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C O U R S E L E C T U R E 1945: Hour Zero Notes taken on April 27, 2014 by Edward Tanguay |
Zero Hour, or "Stunde Null"
"everything is destroyed and we are starting over from scratch"
means if your military situation is unstable, you might not just lose the war, you might lose everything, e.g. be enslaved or murdered
mobilizing men, women and children
everyone in the war effort, everyone working in, for, or around the government
the war was affecting everyone
the bloodiest year of fighting
fighting fanatically from strong, fortified positions of defense
Eastern front: took a year to move into Europe
Italian front: took a year to move up into Northern Italy
French front: took a year to move across the channel and to border of Germany
after Italy had gone out of war, took six months to liquidate the German empire
Americans and Allies turned tide and started moving toward Japan
maintained supplies to the Chinese
Germany carved up into Allied zones of occupation
Vienna was also divided into zones of occupation
quit the war before their country was invaded and fought over from one end to the other as Germany was
but American bombing raids destroyed over 50% of many cities
air raid on Tokyo in March 1945 killed about 100,000 people
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in the case of fire raids and the atomic bombs, the Allies were desperate to use any means they had to stop the war and saw cities as military targets
both sides were becoming debased in their attitude toward human life
the Allies knew they were doing horrifying things to win the war
bombing cities in order to end the war does not equate to constructing death factories to carry out the genocides of a whole people whom they hoped to enslave and then exterminate
it was clear that this war was pushing human civilization to the brink, where people are creating destructive powers that are beyond human reason and human spirituality, and then the war ended
no German government to take a surrender, the American regarded the German government "as nothing, as wreckage"
they took a surrender from German generals in the field in a simple little ceremony in a French school house
Allies allowed a Japanese government to remain
allowed Japanese emperor to remain in power
formal surrender ceremony on Battleship Missouri, September 1945
visions of modern society looking forward after the war
era of high modernism: government planning as its height
the war was thought of rescuing the world from tyranny and liberals had always thought of themselves as tyrants
the ideals that Americans had stood for in the war made it harder to maintain the regime of Jim Crow in the American South
society of an object that would be the focal point of engineering
society as something I manipulate through the choices of big thinking planners
economic management: the demands of having to manage large territories all over the world, and manage whole economies
urban management: mayors planning and managing large-scale cities
access to raw materials
allocation of production facilities
by the end of the 1940s there was a sense that you "wanted to be modern"
a level of cultural conformity
"if you're not modern yet, we want to make you modern"
top-down organizers of cities and societies
who were the models of success who showed people and countries the way of the future?
James Burnham, "Managerial Revolution"
American, Princeton graduate
was an early communist in the 1930s but became disillusioned with the Stalinist communist party
late 30s became Trotskyite
eventually became an American right wing conservative, eventually earned accolades by Ronald Reagan
1940s book "Managerial Revolution"
Soviet Union, United States, is all becoming pretty much alike, its a matter of big organizations run by technocratic managers who are going to arrange everything in society
the rule of the administrators, on a gigantic scale
he is reacting to Burnham
a world dominated by endlessly warring governments, very much alike, dominated by powerful bureaucrats
F.A. Hayek, "The Road to Serfdom", 1944
visions like those of James Burnham are extremely prescient, and that people need to fight it.
a European liberal, deeply liberal from the old school, almost a revival of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill
asked the question: who will buy the goods?
also no renewal of the Great Depression
maintain wartime alliance
disable Germany and Japan
international cooperation, new institutions
building a functioning world economy
much more concerned about this than the Soviets
concerned with world trade collapsing as it did in 1929
how to end empires and trusteeships, part of the old world that needs to be swept away
open up the world for opportunities for American business
in the 1930s, the British put up a trade wall around the British Empire and so some of the post-war push for an open global economy was a conflict not only with the Soviets, but with the British, and partly with the French
Stalin's meeting with the Allies
February 1945 meet in Yalta on Black Sea
Truman just became president in April
the future of the Soviet Union was bound up with the future of communism and the world revolutionary agenda
the better communism did, the weaker capitalism became, the more secure the Soviet Union would be
disable Germany and Japan
maintain wartime alliance as long as possible
maintain a global network of obedient communist parties
likely points of friction in 1945
Soviets taking chunks out of the expanded German Reich
moving the whole country of Poland about 150 miles to the west
British and France had gone to war in 1939 to fight for the security of Poland
Poland's important to Americans as well
joint duties in Germany
running up against each other, having to work together, even though your systems are different
in non-communist countries which have communist groups who are trying to overthrow the country
France and Italy, where these are domestic classes about the future of their country
issues of trade and exchange