talwabatal - red is the new black 1919

Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[d] 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878[1] – 5 March 1953) was a revolutionary in the Russian Empire and political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by 1928. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism.

Born to a poor ethnic Georgian family in the town of Gori in the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire (now part of Georgia), Stalin joined the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1901. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution and created a one-party state under the new Communist Party in 1917, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 1930–33 that killed millions. To eradicate "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the Great Purge, in which over a million were imprisoned, largely in the Gulag system of forced labour camps, and at least 700,000 executed by government agents between 1936 and 1938.

Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, after which Stalin joined the Allies of World War II as one of the Big Three. Despite initial catastrophes, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Amid the war, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and Bessarabia and North Bukovina, subsequently establishing Soviet-aligned governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe and in parts of East Asia. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension, the Cold War. Stalin presided over the Soviet post-war reconstruction and its development of an atomic bomb in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another major famine and an antisemitic campaign that culminated in the doctors' plot. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who subsequently denounced his rule and initiated the de-Stalinisation of Soviet society.

Widely considered to be one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of the working class and socialism. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a leading world power. Conversely, his regime has been described by critics as totalitarian, and has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression, ethnic cleansing, wide-scale deportation, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines that killed millions.

1919

The Kuomintang

(KMT),[I] also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD),[17] the Nationalist Party of China (NPC)[18] or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP),[1] is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and then in Taiwan since 1949. It was the sole party in China during the Republican Era from 1928 to 1949, when most of the Chinese mainland was under its control. The party retreated from the mainland to Taiwan on 7 December 1949, following its defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law and retained its authoritarian rule over Taiwan under the Dang Guo system until democratic reforms were enacted in the 1980s and full democratization in the 1990s. In Taiwanese politics today, the KMT is a centre-right [11] to right-wing [12] party, and is the largest party in the Pan-Blue Coalition. The KMT's primary rival in elections is the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its allies in the Pan-Green Coalition. As of 2023, the KMT is currently the largest opposition party in the Legislative Yuan. The current chairman is Eric Chu.

The party originated as the Revive China Society, founded by Sun Yat-sen on 24 November 1894 in Honolulu, Republic of Hawaii. From there, the party underwent major reorganization changes that occurred before and after the Xinhai Revolution, which resulted in the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Beiyang government. In 1919, Sun Yat-sen re-established the party under the name "Kuomintang" in the Shanghai French Concession. From 1926 to 1928, the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek successfully led the Northern Expedition against regional warlords and unified the fragmented nation. From 1937 to 1945, the KMT-ruled Nationalist government led China through the Second Sino-Japanese War against Japan. By 1949, the KMT was decisively defeated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the Chinese Civil War (in which the People's Republic of China was established by the CCP on 1 October 1949) and withdrew the ROC government to Taiwan, a former Qing territory annexed by the Empire of Japan from 1895 to 1945.

From 1949 to 1987, the KMT ruled Taiwan as an authoritarian one-party state after the February 28 incident. During this period, martial law was in effect and civil liberties were curtailed under the guise of anti-communism, with the period being known as the White Terror. The party also oversaw Taiwan's economic development, but also experienced diplomatic setbacks, including the ROC losing its United Nations seat and most of the world including its ally the United States switching diplomatic recognition to the CCP-led People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1970s. In the late 1980s, Chiang Ching-kuo, Chiang Kai-shek's son and the next KMT leader in turn, lifted martial law and allowed the establishment of opposition parties such as the Democratic Progressive Party. His successor Lee Teng-hui continued pursuing democratic reforms and constitutional amendments, and was re-elected in 1996 through a direct presidential election, the first time in the ROC history. The 2000 presidential election put an end to 72 years of the KMT's political dominance in the ROC. The KMT reclaimed power from 2008 to 2016, with the landslide victory of Ma Ying-jeou in the 2008 presidential election, whose presidency significantly loosened restrictions placed on cross-strait economic and cultural exchanges. The KMT again lost the presidency and its legislative majority in the 2016 election, returning to the opposition.

The KMT is a member of the International Democrat Union. The party's guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, advocated by Sun Yat-sen and historically organized in a Leninist basis of democratic centralism, a principle conceived by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that entailed open discussion of policy on the condition of unity among party members in upholding the agreed-upon decisions. The KMT opposes de jure Taiwan independence, Chinese unification under the "one country, two systems" framework, and any non-peaceful means to resolve the cross-strait disputes. Originally placing high priority on reclaiming the Chinese mainland through Project National Glory, the KMT now favors a closer relation with the PRC and seeks to maintain Taiwan's status quo under the Constitution of the Republic of China. The party also accepts the 1992 Consensus, which defines both sides of the Taiwan Strait as "one China" but maintains its ambiguity to different interpretations.

Emblem of the Kuomintang.

Emblem of the People's Liberation Arm

"Portrait of Sun Yat-sen" (1921) Li Tiefu

Venue of the 1st National Congress of Kuomintang in 1924

Chinese generals at the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum in 1928 after the Northern Expedition. From right: Cheng Jin (何成浚), Zhang Zuobao (張作寶), Chen Diaoyuan (陳調元), Chiang Kai-shek, Woo Tsin-hang, Yan Xishan, Ma Fuxiang, Ma Sida (馬四達), and Bai Chongxi.

Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Kuomintang after Sun's death in 1925

The former KMT headquarters in Taipei City (1949–2006), whose imposing structure, directly facing the Presidential Office Building, was seen as a symbol of the party's wealth and dominance

World map showing member states of the League of Nations (in green and red) on 18 April 1946, when the League of Nations ceased to exist…

Anachronous world map showing member states of the League during its 26-year history

The 1864 Geneva Convention, one of the earliest formulations of international law

Lord Bryce, one of the earliest advocates for a League of Nations

The League to Enforce Peace published this full-page promotion in The New York Times on Christmas Day 1918.[28] It resolved that the League "should ensure peace by eliminating causes of dissension, by deciding controversies by peaceable means, and by uniting the potential force of all the members as a standing menace against any nation that seeks to upset the peace of the world".[28]…

On his December 1918 trip to Europe, Woodrow Wilson gave speeches that "reaffirmed that the making of peace and the creation of a League of Nations must be accomplished as one single objective".[36]…

The first meeting of the Council took place on 16 January 1920 in the Salle de l'Horloge at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris.

In 1924, the headquarters of the League was named "Palais Wilson", after Woodrow Wilson, who was credited as the "Founder of the League of Nations."…

An example of a flag used by the League of Nations, as flown at the 1939 New York World's Fair

The Palace of Nations, Geneva, the League's headquarters from 1936 until its dissolution in 1946

A session of the Assembly (1923), meeting in Geneva at the Salle de la Réformation (in a building at the corner of Boulevard Helvétique and Rue du Rhône) from 1920 to 1929, and at the Bâtiment électoral or Palais Électoral (Rue du Général- Dufour 24) from 1930 to 1936 as well as for special sessions at the Palais du désarmement adjacent to the Palais Wilson,[72] before moving into the Assembly Hall of the Palace of Nations.…

Chinese delegate addressing the League of Nations concerning the Manchurian Crisis in 1932

A map of the world in 1920–45, which shows the League of Nations members during its history

1920

The League of Nations

(French: Société des Nations [sɔsjete de nɑsjɔ̃]) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.[1] It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. The main organization ceased operations on 20 April 1946 but many of its components were relocated into the new United Nations.

The League's primary goals were stated in its Covenant. They included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration.[2] Its other concerns included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants, human and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, and protection of minorities in Europe.[3] The Covenant of the League of Nations was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and it became effective with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920. The first meeting of the Council of the League took place on 16 January 1920, and the first meeting of Assembly of the League took place on 15 November 1920. In 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League.

The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the victorious Allies of World War I (Britain, France, Italy and Japan were the permanent members of the Executive Council) to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, or provide an army when needed. The Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, when the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that "the League is very well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."[4]

At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. After some notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. The credibility of the organization was weakened by the fact that the United States never joined, and Japan, Italy, Germany and Spain quit. The Soviet Union joined late and was expelled after invading Finland.[5][6][7][8] The onset of the Second World War in 1939 showed that the League had failed its primary purpose; it was inactive until its abolition. The League lasted for 26 years; the United Nations (UN) replaced it in 1946 and inherited several agencies and organisations founded by the League.

Current scholarly consensus views that, even though the League failed to achieve its main goal of world peace, it did manage to build new roads towards expanding the rule of law across the globe; strengthened the concept of collective security, giving a voice to smaller nations; helped to raise awareness to problems like epidemics, slavery, child labour, colonial tyranny, refugee crises and general working conditions through its numerous commissions and committees; and paved the way for new forms of statehood, as the mandate system put the colonial powers under international observation.[9] Professor David Kennedy portrays the League as a unique moment when international affairs were "institutionalised", as opposed to the pre–First World War methods of law and politics.[10]

1920

The Treaty of Warsaw

(also the Polish-Ukrainian or Petliura-Piłsudski Alliance or Agreement) of April 1920 was a military-economical alliance between the Second Polish Republic, represented by Józef Piłsudski, and the Ukrainian People's Republic, represented by Symon Petliura, against Bolshevik Russia. The treaty was signed on 21 April 1920, with a military addendum on 24 April.

The alliance was signed during the Polish-Soviet War, just before the Polish Kiev Offensive. Piłsudski was looking for allies against the Bolsheviks and hoped to create a Międzymorze alliance; Petliura saw the alliance as the last chance to create an independent Ukraine.

The treaty had no permanent impact.[1] The Polish-Soviet War continued and the territories in question were distributed between Russia and Poland in accordance with the 1921 Peace of Riga. Territories claimed by the Ukrainian national movement were split between the Ukrainian SSR in the east and Poland in the west (Galicia and part of Volhynia).

Ukrainian People's Republic

Flag of Second Polish Republic

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic 1918–1937

The government of the UNR in 1920 - Symon Petlura is sitting in the centre.

Symon Petlura. Photo 1920s

Piłsudski c. 1920s

Polish General Antoni Listowski and Symon Petliura in Berdychiv during the Kyiv Offensive

Coat of arms of Ukrainian People's Republic

The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres was a draft treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Principal Allied Powers. It was ultimately shelved because of Turkish non-ratification and was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne.

The Ottoman delegation at Sèvres comprising the three signatories of the treaty. Left to right: Rıza Tevfik Bölükbaşı, Grand Vizier Damat Ferid Pasha, the Ottoman education minister Mehmed Hâdî Pasha and ambassador Reşad Halis.

Mehmed Hâdî Pasha signs the Treaty of Sèvres.

Original map from 1920 illustrating the Treaty of Sèvres region (not depicting the zones of influences)

The expansion of Greece from 1832 to 1947 showing in yellow territories awarded to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres but lost in 1923

Treaty of Sèrves with zones of influence

Mehmet Hadi Pasha in Versailles (Cropped image).

1920

The Treaty of Sèvres

(French: Traité de Sèvres) was a 1920 treaty signed between the Allies of World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The treaty ceded large parts of Ottoman territory to France, the United Kingdom, Greece and Italy, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties[3] that the Central Powers signed with the Allied Powers after their defeat in World War I. Hostilities had already ended with the Armistice of Mudros.

The treaty was signed on 10 August 1920 in an exhibition room at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres porcelain factory[4] in Sèvres, France.[5]

The Treaty of Sèvres marked the beginning of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty's stipulations included the renunciation of most territory not inhabited by Turkish people and their cession to the Allied administration.[6]

The ceding of Eastern Mediterranean lands saw the introduction of novel polities, including the British Mandate for Palestine and the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon.[7]

The terms stirred hostility and Turkish nationalism. The treaty's signatories were stripped of their citizenship by the Grand National Assembly, led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha,[8] which ignited the Turkish War of Independence. Hostilities with Britain over the neutral zone of the Straits were narrowly avoided in the Chanak Crisis of September 1922, when the Armistice of Mudanya was concluded on 11 October, leading the former Allies of World War I to return to the negotiating table with the Turks in November 1922. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, ended the conflict and saw the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

1920

The Battle of Warsaw

(Polish: Bitwa Warszawska, Russian: Варшавская битва, transcription: Varshavskaya bitva), also known as the Miracle on the Vistula (Polish: Cud nad Wisłą), was a series of battles that resulted in a decisive Polish victory in 1920 during the Polish–Soviet War. Poland, on the verge of total defeat, repulsed and defeated the Red Army.

After the Polish Kiev Offensive, Soviet forces launched a successful counterattack in summer 1920, forcing the Polish army to retreat westward in disarray. The Polish forces seemed on the verge of disintegration and observers predicted a decisive Soviet victory.

The Battle of Warsaw was fought from August 12–25, 1920 as Red Army forces commanded by Mikhail Tukhachevsky approached the Polish capital of Warsaw and the nearby Modlin Fortress. On August 16, Polish forces commanded by Józef Piłsudski counterattacked from the south, disrupting the enemy's offensive, forcing the Russian forces into a disorganized withdrawal eastward and behind the Neman River. Estimated Russian losses were 10,000 killed, 500 missing, 30,000 wounded, and 66,000 taken prisoner, compared with Polish losses of some 4,500 killed, 10,000 missing, and 22,000 wounded.

The defeat crippled the Red Army; Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik leader, called it "an enormous defeat" for his forces.[3] In the following months, several more Polish follow-up victories secured Poland's independence and led to a peace treaty with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine later that year, securing the Polish state's eastern frontiers until 1939.

The politician and diplomat Edgar Vincent regards this event as one of the most important battles in history on his expanded list of most decisive battles, since the Polish victory over the Soviets halted the spread of communism further westwards into Europe. A Soviet victory, which would have led to the creation of a pro-Soviet Communist Poland, would have put the Soviets directly on the eastern border of Germany, where considerable revolutionary ferment was present at the time.

Polish commander Józef Piłsudski

Soviet commander Mikhail Tukhachevsky

Polish soldiers on the way to the front

Polish infantry at the Battle of Warsaw

Polish defences at Miłosna, near Warsaw

Positions before the battle

Second phase of the battle: Polish counterattack

Władysław Sikorski with the staff of the Polish 5th Army during the Battle of Warsaw

Northern and Southern Ireland

David Lloyd George, MP. The British Prime Minister was the author of the new Act.

Harry Boland (left), Michael Collins (middle), and Éamon de Valera (right).

1920

The Government of Ireland Act

(10 & 11 Geo. 5 c. 67) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or (inaccurately) as the Fourth Home Rule Act. The Act was intended to partition Ireland into two self-governing polities: the six north-eastern counties were to form "Northern Ireland", while the larger part of the country was to form "Southern Ireland". Both territories were to remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and provision was made for their future reunification through a Council of Ireland. The Act was passed by the British Parliament in November 1920, received royal assent in December, and came into force on 3 May 1921.[2][3]

The smaller Northern Ireland was duly created with a devolved government and remained in the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognized by most of its citizens, who instead recognized the self-declared Irish Republic in the ongoing Irish War of Independence. The conflict resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921. Under the treaty, Ireland would leave the UK (with the option for Northern Ireland to opt out and remain in the UK, which it immediately did) in December 1922 and become the Irish Free State, which would later evolve into today's Republic of Ireland. The institutions set up under this Act for Northern Ireland continued to function until they were suspended by the British parliament in 1972 as a consequence of the Troubles.

The remaining provisions of the Act still in force in Northern Ireland were repealed under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

23 March 1921

The Second Battle of İnönü

(Turkish: İkinci İnönü Muharebesi) was a battle fought between March 23 and April 1, 1921 near İnönü in present-day Eskişehir Province, Turkey during the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22), also known as the western front of the larger Turkish War of Independence. It marked a turning point[citation needed] in the Greco-Turkish War and the Turkish War of Independence of which it was a part, as Greek forces had previously been victorious over mostly irregular Turkish forces and suffered their first major halt in Asia minor campaign.

Anastasios Papoulas (Greek: Αναστάσιος Παπούλας, 1859 – March 1935) a Greek general and commander-in-chief during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922.

Captain İsmet after returning from Yemen

With Mustafa Kemal Atatürk near the front lines in the Turkish War of Independence

Inspecting troops with Atatürk after the Second Battle of İnönü

23 July 1921

The Chinese Communist Party

(CCP),[2] officially the Communist Party of China (CPC),[3] is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC).[4][5] Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Civil War against the Kuomintang, and, in 1949, Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Since then, the CCP has governed China with eight smaller parties within its united front and has sole control over the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Each successive leader of the CCP has added their own theories to the party's constitution, which outlines the ideological beliefs of the party, collectively referred to as socialism with Chinese characteristics. As of 2022, the CCP has more than 96 million members, making it the second largest political party by party membership in the world after India's Bharatiya Janata Party. The Chinese public generally refers to the CCP as simply "the Party".[3]

In 1921, Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao led the founding of the CCP with the help of the Far Eastern Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Far Eastern Secretariat of the Communist International. For the first six years of its history, the CCP aligned itself with the Kuomintang (KMT) as the organized left wing of the larger nationalist movement. However, when the right wing of the KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, turned on the CCP and massacred tens of thousands of the party's members, the two parties split and began a prolonged civil war. During the next ten years of guerrilla warfare, Mao Zedong rose to become the most influential figure in the CCP, and the party established a strong base among the rural peasantry with its land reform policies. Support for the CCP continued to grow throughout the Second Sino-Japanese War, and after the Japanese surrender in 1945, the CCP emerged triumphant in the communist revolution against the KMT government. After the retreat of the KMT to Taiwan, the CCP established the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949.

Mao Zedong continued to be the most influential member of the CCP until his death in 1976, although he periodically withdrew from public leadership as his health declined. Under Mao, the party completed its land reform program, launched a series of five-year plans, and eventually split with the Soviet Union. Although Mao attempted to purge the party of capitalist and reactionary elements during the Cultural Revolution, after his death, these policies were only briefly continued by the Gang of Four before a less radical faction seized control. During the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping directed the CCP away from Maoist orthodoxy and towards a policy of economic liberalization. The official explanation for these reforms was that China is still in the primary stage of socialism, a developmental stage similar to the capitalist mode of production. Since the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the CCP has emphasized its relations with the ruling parties of the remaining socialist states and continues to participate in the International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties each year. The CCP has also established relations with several non-communist parties, including dominant nationalist parties of many developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as social democratic parties in Europe.

The Chinese Communist Party is organized on the basis of democratic centralism, a principle that entails open discussion of policy on the condition of unity among party members in upholding the agreed-upon decision. The highest body of the CCP is the National Congress, convened every fifth year. When the National Congress is not in session, the Central Committee is the highest body, but since that body usually only meets once a year, most duties and responsibilities are vested in the Politburo and its Standing Committee. Members of the latter are seen as the top leadership of the party and the state.[6] Today the party's leader holds the offices of general secretary (responsible for civilian party duties), Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) (responsible for military affairs), and State President (a largely ceremonial position). Because of these posts, the party leader is seen as the country's paramount leader. The current leader is Xi Jinping, who was elected at the 18th National Congress held on 8–15 November 2012 and retained his position at the 19th National Congress in 2017 and the 20th National Congress in 2022.

Old version of the emblem of Communist Party of China.

Emblem of the Communist Party of China.

Flag of the Chinese Communist Party

A temporary monument displayed in Changsha, Hunan Province, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the CCP's founding

Chen Duxiu (Ch'en Tu-hsiu) (1879 - 1942)

Chen during his arrest in 1921

1930 Li Dazhao Chinese comintern.

Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring (13 May 1883 - 13 April 1942), was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies. He took part in the Communist resistance against the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II and was executed by the Germans in 1942.

Li Da, a Chinese Marxist philosopher.

Cai Hesen in 1931

Dong Biwu

Li Lisan in 1946

Zhang with Mao Zedong in Yan'an, 1938

Of the 13 delegates who attended the congress in 1921, Mao Zedong and Dong Biwu were the only two to also be present at the proclamation ceremony of the PRC in 1949, as pictured here.

Site of the first CCP Congress, in the former Shanghai French Concession

A monument dedicated to Karl Marx (left) and Friedrich Engels (right) in Shanghai

The 18th National Congress, convened in November 2012

Front cover of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party

Mussolini during the 1920s

Emblem of the National Fascist Party

Eagle clutching a fasces, a common symbol of Italian Fascism, regularly used on uniforms and caps…

Benito Mussolini with Fascist Blackshirts during the March on Rome

From 1925, Mussolini styled himself Il Duce ("the leader")…

Fascist rally near the Coliseum in Rome

Residents of Fiume cheer the arrival of Gabriele D'Annunzio and his blackshirt-wearing nationalist raiders, as D'Annunzio's actions in Fiume inspired the Italian Fascist movement…

Mussolini in an official portrait

9 november 1921

The National Fascist Party

(Italian: Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat.[16] The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 when Fascists took power with the March on Rome until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. It was succeeded, in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, by the Republican Fascist Party, ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.

The National Fascist Party was rooted in Italian nationalism [17][18] and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay.[19][17][18][20][21][22][23] Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy was the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide spazio vitale ("living space") for colonisation by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.[24][25][26] The party also supported social conservative stances.[27][28][29]

Fascists promoted a corporatist economic system[30][31] whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy.[32][33] This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.[34] Moreover, the PNF strongly advocated autarky.[35][36][37][38]

Italian Fascism opposed liberalism,[39][40] but did not seek a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, and not in line with a forward-looking direction on policy.[40] It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism,[41] but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre.[42] It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people alongside a commitment to a modernised Italy, as well as a solid belief that Italy was destined to become the hegemonic power in Europe.[43]

The National Fascist Party along with its successor, the Republican Fascist Party, are the only parties whose re-formation is banned by the Constitution of Italy: "It shall be forbidden to reorganize, under any form whatsoever, the dissolved fascist party."

Benito Amilcare Andrea

Mussolini

(UK: /ˌmʊsəˈliːni, ˌmʌs-/ MU(U)SS-ə-LEE-nee, US: /ˌmuːs-/ MOOSS-, Italian: [beˈniːto aˈmilkare anˈdrɛːa mussoˈliːni];[1] 29 July 1883 – 28 April 1945) was an Italian dictator and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as "Duce" of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.[2][3][4][5][6]

Mussolini was originally a socialist politician and a journalist at the Avanti! newspaper. In 1912, he became a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI),[7] but he was expelled from the PSI for advocating military intervention in World War I, in opposition to the party's stance on neutrality. In 1914, Mussolini founded a new newspaper, Il Popolo d'Italia, and served in the Royal Italian Army during the war until he was wounded and discharged in 1917. Mussolini denounced the PSI, his views now centering on Italian nationalism instead of socialism, and later founded the fascist movement which came to oppose egalitarianism [8] and class conflict, instead advocating "revolutionary nationalism" transcending class lines.[9] On 31 October 1922, following the March on Rome (28–30 October), Mussolini was appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III, becoming the youngest individual to hold the office up to that time. After removing all political opposition through his secret police and outlawing labor strikes,[10] Mussolini and his followers consolidated power through a series of laws that transformed the nation into a one-party dictatorship. Within five years, Mussolini had established dictatorial authority by both legal and illegal means and aspired to create a totalitarian state. In 1929, Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Holy See to establish Vatican City.

Mussolini's foreign policy aimed to restore the ancient grandeur of the Roman Empire by expanding Italian colonial possessions and the fascist sphere of influence. In the 1920s, he ordered the Pacification of Libya, instructed the bombing of Corfu over an incident with Greece, established a protectorate over Albania, and incorporated the city of Fiume into the Italian state via agreements with Yugoslavia. In 1936, Ethiopia was conquered following the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and merged into Italian East Africa (AOI) with Eritrea and Somalia. In 1939, Italian forces annexed Albania. Between 1936 and 1939, Mussolini ordered the successful Italian military intervention in Spain in favor of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Mussolini's Italy initially tried to avoid the outbreak of a second global war, sending troops at the Brenner Pass to delay Anschluss and taking part in the Stresa Front, the Lytton Report, the Treaty of Lausanne, the Four-Power Pact and the Munich Agreement. However, Italy then alienated itself from Britain and France by aligning with Germany and Japan. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, resulting in declarations of war by France and the UK and the start of World War II.

On 10 June 1940, Mussolini decided to enter the war on the Axis side. Despite initial success, the subsequent Axis collapse on multiple fronts and eventual Allied invasion of Sicily made Mussolini lose the support of the population and members of the Fascist Party. As a consequence, early on 25 July 1943, the Grand Council of Fascism passed a motion of no confidence in Mussolini; later that day King Victor Emmanuel III dismissed him as head of government and had him placed in custody, appointing Pietro Badoglio to succeed him as Prime Minister. After the king agreed to an armistice with the Allies, on 12 September 1943 Mussolini was rescued from captivity in the Gran Sasso raid by German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos led by Major Otto-Harald Mors. Adolf Hitler, after meeting with the rescued former dictator, then put Mussolini in charge of a puppet regime in northern Italy, the Italian Social Republic (Italian: Repubblica Sociale Italiana, RSI),[11] informally known as the Salò Republic, causing a civil war.

In late April 1945, in the wake of near total defeat, Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci attempted to flee to Switzerland,[12] but both were captured by Italian communist partisans and summarily executed by firing squad on 28 April 1945 near Lake Como. The bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were then taken to Milan, where they were hung upside down at a service station to publicly confirm their demise.[13]

Page from a draft of the Treaty, as annotated by Arthur Griffith

Anglo-Irish Treaty signatures

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG (16 October 1863 – 17 March 1937)

Winston Churchill

A portrait of British politician and judge Gordon Hewart, 1st Viscount Hewart (7 January 1870 – 5 May 1943).

Collins in London as delegate to the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations.

Éamon de Valera, who, as President of the Irish Republic, opposed the Treaty

Portrait of George Gavan Duffy (1882–1951) an Irish politician, barrister and judge. Oil painting by Sir John Lavery RA (1856–1941)

Crowds holding a prayer vigil outside Whitehall during 1921, while negotiations were underway inside

Members of the Irish negotiation committee returning to Ireland in December 1921

British cavalry soldiers leaving Ireland, 1922

6 December 1921

Anglo-Irish Treaty

(Irish: An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence.[2] It provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State within a year as a self-governing dominion within the "community of nations known as the British Empire", a status "the same as that of the Dominion of Canada". It also provided Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State (Article 12), which the Parliament of Northern Ireland exercised.

The agreement was signed in London on 6 December 1921, by representatives of the British government (which included Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who was head of the British delegates) and by representatives of the Irish Republic including Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith. The Irish representatives had plenipotentiary status (negotiators empowered to sign a treaty without reference back to their superiors) acting on behalf of the Irish Republic, though the British government declined to recognise that status. As required by its terms, the agreement was approved by "a meeting" of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and [separately] by the British Parliament. In reality, Dáil Éireann (the legislative assembly for the de facto Irish Republic) first debated then approved the treaty; members then went ahead with the "meeting". Though the treaty was narrowly approved, the split led to the Irish Civil War, which was won by the pro-treaty side.

The Irish Free State as contemplated by the treaty came into existence when its constitution became law on 6 December 1922 by a royal proclamation.

1922

Foreign Affairs

is an American magazine of international relations and U.S. foreign policy published by the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership organization and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.[1] Founded on 15 September 1922, the print magazine is currently published every two months, while the website publishes articles daily and anthologies every other month.

Foreign Affairs is considered one of the United States' most influential foreign policy magazines. Over its long history, the magazine has published a number of seminal articles including George Kennan's "X Article," published in 1947, and Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations," published in 1993.[2][3]

Important academics, public officials, and policy leaders regularly appear in the magazine's pages. Recent Foreign Affairs authors include Robert O. Keohane, Hillary Clinton, Donald H. Rumsfeld, Ashton Carter, Colin L. Powell, Francis Fukuyama, David Petraeus, Zbigniew Brzezinski, John J. Mearsheimer, Stanley McChrystal, Christopher R. Hill and Joseph Nye.[4]

The field of international relations dates from the time of the Greek historian Thucydides.

John W. Davis was the first elected CFR president[2]…

First CFR vice-president, attorney Paul Drennan Cravath…

Elihu Root (1845–1937) served as the first honorary president (1921–1937) of the Council on Foreign Relations.[2] (Pictured 1902, age 57).

George F. Kennan published his doctrine of containment in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs.…

David Rockefeller (1915–2017), joined the Council in 1941 and was appointed as a director in 1949.

The cover of the Nov/Dec 2016 issue of Foreign Affairs…

The article "Who Is Khamenei?" by Akbar Ganji, which was published in the magazine's September/October 2013 issue, emphasized the view that the Supreme Leader is the primary decision maker in Iran.…

Huntington in 2004

reverse of the Great Seal of the Irish Free State

The Constitution Committee meeting at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin.

The Shelbourne Hotel, August 2008

Michael Collins

De Valera c. 1918–1921

1922

The Constitution of the Irish Free State

(Irish: Bunreacht Shaorstát Eireann) was adopted by Act of Dáil Éireann sitting as a constituent assembly on 25 October 1922. In accordance with Article 83 of the Constitution,[1] the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 of the British Parliament, which came into effect upon receiving the royal assent on 5 December 1922, provided that the Constitution would come into effect upon the issue of a Royal Proclamation, which was done on 6 December 1922.[2] In 1937 the Constitution of the Irish Free State was replaced by the modern Constitution of Ireland following a referendum.

As enacted, the Constitution of the Irish Free State was firmly shaped by the requirements of the Anglo-Irish Treaty that had been negotiated between the British government and Irish leaders in 1921. However, following a change of government in 1932 and the adoption of the Statute of Westminster a series of amendments progressively removed many of the provisions that had been required by the Treaty.

The Constitution established a parliamentary system of government under a form of constitutional monarchy, and contained guarantees of certain fundamental rights. It was intended that the constitution would be a rigid document that, after an initial period, could be amended only by referendum. However, amendments were made to the Constitution's amendment procedure, so that all amendments could be and were in fact made by a simple Act of the Oireachtas (parliament).

1922

The March on Rome

(Italian: Marcia su Roma) was an organized mass demonstration and a coup d'état in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, Fascist Party leaders planned an insurrection to take place by marching on the capital. On 28 October, the fascist demonstrators and Blackshirt paramilitaries approached Rome; Prime Minister Luigi Facta wished to declare a state of siege, but this was overruled by King Victor Emmanuel III, who, fearing bloodshed, persuaded Facta to resign by threatening to abdicate. On 30 October 1922, the King appointed Mussolini as Prime Minister, thereby transferring political power to the fascists without armed conflict. On 31 October the fascist blackshirts paraded in Rome, while Mussolini formed his coalition government.[1][2]

Emilio De Bono, Benito Mussolini, Italo Balbo and Cesare Maria De Vecchi.

Fascists moving towards Rome.

Eagle of the Italian Nationalist Association, a proto-fascist group of the 1910s and '20s. Based on facsimiles in Luca Vianello's collection.

From left to right: Italo Balbo, Benito Mussolini, Cesare Maria de Vecchi and Michele Bianchi in 1922

Al congresso del PNF a Napoli nell'ottobre 1922. A sinistra De Bono, il giovane Balbo,al centro Mussolini in camicia nera, la fascia sul corpo, alle spalle De Vecchi e, forse, Michele Bianchi, a destra con il fez in testa, Aurelio Padovani

Flag of Ireland

A symbol most often associated with the new state's postal system

Funeral procession of Michael Collins, Dublin, 1922

Irish Free State passport (holder's name removed)

Overprinted stamp

Poster promoting Irish Free State farm goods for breakfast to Canadians ("Irish Free State butter, eggs and bacon for our breakfasts")

1922

The Irish Free State

(Irish: Saorstát Éireann, pronounced [ˈsˠiːɾˠsˠt̪ˠaːt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ], English: /ˌsɛərstɑːt ˈɛərən/ SAIR-staht AIR-ən;[4] 6 December 1922 – 29 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between the forces of the Irish Republic – the Irish Republican Army (IRA) – and British Crown forces.[5]

The Free State was established as a dominion of the British Empire. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland. Northern Ireland, which was made up of the remaining six counties, exercised its right under the Treaty to opt out of the new state. The Free State government consisted of the Governor-General – the representative of the king – and the Executive Council (cabinet), which replaced both the revolutionary Dáil Government and the Provisional Government set up under the Treaty. W. T. Cosgrave, who had led both of these administrations since August 1922, became the first President of the Executive Council (prime minister). The Oireachtas or legislature consisted of Dáil Éireann (the lower house) and Seanad Éireann (the upper house), also known as the Senate. Members of the Dáil were required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution of the Free State and to declare fidelity to the king. The oath was a key issue for opponents of the Treaty, who refused to take it and therefore did not take their seats. Pro-Treaty members, who formed Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923, held an effective majority in the Dáil from 1922 to 1927 and thereafter ruled as a minority government until 1932.

In 1931, with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, the Parliament of the United Kingdom relinquished nearly all of its remaining authority to legislate for the Free State and the other dominions. This had the effect of granting the Free State internationally recognised independence.

In the first months of the Free State, the Irish Civil War was waged between the newly established National Army and the Anti-Treaty IRA, which refused to recognise the state. The Civil War ended in victory for the government forces, with its opponents dumping their arms in May 1923. The Anti-Treaty political party, Sinn Féin, refused to take its seats in the Dáil, leaving the relatively small Labour Party as the only opposition party. In 1926, when Sinn Féin president Éamon de Valera failed to have this policy reversed, he resigned from Sinn Féin and led most of its membership into a new party, Fianna Fáil, which entered the Dáil following the 1927 general election. It formed the government after the 1932 general election, when it became the largest party.

De Valera abolished the oath of allegiance and embarked on an economic war with the UK. In 1937, he drafted a new constitution, which was adopted by a plebiscite in July of that year. The Free State came to an end with the coming into force of the new constitution on 29 December 1937, when the state took the name "Ireland".

1922

The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire

(1908–1922) was a period of history of the Ottoman Empire beginning with the Young Turk Revolution and ultimately ending with the empire's dissolution and the founding of the modern state of Turkey.

The Young Turk Revolution restored the constitution of 1876 and brought in multi-party politics with a two-stage electoral system for the Ottoman parliament. At the same time, a nascent movement called Ottomanism was promoted in an attempt to maintain the unity of the Empire, emphasising a collective Ottoman nationalism regardless of religion or ethnicity. Within the empire, the new constitution was initially seen positively, as an opportunity to modernize state institutions and resolve inter-communal tensions between different ethnic groups.[1]

Additionally, this period was characterised by continuing military failures by the empire. Despite military reforms, the Ottoman Army met with disastrous defeat in the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912) and the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), resulting in the Ottomans being driven out of North Africa and nearly out of Europe. Continuous unrest leading up to World War I resulted in the 31 March Incident, the 1912 Ottoman coup d'état and the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) government became increasingly radicalised during this period, and conducted ethnic cleansing and genocide against the empire's Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek citizens, events collectively referred to as the Late Ottoman genocides. Ottoman participation in World War I ended with defeat and the partition of the empire's remaining territories under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. The treaty, formulated at the conference of London, allocated nominal land to the Ottoman state and allowed it to retain the designation of "Ottoman Caliphate" (similar to the Vatican, a sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Catholic Pope), leaving it severely weakened. One factor behind this arrangement was Britain's desire to thwart the Khilafat Movement.

The occupation of Constantinople (Istanbul), along with the occupation of Smyrna (Izmir), mobilized the Turkish national movement, which ultimately won the Turkish War of Independence. The formal abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate was performed by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on 1 November 1922. The Sultan was declared persona non grata from the lands the Ottoman Dynasty had ruled since 1299.

Coat of Arms of the Ottoman Empire

Flag of the Young Turk Revolution

Young Turk Revolution Declaration - Armenian, Greek Orthodox & Muslim religious leaders

Members of the Halâskâr Zâbitân

Selahaddin Bey, son of Liberal Union leader Kâmil Pasha and a member of the Halâskâr Zâbitân

Prominent nationalists at the Sivas congress. Left to right: Muzaffer Kılıç, Rauf (Orbay), Bekir Sami (Kunduh), Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), Ruşen Eşref (Ünaydın), Cemil Cahit (Toydemir), Cevat Abbas (Gürer)

Public demonstration during Young Turk Revolution in the Sultanahmet district of Constantinople, 1908…

Action Army forces entering Istanbul

Manastir Alphabet Commission

Greek demonstration in Monastir in favour of the constitution

Lithograph, with Ottoman Turkish, Greek, and French text, celebrating the new constitution and the promised equality and brotherhood among the Ottoman subjects

Cover of the Ottoman constitution of 1876

36th and last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, also 115 th Caliph of Islam; Mehmed VI.

Departure of the Mehmed VI from Dolmabahçe Palace after the abolition of monarchy, 1922

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the first speaker of the Grand National Assembly.

Propaganda poster of the Turkish National Movement

Ottoman Loan certificate, 1933; printed in French

State Emblem of the Soviet Union

The official cover of the 1922 Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the USSR document. It was signed on December 29 and approved on December 30, 1922. Moscow, Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.…

Declaration and Treaty on the Creation of the USSR

Declaration and Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, 1922, page 3 (with signatures)…

Michail Frunze, soviet military, died in 1925

Béla Kun, Alfred Rosmer , Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Frunze and Sergey Gusev. Kharkiv Ukraine 1920.

Kalinin pictured in his hometown in 1922

Grigory Petrovsky, 1917

Chervyakov in 1935

Mikhail Grigoryevich Tskhakaya

1922

The Declaration and Treaty on the Formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(Russian: Декларация и договор об образовании Союза Советских Социалистических Республик) officially created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union. It de jure legalised a political union of several Soviet republics that had existed since 1919 and created a new federal government whose key functions were centralised in Moscow. Its legislative branch consisted of the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union and the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union (TsIK), while the Council of People's Commissars composed the executive.

The Treaty, along with the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was approved on 30 December 1922 by a conference of delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR. The Treaty and the Declaration were confirmed by the First All-Union Congress of Soviets and signed by heads of delegations[1] – Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, and Grigory Petrovsky, Alexander Chervyakov [2] respectively on December 30, 1922. The treaty provided flexibility to admit new members. Therefore, by 1940 the Soviet Union grew from the founding four (or six, depending on whether 1922 or 1940 definitions are applied) republics to 15 republics.

On 8 December 1991, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian presidents signed the Belovezha Accords. The agreement declared the dissolution of the USSR by its founder states (denunciation of the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR) and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). On 10 December, the accord was ratified by the Ukrainian and Belarusian parliaments. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore the Russian SFSR renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR.

On 26 December 1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Council of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the first house of Soviet legislature (the second house, the Council of the Union, was without a quorum).

1922

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

The Soviet Union,[n] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[o] (USSR),[p] was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 30 December 1922 to 26 December 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national republics;[q] in practice, both its government and its economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, with the city of Moscow serving as its capital as well as that of its largest and most populous republic: the Russian SFSR. Other major cities included Leningrad (Russian SFSR), Kiev (Ukrainian SSR), Minsk (Byelorussian SSR), Tashkent (Uzbek SSR), Alma-Ata (Kazakh SSR), and Novosibirsk (Russian SFSR). It was the largest country in the world, covering over 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi) and spanning eleven time zones.

The country's roots lay in the October Revolution of 1917, which saw the Bolsheviks, overthrow the Russian Provisional Government that formed earlier that year following the February Revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, marking the end of the Russian Empire. Following the coup, the Bolsheviks lead by Vladimir Lenin established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR), the world's first constitutionally guaranteed socialist state.[r] Persisting internal tensions escalated into the brutal Russian Civil War. As the war progressed in the Bolshevik's favor, the RSFSR began to incorporate land conquered from the war into nominally independent states, which were unified into the Soviet Union in December 1922. Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph Stalin came to power.[9] Stalin inaugurated a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization that led to significant economic growth, but also contributed to a famine in 1930–1933 that killed millions. The forced labour camp system of the Gulag was also expanded in this period. Stalin conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual and perceived opponents. After the outbreak of World War II, Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The combined Soviet civilian and military casualty count—estimated to be around 20 million people—accounted for the majority of losses of Allied forces. In the aftermath of World War II, the territory occupied by the Red Army formed various Soviet satellite states.

The beginning of the Cold War saw the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union confront the Western Bloc of the United States, with the latter grouping becoming largely united in 1949 under NATO and the former grouping becoming largely united in 1955 under the Warsaw Pact.[10][11] As the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states by 1955, the pact has been long considered "superfluous",[12] and because of the rushed way in which it was conceived, NATO officials labeled it a "cardboard castle".[13] There was no direct military confrontation between the two organizations; instead, the conflict was fought on an ideological basis and through proxy wars. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact led to the expansion of military forces and their integration into the respective blocs.[11] The Warsaw Pact's largest military engagement was the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, its own member state, in August 1968 (with the participation of all pact nations except Albania and Romania),[10] which, in part, resulted in Albania withdrawing from the pact less than one month later. Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as de-Stalinization occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The Soviets took an early lead in the Space Race with the first artificial satellite, the first human spaceflight, and the first probe to land on another planet (Venus).

In the 1970s, there was a brief détente in the Soviet Union's relationship with the United States, but tensions resumed following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform the country through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. In 1989, during the closing stages of the Cold War, various countries of the Warsaw Pact overthrew their Marxist–Leninist regimes, which was accompanied by the outbreak of strong nationalist and separatist movements across the entire Soviet Union. In 1991, Gorbachev initiated a national referendum—boycotted by the Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—that resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favour of preserving the country as a renewed federation. In August 1991, hardline members of the Communist Party staged a coup d'état against Gorbachev; the attempt failed, with Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the unrest, and the Communist Party was subsequently banned. The Russian Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, while all of the other republics emerged from the USSR's collapse as fully independent post-Soviet states.[14]

The Soviet Union produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations. It had the world's second-largest economy, and the Soviet Armed Forces comprised the largest standing military in the world.[7][15][16] An NPT-designated state, it possessed the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world. It was a founding member of the United Nations as well as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military and economic strengths and scientific research.[17]

Poster of the unity of the Soviet republics in the late 1940s. Note that the map also points out the Karelo-Finnish SSR capital, Petrozavodsk.

Military parade on the Red Square in Moscow, 7 November 1964

Poster of the unity of the Soviet republics in the late 1930s. All republics, except Russia, are shown with their respective traditional clothes.

The Moscow Kremlin, which Lenin moved into in 1918 (pictured in 1987)

Photograph of Lenin on 1 May 1919, taken by Grigori Petrovich Goldstein

Bolshevik political cartoon poster from 1920, showing Lenin sweeping away monarchs, clergy, and capitalists; the caption reads, "Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth"

A cropped section of a photograph of Stalin taken in 1937. The original image depicts Molotov to his left, and Voroshilov to his right

The Saviour Church on Sennaya Square in Leningrad was one of many notable church buildings destroyed during The Thaw

The Grand Kremlin Palace, the seat of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, 1982

The Moscow Kremlin, which Lenin moved into in 1918 (pictured in 1987)

The DneproGES, one of many hydroelectric power stations in the Soviet Union

Nuclear Icebreaker Lenin

A medium-range SS-20 non-ICBM ballistic missile, the deployment of which by the Soviet Union in the late 1970s launched a new arms race in Europe when NATO responded by deploying Pershing II missiles in West Germany, among other things

Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1970

A bus commemorating Victory Day, Saint Petersburg, 2010. The text reads "Eternal glory to the victors" next to a portrait of Joseph Stalin and a Saint George's ribbon.

1923

The Treaty of Lausanne

(French: Traité de Lausanne, Turkish: Lozan Antlaşması) is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–23 and signed in the Palais de Rumine,[1][2] Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923.[3] The treaty officially settled the conflict that had originally existed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied French Republic, British Empire, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Romania since the onset of World War I.[4] The original text of the treaty is in French.[4] It was the result of a second attempt at peace after the failed and unratified Treaty of Sèvres, which aimed to divide Ottoman territories. The earlier treaty had been signed in 1920, but later rejected by the Turkish National Movement who fought against its terms. As a result of the Greco-Turkish War, Izmir was retrieved and the Armistice of Mudanya was signed in October 1922.[5][4] It provided for the Greek-Turkish population exchange and allowed unrestricted civilian, non-military, passage through the Turkish Straits.

The treaty was ratified by Turkey on 23 August 1923,[6][7] and all of the other signatories by 16 July 1924.[8] It came into force on 6 August 1924, when the instruments of ratification were officially deposited in Paris.[4]

A Declaration of Amnesty granted immunity for crimes committed between 1914 and 1922, notably the Armenian genocide. Historian Hans-Lukas Kieser states, "Lausanne tacitly endorsed comprehensive policies of expulsion and extermination of hetero-ethnic and hetero-religious groups".[9]

Turkey-Greece-Bulgaria on Treaty of Lausanne

Adakale Island in River Danube was forgotten during the peace talks at the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which allowed it to remain a de jure Ottoman territory and the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II's private possession until the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 (de facto until Romania unilaterally declared its sovereignty on the island in 1919 and further strengthened this claim with the Treaty of Trianon in 1920.)[19] The island was submerged during the construction of the Iron Gates hydroelectric plant in 1970, which also removed the possibility of a potential legal claim by the descendants of Abdul Hamid II.

Turkish delegation after having signed the Treaty of Lausanne. The delegation was led by İsmet İnönü (in the middle).

Palais de Rumine, Lausanne, Switzerland

This is the delegation of Turks which was sent to Lausanne. front row; left to right Reşit Saffet (Atabinen), Zulfu (Tigrel), Riza Nur, Ismet (İnönü), Zekâi (Apaydın), Ahmed Muhtar (Çilli), Munir (Ertegün), back row; Atif (Esenbel), Yahya Kemal (Bayatlı), ?, Ruşen Eşref (Ünaydın), Mustafa Şeref (Özkan), Tahir (Taner), Djevat (Açıkalın), Tevfik (Bıyıkoğlu), Sabri (Artul), Seniyettin, Haim Nahum, Mehmet Ali (Balin), Zuhtu (İnhan), Shevket (Doğruer), Yusuf Hikmet (Bayur), Suleiman Saib (Kıran), Fuad (Ağralı), Djelal Hazim (Arar), Hussein (Pektaş).

Chaim Nahum with President Muhammad Naguib in 1953

Haim Nahum Effendi (1872–1960), Chief Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire.

Curzon c. 1920–1925

Raymond Poincaré , Time Cover, 24 Mar 1924

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938)

Namık Kemal's works had a profound influence on Atatürk and other Turkish statesmen who established the Turkish Republic.[503][504]

Mustafa Kemal's 1933 Speech at the 10th Anniversary of the Republic of Turkey left to right: Chief of General Staff Mareşal Fevzi (Çakmak), President Gazi Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), Speaker of the Grand National Assembly Kâzım Köprülü (Özalp), Prime Minister İsmet (İnönü). Kemal Atatürk (or alternatively written as Kamâl Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1934, commonly referred to as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and theories became known as Kemalism. Due to his military and political accomplishments, Atatürk is regarded as one of the most important political leaders of the 20th century.

2007 Republic Day Celebrations on the Bosporus (Istanbul, Turkey)

Some henges at Göbekli Tepe were erected as far back as 9600 BC, predating those of Stonehenge, England, by over seven millennia.[45]

The Sphinx Gate of Hattusa, the capital of the Hittites

The Temple of Zeus in the ancient city of Aizanoi in Phrygia

The gymnasium complex in Sardis, the capital of Lydia

The Sebasteion of Aphrodisias, a city named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of beauty. In 2017, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.[73]

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built by the Romans in 114–117.[74] The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, built by king Croesus of Lydia in the 6th century BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.[75]

The Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (Istanbul) was built by the Eastern Roman emperor Justinian in 532–537.[96]

The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire in 555 under Justinian , at its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

The Great Seljuk Empire in 1092, upon the death of Malik Shah I[104]

İnce Minareli Medrese in Konya (left), Çifte Minareli Medrese in Erzurum (center) and Divriği Great Mosque and Hospital (right) are among the finest examples of Seljuk architecture.

Topkapı and Dolmabahçe palaces in Istanbul were the primary residences of the Ottoman Sultans in 1465–1856[114] and 1856–1922,[115] respectively.

The second Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683 (the first siege was in 1529) initiated the Great Turkish War (1683–1699) between the Ottomans and the Holy League.

The Süleymaniye Mosque is the largest Ottoman imperial mosque in Istanbul, located on the Third Hill in the city's historical peninsula. The mosque was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent and designed by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first President of the Turkish Republic, with the Liberal Republican Party leader Fethi Okyar (right) and Nermin Kırdar (Fethi Okyar's daughter) in Yalova, 13 August 1930

Roosevelt, İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference, 1943

Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city.

Turkey has been in formal accession negotiations with the European Union since 2005.[152][153]

TAI TF-X, a twin-engine fifth generation air superiority fighter, is currently being produced by Turkish Aerospace Industries for the Turkish Air Force. [228][229][230][231][232] The taxiing and ground running tests of the prototype began on March 16, 2023. [233][234]

The Presidential Library in Ankara is the largest library in Turkey, with a collection of over 4 million printed books[385] and over 120 million electronic editions[385] published in 134 languages.[385]

Göktürk-1, Göktürk-2 and Göktürk-3 are the Earth observation satellites of the Turkish Ministry of National Defense, while state-owned Türksat operates the Türksat series of communications satellites.

A view of Levent financial district in Istanbul from the observation deck of Istanbul Sapphire

Image of the YDA center in Ankara.

Skyscrapers in Izmir, Turkey.

Hüdavendigar Park along the shores of the Nilüfer River in Bursa

Selimiye Mosque was built by the imperial architect Mimar Sinan.[426] The mosque was included on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 2011.[427]

Dolmabahçe Mosque of Bezmiâlem Sultan.

1923

the Republic of Türkiye

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye Turkish pronunciation: [ˈtyɾcije]), officially the Republic of Türkiye (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti [ˈtyɾcije dʒumˈhuːɾijeti] (listen)), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the east; Iraq to the southeast; Syria and the Mediterranean Sea to the south; the Aegean Sea to the west; and Greece and Bulgaria to the northwest. Cyprus is off the south coast. Most of the country's citizens are ethnic Turks, while Kurds are the largest ethnic minority.[4] Ankara is Turkey's capital and second-largest city; Istanbul is its largest city and main financial centre.

One of the world's earliest permanently settled regions, present-day Turkey was home to important Neolithic sites like Göbekli Tepe, and was inhabited by ancient civilizations including the Hattians, Hittites, Anatolian peoples, Mycenaean Greeks, Persians, and others.[11][12][13][14]

Following the conquests of Alexander the Great which started the Hellenistic period, most of the ancient regions were culturally Hellenized, and this continued during the Byzantine era.[12][15] The Seljuk Turks began migrating to Anatolia in the 11th century, which started the Turkification process. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rum ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities.[16] Beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottomans united the principalities and conquered the Balkans, while the Turkification of Anatolia further progressed during the Ottoman period. After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire became a global power.[11][17][18]

From the late 18th century onwards, the empire's power declined with a gradual loss of territories.[19] Mahmud II started a period of modernization in the early 19th century.[20] The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 restricted the authority of the Sultan and restored the Ottoman Parliament after a 30-year suspension, ushering the empire into a multi-party period.[21][22] The Three Pashas took control with the 1913 coup d'état, and the Ottoman Empire entered World War I as one of the Central Powers in 1914. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Greek and Assyrian subjects.[23][24] After its defeat in the war, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned.[25]

The Turkish War of Independence against the occupying Allied Powers resulted in the abolition of the Sultanate on 1 November 1922, the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne (which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres) on 24 July 1923 and the proclamation of the Republic on 29 October 1923. With the reforms initiated by the country's first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Turkey became a secular, unitary and parliamentary republic. Turkey remained neutral during most of World War II, but entered the closing stages of the war on the side of the Allies.

Turkey played a prominent role in the Korean War and joined NATO in 1952. During the Cold War years, the country endured two military coups in 1960 and 1980, and a period of economic and political turmoil in the 1970s. The economy was liberalized in the 1980s, leading to stronger economic growth and political stability. Since 2002, the country's political system has been dominated by the AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, under whom a decade of rapid growth in nominal GDP took place until 2013,[26][27] which was followed by a period of recession and stagnation in terms of USD-based nominal GDP between 2013 and 2020,[27] and high inflation as of 2023.[28] The AKP government's initial economic achievements, which were financed through privatization revenues and loans, were overshadowed by democratic backsliding and an erosion in the separation of powers and civil liberties, which gained momentum after the parliamentary republic was replaced by an executive presidential system with a referendum in 2017.[29][30]

Turkey is a regional power with a geopolitically significant strategic location.[31][32] The economy of Turkey, which is a founding member of the OECD and G20, is classified among the E7, EAGLEs and NICs, and currently ranks twentieth-largest in the world by nominal GDP and eleventh-largest by PPP. Turkey is a charter member of the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank; a founding member of the OSCE, OIC, BSEC, ECO, MIKTA, TURKSOY and OTS; and an early member of NATO. After becoming one of the early members of the Council of Europe in 1950, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995, and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. Turkey has a rich cultural legacy shaped by centuries of history and the influence of the various peoples that have inhabited its territory over several millennia; it is home to 19 UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is among the most visited countries in the world.

1923

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

,[a] or Mustafa Kemal Pasha[b] until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal[c] from 1921 until 1934 [3] (c. 1881[d] – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation.[4][5][6][7] Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.[4] Due to his military and political accomplishments, Atatürk is regarded as one of the most important political leaders of the 20th century.[8]

Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I.[9] Following the defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the decrepit Ottoman Empire and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place.

As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a modern, progressive and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency.[10] In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage.[11]

His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner.[12][13][14] Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were asked to speak Turkish in public, but also were allowed to maintain their own languages at the same time;[15] non-Turkish toponyms and minorities were ordered to get a Turkish surname as per Turkish renditions.[16][17] The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic.[18] He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57;[19] he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü [20] and was honored with a state funeral.

In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction".[21][22] Atatürk was also credited for his peace in the world-oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and the Tsarist Bulgaria.[23]

A portrait of Atatürk from the 1930s. Kemal Atatürk (or alternatively written as Kamâl Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1934, commonly referred to as Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938. (He was elected president four times.) He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and theories became known as Kemalism. Due to his military and political accomplishments, Atatürk is regarded as one of the most important political leaders of the 20th century.

Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Ankara, is visited by crowds during national holidays, such as Republic Day on 29 October.

The house where Atatürk was born in the Ottoman city of Salonika (Thessaloniki in present-day Greece), now a museum

The reconstructed house of Atatürk's paternal grandparents, in the Ottoman village of Kocacık (Kodžadžik in present-day North Macedonia)

Atatürk on the day of graduation from the War Academy in 1905

Atatürk (front row, second from left) with the Ottoman Turkish observers at the Picardie army manoeuvres in France, 28 September 1910

Atatürk (left) with an Ottoman military officer and Bedouin forces in Derna, Tripolitania Vilayet, 1912

Cevat Pasha and Atatürk on the daily Tasvîr-i Efkâr [tr] dated 29 October 1915

Atatürk with Ottoman military officers during the Battle of Gallipoli, Çanakkale, 1915

Atatürk in 1918, the Commander of the Yıldırım Army Group and an Honorary aide-de-camp of the Sultan

Atatürk (right) in Angora (Ankara) with İsmet Pasha (left)

Atatürk in 1923, with members of the Mevlevi Order, before its institutional expression became illegal and their dervish lodge was changed into the Mevlana Museum. The Mevlevi Order managed to transform itself into a non-political organization which still exists.

In 1924, during his speech in Bursa

Atatürk during the Republic Day celebrations on the second anniversary of the Turkish Republic, 29 October 1925.

Atatürk at the opening ceremony of the Samsun-Çarşamba railroad (1928)

Atatürk introducing the new Turkish alphabet to the people of Kayseri on 20 September 1928

Atatürk (right) with Reza Shah Pahlavi (left) of Iran, during the Shah's visit to Turkey

Atatürk with King Amānullāh Khān of Afghanistan in Ankara, 1928. King Amānullāh attempted to emulate many of Atatürk's reforms in Afghanistan, but was overthrown.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first President of the Turkish Republic, with the Liberal Republican Party leader Fethi Okyar (right) and Nermin Kırdar (Fethi Okyar's daughter) in Yalova, 13 August 1930

Atatürk attending a class at the Law School of the Istanbul House of Multiple Sciences in 1930

Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Atatürk in Ankara, is visited by large crowds every year during national holidays such as Republic Day on October 29.

Statue of Atatürk in Ankara

Atatürk's deathbed

1924

dead of lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov[b] (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,[c] was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his development of the ideology is known as Leninism.

Born to an upper-middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye in Siberia for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which, as a Marxist, he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime.

Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from the Russian Republic after 1917, but five were forcibly re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922, while others repelled Soviet invasions. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.

Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by his supporters as a champion of socialism and the working class. Meanwhile, Lenin's critics accuse him of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship which oversaw mass killings and political repression.

Lenin's Mausoleum in front of the Kremlin, 2007

Statue of Lenin erected by the East German Marxist–Leninist government at Leninplatz in East Berlin, East Germany (removed in 1992)

Lenin spent his final years largely at the Gorki mansion.

Lenin's funeral, painted by Isaac Brodsky, 1925

Lenin in 1923, after his stroke, in a wheelchair

Stalin and Lenin at Gorki, just outside Moscow, September 1922. Photograph by Maria Ulyanova, Lenin’s sister. Stalin had images of his visit published to show Lenin’s supposed recovery—and his own proximity to the Bolshevik leader.

Lenin delivering a speech to a crowd in Moscow Square, with Trotsky and Kamenev in the background, May 1920.

Lenin with his wife and sister in a car after watching a Red Army parade at Khodynka Field in Moscow, May Day 1918

Lenin in 1916, while in Switzerland

Lenin (seated centre) with other members of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1897

An image of Lenin (left) at the age of three with his sister, Olga

Flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan)

The Naval Jack of the Republic of China since 1928 (also adopted as canton of the Flag of the Republic of China), now used on Taiwan. This flag is also used as the party flag of Kuomintang.

Flag of the National Revolutionary Army (known as the Republic of China Army after the 1947 Constitution)

Flag of the Chinese Communist Party

Flag of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army

Third Plenum of the KMT Central Executive Committee in March 1927. Mao is third from the right in the second row.

Mao Zedong around the time of his work at Guangzhou's PMTI in 1925

Zhou during his time in France (1920s)

Zhang Guotao

Deng with Liu Bocheng (right)

Otto Braun (Li De) in China

Bo Gu - In January 1933, Bo Gu got away from Shanghai to Jiangxi–Fujian Soviet with Interim Politburo of the Communist Party of China. In May, he became the Committee of the Central Revolutionary Military Commission of the Chinese Soviet Republic. In January 1934 to March 1943, Bo became Secretariat of the Communist Party of China. February 1934, Bo was elected as the second Central Executive Committee of the Chinese Soviet Republic, and the Committee of Central Executive Bureau

Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Commander-in-Chief of the National Revolutionary Army, emerged from the Northern Expedition as the leader of the Republic of China

Chiang and Feng Yuxiang in 1928

Nationalist government of Nanking – nominally ruling over entire China in 1930s

NRA soldiers marching

NRA troops firing artillery at Communist forces

The leaders of Chinese communists (L-R) Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, and Zhu De during the Long March

Japanese occupation (red) of eastern China near the end of the war, and Communist bases (striped)

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in Chongqing in 1945.

Shangdang Campaign, September–October 1945

The Soviet Red Army invaded Manchuria in August 1945.

Chinese Communist soldiers march north to occupy rural Manchuria, 1945.

Nationalist warplanes being prepared for an air raid on Communist bases

The PLA enters Beiping (today's Beijing) in the Pingjin Campaign.

Republic of China FT tanks

The Nationalists' retreat to Taipei: after the Nationalists lost Nanjing (Nanking) they next moved to Guangzhou (Canton), then to Chongqing (Chungking), Chengdu (Chengtu) and finally, Xichang (Sichang) before arriving Taipei in 1949.

Map of the Chinese Civil War (1946–1949, and 1950)

Communist conquest of Hainan Island in mid 1950

Mao Zedong's proclamation of the founding of the People's Republic in 1949

"Forget not that you are in Jǔ"--a rock in Quemoy Island with Chiang Kai-shek's calligraphy signifying the retaking of one's homeland

1927

The Chinese Civil War

was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, armed conflict continuing intermittently from 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949, and ending with Communist control of mainland China.

The war is generally divided into two phases with an interlude: from August 1927 to 1937, the KMT-CCP Alliance collapsed during the Northern Expedition, and the Nationalists controlled most of China. From 1937 to 1945, hostilities were mostly put on hold as the Second United Front fought the Japanese invasion of China with eventual help from the Allies of World War II, but even then co-operation between the KMT and CCP was minimal and armed clashes between them were common. Exacerbating the divisions within China further was that a puppet government, sponsored by Japan and nominally led by Wang Jingwei, was set up to nominally govern the parts of China under Japanese occupation.

The civil war resumed as soon as it became apparent that the Japanese defeat was imminent, and the CCP gained the upper hand in the second phase of the war from 1945 to 1949, generally referred to as the Chinese Communist Revolution.

The Communists gained control of mainland China and established the People's Republic of China in 1949, forcing the leadership of the Republic of China to retreat to the island of Taiwan.[10] Starting in the 1950s, a lasting political and military standoff between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has ensued, with the ROC in Taiwan and the PRC in mainland China both officially claiming to be the legitimate government of all China. After the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, both tacitly ceased fire in 1979; however, no armistice or peace treaty has ever been signed.[11]

1929

The Great Depression

was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States.[1] The economic contagion began around September and led to the Wall Street stock market crash of October 24 (Black Thursday). It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century.[2]

Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%. By comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession.[3] Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. However, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II.[4] Devastating effects were seen in both rich and poor countries with falling personal income, prices, tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, unemployment in the U.S. rose to 23% and in some countries rose as high as 33%.[5]

Cities around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%.[6][7][8] Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered the most.[9]

Economic historians usually consider the catalyst of the Great Depression to be the sudden devastating collapse of U.S. stock market prices, starting on October 24, 1929. However, some dispute this conclusion, seeing the stock crash less as a cause of the Depression and more as a symptom of the rising nervousness of investors partly due to gradual price declines caused by falling sales of consumer goods (as a result of overproduction because of new production techniques, falling exports and income inequality, among other factors) that had already been underway as part of a gradual Depression.[5][10]

1933

The Enabling Act

(German: Ermächtigungsgesetz), officially titled Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (lit. 'Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich'),[1] was a law that gave the German Cabinet – most importantly, the Chancellor – the powers to make and enforce laws without the involvement of the Reichstag or Weimar President Paul von Hindenburg, leading to the rise of Nazi Germany. Critically, the Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to bypass the system of checks and balances in the government.

In January 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, was appointed as chancellor, the head of the German government.[2] On February 27, the German parliament building — the Reichstag — caught fire.[3] Acting as chancellor, Hitler immediately accused the communists of being the perpetrators of the fire and claimed the arson was part of a larger effort to overthrow the German government. Using this justification, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree.[4] The decree abolished most civil liberties, including the right to speak, assemble, protest, and due process. Using the decree, the Nazis declared a state of emergency and began a violent crackdown against their political enemies.[5] As Hitler cleared the political arena of anyone willing to challenge him, he contended that the decree was insufficient and required sweeping policies that would safeguard his emerging dictatorship.[6] Hitler submitted a proposal to the Reichstag that if passed would immediately grant all legislative powers to the cabinet and by extension Hitler. This would in effect allow Hitler's government to act without concern to the constitution.

Despite outlawing the communists and repressing other opponents, the passage of the Enabling Act was not a guarantee. Hitler allied with other nationalist and conservative factions[7] and they steamrolled over the Social Democrats in the 5 March 1933 German federal election. Germans voted in an atmosphere of extreme voter intimidation perpetrated by the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) militia. Contrary to popular belief, Hitler did not win an outright majority in the Reichstag as the majority of Germans did not vote for the Nazi Party.[8] The election was a setback for the Nazis; however, it was insufficient in stopping the ratification of the Enabling Act. In order to guarantee its passage, the Nazis implemented a strategy of coercion, bribery, and manipulation. Hitler removed any remaining political obstacles so his coalition of conservatives, nationalists, and Nazis could begin building the Nazi dictatorship.[9][10] By mid-March, the government began sending communists, labor union leaders, and other political dissidents to Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp.[11]

Once the Enabling Act was introduced, it was hastily passed by the Reichstag and Reichsrat on 23 March 1933.[12][13][14] Later that day, the Enabling Act was signed into law by President Paul von Hindenburg.[15] Unless extended by the Reichstag, the act would expire after four years. With the Enabling Act now in force, the cabinet (in practice, the chancellor) could pass and enforce laws without any objection. The combined effect of the Enabling Act and the Reichstag Fire Decree transformed Hitler's government into a legal dictatorship and laid the groundwork for his totalitarian regime. By July, the Nazis were the only legally permitted party in Germany. The Reichstag from 1933 onward effectively became the rubber stamp parliament that Hitler always wanted.[16] The Enabling Act would be renewed twice and would be rendered null when Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies in 1945.

The passing of the Enabling Act is significant in German and world history as it marked the formal transition from the democratic Weimar Republic to the totalitarian Nazi dictatorship. From 1933 onwards Hitler continued to consolidate and centralize power via purges, and propaganda. In 1934, Hitler and Heinrich Himmler began removing non-Nazi officials together with Hitler's rivals within the Nazi Party, culminating in the Night of the Long Knives. Once the purges of the Nazi Party and German government concluded, Hitler had total control over Germany. Armed with the Enabling Act, Hitler could begin German rearmament and achieve his aggressive foreign policy aims which ultimately resulted in the Second World War.

1933

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

(/ˈdɛlənoʊ ˈroʊzəvɛlt, -vəlt/ DEL-ə-noh ROH-zə-velt, -⁠vəlt;[1] January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He previously served as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1933, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920, and a member of the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913.

Roosevelt attended Groton School, Harvard College, and Columbia Law School, going on to practice law in New York City. He won election to the New York State Senate in 1910 and then served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under president Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's ticket in the 1920 United States presidential election, but Cox was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. He returned to public office by winning the 1928 New York gubernatorial election. He served as governor of New York from 1929 to 1933, promoting programs to combat the Great Depression besetting the United States at the time. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated Republican incumbent president Herbert Hoover in a landslide.

During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. In 1936, Roosevelt won a landslide reelection with the economy having improved rapidly from 1933, but the economy relapsed into a deep recession in 1937 and 1938. Later, Roosevelt unsuccessfully sought passage of the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937. The conservative coalition formed in 1937 to block the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. He ran successfully for reelection in 1940, becoming the only American president to serve for more than two terms.

With World War II looming after 1938 in addition to the Japanese invasion of China and the aggression of Nazi Germany, Roosevelt gave strong diplomatic and financial support to China as well as the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union while the United States remained officially neutral. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he obtained a declaration of war on Japan the next day, and a few days later, on Germany and Italy. He worked closely with other national leaders in leading the Allies against the Axis powers. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the American economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy. He also initiated the development of the world's first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations and other post-war institutions. He won reelection in 1944 but with his physical health seriously and steadily declining during the war years, he died in 1945. Since his death, several of Roosevelt's actions have come under substantial criticism. Historical rankings consistently rank Roosevelt as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Mao Zedong

[a] (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which he led as the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party from the establishment of the PRC in 1949 until his death in 1976. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist, his theories, military strategies, and political policies are collectively known as Maoism.

Mao was the son of a prosperous peasant in Shaoshan, Hunan. He supported Chinese nationalism and had an anti-imperialist outlook early in his life, and was particularly influenced by the events of the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 and May Fourth Movement of 1919. He later adopted Marxism–Leninism while working at Peking University as a librarian and became a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leading the Autumn Harvest Uprising in 1927. During the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, Mao helped to found the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, led the Jiangxi Soviet's radical land reform policies, and ultimately became head of the CCP during the Long March. Although the CCP temporarily allied with the KMT under the Second United Front during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), China's civil war resumed after Japan's surrender, and Mao's forces defeated the Nationalist government, which withdrew to Taiwan in 1949.

On 1 October 1949, Mao proclaimed the foundation of the PRC, a Marxist–Leninist single-party state controlled by the CCP. In the following years he solidified his control through the Chinese Land Reform against landlords, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, the "Three-anti and Five-anti Campaigns", and through a truce in the Korean War, which altogether resulted in the deaths of several million Chinese. From 1953 to 1958, Mao played an important role in enforcing command economy in China, constructing the first Constitution of the PRC, launching the industrialisation program, and initiating military projects such as the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project and Project 523. His foreign policies during this time were dominated by the Sino-Soviet split which drove a wedge between China and the Soviet Union. In 1955, Mao launched the Sufan movement, and in 1957 he launched the Anti-Rightist Campaign, in which at least 550,000 people, mostly intellectuals and dissidents, were persecuted.[2] In 1958, he launched the Great Leap Forward that aimed to rapidly transform China's economy from agrarian to industrial, which led to the deadliest famine in history and the deaths of 15–55 million people between 1958 and 1962. In 1963, Mao launched the Socialist Education Movement, and in 1966 he initiated the Cultural Revolution, a program to remove "counter-revolutionary" elements in Chinese society which lasted 10 years and was marked by violent class struggle, widespread destruction of cultural artifacts, and an unprecedented elevation of Mao's cult of personality. Tens of millions of people were persecuted during the Revolution, while the estimated number of deaths ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions. After years of ill health, Mao suffered a series of heart attacks in 1976 and died at the age of 82. During Mao's era, China's population grew from around 550 million to over 900 million while the government did not strictly enforce its family planning policy.

Widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, Mao remains a controversial figure within and outside China. Beyond politics, Mao is also known as a theorist, military strategist, and poet. Mao has been praised for transforming China from a semi-colony to a leading world power, with greatly advanced literacy, women's rights, basic healthcare, primary education and life expectancy.[3][4][5][6] The government during Mao's rule was also responsible for vast numbers of deaths, with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 million victims through starvation, persecution, prison labour, and mass executions.[7][8][9][10] During his leadership tenure, China was heavily involved with other Asian communist conflicts such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cambodian Civil War, which brought the Khmer Rouge to power.

Flags of the Popular Front (left) and CNT/FAI (right). The slogan of the CNT/FAI anarchists was "Ni dios, ni estado, ni patrón" ("Neither god, Nor state, Nor boss"), widespread by the Spanish anarchists since 1910.

Flags of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (left) and the Carlist Requetés (right)

On 12 April 1931, the Republicans won the elections and the Spanish Second Republic was proclaimed two days later. King Alfonso XIII went into exile.

Manuel Azaña, Spanish politician.

Portrait of Francisco Franco

Franco and other rebel commanders during the Civil War, c. 1936–1939

Militias of the Falange in Saragossa, October 1936

Republican volunteers at Teruel, 1936

Map showing Spain in September 1936: Area under Nationalist control Area under Republican control

Surrender of Republican soldiers in the Somosierra area, 1936

Review of Soviet armoured fighting vehicles used to equip the Republican People's Army during the Spanish Civil War

Italian troops manning a 10 cm howitzer at Guadalajara, 1937

German officer from the Condor Legion instructing Nationalist infantry soldiers, Ávila

Children take refuge during the Francoist bombing over Madrid (1936–1937). In spite of that, Republicans managed to repulse this siege.

Francoist demonstration in Salamanca (1937) with the paraders carrying banners with the portrait of Franco and the populace giving the Roman salute.

Bombing in Barcelona, 1938

Franco arriving in San Sebastián in 1939, escorted by the Moorish Guard

The Church was a frequent target of the revolutionary left in the Republic and in the War. During the Civil War, revolutionaries destroyed or burned some 20,000 churches, along with church artwork and tombs, books, archives, and palaces.[43][44] A vast number of affected buildings are today defunct.

"Execution" of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Communist militiamen. The photograph in the London Daily Mail had the caption "Spanish Reds' war on religion".[416]

José Antonio Primo de Rivera the founder of the Falange Española, executed by Republicans in November 1936 in Alicante.

General map of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Key Initial Nationalist zone – July 1936 Nationalist advance until September 1936 Nationalist advance until October 1937 Nationalist advance until November 1938 Nationalist advance until February 1939 Last area under Republican control Main Nationalist centres Main Republican centres Land battles Naval battles Bombed cities Concentration camps Massacres Refugee camps

Republican forces during the battle of Irún in 1936

1936

The Spanish Civil War

(Spanish: Guerra Civil Española)[note 2] was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period.[12] The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism.[13] According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II.[14] The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

The war began after the partial failure of the coup d'état of July 1936 against the Republican government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces, with General Emilio Mola as the primary planner and leader and having General José Sanjurjo as a figurehead. The government at the time was a coalition of Republicans, supported in the Cortes by communist and socialist parties, under the leadership of centre-left President Manuel Azaña.[15][16] The Nationalist group was supported by a number of conservative groups, including CEDA, monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists, and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party.[17] After the deaths of Sanjurjo, Emilio Mola and Manuel Goded Llopis, Franco emerged as the remaining leader of the Nationalist side.

The coup was supported by military units in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Cádiz, Córdoba, and Seville. However, rebelling units in almost all important cities—such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Málaga—did not gain control, and those cities remained under the control of the government. This left Spain militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists and the Republican government fought for control of the country. The Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support from Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Portugal, while the Republican side received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government but followed an official policy of non-intervention. Despite this policy, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict. They fought mostly in the pro-Republican International Brigades, which also included several thousand exiles from pro-Nationalist regimes.

The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west, capturing most of Spain's northern coastline in 1937. They also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. After much of Catalonia was captured in 1938 and 1939, and Madrid cut off from Barcelona, the Republican military position became hopeless. Following the fall without resistance of Barcelona in January 1939, the Francoist regime was recognised by France and the United Kingdom in February 1939. On 5 March 1939, in response to an alleged increasing communist dominance of the republican government and the deteriorating military situation, Colonel Segismundo Casado led a military coup against the Republican government, with the intention of seeking peace with the Nationalists. These peace overtures, however, were rejected by Franco. Following internal conflict between Republican factions in Madrid in the same month, Franco entered the capital and declared victory on 1 April 1939. Hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fled to refugee camps in southern France.[18] Those associated with the losing Republicans who stayed were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists. Franco established a dictatorship in which all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime.[17]

The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired and for the many atrocities that occurred. Organised purges occurred in territory captured by Franco's forces so they could consolidate their future regime.[19] Mass executions on a lesser scale also took place in areas controlled by the Republicans,[20] with the participation of local authorities varying from location to location.[21][22]

1937

The Battle of Shanghai

(Chinese: 淞滬會戰) was the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of China (ROC) and the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) of the Empire of Japan at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the entire war, later described as "Stalingrad on the Yangtze",[6] and is often regarded as the battle where World War II started.[7] After over three months of extensive fighting on land, in the air and at sea, the battle concluded with a victory for Japan.

Since the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931 followed by the Japanese attack of Shanghai in 1932, there had been ongoing armed conflicts between China and Japan without an official declaration of war. These conflicts finally escalated in July 1937, when the Marco Polo Bridge Incident triggered the full advance from Japan.[8] Dogged Chinese resistance at Shanghai was aimed at stalling Japanese advance, giving much needed time for the Chinese government to move vital industries to the interior, while at the same time attempting to bring sympathetic Western powers to China's side. During the fierce three-month battle, Chinese and Japanese troops fought in downtown Shanghai, in the outlying towns, and on the beaches of the Yangtze River and Hangzhou Bay, where the Japanese had made amphibious landings.

Chinese forces were equipped primarily with small-caliber weapons against much greater Japanese air, naval, and armor power.[9] In the end, Shanghai fell, and China lost a significant portion of its best troops, while failing to elicit any international intervention. However, the resistance of Chinese forces over three months of battle shocked the Japanese,[10][clarification needed] who had been indoctrinated with notions of cultural and martial superiority, and largely demoralized the Imperial Japanese Army, who believed they could take Shanghai within days and China within months.

The battle can be divided into three stages, and eventually involved nearly one million troops. The first stage lasted from August 13 to August 22, 1937, during which the NRA attempted to eradicate Japanese troop presence in downtown Shanghai. The second stage lasted from August 23 to October 26, 1937, during which the Japanese launched amphibious landings on the Jiangsu coast and the two armies fought a Stalingrad-like house-to-house battle,[11][12] with the Japanese attempting to gain control of the city and the surrounding regions. The last stage, ranging from October 27 to the end of November 1937, involved the retreat of the Chinese army in the face of Japanese flanking maneuvers, and the ensuing combat on the road to China's capital, Nanjing.

Chiang Kai-shek