＜ Episode 337 >
Where there is light there is darkness, and where there is darkness there is light.
The 60s, 20 years after the end of World War II, were a bloody era, but at the same time, hope and joy coexisted.
First, Russia, a superpower, was enjoying an unprecedented boom, and the benefits went to the lower classes as well.
And Europe, which ended the era of confrontation due to the final surrender of the Anglo-French Empire, and welcomed the new Belle Epoque and Napoleonic regime under the supervision of one superpower called the Russian Empire, was also delighted with the advent of a new era.
Germany quickly washed away the scars of the war and rapidly developed its economy in an instant, followed by Eastern Europe and Denmark, followed by the Czech Republic and Hungary, followed by Spain, Italy, England and Ireland, and so on. went.
On the other hand, the U.S. was heavily burned in China, and Japan also spent a lot of money, which caused problems such as a large increase in national debt and a sharp decline in gold reserves.
Of course, in return, South America and the like were squeezed more harshly, but in any case, the United States was still the superpower that divided the world with Russia, and the New World was their territory.
and the African Federation.
The African Federation, which started as a confederation of Liberia and Ethiopia, called for anti-Africanism, sometimes by force, and sometimes through negotiations to annex the small states of the African continent that were in chaos.
The African Federation was trying to industrialize Africa by contacting Russia and declaring a pro-Russian policy, judging that the United States, which had been heavily damaged by China and Japan, would never again interfere in the Old World, and benchmarked Russia to develop a five-year economic development plan. As a result, the economy grew rapidly.
Although there were common problems during industrialization, Emperor Haile Selesi and Prime Minister William Tubman pushed forward industrialization honestly while ignoring criticism that it was a de facto military dictatorship, and the potential of the African continent itself became the foundation of the African Federation.
Establishing a public education, abolishing the backward customs of the past, mediating tribal conflicts, and if not, stop fighting by any means of instructing them to reconcile if they both don’t want to die. It not only instills a sense of unity, but furthermore shows the history of the 20th century, and as is evident from the fact that one race of color conquered Europe, it instills pride that people of color are never inferior to whites in Europe. The living did not stop trying to complete Africa as a nation.
On the other hand, the Arabian Kingdom has made it clear that it must learn what it can learn from the West, rejecting extremism by promoting secularism.
The Russian Empire, who is nothing more than their boss, wanted it, but the oil interest has greatly decreased compared to the original history, and in the face of the rapid development of nuclear technology, oil is also an energy source that will eventually be replaced like old coal, so they modernized it as quickly as possible. The sense of crisis that only by doing so could avoid the situation of a desert-developed country played a bigger role.
History has shown that if you live with a window to the world closed, you will become a colony for a moment. As the Japanese Empire and the Russian Empire did in the process of modernization a long time ago, it had to be overhauled from the old days.
There was no lack of authority. The Hashemites were direct descendants and legitimate heirs of Muhammad, and although Persia was the only power in their religious authority, Persia was half-absorbed by Russia and secularized.
The Russian Empire took the lessons of the atrocities of the clergy that continued until the early 20th century and pushed hard against secularism, and the Orthodox Church, the official religion of the state, swept away corrupt clergy before the undeniable authority that they were the restorers of the Holy Land. The religion, Islam, or less, could not stand it.
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Moreover, the fact that the dogmatization of religion is ruining the country was deeply felt by everyone who saw Turkey in the second world war, drowning in religious fanaticism, standing in the wrong line, and then horribly destroyed by the Russian armored forces.
At the same time, in the Italian Federation, where the Pope is the head of state, public opinion for a council to be held for a major reform within the Catholic Church was centered on the clergy, and none other than Pope John XXIII was at the forefront.
As a result, the Second Vatican Council was held, and after the death of John XXIII shortly thereafter, the successor Pope Paul VI took over.
The butterfly effect caused by the defeat of a country in World War II led to the Great Reformation of the Orthodox Church, the accession of John XXIII of the Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council, and the secularist craze that followed, that Afghanistan and, in the original history, A shepherd girl in a Russian trusteeship region west of the Indus, which would have been called Pakistan, caused a storm so great that she was seen off by her parents and confidently went to school.
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Meanwhile, the civil war in India was coming to an end, and the Indians were dreaming of democracy by discussing the state system that would be established after the civil war was over, and the Indochina Federation, which faced China shortly after the end of the war of independence, declared this war as a great war against the Han Chinese imperialism. did.
For their freedom, Southeast Asians gladly stood up to the Chinese army.
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Meanwhile, the famine in South China continued, and the international siege of the communist country caused an increasing number of victims, and seriously, the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China Zhou Enlai and other key figures felt a sense of crisis that the real country would be cut off due to a lack of population. No one could say that directly to their senile god, Mao Zedong. Who would have the courage to watch the party cadres who were meant to speak directly after the People’s Tribunal were being turned around and dying?
In North China, the government collapsed, and the era of warring states between the Red Guards and warlords began. Naturally, the Red Guards themselves became warlords, and the Red Guards calling for revolution and the warlords who wanted the supreme power of the Republic of China did not hesitate to fire at each other.
Korea was the most prosperous country in Northeast Asia.
Korea, which absorbed foreign currency, various infrastructure, and know-how obtained from the United States and Russia in the industrial infrastructure it had during the Japanese colonial period, became like a Russian subcontractor, and concentrated on the industry in which Russia imported canned resources from Manchuria, processed them, and sold them. He also built a heavy industry complex by building infrastructure such as railroads and highways. In return for participation in the war, the United States subcontracted most of the reconstruction of western Japan to the Korean side, as well as foreign currency, and the foreign currency and know-how earned from it were considerable.
Of course, economic aid from the United States and Russia was not free. The Russian Empire supported the establishment of a heavy and chemical industrial park and robbed the companies intensively. Although this was nominally an intervention as an investor to prevent damage from monopoly and monopoly of the chaebols, it was clear that it was also a burden on the Korean economy.
The financial industry added. The US paid the war, but in return demanded the opening of financial markets, and Wall Street swept away the cornucopia of newly established Korean banks. In the end, Korea’s financial industry had to develop as it literally exploded. It was comforting to say that there was little to lose. In any case, there was a lot of noise in the early days, but Korea has continued to grow at a very high rate without a break since the end of World War II.
On the other hand, the difference between western and eastern Japan was stark. West Japan, once swept by a communist revolt, was devastated and many were sacrificed, but they were somehow rebuilding the country.
East Japan, the sphere of influence of Russia, had little influence. At first, East Japan was mostly referred to as the Tohoku region, including parts of Kanto and other regions. was being maintained
In the Ryukyus, they lived on sugarcane farming, and in the Philippines, the economy continued to deteriorate, and the economy went downhill.
***
Rome. US-Russia economic talks.
Currently, the global economic system is based on the gold standard.
However, most countries experienced a dramatic drop in their gold reserves during the two world wars, making them impossible to convert to gold. Some people were looted during the war, some had to pay war reparations, and some had to recover the devastating economy after the war, so the treasury ran out of gold and silver.
For this reason, such countries entered into separate international treaties with the two superpowers to stop their own gold convertibility and implement indirect gold convertibility. The country’s currency is indirectly linked to gold through exchange with the US dollar and Russian ruble, and the two key currencies, the US dollar and the Russian ruble, have fixed values.
Therefore, it was recognized that whether such a treaty was concluded with the United States or Russia would soon enter into that country’s hegemony. Instead of acknowledging the hegemony of the country, it was a promise that Russia or the United States would guarantee the country’s currency and exchange the country’s currency into its own currency by applying the country’s fixed exchange rate.
Conversely, if they wished, the United States and Russia could destroy the currency credit of the countries they did not like by breaking the treaty and stopping currency exchange. Of course, in such a case, there is a high probability that it will stick to the other country, so it was not a way to use it carelessly.
If you look at the map, all European countries except East Japan, Korea, North China, Arabia and Ireland, and the African Federation have treaties with Russia, and South American countries, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Madagascar have treaties with the United States. this was signed
In the case of South China, a treaty was signed with the United States, but it was destroyed during communism.
However, a real problem arose.
In its original history, the United States owned 70% of the world’s gold, but now it has shared its gold reserves with Russia, owning only about 40%.
However, the US dollars poured into the Chinese and Japanese civil wars were quite low, and Russia also poured huge rubles for the purpose of land development and public education.
A bigger problem was that the US dollar was being ‘one of a kind’ even in regions where the US dollar was not a key currency. This is the same for Russia, but it was better because the ruble in Russia is higher than where it is not a key currency.
Therefore, countries that judged that the real value of the dollar has depreciated than its nominal value has demanded gold convertibility to the US dollar.
The treaty signed by each country was a treaty guaranteeing a fixed exchange rate against the US dollar or the Russian ruble.
Foreign dollar reserves increased and the US gold outflow became serious, but as the dollar was printed, the real value of the dollar fell further, which made the gold outflow more serious.
Although the Russian ruble is nominally the reserve currency, since Russia’s current account was in a situation where Russia’s current account was narrowly moving between a surplus and a deficit, the amount actually released in each country was not much, so it was somewhat inferior as a reserve currency that had to be released in each country first. It was also a problem. For this reason, there were quite a number of cases in which countries used the actual reserve currency as the US dollar.
This was possible because the US and Russian dollars and rubles could be exchanged sufficiently by going through the procedures of converting dollars into gold and then into rubles at the US central bank, and then converting rubles into gold at the Russian central bank and then into dollars.
In any case, in the end, this decision of the United States required the cooperation of Russia.
“The United States will stop converting gold.”