Even before it happened in the West, military rule took over Japan. The experimental mood of the middle of the 1920s faded when Stalin acquired unquestioned power. Aunty xxx Industrialization and Recovery. Governments provided little guidance at this time. The Debacle. Artists, intellectuals, and students complained about the system. Early governmental responses were generally ineffective. To ensure cooperation, Stalin approved a policy of starving and murdering millions of peasants. Many thousands of real and imagined opponents of Stalin’s vision were executed; many more were exiled within the U.S.S.R. The Debacle. The Great Depression was an enormous social and political event as well. Ideology and Social Reform. By the late 1920s, employment in key Western industries was declining. In Japan, the worldwide economic decline led to a political crisis.
