Wubi

In the late nineteenth century, a new invention completely revolutionized the world, breaking down barriers once thought of as impassible for both the human body and mind.  No, I’m not talking about the airplane or the automobile.  No sir, I’m talking about the fricking typewriter.  It can’t be understated exactly how much typewriters changed the world.  Previous to the invention of typewriters, businesses, government offices, and researchers had to write everything by hand, which was tedious as all get out and often resulted in nearly unreadable documents depending upon the clarity of the writer’s handwriting.  Typewriters could produce documents at twice the speed in always readable block letters.  Typewriters made documentation and records keeping a breeze, allowing for a quicker and greater accumulation of institutional knowledge.  It can’t be said enough how much this revolutionized the world.  In fact, it was of such great importance that even the most sexist asshats of the day threw out their so called morals in order to hire droves of women in order to get enough typists.  For whatever stupid sexist reason, typist was seen as one of the few careers acceptable for women at the time, and they flocked to it by the thousands, many earning their own money for the first time.  Yes sir, typewriters were most certainly a revolutionary device.

Unfortunately, such wonders as the typewriter were completely unavailable to the people of China.  The issue lay in the structure of the Chinese written language.  Most written languages in the world are phonetic, meaning that different letters represent different sounds.  Since there are a limited number of sounds any person can make, it was easy to fit all of the needed letters on a keyboard.  In comparison, Chinese is a pictoral language, meaning each word is represented by a different character.  Altogether the Chinese language utilizes some 50,000 different characters, with even the most basic writing requiring some 6,000 characters, which is pretty damn impossible to fit on a keyboard.  This problem was unique to China, with even most other Asian nations with pictoral languages still having some type of phonetic alphabet that could be relatively easily converted to a keyboard.

China’s inability to effectively utilize typewriters was most certainly a problem, though this was not something the Chinese government would ever willingly admit.  After all, they had hundreds of millions of people at their disposal, so of course they could just strong arm their way through many problems.  Unfortunately, this was only partially effective, and though many different factors came into play, the inability of the Chinese to quickly and clearly convey information played a role in the technological malaise that helped lead to the collapse of Imperial China, which in return resulted in decades of chaos.  Tiring of such shit, the Chinese eventually began designing their own typewriters.  However, these machines were so complex and convoluted, that it at times took teams of people to run them and they were little faster than just writing things out by hand.  As a result, even as late as the 1970’s, most government documents were still written by hand.  The various Chinese governments, dealing with civil wars and then converting the entire country to communism, had much higher priorities than dealing with the country’s inability to use a typewriter.

The perceived importance of the issue began to change rapidly in the 1970’s.  In the western world, new fangled contraptions called computers were becoming all the rage, with their ability to handle complex calculations promising to revolutionize the way the world worked.  Unfortunately, as more and more powerful computers were developed, the main source of input for them increasingly became the standard keyboard.  This put China in a definite bind, leaving it unable to utilize technology developed in other countries, or even effectively utilize its own computers to their full potential.  As a result, finding a solution became a major national security concern for the communist government.

For the autocratic government of China, which ruled by telling people what to do and then making anyone who disagreed disappear, the obvious answer was to completely shift Chinese writing to a phonetic system, a daunting task to say the least.  However, this solution was not favored by many of the more traditionalist minded Chinese, who viewed China’s unique written language as an important part of its cultural heritage.  One of these was a man by the name of Wang Ma, who spent over five years of his life working with a team categorizing the symbols which made up the various Chinese characters.  Eventually he managed to create a system where a standard keyboard could create any character by combining at most four key strokes.  Named the Wubi method, which is short for a longer name that isn’t important, Wang unveiled his creation to the Chinese government in 1984.  They of course initially accused him of being a fraud, but soon after realized that Wang and his team had basically saved China from technological obscurity.

Again, there are so many interconnected factors that come into play for any change in history.  However, with that being said, it is undoubtedly true China would not have been able to begin its rise to global economic prominence if it had been unable to use freaking computers.  Today China utilizes numerous keyboard setups, both pictoral and phonetic, but it all began with a man who really liked Chinese characters and didn’t want to see them go away.

How It Happened Part 3

Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in late January of 1933, appointed by the conservative President von Hindenberg in an attempt to ensure the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) would not regain power.  Soon after, the Nazis unleashed a widespread campaign against its primary rivals, the SPD and Communist parties, focusing largely on the Iron Front and Antifa, the more militant paramilitary portions of each party respectively.  This was done under the auspices of ending the street violence which had wracked Germany for over a year, violence that the Nazis had been a primary player in causing.  Hindenburg greatly disliked both the SPD and Communists, so turned a blind eye to these activities.  Hitler further ingratiated himself to Hindenburg by promising that his ultimate goal was to re-establish the monarchy, the long-term goal of the ailing president.  To support this, Hindenburg agreed to hold another round of elections in March in order to allow the Nazis to consolidate their power.

Prior to the elections occurring, the German parliament building, known as the Reichstag, was burnt to the ground by arsonists.  Though evidence existed that the Nazis themselves set the fire, they blamed Communist provocateurs and used it as proof of a Communist plot to overthrow the government.  Hindenburg, who by this time was an increasingly confused old man, agreed to an emergency decree which greatly curtailed civil rights and centralized power to the Chancellor in the name of security.  With this new decree in hand, Hitler and his Nazis completely dismantled the German Communist party, arresting its leaders and banning its meetings.  Members of the SPD were also threatened and assaulted, and Nazi party members monitored all voting sights.  However, despite these moves, Hitler still only managed to win 43% of the vote in the March election, with the SPD and Communists maintaining their role as the second and third largest parties.

Hitler’s failure to obtain his desired majority did not stop him for long.  Instead, with Hindenburg’s blessing, he pushed forward with passing what became known as the Enabling Act, a piece of legislation that effectively gutted the country’s constitution and gave Hitler broad dictatorial powers for a period of four years.  Hitler needed a two-thirds majority to pass the Enabling Act, which he achieved by targeting what was left of the remaining small conservative parties, threatening them with violence and arrest if they didn’t vote his way, with Nazi paramilitaries literally watching over their shoulders.  With the Communists unable to seat their members, because most were in prison or had fled, only the SPD voted against it.  The measure passed in late March of 1933.

When Germany’s parliament effectively sidelined, the only threat to Hitler’s power was the ailing Hindenburg, who retained the ability to remove Hitler as Chancellor.  Hitler did not dare directly challenge Hindenburg due to the old man having the unwavering support of the military.  Instead, Hitler focused on leaving Hindenburg no other options, declaring the SPD illegal and convincing the remaining conservative parties to dissolve by mid-summer.  He also gained popular support by pouring money into new programs and public works projects and gained the support of the armed forces by promising to rebuild their strength.  The national government took full control of all aspects of governing the country, and Jews were ejected from the civil service and universities.

At first, Hindenburg only spoke up once during all of this, demanding that Jewish veterans be allowed to keep their positions.  However, as the Nazis seized more power and their paramilitary units became more out of control, he steadily became more alarmed.  Eventually, in the summer of 1934, Hindenburg demanded that Hitler either get the paramilitaries under control, or face being removed in favor of martial law under the military.  Hitler responded by having the leaders of the old Nazi paramilitaries, many of them hardcore socialists who had been involved in most of the street fighting in the early years, killed.  This mollified Hindenburg and allowed Hitler to replace the paramilitaries with a more disciplined secret police under his more direct control.  This was also done to further gain the support of the military.  When Hindenburg died in August, they backed Hitler as his successor as president.

The death of Hindenburg ended that last illusions of the old German republic.  Over the next year the line between the state and the Nazi party was completely wiped away and the two became fused together.  The party took complete control over all aspects of German society and culture.  Nazi ideology became German ideology.  Jews and other groups labeled as unwanted by the state were stripped of their citizenship, forced into ghettos, and eventually shipped to extermination camps.  The German military rearmed itself in preparation for the coming conflict.  As they say, the rest is history.

How It Happened Part 2

The German election in September of 1930 did not go as expected.  Tired of the incompetence of the dominant Social Democratic Party (SPD) and coalition of moderate and conservative parties in handling the growing Great Depression, voters went another direction.  While the SPD remained the largest party, the coalition of conservative parties collapsed, with the Nazi and Communist parties becoming the second and third largest parties in the country respectively.  For the conservative Chancellor Heinrich Bruning, this was a complete and utter disaster.  As groups seeking to end the democratic system, both the Nazis and Communists had a vested interest in seeing Bruning and his allies fail, since pushing the country further into economic collapse increased their memberships.  Often times working together, they capitalized on political divides between the SPD and the remains of the conservative coalition, blocking needed legislation.  With the country going down the tubes, Bruning began forcing through changes via the conservative President von Hindenburg, who was allowed to make emergency decrees as needed as long as the parliament did not nullify them with a majority vote, which was highly unlikely given all the parliamentary squabbling.  This basically made Bruning a dictator, which eroded what little support Bruning still had.  Even worse, none of his reforms helped the economic situation.

Both the Nazis and Communists responded to this chain of events with mass marches and protests that often turned violent.  Though initially opposed to each other, the two parties often collaborated together, seeking to destabilize the German government by any means necessary.  One of their favorite tricks was to hold political rallies in areas where they had little support in order to instigate attacks from counter protesters.  As violence in the streets escalated, Nazi and Communist members of the German parliament railed against Bruning’s inability to keep the streets safe.  Things became so bad, that eventually members of the SPD formed a militant wing, known as the Iron Front, for the specific purpose of fighting the Nazis and Communists.  In response, the Communists founded their own militant wing, called Antifascist Action, or Antifa, for short.  The Communists referred to everyone that was not them as fascists, and though they were not big fans of the Nazis, they saw the SPD as the greater fascist threat.

The German presidential election took place in March of 1932.  After two rounds of voting, Hindenburg managed to win re-election by a wide margin versus Hitler and the Communist candidate.  However, Hindenburg was greatly disappointed with the results of the election, with many conservatives abandoning him in favor of Hitler due to Bruning’s more liberal policies.  As a result, Hindenburg re-asserted his conservative credentials by forcing Bruning to resign in May, appointing into his place the more conservative Franz von Papen.  However, Papen was so unpopular that the German parliament threatened to unify enough to nullify his appointment by decree.  Rather than let this happen, Hindenburg dissolved parliament and ordered new elections to take place in July.

The run up to the July election was perhaps the most violent political cycle in Germany’s history.  Nazi paramilitaries openly attacked rival party rallies and things quickly degenerated into three way street battles between Nazi, SPD, and Communist supporters, though the Communists still largely focused on the SPD, still seeing them as the greater “fascist” threat.  Attempts to unite the two parties against the growing power of the Nazis came to nothing.  When the election finally took place, the Nazis won 37 percent of the vote thanks to swallowing up the majority of the remaining conservative parties, catapulting them to the country’s largest political party, though still far short of a clear majority.  Papen attempted to placate Hitler by offering him a choice leadership role, but Hitler refused, declaring that he would either be Chancellor or nothing.  Not willing to step down, Papen convinced Hindenburg to dissolve parliament again, resulting in a second election in November.  However, though this resulted in the Nazis losing some of their newly acquired seats, they still won 33 percent of the vote.

Fed up with such nonsense, Hindenburg forced Papen to resign soon afterwards, appointing in his place as Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher, a military general who promised to gain the majority support of the parliament in order to finally end the destabilizing period of political shenanigans.  At this point Hindenburg had been appointing chancellors and effectively ruling by emergency decree for two years, which from Hindenburg’s point of view had resulted in the erosion of the conservative parties who supported putting the monarchy back into place.  The Nazi party was suffering from growing pains, with infighting between the long standing members of the party and the conservatives who had joined it in the most recent elections.  Schleicher hoped to exploit this weakness by splitting the party in half via a convoluted political strategy, but his efforts fell short as Hitler re-consolidated his power.  Rather than succeed in his political machinations, Schleicher instead alienated pretty much everyone, including Hindenburg, who removed him only two months after appointing him.

The removal of Schleicher, left Hindenburg in a bit of a bind given he was quickly running out of people he trusted to appoint as Chancellor.  Unsure what to do, and knowing he definitely didn’t want the Communists or SPD in power, he allowed Papen to talk him into appointing Hilter, with representatives of other parties, led by Papen, holding the majority of other leadership positions.  From Papen’s point of view, popular support for the Nazis was waning, which would leave Hitler easy to control.  So it was that at the end of January in 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.