Hi and welcome back to Heimler’s History. Now, we’ve been going through AP World History Unit 7 which starts in 1900 and runs all the way up into the present. At this point World War I has ended. And it caused massive changes in the world. There was a precipitous drop in world population, there was the redrawing of all sorts of political boundaries. But one major reality did not change in the face of all this upheaval, namely, imperialism. Even after World War I imperial powers held on to their colonies, and that led to some major unresolved tensions in the interwar period. And that’s what we’re going to talk about in this video: so if you’re ready to get your brain cows milked, let’s get to it. So all around the world, wherever imperial nations held colonies, nationalistic movements were brewing. You see an unintended consequence of colonizing people, is that it galvanizes those people and it unifies them and teaches them to long for a state of their own, free of foreign invaders. Now, to add fuel to that fire of nationalism, people from many colonies all over the world fought and died in the service of their parent country during World War I. And in doing so they hoped that the blood they shed would earn them respect in the eyes of the imperial nations. And their hope was that such respect would trigger a process of decolonization. And in some cases they were even promised such things. But you know that’s not how it went. After the war over, self-determination was only granted to a few Eastern European nations, which is to say, white people. And to make matters worse, the colonial holdings of the losing side weren’t set free, they were just transferred over to the winning side. India, and East Asia, and Africa, all of these continued to be crushed under the domineering thumb of European imperial power. And not surprisingly, the colonial people weren’t so happy about this, and it’s precisely at this where you see colonial resistance movements springing up all over the dang place. Okay, so let’s just take a brief look at the nationalistic resistance movements that sprang up in India, East Asia, and Africa. Okay first, India. Now in the late 19th century Indians formed the Indian National Congress. And the purpose of this body was to formally register complaints against the British colonial government. And after World War I, when the aforementioned decolonization did not occur, the Indian National Congress became a powerful voice for Indian national independence. But the spark that lit the flame for independence in India came at the Massacre of Amritsar. So in 1919 the colonial government had arrested two Indian freedom fighters. And as a result, a group of Indian nationalists gathered in a garden in Amritsar to protest such behavior. Now as it turned out, the city was also filled with Sikh worshippers who had come to town for a religious festival. Now, the gathering in the garden was peaceful, but the colonial government had outlawed such gatherings. And so colonial soldiers opened fire on these peaceful protesters and because the surrounding area was also filled with the Sikh worshippers, they were fired upon as well. In the end, nearly 400 Indians were dead, and over 1000 more were wounded. Now, this blatant brutality radicalized many Indians, and they began to think that a free and independent India was the only way to have any future worth having. And this sentiment was strong but they needed a leader to focus that sentiment. And in the 1920s, they got one. His name was Mohandas Gandhi.. And Gandhi embodied this anti-colonial resentment. And so he led the Indian nation in a campaign of nonviolent resistance through acts of civil disobedience. For example, Indians participated in the Homespun Movement. This movement advocated the making of one’s own clothes in order to protest the injustices of the British colonial textile industry. Now, what injustices were those? Well, you may recall that Indians grew the cotton which was then shipped to Britain to be made into textiles, which they then turned around and sold back to India at inflated prices. And so the Homespun Movement rejected all this. Now, as these protests were gathering steam and independence seemed like it might be a reality, they then had to contend with the realities of what independence would actually mean. And that meant that a major problem had to be solved. Now if you’ll recall, India was a majority Hindu population, however, there was a significant Muslim minority among them as well. And when the Muslims thought about an independent India, they feared that their voices as the minority would be lost to the Hindu majority. So the proposal was a two-state solution: upon independence, India would be separated into two states: India for Hindus and Pakistan for Muslims. Now, none of this actually came to pass until after World War II, but it was during this time that all the groundwork was laid for these developments. Alright, let’s head over to East Asia and see how they’re responding to colonial rule. And let’s start in Korea. So starting in the 1890s, Japan had been encroaching on the Korean peninsula, and by 1910, the Japanese domination of the Korean peninsula was complete. Now, the Koreans, of course, were not big fans of their Japanese rulers. But two things happened after World War I that sent Koreans over the edge. First, when the war ended, Japan courted European support for even more colonial expansion on the Asian continent. And second, in 1919, the Korean emperor died suddenly, and it was widely believed that it was Japanese infiltrators that poisoned him. And at that, Korean resentment reached its tipping point. The result of all of this was a series of demonstrations called the March 1st Movement because it began on March 1st, 1919. Over two million Koreans took to the streets in protest to Japanese colonial rule. And in response, the Japanese occupying troops squashed these protests brutally. Even so, this movement showed the potency of Korean nationalism. Okay, now over in China, we can see some resistance movements as well. A couple of months after the March 1st Movement in Korea, you get the May 4th Movement in China, and now I’ll tell you what it’s all about. So China supported the Allies during World War I, and by doing so they hoped to reclaim some land that the Germans had taken. But as it turned out, Japan wanted that land too. And when push came to shove, the Allies sided with Japan on this issue. And so on May 4th, 1919, people took to the streets in powerful anti-Japanese demonstrations. For many people, the result was the large scale rejection of western democracy and a turn towards communism. Now, after these protests, two groups vied for control of China. First was the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. Mao was inspired by the communist revolution over in Russia and wanted a corresponding communist revolution there in China. One big difference is that Mao thought the best chance at a communist revolution in China was not to insight the working classes, but instead insight the peasantry to revolution. The other group which was contending with the Chinese Communist Party was the Chinese Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat-sen. Sun Yat-sen wanted to see China independent and industrialized. Now, although these parties were deeply divided in their core beliefs, they did band together in order to create an independent China. Now, after the death of Sun Yat-sen, a guy by the name of Chiang Kai-shek took over leadership in the Chinese Nationalist Party. And being more conservative than his predecessor and not so tolerant about Mao’s communism, he went and attacked Mao’s forces in 1927, and that led to the Chinese Civil War. And finally, let’s look at resistance movements in colonial West Africa. Interestingly, independence movements in West Africa actually began with Africans who had been educated in European institutions. In what must have been a serious lapse of judgment, European imperial powers like France and Britain actually educated the people that they meant to conquer. And when they started learning about ideas like natural rights and the social contract, you can imagine they got a little antsy under the domineering hand of their parent colonial countries. Also black workers in French West Africa began striking. In 1917 railway workers went on strike, and by 1946 workers were striking across dozens of industries. And as this sentiment spread, workers agitated for fair wages and an end of discriminatory practices, and in some cases, they won what they wanted. Alright, that’s what you need to know about Unit 7 Topic 5 of AP World History. on your exam. And you would like to support this channel. And if you want to join the Heimler family, subscribe, I’ll adopt you. Heimler out.