What were all the countries of the First, Second and Third Worlds, when WWII ended?
score:9
The phrase "Third World" was first coined in 1952 by Alfred Sauvy, so asking "what were the countries in each 'world' at the end of WWII" is a bit of an anachronism. It's also a bit fraught to ask whether Poland or East Germany should have been viewed as communist countries immediately after WWII, before the Soviet-backed communist parties in each country had fully consolidated their power. (It sure seems like we should in hindsight, but this was not as obvious at the time.) And, of course, most countries in Africa were not independent at this time. Despite these difficulties, though, we press on.
Sauvy's original article, a bit surprisingly, does not appear to be available online in English; but it is available in French. He doesn't carefully define what he means by "First World" or "Second World", since his focus is on the "Third World". Here are some pertinent excerpts (bolding mine):
Nous parlons volontiers des deux mondes en présence, de leur guerre possible, de leur coexistence, etc., oubliant trop souvent qu’il en existe un troisième, le plus important, et en somme, le premier dans la chronologie. C’est l’ensemble de ceux que l’on appelle, en style Nations Unies, les pays sous-développés. ...
Ce qui importe à chacun des deux mondes, c’est de conquérir le troisième ou du moins de l’avoir de son côté. Et de là viennent tous les troubles de la coexistence.
Le capitalisme d’Occident et le communisme oriental prennent appui l’un sur l’autre. Si l’un d’eux disparaissait, l’autre subirait une crise sans précédent. La coexistence des deux devraient être une marche vers quelque régime commun aussi lointain que discret.
which translates roughly as:
We talk freely of two worlds in existence, of their possible war, of their coexistence, etc., forgetting too often that there exists a third world, the largest, and really the first chronologically. This is the group of those countries that the United Nations calls underdeveloped. ...
What matters to each of the two worlds is to conquer the third, or at least to have it on its side. And from there comes all the problems of coexistence.
The capitalism of the West and the communism of the East bear on each other. If one of them disappeared, the other would suffer an unprecedented crisis. The coexistence of the two should be a step towards some common regime as distant as it is unclear.
From this it would seem that the three worlds are defined as:
- First World: Any country that has a capitalist system of government, and was not viewed by the UN as underdeveloped.
- Second World: Any country that has a communist system of government, and was not viewed by the UN as underdeveloped.
- Third World: Underdeveloped countries.
In particular, I strongly suspect that Sauvy would have viewed Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, and Austria as "First World" countries, even though they were not part of NATO. I also suspect that he might have viewed China as "Third World", even though it had a communist regime, since it was not at all industrially developed in 1952.
Upvote:1
Those are very vague terms.
The original Three World Model appears to have come from a demographer in the 1950's. In his mind, it was essentially 1 - NATO, 2 - Soviet Block, 3 - Everyone else.
The end of the Cold War removed almost the entire "Second World" from existence. So today I believe most people instead use the terms to separate developed nations from less developed nations. But there's no "authority" anywhere that could give you an official ruling on the membership of countries like Turkey or India that could be argued either way.
If you want a full list of who was what when the concept was first coined, that would be the memberships of NATO (and probably other US alliances like ANZAC), the Warsaw Pact countries, with everyone else technically being "third world".
Here's a map showing the first two at their contact point in Europe. To backdate it to the end of WWII, you'd probably want to add Yugoslavia and Austria to the 2nd World. Outside of this map, the 1st World needs the USA and Canada from North America, and Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand from the Pacific area. The 2nd should (arguably) add China and eventually North Korea and Cuba.
More post
- 📝 How did gong farmers see when cleaning out cesspits?
- 📝 What / When was the first use of concentration camps in history?
- 📝 Did medieval guards wear heavy armor for long periods of time?
- 📝 What were the “passports” that diplomats requested when declaring war?
- 📝 Do NKVD files say that during WWII, Soviet leadership knew about the rape of Soviet women liberated from labour camps and did nothing to stop it?
- 📝 What was life expectancy in early medieval Britain?
- 📝 Were the mongol army boots of 13th century lined with fur?
- 📝 What are some examples of clauses against unifications in peace treaties?
- 📝 What's the story behind Christmas?
- 📝 Who was the most successful German spy against Great Britain in WWII, from the contemporary German perspective?
- 📝 Where is the bloodiest area with most deaths within a single day?
- 📝 How did Mongol nomads acquire metal weapons?
- 📝 Could the Soviet Union have continued fighting World War II without Caucasus oil?
- 📝 Is it true that George Washington was Offered Kingship?
- 📝 Were people of Third Estate rich?
- 📝 When was the Western Facade on the Sant Andrea Basilica by Alberti constructed?
- 📝 Were doctors who were drafted in the 1950/1960 years, compelled to take an officer's oath of allegiance?
- 📝 Did Great Britain benefit economically from the loss of America?
- 📝 Where/when does the wok start to differentiate itself from pot-style cooking vessels?
- 📝 What is "chaud melee"?
- 📝 Did Bismarck have any influence on Hitler?
- 📝 How would Nazi treatment differ between a "half-Jew" and "full Jew"?
- 📝 Why were Catholic priests prohibited from participating in ordeals but allowed to participate in inquisitions?
- 📝 How is it possible that the Basque language survived until today?
- 📝 What happened to the cross on the dome of Hagia Sophia?
- 📝 Was there a way for ships to disengage from boarding actions?
- 📝 Was Catalonia ever a sovereign state?
- 📝 Which country can be viewed as the perfect example of "Capitalism"?
- 📝 What is the earliest recorded female name in history?
- 📝 How strong was pacifism in interwar Germany?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What were all the countries of the First, Second and Third Worlds, when WWII ended?
- 📝 What were the requirements for Iron Cross first and second class?
- 📝 When and where were the first coins made showing the currency or a face value?
- 📝 What happened when the Çatalhöyük burial holes were full and the houses had no more room?
- 📝 What alternate north-south supply routes did the Soviet Union have when the Volga and Stalingrad were under attack?
- 📝 What were conditions like for Chinese men subject to recruitment by the army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War?
- 📝 When were both minuscule and majuscule letters used for the first time in the same Latin manuscript?
- 📝 What is the source for the Arabic name of the penguin and when it is first used?
- 📝 When were public tariffs and taxes for water supply introduced for the first time?
- 📝 When was the term "Dravida" first used and what is the context with which it was presented?
- 📝 What incentives were there for Soviet and Chinese politicians to try climb to the top when there was so much history of deposing their own?
- 📝 What is the exact date and year when the first car got invented?
- 📝 What are the three major differences between the first and second silk road?
- 📝 How can we be sure what the first day of the month was 2000 years ago and how can we determine which years were leap years?
- 📝 Were there any Germans in Japan after the surrender of Germany in May, 1945 and if so, what happened to them?
- 📝 In WWII, what were the major differences in tank combat on the eastern and western fronts?
- 📝 Third Reich? What were the other two?
- 📝 What / When was the first use of concentration camps in history?
- 📝 What were the EMP effects, if any, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What East German laws and regulations were extended to the West after unification?
- 📝 Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
- 📝 What were the first local currency systems in history?
- 📝 What were the demographics and economics of South-East Asian islands around year 1400?
- 📝 When did the English and Americans realize that vegetables were healthy?
- 📝 What were the Nazi racial views on Hungarians and the Japanese?
- 📝 What did other European powers say when Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Tordesillas?
- 📝 What were the “passports” that diplomats requested when declaring war?
- 📝 When were US Presidential candidates' names first shown on the ballot?
- 📝 At what point were the most current and former US Presidents alive?
- 📝 What were the thoughts of the Celts, Romans and other ancient European people about the standing stones which survive from prehistoric times?