The Thunder of Silence: Oklahoma City Bombing

In April 1995 a shocking event took place in Oklahoma City. Here, Jennifer Dawson looks at the Oklahoma City Bombing and what happened in the years after.

The aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing in April 1995.

Imagine your typical Wednesday morning. The sky is clear, the city's hustling, and it feels like any other day. Then, at exactly 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, the clock stops. A massive boom echoes, like a terrifying thunder clap in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. The nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building shatters into a thousand pieces.

From Normalcy to Nightmare

On this grim day, a truck packed with explosives erupted in front of the building, ripping off its entire north wall. It wasn’t special-effects magic for a movie scene; it was painfully real. The terrifying blast caused a domino effect, damaging and destroying more than 300 buildings in the vicinity. The echo of the blast was not just heard--no--it was felt, reshaping the lives of countless individuals.

Race Against Time

Later that day, and for the agonizing two weeks that ensued, emergency crews from all over the United States swarmed to Oklahoma City; a unified mission to search, rescue and heal tightly wrapped around their hearts. When the dust finally settled, the catastrophic toll was horrific--168 people tragically lost their lives in the blast. Among the victims, 19 were young, innocent children, a day care center their final playground.

Legal Aid Arrived 

Amidst the cardiac trauma, physical injuries weighed heavily on survivors. More than 650 people endured the searing agony of burns and injuries; the scars etched on their bodies a permanent reminder of the nightmare. This isn't just important, it’s crucial to know that in this sea of chaos, the Oklahoma City Burn Injury Attorneys emerged as unsung heroes. They fought tooth and nail for survivors and families affected, against the negligence that led to such life-altering burn injuries.

Journey of Justice: From the Boom to the Gavel

Fast forward to 1997; Timothy McVeigh stands trial, with a storm of 11 counts brewing against him. A gauntlet of charges for the mastermind behind the heinous act, the darkest day of '95. On June 2, the ax fell – guilty on all accounts, and by August 14, the bell tolled for McVeigh as the death penalty was formally imposed. A chilling message echoed through the courtroom: justice isn't just served, it's etched into history.

The Silent Spectator

When the dust settled, another player emerged from the shadows: Fortier, an Army buddy of McVeigh. His crime? Spectating the gruesome plan from the sidelines, never once warning the boys in blue. By 1998, Fortier was sporting a not-so-fashionable jumper, sentenced to 12 years behind bars. He walked out a free man in 2007, slipping into the shroud of the witness protection program – a Phantom of the Oklahoma Opera.

Nichols: From Conspiracy to Convictions 

Meanwhile, Terry Nichols waited for his moment in the spotlight. December 1997, guilty as charged on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. Nichols, however, was not done with the courtroom battles. A 2004 state trial ended with him facing a mountain of convictions – 161 counts of first-degree murder, including fetal homicides. He was handed down a lifetime behind bars – well, 161 to be precise.

McVeigh's Final Bow

Backstage, McVeigh had his own finale planned. In December 2000, he requested termination of all appeals of his convictions and an execution date. The federal judge granted this final act, and on June 11, 2001, McVeigh exited the world's stage via lethal injection. He was the first federal prisoner to be executed since 1963 – a fitting end to the puppet master of terror.

The Phoenix from the Ashes

The demolished Murrah Building became a silent witness to the dark chapter of '95. In its place now stands the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum – a beacon of hope, resilience and testament to the indomitable spirit of Oklahomans.

Let us know your thoughts below.

When did the First World War Really End?

The very question as to when the First World War ended may appear an unnecessary question as the accepted date as November 1918 is firmly imprinted on our memories in those nations that gather for Remembrance Sunday to observe a respectful two-minute silence. However, the intention is not to rewrite history or challenge historians. When we examine other factors in some more detail the answer may not be so definitive. There may be alternative dates that can stretch the timeline as to when the Great war finally was concluded.

Steve Prout explains.

The so-called ‘Big Four’ at the Paris Peace Conference, May 27, 1919. Left to right: Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Great Britain), Prime Minister Vittorio Emanuele Orlando (Italy), Premier Georges Clemenceau (France), President Woodrow Wilson (USA).

Continuing battles

The armistice of November 1918 did not bring the fighting to an immediate end. It continued for limited periods elsewhere around the world and in isolated pockets in Europe. The First World War in terms of battles and bloodshed was mainly fought on European soil, but it did extend because of colonial extension on a more limited scale in the Pacific, Middle East, and Africa. The African theatre continued days after the November armistice. A typical telegram sent to east Africa from Europe could take up to a full day to arrive before it could be actioned upon, and this was what exactly happened in German East Africa.

The allies had anticipated that there would be delays and therefore in advance of the armistice, on 10 November, the British General Staff sent a telegram to east Africa asking them for the quickest way to get a message to Von Lettow-Vorbeck, the commanding officer of the German colonial army. He was an exceptional German officer who had been successfully fighting and evading the Allies for four years. Vorbeck had his forces scattered over the vast territories of German East Africa and so reaching him and co-ordinating a truce would be a logistical challenge. On November 12, the day after the armistice, the two sides clashed again, and on that day Von Lettow-Vorbeck only received the telegram that the war had now ended after the battle. The two sides declared a truce, and Von Lettow-Vorbeck formally surrendered at Abercorn, Zambia on November 25, 1918, therefore extending the accepted end date by two weeks.

The Peace Treaties

An armistice is only a ceasefire and only a when a treaty is signed with the conditions determined can war be formally concluded - at least formally. Another interesting angle is to consider the dates and the timelines that these actual treaties were signed. Treaties for multiple participants and belligerents take time to finalize. The debates and negotiations for some of these treaties stretched into the early 1920s.

The treaties for the remainder of the Central Powers such as Bulgaria, Austria and Turkey were concluded long after November 1918 - and in fact the very last treaty was signed in 1923 extending diplomatically at least World War One by a further five years. Once Versailles set its uneasy peace with Germany in 1919 the rest of the Central Powers needed to be reckoned with. The order ran as follows: Austria was addressed at St. Germain-En-Laye in September 1919 and in November 1919 at Neuilly Bulgaria followed suit. In June 1920, a treaty was set with Hungary in Trianon and the first of two treaties with Turkey followed in August of that year in Sevres. It would not be until July 1923 at Lausanne that the Turkish matter would be finally settled and with that finally bringing the war to its diplomatic and formal conclusion.

The peculiarities continue because in the case of Costa Rica, who declared war on Germany, a peace agreement for the First World War was not signed until 1945 due to a diplomatic oversight. It is interesting how many of our past wars are technically continuing in forgotten diplomatic archives.

Demobilisation and preparing for war?

The announcement of the armistice did not bring a settling feeling to post war Europe. Underlying tensions still existed and in the forefront of the allies minds there was a prospect of the war being resumed. Although the German Army was at the point of exhaustion in November 1918 it had not actually been decisively beaten. There was only a tentative ceasefire in place until peace terms could be settled. The demobilization of British, colonial, and imperial troops did not finish until 1920 so in a sense a war footing was maintained. This was much longer than service members had anticipated and was not welcomed by many, causing mutiny in some instances. They did realize they might be called upon to fight again but fortunately the hostilities did not resume.

However, it was not just the fear of a return to arms in Europe that delayed demobilization. There were huge challenges like transporting millions of dominion troops home. There was the immense administrative burden on a scale never seen before that contributed to the enormity of the task. Events abroad also influenced the issue as Britain and France required a military presence to maintain order in their wider Empires, especially for Britain in the Middle East and Ireland where dissent was growing and needed containing. There was also the question of Russia and the fear of the spread of Bolshevism from Lenin’s revolutionary fervour. The fear was so great that a combined allied force from Britain, Commonwealth, US, Italy, France, and Japan were deployed between 1919 and 1920 in strategic areas of Russia in what is known as the War of Intervention. Interestingly the armistice agreement also included the requirement for German troops to remain in the Baltics to also assist and contain the Bolshevik spread. Europe was still not free from the effects and uncertainties of the war and Poland would soon join the fight against Russia in a grab for territory. Old allies and adversaries were still fighting in various limited forms.

Conclusion

The post war settlements were far from being settling and they planted the seeds for future wars as the likes of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and other newly formed states would be dissatisfied with their new borders. This was also suspected and known by the participants of the time. Some diplomats such as Smuts, and preceptive journalists and intellectuals like John Maynard Keynes could almost predict this happening. Perhaps the best example was as the famous illustration by William Orpen who produced the famous cartoon depicting a child crying at the prospect of a war within twenty years of the 1919 Versailles Treaty.

In answer to our question as to when World War One ended symbolically it will always remain with November 1918 when the general desire for peace brought about in the main a cessation of hostilities - but if we want to be technical we can stretch that date anywhere between 1918 and 1923 (although there are also unreconciled declarations of war sat lost in diplomatic archives). The case of Costa Rica signing her treaty in 1945 brings forth an interesting point as to how many other conflicts sit in a similar state of limbo? Are there any nations still technically at war since 1918 with the central powers due to diplomatic oversight? This is certainly true of modern times. Citing a study of war, Quincy Wright observed that from the end of World War Two up to 1970 (when the actual study was conducted) that over thirty-four conflicts just ended with an armistice or ceasefire and not by formal treaty. It makes an interesting trip into the annals of our accepted history - and perhaps history is not as absolute as we imagine.

When do you think the Great War ended? Let us know below.

Now read about Britain’s relationship with the European dictators during the inter-war years here.

Sources

AJP Taylor - English History 1914-45 and Origins of The Second World War

British policy and Bulgaria, 1918-1919. Treanor, Patrick Joseph; (1999) British policy and Bulgaria, 1918-1919. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D.), University College London. 

Europe of The Dictators 1919-1945 -Elizabeth Wiskeman- Collins 1966

Chronicles of Twentieth Century – 1987 - Longman

The Battle of Blair Mountain: Mine Wars

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of years of bitter labor disputes between miners and coal companies of southern West Virginia. Here, Richard Bluttal explains what caused the dispute and how it evolved.

A coal miner with his rifle at the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Since the late 1800s, the coalfields of the West Virginia’s Mingo, Logan and McDowell Counties had operated under a repressive company town system. Workers mined using leased tools and were paid low wages in company currency, or “scrip,” which could only be used at company stores. Safety conditions were often deplorable, yet despite the efforts of groups such as the United Mine Workers (UMW), the mine operators had kept unions out of the region through intimidation and violence. Companies compelled their workers to sign so-called “yellow dog contracts” pledging not to organize, and they used armies of private detectives to harass striking miners and evict them from their company-owned homes.

The hostilities only ramped up in 1920, when the UMW finally started to organize workers in Mingo County. On May 19 of that year, members of the Baldwin-Felts detective agency arrived in the town of Matewan to evict union miners from houses owned by the Stone Mountain Coal Company. After catching wind of the detectives’ activities, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and a pro-union sheriff named Sid Hatfield raised a small posse and confronted them near the local train station. A verbal argument quickly escalated into a gunfight, and when the smoke cleared, seven Baldwin-Felts agents had been killed along with Mayor Testerman and two local miners.

The so-called “Matewan Massacre” galvanized support for the UMW, which collected new members and organized a strike in the summer of 1920. The coal companies responded by bringing in non-union replacement workers, and over the next several months, the two sides engaged in a fierce guerilla war. “Murder by laying in wait and shooting from ambush has become common,” Mingo County’s sheriff wrote in May 1921.

Tipping point

The tipping point in the “Mine War” finally came on August 1, 1921, when Sheriff Sid Hatfield was shot dead by Baldwin-Felts agents as he entered the McDowell County Courthouse. The assassination outraged the miners, who considered Hatfield a hero for his involvement in the Matewan shootout. Within days, thousands of union supporters had flocked to the outskirts of Marmet, a small town located near the state capital of Charleston. Led by UMW organizers Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, they resolved to march on Mingo County to confront the coal companies and free the union men imprisoned in the area. Many of the marchers were World War I veterans, and they came armed to the teeth with military-issue Springfield rifles and shotguns. “It is time to lay down the bible and take up the rifle,” miner and Baptist reverend John Wilburn declared.

The miners’ route to Mingo required them to pass through Logan County, a coal company stronghold ruled by an anti-union sheriff named Don Chafin. Upon learning of the march, Chafin scraped together a 3,000-strong army of state police, deputies and citizen militiamen and prepared for a fight. “No armed mob will cross the Logan County line,” he proclaimed. Chafin and his supporters had soon constructed a network of machine gun nests and trenches around Blair Mountain, a 2,000-foot peak that stood directly in the miners’ path.

On August 24, the main body of coal miners set out from Marmet and headed south toward Mingo County. Keeney and Mooney made a last-minute attempt to call off the march after meeting with the War Department’s General Harry Bandholtz, who warned that any violence would prove disastrous for the union, but the proposed ceasefire collapsed when two miners died in a skirmish with Chafin’s forces. By August 28, some 10,000 union men had massed near the border of Logan County and begun trading gunfire with company supporters. To distinguish one another in the dense forests, many of the miners tied red handkerchiefs around their necks. They soon became known as the “Red Neck Army.”

The first heavy fighting in the Battle of Blair Mountain began on August 31, when a group of around 75 miners led by Reverend Wilburn stumbled across some of Chafin’s “Logan Defenders” on a wooded ridge. Each side asked the other for a password and received the wrong answer, prompting a shootout that killed three deputies and one miner. That same day, the main army of miners commenced a two-pronged assault on Chafin’s trenches and breastworks. Scores of union men streamed up the mountainside, but despite their superior numbers, they were repeatedly driven back by the defenders, who riddled them with machine gun fire from the high ground.

The miners made more progress when the battle was renewed on September 1. That morning, a detachment of union men assaulted a spot called Craddock Fork with a Gatling gun looted from a coal company store. Logan forces fought back with a machine gun, but after three hours of heavy fire, their weapon jammed. The miners surged forward and briefly broke the defensive line, only to be repulsed by a fusillade of bullets from a second machine gun nest located further up the ridge.

For the rest of the day, the hills and hollows echoed with gunfire as the union men repeatedly attacked the defenders’ lines. “Machine guns cracked up there so you would think the whole place was coming down on you,” miner Ira Wilson later recalled. At one point in the battle, the din also included the sound of falling bombs. Sheriff Chafin had chartered three private biplanes and equipped them with teargas and pipe bombs loaded with nuts and bolts for shrapnel. The planes dropped the homemade explosives over two of the miners’ strongholds but failed to inflict any casualties.

End of the siege

In the end, the miners’ siege of Blair Mountain was only ended by the arrival of federal troops. A squadron of Army Air Service reconnaissance planes began patrolling the skies on September 1, and by the following day, General Bandholtz had mobilized some 2,100 army troops on the orders of President Warren G. Harding. Scattered fighting continued between the miners and the Logan Defenders until September 4, but most of the men welcomed the government intervention and laid down their weapons. Roughly 1,000 exhausted miners eventually surrendered to the army, while the rest scattered and returned home. It was later estimated that some one million rounds had been fired during the battle. Reports of casualties ranged from as few as 20 killed to as many as 100, but the actual number has never been confirmed.

The Battle of Blair Mountain is now cited as a pivotal chapter in American labor history, but in the short term, it proved to be a crushing defeat for the miners. The state of West Virginia charged Keeney, Mooney and some 20 other union men with treason, and hundreds of others were indicted for murder. Nearly all were later acquitted, but the legal battles emptied the UMWA’s coffers and hindered its organizing efforts. By the end of the decade, only a few hundred miners in West Virginia were still members. The union wouldn’t reclaim the coalfields until the mid-1930s and the Great Depression when workers’ rights to organize were enshrined in New Deal legislation such as the National Industrial Recovery Act.

What do you think of the Battle of Blair Mountain? Let us know below.

Now read Richard’s series of articles on trauma and medicine during war, starting with the American Revolution here.

The Ever-Changing Nature of Britain’s Health

Britain’s health has changed throughout history and what was considered healthy in the past has been proven to be unhealthy today. Some stark examples are that the average life expectancy at a time in nineteenth century Britain for wealthy adults was around 45, while this was lower in the poorer classes, and the percentage of children reaching the age of 5 was much lower in the 19th century than now.

Amy Chandler explains looks at how health and diet has evolved over time.

Sir William Beveridge in 1943.

In society today, individuals are able to take control of their health, if they wish, through the development of apps and trackers that monitor health and lifestyle. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states “social factors, including education, employment status, income level, gender and ethnicity have a marked influence on how healthy a person is”. (1) While the development and innovation of the National Health Service (NHS) in Britain has offered opportunities of free and equal access to medical services, the strain on the economy still limits the capabilities and progress of creating accessible medical treatment for all in Britain. The NHS celebrated 75 years this July and despite the innovations of the health service, the need for funding, treatment and staff equality, limits the good that the service can provide in Britain. This article explores the social, political and economic changes that impacted Britain’s health throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century to the emergence of the NHS.

Diets, health and lifestyle

The industrial revolution between the years 1760 to 1840 created a boom in industry and manual labour employment in major cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and London. This industrial revolution increased social mobility into the cities and a rise of poverty and disease for the working classes. Despite the rise of infectious diseases and poor living and working conditions, the diet of the working class was not as unhealthy as historians once believed. Those who worked in manual employment, such as factories and docks, were constantly active and needed to consume more calories to sustain themselves during long working hours. The majority of the poorer classes ate food that was in season such as fruits, vegetables and less fatty meats. In comparison, wealthy classes weren’t as active and had access to an abundance of food, alcohol and sugary sweets causing rotten teeth and gout.

For the poor, food supplies were uncertain, basic in diet and didn’t provide the nutrients for a healthy body creating a prevalence of malnourished adults and children. Few had access to personal ovens and relied on open-fires, buying hot food out or eating cold meals. There was limited access to cooking utensils, with many households only using one pot for their cooking. This meant that the access and availability of hot food was scarce or expensive.(2) Many relied on buying off-cut pieces of meat that were rotting or poor quality, and these meals were small and far between. The upper classes indulged in dinners with several courses and had access to the freshest qualities of meat. Usually, household cooks would order their meats, fish, vegetables and other ingredients on the day that they were needed to ensure fresh meals, whereas the poor did not have access to the same expensive food. Furthermore, the overindulgence of rich and decadent food created a rise in obesity amongst the men of the upper class. The obese, rich male figure was seen as a symbol of high status and a display of their wealth because they could afford an abundance of sweet and fatty foods. Wealthy women were not usually obese due to the beauty standards of society, where women wore tight corsets and were expected to be fragile and thin. In modern society, the rise and health implications of obesity are impacting on the NHS.

The British Empire increased the transportation and access to many new foods, sugars and a variety of ingredients such as canned fruits and condensed meat. These new foods became widely available and impacted the health of all classes in Britain. Sugar and fatty foods were only previously available to the wealthy, who could afford the price. (3) The rise in consumption of sugar caused damage to the nation’s teeth and a frequent dental complaint reported by 1900 was the inability to chew tough foods, nuts, vegetables and fruits. The fall in nutritional standards impacted future generations, especially during times of army conscription. Furthermore, the living conditions in poverty-stricken areas created a decline in health with poor sanitary conditions, unclean drinking water and the lack of sunlight in urban slums creating a Vitamin D deficiency. The slums had dense, thick fog as a result of pollution and poor air quality, cramped, filled with rubbish, unsanitary living conditions and contaminated drinking water. These areas were also subjected to communicable diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), cholera and smallpox, to name a few. This also created a large gap between the health of the poor and the wealthy. The wealthy were not immune to these illnesses, but were less susceptible to dying of consumption or poor living conditions, but were more likely to suffer heart attacks from their rich and fatty diets. Therefore, the lives of the working class are considered healthier in terms of fitness levels, eating less fatty and sugary foods, but on the flipside many lived in unsanitary housing, likely to become unwell from the spread of fatal diseases in crowded areas and many could not access medical care.

London’s pollution also contributed to a number of respiratory health conditions coupled with the turn of the century popularity of smoking. The rise of smoking in the 1880s with the growth of industrial cigarette production created accessibility to cigarettes. The preference to using snuff declined and was replaced with cigarettes which was only encouraged during the first and second world war when soldiers were sent cigarettes in their rations. The commercialisation of smoking was seen as a good habit for people and was most commonly used by King George VI to overcome his stutter. The lack of medical knowledge on cancers and what caused these diseases meant that many became addicted to smoking without knowing or understanding the impact on their health. It is only in recent history that the UK government has attempted to tackle smoking in the population, with their strategic plan towards a ‘smoke-free generation’ in England.

The formation of the NHS

After the devastating impact of the Second World War, the health of the nation was deteriorating with rationing, war injuries and the economic burden of the war effort. These factors emphasised the long-term need for a strategy to strengthen the country. The British government needed to find a solution to improve the nation’s health, strengthen the economy and navigate post-war life. In December 1942, Sir William Beveridge compiled a report, Social Insurance and Allied Services, on the health of the nation. Beveridge’s report identified the five evils that permeated society; disease, want, ignorance, squalor and idleness.(4)  In a Parliamentary debate in 1944, Members of Parliament (MPs) suggested the NHS would be a “comprehensive and unified health service for the people”, which is part of a “process of reshaping the background of individual life” in Britain. (5) The NHS was seen as a “counter-process to all the destructiveness of war”. (5)

Throughout history, class and wealth defined people’s health, diet, lifestyle and quality of life and these differences were a continual reminder of social hierarchy. However, war was an equaliser that did not discriminate. Every member of society was impacted from conscription, bombing raids and the emotional and physical scars of war. Arguably those with money could live comfortably and safely, but everyone was equal with a collective desire for the war to end. Services that offered medical treatment like charities were fragmented and not unified. Therefore, there was a sense of openness to the idea of a national health service that was for the many not the few, however there was still opposition to a free health service. As stated in a Parliamentary debate, the service was “no scheme [designed] for giving charity to individuals or state help to particular classes or groups” and it “does not concern itself with poverty or wealth.” (5) This was a scheme that aimed at raising the nation’s health to a “higher plane and keep it there.” (5) This was a step towards equality in post-war Britain under the Welfare State. Under the umbrella of the Welfare State, each member of society was expected to pay a contributory amount of money as National Insurance. (4) The reason that Beveridge insisted on National Insurance was to ensure that the NHS did not damage an individual’s sense of pride, independence and personal responsibility. (4) The NHS created a sense of accountability for one’s health and offered the opportunity for those in poverty to better themselves.

The NHS was officially formed in July 1948 and 75 years later, the NHS is still providing a variety of care and treatment to the public. However, the nation’s health is not where it could be, the COVID-19 pandemic placed a strain on public health services and was economically struggling. NHS workers are striking for better pay and working conditions, while patients are placed on waiting list months in advance. Health issues such as smoking, obesity and mental health are areas that still need improvement, coupled with the changes in lifestyle. Many people work remotely and are not commuting in the same way causing a change in routine and in some cases causing a negative impact on their health. The introduction of the NHS in 1948 was a massive step forward in improving the nation’s health that came after education and housing reforms that cleared the slum areas, that were bombed heavily during the blitz.  Since 1948, many have benefitted from the treatment, care and expertise of health care professionals.

Conclusion

The perception of health has changed throughout history and one treatment that was once seen as effective is now seen as poisonous or ineffective. Illness was prevalent in all areas of society but the type of diseases differed depending on the living conditions, diet, lifestyle and access. What was once seen as healthy, such as smoking is now widely acknowledged as severely damaging to health and quality of life. The advancement in technology in identifying risks to increasing disease and health implications is far greater than in the past. The formation of the NHS was a changing point for Britain’s health and the desire to offer medical treatment to all classes of society in a bid for health equality. Historians often present the poor and working classes as malnourished and in poor health, however in the modern standards exercise and eating less sugar is seen as ideal and due to their lack of accessibility to fatty foods and sugar they were less susceptible to high cholesterol and other illnesses. The health and lifestyle of the working class should not be romanticised as a healthy way to live, as they were far from healthy. A digital age has allowed for more accountability, responsibility and opportunity to take our health into our own hands through fitness apps, healthy recipe boxes and ways to monitor our bodies through forms of artificial intelligence (AI). Progress is still slow in solving major health issues such as cancer, but the rise of technology can provide new ways of treating, curing and progressing our health.

What do you think of Britain’s health over time? Let us know below.

Now read Amy’s article on the history of medicine at sea here.

References

1. WHO, ‘Health inequities and their causes’, 22 February 2018, World Health Organisation, Available at < https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in-pictures/detail/health-inequities-and-their-causes > [accessed 27 July 2023].

2. A. Whol, ‘What the Poor ate’, July 2022, VictorianWeb, Available at <        https://victorianweb.org/science/health/health8.html >[accessed 27 July 2023].

3. P. Clayton., and J. Rowbotham, ‘How the mid- Victorians worked, ate and died’, Int J Environ Res Public Health, vol. 6 (2009). Available at < https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2672390/ >[accessed 31 July 2023].

4. The National Archives, ‘1940’s origin of the Welfare State’, 2023, The Cabinet Papers, Available at < https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1940-origins-welfare-state.htm >[accessed 1 August 2023].

5. HC Deb, 16 March 1944, vol 398, cols 428 - 429.

The German Revolution of 1918: A Failed Revolt

The origins of the 1918-19 German Revolution, or the November Revolution, can be traced back to the face of hubris of the German hereditary system: Wilhelm II. A fierce arms race with Britain covered in German chauvinism threatened the might of the Royal Navy and escalated World War One into the global conflict that it was, whilst defeat in the Great War divided the Kaiser’s subjects. Plagued with mutinies and insubordination, contrasting with the pride of soldiers spouting the stab in the back myth, the First World War provided an intense battleground for an intense battle between democracy and autocracy that fundamentally transformed the German political society.

Tom Cowling explains.

Leftist soldiers during fighting in the Berlin City Palace in 1918 as part of the German Revolution. Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1976-067-30A / CC-BY-SA 3.0, available here.

World War One

Armed with 5 naval laws aimed at threatening British dominance of the seas, the Kaiser and his court were gearing up for war. Totalling hundreds of new ships, and an increase of 136,000 in the army in 1912 (1), the naval laws forced Britain and her allies into creating formal alliances in the face of German hostility. Britain had alliances with Japan, Russia, and France. War was inevitable. Victories in the east against a flailing Russian Empire proved irrelevant by the time the American Expeditionary Forces landed in Europe. With hundreds of thousands of men entering Europe each month from the US, the German army was simply awaiting its fate. On the domestic front, the origins of a revolutionary movement were brewing as it became evident that this war was one of imperialism, with Germany occupying vast swathes of Eastern Europe. A split in the SPD, which had initially supported the war effort, saw the establishment of the Independent Socialists, fundamentally opposed to war. Led by the far-left Spartacists, there was a wave of strikes in January 1918, forcing a declaration of martial law (1). The age of insubordination had begun, and a fierce sense of chaos had swept across Germany.

At President Wilson’s indirect request, Germany made itself a constitutional monarchy and kickstarted the Revolution from Above. Governmental positions were granted to members of the Reichstag rather than the Kaiser’s comrades (1). The chancellor was made responsible to the Reichstag, whilst war could not be declared without parliament’s approval (1). His abdication came in November, at the insistence of Wilson’s men (1). The empire had shifted from a feared titan in Europe to a republic at the mercy of democracy. Friedrich Ebert, moderate SPD politician, was named chancellor (1). Wilson and his 14 points had established upheaval in Germany.

The start

Indiscipline marked the beginning of the Revolution from below; the new republic’s first threat to its existence. The left had an insatiable appetite for dictatorship, authoritarianism and control – the gravity of the situation was profound. Orders for an arrogant, and unwinnable, attack on the Royal Navy inevitably culminated in mutinies, which spread unstoppably to numerous ports on the Baltic Sea. With the military refusing to accept orders of the state, revolution was imminent. Communists seized power in Bavaria and workers’ councils snatched control of fourteen cities within days (2). Germany was on the brink of collapse, and submission to the left. Masses gathered in the capital as Karl Liebknecht, a key antagonist of democracy and prominent figure in the Spartacist League, stood on the Reichstag balcony and unabashedly called for a socialist republic (2). In a flurry of panic, the Freikorps, a paramilitary group of veterans desensitised by the experiences of war with loyalties firmly resting on the Kaiser, were sent in by Ebert to quell such left-wing dissent (1). Spartacist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were executed for their revolutionary crimes (2). Their revolution had failed completely to build up the necessary foundations of an undemocratic, communist system. But efforts to change Germany into the ultra-democratic state it existed under in the Weimar Republic were successful enough that the political, governmental and constitutional framework of Germany was revolutionised following the events of 1918.

Success or failure?

From a Marxist perspective, the revolution was an abject failure. Capitalist institutions remained firmly in place, and the bourgeois tendencies of the army raged on. Democracy was entrenched in the new Weimar constitution, with proportional representation and universal suffrage (1). The results of 1918 were a far cry from Marx’s ideal of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Germany was well and truly a liberal state with institutional rejection of communist beliefs. Capitalism was central to the workings of Weimar democracy, with unions making agreements with industrialists not to cause disruption to production – the German workers were barred from seizing the means of production. Industrialists such as Hugo Stinnes presided over a huge amount of German industrial production in the new Germany, much to the dismay of Marxists. To the far-left in Germany, the events of 1918 served only to be scorned at as useless incremental change.

To the social democrats amongst the left in Germany, the revolution and its impact was a resounding success. They had swept away an antiquated system that kept people under the thumb of the monarch, and truly suppressed the will of the people that social democracy so desires. The left, in the form of the SPD, had power, with Ebert as chancellor, and the political extremes had been dealt with. The military system in Germany was committed to upholding democracy, having made deals with Ebert in return for the suppression of violent, extremist uprisings. The Freikorps were a reliable group to counteract left-wing rebellions, albeit through near insanity, but they would never let Germany fall to the communists, as they proved in the crushing of the rebellion that they contributed so significantly to. Democrats across Germany were undoubtedly intoxicated by the newfound democracy the new republic had in such abundance.

The right was naturally infuriated by the news of political change. The conservative doctrine couldn’t accept such sweeping changes, and such a rejection of ‘stability’. They had lost their deity in the form of the emperor, and had surrendered control and power to their natural enemy in the form of the centre-left. Despite this attack on the conservative order in Germany, they begrudgingly accepted the new political framework. They were protected from democratization of the army (1) which meant the most adored, to conservatives, institution was left alone from the transformation underwent in 1918. In spite of the rejection of nationalism by the new government, and the armistice, the conservative right more or less accepted the position they found themselves in.

Conclusion

To many aligning themselves with the political extremes, the revolution was something to look upon with great disdain. Marxists and conservatives alike were sworn enemies of democracy, and both looked upon the revolution as a ‘failure’. But the democrats won. They won democracy and they won freedom from the Kaiser, whilst winning power. To them, the revolution was a blessing, and saw them get what they wanted. As Marxists didn’t get enough change, and conservatives got far too much, social democrats in Germany were granted their wish of democracy and accountability as a direct result of the 1918 revolution.

What do you think of the 1918 German Revolution? Let us know below.

Bibliography

1. Kitchen, M. (2006) A History of Modern Germany 1800-2000. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

2. Sewell, R. (2018) The German Revolution of 1918, In Defence of Marxism. Available at: https://www.marxist.com/the-german-revolution-of-1918.htm (Accessed: 24 July 2023)

The Longest Railway in the World: How the Trans-Siberian Railway was Built

The Trans-Siberian railway was an 8,400km track that was built upon the desire to unite Russia under a single culture and to strengthen the autocratic rule of the Tsar. The idea of building a railway into Siberia was toyed with in the mid-1870s, mainly proposing short routes into Siberia. The Russo-Turkish War put a halt on the development of any railways as funding was diverted to the war effort. Then 10 years later and after the finances of Russia had recovered from the war, discussions had returned. The proposed ideas however were much grander; a train route spanning the entire continent connecting east to west. This was fueled by a new director and the Tsar’s desire to make sure his autocratic rule reached every corner of his empire. This led to the idea of the Trans-Siberian railway coming to fruition.

Kyle Brett explains.

Construction work on the Eastern Siberian Railway near Khabarovsk, circa 1895.

Origins of the Idea for a Railway

The idea of a railway connecting East and West Russia was proposed in the 1870s to connect Siberia to European Russia. This idea was proposed by an American entrepreneur Perry McDonough Collins, to the Minister of Transport Communications, Konstantin Nikolayevich Posyet. Collins wanted to connect America to Russia via telegraph and proposed a route to do that to Posyet. Posyet liked this idea as he was ambitious to develop the far east, but the state had neither the finances nor the infrastructure to facilitate this project.

The Russian state in the latter half of the 1870s decided that the minerals and political benefits of building a railway into Siberia were beneficial and had decided on a short route from Nizhny Novgorod to Tyumen. Posyet had originally proposed a similar length railway to the north and saw this as the Russian state disregarding his position as Minister of Transportation. None of this would matter in the end because of the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War in 1877 which shut down all state-sponsored railways. The state diverted a majority of its finances to the war effort, which left Posyet with the satisfaction of not having to build the railway he disagreed with. The unfortunate side effect of this war was that the war spending combined with the poor harvests in the early 1880s hurt the Russian ruble delaying discussions about a Trans-Siberian Railway until 1884.

In 1881 Alexander III would take power from his father Alexander II after he was assassinated by a socialist terrorist group. His father had passed many radically liberal laws and that had made him a target. Alexander III would spend his time as Tsar undoing many of these liberal reforms and reestablishing Autocratic rule over Russia. One of his main focuses was on Siberia and how he could unite and spread Russification and Autocratic rule throughout Russia. Upon hearing Posyet’s proposal for a Trans-Siberian railway stretching from Samara to Vladivostok he decided that was the best way to accomplish his goals.

The Borki Train Disaster

On October 29, 1888, Alexander III and his family were traveling on the Kursk–Kharkov mainline from Crimea to St. Petersburg when a combination of speeding and faulty track line caused the train to derail from the track at a high speed. After the dust had settled Alexander saw that his family was trapped under the collapsed roof of his dining car. He lifted the collapsed roof of his train car allowing his family to escape with none of them injured. In total around 20 people died and around 15 more were injured in the derailment. The trauma from this crash is what caused Alexander’s kidney failure and his eventual death.

The blame for the crash did not go to the railway manager Sergei Witte, but rather to the Russian government. Alexander wanted to close this case as quickly as possible, and this led to Posyet stepping down from his position as Transportation Manager. The man to replace him would be Sergei Witte. Imperial officials had chastised him prior to the crash, telling him that only the lines he manages are slow and all the other lines run at express speed. His response was he would prefer to not bash in the head of the emperor by increasing the speed of his rail lines. This interaction is why he was chosen to replace Posyet as Minister of Transportation.

The Project Begins

In March 1891 the Russian government announced its plan to build a railway that spanned all of Siberia. They broke ground in Vladivostok a few months later and the building of the railway was underway. The head of the project was Sergei Witte who in the years after the Borki Train disaster had risen in popularity in the government, moving his way up the chain of command. In 1892 he was selected to become the Minister of Finance, on top of being the Minister of Transportation. He would use these positions of power to turn the clunky and slow bureaucracy of the Russian government into a well-oiled machine.

His first order of business was to create the Committee for the Siberian Railroad. This committee was created with one goal in mind; to fast-track decisions that would have been slowed by the clunky bureaucracy. It would accomplish these goals by getting approval from a higher power, like the Tsar, and would then go around local administrators to keep the project moving. This ensured that the project would be kept going at a steady pace.

Witte, as Finance Minister, also had a great way to finance the building of the railway; he could raise taxes as high as the project demanded. As a result, he neglected his position as finance minister, disregarding complaints, and concerns from the peasantry as he was laser-focused on building the railway. Alexander would also turn a blind eye to these affairs as Witte got results which were good enough for him to not intervene.

The Material Cost of the Largest Railway

The Committee for the Siberian Railway had a massive challenge in solving the problem of how to get this immense amount of materials to the far reaches of Siberia. Their solution was to utilize rivers to Transport the materials to the building sites. Many of the rivers would not support the size of the boats used to move the materials. The Committee decided that the rivers were to be widened and strengthened to accommodate these boats. There was a lot of special attention placed upon Lake Baikal because of its immense size, being the deepest lake in the world, and because it would also be used to Transport materials in the near future. They surveyed weather conditions, all the port facilities on the lake, and how the ice formed on the lake to better understand how to utilize the lake for material Transportation.

Production of the railway parts was originally to be done in Siberia for convenience. Witte soon discovered that Siberia had nowhere enough infrastructure to accommodate a project of that size. The production was outsourced to Western Russia, the UK, and Poland. This meant that it took longer for the materials to arrive at the rail lines as they had to travel as far as the UK to make it into deep Siberia.

The Labor committed to the project was also quite immense, estimated by the Committee for the Siberian Railway at anywhere between 57,000 to 80,000 workers that migrated to Siberia to assist in the building. Much of the labor was from Russia, but some of it came from China. There was a good amount of convict labor utilized as well. These convicts were not treated fairly, however, and would be harassed by their leaders routinely. As for bad conditions, many of the laborers would sleep on the cold ground right up until the ground would freeze. Then when it got too cold the Committee would send people out to build mud huts for people to live in. This, as one can imagine, led to many deaths from the harsh elements. It also made it hard for laborers to do complex tasks like building bridges and utilizing dynamite to make way for tracks to be placed.

The Final Stretch

Through all the harsh conditions by 1898, the track was mostly complete. The track began in Moscow, ran to Lake Baikal then a 4-hour ferry ride across the Lake to the next station which was in Ulan-Ude. From here the train went straight through Chinese Manchuria to Vladivostok. To solve the problem of the rail line going through China a different route from Ulan-Ude to Vladivostok was built along the Amur River. This rail line did not leave Russian territory and allowed for passage to Vladivostok without the need of entering Chinese territory in the event of a territory dispute. The desire to keep the railway in Russia resulted in the Amur River route being completed in 1904.

Then in 1904 development of the Railway would hasten with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. The Circum Baikal route around the lake was still being brainstormed, some ideas had been played around with getting around the treacherous terrain that surrounds the lake, but nothing definitive had come to fruition. With the outbreak of the war, the need to utilize the railway to move troops and supplies around lake Baikal became apparent. The only way to circumnavigate the lake was with 2 steam ships that took 4 hours to cross Lake Baikal. However, the 2 steamships, one a freight car hauler and one a passenger vessel, were not enough to accommodate the large amount of movement needed to move an army across Russia. The ships were also stuck when the water froze over, rendering them useless. Some solutions to this problem were presented, the most popular being sledges that towed supplies to the Ulan-Ude station on the other side of the lake. There were attempts to build a track straight on the ice, but the first attempt to put a locomotive on the ice caused it to go straight through, plunging into the depths of the lake. This further reinforced sledges as the solution to the problem.

The terrain on the shores of Lake Baikal was treacherous to build a track onto. It was rocky and rigid and had cliffs that were very dangerous to work on. The original plan was to make tunnels through the rocks to the other side, but when it was decided it would take around 30 tunnels to have a place to lay track it was decided that the track would be built along the shore. To make enough progress to lay track along the rocky terrain in one day it took an entire cart of dynamite. This ground down progress to an extremely slow pace, even with the hastening of progress from the Russo-Japanese War. The track, however, was eventually completed in 1905, finally connecting East and West Russia and completing the largest Railway in the world.

What do you think of the Trans-Siberian Railway? Let us know below.

Sources

Marks, Steven G. Road to power: The Trans-Siberian railroad and the colonization of Asian Russia: 1850-1917. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Tupper, Harmon. To the Great Ocean: Siberia and the Trans-Siberian railway. Brown & Company, 1965.

Africa in the Cold War: The Biggest Battlefield between the Soviets and the US?

Africa held an important place in the Cold War. Hardly had the nations there freed themselves from colonial bondage than they were suddenly made into a battlefield. It was here that the United States and Russia, who did not dare fight on a Europe that had already shed so much blood, fought for supremacy. The Soviet Union tried to appeal to Africans as fellow revolutionaries and paraded capitalism as the enemy. However, the new leaders understood that the Soviet Union would merely absorb Africa into a new colonial empire. Kennedy, though, appealed to the Africans’ newfound taste for democracy. These conflicts met head-on in the Congo Crisis, and the clashes, unlike in much of the rest of the world, were bloody.

Ayrton Avery explains.

US President Richard Nixon meets President Mobutu Sese Seku of Zaire in 1973 in the White House.

Tempting Ideologies

As soon as Ghana achieved independence in 1957, the people were turning to socialism. Guinea, which was also led to independence the following year, followed suit. The Soviet Union viewed these countries as a gold mine. They found similarities between Russian and African history, and thought the subsequent implementation of communism was only logical. However, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s president, viewed things differently. He preferred a version of socialism that emphasized pan-Africanism, though he admired Russia’s ideology of Marxism-Leninism. This became the reason that the Russians had to fight for Africa, using diplomacy or otherwise.

Much later, during the Portuguese Colonial War (1961-1974) in Angola, Kennedy was tempted to take the stand against the colonizers, probably because he feared Soviet influence in that region. Like the Russians, he tried to appeal to the Africans ideologically. He preached anti-communist and democracy, at one point even meeting with the Angolan politician Holden Roberto. However, Africans viewed the United States as a colonial power and Europeans feared the Angolans would still turn communist despite U.S. support. In the end, the U.S. also had to fight for Africa.

Cold War Not-So-Cold

Naturally, clashes made up the Cold War. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the U-2 Incident and others were ways the two powers tried to gain supremacy without resorting directly to the gun. However, this conflict was more than just political, it was also economic. The United States needed money to fund their own wars, while the Soviet Union itself was in an economic downgrade. The two nations saw Africa, rich in resources, as a source of funds and diplomatic superiority.

However, even with this, there was no genuine need for any wars in Africa to turn bloody. But, new African countries took Kwame Nkrumah’s (the first president of Ghana’s) lead in viewing the Soviets as a colonial power. These countries accepted money from both sides, all the while refusing to become allied with either. This, of course, pleased neither the Russians nor the Americans. Eventually, Americans got Guinea and Ghana more or less under their foot. But the Congo, which was a confused bag of warring factions in 1960, and also boasted Iron, Zinc, Copper and Tantalum, was even more tempting.

A Fight for Tantalum

In the Congo, no one was in power. Shortly after gaining its independence, a series of rebellions broke out between ethnic groups and those who supported the colonizers. At first, the United States blamed the socialist leader Lumumba for the fighting and refused to send forces at all. But then, the Soviets intervened in August 1960, setting the stage for yet another clandestine battlefield of the Cold War.

The United States put down the Communist secessionists, but soon new ones appeared, inspired by the Chinese leader Mao Zedong. Belgium and the United States intervened directly this time, realizing the threat. Bloody fighting began, provoked by Russia, China, the U.S., and Belgium, but eventually they crushed the Maoists as well, by the spring of 1965.

Although an authoritarian dictator was put in, ever since, the West, not the Soviet Union, have controlled the Congo and all its exports. The defeat also undermined Soviet influence in Africa, and resulted in most governments handing over power (indirectly) to the West. This was possibly one of the greatest factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Russians lost huge amounts of revenue as African nations slammed the Russians for not providing better support to the rebels. It also did not help that now the U.N. was giving money to the Congo’s corrupted and authoritarian leadership. Once again, the West had won on a major battlefield of the cold war.

Conclusion

Of course, the violence did not end. The Cold War was not yet over. Russia tried, and succeeded somewhat, to gain control in Angola. But the victory was not enough. The West had tightened its grip on the continent far too tight. After the 70s, though, instability in the continent soared. The First Congo War broke out. Then there was the Rwandan genocide. And the Second Congo War broke, leading into the 21st century. Much of the Diamonds and tantalum are now being sold to Russian mercenaries. The West never truly won in Africa, just like in Korea. It was all an illusion. Both powers have rendered the continent more or less useless for their goals.

What do you think of Soviet and America in Africa during the Cold War? Let us know below.

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References

Elizabeth, Schmidt. Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Africa and the Communist World. Stanford University Press, 1963.

Nkrumah, Kwame. Challenge of the Congo. International Publishers, 1967.

William Reno. Warfare in Independent Africa. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Elbaum, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. Verso Books, 2002.

Why are China and Taiwan even Separate? A Tale of Two Chinas - Part 2

A rival nationalist government formed on the island of Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War in 1949. This separation from the communist controlled mainland China has been a source of International tension ever since. Here, Victor Gamma looks at how and why mainland China separated from Taiwan. He continues the series by looking at the Chinese Civil War and how China and Taiwan grew apart.

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong meeting in 1945 in Chongqing, China.

Initially the political left (communist) & right (nationalist) wings of the KMT continued to cooperate in the United Front. But it wasn’t long before the conflict which would ultimately lead to the current China-Taiwan conflict began. On May 30, 1925, a crowd of Chinese students in Shanghai staged an anti-foreign protest at the International Settlement at Shanghai. The incident turned deadly when the Shanghai Municipal Police opened fire on the protesters. This sparked outrage throughout China, including the Canton/Hong Kong Strike. The CCP reaped the greatest benefit from these events and attracted many members. Conservatives and moderates grew alarmed at the growing power of the leftists. Right and left also clashed over policy: the left pushed the strike while the Nationalists wanted to end the strike because much of their financial support was coming from foreign trade. Moreover, Chiang was trying to consolidate his control in anticipation of the coming campaign to unify China and did not want political disunity in the ranks. For this reason, as well as suspicion of a possible communist take-over of the Nationalist movement, on March 20, in what is called the Canton Coup, he purged communist elements from the Nationalist army. Chiang moved to limit the fallout from the purge by taking actions to conciliate the Soviets and the remaining leftists. He still desired Soviet support as well as help from the CCP for the campaign fight against the warlords.  

Shortly thereafter, Chiang launched his long - awaited campaign against the warlords. By March, 1927 Chiang had taken Nanjing. Here the fall of the city was accompanied by widespread looting and rioting with foreign warships bombarding the city. This led to conflict between Nationalists and communists. Chiang believed that the Russians and communists instigated the riots and stirred up anti-foreign feelings deliberately to increase their own power and weaken the KMT. Therefore, on April 12, 1927 he ordered the violent purging of communists in Shanghai. This marked the official beginning of all-out war against the communists and the start of the Chinese Civil War. In addition to Nanjing, the nationalist government had moved to Wuhan. Here leftists took control, acting largely independent of Chiang’s authority. By April the Wuhan government had gone beyond that to actually acting against Chiang. They issued a series of edicts reducing Chiang’s authority. They also began to construct a parallel government in KMT territory.  Chiang clearly could not move forward against the warlords and felt it necessary to halt his advance in order to deal with the communists. This marks a pattern which appeared throughout Chiang’s career; no matter how great the problem, he always placed the communists or internal threats as his greatest threat and would cease all other operations to deal with them. And so in the spring of 1927, he halted the anti-warlord campaign and violently turned on the communists. He began with a purge of communists in Shanghai. 

On August 1, 1927, the Communist Party launched an uprising in Nanchang against the Nationalist government in Wuhan. Around 20,000 communist members of the Kuomintang revolted and took over the city of Nanchang. This incident is called the Nanchang uprising. It resulted in the formation of the People Liberation Army and is still celebrated today as “Army Day.” Ultimately, however, the communists withdrew into a remote location to rebuild their strength. Chiang launched several offensives in an attempt to destroy the communists once and for all, but they managed to elude his pursuing armies to reach the safety of a remote city in Shaanxi Province called Yenan. Once settled in their new base, the communists carried an intensive training and indoctrination program to “correct unorthodox tendencies,” mold the peasantry into the communist model and become an effective force.

Anti-communism

Scholars have debated the reasons that Chiang turned on the communists. There are multiple reasons. Chiang was a reformer but also a traditionalist. Although recognizing the need for modernization, he was deeply connected to the past. He was, in fact, a neo-Confucianist. He was an ardent admirer of Tseng Guo Fan, the 19th century paragon of Confucian virtue. In addition to that, like Chiang, Tseng also was involved in leading the government forces in restoring unity to China through quelling the Taiping Rebellion. One of Tseng’s superiors said  “Taiping Rebellion is a disease of the heart, Russia is a disease of the elbow and axilla, England is a disease of skin; We should exterminate Taiping first, then Russia and England.” Chiang repeated this phrase almost word for word in an interview years later, substituting “Taiping” with “communist” - “Remember, the Japanese are a disease of the skin, but the communists are a disease of the soul.” He was alarmed at ideologies that he felt threatened traditional Chinese culture. Chiang had a chance to observe a communist regime up close when he was in Russia for training and rejected it as an appropriate system of government for China. He felt it to be an alien ideology that undermined Chinese traditions. He attempted to unify China both politically and ideologically. Part of his ideological effort would become the “New Life Movement.” This would be a civic campaign that promoted confucian values as well as cultural reform. It was partly launched as a counter to communist ideology. He also was not interested in sharing power. He believed one of China’s greatest needs at this time was one leader firmly in control. The communists had demonstrated that they would not submit to Chiang. One of the first objectives the communists focused on when they gained power in Wuhan during the Northern Expedition, for instance, was an attempt to strip Chiang of his power.

World War II

The state of civil war continued until 1937, when the Japanese invasion forced the two sides into the Second United Front for the duration of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937- 45) Although technically allies in the struggle against Japan, the Front never functioned as a firm alliance, even at times resembling more a hostile competition than an alliance. In practice, though, cooperation between the two factions was minimal. Chiang, in fact, instead of an aggressive strategy against the Japanese, hoarded his forces for the post-war showdown with the communists.

At the end of World War II, although technically on the winning side, the Nationalists were psychologically the losers in the eyes of many Chinese, especially peasants. They were seen as putting more energy into trying to exterminate the communists than fighting the rapacious foreign invader. Some even blamed Chiang for Japanese depredations by using forces against his internal political foes that could have been used against the Japanese. Chiang, in fact, had to be forced at gunpoint to agree to the Second United Front in the first place. Even before the guns fell silent in 1945, he had lost the war for the hearts and minds of the peasants, who were 90% of the population. His alliance with the mercantile and landowning class helped tie Chiang to conservatism. He had little understanding of the plight of the peasants.  His communist rivals, meantime, worked feverishly and brilliantly to build a powerful following, based largely on peasant support. This included a military force that numbered into the 600,000 range by 1945. While Chiang’s Nationalist movement was riddled with corruption and lack of real reform, the communists won the hearts and minds of vast numbers through the training, land reform and fierce, consistent commitment to the struggle against Japan and whatever injustice the peasants had been traditionally subjected to.

In 1945 both Nationalist and communist forces accepted the surrender of Japanese forces. Sovereignty had been restored, but not unity. Both Chiang and Mao knew that the long-awaited showdown was about to commence. After a brief period of post-war cooperation, the old animosities erupted into civil war again. This time, the communists were the winners. The Nationalists retreated to Taiwan but never surrendered, just as the communists had refused to surrender despite a succession of defeats in the late 1920’s and 1930’s.

After the Civil War

For some time after the Nationalists fled to Taiwan both sides insisted that they were only the official government of China. A strict policy of no contact  followed. Chiang reformed the corrupt Nationalist Party and, with American aid, set Taiwan on the path of economic modernization and growth. After Chiang’s death in 1975, political reforms also took place. By the 1990’s, Taiwan was not only an economic powerhouse but full-fledged democracy. Meanwhile, Taiwan has largely given up its claim to the mainland. In 1991 Taiwan declared that the war with the PRC was over. 

In 2000 Taiwan transitioned to a multi-party democracy when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the presidency. Although the KMT is still important, it now shares power with other parties. The DPP backs full independence so Beijing viewed the election results with alarm. The PRC backed up its disapproval with the "anti-secession law." The law flatly states that Beijing will use force if Taiwan "secedes" by declaring full independence. The DPP returned to power as Tsai Ing-wen, became Taiwan's first female president in 2016. More importantly for the mainland, she is a firm supporter of independence. In words that are sure NOT to warm the heart of Beijing, Tsai declared "Choosing Tsai Ing-wen... means we choose our future and choose to stand with democracy and stand with freedom."   

China has offered a "one country, two systems" scenario in which Taiwan would enjoy significant autonomy while still under Beijing's control. The mainland also would promise not to use force in resolving the issue. Taiwan turned down the proposal.

Differences

Why doesn't Taiwan want to be under Beijing's control?  it has seemed that the two Chinas have drawn closer together, for example beginning in the 1970s the mainland began economic reforms thus it seemed was becoming more similar to Taiwan. However, the mainland did not change the political one-party state and authoritarian regime which is not a democracy. Taiwan, along with the whole world, watched the 1989 Tiananmen square massacre. Hong Kong was promised a "one country, two systems" arrangement in 1997 as China prepared to take back the British Colony. Included was a 50 year promise that Hong Kong would enjoy its capitalist system as well as political freedoms. In 2020, though, Beijing cracked down on basic freedoms with a Security Act that allows the government to punish or silence critics or dissenters. As of this writing, well over a hundred individuals have been arrested for political reasons. Taiwan at one time was an authoritarian dictatorship, it has now diverged even more from communism, evolving into now a free market and a genuine democracy. 

This contemporary dispute reflects China's painful journey from its time-honored ways of old to modernity. A struggle for stability and prosperity and self-respect consumed that nation in the 20th Century. This journey involved the fundamental question of how China should be organized: the nationalist/traditionalist view - which eventually evolved into today's democratic Taiwan, and the communist (with a semi-capitalist economy) vision, now ruling the mainland. These two paths represent the right and left ideologically, one which looked to the West and its liberal traditions and traditional Chinese culture and the other which turned to distinctly antiliberal doctrines of Marx and hostility towards the past. These two approaches struggled over who's vision would succeed. In a sense, then, this struggle has never truly ended and continues to threaten global stability. The world watches to see how far Beijing will go in achieving its goal of one China. 

What do you think of the China and Taiwan separation? Let us know below.

Now read Victor’s article on the explosive history of the bikini here.

References

CHIANG ATTACKS WARLORDS AND REDS - 11. Chiang Attacks Warlords and Reds

Timeline: Taiwan’s road to democracy - Timeline: Taiwan's road to democracy | Reuters

Manipulating the Masses: A Brief History (and Future) of Propaganda

The essence of propaganda is to spread a manipulated message with the aim of influencing the masses. The truth is not the most important thing here.  Over the centuries the tools for making and spreading propaganda have changed quite a bit, but the goal has always remained the same: to influence as many people as possible. Bram Peters explains.

British World War One recruiting poster, 1914.

Already in Roman times, the emperors used propaganda to spread the message throughout the empire who held the power. Roman emperors had themselves portrayed on coins to reach as many citizens as achievable.  In a time without the modern mass media as we know them today, this was quite an effective way to circulate information within an empire the size of the United States (the Mediterranean Sea included). This method is even used to this day: many countries have their heads of state printed on their coins or bills.

The disintegration of the Roman Empire in the early Middle Ages resulted in much more locally oriented society. Cities themselves minted their own coins.  However, the invention of the printing press in the late Middle Ages gave propagandists a whole new opportunity to spread their message.  Texts no longer had to be copied by hand, but could instead be produced by machines.  In addition, the message was proclaimed in the vernacular instead of Latin. This made it possible to reach a much larger audience.

The industrial revolution gave a huge boost to paper production.  With the use of steam engines and the switch from cottonpaper to pulppaper, production costs fell significantly and more people than ever had access to printed information.

20th century

In the twentieth century other mass media made their appearance: radio and film. Sound and motion picture could now be used to spread propaganda.  The Nazi regime is an excellent example of a government that has been able to make optimal use of new technologies.  Famous are the speeches of the specially appointed Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, which the whole country could follow on cheap radios provided by the regime. Citizens could watch propaganda films in cinemas that aimed to influence the masses.  Much attention was paid to national symbolism (with a special role for flags), military parades, cheering crowds worshiping Hitler and theatrical music. In the second half of the twentieth century, the role of film was increasingly taken over by television.  From now on propaganda came straight into the living room.

The Internet made its appearance at the end of the century, revolutionizing the way messages are conveyed to the general public.  Although initially still a fairly static medium, in the twenty-first century the internet has evolved into a platform where new digital technologies have forever changed the way propaganda is created and used.  Smart algorithms offer users personalized content based on their search behaviour.  Manipulation of images in combination with the framing of information has led to the emergence of reporting referred to as fake news.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used to generate deep fake videos capable of making people say things they have never said.  Thanks to AI, anyone with relatively little knowledge can spread propaganda that reaches the entire world. The line between what is real and what is not has become more blurred than ever.

Propaganda has been a way of influencing people for thousands of years.  Propaganda makers want to convince their target group and do not  take the truth too seriously.  What has changed throughout history are the possibilities to reach an ever larger public. With the rise of the internet, the whole world now is the audience.  At the same time, AI is more than ever creating the dilemma of what is real and what isn’t. It is of great importance that young generations learn the purpose of propaganda and how to recognize it.  Who made something and for what reason? Examples from the past can therefore be useful to study. In a time where it is easier than ever to manipulate everything, we all should take an extra critical look at the information presented to us.

What do you think of propaganda history? Let us know below.

Now read Bram’s article on an approach to racism and Black Pete here.

About the author: Bram Peters is an historian from the Netherlands. He has a MA in political history from one of the major Dutch universities, and specialized in national identity and traditions, as well as parliamentary history, the second world war and war propaganda. He worked for years as a curator at one of the largest war museums in the Netherlands. He likes to get involved in public debate by writing articles for national and regional newspapers and websites.

Why are China and Taiwan even Separate? A Tale of Two Chinas - Part 1

A rival nationalist government formed on the island of Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War in 1949. This separation from the communist controlled mainland China has been a source of International tension ever since. Here, Victor Gamma looks at how and why mainland China separated from Taiwan. He starts by looking at early 20th century China.

A 1920s portrait of Sun Yat-sen.

When Vladimir Putin recently claimed that Taiwan belonged to the People's Republic of China (PRC), he triggered a withering rebuke from Taipei. In response to Putin's remarks, the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs fired back, "the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) is an independent, sovereign nation… The ROC and the autocratic PRC are not subordinate to each other. The regime of the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled over Taiwan for one day and does not enjoy any sovereignty over Taiwan'' …The future of Taiwan can only be determined by the Taiwanese people and Taiwan will never surrender to any threats from the PRC government.”

The communist (PRC) regime, on the other hand, like Putin, sees Taiwan as part of its territory. Thus, in their view, they have every right to demand reunification - by force if necessary. Why are there "two China's" anyway? What lies behind this threat to peace that has even Japan ramping up its military muscle? Let’s see what history has to tell us.

Background

The current Taiwan-China conflict grew out of the crisis of the "Century of humiliation" as the Chinese call it. This was a period from roughly 1840-1949 when China fell victim to foreign aggression and internal division. By 1900, after 50 years of one disaster after another, it was clear to many that the Imperial Qing Dynasty was hopelessly inept and corrupt. It had long proven itself incapable of coping with the challenges of modernization. 

With chaos and humiliation swirling around them, increasing numbers of Chinese became convinced that they needed major change. Numerous reform and anti-Qing movements arose with the goal of solving China’s problems. Many Chinese realized the need to copy Western techniques if China were to survive. As reformer Kang Yu Wei put it in 1906, “We need, too, governmental and political reforms and a reorganization of our political machinery.” 

Among the many organizations seeking to help was the Revive China Society (Xingzhonghui). Today’s Kuomintang Party or Guomindang (GMD) traces its history to this movement, founded on November 24, 1894. The next year the Society adopted an official flag, the blue sky with a bright sun. This emblem remains the Kuomintang flag and adorns the national flag of Taiwan to this day. In 1905 the Revive China Society was merged into the Revolutionary Alliance aka Tongmenghui. By this time Dr Sun had enunciated his famous “Three Principles of the People;” Nationalism, Democracy and the welfare of the people. The Three Principles were partly influenced by his travels in the United States. Especially influential was Lincoln’s philosophy of government “by the people.” The Principles included civil rights or limited government. termed ``popular soveriegnty'' in the US.  Dr. Sun explained that the people should control their government through means such as elections, referendum, recall and initiative. These principles remain as foundational elements to the Kuomintang and the Constitution of the Republic of China. These are the values Taiwan espouses today. Taiwanese revere Sun Yat Sen as "father of the nation. '' Dr Sun's portrait, in fact, hangs in the main legislative chamber in Taipei.

Revolution

Finally on October 10, 1911 (“double tenth”) an uprising triggered an anti-Qing revolution. There was nothing remarkable about an uprising, but then something incredible occurred: Within a few short months, a system that had lasted 2,000 years collapsed like a house of cards. The ROC (Republic of China) was established by the Chinese people through the Provisional Presidential Election held on December 29, 1911. Dr. Sun won a whopping 94% of the vote to become the first president in his country’s history. On January 1, 1912 he was sworn in and announced the official beginning of the Republic of China. On February 12, 1912 the last Qing monarch abdicated the throne, formally beginning China’s troubled venture as a republic. 

At the time of the Revolution, Sun Yat Sen was the acknowledged leader of the Chinese revolutionary movement. In 1912 the Revolutionary Alliance and several other parties merged to form the Kuomintang (Nationalist) Party, KMT for short, aka “National People's Party.” It evolved out of the revolutionary league that had worked to overthrow the Qing. But it was one thing to overthrow a government, quite another to assert authority. By 1913 Sun had lost the power struggle and fled to Japan in exile, not to return until 1916. China’s infant experiment in parliamentary democracy collapsed. In practical terms,  this meant the dissolution of China into a state of anarchy with regional rulers exercising control.

Mao

Meanwhile, another pivotal event took place in 1893: the birth of a son to a prosperous farmer of Hunan Province, named Mao Zedong. Although reared in the ways of traditional China, including the Confucian Classics, Mao rebelled against all this at an early age. He was expelled from more than one school and ran away from home briefly. When he was 14 a marriage was arranged for him and the young women moved into the family home. Mao refused to even acknowledge her. Instead, he moved to Changsha to continue his studies. When the 1911 Revolution came, Mao quickly joined the Anti-Qing military and did everything he could to overthrow the hated Manchu. Having tasted the wine of politics, Mao became insatiable. Between 1913 and 1918, as a student at the Changsha Teacher’s Training College, he devoured works on political ideologies. Especially impressive to him was the 1917 Russian Revolution and the ancient Chinese Legalist philosophy. Upon graduation he took a job at the Beijing University Library. It just so happened that his boss at the library, Li Dazhou, was a budding communist and soon exerted a major influence on the young Mao. He was one of many who became convinced that the solution to China’s problems lay in Marxism.

By 1919, while Mao was still a lowly librarian, a new revolutionary ferment broke out. Seven years after Dr Sun had proclaimed the Republic, China was still mired in political and economic chaos. Warlords and bandits ruled their own territories in defiance of any national government. Sun returned to China in 1916 but his authority was limited to a small area around Canton. To make matters worse, although China had joined the Allied cause in hopes of attaining an end to its semi-colonial status, China was betrayed at the Versailles Peace Conference; Japan was allowed to keep the territory in Shandong Province it had captured from Germany in 1914. This was a massive slap in the face to China. On May 4, 1919 a crowd of students gathered at Tiananmen Square to voice their frustrations. This was part of a resurgence of nationalism. Among other results, leftist ideologies gained momentum. Movements like Sun’s now expanded into a more grass-roots effort. Leaders such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxin emerged from the May 4 movement. These two, like many others, began to abandon Western-style democracy and turned to leftist ideology. They looked to the new Bolshevik government in Russia as an example. In 1920, Li was head of the library at Peking University and professor of economics. Captivated by the Russian Revolution, he began to study Marxism. Many were impressed with the apparent success of the Bolsheviks. Li founded a study group to discuss Marxism. This evolved into the Chinese communist party, founded in July 1921. Mao Zedong was among the founding members.  

Sun

Meantime Sun and his Kuomintang, lacking military support, had been unable to build a strong enough political organization to assert their authority. Sun began to realize that his movement needed help if he were to unify China - they had proved to be no match for ruthless warlords and helpless to end the foreign concessions. Sun had tried to enlist the aid of Japan and the West. He even wrote to Henry Ford, imploring his help.  In a  letter to the famous auto manufacturer he wrote; “There is much more to hope, in my opinion, from a dynamic worker like yourself, and this is why I invite you to visit us in South China, in order to study, at first hand, what is undoubtedly one of the greatest problems of the Twentieth Century,” The request came to nothing. Rebuffed by the West, he took a step that would have momentous consequences. By 1921 the Bolshevik in Russia revolutionaries had proven they could take and hold on to power. They had established themselves and were carrying out their reform program. They had accomplished this in four short years while the Chinese revolution had now been floundering for a decade. He invited Russian help in building his party. The Russians were only too glad to help but they attached a price tag: Sun must allow the communists to join his kuomintang. Mikhail Gruzenberg, known as Borodin, was sent to Canton in 1923 to advise Sun. Here was a seasoned agent of the newly-formed Comintern. He had already been to several countries to spread bolshevism. He and Sun established a formidable partnership as Borodin put his considerable political skills to work. It would hardly be an overstatement to say that he almost single-handedly turned the Kuomintang into an effective force. He gave them a tight party organization, drafted a constitution for them and taught effective revolutionary and mobilization techniques. Borodin also convinced Sun to admit the small (300) communist party into his nationalist movement and create the first United Front between the KMT and CCP. This was a potentially powerful move to bring unity and stability to China. This United Front thus combined the conservative and leftist political movements of China. Unity was essential to overcome the warlords, who dominated all of north China. Nonetheless, this is where the conflict between the two China’s begins. For all their cooperation, the two ideologies, communism and nationalism, would prove absolutely incapable of working together for long. Some consider this to be Sun’s greatest mistake. Once given legitimacy, the communists would be very difficult to control.

Additionally, Sun and his followers established a military academy to train officers in the struggles to come. Known as the Whampoa Military Academy, it played a critical role in the centuries major conflicts. In 1924 Sun Yat Sen appointed the general Chiang Kai Shek to be the first commandant of the Academy. Chiang had met Sun in Japan and became a devoted follower. Over the years he had proved his faithful commitment to Sun, even at the risk of his own life. Subsequently, several Academy members, including Chiang, were sent to Russia for training. He remained, at least in word, dedicated to Dr. Sun’s principles throughout his career. In a 1942 message to the New York Herald Tribune Forum on Current Problems Chiang asserted “(our) Revolution is the attainment of all three of Dr Sun’s basic principles.” After the death of Sun Yat Sen in 1925, Chiang continued his rise to power. He became commander in chief of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) and in June, 1927 began the long-awaited “Northern Expedition” with the objective of destroying the warlords and reuniting the country.

What do you think of the early 20th century in China? Let us know below.

Now read Victor’s article on the explosive history of the bikini here.