The Causes and Consequences of World War II

 The Causes and Consequences of World War IIDavid North delivered the following lecture at San Diego State University on October 5, 2009, marking the 70 th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War and the staggering annihilation of millions of human beings a mere 25 years after the “war to end all wars” of 1914–18.We are republishing the lecture today ahead of the 80 th anniversary of the outbreak of the war on September 1.This lecture appears as a chapter in David North’s The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century, available from Mehring Books.The main concern of this lecture is not the specific conflicts and events that triggered World War II, but rather the war’s more general causes.Given the massive scale of the cataclysm that unfolded between 1939 and 1945, it is simplistic, even absurd, to seek the causes of the war primarily in the diplomatic conflicts that led up to the hostilities—such as the dispute over the Danzig Corridor—apart from their broader historical context.Any consideration of the causes of World War II must proceed from the fact that the development of global military conflict between 1939 and 1945 followed by only twenty-five years the first global military conflict, which occurred between 1914 and 1918. Only twenty-one years passed between the end of World War I and the beginning of World War II. Another way of looking at it is that within the space of just thirty-one years, two catastrophic global wars were fought.To put this in a contemporary perspective, the time span between 1914 and 1945 is the same as between 1978—the midpoint of the Carter administration—and 2009. To maintain this sense of historical perspective—making the necessary shift in historical time—let us consider that someone born in 1960 would have been eighteen years old in 1978, that is, old enough to be drafted to fight in a war. If he or she survived, that person would have been only twenty-two at the end of the war. He or she would have been just forty-three when the second war began and only forty-nine when it was over.What does this mean in very human and personal terms? By the time this individual reached the age of fifty, he or she would have witnessed, directly or indirectly, a staggering level of violence. He would have probably known very many people who were killed in the course of these wars.he EconomicWorld War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. It lasted from 1939 to 1945 and involved 30 countries from every part of the globe. World War II killed around 70 million people or 4% of the world's population.1 Historians argue over the exact numbers, so most of the following figures are from "The Fallen of World War II."2 3 It's more than the deaths incurred for all wars since then combined.4