The End of the European World Empires (1945-1975)
Among the other great changes in European life after World War II was the breakup of the colonial empires built during the 19th century. Movements for independence from European rule had begun to develop early in the 20th century. During World War I, thousands of soldiers and workers were brought from non-European territories to fight and support the war effort. As a result, they were exposed to European ideas about freedom, nationalism and socialism. Woodrow Wilson’s proclamations about democracy and national independence encouraged further protests against colonialism, and the Russian Revolution also had a dramatic impact in many non-European countries. The League of Nations, created after World War I, proclaimed the goal of eventual independence for non-European territories, although this was expected to take a long time to achieve.
The Second World War accelerated the movement toward decolonization. Japanese victories over the US, France, Britain and the Netherlands showed that the western countries were not invincible. To keep the loyalty of their largest colony during the war, the British promised independence to India. American policy also opposed colonialism. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Americans granted independence to the Philippines (1946), the British withdrew from India (1947) (which split into two countries, primarily Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan) and Palestine (1948) (divided between the independent Jewish state of Israel and Arab territories), and the Dutch gave up Indonesia (1949).
The Cold War at first slowed the movement toward decolonization, as the western powers feared that Communists would control many of these new territories. US aid helped France fight against the Communist-backed Viet Minh movement in Vietnam until 1954, when the battle of Dien Bien Phu showed that guerrilla forces could defeat western troops and military technology. France had to grant independence to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. After another lengthy war (1954-1962), they also had to concede independence to their most valuable colony, Algeria. Its neighbors Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt had already become independent in the mid-1950s. Decolonization now swept sub-Saharan Africa as well. After the British granted independence to the first of their African colonies, Ghana, in 1957, the rest of the continent, with a few exceptions, followed suit by 1960. The Portuguese were the last Europeans to give up their African colonies (1975). The independent, white-ruled Republic of South Africa had to grant black majority rule in 1989.
Decolonization raised hopes for a quick transformation in relations between the largely white ‘first world’ and the ‘third world,’ but many of these hopes were not fulfilled. Populations in the former colonial countries complained that they continued to be exploited economically by European and American investors. They often still looked to their former European rulers for foreign aid, education, and sometimes military protection. Many people felt that decolonization had not brought freedom, but rather neo-colonialism, a situation in which the west continued to dominate their countries. Many of the newly independent states had difficulty setting up functioning democratic systems. Ethnic divisions often resulted in civil wars, and, especially in Africa, political systems modeled on European lines were often overthrown and replaced by dictatorships. Nearly half a century after the great wave of decolonization, relations between the western world and its former colonies remain difficult.
I. Background of Decolonization
A. Growth of anti-imperialist and nationalist movements in the colonial world
1. first signs: Japanese victory over Russia (1905), Chinese Revolution (1911)
2. impact of World War I, Wilsonianism, Russian Revolution
3. developments between the wars
B. Declining European commitment to imperialism
1. ideological and political challenges to colonialism
2. lack of resources to defend empires
II. The European Retreat (1945-1960)
A. World War II and the colonial empires
1. Japanese victories and their impact
2. British concessions in India
3. the effect of American and Soviet policies
B. Decolonization in South Asia and the Middle East
C. France’s colonial wars (Vietnam and Algeria)
D. The transformation of the African continent
III. The Aftermath of the Age of Empire
A. ‘Neo-colonialism’
1. economic relations
2. continuing ties between former colonies and their former rulers
3. the effect of the Cold War
B. Instability in the Third World and the heritage of imperialism
C. The colonies invade Europe: post-colonial migration patterns
British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan endorses decolonization (1960): “In the 20th century, and especially since the end of the war, the processes which gave birth to the nation states of Europe have been repeated all over the world. We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power… In different places it takes different forms, but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent [Africa], and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.”
Kwame Nkrumah, President of Ghana, denounces neo-colonialism (1965): “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the state which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”