The World At The End Of The 1930s
A Session of The League of Nations
Reaction and Counterreaction
Politics and Society
If the 1920s had been defined by reverence at surviving the Great War, a general wish for global peace and prosperity as well as the rise of new and exciting ideological, cultural and societal movements, the 1930s would be characterized by the gradual emergence of conservative and reactionary opposition to these new movements and the dialogue which resulted - both of a positive and negative nature. Perhaps the single most significant development of this period was the coming of age of mass politics and its saturation into every corner of the world. Whether it be the emergent national consciousness and anti-colonial sentiments of British Africa, the spread of socialist and nationalist anti-colonial movements across Asia, the rise of communism as a truly global political force with adherents in every corner of the world or the forceful counterreaction which led to the ascension of integralist mass movements across much of Latin America and Europe. The growing political consciousness of formerly insular tribal peoples in the highlands of Indochina or the increasing agitation for societal change amongst the untouchables of India came hand-in-hand with the spread of ever more autocratic tendencies - from the high-handed and nepotistic President Long in the United States, to the stranglehold on power enjoyed by the Soviet Triumvirate or the illiberal politics of men such as Jacques Arthuys of France and Neptalí Bonifaz Ascázubi of Ecuador (1).
The period saw the radical transformation of society at a shocking pace, from the Red Terror paving the way for the consolidation of the Imperial People's Shogunate in Japan to the subversion of democracy which saw Monarchy restored in France. These developments were fueled by a number of different factors which together contributed to the incredible transformation which occurred during these years. One important element in the transforming landscape of the decade was the gradual collapse of the much lauded Spirit of Amsterdam which many had hoped would augur in an unheard period of peace and prosperity as an understanding of the sheer scale of horrors war might unleash had seemingly been inculcated into humanity at a foundational level. The ink was barely dry before this belief was proven futile, but for a time hope remained despite both the military and political expansion of Communism during the 1930s and the growing strength of anti-colonial movements around the world. However, with each instance in which this hoped for peace was disproven, more and more people fell into disillusion about the Spirit of Amsterdam. For the political fortunes of the times, this disillusion would be linked to the gradual collapse of the moderate, centrist consensus which had come to dominate particularly European politics in the post-Great War era (1).
As the center, be it Social Democratic, Liberal or Conservative, gradually found its domination of politics challenged by more radical forces, both internally and externally, a path emerged for Communist, Socialist, Integralist, Ultra-Conservative and National Socialist forces to rise to prominence. Politics during this period grew from the domain of the elite into something which truly engaged large segments of the population, with political affiliations taking on near unheard levels of importance in people's identities, social circles and communities. This was most visibly the case in the German Empire, where political affiliations formed dividing lines across almost all sectors of society, from football clubs and reading circles to trade unions and youth corps, but such features were common across all of Europe and to a lesser extent large parts of the rest of the world. In Spain and many of the countries which drew inspiration from the grand integralist reforms undertaken by King Alfonso it would be the various associations to which individuals were assigned which became the formative bloc upon which identity and affiliations were built, providing not just social and recreational ties but also economic and political connections which proved of immense importance to determining the social standing and potential for upward mobility of any given person (1).
By contrast, the Soviet Republic's communal villages and neighborhood soviets would become the principal social circle in Communist Russia, providing more of a geographic bond than the class and employment-based Integralist associations. Beyond the confines of Europe, it would be a combination of secretive clubs, organizations and associations - often affiliated to some degree or other with the local independence movement - and traditional societal structures which formed the foundation for people's lives. The tensions between the often western-influenced and modernist independence movements and the traditional institutions which had commonly been twisted or coopted by their colonizers would often come to form a frisson of hostility which weakened and divided colonial societies, regularly seeing the colonizers egging on these divisions to varying degrees in hopes of maintaining control of their ever more unsteady empires. In more settled colonial holdings such as India or Western Africa these traditional institutions held an often astonishingly powerful sway with the result that modernist and reform-minded independence fighters and revolutionaries often found themselves quite directly in conflict with not just the colonial administration but also the traditionalist elements of their respective societies - these sorts of clashes would play out both peacefully or violently, but very rarely did the two sides find any ability to maintain a long-term accord (1).
In comparison, regions which had experienced recent turmoil - Indochina, Burma, British East Africa to name the most prominent examples - would see much more dynamic and radical movements, with the traditional structures weakened sufficiently for the more modernist elements to press their advantage and secure control of the societal dialogue. However, it is important to note the fact that even within this divide between modernist and traditionalist there was a wide span of divergences and disagreements, with conflicts over ideology, class or proximity to the colonial administration all factors in these divisions. Ultimately, by the end of the 1930s the world had become marked by the formation of large political blocs which began to divide the globe through hegemonic networks of influence and authority, even as surging anti-colonial sentiments threatened to overturn the imperial structures which had come to define the world over the last several centuries (1).
Religion in Convulsion
If the 1920s could be considered a time of intense religious turmoil in which the religious status quo was shattered, the 1930s were to prove a time of incredible religious dynamism and innovation - building upon the ashes of the past in a new and more modern configuration. The most obvious and significant religious movement to emerge during this time period was without a doubt the Revolutionary Catholic Church which swept across the globe, partly fueled by trained Italian missionaries and by dissatisfaction with the Papal Church's handling of local religious affairs. The RCC took many forms and made an impact in many different places, but what proved most notable about its development would prove to be not so much a matter of the specific doctrines championed by the Italian branch of the movement, but rather the sheer plurality of ideas and innovations which the RCC permitted and made possible. From the Solidaridad priestly trade union in the Central American Republic, which challenged the powers of the inherited church hierarchy, and the autonomous church established by Father Gregorio Aglipay in the Philippines to the reform-minded Cristeros of Mexico or the influential Flemish Revolutionary Catholic Church which made common cause with the left to overturn the political status quo of the Netherlands - all would find themselves accepted as part of the church. Nevertheless, the free-wheeling nature of the RCC and its often ambiguous doctrinal beliefs would also result in problems for the movement, with many branches of the church lacking much in the way of cohesion with other segments, with the RCC seeming more like a series of affiliated churches, emphasizing Salvationist, Christian Democratic and Social Democratic tendencies, but with an often astonishing degree of latitude in its more detailed practices (2).
Religious scholars during this period would point towards the idea that without its base in Italy and control of Rome, the RCC would have simply been viewed as one of the numerous different offshoots of the Catholic Church - but due to the fact that the RCC was able to draw legitimacy from its control of holy sites in Italy they were able to differentiate and lift themselves above their competition, presenting what may well have been the greatest actual challenge to the religious hegemony of the Papal Catholic Church since the Reformation. It was this very threat which served to agitate and develop the Papal Catholic Church, leading to the embrace of integralism, the high levels of involvement of the church in the public and private sphere, the Church's political entanglements with the Latin Pact and what pro-Papal writers would come to describe as a cleansing of doctrines and practices in one of the most significant doctrinal shakeups since the Council of Trent with the calling of the Council of Santiago de Compostela late in the decade. All in all, the Papal Catholic Church would go through the 1930s in a state of crisis, the church's hold on power constantly challenged and its following shrinking on all sides as the legitimacy, prestige and authority of the faith came under constant assault. In the United States, the relatively liberal Catholic Church would officially remain adherents of the Papal Church, but in effect ran their show independently of the Papacy, practicing their own creed and following their own practices which took into consideration the preferences of their congregations. Nevertheless, this affiliation of the American Catholic Church to the Papacy would prove of considerable importance once President Long came to power, for amongst his most ardent supporters were large numbers of Catholics of particularly Irish origin who allowed church figures an influence and voice in government councils - the Long Presidency maintaining political ties to the Santiago Papacy and largely eschewing the RCC, which never found much of a following within the United States (2).
Catholicism was not the only religion to find itself troubled. Protestant Christianity had found itself faced with a general secularization of western society, experienced an aggressive fragmentation of its following through successive waves of Great Awakenings and the splintering of the faith between liberal and conservative factions. Missionaries who had made inroads in the Far East established followings which soon began to integrate and localize the teachings of the faith while state-promoted atheism and state repression in Communist states brought Eastern Orthodox Christians to the West, bringing with them a variety of new practices which surprised and intrigued those hoping to reinvigorate the weakening grip of Protestantism. In general, the last century had been marked by efforts to integrate the religious practices and ideas of Protestantism with the ideological developments of the period - from the evolution of Liberal Christianity in Germany and Pentecostalism in the United States to the counter-reaction of Christian Fundamentalism and Neo-Orthodoxy, this period was dominated by a bitter struggle for adherents wherever they might emerge. The shockwaves which went through the Catholic Church in the 1920s and the rise of the Revolutionary Catholic Church in the 1930s would have an immense impact upon Protestantism as a whole as well, with conservatives finding many of their worst fears of liberalism and modernity proven true by the spread of heterogenous practices by the RCC, with conservative Protestants soon linking the RCC to their Protestant counterparts - smearing them as little better than crypto-socialists and fraudsters out to turn their flock towards evil. As the decade neared its end, this conflict only seemed to be heating up, as religious camps impacted political affiliations and political conflicts impacted the spread of both secularism and religiosity (3).
While nowhere near the cataclysmic overturning of the status quo which the breaking of the Catholic Church represented, Islam would find itself entering a period of immense dynamism, change and development as well during these years. With the Caliph in Istanbul pushing the Islamic Modernist movement forward wholeheartedly, it did not take long before immense changes swept through the Ottoman Empire before following the religious authority of the Caliphate beyond the borders of the Empire. In a growing synthesis of the vast and complicated modernist movement, the Caliph set out a line for Sunni Islam which would see it accept new influences in an effort to adapt to the changing world around them. With the Salafists, and other fundamentalist schools of Islam, undermined by the total defeat of the House of Saud and the growing prestige of Caliph Abdulmejid II Osmanli, it did not take long before forward thinking and influential Sunni voices across the globe reacted to the Caliph's urgings, seeking to take up his call for reform. Nevertheless, traditionalists and conservatives remained a powerful force within Sunni Islam and while they would struggle to challenge the Caliph's authority and prestige, they would nevertheless present a constant challenge which slowed and disjointed the modernist reforms sought by the Caliph. Nevertheless, Sunni Islam would find itself healthy and dynamic to a degree not seen in centuries by the end of the 1930s, fueled by the rising fortunes of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliph himself. When contrasted with the developments occurring within Sunni Islam, the deterioration of Shia Islam was all the more stark (4).
As a faith centered largely out of Persia, the Shiites had seen a considerable turning of the fates as their gamble to support the Pessian Persian regime left the upper layers of the Ulama suspect, while the subsequent supremacy of the Socialist Republic in the struggle for Iran had turned that support of Pessian into a black mark in the eyes of many Socialist leaders. While figures such as Marja Isfahani who had gained some credit by speaking out against the Pessian regime were able to remain an active force in Iranian politics, the religious authorities would find themselves much weakened and looked upon with ill-will by both the political leadership and considerable segments of the population. Atheism and lapses in active religious practice would play a considerable role in the weakening of Shia Islam during this period, and it would not take long before the weakened prestige of the most prominent Shiite country in the world made its impact known upon the rest of the Shia faithful. Modernist influence upon Islam would also prove somewhat troublesome as particularly innovative Islamic thinkers began to merge some of the concepts and ideas of Communism and Socialism with Islamic theology, some drawing inspiration from the Revolutionary Catholic Church and others simply seeing patterns repeat between the Holy Book and the writings of Socialist and Communist ideologues. Perhaps the most prominent of these thinkers was Tan Malaka of the Indonesian PKI but there were plenty of others inspired by the rise of Communism who wished to maintain their Islamic faith including the Iranian intellectual Muhammed Nakhshab, who sought to unite Shia Islam with Communist ideology under the auspices of the Socialist Republic of Iran and the Muslim Indian independence activist Ubaidullah Sindhi, who had spent years after the Great War travelling Russia and the Middle East before settling in Afghanistan alongside Muhammad Iqbal - seeking to convince King Amanullah to present himself as a standard bearer for Muslim India (4).
One of the religions to experience significant change during the 1930s would prove to be Buddhism under the auspices of the Fengtian Dynasty. With the announcement that the new dynasty would be built upon Buddhist principles, and the Hongzhi Emperor's sponsoring of various Buddhist movements across China during this period, the stage was set for a religious renaissance. One of the most significant early moves of the Fengtian dynasty would prove to be the establishment of the Zhongguo Fojiao Xiehui - the Buddhist Association of China (BAC) - which sought to establish a national council to unite the efforts of the numerous monastic communities spread across China. Prior to this time there had been no real organization to the monastic communities in China, nor even within the same sect, with each monastery autonomous under the authority of their respective abbot. Hoping to bring some unity of purpose to this incredibly diverse web of religious communities, Hongzhi thus established the BAC with delegates from each sect and region united under a standing committee with 4 honorary chairmen - the Hongzhi Emperor, the Panchen Lama, the Grand Lama of Inner Mongolia and Venerable Master Hsu Yun - with the honorable Taixu, who had so inspired the Emperor's reforms, serving as Secretary General of the BAC. While the Buddhist Association of China would refrain from intervening in doctrinal and sect-based matters for the most part, it would provide a platform for debate, cooperation and synthesis while also allowing for the gradual imposition of Taixu's wished-for reforms to the monastic community - with many monasteries finding themselves reduced, rationalized and more closely bound together outside of a few exalted historical institutions which were allowed to continue without much interference. As Chinese Buddhism underwent a massive transformation during these years, it should come as little surprise that the reverberations of these developments spread throughout the Buddhist international community. As the BAC sponsored monastic communities across Southeast Asia and South Asia while engaging with Buddhist communities in Chosun, India, Burma, Siam and Indochina, it did not take long before this invigorated and innovative religious movement made its impact known (5).
While the major global religious movements were going through massive change and turmoil, the 1930s would see a proliferation of new religious movements either emerge or rise to prominence. Amongst the African diaspora of the Americas, Voodoo practice began to see systematization and organization under the influence of President Jean Price-Mars and the development of various Christian-inspired Afro-American religious movements, primarily based out of Jamaica, with a couple prominent movements focused on worship of Gugsa Welle as the Last African Lion and Martyr of Africa. In Africa itself, African-initiated churches proliferated - the first, the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa, soon finding itself accompanied by dozens of imitators, competitors and challengers as they spread northward into the African heartland. In the United States the door-to-door travelling salesman Wallace Fard Muhammad would found the Nation of Islam on the basis of an idiosyncratic synthesis of Christianity and Islam, drawing particularly on Islamic practices such as the use of the Arabic language and prayers five times a day while wedding it to a fierce pride in African identity and culture. At the same time a group originating in the Bible Student Movement under its leader Joseph Franklin Rutherford adopted the name of Jehovah's Witnesses and soon began to grow an ardent following even as they adopted their own translation of the Bible and instituted unorthodox religious practices such as forbidding blood transfusions (6).
Amongst the Kurds, the idiosyncratic faith promulgated by Ahmed Barzani and his followers, which combined elements of Christianity, Judaism and Islam while proclaiming Ahmed himself God-King of the Kurds, spread rapidly as the Barzani family sought to unite the Kurdish people behind them. In Indochina two major sects emerged, the Dao Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao - the first originally under French auspices, but once it involved itself in the Cochinchina Rising the movement would find itself suppressed and its adherents scattered, while the latter would see the movement's founder Huynh Phu So join the Viet Quoc, arguing forcefully in favor of a dynastic change and drawing heavy inspiration from the Modernist Buddhist movement of Taixu in Fengtian China. Amongst the most intriguing developments during this time period was to be the proliferation of interest in Asatru and old Germanic mythology in Germany and Scandinavia, with elements of the German Freedom Party (DFP) in particular embracing pagan and occult practices - campaigning for the spread of more authentically "Germanic" culture and religion. This period would in general see a continued flourishing of occultism across large swathes of Europe - although far fallen from its pre-Great War heyday. Ultimately, few of these movements would secure a significant following to really present a threat to the ancient established religions, but there was little doubt that the dynamism and energetic nature of the new religious movements were making their presence felt around the world (6).
Women Take The Stage
Over the course of the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s, Europe under the influence of Social Democratic, Centrist and Liberal parties would engage significantly with women's rights and women's issues, hoping to secure segments of the new female electorates which had been ascending to importance since the passing of suffrage in many of these countries. Germany was to prove amongst the earliest and most active states in this sphere, with the repeal of anti-abortion legislation in 1930 making abortion legal across the country. This was followed by a series of significant further strides forward in the years that followed as government-funded health clinics and increasingly widespread access to contraception were implemented even as considerable steps forward were made in the area of women's education and employment opportunities - including in traditionally male-dominated white collar professions such as law, medicine and politics with around 10% of seats in the Reichstag being held by women at the start of the decade while the number grew to around 15% by the 1936 elections. While the weakening of traditional family structures, the growing number of single mothers, abortions and the fall in religious adherence during the years of SPD rule all drew considerable protest and condemnation from the conservative political bloc, the 1937 elections which saw the SPD replaced by a conservative coalition under Chancellor Oskar Hergt would not result in any major counterreaction to the developments of the past two decades. Social norms had changed considerably and while a "Return to the Kitchen" movement aimed at ending women's involvement in the job market in favor of the more traditional housewife role did find growing adherence, it would prove insufficient to turning back what had come to be the accepted state of affairs. Anti-abortion activists would find more adherents during this period, but the religious turmoil and divisions which often left members of the Papal Catholic Church or the various Protestant sects at each others' throats all combined to significantly hamper any real effort at politically impactful action (7).
With Germany at the forefront, if should not come as any real surprise that women's suffrage and abortion decriminalization spread through the rest of the Zollverein and into Scandinavia, although these efforts were faced with considerably more concerted opposition in particularly Poland and Romania where conservative Orthodox Christianity and Papal Catholicism had a significantly stronger grip on wider society. In the Latin Pact countries, conservative policies on abortion and women's employment would predominate, with Spain and Portugal - who had never been forced to rely upon their female population for manpower during the Great War - the most ardent in their suppression of women's rights, including the complete lack of suffrage, ban on abortions and exceedingly limited access to education and employment. By contrast, France would be in a considerably better standing on the issues of suffrage, female employment and education - although the death penalty for abortionists remained in force while mothers of aborted children were held criminally liable despite reform efforts in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The United Kingdom would see considerable public pressure on the issue of abortion with influential campaigners securing the passage of the Infant Life Preservation Act in 1929 which permitted abortion for the sole purpose of preserving the life of the mother, with further efforts during the 1930s being led by the Abortion Law Reform Association to ever greater results - including an all-important court victory in 1938 which saw a precedent set where doctors would not be prosecuted for performing an abortion in cases where pregnancy would cause "mental and physical wreck". While the MacDonald government early in the decade did pass several laws improving women's rights, the successive Churchill and Baldwin governments would put a significant dampener on these developments, efforts at legislative change finding themselves stymied and legal cases seemingly the most effective path forward for campaigners (7).
In the United States the matter never really rose to the front of American politics as the debate had been rather firmly settled by the start of the century as abortion was written in as a felony in every single state of the nation. While some states included provisions allowing for abortions in very limited circumstances, public campaigning would prove very limited outside of the American Birth Control League which was founded by Margaret Sanger in 1921 - who would lead the push on birth control activism in the 1930s in the hopes of laying the groundwork for abortions some time in the future. The 1930s would see considerable change and debate in the United States as issues of sex-segregated schooling and education as well as college-level education for women rose to the fore. Between 1900 and 1940 college education for women grew nearly 10 times over, with the number of completed bachelor degrees increasing by more than 14 times, while arguments in favor of women's education came to emphasize principles of eugenics and citizenship - aimed at preparing a stronger, more intelligent populace for the future by improving the capabilities of mothers in educating and preparing their children. Female employment also rose considerably during this time, although male-dominated fields would be considerably more resistant to female entry than in either Germany, Britain or France, and public opposition to women's involvement in city life, work and the public sphere more generally would see significant opposition in particularly the Italian American community (8).
Perhaps the most liberal countries on women's issues would prove to be the Communist states, particularly the Soviet Republic and the Socialist Republic of Iran with criminalization of abortion abolished and even government funding provided in the Soviet Republic and Shogunate. Women featured prominently in both the political and economic spheres of particularly the Soviet Republic, with female Commissars a feature from the earliest years of the Soviet regime. In general, the considerable amount of freedom to participate in education, employment and public society would come to be seen as a major characteristic of Communist life - although this would not prove the case in Chile, the Central American Republic or to a lesser degree the Shogunate, where socially conservative structures remained deeply entrenched despite government efforts. Empress Kikuko of Japan would, however, prove a prominent feminist icon in many ways, repeatedly breaking social norms and constructs in an effort to improve women's rights and making herself one of the most prominent philanthropists in Asia, sponsoring women's education, employment opportunities and social welfare on a mass scale (8).
Perhaps the most perplexingly complicated country to address when dealing with women's issues would prove to be Fengtian China where a profusion of paradoxical actions would make it difficult to ascertain what direction the country was moving in. Much of the complicated dichotomy which women in China during the 1930s were faced with can be seen in the person of Soong Meiling, who while still a second wife to Zhang Xueliang would make herself something of a female icon in China, promoting women's employment and involvement in public life through the sponsoring of journalists like Yang Gang, female authors such as Bing Xing and Mei Zhi as well as actresses like Chen Bo'er and Jiang Qing. While concubinage remained legal and widespread, major reforms were undertaken to improve the lot of single parents and pregnant women - with abortion legal but frowned upon and women's employment and education publicly supported - with active anti-foot binding campaigns seeing massive successes. At the same time Lady Soong would play a pivotal role in the government-led series of social reforms undertaken following the ascension of the Hongzhi Emperor, aiding in the formulation of key sections related to women and children as well as standing as a major sponsor of the reforms themselves. Seeking to not only rebuild society following the degradation and societal collapse at the dawn of the century but also to set out a clear line for the revitalization of society and purification into a Pure Land, the reforms saw the outlawing of foot-binding, sharp crackdowns on drug abuse, a harsh purge of corrupt officials which saw thousands imprisoned in re-education camps and the imposition of a wide range of lifestyle-laws which sought to impose morality and upstanding behavior in the populace. As a key pillar of the new dynasty's ideological foundations, this policy would see considerable financial support with the legislative changes being supported by major educational campaigns and social pressure campaigns. To the surprise of many, the government efforts would bear some fruit and were generally welcomed, but opposition and non-compliance remained rife, with particularly the anti-corruption campaign nearly stalling out on several occasions before renewed government pressure could restart them (8).
The Olympics
The Olympics, as a symbol of international unity and cooperation as well as a peaceful outlet for international tensions, were to amass considerable importance in the decades following the Great War. The Olympics had come off to a relatively good start following the end of the Great War with major successes at the 1920 Amsterdam Olympics before the 1924 Berlin Olympics really injected an added sense of scale to the affairs with participants from more than a dozen new nations, including the only time the short-lived Siberian White Russia participated in the games, and a strong emphasis on the Games' role in perpetuating the Spirit of Amsterdam. The result of these major successes were to greatly raise expectations for the 1928 Los Angeles Olympics - the selection bid for which President Wood had spent a great deal of political capital in the failed hope of shoring up support for his 1924 election campaign. The result was to saddle the isolationist and nativist McAdoo Presidency with the responsibility of hosting one of the most significant international sports events in the world - something which the government would find a considerable inconvenience and largely led to the matter being foisted off upon the Los Angeles City administration and a couple minor federal officials. The result was to be a frightful mismanagement of the entire affair with much comment made about the failure of the Olympic committee to properly prepare facilities and accommodations for the athletes and press attending the event. Additionally, participation fell sharply as the long distances and amateur nature of the participating athletes meant that many decided it would be too expensive and difficult to participate while a series of American sponsors, particularly Coca-Cola, led to what many felt was an unseemly degree of commercialization of the games. Nevertheless, the 1928 games would have a significant shocker as Uruguay dealt a dramatic blow to Argentinian pride by defeating them in the finals of the football tournament (9).
Nevertheless, the event would be seen as a rather calamitous failure and led to considerable tumult - most significantly the decision on the part of the President of the International Olympic Committee, and a founder of the games, Pierre, Baron de Coubertin to officially retire. As one of the founders of the games and a long-time figure in the Olympic Committee, Coubertin's decision to retire would set in motion a series of complicated and bitter power struggles as Coubertin's chosen successor, the francophone Belgian-Dutch Henri de Baillet-Latour, found himself challenged by the Swiss Godefroy de Blonay who had served as acting-President of the IOC during the Great War and come into conflict with Coubertin for his autocratic leadership of the committee. As Coubertin loyalists lined up behind Baillet-Latour and de Blonay sought to make a push for the presidency by smearing the incumbent with the failures at Los Angeles, the whole situation seemed increasingly chaotic and the future of the games increasingly in question. Ultimately it would be the emergence of a compromise candidate in the form of the highly-regarded German Theodor Lewald which helped to resolve the crisis. Fearful of the IOC splintering during their conflict, Coubertin threw his support behind Lewald - in the process joining the pre-existing Zollverein support backing the German, and as such allowed Lewald to secure victory. The new President of the IOC, Theodor Lewald, would preside over a series of ever more complicated international and sports-related challenges as he took over the ship and sought to lead it through the tumultuous 1930s (9).
Theodor Lewald would prove himself an incredibly talented networker, finesser and organizer who introduced an immense amount of stability and organization to what had previously been an often surprisingly anarchic set of committees and associations linked together through the IOC. Thus, over the course of several years he would set about establishing far more firm partnerships between the IOC and national sports organizations while flirting with the idea of massively expanding the role of the IOC in the world of sports - including providing the organizational infrastructure necessary to begin organizing various sporting events outside of the Olympics themselves. The first of these achievements would be the involvement of the IOC in helping to organize the first Football World Cup in 1930 in Uruguay alongside FIFA with the successful inclusion of many Zollverein countries for the tournament with Lewald's intervention. This would be followed by rather unwelcomed meddling in Sir George Thomas' efforts at establishing the International Badminton Federation in 1934 with a the first major International Badminton Championship occurring two years later under IOC auspices. Perhaps the most intriguing development to occur under Lewald would be his rather uncommon disinterest in the highly lauded amateur nature of the Olympics - with the German entertaining suggestions on easing restrictions on professional participation on multiple occasions throughout the decade, although he would remain ostensibly neutral on the issue by the end of the 1930s (10).
Lewald would play an exceptionally central role in implementing a number of key innovations to the games during the 1930s, with the establishment of the Olympic Village, the practice of keeping the Olympic Flame lit for the duration of the Olympics as well as a torch relay, entrenching the tradition of the national parade of nations starting with Greece and ending with the host country, the distinguishing between Summer and Winter Olympics, the expansion of the Olympic Art Competitions to an equal counterpart to the sports-oriented events and without a doubt the most revolutionary development - the broadcasting of live television coverage of the Olympic Games and taping for cinematic viewing around the world. By the turn of the decade Lewald would find himself acknowledged as one of the foremost pioneers in the development of sporting events, having played an essential role in not only massively expanding the IOC and its connections to sporting associations around the world but also in providing unheard levels of competitive sporting events with followings from across the globe. Ultimately, the single most important decision taken by Lewald would prove to be the tying together of the International Olympic Committee to the League of Nations (LoN), which allowed the IOC to rely upon the immense resources and support of the LoN to expand its capabilities to an incredible degree (10).
As for the specific Olympics for which Lewald would stand responsible, it would not take long before troubles emerged. The bidding for the 1932 Olympics had been a fiercely contested matter, with a great deal of back and forth between contestants, before the selection was made in a 1924 meeting. As the last Olympics selected under Pierre de Coubertin, the selection of Paris would prove somewhat controversial - with some claiming that the august President of the IOC had involved himself a bit too much in getting the Olympics to return to France. The initial preparations for the 1932 Olympics went quite well, with the implementation of the first proper Olympic Village undertaken while controversy surrounding the Finn runner Paavo Nurmi's amateur status nearly upended the entire affair under the influence of Swedish officials - only for Lewald to demonstrate his rather considerable contempt for the matter by bulldozing the complaints - paving the path for greater involvement of semi-professional athletes in subsequent Olympics. Notably, while women's gymnastics events had been excluded during the infamous 1928 Olympics for no clear reason, they returned with style in 1932, with several new women's events debuting and a series of important records being set. Paavo Nurmi would mirror his achievements in 1924 and 1928 by winning almost every race he participated in to the rapturous engagement of fans across Europe, who were able to follow the entire affair on radio and in cinema sessions. One thing which would draw considerable comment was the deft handling of the politically tense situation on the part of the IOC who navigated the sudden death of Premier Aristide Briand and the political chaos which ensued in France with grace, helping to settle tensions and draw together a bitterly divided France which seemed on the precipice of disaster during this period (11).
The first Olympics selected and organized under Lewald would prove controversial and groundbreaking, for in the process he was able to break through political and ideological barriers to bring in a whole host of countries which had rejected participation in the games for nearly a decade - the Communists were coming to the Olympics. The result of careful negotiations with the Soviet government during 1930 and a successful bid by the Moscow city administration would see the Olympic games held in Moscow. While the political turmoil of the Trotskyite Affair would cause considerable controversy and lead many to question Lewald's decision in going through with the Moscow Olympics of 1936, the end result would prove nothing less than a triumph which helped solidify the IOC's political neutrality and openness to the partition of every country in the world. A careful showcase of the merits of Communist living, the Soviet Republic's Commissariat for Education and Culture would involve itself deeply in the entire process, providing some of the most spectacular Olympic games in memory as live televisions for the first time brought coverage of the games directly into the communal villages and factory neighborhoods of western Russia - with subsequent broadcasts of the games provided at a delay in many European countries in an astounding accomplishment of technical prowess which saw both Soviet and German engineers cooperate to make everything possible. The Moscow Olympics would prove notable for Jesse Owens' incredible four gold medals in sprint and long jump, with an absolute slogging match between Germany, the United States and the Soviet Republic seeing the three sides come exceptionally close in the medal count, only for Germany to emerge victorious. The games would include an experimental team agreed to with the German authorities which provided representation for German East Africa and another team for Kameroon - the first effort at extending the Olympics to include colonial subjects. The membership of the two colonial teams would be low, but a Kameroonian runner would stun participants when he won the gold medal in the 10,000 meter race, just barely beating out the Finn Ilmari Salminen. A secondary aspect of the 1936 Olympics would prove to be a debate on the part of the Latin Pact countries on whether to boycott the games, but ultimately the decision was made to participate despite the controversy. The end of the 1936 Olympics would bring yet another surprise to the eager sports enthusiasts who had waited with barely hidden excitement on word of where the next Olympics would be held, and Lewald would more than deliver - the Olympics would be going to Asia in 1940, with Beijing set to welcome the entire world to witness their resurgent might (12).
The Balance of Power
While the Copenhagen Peace Conference would find its place in history for ending the Great War and establishing the framework of the post-war world, it would also serve as the foundational document upon which the League of Nations was established. In the years since its inception, the League had consistently expanded and deepened its involvement in numerous facets of the international community. The League would participate in the development of African colonies, establish itself as the premier trade arbitration court in the world - in the process helping to resolve myriad smaller and larger problems, function as a neutral mediator in several significant diplomatic disputes and violent conflicts while entangling itself ever more deeply in the promotion of international social and cultural programmes ranging from education and conservation to major sporting events and cultural fairs. The last of these would come about as an effort on the part of the League to supervise international exhibitions through the formation of the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE), to oversee a calendar for bidding, selecting and organizing World Expositions as well as creating a regulatory framework to ensure that Expositions of these sorts would maintain proper conditions. Concurrent cooperation with the IOC would see the League involve itself in the world of sports, helping to finance and regulate the International Olympic Committee at Theodor Lewald's invitation. This period would see the League embroiled in an increasingly heated struggle over the decision to exclude non-white states from the Congress of Nations and efforts on the part of Germany and the Soviet Republic to bring the Communists into the League in an effort to normalize and settle the revolutionary state. The first of these issues would prove exceedingly controversial, with the United States outright threatening to leave the Congress of Nations under McAdoo and as a result it would take until the latter half of the 1930s before Siam, Egypt, Arabia, Ethiopia and many of the South American states joined the Congress. As for the Soviet Republic, the Germans would spend considerable political capital to allow their entry in 1927, only for the Fall of Siberia to place considerable egg on the faces of the Germans. Several subsequent actions, including Soviet involvement in the defeat of Pessian Persia, the violent repression of the Trotskyite Affair and their role in the Japanese Civil War, would lead to the suspension of the Soviet Republic's membership in the Congress of Nations in 1937 with the prospect of sanctions being raised. As for the Socialist Republic of Iran or the Shogunate, neither would enter the Congress of Nations - instead working to expand the remit of the Third International into a proper international institution, with Mexico and the Central American Workers' and Farmers' Republic officially joining the International in the late 1930s (13).
While the League of Nations would play an integral role in shifting international norms, empowering its core principles of international humanism, pacifism and collaboration, it would prove insufficient to creating the vast changes dreamed up by its originating ideators. While the 1920s had been a period dominated by the so-called Spirit of Amsterdam, in which the values of the League prevailed as reconstruction, cooperation and development took the centerstage it would not prove a success in the long term. The Red Scare of the post-Great War period had reached something of a nadir during the middle years of the 1920s, opening up for a return to the world stage by the Soviet Republic in the years that followed - in the process demonstrating the significantly lessened ideological tensions of the period and the general wish for peace and prosperity around the world. This was also a period of ascendency for the Japanese state under the authority of the highly lauded Admiral Yamamoto Gonbee, with the restored Qing Dynasty only beginning to find its footing by the end of the decade and still under significant Japanese influence. This period would be characterized by a general openness towards ideological experimentation, with many socialist, social democratic and communist parties and organizations establishing themselves as at least semi-accepted elements of most major European countries. Only the very earliest signs of the Integralist surge of the 1930s was clear at this time, with the stability of that political model still under considerable questions in Iberia itself and largely viewed with something approaching disdain beyond the peninsula. While the closing years of the 1920s would provide some sense of the crisis-laden decade to come, few could have imagined the sheer transformation which the years that followed would have (14).
The hard-won international norms established during the 1920s would find themselves greatly challenged in the 1930s, as crisis after crisis emerged, tearing away at the fragile framework which the survivors of the Great War had worked so hard to build up and maintain. However, in contrast to the Great War itself, it would not prove to be Europe itself which presented a problem for the international community - by and large remaining peaceful and without violent transitions of power or civil wars throughout the decade. Instead, it would be the gradual fraying of the vast colonial empires possessed by European great powers which would dominate the era. The first, and most infamous, of these colonial flareups would be the Indochinese Revolt which would prove a massive bleeding ulcer for the French Republic, draining ever more men and resources while cycling through several climaxes of incredible violence on a scale and longevity not seen since the Great War. While the struggle in Indochina itself would prove of considerable importance, it would be the conflict's demonstration of a colonial force successfully going toe-to-toe with their imperial overlords which would truly shake the world's colonial empires. As oppressed colonials across Asia, and in time Africa, took inspiration from the Indochinese struggle for independence, anti-colonial movements found themselves buoyed and driven to ever greater action. When the successive crises in the British Empire were gradually added, one atop the next, it should come as little surprise that the foundations of the British Empire seemed ever closer to quicksand. The Two Rivers Crisis, The Saya San Revolt, the Australian Debt Crisis, The Canadian Alienation, The British African Famine and all its attendant devastation as well as the rise of an activist independence movement in India would finally culminate in the devastation of the Dominion Fleet at The Battle of The East China Sea. Step by step the prestige, power and control of the British over their colonial holdings was eroded, such that by the end of the decade some even questioned whether the crown jewel of the Empire, the British Raj, would be salvageable. In turn, these developments would serve to further inspire and enflame independence movements around the world - for if the mighty British Empire could crumble, why not the empires of their own oppressors (14)?
Perhaps the single most important development in the Communist approach to spreading revolution around the world would be Leon Trotsky's redirection of Communist impetus away from Europe, which had proven itself extraordinarily resistant to the Communists' revolutionary efforts, in favor of an Asia-oriented strategy. Over the course of the subsequent decade, the Communists had worked around the clock to build up the Communist following across Asia while seeking to draw them into the wider Third International. Revolutionary cadres were trained, leftist thinkers and intellectuals educated and anti-colonial activists recruited all in the name of spreading revolution across the most populous continent in the world. These efforts would have an astonishing degree of success, perhaps even greater than the original strategists had ever imagined, as they successfully leveraged the Socialist presence in Iran to extend Communist influence to the Persian Gulf, helped build up the ideological and infrastructural foundations of Indian, Japanese, Korean, Indochinese and Chinese revolutionary movements and set up support for a vast variety of anti-colonial revolutionary movements, both functioning as base and safe haven for exiles and radicals of all stripes. Throughout this period, Trotsky's original thought played out as first Siberia fell to Communism, followed by total victory in Iran, the extension of what amounted to Soviet hegemony over Central Asia and finally, and most spectacularly, the collapse of the Japan into civil war and the subsequent rise of the People's Shogunate. Domino after domino fell across Asia, such that by the end of the decade it seemed as though a vast Red Tide would sweep across the continent from one end to the other. Reaction and resistance to these developments were widespread and far-flung, but ultimately the great stalwart of Asia would prove to be the ascendant Fengtian Dynasty in China, which had been faced with multiple major crises as a result of the Communist influence in China and had waged what amounted to a war of ideological destruction to root out Communist influences across the country. While the ascension of the Shogunate utterly upset the international geopolitical balance of power, the rise of Fengtian China in the years immediately preceding and succeeding the October Revolution would gradually begin to restore some sense of balance to the continent - a forceful and energetic China seeking to present a formidable challenge to the communists' leading role in many anti-colonial movements in Asia. As the decade came to a close, it seemed ever clearer that Asia would find itself divided between two mastodons - Fengtian China and the Shogunate-led Communist movements of Asia (14).
Even as Communism spread across Asia and made inroads into Latin America, drawing worldwide attention, there was a quieter but just as steady drumbeat of Integralist movements spreading across large stretches of Europe and South America. While historians and commenters on current geopolitical developments would repeatedly draw the parallel between the two ideological movements, when examined in closer detail the two ideologies had surprisingly little interaction considering how vehemently they opposed one another. In Portugal, Sidonist rule came about as a reaction to the weak Liberal Republican government and relied to a considerable degree upon popular backing to help entrench the Sidonist government, while in Spain it was an autocoup perpetrated by King Alfonso XIII against the Liberals who had backed his family's reign since the Restoration. The initial rise of Integralism was thus not a reaction to the ascendency of Communism, but rather an effort to overturn weak Liberal governments in favor of stronger, more centralized illiberal states - with the conflict and suppression of leftist ideology and movements being more of a secondary objective. The only early Integralist state to really emerge through confrontation with Communism would be the Sicilio-Sardinian Royal Italian remnants of the Italian Civil War - and even then, the initial rise to prominence of the Fascists had been as much an effort to take control of the state from the weakened old-school political parties in the calamitous aftermath of the Great War as anything else, the Socialists, Anarchists and Communists only subsequently emerging as the greater threat to the Fascist rise to prominence. Even the French Integralists, while they fought in the streets with leftist gangs and demonstrators, would find their main opposition coming from the middle-class Republican loyalists who fought to prevent a monarchical restoration rather than the farm or factory worker. As the successes of the Iberian Integralists made headlines around the world and the movement inspired imitators around the globe a new pattern began to emerge in northern South America. Here it was not so much a revolt against Liberalism but rather an effort to reform and strengthen Conservative rule or to establish an ideological foundation for autocratic rule which predominated the reasoning behind the Integralist rise to power. However, as the Latin Pact rose to prominence and interactions with Leftist movements proliferated, the competition for supporters and incredible divergences in ideological underpinnings provoked ever greater amounts of conflict between the two diametrically opposed movements, setting the stage for future confrontations (14).
In hindsight, the 1930s would come to be seen as a period in which ideological spheres of influence were formed and the formidable dividing lines of the international community were being drawn. The Latin Pact, the Zollverein, the Third International and the Southern Cone Treaty Alliance were all very clear instances of ideological and geopolitical blocs, but there were many more diffuse spheres of influence, such as the neo-colonial influence of the United States in Central and South America, the Ottoman Empire across wide swathes of the Middle East, the Shogunate upon the colonial states of South East Asia, China in East and Central Asia, the Central American Republic upon the Sandinistas of South America or the Imperial Powers upon their empires. The 1930s were a time of transition and change, as the patterns of imperial rule weakened under internal and external pressures, and new ideological movements wreaked havoc upon the more traditional Liberal-Conservative divide. One of the most fascinating developments of this period would prove to be the proliferation of United Fronts and cooperation across a vast ideological spectrum amongst anti-colonial movements in Asia particularly - with the result being that the adherents of various ideological movements secured ever greater followings while the resultant disagreements and conflicts which ideological divides might otherwise have provoked were held at bay by the overarching threat of the imperialist powers. However, many questioned what the consequences would be when the need for unity finally came to an end. As the 1930s came to an end, observers could not help but comment that conflict and confrontation had never seemed more likely between the many different power blocs which had emerged - the only question that remained was what would set off such a calamity (14).
Footnotes:
(1) There isn't really anything new in this section, but what I am trying to do here is create a synthesis of all the events covered since the end of the hiatus, drawing together the key developments and trends which have come to define particularly the socio-political sphere on a global scale. I really hope that people find this macro perspective on the TL's developments interesting.
(2) I know that I have not mentioned the Council of Santiago de Compostela before, but don't worry it is written up as a topic to be covered the next time we get around to dealing with events in the Latin Pact. Most of the rest of these developments are once again a summary of already covered developments and a synthesis of the major lessons to be drawn from them.
(3) I have not given the religious tumult and ideation in the protestant sphere anywhere close to the same amount of attention as I have to that in the Catholic sphere, but it is there and is significant. In many ways many of these factors are similar to OTL Protestantism, but without the rise of the Nazis and the absolute travesty of their religio-ideological practices Protestantism in Europe at least has a significantly stronger footing for the time being. We still see the rise of Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Evangelism and the like during this period, but at least at this point the back and forth between traditionalists, modernists and reactionaries are pretty evenly balanced.
(4) I have only briefly mentioned the Islamic Communist synthesis in the context of Tan Malaka and the Indonesian PKI before this, but I do want to make clear that he is part of a wider international intellectual movement which seeks to marry Islamic and Communist/Socialist principles together. This ideological synthesis is probably strongest in Iran, but you have similar movements in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Iran, India and as mentioned Indonesia. The Moros of the Philippines are a bit too isolated to really see much of this development, but in time they are a prime candidate for such ideologies. What is notable is that this ideological movement is quite different from the Shogunate's Japanese Communist movement, and in time (if Islamic Socialism/Communism emerges as a proper political force) the two are likely to find themselves at cross-purposes.
(5) The Buddhist Association of China is honestly inspired by a similar organization established by the PRC IOTL in the 1950s, but while the motivations for establishing the two associations are quite different, I do think that the Fengtian Dynasty would be pressing for more unity and control over the Chinese Buddhist movement. Do note that the Dalai Lama is not amongst the representatives mentioned due to his and his supporters' role in promoting Tibetan separatism alongside the Fengtian government's backing of the Panchen Lama's claim to leadership of the Tibetan religio-political community. One thing I want to emphasize is that while most Pure Land Buddhist monasteries do find themselves caught up in Taixu's reforms, with major cuts to their membership, greater engagement with the general populace and the establishment of soup kitchens, neighborhood clinics and the like, this is not a complete repression of divergent branches of Buddhism. Chan Buddhism (which has a lot of similarities to the better known Japanese Zen Buddhism) is maintained and even promoted to some extent under Hsu Yun while tai chi is popularized and spread under Buddhist auspices. Most monasteries end up at least somewhat under the BAC's authority, but a few unique ones like the Shaolin Monastery as well as the monasteries, temples and shrines of the Four Sacred Mountains of Buddhism, maintain considerable levels of autonomy and will in time develop into major independent institutions with sub-monasteries and associated organizations spread across all of China to the considerable annoyance of the BAC.
(6) This is once again a bit of a whirlwind tour of the world. Some of these developments have been mentioned in the past but by and large this section is just an effort at acknowledging that there is a whole world of new religious movements gaining strength and following during this period. The 1930s in general are a period of incredible religious dynamism with many switching their allegiance from older modes of worship to ones which seem better suited to addressing the needs of the modern world.
(7) This section, covering the situation in Europe, is very much a blending of OTL and TTL. We have covered a lot of developments on these issues in Germany, and we have what amounts to a peak in feminist activities in the mid-1930s before opinions shift onto a more conservative tack. By contrast, events in Britain follow OTL quite closely despite the changed political environment - in general this seems to have been the through line at the time so I don't see a significant reason to change the situation. As for the Latin Pact countries I don't think these developments are too hard to work out - without the OTL Republican period in Spain social reforms never get through and Alfonso pushes forward with the status quo under papal auspices.
(8) Here we go a bit more global. In contrast to OTL, the Soviet Republic doesn't have the same conservative shift as OTL in the 1930s and as such women's empowerment remains a pretty significant pillar of the movement, even having an impact in countries like Iran and Japan to a lesser degree. One thing to note is that this doesn't really translate that much to Latin America, where machismo and patriarchal structures remain supreme. The Shogunate does try to counter some of the gender inequities in Japan with Empress Kikuko playing a key role, but it is still just scratching away at the surface of the issues at this point - more a matter of them acknowledging it as an issue to be addressed, which is a battle in and of itself. Perhaps the most interesting place is Fengtian China where the reforms are basically a more Buddhist inspired and more successful version of the OTL New Life Movement undertaken under significantly more stable and secure conditions. There are some similarities to later Communist campaigns as well - the Chinese are masters at social engineering in that regard - which should demonstrate that these sorts of campaigns can be at least somewhat successful when undertaken competently and with sufficient financing, which the reforms do have in this case.
(9) So things turn into a bit of a horror for the Los Angeles Olympics, in yet another display of McAdoo's rather porous grip on the importance of international affairs, with the result that butterflies are sent the IOC leading to changes to the games, as we will come to see. The power struggle following Coubertin's resignation IOTL saw Baillet-Latour emerge victorious on the back of his leadership of the Belgian Olympic Committee and loyalty to Coubertin's principles. As you might have noticed, a Belgian nobleman might have been in some trouble under TTL's circumstances and Baillet-Latour ends up spending much of the 1920s trying to secure alignment between the Dutch and Belgian Olympic Committees with very mixed success - the two bodies only merging in early 1930, and even then he finds himself distracted by conflicts with Dutch counterparts throughout this period. This in turn allows me to position Theodor Lewald as the man to take up the reigns, and let me tell you - this is not a guy to underestimate. Lewald was one of the most powerful figures in German sports during this period, to the point he was able to openly challenge Kaiser Wilhelm in order to ensure that the Deutscher Olympischer Sportsbund remained politically independent of the government and was heavily involved in pressing for Germany to take a big role on the international stage with the 1916 Summer Olympics and participation in the World Trade Exhibition. By the end of the Great War Lewald was so well connected to the top civil servants in Germany that he wrote Wilhelm II's abdication speech and was acting Head of Government during the Kapp Putsch - during which he refused to provide government funds to the rebels at gun-point. While he retired from civil service in 1923 due to disagreements with the Social Democratic governments he remained involved in a ton of different matters. He was one of the key players involved in bringing the 1936 Summer Olympics to Berlin before the Nazis rose to power and many of the most significant major innovations of the 1936 Olympics were at least in part his ideas. He was Christian but had a paternal Jewish grandmother, which led the Nazis to replace him, but he is honestly an absolute badass who I felt would be a lot of fun in this position. ITTL he remained very closely connected to the civil service, and remained employed up through the Stresemann government until 1928 when he retires in response to the government's cooperation with the Social Democrats. Throughout this period he remains heavily engaged in Olympic affairs, including playing a pivotal role in the highly regarded 1924 Berlin Olympics, and emerges as a proper contender for leadership of the IOC.
(10) There are a lot of developments covered here, but I will try to be clear. Basically Lewald is much less focused on keeping the Olympics an amateur endeavor - which was something that consumed an inordinate amount of effort under the OTL presidents of the IOC - and instead uses his many, many social contacts to not only greatly expand the IOC but also tie them into a bunch of major sporting events outside of the Olympics themselves. This is also how he really starts to flirt with professional sporting and starts to gage the opinions within the IOC. At the same time he introduces a ton of innovations which IOTL were adopted during this period, but given some of the butterflies he ends up looking far more prescient than he might really be due to how well these changes come across. I hadn't really heard of the Olympic Arts Competition before researching for this update, but I honestly love the idea and find the fact that it fell by the wayside over concerns at its lack of amateurism a really sad state of affairs - so ITTL the Art Competition is going to remain as large of a force as any, with a resultant impact upon international art trends, with amateurism eventually done away with.
(11) So IOTL Paavo Nurmi ended up getting suspended for supposedly violating the amateur rules - although the evidence came from an exceptionally biased Swedish team of officials, so it is rather dubious whether he actually violated the rules. Ultimately the suspension caused great controversy and saw Finland end participation in the Olympics until 1939. ITTL Lewald pushes all objections aside and goes for a policy of essentially ignoring breaches of the amateur rules, which will in time shift into an active effort to repeal them. Basically the IOC was increasingly pressured by the professionalization effort IOTL and had an ever greater number of gaffes and black marks over the matter, so I am essentially turbo-charging the transition here - hope people don't mind. Protests about how it is breaking with the sanctity of the games and the like are rampant, and opposition is considerable, but Lewald is massively increasing the popularity of the games during this period and is essentially untouchable within the IOC as a result.
(12) I really couldn't resist having a controversial 1936 Olympics, and what better controversy than holding them in Moscow with the Soviet Republic? I have mixed some of the events of OTL with some divergences, so Jesse Owens still astounds the world while we also have a colonial Kameroonian provide people with a shock. I am not quite sure how far the colonial involvement will go, but I do find it a rather interesting prospect to explore at some point in the future. IOTL the 1940 Olympics were supposed to be held in Tokyo, but under the circumstances I though Beijing would be a much better fit and significantly more intriguing in a whole lot of different ways.
(13) The League of Nations is a bit of a weird amalgam of a bunch of international institutions which, due to its reduced official political powers compared to the OTL institution, is able to absorb a bunch of OTL organizations established during this period. That is how they end up in charge of the World Expos, involve themselves in the running of the IOC and make themselves an unquestioned nexus of world trade and diplomatic arbitration. We have had a bunch of League interventions so far in this TL, so hopefully these developments have been noticed. Particularly the establishment of the Tigris-Euphrates Water Management Board is held up as amongst the League's greatest achievements ITTL, with discussions ongoing for a similar initiative aimed at the Nile under way.
(14) We are back to what amounts to a reframing of the major developments of the TL as a whole here, with the focus now centering on the geopolitical developments and international norms of the era. Everything should seem familiar, but I hope that the reframing and changed outlook on the developments does help to provide some context and perspective One thing that I hadn't really noticed before this but which really stood out as I thought about it more was the fact that Integralism's roots and development is surprisingly far removed from confrontation with Communism. IOTL Nazism essentially defined itself in opposition to Communism, so this difference came as a bit of a surprise when I thought about it more.
End Note:
So I am breaking things up a bit more than usual, which has led to the increased number of paragraphs, so hopefully it is at least a bit more readable. I really hope that people enjoy the change and that it is more easy to engage with.
Sorry about the absolutely massive number of footnotes, but I really do feel that there is a lot that I need to provide some context on given how much material is being covered in a single section.
So, I am realizing that I have a problem (previous endnotes were written early in the process). I started cutting up the paragraphs into sub-sections and as a result the stuff covered got even longer. Oh dear, this is going to be a problem, isn't it?
The formation of power blocs and several major geopolitical poles of power was something I wanted to explore when I set out after my hiatus, and with that in mind I do think I have largely been successful in balancing things out while leaving plenty of potential for things to get crazy in the near future of the TL.
All in all, I really hope people enjoyed this examination of the society and geopolitics of ADiJ and that the changes to the formatting find people's approval. Do let me know what you think!
