Read the book: «The History of the West. Through the Eyes of Bears and Balalaikas»

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Editor Olga Amirova

ISBN 978-5-0065-7588-2

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Preface (boring, but short)

This book was written under the significant influence of another work – George Macaulay Trevelyan’s¹ “A Social History of England,” where the author attempted to move away from detailed descriptions of political events and historical figures in favor of a deep analysis of the transformation of social relations. After all, what does a traditional history textbook represent? Kings, wars, revolutions, and again kings. Dates, dates, dates. Names and again dates. Which are impossible to remember and behind which the understanding of what really happened in the world at that time is erased.

You can’t completely get rid of kings and wars, after all, they were the ones who determined the course of the historical process, creating this or that reality over many centuries. And yet, in my deep conviction, the main thing is not the names and events; they are merely hooks, markers that allow us to tie together the chronological sequence of facts, but rather the changes that occurred in a particular historical era.

At first, I wanted to take a specific time period, for example, the mid-19th century or the early 16th century, and examine it in detail. But such an approach turned out to be practically impossible: every fact or trend has causes and consequences, without the analysis of which the fact itself is merely a meaningless line. Therefore, it was necessary to dig deeper and wider so that the events would at least hint at the interconnections that in reality permeate the entire socio-political process, regardless of the era.

There is very little specificity in this book, and the facts are mostly placed in the footnotes, of which there are, on the contrary, an enormous amount. This is done intentionally. Surely much of what is told is already familiar to the reader, and much else cannot be briefly stated. For any event and historical figure in our time, there is a huge layer, or as they say, corpus of materials that are not difficult to find. The task of this text is different: to provide a general overview of what has happened with Western civilization over the last five centuries, to sketch the general outline of events, and to provide enough information so that the reader can delve into the study of those details that seem interesting to them.

Introduction. How to and How Not to Study History

The study of history is not the study of facts; facts in themselves have no value: all these events – wars, uprisings, discoveries, and catastrophes – have already occurred, and knowing their details, exact dates, and sequences does not enrich human experience or allow for the systematization of data and drawing conclusions, which is the essence of any science. The study of history is the understanding of the logic of the historical process, the interconnection of events, causes, consequences, and relationships between people, nations, and states. It is generalization, the search for patterns, and ultimately an attempt to use accumulated knowledge for forecasting. We study the past not out of idle curiosity but solely for the ability to predict the future.

The study of history has several adversaries: the incompleteness of sources, often irreplaceable, since not all decisions, actions, and events are documented, and not all documents survive to the present day. Often, when researching a particular historical period, personality, or phenomenon, a historian is forced to rely not on primary sources, but on material already processed by someone else – memoirs, retellings, quotes that often appear many years or even centuries later. Often, one has to turn to the works of predecessors: articles, monographs, translations – hopefully, they are created competently and impartially. However, the incompleteness of sources provokes or, if you will, forces one to fill in the missing parts: cause-and-effect relationships, the logic of the actors, customs, and even events. A theory built on such conjectures serves as a basis for further research, and after some time, it becomes impossible to understand which events and processes actually took place and which are only assumed with varying degrees of justification. Such “the conjecturing of facts” is inevitable for obtaining a complete theory from incomplete data, but a conscientious historian must always be aware of which of their statements have a reliable evidential nature and which are derived through reasoning. And they must disclose the sources of their conclusions as fully as possible.

An even more complex adversary is the politicization of history, the attempt to replace the study of actual phenomena with the proof of one’s own point of view. Like any “fit to answer,” this approach has nothing to do with either science or knowledge, being a form of propaganda, and from a researcher’s perspective, falsification. And no matter how good the intentions, they cannot justify this falsification – it’s impossible to draw correct conclusions from deliberately false arguments invented. Interpretations can form logical chains, but these chains do not correspond to what actually existed. Whether we like it or not, in history, as in any science, there is no concept of good and evil, good and bad; there is truth, that is, everything that actually took place, and falsehood, that is, everything that did not actually occur.

But the most significant enemy of studying history is the anachronism of thinking. We, people of our time, interpret past events through the prism of our own ethics, experiences, knowledge, and culture. We think as the people of the 21st century, who have launched spaceships into the sky, built nuclear power plants, and established, in a significant part of the world, the principles of humanism and some form of democracy. But people of the past, even the recent past, let alone the distant past, thought differently. They had different experiences, different knowledge, different values for their own and others’ lives, and different motivators. It is very difficult, almost impossible, to understand not only a 10th-century Viking, whose short life consisted of drinking, fighting, and rowing, but even a soldier of the First World War, ready to give his life for the personal interests of the Austrian, Prussian, or Russian emperor, who had almost no connection to this soldier. For us, inhabitants of countries where people are more or less equal, at least in words, it is hard to reconcile with the fact that for most of human history, such equality was by no means considered the norm. Gender equality, racial equality, social class equality, the honor of labor, the value of art – all these things seem obvious to us, but in past eras, they could be perceived, be regarded as absurd, blasphemous, and even criminal. And if we want to understand the logic of the historical process and draw justified, practically applicable conclusions from it, we first need to think, or at least try to think, as the people of the studied era did, living by their ethics, morals, stereotypes, and ideas, even if from our current perspective they seem ridiculous and immoral.

Who won and who lost the Second World War

Absurd question. Everyone knows that the anti-Hitler coalition won the war, and Germany and Japan lost. This is well-known, and there are surrender acts from 1945 about it.

Alright. Let’s put the question differently. Who won and who lost as a result of the Second World War? And although these questions are equivalent, in the new formulation, the answer is not at all obvious. Especially if we look at it not from the standpoint of 1945, but from the height of what we know now.

And we know a lot. Firstly, calling the “anti-Hitler coalition” the winner of the war would be at least bold: at the time of the war’s end, the relations among the allies were in some cases worse than with the enemy. So much so that American General Patton seriously contemplated a march on Moscow, and the Soviet General Staff was developing a plan to capture Europe up to the Atlantic. And as soon as the smoke cleared, the former brothers in arms immediately clashed with each other – initially little by little in West Berlin², then all.

The conflict in Korea³ and then practically everywhere else. The inevitability of this was understood even before the war; the alliance of very different political regimes was initially unstable and even to some extent unnatural, therefore it is impossible to consider it a collective victor. So, let’s see what the war brought to its main participants individually.

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of the losses. Two consecutive military catastrophes in the summer of 1941 and the summer of 1942, combined with the occupation of the most densely populated territories, the famine of 1946, and the colossal strain on the economy, led to the death of 15 to 20 percent of the country’s population⁴. This staggering figure is comparable only to Germany’s losses in the Thirty Years’ War and the destruction of indigenous civilizations by the conquistadors. In exchange for these sacrifices, the USSR… essentially remained as it was. It did not acquire significant territories, unless the Kuril Islands⁵ are considered as such. The “sphere of influence” in Eastern Europe turned out to be fragile and held together only by military force⁶. The satellite China eventually had a serious falling out with its “parent”⁷, outgrew it, and became an independent political force. In economic terms, the fragile pre-war prosperity could not be restored, even despite “trophy” German technologies and reparations, and the resources allocated for the country’s recovery quickly burned out in the fire of a new war – the Cold War. As a result, the Soviet person, the warrior-liberator and nominal victor, never became wealthy, happy, or prosperous. The war gave him nothing except deep moral satisfaction and equally deep moral wounds.

France was lucky. After the defeat in 1940⁸ and the occupation in 1942, such a state might not have remained on the map at all. English and American politicians had little desire to restore it, and only the political genius of de Gaulle, who managed to convince Stalin of the necessity of a counterbalance to the Anglo-Saxon bloc and Churchill of the advisability of opposing socialist expansion, allowed the French not only to preserve the country but also to be counted among the victorious powers. The price for success was the loss of colonies, of which pre-war France had many, although to this day the former metropolis still has decisive influence over many of them. Overall, considering the scale of the tragedy, France can hardly be considered among the losers. But naturally, not among the winners either.

England… Forget about England. Now we know England as a small island nation that still needs to be found on the globe. It was not England that entered the war, but the British Empire, the largest country that ever existed, with dominions on all inhabited continents, entered the war far from being in its best shape and suffered more than enough. And although in the Battle of Britain, England itself was successfully defended, and the largest and most significant dominions – India, Canada, Australia – practically were not harmed, the fall of Singapore, the bombings of Darwin, and the German landing on Crete clearly showed that the metropolis was no longer capable of defending colonies around the world. And since the entire colonial system was based on providing protection in exchange for resources and markets, the post-war history of the British Empire turned out to be short, transforming the Victorian-era superpower into the remnant we now know. It seems that it is Britain that should be recognized as the state most affected by World War II.

The United States. Here, everything is the opposite. The war pulled the USA out of the Great Depression⁹ and not only pulled it out but also brought it directly into the status of a superpower. First, as one of two, and then as the only one. And although America had to feed and arm almost all of its allies¹⁰, and for some, even fight. If Hitler did not exist, the Americans would have had to invent him. To be fair, it must be acknowledged that the brilliant victory of the USA at that time was far from obvious and owed not so much to the military and politicians but to the incredible, beyond imaginable economic power, as well as the physicists of the Manhattan Project, whose results allowed for the rapid consolidation of success.

America should have been declared the only obvious winner or, if you prefer, the “beneficiary of the war” if not for the truly epic rise of China. Pre-war China was the ruins of an ancient civilization, trampled upon by three generations of Europeans. Endless civil war, Japanese occupation, and the status of an impoverished colony without its own statehood – that was China’s fate in the thirties. A striking contrast with nuclear power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, isn’t it? Of course, the transformation of Cinderella into a princess occurred exclusively thanks to massive Soviet investments, possibly the very ones that could have made the conditions of people in the USSR correspond to the status of victors. But if it weren’t for the war, there would not only have been no investments but not even a reason for them. So, China, on the whole, gained even more than the United States, although its contribution to the victory was undoubtedly much less.

And what about their opponents, who nominally lost and unconditionally surrendered?

Germany, at least the FRG, 10 years after surrender, became one of the largest and then unconditionally the largest economy in Europe. Subsequently, it became the undisputed leader of the European Union. At the cost of the death of 10% of the population (also a number that boggles the mind) and enormous national humiliation, the country gained new allies, a new development vector, and, in fact, achieved everything it sought. From both a political and economic point of view, in the perspective of decades, Germany is the winner in the war, not the loser.

The same can be said about Japan. However, for Japan, the renunciation of territorial claims in exchange for accelerated economic development turned out to be less favorable and not as long-term, and the lack of land, overpopulation, and isolationism still have an impact to this day. Considering the initial ambitions and the status of the unconditional leader of the Eastern Hemisphere acquired at the beginning of the 20th century and lost in 1945, Japan apparently still lost. Although not as much as it could have, which, oddly enough, was due to a relatively quick and relatively painless exit from the war, provoked by two atomic bombings. If the Japanese had to engage in banzai charges on Hokkaido, the result could have been much worse.

Perhaps it is impossible to do without at least a provocative but still quite illustrative detail. One of the main tragedies of the Second World War is the Holocaust. Genocides occurred both before and after, but none of them even come close to the destruction of six million people. But there is another side: the highly successful state of Israel owes its existence entirely to the war, and significantly to the Holocaust specifically. From the perspective of political history, European Jews, like the Chinese, should be considered as heavily, catastrophically affected – but ultimately victorious.

As we can see, the assessment of winners and losers not by the outcomes of battles but by the results of historical processes radically differs from the conventional view. But that’s about countries. How are things with humanity as a whole? After all, a world war is something that affects the entire collective of people and changes the essence of relationships between them, not only in relation to individual nations but overall.

From a universal human perspective, everything is quite ambiguous. The death of tens of millions of people in a short period, particularly in the most developed and civilized countries at that time, sharply increased the empirical value of life. Alongside the widespread adoption of hygiene and antibiotics¹¹, which drastically reduced child mortality and mortality in general, society’s reflection on war and its consequences led to people valuing their lives incomparably higher than before, regardless of objective criteria of their own success, usefulness, and prospects. Throughout most of human history, life was valued based on the logic of an individual’s use to society: a young person was worth more than an old one unless the old person possessed some unique knowledge and skills, a man was more valuable than a woman, the healthy were more important than the sick, and a general or nobleman was incomparably more significant than a common soldier. This kind of “rational” interpretation persisted even in wartime: it was considered a valor for a soldier to shield a general from a bullet, but a general covering soldiers under fire would be considered at least an idiot.

Fascism, as a doctrine of innate inequality or rather the unequal value of people, made such an indelible impression on humanity that, in response, a whole new legal theory emerged – the doctrine of human rights¹². Rights that stem not from any merits but from the very fact of existence, and even more strongly, the assertion of the equality of these rights regardless of what a particular person represents. This doctrine, with few exceptions, has become the norm in our time and, in turn, has generated a whole set of consequences, both positive and negative. Among the first is the rejection from large-scale wars and a general decrease in the role of force in resolving conflicts: let’s not forget that even by the beginning of the 20th century, war as a means of settling political problems was considered a quite acceptable tool. The role of various forms of discrimination has sharply decreased: being Black, Indian, homosexual, or a woman no longer means being permanently in a disadvantaged position. The number of social elevators has increased immeasurably, even in traditionally “right-wing” countries such as the USA and the UK, being born into a poor family without titles and status is no longer a lifelong sentence.

On the other hand, the dependence of individuals on the state has sharply increased and continues to grow. Ensuring even basic rights – and the interpretation of human rights is constantly expanding – requires significant expenditures from governments. If, in the pre-war period, a person, excluding the Soviet one, spent most of their earnings at their discretion, now tens of percent and sometimes the majority of the national product is distributed through taxes and state mechanisms. No business and even everyday life itself occurs without state participation and regulation, which, on the contrary, was not previously considered the norm. As a result, stability and guarantees of well-being have benefited, while prospects and opportunities for self-realization have suffered. And, of course, the entire pre-war organization of the world – in conditions of universal equality of rights, a colonial system based on the “white man’s burden”¹³ is fundamentally impossible.

Whether to consider the collapse of the colonial system as a good or an evil – everyone has their own answer to this question.

Who fought for what

Any war begins with certain considerations.

No one attacks a neighbor with sabers and machine guns just because they are evil, and the neighbor is good. However, states are neither good nor bad – they may have one regime, social structure, or system of governance or another – and that’s it. When we talk about the causes of any war, we must forget the concepts of “better”, “worse,” “us” and “them,” detach from personal biases and preferences, studying only the question of who was guided by what and what goals they pursued.

The same goes for the results Heroism and cowardice, greatness and weakness, and feat.

And betrayal – all the feelings and emotions that war unleashes have no relation to its outcomes. Hannibal was a great commander who instilled fear in the world’s largest power for decades. But Rome won the Punic Wars, Carthage lost, and now we are all heirs of Roman civilization not Carthaginian. This applies to any war, whether the Patriotic War or the Trojan War. The meaning and foundation of any science lies in its impartiality.

War, as a rule, is an unnecessary thing. It’s only in fairy tales that a king wakes up in the morning and thinks:

“Why not send my army to the neighbor?” In reality, war is a tool of politics, a means of achieving goals, one of many. If this tool turns out to be or seems optimal, only then do politicians call the generals. And the image of the sole instigator-aggressor and culprit of all evils is almost always fabricated later. Rarely, very rarely does it happen that one side wants to fight while the other tries with all its might to avoid war. And the Second World War, as well as the First, was desired by everyone or almost everyone. Each of the main participants had their own reasons to engage in war.

The Soviet Union… no, the Soviet Union did not want to conquer the whole world – to say so would be too simplistic and simply incorrect. The Soviet Union wanted the whole world to become a communist paradise. For this purpose, it created a special international organization – the Comintern¹⁴ – the Communist International – designed to encourage all countries to adopt the only correct social system. Either independently or with armed assistance from those who already recognized its progressiveness. No one was particularly eager to voluntarily establish the dictatorship of the proletariat¹⁵, although there were attempts, and some nearly succeeded – known the Red Army was supposed to somewhat assist the oppressed masses. And as soon as such an opportunity arose, the USSR began helping its neighbors adopt the ideals of socialism with enthusiasm poorly aligned with peacefulness¹⁶.

Germany, unlike other parties in the conflict, did not hide its motives. The initial significant economic successes of the National Socialists required expansion. The humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles¹⁷ wounded German pride, and the theory of racial superiority, eagerly embraced by a nation feeling unjustly wronged and oppressed, implied that it was the Germans, as the superior race should occupy a dominant position over others. From a political standpoint, the position is, by the way, obviously losing, as it excludes the possibility of mass support from the population of the conquered territories¹⁸.

For Japan, the war was the same as for Germany – a means to expand its sphere of influence and secure for the Japanese their “deserved” place as the ruling nation among other Asian peoples. Additionally, overpopulation and the scarcity of natural resources objectively dictated the necessity of external expansion for the Land of the Rising Sun.

In Great Britain and France, a severe colonial crisis was brewing and had already matured: the strain of World War I undermined the economy and especially the military power of Western countries. Maintaining, defending, and supplying the majority of the globe with qualified administrators, garrisons, teachers, doctors, missionaries, and even traders became an overwhelming burden. The economy was cracking, governments were losing popularity, and a fresh agenda was needed, along with a reason to unite and the taste of victory.

And only the USA, strangely enough, didn’t need anything. It soon became clear, however, that the economic boom caused by the war would finally pull the country out of depression and provide momentum that would last almost a century. But at the start of the war, the USA was quite content with the role of an overseas observer and trading partner, supplying friendly countries but not getting involved in others’ fights. Even Japan’s capture of British and Dutch East Indies did not become a reason for America to enter the war¹⁹, and only a direct attack forced the United States to once again abandon the Monroe Doctrine²⁰ and non-interference in European and Asian interests.

Everyone wanted to fight, but with whom and against whom remained unclear until the last moment. One pair of opponents was considered almost certain over the last 20 years: the USSR and Great Britain. Both countries systematically prepared for war with each other, developing equipment, weaponry, doctrines, and statutes based on the capabilities of the potential adversary. There were plenty of reasons for this.

Firstly, neither England, its elite, nor public opinion could forgive the Bolsheviks for betraying the Entente²¹. Additionally, the execution of the royal family – close relatives of the British ruling house – did not evoke any warm feelings towards the new Russian government. In turn, the active support of the White Movement by the British and direct intervention during the Civil War evoked oppressive memories among Soviet leaders. But the main issue, of course, was not past grievances but the obvious antagonism in political and social organization: on one side, a class-based monarchy, a colonial empire with a capitalist structure, and institutional inequality as a fundamental state-forming element. Let us once again recall that pre-war England was a country where the Prime Minister was a descendant of Dukes of Marlborough²², officers predominantly noblemen, and the aristocracy – both hereditary and financial – play a decisive role in governing the state. On the other hand, Soviet Russia is a state consistently eradicating any echoes of social inequality, markedly internationalist, and officially proclaiming the power of the poor. Simultaneously, it is equally determined to impose its own “the only correct” social system worldwide. While Britain had long been establishing its own – colonial and also widespread. The systemic conflict was so clear that no one even tried to hide it.

But Germany’s conflict with either side was far from obvious. It’s important to note that now we know Hitler as the alter ego of Satan and his party as the embodiment of absolute evil. One of the most common questions, for example, about the Finns or Romanians, is “how could they fight for Hitler?” But people in the 1930s viewed things quite differently; for most of them, the National Socialist regime was by no means inherently bad and certainly not untouchable. Firstly, Hitler came to power quite legally through the most honest and democratic elections that were conducted at the time. The legitimacy of the chancellor and his party was not disputed, and the German government was recognized worldwide. There were also quite solid economic successes achieved in a record short time, as well as an unprecedented national rise and unity. Many politicians of that time openly envied their German colleague and tried to learn from his example.

No particular cruelty was associated with the Führer and his supporters at that time either. “The Night of the Long Knives”²³ – ordinary intra-party disputes that happen in many countries even now, and for that troubled time, it was nothing unusual. In scale, it appeared quite moderate: compared to, for example, Stalin’s political processes – it was insignificant. Yes, the NSDAP had a very specific attitude towards communists and Jews, the Nuremberg racial laws looked unpleasant… But even here, nothing unusual was evident – hatred of Bolshevism was, and in some places remains, a characteristic feature of the Western mentality, and racial and national segregation, including laws very similar to the German ones, persisted, for example, in the USA even after the war. Yes, Hitler was quite an eccentric personality, an unpleasant negotiation partner, and a stubborn fanatic patriot, but none of these traits discredited him as a politician. And there were still a few years left until the gas chambers and mass executions of prisoners of war, and such a development of events was not seriously considered.

The relations between the Soviet Union and Germany before the war were uneven, but for the most part, rather positive: the shared interests of European outcasts played a role. The Treaty of Versailles pushed both countries to the sidelines of world politics and helping each other was more natural for them than being hostile. Moreover, the German people as a whole clearly leaned towards socialism and almost organized the second socialist state in Europe, which also connected them, if not the ruling regimes, then at least the nations.

Even more unnatural to many seemed the conflict between Germany and England. Despite the confrontation of the First World War, there was a two-century tradition of cooperation between the countries, reinforced by the ethnic closeness of the peoples and the blood kinship of the aristocracy. From the perspective of racial theory, the English could not be considered an inferior nation since they belonged to the same Germanic peoples – Saxons and Celts. British kings were ethnically German, and in principle, neither did Germany have serious historical claims against England nor vice versa. Finally, the countries had little to divide: there were no common borders or territorial claims, and British colonies, unlike at the beginning of the century, no longer represented any special interest for the Germans. Both in the German and British elite, there were powerful factions that believed the interests of the two states in the upcoming war almost aligned. To ultimately end up on opposite sides of the barricades, the Germans had to renounce Hess²⁴ – the second man in the state, and the English had to renounce Edward VIII²⁵ – their legitimate king.

1.English historian and writer (1876—1962).

2.According to the agreement on the division of Germany into occupation zones, Berlin, entirely located in the Soviet occupation zone, was also divided, and its western part was controlled by the Allies. In the summer of 1948, protesting against plans to recreate defeated Germany in the form of a capitalist state – an ally of the USA – the USSR first partially and then completely blocked the supply to West Berlin. The USA, Great Britain, and France were faced with a choice: hand over West Berlin to the USSR or doom the population to starvation. Instead of both options, an airlift was organized – a unique operation to deliver everything necessary for life of 2.5 million people by air. Taking off from the western occupation zones, planes landed at Tempelhof and Tegel airports, were quickly unloaded, and repeated the flight. The operation mainly used bombers, and at certain times, airports had to receive planes every 15 seconds. The airlift operated for just under a year, after which the blockade was lifted, the Federal Republic of Germany was established in the place of the western occupation zones, which included West Berlin, and subsequently, the Soviet occupation zone transformed into the German Democratic Republic. Thus, contrary to the intentions of the USSR, the statehood of the German nation was restored.

3.The Korean War (1950—1953) was the first conflict in which former allies fought against each other. Formally, the civil war was waged by South and North Korea; in fact, on the side of South Korea fought “UN forces,” mainly consisting of American units, and on the side of the North, Soviet pilots and troops of the People’s Republic of China allied with the USSR. The war ended in a stalemate, and the Korean Peninsula remains divided into two states to this day.

4.In 1940, the population of the USSR was about 170 million people. The losses in the war amounted to, according to various sources, from 20 to 30 million.

5.The Kuril Islands were de facto annexed by the USSR after Japan’s surrender. Since Japan did not declare war on the USSR and did not initiate hostilities against it, the Japanese government considers the USSR’s entry into the war an act of aggression, refuses to sign a peace treaty, and also refuses to recognize the annexation of the islands. The territorial dispute between Japan and the successor of the USSR, Russia, remains unresolved to this day.

6.In 1956, the USSR had to send troops into Hungary, and in 1968 into Czechoslovakia, to suppress attempts by these countries to break away from Soviet influence and transition to a capitalist path of development. From 1989 to 1994, all socialist countries in Europe changed their political-economic model from pro-Soviet or neutral to pro-Western, in some cases accompanied by armed uprisings (Romania) or civil wars (Yugoslavia).

7.The warm allied relations between the USSR and China were maintained until the death of I.V. Stalin in 1953 and the subsequent condemnation of the policy of repression and the cult of personality. Subsequently, relations between the countries deteriorated to the extent that there were several armed border conflicts. Currently, China is considered by various estimates to be the second or even the first economy in the world, while Russia is ranked 10th to 12th.

8.France entered World War II on September 3, 1939. Until May 1940, there were sluggish military actions between the French troops and the supporting British Expeditionary Force on one side, and the German troops (Wehrmacht) on the other, which contemporaries called the “Phoney War.” On May 10, 1940, the German army launched a decisive offensive, and within a month, France capitulated. The British troops evacuated through the port of Dunkirk, leaving all heavy weaponry. Most of France was occupied, while southern France and French colonies retained nominal independence (Vichy regime) in alliance with Germany. In November 1942, due to the support of the French colonial administration and the French fleet for the Anglo-American landings in Algeria and Morocco, German troops conducted Operation “Anton” and occupied the remaining territory of France. France was liberated after the Allied landings in Normandy (Operation “Overlord”) in late 1944 to early 1945.

9.The Great Depression was the largest global economic crisis, lasting from 1929 until the beginning of World War II. It had a particularly severe impact on the economy of the United States.

10.Under the Lend-Lease military supply program, the United States provided weapons, equipment, fuel, ammunition, and food to the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Provision was carried out under the conditions of return or redemption of surviving property and the write-off of what was rendered unusable or consumed during combat operations.

11.The first antibiotic, penicillin, was created in 1940 – 1941. By the end of the war, the use of penicillin had become widespread, leading to a sharp decrease in mortality from bacterial infections.

12.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN in 1948.

13.“The White Man’s Burden” is a term originating from the poem of the same name by R. Kipling, declaring the responsibility of colonizers for the economic, social, and cultural development of the peoples of colonized countries.

14.The Comintern was a supranational body established in Soviet Russia in 1919 to promote communist ideas and the subsequent transition of all states to the communist path of development. The Comintern existed until 1943 and was dissolved at the request of the Western allies of the USSR as one of the conditions for continuing military cooperation.

15.The dictatorship of the proletariat is a nominal characterization of the social system established in the USSR, in which the priority of the working class over other categories of the population was declared. In practice, the dictatorship of the proletariat was more of a propaganda slogan, although individuals from the working class indeed had certain political and career advantages.

16.From the beginning of World War II on September 1, 1939, until its official entry into the war on June 22, 1941, the USSR annexed: as a result of the Polish campaign and the joint division of Poland with Germany – Western Ukraine and Western Belarus; as a result of troop deployments and political ultimatums: the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania; by fait accompli – Romanian Bessarabia; as a result of military actions (“Winter War”) – eastern Finland.

17.The Treaty of Versailles was the agreement to end World War I following Germany’s capitulation. It restricted Germany’s right to have its own army and navy, and also imposed a huge indemnity on the defeated, which was never fully paid by the start of World War II due to it being unmanageable for the German economy. The Treaty of Versailles was perceived by Germany as a colossal political humiliation, disproportionate to the successes of the German army in the war. A significant portion of Germans accused the government of betrayal, and the German Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic as a result of the revolution.

18.The attempt by the German occupation authorities and German propaganda to position the capture of territories as their “liberation” had limited success only in the Baltics. In other cases, the German authorities, as well as the army, behaved as a dominant race, which was dictated by the ideology and internal policy of the Third Reich. Such inherently arrogant behavior of the conquerors caused a natural rejection by the majority of the population, including even relatively loyal countries like Czechoslovakia.

19.The Japanese government was confident that the capture of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and British colonies would automatically lead to the United States entering the war with Japan and planned a preemptive strike on the American fleet, assuming that war with America was inevitable. As it became known later, the US did not plan to enter the war unless there was an attack on its own territory. Thus, with the preemptive attack on the American base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, extremely successful from a military standpoint, the Japanese fleet provoked an entirely unnecessary war with America, which had an incomparably greater economic potential.

20.The Monroe Doctrine, proposed by U.S. President Monroe in the first half of the 19th century, declared non-interference by the United States in the affairs of European countries in exchange for non-interference by Europe in the affairs of the American continent.

21.The October Revolution in Russia was accompanied by soldiers almost universally abandoning the front line, which allowed German troops to launch an offensive on the Eastern Front. To prevent territorial losses and concentrate military forces for the Civil War, the Soviet government signed a separate Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany and withdrew from World War I, to the detriment of the interests of the Allies in the Entente coalition.

22.Winston Churchill was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough.

23.The Night of the Long Knives is the unofficial name for the intra-party conflict of 1934 in the NSDAP, which escalated into an armed confrontation between SS militants and SA militants, ending with the victory of the former and the selective executions of SA leaders. As a result of the subsequent redistribution of power within the party, the SA was completely subordinated to the SS and no longer actively participated in the political life of Germany.

24.Rudolf Hess, the deputy of the Führer of the NSDAP, in 1941 flew alone in a fighter to Britain to convince the English elite of the necessity of an alliance with Germany. He was arrested on Churchill’s personal orders and died in 1987 after 40 years of imprisonment in Spandau Prison under unclear circumstances. After the failure of his mission, he was officially declared insane in Germany, having made the flight solely on his personal initiative. The history of Hess’s stay in the United Kingdom remains classified to this day.

25.Edward VIII, the King of the United Kingdom, was forced to abdicate the throne as a result of unprecedented pressure from the government, formally due to his desire to marry a divorced woman of non-British and non-noble origin. He openly sympathized with the Nazis, met with Hitler, and repeatedly expressed his support for him.