[Thoss]

This is a quote from my history professor.

"The First World War was a major turning point in the history of the twentieth century. Its impact was global, and it affected a whole range of human endeavour, from the artistic to the economic. Its primary long-term impact, however, was not in Western Europe but in Russia, where it fostered the emergence of revolutionary forces which played a critical role in shaping global history for the next several decades."

Would you agree with the quote on the importance of the Russian Revolution? Or do you think there are far greater consequences of the First World War?

Personally, I think that the rise of Nazism out of the treaty of Versailles and the great depression have far more weight then the largely regional aspects of the Russian Revolution.

Discuss.

[Russkie]

I think Russia is experiencing a similar event just like the Great depression. As the result of the great depression it created WWI and then WWII. We had a serious discussion before of possibly have events just like after the great depression occur in Russia.

You all realize that the 1998 economic collapse was equivalent to the great depression.

[Captain Hat]

The First World War set forward so many events that historians are only now beginning to understand the war's true impact.

Modern historians will now tell you that the 19th Century did not end in 1899, but rather in 1914 with World War I. The war, (along with WWII) established the United States and Russia as the sole remaining Superpowers. The wars saw the decline of monarchy and the rise of fascism. The wars set in motion the Civil Rights Movement in the US, the Revolutions in Russia, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco's rise to power in the 1920's and 30's, the many anti-colonial movements all over the world, just to name a few events...

In summary, World War I was one of those few moments in history that marks clearly the end of one era and the start of another.

[Todd D.]

Are you kidding? There is one of the biggest impacts of World War I that you are all glancing over. Two words: Ottoman Empire.

The last remnants of the Holy Roman Empire and one of the longest empires in the history of the world collapsed as a direct result of World War I. As a result, the Turks lost control of the Holy Land and it led directly to the Exodus of Jewish settlers, leading to the creation of the Israeli state post World War II.

No World War I ------> No fall of Ottoman Empire ------> No Israeli conflict today.

[The American Lion]

The Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse anyway. WWI made the collapse faster.

The Ottoman Empire had the Young Turk coup on 1908 and the Arab Revolt in 1916-1918.

[Libert-Ariane]

Yes, but without WWI then the British would not have taken Persia and what is now Israel.

[The Immortal Goon]

I would agree the establishment of the USSR was the biggest thing to come out of WWI. The fear of Communism from the USSR is largley what fed people to come to Hitler - so Hitler's rise was a result of the USSR, not directly from WWI - though there was some influence there.

WWI was a culmination of the crisis of capitalism - that's why there were rumblings Stateside, in the UK, Ireland, China began to become arroused - but the ultimate manifestation of this - I would agree with your professor - was the USSR.

-TIG

[Maxim Litvinov]

Why do you say that the 'fear of Communism' is what prompted Hitler's rise to power, TIG? It's an interesting thesis, but on the most superficial of levels it was repressed nationalism, economic hardship, a need for 'strong' leadership and a series of fortuitous (for Hitler) happenstances that brought Hitler to power.

Left-wing parties had always had widespread support in Germany, the country of Marx and Engels, Liebknecht and Luxemburg, throughout the 1920s and 1930s. And while the USSR might have had concerns about Hitler's policies of Lebensraum and plans to annex Eastern Europe (outlined in Mein Kampf and onwards), the Soviet Union posed no immediate threat to the good people of Weimar and even had long-standing military agreements with the German governments dating from Rapallo.

[The Immortal Goon]

Here's one of my favorite propaganda pieces ever - by Goebbles. It coins the term "Iron Curtain" as I alluded to earlier.

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb49.htm

In it, as you can see, Germany's war effort is justified by their opposition to communism. Of course, however, this came late in the war.

At the beginning, the communists were very active in Germany. Soviet success was largely regarded to be found in the proletarian victory of Germany. Of course, this did not come to pass.

However, agitation lasted and the communists fought in the streets. For many, a communist victory seemed like a forgone conclusion. The question was, would the Spartikan like groups win, or the SDs - who were left, but not really full on communists.

Hitler and his Nazi party provided the party for "everyone else." The current government was largley disregarded by this point, but for those who were not interested in a communist (or at least more left as represented by the SDs) the Nazi party was the logical choice.

This is partially why the American industrialists put so much money in to the Nazi party at the very beginning and why people who were openly anti-fascist were watched by the House of Un-American activities early on - it was seen as a vangaurd against communism above all by many.

The things you brought up are valid as well, nationalism and the like. However, these - as far as I know - were always there but brought to the surface more after the Nazis defeated the communists in Germany.

-TIG

[Monkeydust]

I suppose it depends on whether you believe the old Russian autocracy would have collapsed eventually anyway. If Lenin would have succeeded without war, which is itself debatable, other consequences might seem more important, the growth of the US's power or the rise of Nazism, for example.

[Stipe]

World War I was one of the most decisive events in history. It's one of those events like the 30 Years War which utterly reshaped Europe politically. THe fundamental basis of state sovereignty was changed. For the first time, peoples had the natural right to form their own states and the old imperial order was utterly gutted. I do think one of its biggest impacts was the Russian Revolution, which created a revolutionary state at the periphery of Europe, which would continually be felt to threaten the rest of Europe for the next 70 years and impact political developments throughout the third world.

Todd D. makes an interesting point about the impact of World War I contributing to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (one correction though, you probably meant Byzantine Empire, because the Holy Roman Empire was in Germany, but even in the case of the Byzantine empire the amount of continuity between it and the Ottomans is debatable).

It's a valid point for consideration, although one should be careful not to treat all the events that happened from the establishment of the mandate to the outbreak of the 1948 war as inevitable. I'm not entirely sure I would treat it as especially more important than the impacts of the other two collapsed empires, particularly the Russian.

[Steven_K]

I think if you could identify the single largest impact of WWI it is that the centre of power moved from Britian, yes, the sun did set on the british empire, and to the US and the USSR. It heralded a shake-up of the fundamental balances of power in the world.

[CoffeeCake]

There will ineviteably be a Cold War II....hmm it seems that we humans have to do everything twice before we finally learn our lesson.

No WW1 = 19th century lasting till the 80's

WW1 created new democracies, destroyed old monarchies, and made the USSR. It takes a disastrous event for things to really change, and that is taking in all cases.

[Diplomat]

Europeans only have themselves to blame their demise after World War I. They should have done something to either keep the British supremacy so they could keep their collective rule over the world, or quickly put down the German challenge to the British leadership.

World War I is so painful to talk about from an European's point of view. A century of peace shattered by the war fought among themselves. After all the great developments of the past centuries, what gives? The total disillusionment following the war, who would have thought this would ever come? What in the world was going on in the minds of the Europeans? A total armageddon brought upon by their collective guilt, disgust, and maybe even shame for transforming the rest of the world with their own transofrmation in the past centuries. A nightmare where one mighty civilization destroys itself like a big plane crashing down into the ground knowing there will be no tomorrow. A monumental event unlike any other in human history.

A failure ot having a strong leader in their civilization, and not having a clear plan for the future, how generalized these may sound, are the reasons of their demise.

[Pablo]

Diplomat, neo-conservative by any chance? Your critisisms sound like they are coming from that direction.

Are you saying it was a mistake to dissolve the old colonial system and hand power back to the natives?

[Diplomat]

I get conservative points of view. I don't know what neo-conservative view is any different from conservative. I believe conservatives are the ones who are really concerned for the well being and peace of the world. Liberals want to shake up the world, and they are not that prepared to deal with what's coming after they start their revolutions.

If you really want to change the world, then it is better to be conservative than liberal. Liberal way is revolutionary, and revolutions only come with too much pain and agony which being conservative can prevent. I argue which way was better?: Britian going through only the Glorious Revolution, one tiny bloodless political revolution, during their entire modern history, or Russia going through the bloody Russian Revolution and all that pain that came afterwards. Which way was better?: US having only social revolutions like the civil right movement during their stance against USSR during the Cold War and beating their rival in the end, or USSR going through the breakup of their entire political system after being extremely liberal in the form of communism.

Having a viable solution to current problems and trying to solve them is conservative. Liberals do not have plans to solve them, they only attack them irresponsibly.

[Pablo]

Well, apart from having a confused understanding of the word 'liberal' you are totally ignoring your own history. The US had two very bloody revolutions.

Revolutions come in all shapes and forms.

I thought traditional conservatives in the US were isolationist in nature and neo-conservatives more imperialistic, or at least promote vigorous foreign mlitary engagement as a foreign policy. You seem to support imperialism so i linked it to neo-conservatism.

Conservatism does not have a monopoly on what ought to be done, it is an ideology amongst others. One that appeals to passion more than sense i think but a competing ideology all the same.

[Diplomat]

US had two bloody revolutions? When? The first one would be the American Revolution, but which is the other one? Besides, the American Revolution was rather a war of independence, not a serious political revolution within one country fought between the ruling class and its subjects. The American colonists rose up and fought against the British rulers. And that is what generally believed to be: a war of independence, not a revolution.

And are you referring to the American Civil War as the other revolution? I'm not sure.

[Pablo]

Yes the CW, it can be called a revolution i think, even if not in any marxist sense, but i think you will find some aspects of it was.

Your independence war was not only that but it introduced revolutionary ideas of governence from the culmination of enlightenment thinking. Not all of it was revolutionary, but a very important revolutionary phase of western development.

Maybe you should look outside the square a bit, not all revolutions are red.

[Diplomat]

Looking at the American Civil War as a revolutionary event is revolutionary. I haven't seen any of literature about the Civil War that interprets it as a revolution. And what is your basis of looking at it as a revolution? The war was fought between the south and the north to decide which side was in charge of the American union. There are no aspects of revolution in this war.

The south had been forming a different identity than the north. The south was agriculture-based society employeeing black slaves as their main source of labor, growing and importing cotton and other crops. Whereas, the north had developed an industrial-based society, excavating coal, and building factories with immigrants from Europe. And as these two different societies had grown increasingly difficult to find a common ground, especially after the British were kicked out in the Revolutionary War, the time had come to them to test their necessity to call themselves Americans, and they decided to wage a war to see if in fact their union was necessary.

And I have to admit, this site is rampant with so called liberals, revolutionaries even.