Shortly before his death, Vladimir Lenin would appoint Stalin to the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. Though not a position of absolute power, Stalin would use this newly found authority as leverage for the advancement of his personal gain.

Rampant and unprecedented inflation grabbed hold of the Weimar Republic, the provisional government set up in Germany after World War I. In July of 1921, Adolph Hitler became leader of the National Socialist party of Germany. Building upon extreme nationalism, exploitation of Anti-Semitic ideology in the wake of losses of World War I, and building upon progressive economic policies, Hitler would transform a series of inspired political discussions into a small but fervent political party of over 50,000 by the beginning of 1923.

After an initial economic boom which followed closely on the heels of World War One, the United States, too, would experience a minor and short-lived economic depression. After a major influx of immigration in the first part of the twentieth century, the United States, pressured by economic stagnation, passed strict laws against immigration with flagrant ethnic and racial biases: Immigration to Eastern Asia was cut off almost entirely and quotas were set in place which favored British and German immigrants over those coming from Southern and Eastern Europe.