The Newest Time Part I. The World History Process and the XX Century

Part I. The World Historical Process and the XX Century

At the end of XX century. The attention of scientists to the problem of assessing its place in the history of mankind has quite naturally sharpened. Attention is not idle, because the outgoing century was the most fruitful and at the same time tragic for modern civilization as a whole, it awakened almost unprecedented previously unlimited possibilities for the development of material culture and at the same time put humanity on the brink of global catastrophe.

At the end of the 20th century, researchers have a vast array of historical sources, quite diverse methods and methods for studying and analyzing them, which allows them to move to a new level of historical synthesis. It aims to identify the general patterns of the historical process and the possible interaction of existing civilization options, without which the survival of a globalized civilization is inconceivable.

The internationalization of the life of various peoples, the convergence of civilizations on the basis of the achievements of science and technology, the spread of education have destroyed the insurmountable boundaries between civilizations. In any case, a large group of scientists from Western Europe, the USA, and Canada defends the idea of ​​the universality of the historical process, the progressive movement of peoples, the unity of human civilization. The outgoing century has confirmed the supporters of such an intercivilizational approach to the assessment of the historical process. Indeed, the achievements of the third scientific and technological revolution in the post-industrial era tied together various countries in the framework of economic cooperation, brought about global communication systems, promoted transformation, leveling the level and lifestyle of many countries and peoples. At the same time, these man-made phenomena put humanity on the brink of a global ecological, nuclear catastrophe, exacerbated the problem of demography and resources, etc., thanks to which the peoples felt their interdependence, the inability to cope with global problems alone.

At the same time, it is obvious that, with all the internationalization of life, significant differences remain within the framework of the largest civilizations - Western European and Eastern. In this regard, the point of view of A. Toynbee (1889-1975), who rather sharply criticized the inter-civilizational concept: “The thesis on unifying the world based on the Western economic system as a natural result of a unified and continuous process of human history development leads to gross distortions of outlook ... "

In the opinion of this largest scientist of the 20th century, Western historians, first, exaggerate the significance of such phenomena as economic and then political unification, ignoring the phenomenon of cultural life, which “is not only deeper than the first two layers, but more fundamental ...; “Secondly, the dogma of the“ unity of civilization ”compels the historian to ignore the fact that the continuity of the history of two kindred civilizations differs from the continuity of two successive chapters of the history of one civilization ..; “Thirdly, they simply ignore the stages or chapters of the history of other civilizations, if they do not fit into their general concept, omitting them as“ semi-barbaric ”or“ decomposed ”or relating them to the East, which was practically excluded from the history of civilization” ¹ .

Nevertheless, it is obvious that the East and the West interact more and more, assimilating the values ​​of the opposite civilization, as evidenced by the process of modernization of a number of Eastern countries and at the same time the increasing penetration of the traditional spiritual values ​​of the East into Western culture. It is possible to assert with a certain degree of confidence that this process is based on the accelerating internationalization of economic, political and cultural life. Nevertheless, it should be stated that neither Western nor Eastern civilizations have yet developed a panacea for the global crisis that threatens all of humanity.

Apparently, the realization of the consequences of a possible catastrophe will be the main motive for the further rapprochement of the East and the West, the development of the so-called inter - civilization dialogue. That is why it is so important for modern scientists to study individual historical phenomena through the prism of a general historical - inter-civilizational value.

In this chapter we will try to comprehend the main stages of the world history of the 20th century, as well as analyze the main, as we see it, problems facing the world community in the outgoing century.

Chapter 15. World Wars of the XX Century. Causes and consequences

• World War I

• The birth of fascism. World on the eve of World War II

• The Second World War

The world wars of the 20th century brought the world civilization to the brink of death, were a difficult test for humanity, humanistic values, developed throughout its previous history. At the same time, they were a reflection of the fundamental changes that have taken place in the world, one of the terrible consequences of the very process of the development of civilization.

The causes of world wars. Since wars in our century have acquired a global scale, it is more logical to begin with an analysis of global causes, and above all, a description of the state of Western civilization, whose values ​​dominated and continue to play the same role in the modern world, determining the general direction of human development.

By the beginning of our century, the crisis phenomena that accompanied the industrial stage of the development of the West during the 19th century resulted in a global crisis, which in fact lasted the entire first half of the 20th century. The material basis of the crisis was the rapid development of market relations based on industrial production, technical progress in general, which, on the one hand, allowed Western society to make a sharp leap forward compared to other countries, and on the other, gave rise to phenomena threatening Western civilization with rebirth. Indeed, filling the markets with goods and services more and more fully met the needs of people, but the price paid for this was the transformation of the overwhelming mass of workers into an appendage of machines and mechanisms, a conveyor belt, a technological process, increasingly gave labor a collective character, etc. This led to the depersonalization of a person, which was clearly manifested in the formation of the phenomenon of mass consciousness, which supplanted individualism, the personal interests of people, i.e. values, on the basis of which the humanistic western civilization actually arose and developed.

As industrial progress developed, humanistic values ​​increasingly gave way to corporate, technocratic, finally, totalitarian consciousness with all its known attributes. This tendency was clearly manifested not only in the spiritual sphere in the form of the reorientation of people towards new values, but it also contributed to an unprecedented strengthening of the role of the state, which became the carrier of the national idea that replaced democracy.

This most general characteristic of the historical and psychological changes that underlie the phenomenon of world wars we are considering may be a peculiar background when considering their geohistorical, socio-economic, demographic, military-political and other reasons.

The First World War, which began in 1914, encompassed 38 states of Europe, Asia and Africa. It was conducted in a vast area, which was 4 million square meters. km and involved more than 1.5 billion people, i.e. more than 3/4 of the world's population.

The tragic shot in Sarajevo served as the pretext for the war, while its true causes were rooted in the complex contradictions between the participating countries.

Above it was said about the growing global crisis of civilization as a result of industrial progress. By the beginning of the XX century. The logic of socio-economic development led to the assertion of a monopolistic regime in the economy of industrialized countries, which affected the internal political climate of the countries (the growth of totalitarian tendencies, the growth of militarization), as well as world relations (intensifying the struggle between countries for markets, for political influence). The basis of these trends was the policy of monopolies with their exclusively expansionist, aggressive nature. At the same time, there was a merging of monopolies with the state, the formation of state-monopoly capitalism, which gave government policy an ever more expansionist character. In particular, this was evidenced by the widespread growth of militarization, the emergence of military-political alliances, the increasing number of military conflicts that were localized for the time, the intensification of colonial oppression, etc. The aggravation of countries' competition was also determined to a large extent by the relative unevenness of their socio-economic development, which influenced the degree and form of their external expansion.