Wannsee conference Meeting held at a lakeside villa in the Berlin suburbs on January 20, 1942, to coordinate the bureaucratic arrangements needed by hitler’s regime for the escalation of its “final solution” to the Jewish question (see also antisemitism). Originally planned for December 1941 but delayed by the outbreak of war between Germany and the USA, the conference proceeded under the chairmanship of Reinhard Heydrich as deputy to himmler. It also involved detailed administrative support from eichmann. The meeting enabled Heydrich and Eichmann to implicate a number of ministries more deeply in Nazism’s secretive project of genocide, while also making clear to the state and party functionaries there assembled that the schutzstaffel (SS) now had unchallengeable overall control of this exterminatory campaign.
War Communism Brutal economic policy adopted in 1918 by the bolsheviks so as to keep the red army fed and supplied during the Russian civil war, which continued until 1921. Hastily improvised and overseen by the supreme council for National Economy, war communism entailed an obligatory labor draft of the unemployed, the state takeover of industry, the imposition of rationing, and severe penalties for alleged slackers. The extent to which the policy encroached upon any particular area depended very much on the level of Bolshevik military control. This was especially so in the countryside where peasants responded to the forceful requisitioning of foodstuffs by slaughtering their livestock, hoarding supplies, and killing requisitioning agents. Though war communism may have enabled the Red Army to win the civil war, it had revealed the Bolshevik propensity for violence and left much of the economy in ruins. The discontent that fuelled the kronstadt uprising early in 1921 prompted lenin then to accelerate a switch towards the new economic policy, which itself marked a partial retreat from strict communist economics. (See also communism)
Warfare The conduct of military affairs at tactical, operational, and strategic levels. The art of war was transformed in the modern epoch principally by technological innovation and by the increasing ability of states to mobilize their demographic and economic resources, especially those deriving from industrialization. However, this did not mean that technological superiority or economic dominance, even when combined, could guarantee victory. Fighting qualities or imaginative and effective use of established weaponry might be just as important. Moreover, we should be wary of any teleological approach to nineteenth - and twentieth-century military developments that privileges an over-selective narrative of linear progress in the conduct of warfare.
The french revolutionary wars and Napoleonic wars that opened the modern epoch were less deeply transformative in strictly military terms than they were in political ones. Innovations in drill and tactics, including varying use of the column (ordre profond) and of the so-called “thin line” (ordre mince), were built upon reforms initiated under the ancien regime by Folard, de Saxe, Bourcet, and others. By 1789 the French army was already articulated into self-contained divisions, and it was these that napoleon i would subsequently develop into self-sufficient corps, each capable of engaging the enemy on its own until still greater forces could be brought to bear. Three further factors enhanced France’s warmaking capacity. First, an unparalleled level of professional competence within the army was achieved by opening up careers to talent, blending old line regiments and new volunteers in 1793, and sustaining two decades of almost continuous warfare. Second, the new concept of citizenship implied a duty to defend the state and allowed the raising of armies of unprecedented size. Between 2 and 3 million Frenchmen were conscripted, supplemented by levies from the occupied territories, on a scale that prompted Napoleon to boast that he could afford to lose 30,000 men per month while on campaign. Third, the rhetoric of nationalism and defense of the patrie created what the Prussian clausewitz later called a “degree of energy in war that was otherwise inconceivable.” Such was the success of French arms, especially under Napoleon, that the “little corporal” dominated thinking about the art of war over following decades. Yet, although he had been the foremost practitioner of warfare, Napoleon had left no clear synthesis of his art. Military commentators therefore remained divided on what lessons might be learned from him, and indeed from 23 years of conflict.
For the Swiss-born Baron Jomini (1779-1869), maneuver as the prelude to a decisive battle was the key. In contrast, Clausewitz urged that sheer mass gave the greatest chance of victory, because warfare would necessarily be confused and drawn-out; indeed, by pointing out that combat “tended to the extreme,” he also presaged “total war.” Of these two, Jomini was the more influential theorist until the late nineteenth century, particularly because he wrote about operational aspects of warfare that generals considered their specialty: communications, marches, and decisive concentrations of force. The full significance of Clausewitz’s call to harness the power of the nation-in-arms was either overlooked or deliberately ignored. This was not surprising. The French state had not only raised huge numbers of men but had also capitalized on their revolutionary zeal by employing them as skirmishers on the battlefield. In the peninsular war guerrillas had operated with notable success, while elsewhere Clausewitz himself had controversially organized popular resistance to the Napoleonic forces. He had also urged the “spontaneous cooperation of the people” in future conflicts, such as would eventually occur in 1870-1 when gambetta rallied his own fellow-French against the invading Prussians. However, although nineteenth-century governments recognized the need to take a bigger proportion of the population into their armies, guerrilla or popular warfare challenged established notions of military professionalism; and the authorities were reluctant to nurture the full potential of the nation-in-arms lest it give rise to the democratic and subversive sentiments articulated during the french revolution of 1789. Accordingly, although most states adopted conscription (the main exception being Britain, which was chiefly concerned with using soldiers to police its empire), this was generally short-term and applied in practice only to a fraction of the eligible cohort, while the core of the army remained professional and its strongly hierarchical ethos survived unaltered.
To mobilize and manage these large armies, general staffs were developed. Prussia, always the military trendsetter in the nineteenth century, took the lead by creating such a body in 1866, to be followed by Austria in 1871, France in the 1880s, and Britain in 1906. Commanders now made increasing use of railways for the rapid transport of men and supplies. During the FRANCO-AUSTRIAN WAR of 1859 the French moved 120,000 troops to the Italian front in just over one week; and trains were also crucial to Prussia’s victories, master-minded by moltke, over Austria in 1866 and over France four years later when more than 400,000 troops were assembled on the frontier within three weeks (see austro-prussian-war; franco-prussian war). There was certainly huge congestion at the railheads, but it was obscured by the rapidity of prussian battlefield victories. For schlieffen, chief of the German general staff from 1895 to 1906, and for his successors the railways seemed to offer a means of fighting on two fronts without getting bogged down in protracted conflict (see schlieffen plan). However, once static trench warfare set in along the MARNE at the start of world war i, rail transport permitted the rapid reinforcement of weak spots in the line, thus strengthening defensive rather than offensive capacities and thereby contributing to the subsequent immobility of the Western Front.
The case of railway usage indicates that (contrary to much popular belief) generals were not altogether uninterested in technological innovation. particularly from the 1830s onward, industrialization changed the weaponry available to them. The smooth-bore muzzle-loading musket gave way to breech-loading rifles; initially deployed in the Austro-prussian war, they had become standard issue by the 1870s. Cast-iron cannons were superseded by rifled steel artillery with a range of over 25 km (15.5 miles). This was effectively used in the Franco-prussian war, and was further enhanced through the invention in 1885 of smokeless explosives and recoil mechanisms that improved accuracy and rate of fire by rendering it unnecessary to resite the gun after each shot. Forerunners of the modern machine gun also appeared, initially in the form of the hand-cranked Gatling gun deployed in the American Civil war (1861-5) and then of the belt-loaded Maxim gun (1884). One eventual result of the new weaponry was to reconfigure the congested battlefields that had characterized the Napoleonic era. Fire-power now became so intense that soldiers were obliged to dig trenches and erect barricades, and to abandon their conspicuously colored uniforms for drab khaki and grey. However, these changes did not take broad effect until world war i. This was because of the relative tranquility of the period 1815-1914, and especially of the decades immediately following the VIENNA CONGRESS. There were few major interstate conflicts in nineteenth-century Europe, with the most important exceptions being the Crimean WAR and the campaigns associated with german UNIFICATION. The principal lesson derived from the former concerned the need of the countries involved to overhaul their methods of military administration. The brief bouts of warfare associated with Bismarck’s achievement culminated in such decisive victories at sadowa, sedan, and Metz as served only to obscure any wider considerations about the potential effects of massively-increased firepower. Though the American Civil War might have provided such lessons, this far-off conflict was mainly perceived as having been conducted by amateurs and as possessing much less relevance than the Prussian triumphs. Moreover, the military focus of European states in the nineteenth century was often directed overseas. There new technology amply proved its worth when deployed in the service of imperialism against tribesmen who were superior in numbers but poorly armed and organized. Accordingly, general staffs and commanders manifested a lack of imagination when it came to thinking about how flexibly new weapons might be employed, and their tendency merely to imitate each other’s methods strongly marked the eventual conduct of World War I.
It was much the same story at sea. Here, the apparent impact of technological innovation was even greater than on land, as the wind-powered wooden sailing ships of 2,000 tons displacement characteristic of nelson’s era gave way to ironhulled steam - and oil-powered vessels, with massive guns mounted centrally in turrets. Yet, after the Battle of Navarino in 1827 (see Greek war OF independence), no major naval engagement occurred in European waters until Jutland in 1916. Even the disastrous defeat inflicted on the tsar’s fleet in 1905 occurred far away in the Tsushima straits (see russo-japanese war). By then the influential doctrines expounded in the late nineteenth century by the Us admiral, Alfred T. Mahan, had encouraged the belief that naval mastery would be secured by large capital ships, even despite their vulnerability to mines, torpedofiring motor boats, and new submarine craft. However, there had been little opportunity to test these issues in action, and scant inclination towards developing any radical alternative to such capital vessels. Not even tirpitz, who had long concentrated on trying to match Britain’s construction of major warships, had fully planned the German submarine offensive of 1917: rather, he resorted to it as a last throw of the dice.
Given the relative brevity of most nineteenth-century conflict and the failure to appreciate the potential of mass industrialized warfare, it was unsurprising that most observers expected a swift conclusion even to the hostilities between major powers that began in 1914. Instead, prolonged battle strained the economic and demographic sinews of the belligerent countries and resulted in the collapse of three empires. Partly in response to lessons learned from the final stages of that conflict, by the 1930s hitler’s Germany and stalin’s soviet Union were developing military doctrines involving fast-moving columns capable of delivering an armored punch with support from aircraft (see blitzkrieg). By contrast, Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia believed in fortifications (such as the maginot line) to blunt an attack before grinding down the enemy through blockade and attrition as had happened in 1914-18. All governments, however, agreed that the next conflict would demand the mobilization of whole societies, and this was not the least of the senses in which the Spanish civil war of 1936-9 foreshadowed the wider international struggle that swiftly followed it. world war ii did indeed merit the title of “total war.” It was geographically widespread; with categories of conflict - involving submarines, surface vessels, land forces, air combat, intelligence, and extensive civilian participation - that were more numerous than ever before. It was fought on the basis of almost unlimited war aims, most strongly driven in the European context by the ideology of NAZISM and by Hitler’s fanatical racist quest for a so-called new order. Thus the conflict resulted in unparalleled levels of destruction, under conditions where the distinction between home and fighting fronts dissolved and where the laws of war, especially as painfully elaborated since the mid-nineteenth century, were often flouted (see also RED CROSS, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE; GENEVA conventions; HAGUE CONFERENCES; NUREMBERG trials).
Aircraft played a pivotal part in this enlargement of scope. They had proved useful in 1914-18 for reconnaissance and directing artillery fire, but their roles in World War II were multiplied and enhanced. After 1918 the conviction (articulated most forcefully by the Italian Giulio Douhet) took hold that the bomber would always get through, and that by attacking cities and industrial targets it would undermine civilian morale and destroy the enemy’s economic capacity for war. In the event, although the Allies in particular used such bombing, its effects remain contested. As for use of airplanes to land troops behind enemy lines by parachute and glider (e. g. in Crete and at Arnhem), this proved costly and yielded only mixed results. However, aircraft did prove vital in countering the German U-boat threat to shipping in the Atlantic; and air superiority was vital to the success of all army and combined operations. In contrast, navies were employed in largely traditional roles. In both world wars they were used to enforce an economic blockade; they sought to keep the sea lanes free, though they had to combat the novel menace of attack from submarines; and they were employed in amphibious operations (see, for example, gallipoli campaign; NORMANDY LANDINGS). Radically new roles would be developed for both aircraft and naval vessels after 1945 - the year when war in the pacific was ended by the US Air Force exploding atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thus opening the nuclear age.
The Soviet Union completed its first successful test of such weaponry in 1949, with Britain and France following in 1952 and 1960 respectively. By the end of the 1960s all four of the pioneering nuclear powers, together with China, had developed their own versions of a still more destructive hydrogen bomb. During the cold war, both sides massively increased their stock of nuclear weapons, for delivery by aircraft, submarines, or inter-continental ballistic missiles, until they had attained more than sufficient capacity for (aptly-acronymic) “mutually assured destruction.” The eventual movement towards dEtente, followed in Europe by the collapse of COMMUNISM amid the REVOLUTIONS OF 1989-91, prompted significant reduction in the arsenals of the older nuclear powers: yet it did so without preventing the spread of such weaponry especially into the Middle East and the Indo-Pakistan region. Some observers had initially concluded that possession of nuclear devices would render conventional weapons largely obsolete, but this proved false. Although both world wars had matched the traditional inter-state paradigm of conflict prevalent since the Napoleonic era, a number of more recent struggles have been “asymmetrical” - typically involving low-intensity, guerrilla, and counter-insurgency operations, necessitating a greater diversity of force structures and fighting methods in contexts of confrontation between ethnic, religious, and other groups. Although the principal examples have come from Africa and Asia, it is vital to note that some aspects of such warfare were discernible within the upheavals that erupted in the Balkans too during the 1990s, amid the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the civil strife that afflicted bosnia-herzegovina in particular. On the European side of the Caucasus, conflict in Chechnya provided a further example. Such asymmetry has also developed in the context of terroristic dissidence (see terrorism), where the potentialities of chemical and biological warfare, and even of “dirty” radioactive mini-bombs, could not be lightly dismissed. In general, however, there has been a growing awareness that military force can no longer be used directly to impose political goals, as distinct from creating the preconditions for the eventual realization of such objectives. Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is the continuation of politics by other means seemed to remain as valid in the early twenty-first century as it had been nearly 200 years earlier.
Warsaw, Grand Duchy of Polity established by NAPOLEON I in 1807 as part of the treaties of TILSIT, in the aftermath of victory over Prussia at jena-auerstAdt. The Duchy was formed out of Prussia’s territories in Poland. The king of Saxony, an erstwhile Prussian ally who had negotiated a separate peace with France in 1806, was made Grand Duke. But in practice the Duchy was administered by Polish nobles supervised by a French nominee, making it akin to one of Napoleon’s satellite kingdoms. The arrangement survived only until the latter’s defeat at Leipzig in 1813.
Warsaw ghetto The largest of the ghettos into which JEWS were herded by hitler’s forces early in WORLD WAR II. By 1940 some 400,000 victims from all over occupied Poland were effectively imprisoned there under conditions of extreme squalor and starvation. As the so-called final solution was implemented, there were regular transfers to the extermination center (see concentration camps) at Treblinka. On April 19, 1943 the decision to complete these deportations and to erase the ghetto was temporarily frustrated by a band of poorly-armed survivors, who bravely sustained their resistance until mid-May. Some 14,000 Jews were killed during that period. The overall wartime toll of those who died either within the ghetto or after deportation from it totaled around 300,000. (See also antisemitism; Warsaw rising)
Warsaw Pact Known also as the Eastern European Mutual Assistance Treaty, this agreement of 1955 established a unified military command (with headquarters in Moscow) as between the SOVIET UNION and seven other states from the communist bloc: Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GERMAN democratic REPUBLIC, HUNGARY, POLAND, and ROMANIA. It largely formalized existing arrangements, doing so in response to the admission of a rearmed federal republic of Germany into NATO. The Pact contributed further to cold war tensions by seemingly legitimizing the Soviet Union’s continuing military presence in much of eastern Europe. Thus it eased the red army’s task of suppressing the Hungarian rising of 1956, and also enabled the Soviet Union to coordinate, in line with the brezhnev doctrine, a multilateral crushing of the Prague spring of 1968. That was also the year in which Albania, after breaking with Moscow back in 1961, officially withdrew from the alliance. The Warsaw Pact eventually dissolved amid the European revolutions of 1989-91. In 1999 Hungary, Poland, and the new CZECH republic became the first of its former members to join NATO.
Warsaw rising As part of world war ii in eastern Europe, the rising against the Germans that began on August 1,1944 needs to be distinguished from the revolt attempted by the Jews of the WARSAW GHETTO in 1943. By mid-1944 the Germans’ hold on Poland’s capital was already threatened by advancing Soviet forces. Encouraged from London by the pro-Western government-in-exile, the underground Polish Home Army led by General Komorowski sought to achieve a preemptive recapture. initial successes were soon followed by a counter-attack that restored German control in early October. On hitler’s orders there was total destruction of whatever still remained standing across central areas of the city. While the red army took its time regrouping in the suburbs, the Nazis were able to crush anticommunist elements within the Polish resistance. Soviet troops finally occupied Warsaw on January 17,1945, three months after the end of a rising that resulted in a civilian death-toll of some 225,000 (out of a population of 1 million).
Waterloo, Battle of Decisive victory of the Allied army commanded by Wellington and of the Prussians under blUcher over the forces of napoleon I, on June 18, 1815. It concluded the Napoleonic WARS, bringing about a repeat of the emperor’s abdication and of louis xviii’s restoration. Napoleon’s return to France in March 1815 after his exile to Elba had been followed by the HUNDRED DAYS, when he sought to consolidate his position by defeating the Allies. On June 16, French forces fought an inconclusive engagement with Wellington (at Quatre Bras) and defeated the Prussians (at Ligny), but Blucher refused to retreat very far and his intervention would prove vital at Waterloo. There Wellington’s careful choice of a defensive position behind a ridge spared his troops from the full impact of the French artillery, but by 6.30 p. m. his forces looked vulnerable to a final assault. However, the arrival of the Prussians and Napoleon’s prevarication about releasing his reserves probably turned the battle. The repulse of the Imperial Guard then produced a rout of the Napoleonic army.
Weimar Republic Title commonly used for the regime established in February 1919 by a National Constituent Assembly meeting in the town of that name. Officially known as the Deutsches Reich (best translated for this period simply as “German Reich,” not “Empire”), it has had a bad press among historians since it ended by being calamitously overthrown through the triumph of NAZISM under hitler. Yet many of the criticisms directed at this Republic are misplaced, and it has to be questioned whether any non-authoritarian political system could have readily withstood the economic and other pressures that beset Germany in the early 1930s.
Certainly “Weimar” was born in difficult circumstances, amid the chaos of the german revolution OF 1918-19. It also had the misfortune to be closely associated with the humiliation inflicted by the Versailles treaty. This gave rise to the myth of “the stab in the back” (see dolchstoss) which would be skillfully exploited by nationalist politicians. Nor did such figures have much time for Weimar’s constitution. It derived partly from the proposals produced by the frankfurt PARLIAMENT of 1848-9. Moreover, in what survived territorially from the german empire of 1871-1918, the constitution also reflected much of the framework of FEDERALISM that had characterized BiSMARCK’s creation. Thus the new regime initially incorporated nineteen state-republics (Lander). Though these retained their previous powers over policing, education, and church matters, the Reich government now assumed a greater measure ofcentralizing authority especially in matters of direct taxation. In the bicameral legislature, the Reichsrat (representing the Lander) was overshadowed by the Reichstag, which was now elected through universal suffrage for all adults over 20 and on the basis of proportional representation. The constitution further provided for a president to be popularly elected every seven years. He was charged with appointing the chancellor and cabinet ministers, according to the complexion of parliament, as well as with being the formal commander of the armed forces. Article 48 also conferred upon him emergency powers more extensive than any previously vested in the Kaisers. The scope of such executive discretion rendered pivotal the character of the president himself. The initial office-holder (chosen by the parliamentarians before the broader electoral arrangement came into force) was ebert, a member
Of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY (sPd)
Who from time to time used his special powers constructively to defend the fledgling regime. When he died in 1925, before completing his term, victory at the polls went to the military veteran Field Marshal hindenburg, a political reactionary whose more frequent resort to Article 48 during the years 1930-2 served largely to marginalize the parliamentary process and whose biggest mistake was to over-estimate his ability to control Hitler. The issue of emergency powers was also complicated by Weimar’s over-elaborate version of proportional representation. This resulted in a proliferation of parties and a series of unstable coalitions, to the point where the period from 1919 to 1928 witnessed no fewer than fifteen governing administrations. More troubling still was the fact that a number of the groups which thus established some foothold in the Reichstag were bent on overthrowing the political system. These included the Communist Party (KPD) on the left; and, on the right, the German National People’s Party (DNVP), the German People’s Party (DVP), and - eventually most crucial of all - the Nazi Party (NSDAP). The difficulties were further compounded by the refusal of many survivors from the old imperial bureaucracy, most notably the army and judiciary, to reconcile themselves to liberal democracy. They were quick to clamp down on left-wing coups in 1919,1921, and 1923, yet showed an excessive leniency to those perpetrated from the right, especially the KAPP PUTSCH of 1920 and the so-called beer hall PUTSCH attempted by Hitler in 1923. In this situation only the SPD, the liberal-minded German Democratic Party (DDP), and the Centre Party (see zentrum) were substantially committed to making the system function. Despite these limitations, coalition could sometimes prove moderately effective, and it was widely believed during the period 1924-8 that Weimar’s political instability seemed to be easing. Following stresemann’s efforts in securing the locarno treaties, Germany was accepted into the league of nations and thus began to resume its proper place in the international community. It was the regime’s misfortune that consensus could not be sustained at the time of the GREAT depression[2] when the so-called Grand Coalition fell apart, divided over the issue of tax credits and unemployment benefits.
Even from its outset, Weimar had been continually battered by economic difficulties, beginning with the issue of reparations. When Germany defaulted on these in 1923 the upshot had been a Franco-Belgian occupation of the ruhr and some months of deeply disruptive hyperinflation. At that juncture, having struggled to overcome the transition to a peacetime economy (including rampant unemployment), the regime faced a major crisis of credibility. The misery was great, but not all social groups suffered equally, particularly as some elements of big business were able to write off debts and reduce labor costs. After 1924, with the revaluation of the Reichsmark and a partial resolution of the reparations question (see DAWES plan; young plan), the economy enjoyed a burst of success aided by improved cooperation between industrialists and trade unionists. It was, however, unfortunate that so much of Weimar’s recovery rested on American loans, for these were quickly withdrawn following the 1929 Wall Street Crash. The Depression that opened the 1930s proved even more destabilizing than the earlier inflation, though once again large-scale producers were partially cocooned from the crisis, which was felt most keenly among small businesses and in rural communities. Amid spiraling unemployment, insolvencies, and banking collapses, Hitler was able to make his breakthrough. Whereas his NSDAp had polled only 2.6 percent in the Reichstag elections of May 1928, it registered 18.3 percent in those called for September 1930. By March-April 1932 Hitler had become the chief challenger to Hindenburg’s presidential re-election, where the latter’s eventual victory depended less on the conservative platform he had championed in 1925 than on his role as a rallying-point for those now increasingly desperate to find almost any means of blocking the Nazis. In the further Reichstag polls of July 1932 the NSDAP vote, expanding around a core of Protestant lower-middle-class support, rose to 37.3 percent. This made the Nazis by far the largest parliamentary grouping, and they retained that status even when their share dipped to 33.1 percent the following November in what proved to be the final free elections of the Weimar epoch. In this situation old-style conservatives such as PAPEN and Kurt von Schleicher believed that there was little alternative but to persuade Hindenburg to entrust Hitler with the chancellorship. These machinations formed at least the immediate cause of Weimar’s dissolution. No single decree terminated this regime. However, having been appointed chancellor on January 30, 1933, Hitler rapidly implemented a process of coercive “coordination” (see gleichschaltung). This included the ENABLING ACT of March 23, which gave pseudo-legal authorization for what was already becoming the Nazi dictatorship of the so-called Third Reich. By the time that Hindenburg’s death in August 1934 opened the way for Hitler to declare himself head of state as well as of government, all remnants of “the Weimar experiment” had been effectively destroyed.
Welfare state (see under welfarism)
Welfarism A belief that states have a positive duty to protect the wellbeing of their citizens - and particularly those who are poor, sick, disabled, elderly, or unemployed - through governmental schemes covering, for example, social insurance, pensions, health care, family allowances, and publicly-funded housing and education. During the later-nineteenth century welfarism was closely associated with the rise of socialism. However, the fact that it was not entirely monopolized by the left is well illustrated by the experience ofthe new GERMAN EMPIRE. There BISMARCK, for his own broadly conservative purposes (see conservatism), aimed to weaken the popular appeal of the socialists by constructing, preemptively, some of the foundations of what would later be called “the welfare state” - principally through legislation covering insurance for sickness (1883), workers’ accidents (1884), and old age and invalidity (1889). During the early twentieth century (for example, in Britain under the Liberal administrations of 1905-16) such initiatives became increasingly common. However, there remained considerable debate as to whether (as liberalism as well as conservatism tended to suggest) governments should limit themselves to supplying a minimal “safety net” as distinct from incorporating welfarism into more radical socialist schemes of wealth distribution aimed at promoting greater equality. Particularly interesting variants on the theme of welfare provision during the 1920s and 1930s included those encountered in the forms of corporate STATE advocated by fascist-style movements (see fascism), as well as those associated with the heavily taxed systems of social democracy that were developing in Sweden and the Scandinavian region at large. During and after World War ii there were also major developments in Britain, inspired by the Beveridge Report of 1942 and implemented between 1945 and 1951 by Clement Attlee’s Labour administration. By the 1950s and 1960s some substantial measure of welfarism based on relatively stable funding through regular tax revenues had become the norm throughout western Europe, even though this approach was never free from challenge by those who saw it as a symptom of excessive state power and as a disincentive to individualistic economic enterprise. Welfarism also constituted an even more fundamental feature of the communism that had first been implemented within the soviet union before being consolidated across its newly-formed “satellite” system. Towards the end of the twentieth century, however, that specific form of welfare provision, previously operative “from cradle to grave” in such a strongly state-centralized form and largely protected from the competing “market forces” characteristic of capitalist systems, suffered collapse. its rapid and almost total loss was, at least in the short term, one of the most destabilizing social consequences of the revolutions of 1989-91 across central and eastern Europe.
World History
