7.1 - Shifting Power

Empires Give Way to New States

• The West on Top in 1900: At the start of the 20th century, Western countries dominated world politics. European powers like Britain and France controlled most of Africa and much of Asia, and Western banks and companies had huge influence in places like China and Latin America.

• Empires Fall: By the end of the century, almost all of these empires were gone, and new states had replaced them.
• Land-based empires fell first. The Qing Empire fell in 1911 to 1912, just before World War I, and the Russian (1917), Austro-Hungarian (1918), and Ottoman (1922) empires collapsed during or right after the war.
• Maritime empires (like the British, French, and Dutch) lasted longer, but most of their colonies won independence after World War II (see Unit 8).

• Why They Fell: Each collapse came from a mix of internal factors (weak economies, ethnic tensions, governments that refused to reform, revolutions) and external factors (defeats in war, pressure from foreign powers, and the strain of World War I). In Russia, these problems led to the world's first communist revolution.

Internal Problems

• Economic Stagnation: Unlike other industrializing states, Russia was slow to promote economic growth.
• Limited expansion of education for peasants.
• Poor development of roads and transportation networks.
• Lack of support for entrepreneurs with loans and contracts.

• Political Resistance: The tsarist government resisted political reform, civil liberties, and broader citizen participation in government.

External Problems

• Weak Military: Without a strong economic base, Russia struggled in international conflicts.
• Lost the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) against the Ottoman Empire, supported by Great Britain and France.
• Lost the Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 1905) over influence in East Asia.

The Bolshevik Revolution

• Communist Beliefs: Advocated for workers owning the means of production, leading to collective prosperity and a just society.

• Government Actions:
• Abolished private trade.
• Distributed peasants' crops to feed urban workers.
• Took over ownership of factories and heavy industries.

Key Events Leading to Revolution in Russia

• Bloody Sunday (January 22, 1905): Thousands of workers marched peacefully to petition the tsar for better working conditions, higher wages, and universal suffrage. Tsar's troops and police began shooting, killing and wounding hundreds of marchers.

• Revolution of 1905: In response to Bloody Sunday, 400,000 workers went on strike. The tsar attempted to appease protesters, but thousands of workers were killed, injured, or exiled.
• October Manifesto (1905): To end the strikes, Tsar Nicholas II promised civil liberties and an elected parliament, the Duma. Once the unrest died down, he dissolved or ignored the Duma whenever it challenged him, so little really changed.

• Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 1905): Both Russia and Japan sought influence in Korea and Manchuria. Japan won, marking the first modern defeat of a European power by an East Asian state.

• World War I: Germany declared war on Russia in 1914, revealing Russia's poorly trained and armed troops. Civilians suffered extreme food shortages.

• February Revolution (March 1917): Food shortages, strikes, and soldiers who refused to fire on protesters in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) forced Nicholas II to give up the throne, ending more than 300 years of Romanov rule. A Provisional Government took over but kept fighting the war, which made it unpopular. (Russia still used an older calendar, so the revolutions of March and November 1917 are called the February and October Revolutions.)

• Bolsheviks Take Over (November 1917): Lenin promised "Peace, Land, and Bread" and won over workers and soldiers. The Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government and pulled Russia out of World War I with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918), giving up huge amounts of land to Germany.

• Civil War (1918 to 1921): The Bolsheviks' Red Army fought the anti-communist Whites, who got some help from foreign troops (including British, French, American, and Japanese soldiers). The Reds won, and in 1922 they created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Collapse of the Qing Dynasty

• Ethnic Tension: The Manchu-led Qing Dynasty faced opposition from the Han majority and other ethnic groups.

• Famine: Rapid population growth and limited farmland led to food shortages.

• Low Government Revenues: An outdated tax system led to insufficient funds for infrastructure.

• Failed Reforms: In 1898, the young Guangxu Emperor tried to modernize the government (the Hundred Days' Reform), but Empress Dowager Cixi and conservative officials shut it down. Many Chinese decided the dynasty could not fix China's problems.

• Industrialization Threat: European industrialization posed a growing threat to China.

• Restrictive Trade Policies: China's trade restrictions led to conflicts with European powers.

• Defeats and Unequal Treaties: Losses in the Opium Wars (1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860) and to Japan in the Sino-Japanese War (1894 to 1895) forced the Qing to give up land (like Hong Kong and Taiwan), pay huge sums, and let foreign powers carve China into spheres of influence.

• Boxer Rebellion (1899 to 1901): A secret society called the Boxers attacked foreigners and Chinese Christians, and the Qing court backed them. An army from eight foreign nations crushed the uprising, and China had to pay a massive indemnity, which left the dynasty broke and humiliated.

• 1911 Revolution: Overthrew the Qing Dynasty, led by Sun Yat-sen.
• The revolt began with an army uprising in the city of Wuchang in October 1911 and spread quickly. Sun, who had spent years organizing revolutionaries from abroad, returned and became provisional president, and the last emperor, six-year-old Puyi, gave up the throne in 1912.
• Sun soon handed the presidency to Yuan Shikai, a powerful general, to hold the country together. Yuan ruled as a dictator, and after he died in 1916, China split among regional warlords.

• Sun Yat-sen's Principles:
• Democracy: Sovereignty for capable citizens.
• Nationalism: Free China from foreign control and unite the Chinese people (at first, this also meant ending rule by the Manchu Qing).
• Livelihood: End unequal wealth distribution.

• Limited Power: Lacked military strength to control China, which was dominated by warlords.

• Kuomintang: The Nationalist Party later regained power but lost to the Communists in the civil war.

Decline of the Ottoman Empire

• Economic Decline: The Ottoman economy fell far behind industrialized Europe and depended on exporting raw materials. The government borrowed heavily from European banks and went bankrupt in 1875, so in 1881 European creditors took control of much of its tax collection (the Ottoman Public Debt Administration).

• Young Turks: Advocated for a constitution and Turkification, alienating non-Turkish ethnic groups like Armenians.
• In 1908, the Young Turks forced the sultan to bring back the constitution of 1876 and an elected parliament. By 1913, a small group of Young Turk leaders ran the empire as a dictatorship.

• Anti-European Sentiment: Resented European economic influence and trade privileges, leading to an alliance with Germany in World War I.

• Lost Territory: The empire lost Libya to Italy (1911 to 1912) and almost all of its remaining land in Europe in the Balkan Wars (1912 to 1913), as Balkan peoples broke away to form or expand their own nation-states.

• Defeat in World War I: The war drained the empire. Arab subjects rose up in the Arab Revolt (1916) with British support, and by 1918 the Ottomans had lost their Arab lands. After the war, the Allies occupied Istanbul, and the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) planned to hand large parts of Anatolia, the Turkish heartland, to Greece, Armenia, and zones controlled by Italy and France.

• Turkish National Movement: Led by Mustafa Kemal, defeated occupying forces and established the Republic of Turkey in 1923.
• The nationalists abolished the sultanate in 1922, ending the Ottoman Empire, and the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) replaced the Treaty of Sèvres and recognized Turkey's new borders.

• Reforms: Modernized Turkey, creating a secular nation with public education, abolished polygyny, and expanded women's suffrage.
• Examples: Atatürk abolished the caliphate (1924), replaced Islamic law with European-style law codes, switched Turkish from Arabic script to the Latin alphabet (1928), and banned the fez for men.

• Leadership Style: Ruled as a dictator for 15 years until his death in 1938.

Power Shifts in Mexico

• Long Rule: Díaz ruled Mexico from 1876 to 1911 (except for 1880 to 1884), keeping order with the army, rural police, and rigged elections. He built railroads and welcomed foreign investment, so the economy grew, but most of the gains went to wealthy landowners and foreign companies.

• Foreign Control: Allowed foreign investors to control resources, leading to economic inequality.

• Land Distribution: By 1910, a tiny elite (often estimated at about 1% of the population) owned most of the farmland, while most rural families owned no land at all and worked on large estates called haciendas.

• Catalyst: Díaz jailed opposition candidate Francisco Madero, sparking the revolution.
• Political Crisis: Díaz, then 80 years old, had hinted he would allow a free election in 1910, but he ran again, jailed Madero, and declared himself the winner. Madero escaped to the U.S. and called for an uprising in November 1910. Rebels quickly gained ground, and Díaz resigned and left for Europe in 1911.

• Revolutionary Leaders: Madero, Pancho Villa, and Emiliano Zapata led forces against Díaz.
• Emiliano Zapata led peasants in the south under the slogan "Land and Liberty" and demanded that haciendas be broken up and land returned to villages. Pancho Villa led a large army in the north.

• Years of Fighting: Madero became president in 1911, but General Victoriano Huerta overthrew and killed him in 1913. Villa, Zapata, and Venustiano Carranza joined forces to drive out Huerta (1914), then fought each other. The fighting lasted until about 1920 and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

• Outcomes:
• New Constitution (1917): Promoted land redistribution, voting rights for all adult men (women could not vote in national elections until 1953), free public education outside Church control, and workers' rights like an eight-hour day and the right to strike. It also declared that land and underground resources such as oil belonged to the nation, which later let the government take over foreign oil companies (see 7.4).
• Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI): Founded in 1929 as the National Revolutionary Party (it took the name PRI in 1946), it won every presidential election until 2000, so it dominated Mexican politics for over 70 years.