The World Since WWI

 CHAPTER ONE - The Beginnings

The The First World War is as distant to most Americans as the sun.  No one who fought in it is still alive to tell us about it.  It was the first war where air power played a significant part and the last major war that horses were used in a significant way.  It was a war that was ignited because of entangling alliances rather than the usual suspects of economics, ideology or religion.  In the end, the empires of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Russia and the Ottomans ceased to exist.  Europe was redrawn and the losers were saddled with paying impossible reparations. 

Time Magazine, famous for its "Person of the Year" award, decided to name a "Person of the Century" when the the 20th century passed into history.  Readers were encouraged to submit suggestions and to vote on their favorites.  Just about every major politician, influential scientist and famous entertainer was on the list and then winnowed down to the final 100.  Their final choice of Albert Einstein, was perhaps a good second choice.  Certainly, the father of modern physics is a worthy winner.  My choice, was never on their list.

My choice is not a household name.  If you said his name to most people,they would look at you like you spoke several syllables of baby talk.  No one outside of ardent historians and geeky, trivia buffs would recognize the name of Gavrilo Princip.  Mr. Princep was the Serbian Nationalist who pulled the trigger and assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia as they rode in a motorcade through the streets of Serejevo.  That act triggered the declarations of war that ignited WWI.

That war, the armistice and the ensuing final Treaty of Versailles may have ended hostilities, but they were the seeds of a world-wide great depression and the subsequent rise of Hitler and his National Socialists.  The bad end to WWI led to WWII.

When the world did not turn to Marxism as predicted by Marx, especially after such a conflict as WWI, they needed to search for answers.  After the war, the middle class became quite well established.  Surely they couldn't have been that far off in their predictions.  A group of committed Communist ideologues founded the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt am Main.  It became known informally as the "Frankfurt School".  It's main focus was to figure out where Marx went wrong.

They determined that if true Marxism was to be brought to bear, they would have to destroy every aspect of western culture in order to destroy the middle class.  The destruction of the middle class, and it's institutions, from the churches, to the schools, from art and literature to music and entertainment, all of it had to be completely redone in order to  shape the world into the Marxist new world order.
Soon:  Chapter Two
Mike