History Exam Study Guide Steven Zhao

1a) Socialism: An economic system where property, capital, and assets are commonly shared and a body, usually a democratically elected council, decides how these would be best put to use (as opposed to capitalism which entails supply and demand). As well, private ownership of businesses/industries is also possible under this.

1b) Fascism: The political ideology that puts the needs of the state before the needs of the people. Fascist leaders like Mussolini (who came up with the term) felt individuals only had value so long as they provided necessary things to the state. Many fascists ruled with an iron-fist, and tolerated no opposition or criticism.

1c) Communism: Theoretically it seems to be the perfect political system where everything is shared amongst the citizens, but it doesn’t work when put into practice due to corruption. It advocates the abolishment of the class-system and industry (all jobs and production) being controlled by the state Communist countries usually end up being led by a dictator-like ruler.

1d) Democracy: Democracy is the political system where people can select their own government (literally a government by the people for the people), and one makes decisions for the interests of the majority.

2) The United Nations (UN for short) was a collection of countries brought together in 1945 (after WW2) and was to replace its ineffective predecessor, The League of Nations. The purpose of this group was to allow countries to come to a peaceful conclusion to any problems they had instead of open conflict (so as to avoid the outbreak of another world war essentially).

3) EVENTS THAT LED TO WORLD WAR TWO

-Hitler started to re-arm Germany and broke the treaty of Versailles by doing so. (1934)

-Hitler invaded Austria on March, 1938.

-Hitler marched into the Rhineland, which was a buffer zone created between France and Germany. He was “testing the waters”/ wanted to see what the reaction would be from the Allies surrounding him. (March 1936)

- The Roman-Berlin axis was created allying Germany and Italy in October 1936.

- Hitler invades Sudetenland in September 1938, which was a largely German part of Czechoslovakia. In the Munich agreement that followed, France and Britain said that Germany was to stop further takeover of Czech territory.

- Hitler took over the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Britain and France, after saying not to during the Munich agreement, did nothing at all. All they did was promise to defend Poland should Hitler decide to invade.

- The Soviet-Nazi non-aggression pact was established In August 1939. This allied the communist USSR with Nazi Germany and ensured Stalin wouldn’t get in the way of Hitler’s invasion of Poland. It also stated that Poland would be divided amongst the two nations.

-Hitler demanded Poland give him the landmass that separated East Prussia from the German mainland. He also wanted Danzig, a mineral-rich area of Poland. After refusing his demands, Poland was invaded on September 1st 1939. Russia also invaded keeping good on their deal with the Germans. This also ended France and Britain’s lenient ways, and they declared war. World War Two had begun.

CAUSES THAT LED TO WORLD WAR TWO

-The failure of Democracies to respond to the aggression of fascist dictators. A fine example of this would be the Appeasement policy. To a point, Britain and France simply let Hitler do whatever he wanted to do and literally agreed to all his demands in hopes of preventing war. What this truly did was allow Hitler to rearm Germany and expand until it was too late.

-The aggression of fascist dictators was, of course, an extremely large part of WW2 emerging. The imperialistic aims of Germany for European domination and Japan’s desire for Pacific expansion pressured the democracies and Russia to take action (eventually).

-At the end of World War Two, the Treaty of Versailles was established. In the process of giving Britain, France, and Russia what they wanted, Germany was crippled. This is a large part of what sparked Hitler’s passion for vengeance and building an empire. As well, the discontent of the German’s caused by it fueled Hitler’s campaign/rise to power.

-The Great Depression meant that countries were desperate and many turned to fascist leaders offering quick solutions to economic problems.

4) CAUSES LEADING TO THE COLD WAR

-Beliefs: The USSR was led by a dictator who had a communist grip on the nations. Stalin infamously had little to no care when it came to human rights and the significance of the lives he ruled over. On the other hand, America was a capitalist democracy that valued freedom over all else.

-Aims: Stalin wanted to cripple Germany even more than it already had been for invading Russia. In addition to that, Stalin also wanted to create a buffer zone of communist countries around Russia for “protection in case of future invasions”. Once again, Britain and America had aims the exact opposite of Stalin. They wanted to protect the democratic influence, and protect Germany in fear of having WW3 start because of the same reasons WW2 did. Also, they were worried about the fact that Russia wanted to expand, even if they called it a ‘buffer-zone’ (as it entailed the expansion of communism).

-Resentment about History: There was obviously a lot of tension between the democratic countries of the West and the growing communist powers in the East. A lot of this came from the fact that America tried to stop the communist revolution. Stalin also felt the West didn’t help enough on the Eastern front in World War Two. In USA’s mind, Russia was unpredictable and a general menace to society. They drew this mainly from the Nazi-Soviet pact Stalin signed with Hitler in August 1939, something they could not forgive nor forget.

EVENTS LEADING TO THE COLD WAR

- Yalta (February 1945) Russia joins UN, Germany is split, Nazi war-criminals punished, reparations committee created.

-Potsdam (July 1945) Members openly disagreed about the details of how Germany should be split, German reparation size, Russian expansion policy in Eastern Europe (spreading influence/buffer-zone).

-Salami Tactics (1945-48) Russia slowly taking over Eastern countries “slice by slice.”

-Fulton Speech (March 1946) Churchill said Eastern-Europe had fallen under a shadow which cut the free world off with an Iron Curtain. He became the first to stop pretending to be allies with Russia.

-Greece (February 1947) Britain couldn’t afford to keep soldiers in Greece (which was trying to stop communism from reaching Greece). America stepped in to pay for the soldiers (As America had become the new super-power).

-Truman Doctrine (March 1947) stated it is the duty of democracies’ to defend people from communism, and started the ‘containment policy’ against Russia/Communism (Truman essentially didn’t want to destroy Russia, but to instead contain its expansion).

-Marshall Plan (June 1947) In hopes of stopping poor European countries from turning to Communism, General Marshall recommended America provide money to them (17 billion in total).

-Cominform (October 1947) Stalin called for all communist countries and parties to join together. He also forbade the use of America’s Marshall Plan/ accepting Democratic aid. This allowed Stalin to further control communists in Europe.

-Czechoslovakia (February 1948) when the Czechs fell to communist hands, American congress voted pro-Marshall aid.

5)

FLQ/OCTOBER CRISIS: The FLQ (Front de liberation du Quebec) were a Quebec-separatist group that was intent on gaining Quebec’s sovereignty by employing extremist/ terrorist means; their actions caused the October Crisis which was (October, 1970) when the FLQ kidnapped a Quebec cabinet minister and a British Trade Commissioner, leading to the Quebec government seeking federal help and

leading to PM Trudeau invoking the War Measures Act (which granted the federal government emergency power to use law enforcement and to arrest anyone without legal procedures). The crisis ended with the death of the minister and release of the commissioner. After this, the FLQ disbanded (even the sovereignty seeking Quebec residents saw what they did as disgusting)

SUPERPOWERS: Nations that were/are considered superpowers are those who have extremely large influence, political and military power, and own a vast amount of land. The Superpowers of today’s age are the USA, China, and perhaps even Russia still. The Superpowers during the World Wars would be Russia, USA, Germany, Britain, and France.

MIDDLE POWER STATUS: A middle power country is one that is just a rung below that of a Superpower. Canada was a middle power nation during the World Wars because of its prosperous economy, sizable military and large industry. All-in-all, middle power nations are well-off, but aren’t one of the premier military or economic powers of the world.

NORAD: Standing for North American Air Defence system, it was created to detect Russian air assets like bombers and nuclear missiles.

NAFTA: Mexico wanted to become close trading partners with Canada and the U.S, so the FTA (Free Trade Agreement) was changed to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). It came into effect in 1993.

PROPAGANDA: Propaganda is information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. Propaganda is used often during times of war, especially during WW1 and 2, where North American posters tried to convince people to join the war effort by creating a heroic image of allied fighters, and a demonic image of the Germans who, according to the posters, needed to be stopped.

MULTICULTURALISM: As a policy, multiculturalism means that a nation accepts and openly allows its citizens (ranging from any culture) to practice any culture. Canada had, and still has, a multicultural policy.

PIERRE ELLIOT TRUDEAU: He was the Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. He was also the one who invoked the WMA during the October Crisis in 1970. He was a very flamboyant figure, and extremely popular with the crowds; so much that his reign was dubbed “Trudeaumania.” Trudeau also made Canada bilingual (with the official languages act making French and English equal status by law everywhere), brought home the Canadian constitution with the Constitution Act of 1982 (meaning Canada no longer required the amending process to be approved by the British Parliament), incorporated a Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Constitution, created Petro Canada and a controversial National Energy Program, appointed the first woman to the supreme court of Canada and the first female governor general.

LESTER PEARSON: Prime Minister in 1963, reigning in power for four years, PM Pearson built the Social Safety Net. This included welfare, employment insurance, Canada pension plan, introduced Universal Health care and the Canadian student loan system, and Bilingualism.

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS: The Cuban missile crisis was when the USA found out Russia was keeping nuclear assets on Cuba (close enough to launch a direct attack on the USA) and put their air forces on red alert/ prepared to attack Cuba. After Fidel Castro and his communist forces overthrew the Cuban government and accepted the USSR’s aid/supplies, the Americans installed a blockade around Cuba, and any/all ships were ordered to stop and to be inspected. Though Russia agreed to remove their missiles, this is when the world truly realized that the age of destruction had arisen; all-out nuclear war was but a breath away during the Cuban missile crisis especially.

l. Baby Boom: Is a period of time in which a large amount of people were born. This occurred after WW2 between 1945 and 1960. The U.S had experienced a drop in unemployment after the war, and the economy experienced vigorous growth. As well, people wanted to go back to the old ways of life which they hadn’t seen in nearly half a century due to war (and that was having a family and settling down). The boom caused baby product manufacturers to expand their industries along with the creation of toy companies that targeted the youth audience. The youth culture also, after the war during the baby boomer generation, was one of counter-culture. The youth saw the decades of war that had occurred before they were born and thought that they wouldn’t let another war happen like their parents did by not keeping to their parent’s conventional ways of life. This also led to the expansion of suburbs as families were more prominent.

m. Royal Commission on the Status Women: Examined the status of women and recommended steps that the Government could undertake to ensure equal opportunities for men and women. The commission commenced on February 16 of 1967 as an initiative by Lester Pearson. The Commission determined the following, only 4% of women were managers, eight out of ten provinces had equal-pay laws and yet women were still paid less than men for the same work. The commissioners led by Florence Bird recommended a number of solutions. They recommended many things but a few were, employed women would be granted eighteen weeks of unemployment benefits for maternity leave, gender and marital status could not be used as grounds for discriminations by employers, and that the Federal government was to name more women judges to all courts within its jurisdiction.

n. Iron Curtain: the “Iron Curtain” was a phrase used by Winston Churchill to describe how the U.S.S.R had blocked off the NATO countries from the Eastern Bloc (Communist Europe).

o. Korean War: Began on June 25 1950, ended July 28 1953. It was a war between South Korea and North Korea which was the first armed conflict to rise from the Cold War. North Korea received communist assent from the USSR and China, while South Korea ended up receiving help from the United Nations. The main causes were: the cold war, as Truman realised the USA was in competition for world

domination with the USSR (and that communism was getting more powerful in Far East Asia too) so he felt the need to intervene, Japan, as Truman was worried that in the end, the communists would capture Japan, and the Domino Theory, as he believed if one country fell to communism, others would follow suite. As well, the declared armistice of the Korean War marks the first major peace keeping success of the United Nations.

p. Red Scare: The Red Scare occurred in the 1950s. Americans began to fear communism, mainly because of the rise of the USSR and Communist China. The Red Scare was sparked mainly by Joseph McCarthy, an American Senator. He began accusing government officials and other people of being communists while possessing a list of known communist spies in the USA. His doing so increased his approval rating and gained him a powerful national following but ruined the lives of countless numbers of people (both socially, economically, and physically).

q. Igor Gouzenko: A Soviet spy who defected in September 1945 and revealed numerous Soviet espionage documents to the government. Gouzenko exposed many of Stalins plans to steal nuclear secrets and plant sleeper agents in Canada.

r. John Diefenbaker: The 13th Prime Minister of Canada, from 1957-1963. He believed that Ottawa should ensure the well-being, prosperity, and right of all Canadians. Diefenbaker raised old-age pensions and set up a winter-works program to create construction jobs. Diebaker had a vision for Canada’s North. He wanted to unlock the rich resources of the Canadian Shield and Arctic. In his plans were massive oil and mineral explorations, new town sites for the north, huge programs to build “roads to resources”, and increased government services for the Yukon and Northwest territories. This vision failed however as the recession caused the cost of resources to go down while the price of development grew higher.

s. Joey Smallwood: A politician from Newfoundland who was the responsible for bringing Newfoundland into Confederation in 1949.

t. The Great Depression: Was a sustained economic downturn that occurred between 1929 and 1939. There were 5 main causes of depression

Stock Market Crash: Two months after the original crash in October, stockholders had lost more than $40 billion dollars. All the money people invested suddenly vanished and companies lost value and couldn’t afford to employ anyone, so they too shut down.

Natural disasters: The dust bowls caused a drought that made it impossible for farmers to grow crops. As a result, they could not make any income nor provide enough food for the markets.

Multiplier Effect: The growing number of problems in Canada created even more issues. For example: the farmers that could no longer make crops now had no reason to hire transportation for delivering food. Those transportation people now no longer have customers and go under. They now have no reason to buy any more vehicles or equipment so the secondary companies that develop those materials go under as well. This continues on and literally “multiplies” the number of problems.

Over-reliance on credit: Many people were buying things like houses and cars (expensive products) on credit and banks were giving credit out to literally everyone. With no liability from the banks, when they closed down, no one could pay back what they owed.

High Tariffs: Originally to encourage domestic trade, the high tariffs caused trade to slow down with other nations and prolonged the great depression (as imports were more expensive and trade decreased with outside nations).

u. Treaty of Versailles: The Treaty of Versailles was a treaty to make peace between the Allied (entente) powers and the Central powers (alliance). It was generally unfavorable to Germany and they had no say in the negotiations. France pushed for hard war reparations against Germany so they would not be able to start another war. Some of its terms were that Germany had to pay large sums of money in reparations, it had to give up much of its land, and that it had to diminish its military forces.The discontent created by the treaty also paved the way for Hitler’s rise to power and the rise of Nazi Germany.

v. Appeasement: A police undertaken by Britain and France in which they allowed Nazi Germany to have what they wanted/agreed to all its demands (literally to ‘appease’) in hopes that Hitler would be cease his aggressive policies. Appeasement did not work as Hitler was only left with a greater appetite every time he conquered a piece of land and ended up allowing him to rearm/expand Germany until it gained all its strength back.

w. Policy of Containment: A U.S policy to attempt to contain the spread of Communism in Europe through any means necessary short of all-out war. They achieved this by assisting poor or weak countries in Europe to help them resist communist influence. This policy further thickened the tension between the U.S and the U.S.S.R.

x. War Measure Act: The WMA was a statute of the Parliament of Canada that allowed for Emergency powers to be given to the Canadian Government during times of war. The act allowed police to arrest and detain individuals without placing any formal charges/ without any legal procedures.

y. Western Alienation: The notion that the Western Provinces of Canada (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) were excluded from mainstream political affairs in Canada in favour of the Central Provinces. A notable example is when Pierre Trudeau introduced the National Energy Program in 1979 which called for the redistribution of Canada’s oil production. It was unpopular in Western Canada because that is where most of the oil in Canada is produced and they felt that the Federal government was intruding on provincial jurisdiction by taking their natural resources.

z. Constitution Act: Prior to 1982, the constitution was a British Act and Canada had to apply to the British Parliament whenever it wanted to amend the constitution. The Constitution act of 1982 removed the need for Britain in this process, thus Canada could change it without permission. The 1982

Constitution also included the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms" which outlined the individual rights each citizen had. It was enacted by Pierre Trudeau in 1982.

/. Globalization: The process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture.