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"Who was to blame for
the start of the First World War? Here are some of the main things that
have been written about this event.
In his pamphlet, 'Imperialism - The highest stage of Capitalism',
published in 1916, Lenin said that it was an imperialist war, the result
of
rivalries between states where capitalists were trying to push governments into
helping them make bigger profits.
But how much was Germany to blame? After the war most people wanted to
get revenge on Germany by means of the Versailles Treaty. Various things
like the passage of time, Hitler and pro-German feelings eventually made
people begin to think this Treaty was unjust and that Germany had been
made into a scapegoat." |
"So what has been said persuasively about the start
of, and blame for, the start of the First World War?
Lenin, one of the greatest of persuaders, had no doubts. In his
pamphlet, 'Imperialism - The highest stage of Capitalism', published
in the midst of war 1916, Lenin attempted to prove that it was in fact
an imperialist war, the direct consequence of intense rivalries between states
whose greedy capitalist masters were desperately looking for new fields of
investment and pushing governments into imperial expansion for this
purpose.
But what proportion of this collective blame is to be laid at Germany's
door? Immediately after the war most nations, especially the Allies,
were certain that Germany had to be punished. It took twenty years, shortening
of memories, the rise of Hitler and the growth of pro-German feelings in
liberal Europe for the world to begin to think that the heavy
reparations imposed by the Versailles Treaty were unjust and that
Germany had been pilloried as an international scapegoat." |