Introduction the world at the beginning

1 The world at the beginning of the XX century

1. 1.1 Socio-economic development of major European and US countries before the First World War

By the end of the nineteenth century, the advantages of industrial civilization, which had established itself in a number of European countries and in the United States, were becoming increasingly apparent. This type of civilization guaranteed society not only a relatively stable standard of living, but also a wide range of rights, including the right to own and dispose of private property. This right strengthened a person's faith in themselves, in their capabilities, and in a certain sense became an objective measure of the latter.

In the 19th century, the life of the inhabitants of Europe began to change very quickly. At the beginning of the last century, Europeans looked back on the times of a hundred years ago as a completely different, infinitely distant era. The breaking of old traditions and foundations, the rapid changes in all areas of life were so profound that they were felt as signs of the emergence of a completely new way of existence, a new social structure. Philosophers and historians began to refer to it in various ways — "capitalist", "industrial", "modernized" (modern) society.
Steam engines and mechanical machines have dramatically increased the productivity of human labor tenfold. Steam Locomotives, steamboats, and later cars solved the problem of cargo transportation and the unprecedented fast movement of people. Inventions and improvements followed one another, transforming old industries and creating new ones.
Quiet and sparsely populated towns grew into major industrial centers in the span of a generation; cities with millions of inhabitants grew larger and larger.
Industrial civilization imposed on man completely new requirements, in many ways the opposite of the previous ones. The" ideal hero " of the industrial age, whether a factory owner or a worker, had to rely only on himself, work hard, and constantly strive to achieve more and better things. Often the work went on without days off and holidays, at the limit of strength and abilities, "to wear out".
It all started with England in the XVIII century. Talented self-taught inventors, enterprising manufacturers, and skilled workers, without any state intervention, transformed life in just a few decades and made the country a "workshop of the world". Gradually, all European countries were drawn into the industrial race.
It was impossible to avoid participating in this race — the laggard quickly found himself economically dependent on the leaders. When cheap and high-quality English factory-made goods flooded the markets of continental Europe and the local artisans and manufactories began to be ruined, many governments began to actively and purposefully spur the growth of their own industry: they gave loans and profitable orders to manufacturers, built roads, and opened special institutes for training engineers.
However, these efforts did not bring the same results in all countries, as, for example, in Germany, where a sharp industrial boom began — in some regions of Europe (Southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc.), "backwardness" turned into chronic.
For most of the peoples of Europe, the industrial revolution was not a product of their own development, but an external demand of the time. The breakdown of old social norms was painful everywhere.
With the advent of industrial civilization, the age-old principles of life structure collapsed.
In the Middle Ages and early Modern times, a person's place in the social hierarchy was determined at birth; the most important virtue was the willingness to be content with this place. In the era of the industrial revolution, for the first time in history, a society emerged that not only did not seek to curb the "upstarts", but, on the contrary, encouraged initiative and entrepreneurship.
Each person was asked to independently seek public recognition of their abilities and talents. Submission to fate has ceased to be considered a virtue and has become a vice.
Before the beginning of the industrial age, the relationship between the upper and lower levels of society was built almost in the same way as in the family: fatherly guardianship in exchange for loyal service and gratitude. The landowner and the peasant, the owner and the worker, had a personal relationship that could last not only for a lifetime, but also pass from generation to generation. The capitalist, unlike the masters of earlier times, did not pretend to be a caring father of his workers and did not expect them to be grateful.
Hiring became just a form of commercial transaction between legally equal adults, which was terminated as easily as it was concluded. There was no place for anything personal — competition doomed any compassionate owner who kept bad employees out of pity or overstated his salary to inevitable ruin.
Not everyone could take this impersonal relationship for granted. In such circumstances, the "little man" who needed the care and protection of the powerful was imbued with hatred for the "soulless exploiters". The new society seemed ruthless.
In a traditional society, each person lived in a team, in a complex system of relationships and connections. These relationships were mostly forced, and the person did not build them himself. His whole life was visible and under control, but he could always count on the help of"his own". But there came a time when millions of people lost their position in society inherited from their ancestors — and they broke away from their homes, went to cities in search of a better life, moved to other countries and even to other continents. Something that only a few heroes and adventurers had ever dared to do before was now the norm.
The European of the early twentieth century had much more choice than his great-grandfather, but much less confidence in the future. And very many (almost most) longingly recalled the "good old days" when the community, the workshop, the sovereign, the state protected him and guided his life.
The peasants were particularly sensitive to the changes. In almost all countries, they formed the majority of the population, it was in their minds that the traditions of previous generations were particularly firmly rooted, they were the guardians of traditional life values, culture and way of life.
The peasant had worked hard for centuries to earn his bread, content with what the land could give him. The well-being of the cultivator's family depended on her, and only an unpredictable nature could deprive her of her livelihood.
By the end of the nineteenth century, mechanization, new tools, fertilizers, and new methods of working had come to agriculture; dependence on the favors of nature had weakened. But it has been replaced by an equally rigid dependence on the equally blind and unmanageable forces of market competition.
Subsistence farming — a natural and habitual form of human existence-is a thing of the past. Almost everything that was produced went to the market — and everything necessary was bought there.
The Industrial Revolution created a society in which everyone became buyers and sellers. Thanks to railroads and steamships, transportation became so cheap that it did not significantly increase the price of goods brought from afar (by the beginning of the twentieth century, it cost only 8 cents to transport a ton of grain from America to England).
Distant countries became economic competitors. By the end of the century, even in the most remote parts of Europe, prices for food and raw materials were no longer so much dependent on local crops as on the world market — every peasant who sold even a bag of grain became a participant in global competition.
In a traditional society, competition was considered evil, and it was avoided in every possible way. Now it has become the main driving force of the economy, encouraging manufacturers to reduce the cost and improve the quality of their goods. Farmers and artisans who worked in the old-fashioned way were ruined.
In England, the industrial Revolution began after the transformation of the countryside-peasant communities were replaced by separate farms. Farmers worked the land not just to feed their families, but also to make a profit from selling food. It was farmers who created massive demand for fabrics, tableware, agricultural implements and other products of the rapidly growing factory industry.
In turn, the growth of the urban population provided an increasing demand for food, and enterprising farmers increased their production to their advantage. The ancient methods of farming and animal husbandry gave way to new, more rational and intensive ones.
The situation was similar in the Nordic countries (the Netherlands, Scandinavia), where farmers began to raise cattle and supply milk and sausages to England, buying cars for their farms there. Remaining agrarian until the end of the 19th century, these countries, however, did not feel like raw materials appendages of more industrialized neighbors: rural labor here was no less productive than urban labor, and allowed them to successfully accumulate capital.
Traditional society was built on two principles:
- people born in different social classes have different rights, are unequal;
- common interests are always more important than the aspirations of individuals.
The main political ideas of industrial society were equality and individual freedom.
These ideas had deep religious roots; it was not by chance that they emerged from the soil of Christian civilization.
According to Christian teaching, each person comes into the world and leaves it at his own time by the will of the Creator. In this world, there is a struggle between the devil and God for the souls of people. A person's life path is a test of his soul. In his earthly life, a person must recognize for himself what is good and what is evil, and he has the freedom of will to choose independently-on which side he is on. After the death of the body, the soul will answer at the Last Judgment for the way a person disposed of the earthly life given to him.
All people are born equal and free. No one has the right to take away from a person what the Creator gave him, who sent his soul to be tested in the world — life and freedom of choice. Society should be organized in such a way that no one is ever hindered in the exercise of these inalienable human rights.
If the state takes the life of its citizens for its own purposes or forces its will on them, it is a diabolical tool, no matter how well the tyrants justify their actions.
The industrial breakthrough in England has shown that individual freedom and equality of all before the law are not only morally justified, but also extremely beneficial and useful for society. The mass consciousness became increasingly convinced that individual rights and freedoms are sacred and inviolable, that they are more important than any interests of society and the state.
The state was abandoning its former role as a guardian of citizens, invading their privacy "for their own good." Gradually, society recognized that a person has the right to do whatever he wants, as long as his behavior does not harm others (everything is allowed that is not prohibited by law).
From the idea of equality, it followed that all citizens have an equal right to participate in the government of the state, that the government should be elected by universal suffrage, and that the most just state is a democratic one. However, even the most democratic government cannot invade the privacy of an individual, a sovereign individual. Restrictions that do not have the right to step over the power were fixed in the constitutions and other laws.
In the twentieth century, in many countries, a complex, subtle, but very strong and stable social and state system, which is called liberal democracy, was gradually built on such ideasлиберальной демократией. A liberal constitution and democratically elected parliament have been the norm for a European state since the beginning of the last century.
The rapid growth of social wealth and the pace of social change have revived the long — held European dream of an ideal, affluent and just society. The theory of "scientific socialism" appeared, which argued that the achievements of industrial civilization already allow us to build such a society-socialism, communism.
The author of one version of this theory, the German economist and philosopher Karl Marx, believed that machine labor became productive enough to ensure a decent life for all people.
The concentration of wealth in the hands of a minority has always seemed unfair, but in earlier eras it was good for humanity. Wealth freed its owners from the heavy worries of daily bread-freed them for mental and creative work, more complex and subtle.
The free labor of a few created human culture. Thanks to the intellectual efforts of these few, the work of all other people became more and more productive, productive.
The private initiative of capitalists repeatedly accelerates economic growth and technological progress, and for the first time in the history of mankind creates conditions for universal material prosperity. Now that production has developed so much, it is finally possible to meet the basic material needs of all people (for food, shelter, clothing, and material comfort).
From this, the socialists concluded: it is time to radically change the foundations of the organization of society — after all, the appropriation of the products of common labor by a few has lost its meaning. Humanity, in order to move on to a society of freedom, equality and abundance, will have to remove the main brake from its path — private property, private production.
By the end of the 19th century, Marxist and other equalizing ideas became very popular, and a mass socialist (social-democratic) movement emerged, whose leaders called for the overthrow of the existing system, for a socialist revolution.
Discoveries, inventions, and technical improvements made such a strong impression on the people of the nineteenth century that scientific progress was expected to solve all human problems, and in the near future. At the beginning of the twentieth century, optimists in Europe and America argued that the worst of human history was already over.
In developed countries, the horrors of the early industrial era were successfully overcome — young children no longer worked in factories, the working day was reduced to 9-11 hours, and trade unions limited the arbitrariness of the owners of enterprises.
Fears were not justified that as the industry grows, the situation of workers will worsen — on the contrary, by the beginning of the twentieth century, it has noticeably improved compared to the recent past. Now the proletarians earned not only on a meager meal for their families, but also on clothes, shoes, furniture, Sunday rest, etc.At the beginning of the twentieth century, European countries introduced laws on pension and health insurance for workers¹.

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