter Mussolini from adventures in the region.
The Balkan Pact was negotiated by Atatürk with Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. This mutual-defense agreement intended to guarantee the signatories' territorial integrity and political independence against attack by another Balkan state such as Bulgaria or Albania. It countered the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of fascist Italy and the effect of a potential Bulgarian alignment with Nazi Germany.
Atatürk thought of the Balkan Pact as a medium of balance in the relations with the European countries. He was particularly anxious to establish a region of security and alliances in the west of Turkey and in Balkan Europe. The Balkan Pact turned out to be ineffective for reasons that were beyond Atatürk's control. After a series of international events ending with the Italian invasion of Albania in 1939, these conflicts spread rapidly and triggered WWII. The goal of Atatürk, to protect southeast Europe, failed with the dissolution of the pact. The only state which arose intact after the war was Atatürk's Republic of Turkey.
The initial choices of Atatürk 's economic policies reflected the realities of his period. After WWI, due to the lack of any real potential investors to open private sector factories and develop industrial production, Atatürk established many state-owned factories for agriculture, machinery, and textile industries. Atatürk`s pursuit of state-controlled economic policies was guided by a national vision; their goal was to knit the country together, eliminate the foreign control of the economy, and improve communications within Turkey. Resources were channeled away from Constantinople, a trading port with international foreign enterprises, in favor of other, less developed cities, in order to establish a more balanced development throughout the country.
For Atatürk, as for his supporters, tobacco remained wedded to his policy in the pursuit of economic independence. Turkish tobacco was an important industrial crop, while its cultivation and manufacture had been French monopolies. The tobacco and cigarette trade was controlled by 2 French companies. Consequently, Turkish farmers were dependent on the company for their livelihood. When this company was taken over by the state the control of tobacco was the biggest achievement of "nationalization" of the economy for a country that did not produce oil. They accompanied this achievement with the development of the cotton industry, which peaked during the early 1930s. Cotton was the second biggest industrial crop in Turkey at the time.
The national group which had Atatürk as the leader, developed many projects within the first decade of the republic. However, the Turkish economy was still largely agrarian, with primitive tools and methods. Roads and transportation facilities were far from sufficient and management of the economy was inefficient. The Great Depression brought many changes to this picture. The young republic, like the rest of the world, found itself in a deep economic crisis during the Great Depression. Turkey could not finance essential imports as its currency was shunned and zealous revenue officials seized the meagre possessions of peasants who could not pay their taxes.
From the political economy perspective, Atatürk had to face the same problems which all countries faced: political upheaval. The establishment of a new party with a different economic perspective was needed. The Liberal Republican Party came out with a liberal program and proposed that state monopolies should be ended, foreign capital should be attracted, and that state investment should be curtailed. Atatürk supported this point of view. The first 5-year economic plan promoted consumer substitution industries. Atatürk watched the first national aircraft develop. He realized the important role of aviation. In his words, "the future lies in the skies."
The country moved toward a mixed economy with its first private initiatives. Textile, sugar, paper and steel factories financed by a loan from Britain were the private sectors of the period. Power plants, banks, and insurance companies were established as a support for the new foreign owned industries. Cotton planting was promoted to furnish raw material for future factory settlements, part of the industrialization process. Atatürk supported the establishment of the automobile industry. He wanted it to become a center in the region. During 1935, Turkey was becoming an industrial society on the Western European model.
During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. A year later while he was on a trip he suffered from cirrhosis of the liver and shortly died at the age of 57.
Despite his radical secular reforms, Atatürk remained broadly popular in the Muslim world. He is remembered for being the creator of a new, fully independent Muslim country at a time of encroachment by Christian powers, and for having prevailed in a struggle against Western imperialism.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States for 12 years from 1933 until his death. A Democrat, he won a record 4 presidential elections and emerged as a central figure in world events. He directed the United States government during most of the Great Depression and WWII. President Franklin Roosevelt appointed 8 Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. By 1941, 8 of the 9 Justices were Roosevelt appointees.
He was a hero to major minority groups, especially African Americans, Catholics, and Jews, and was highly successful in attracting large majorities of these voters into his New Deal coalition. He won strong support from Chinese Americans and Filipino Americans, but not Japanese Americans, as he was responsible for their losses due to internship in concentration camps during the war.
The rapid expansion of government programs that occurred during his term redefined the role of the government in the United States, and his advocacy of government social programs was instrumental in redefining liberalism for coming generations. He is the only President of the United States to serve more than 2 terms in office; in response to this, the 22nd Amendment limiting Presidential terms was passed by Congress in 1947.
He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers encouraged labor union growth while more closely regulating business and high finance. His support for the repeal of prohibition of alcohol in 1933 added to his popularity, helping him win re-election by a landslide in 1936. The economy improved rapidly from 1933-37, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937-38.
Franklin Roosevelt was born to an old, prominent Dutch-American family from New York. His paternal family had become prosperous early on in New York real estate and trade, and much of his immediate family's wealth had been built by his maternal grandfather, Warren Delano, Jr., in the China trade where he traded for opium and tea. Franklin grew up in an atmosphere of privilege. While he was at Harvard University, his fifth cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President of the United States. Theodore's vigorous leadership style and reforming zeal made him Franklin's role model and hero. Nevertheless, he became a Democrat, campaigning for Theodore's opponent.
Franklin graduated from Harvard when he was 21 years old and attended Law School. At age 23, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, the niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, and the couple went on to have 6 children. He entered politics in 1910, at the age of 28. In 1921, when he was 39, he contracted a paralytic illness which left his legs permanently paralyzed. In 1928, he successfully ran for Governor of New York. In office for 4 years, he served as a reform governor promoting the enactment of programs to combat the depression besetting the United States at the time.
In the1932 presidential election,Franklin defeated incumbent Republican president Herbert Hoover in a landslide. He took office in the midst of the worst economic crisis in the country's history. A quarter of the workforce was unemployed. Farmers were in deep trouble as prices fell by 60%. Industrial production had fallen by more than half of what it was a few years before. 2 million people were homeless. 32 of the 48 states had closed their banks. The New York Federal Reserve Bank was forced to close as huge sums had been withdrawn by panicky customers. Franklin blamed the economic crisis on bankers and financiers, the quest for profit, and the self-interest basis of capitalism.
During his first 100 days in office, Franklin spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal, a variety of programs designed to produce relief mainly in the form of government jobs for the unemployed, recovery of the economic growth, and reform through regulation of Wall Street, banks and transportation. Through his series of radio talks, known as fireside chats, he presented his proposals directly to the American public.
But the early 1930s was not a good financial time for the United States. The Great Depression struck in 1929 with the stock market crash. In an effort to reinvigorate the US economy, Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to print money in an effort to initiate his spending program. Unfortunately, with the limited supply of gold, his hands were tied, he couldn’t increase taxes during this economic tragedy, and he couldn’t print more money because there wasn’t enough gold. The Great Depression had turned individuals into gold hoarders in fear of a rush to the banks that would collapse the entire economy. So in 1933, President Roosevelt made private ownership of gold illegal. To prevent any more gold from being withdrawn from banks, he closed their doors for 3 days. He then made it illegal for any citizen to privately own gold coins or bullion. It became a crime with a heavy sentence up to 10 years in prison. Citizens were instructed to turn over their gold back to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve would issue them paper money.
When WWII began, unemployment ended, and Congress repealed Franklin's major relief programs. However they kept most of the regulations on business, and maintained Social Security. With the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China and the United Kingdom, while remaining officially neutral. His goal was to make America the "Arsenal of Democracy", which would supply munitions to the Allies.
In 1941, Roosevelt, with Congressional approval, provided Lend-Lease aid to Britain and China. Following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, he sought and obtained the quick approval to declare war on Japan and, a few days later, on Germany. With very strong national support, he worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in leading the Allies against Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy.
Franklin Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the U.S. economy to support the war effort and also ordered the internment of 100,000 Japanese American civilians. As an active military leader, he implemented a war strategy on 2 fronts that ended in the defeat of the Axis Powers, and he initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb. His work also influenced the later creation of the United Nations and Bretton Woods.
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and Japan. It was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The chief features were an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate by tying its currency to gold.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was to bridge temporary imbalances of payments. The United States, which controlled two thirds of the world's gold, insisted that the Bretton Woods system rest on both gold and the US dollar. Soviet representatives attended the conference but later declined to ratify the final agreements, charging that the institutions they had created were "branches of Wall Street". These organizations became operational in 1954 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement.
In 1971, 17 years later, the United States unilaterally terminated convertibility of the US dollar to gold, effectively bringing the Bretton Woods system to an end and rendering the dollar a fiat currency backed by only promises. Fiat money is a currency without intrinsic value established as money by government regulation or law. The US dollar became a reserve currency used by many countries who held US dollars in significant quantities as part of their foreign exchange reserves to use in international transactions, international investments and all aspects of the global economy.
Franklin had various extra-marital affairs, including one with Eleanor's social secretary. Eleanor found letters revealing the affair in his luggage. Franklin contemplated divorcing Eleanor, but his mother told him that if he divorced his wife, it would bring scandal upon the family, and she "would not give him another dollar." Franklin also had a 20-year affair with his private secretary, and also with Princess Martha of Sweden, who resided in the White House during part of WWII. Eleanor established a separate house and increasingly devoted herself to various social and political causes independently of her husband.
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration occurred in the middle of a bank panic and led to the backdrop for his famous words: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." The very next day he declared a "bank holiday" and called for a special session of Congress to pass the Emergency Banking Act, his first proposed step to recovery. To give Americans confidence in the banks, he signed the Glass–Steagall Act that created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to underwrite savings deposits. Relief measures included hiring 250,000 unemployed young men to work on rural local projects. Congress also provided mortgage relief to millions of farmers and homeowners. He made agricultural relief a high priority. He tried to force higher prices for commodities by paying farmers to take land out of crops and to cut herds.
One year later, a commission was created to regulate Wall Street. Reform of the economy tried to end cutthroat competition by forcing industries to come up with codes that established the rules of operation for all firms within specific industries, such as minimum prices, agreements not to compete, and production restrictions. This was found to be unconstitutional by unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court in 1935.
Franklin wanted a federal minimum wage arguing that. "No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country". Congress finally adopted the minimum wage in 1938. It was the last major domestic reform measure of the New Deal. Recovery was pursued through federal spending to stimulate the economy. Executive Order 6102 declared that all privately held gold coins and bars of American citizens was to be sold to the US Treasury.
The largest government-owned industrial enterprise in American history was created to build dams and power stations, control floods, and modernize agriculture and home conditions in the poverty-stricken Tennessee Valley. Franklin tried to keep his campaign promise by cutting the federal budget by removing 500,000 veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reducing benefits for the remainder, as well as cutting the salaries of federal employees and reducing spending on research and education.
He kept his promise to push for the repeal of Prohibition in 1933. During Prohibition, the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages were illegal. It soon proved highly unpopular. Crime rates soared as gangsters, such as Chicago's Al Capone, became rich from a profitable, often violent black market for alcohol. The federal government was incapable of stemming the tide, and enforcement proved to be a nearly impossible task as corruption was rife among law enforcement agencies.
While the First New Deal of 1933 had broad support from most sectors, the Second New Deal challenged the business community. Conservative Democrats fought back savagely attacking Roosevelt and equating him with Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Labor unions signed up millions of new members and became a major backer of his reelections in 1936, 1940 and 1944.
After the 1934 Congressional elections had given Roosevelt large majorities in both houses, his administration drafted a fresh surge of New Deal legislation. The Social Security Act established Social Security and promised economic security for the elderly, the poor and the sick. Deficit spending had been recommended by some economists, most notably by John Maynard Keynes of Britain. The economy grew 58% from 1932 to 1940 in 8 years of peacetime, and then grew 56% from 1940 to 1945 in 5 years of wartime. Unemployment fell dramatically in his first term, from 25% when he took office to 14.3% in 1937. It fell to 17.2% in 1939, and then dropped again to 14.6% in 1940 until it reached 1.9% in 1945 during WWII.
Franklin Roosevelt did not raise income taxes before WWII began; however, payroll taxes were introduced in 1937 to fund the new Social Security program. He also convinced Congress to spend more on many various programs never before seen in American history. Under the revenue pressures brought on by the depression, most states added or increased taxes, including sales as well as income taxes. His proposal for new taxes on corporate savings were highly controversial and were rejected by Congress. During the war he pushed for even higher income tax rates for individuals reaching a marginal tax rate of 91% for corporations and a cap on high salaries for executives.
Franklin Roosevelt had a lifelong interest in the environment and conservation starting with his youthful interest in forestry on his family estate. As governor and president, he launched numerous projects for conservation, in the name of protecting the environment, and providing beauty and jobs for the people. As president, he was active in expanding, funding, and promoting the National Park and National Forest systems. Roosevelt heavily funded the system of dams to provide flood control, electricity, and modernization of rural communities through the Tennessee Valley Authority, as well as less famous projects transforming western rivers.
The rejection of the League of Nations treaty in 1919 marked the dominance of isolationism from world organizations in American foreign policy. Roosevelt was a lifelong free-trader and anti-imperialist and ending European colonialism was one of his objectives. Italy under Benito Mussolini proceeded to overcome Ethiopia, and the Italians joined Nazi Germany in supporting General Franco and the Nationalist cause in the Spanish Civil War. The Spanish Civil War took place from 1936 to 1939. The Spanish Republicans, in an alliance of convenience with the anarchists, fought against the Nationalists, a political group who wanted a monarchy to rule Spain. A Catholic conservative group led by General Francisco Franco. Ultimately, the Nationalists won, and Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from 1939 until his death in 1975.
In the 1936 presidential election, Franklin Roosevelt won 60.8% of the vote and the Democrats won even larger majorities in Congress. The Supreme Court became his primary focus during his second term, after the court overturned many of his programs. He stunned Congress in 1937 by proposing a law to allow him to appoint up to 6 new justices. This ran into intense political opposition from his own party, since it upset the separation of powers and gave the President control over the Court.
He at first had massive support from the rapidly growing labor unions, but they split into bitterly feuding factions. The minimum wage law of 1938 was the last substantial New Deal reform act passed by Congress. Following the autumn Congressional elections in 1938, Congress was now dominated by conservatives, many of whom feared that Roosevelt was "aiming at a dictatorship." He had always belonged to the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He sought a realignment that would solidify liberal dominance by means of landslides in 1932, 1934 and 1936. When the third consecutive landslide in 1936 failed to produce major legislation in 1937, his recourse was to purge his conservative opponents in 1938.
The aggressive foreign policy of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler in Germany aroused fears of a new world war. Americans wanted to keep out of it and in 1937 Congress passed an even more stringent Neutrality Act. When Japan invaded China, public opinion strongly favored China, and Franklin Roosevelt found various ways to assist that nation. He insisted that the country would not join a "stop-Hitler bloc" under any circumstances. He claimed that France and Britain were America's "first line of defense" and needed American aid, but because of widespread isolationist sentiment, he reiterated the US itself would not go to war.
He allowed the French to place huge orders with the American aircraft industry on a cash-and-carry basis, as allowed by law. Most of the aircraft ordered had not arrived in France by the time of its collapse in 1940, so he arranged for French orders to be sold to the British. When WWII began in 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland, he sought ways to assist Britain and France militarily. He began a regular secret correspondence with Winston Churchill discussing ways of supporting Britain. For a long time he refused to recognize de Gaulle as the representative of France.
In 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, followed by invasions of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The German victories left Britain isolated in Western Europe. Franklin Roosevelt, who was determined that Britain not be defeated, took advantage of the rapid shifts of public opinion. The fall of Paris shocked American opinion, and isolationist sentiment declined. A consensus was clear that military spending had to be dramatically expanded. There was no consensus on how much the US should risk war in helping Britain.
The 1941 Lend-Lease agreement began to direct massive military and economic aid to Britain, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union. Franklin Roosevelt tried to avoid repeating what he saw as Woodrow Wilson's mistakes in WWI. He often made exactly the opposite decision. Wilson called for neutrality while Roosevelt made it clear his administration strongly favored Britain and China. Unlike the loans in WWI, the United States made large-scale grants of military and economic aid to the Allies through Lend-Lease, with little expectation of repayment.
Wilson, unlike Roosevelt, did not greatly expand war production before the declaration of war. Franklin slowly began re-armament in 1938. Wilson waited for the declaration of war to begin a draft, while Roosevelt started one in 1940. Wilson never met with the top Allied leaders but Roosevelt did. Wilson refused to collaborate with the Republicans, while Roosevelt named leading Republicans to head the War Department and the Navy Department. Roosevelt rejected the idea of an armistice and demanded unconditional surrender. He often mentioned he had profited more from Wilson's errors than from his successes. Roosevelt's third term was dominated by WWII.
When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt agreed to extend Lend-Lease to the Soviets. Thus, Roosevelt had committed the U.S. to the Allied side with a policy of "all aid short of war." The Japanese struck the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor with a surprise attack, knocking out the main American battleship fleet and killing 2,403 American servicemen and civilians.
After the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, antiwar sentiment in the United States largely evaporated overnight. Roosevelt and his military advisers implemented a war strategy with the objectives of halting the German advances into the Soviet Union and into North Africa, launching an invasion of Western Europe with the aim of crushing Nazi Germany between 2 fronts, and saving China and defeating Japan. Public opinion, however, gave priority to the destruction of Japan, so American forces were sent chiefly to the Pacific in 1942. In the opening weeks of the war, Japan had conquered the Philippines, and the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, and later captured Singapore.
The danger of a Japanese attack on the west coast led to growing pressure to move people of Japanese descent away from the coastal region. This pressure grew due to fears of terrorism, espionage, and sabotage and was also related to anti-Japanese competition and discrimination. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which relocated hundreds of thousands of first generation of Japanese immigrants who did not have U.S. citizenship and their children, who had dual citizenship. They were forced to give up their properties and businesses and transported to hastily built camps in the interior in harsh locations.
After both Hitler and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, many German and Italian citizens who had not taken out American citizenship were arrested or placed into internment camps. The US, UK and USSR together with China`s Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, cooperated informally on a plan in which American and British troops concentrated in the West, Soviet troops fought on the Eastern front and Chinese, British and American troops fought in Asia and the Pacific. Roosevelt guaranteed that the U.S. would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" by shipping Lend-Lease supplies to the Allies. By 1943, it was apparent that the Allies would ultimately defeat the enemy, so it became increasingly important to make high-level political decisions about the course of the war and the postwar future of Europe.
Roosevelt met with Churchill and the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and then went to confer with Stalin. Stalin supported Roosevelt's plan for the United Nations and promised to enter the war against Japan 90 days after Germany was defeated. Stalin insisted on redrawing the frontiers of Poland. The strategic bombing campaign was escalated, pulverizing all major German cities and cutting off oil supplies. Roosevelt picked Dwight D. Eisenhower to head the Allied cross-channel invasion.
In 1944, Roosevelt requested that Congress enact legislation which would tax all unreasonable profits, both corporate and individual, and thereby support his declared need for over $10 billion in revenue for the war and other government measures. The Congress passed a revenue bill raising $2 billion, which Roosevelt vetoed, though Congress in turn overrode him. By 1945, however, with the Allied armies advancing into Germany and the Soviets in control of Poland, the postwar issues came into the open.
While Churchill warned of potential domination by a Stalin dictatorship over Eastern Europe, Roosevelt believed that Stalin would not annex anything and rather work for a world of democracy and peace. Roosevelt's Ambassador to the USSR on the other hand believed the Soviet program to be the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty and democracy.
The Republicans lambasted Roosevelt and his administration for domestic corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, tolerance of Communism, and military blunders. Roosevelt chose Senator Harry S. Truman, best known for his battle against corruption and inefficiency in wartime spending as his vice presidential running mate. Labor unions, which had grown rapidly in the war, threw their all-out support behind Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Truman won the 1944 election by a comfortable margin with 53.4% of the popular vote and 432 out of the 531 electoral votes. Roosevelt campaigned in favor of a strong United Nations, so his victory symbolized support for the nation's future participation in the international community.
A chain-smoker throughout his entire adult life, Roosevelt had been in declining physical health. He was found to have high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease causing angina pectoris, and congestive heart failure. His health seriously declined and he died 11 weeks into his fourth term.
He was succeeded by his vice president Harry S. Truman. The war in Europe ended less than a month after his death. A few months after, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading to Japan's unconditional surrender to end WWII.
Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Eisenhower was an American army general who served as the president of the United States from 1953-1961. During WWII, he became a five-star general in the Army and was responsible for the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–45. Two states were admitted to the Union during Eisenhower's presidency, Alaska and Hawaii.
When he was 62, he entered the presidential race as a Republican to block the isolationist foreign policies that opposed NATO and wanted no foreign entanglements. Eisenhower won that election and the 1956 election in landslides. Eisenhower's main goals in office were to contain the spread of communism and reduce federal deficits. In 1953, he threatened to use nuclear weapons until China agreed to peace terms in the Korean War. China did agree and an armistice resulted which remains in effect. He continued Truman's policy of recognizing Taiwan as the legitimate government of China. His administration provided aid to help the French fight off Vietnamese Communists. After the French left, he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. He supported regime-changing military coups in Iran and Guatemala. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, he condemned the Israeli, British, and French invasion of Egypt, and he forced them to withdraw. He also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action.
After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, Eisenhower authorized the establishment of NASA, which led to the Space Race. He approved the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was left to John F. Kennedy to carry out. On the domestic front, Eisenhower was a moderate conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. He covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957. His largest program was the Interstate Highway System. He promoted the establishment of strong science education. His 2 terms saw widespread economic prosperity. In his farewell address to the nation, he expressed his concerns about the dangers of massive military spending, particularly deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers, which he dubbed "the military–industrial complex".
Eisenhower was born to a large family of mostly Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry who were primarily farmers. the third of seven sons, his family had a strong religious background, his mother became a Jehovah's Witness. Eisenhower, however, did not belong to any organized church until he was 62. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married and had 2 sons. His father owned a general store in Hope, Kansas, but the business failed due to economic conditions and the family became impoverished. The Eisenhowers then lived in Texas from 1889 until 1892, and later returned to Kansas, with $24 (equivalent to $683 in 2019) to their name at the time. His father worked as a railroad mechanic and then at a creamery. By 1898, the parents made a decent living and provided a suitable home for their large family.
When the U.S. entered WWI, his primary duty was planning for the next war, which proved most difficult in the midst of the Great Depression. He never saw combat. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Eisenhower was assigned to Washington, where he served until 1942 with responsibility for creating the major war plans to defeat Japan and Germany. In 1943, President Roosevelt decided that Eisenhower be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. He was charged in these positions with planning and carrying out the Allied assault on the coast of Normandy in 1944, the liberation of Western Europe and the invasion of Germany. Eisenhower then designed a bombing plan in France and argued with Churchill over the latter's concern with civilian casualties. De Gaulle interjected that the casualties were justified in shedding the yoke of the Germans, and Eisenhower prevailed. The D-Day Normandy landings in 1944, were costly but successful. He was ever mindful of the inevitable loss of life and suffering that would be experienced on an individual level by the troops under his command and their families. This prompted him to make a point of visiting every division involved in the invasion. In recognition of his senior position in the Allied command, he was promoted to General of the Army, Eisenhower showed his great talents for leadership and diplomacy. Although he had never seen action himself, he won the respect of front-line commanders. Eisenhower anticipated that someday an attempt would be made to deny Nazi crimes as propaganda and took steps against it by demanding extensive still and movie photographic documentation of Nazi death camps.
In 1945, Eisenhower returned to Washington. He was convinced that the Soviet Union did not want war and that friendly relations could be maintained. He strongly supported the new United Nations and favored its involvement in the control of atomic bombs. However, in formulating policies regarding the atomic bomb and relations with the Soviets, president Truman was guided by the U.S. State Department and ignored Eisenhower and the Pentagon. Indeed, Eisenhower had opposed the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese, writing, "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." A "Draft Eisenhower" movement in the Republican Party persuaded him to declare his candidacy in the 1952 presidential election. His campaign was noted for the simple slogan "I Like Ike". It was essential to his success that Eisenhower express opposition to Roosevelt's policy at the Yalta Conference and to Truman's policies in Korea and China—matters in which he had once participated He selected Nixon as the Vice-President on the ticket as he provided a strong anti-communist presence, as well as some youth to counter his own more advanced age. Eisenhower insisted on campaigning in the South in the general election, against the advice of his campaign team, refusing to surrender the region to the Democratic Party. The campaign strategy was intended to focus on attacking the Truman and Roosevelt administrations on 3 issues: the Korean War, Communism, and corruption.
Two controversies tested him and his staff during the campaign, but they did not affect the campaign. One involved a report that Nixon had improperly received funds from a secret trust. The second issue centered on Eisenhower's relented decision to confront the controversial methods of Joseph McCarthy. Just 2 weeks before the election, Eisenhower vowed to go to Korea and end the war there. He promised to maintain a strong commitment against Communism. Eisenhower defeated the Democratic candidate with an electoral margin of 442 to 89, marking the first Republican return to the White House in 20 years. He also brought a Republican majority in the House, by 8 votes, and in the Senate, evenly divided with Vice President Nixon providing Republicans the majority. In 1956, Eisenhower successfully ran for re-election. Eisenhower made greater use of press conferences than any previous president, holding almost 200 over his two terms. He saw the benefit of maintaining a good relationship with the press, and he saw value in them as a means of direct communication with the American people.
Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower adhered to a political philosophy of dynamic conservatism. He described himself as a "progressive conservative" and used terms such as "progressive moderate" and "dynamic conservatism" to describe his approach. He continued all the major New Deal programs still in operation, especially Social Security. He expanded its programs and started the new Cabinet-level agency of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, while extending benefits to an additional 10,000,000 workers. He implemented racial integration in the Armed Services.
In a private letter, Eisenhower wrote: “Should any party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course, that believes you can do these things [...] Their number is negligible and they are stupid”.
When the 1954 Congressional elections approached, it became evident that the Republicans were in danger of losing their thin majority in both houses. Eisenhower bamed the Old Guard for the losses, and he took up the charge to stop suspected efforts by the right wing to take control of the GOP. He then articulated his position as a moderate, progressive Republican: "I have just one purpose ... and that is to build up a strong progressive Republican Party in this country. If the right wing wants a fight, they are going to get it ... before I end up, either this Republican Party will reflect progressivism or I won't be with them anymore."
In 1956, Eisenhower won by an even larger landslide, with 457 of 531 electoral votes and 57.6% of the popular vote. Eisenhower championed and signed the bill that authorized the Interstate Highway System. He justified the project as essential to American security during the Cold War. It was believed that large cities would be targets in a possible war, so the highways were designed to facilitate their evacuation and ease military maneuvers. The system could also be used as a runway for airplanes, which would be beneficial to war efforts.
Eisenhower articulated the domino theory in his outlook towards communism in Southeast Asia and also in Central America. He believed that if the communists were allowed to prevail in Vietnam, this would cause a succession of countries to fall to communism, from Laos through Malaysia and Indonesia ultimately to India. Likewise, the fall of Guatemala would end with the fall of neighboring Mexico. CIA activities increased under the pretense of resisting the spread of communism in poorer countries; the CIA in part deposed the leaders of Iran Guatemala and the newly independent Republic of the Congo Eisenhower wanted to increase surveillance inside the Soviet Union. The Eisenhower administration also planned the Bay of Pigs Invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba, which John F. Kennedy was left to carry out.
Eisenhower and the CIA had known since at least 1957, nine months before Sputnik, that Russia had the capability to launch a small payload into orbit and was likely to do so within a year. He welcomed the Soviet satellite for its legal implications: By launching a satellite, the Soviet Union had in effect acknowledged that space was open to anyone who could access it, without needing permission from other nations. He launched a national campaign that funded not just space exploration but a major strengthening of science and higher education. The Eisenhower administration determined to adopt a non-aggressive policy that would allow "space-crafts of any state to overfly all states, a region free of military posturing and launch Earth satellites to explore space". In response to Sputnik, Eisenhower created NASA as a civilian space agency. Fear spread through the United States that the Soviet Union would invade and spread communism, so Eisenhower wanted to not only create a surveillance satellite to detect any threats but ballistic missiles that would protect the United States. He devised the American basic strategy of nuclear deterrence based upon the triad of B-52 strategic bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles. NASA planners projected that human spaceflight would pull the United States ahead in the Space Race. He was quoted as saying, "Anyone who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon for national prestige is nuts."
In 1952 Eisenhower went to Korea and discovered a military and political stalemate. He threatened to use nuclear force if an armistice was not concluded. Eisenhower openly threatened the Chinese communists with use of nuclear weapons. Eisenhower's military and foreign policy experts had unanimously urged him, on no less than 5 occasions, to launch an atomic attack against Red China; yet he consistently refused to do so and felt a distinct sense of accomplishment in having sufficiently confronted communism while keeping world peace.
In 1953, the French asked Eisenhower for help in Vietnam against the Communists, supplied from China, who were fighting the First Indochina War. Eisenhower did provide France with bombers and non-combat personnel. After a few months with no success by the French, he added other aircraft to drop napalm for clearing purposes. Further requests for assistance from the French were agreed to but only on conditions Eisenhower knew were impossible to meet – allied participation and congressional approval.
In 1953, McCarthy declared on national television that the employment of communists within the government was a menace and would be a pivotal issue in the 1954 Senate elections. Eisenhower was urged to respond directly and specify the various measures he had taken to purge the government of communists. 2 years later, McCarthy threatened to issue subpoenas to White House personnel. Eisenhower was furious, and issued an order as follows: "It is essential to efficient and effective administration that employees of the Executive Branch be in a position to be completely candid in advising with each other on official matters ... it is not in the public interest that any of their conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions, concerning such advice be disclosed." This was an unprecedented step by Eisenhower to protect communication beyond the confines of a cabinet meeting, and soon became a tradition known as executive privilege.
In 1955, Eisenhower dispatched the first American soldiers to Vietnam as military advisors. Eisenhower immediately recognized the new state of South Vietnam and offered military, economic, and technical assistance. In the years that followed, Eisenhower increased the number of U.S. military advisors in South Vietnam to 900 men. Eisenhower accepted a request from the British government to restore the Shah of Iran to power. He therefore authorized the CIA to overthrow the government. This resulted in an increased strategic control over Iranian oil by U.S. and British companies.
In 1956, Eisenhower forced an end to the combined British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt in response to the Suez Crisis, receiving praise from Egyptian president Nasser. Simultaneously he condemned the brutal Soviet invasion of Hungary in response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. After the Suez Crisis the United States became the protector of unstable friendly governments in the Middle East via the "Eisenhower Doctrine" that held that the U.S. would be "prepared to use armed force ... [to counter] aggression from any country controlled by international communism". Further, the United States would provide economic and military aid and, if necessary, use military force to stop the spread of communism in the Middle East. Most Arab countries were skeptical about the "Eisenhower doctrine" because they considered "Zionist imperialism" the real danger. However, they did take the opportunity to obtain free money and weapons. Egypt and Syria, supported by the Soviet Union, openly opposed the initiative.
The administration declared racial discrimination a national security issue, as Communists around the world used the racial discrimination and history of violence in the U.S. as a point of propaganda attack. Eisenhower told District of Columbia officials to make Washington a model for the rest of the country in integrating black and white public school children. He proposed to Congress the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and of 1960 and signed those acts into law. The 1957 act for the first time established a permanent civil rights office inside the Justice Department and a Civil Rights Commission to hear testimony about abuses of voting rights. In 1957 the state of Arkansas refused to honor a federal court order to integrate their public school system, Eisenhower placed the Arkansas National Guard under federal control and sent in the 101st Airborne Division. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to Eisenhower to thank him for his actions, writing "The overwhelming majority of southerners, Negro and white, stand firmly behind your resolute action to restore law and order".
During Eisenhower's presidency thousands of lesbian and gay applicants were barred from federal employment and over 5,000 federal employees were fired under suspicions of being homosexual. From 1947-61 the number of firings based on sexual orientation were far greater than those for membership in the Communist Party, and government officials intentionally campaigned to make "homosexual" synonymous with "Communist traitor" such that LGBT people were treated as a national security threat stemming from the belief they were susceptible to blackmail and exploitation.
In 1961, Eisenhower gave his final televised Address to the Nation from the Oval Office. In his farewell speech, Eisenhower raised the issue of the Cold War and role of the U.S. armed forces. He described the Cold War: "We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method ..." and warned about what he saw as unjustified government spending proposals and continued with a warning that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex." He elaborated, "we recognize the imperative need for this development ... the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist ... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
The speech was warning a nation giddy with prosperity, infatuated with youth and glamour, and aiming increasingly for the easy life. He warned the nation with regard to the corrupting influence of what he describes as the "military-industrial complex".
"As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations."
"Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. "
He also expressed his concomitant concern for corruption of the scientific process as part of this centralization of funding in the Federal government:
"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.... "
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
On the morning of March 28, 1969, Eisenhower died in Washington, D.C., of congestive heart failure at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; he was 78 years old.
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