Decolonisation and Independence (SACE Stage 2 Modern History)

What this dot point is asking

You must explain why European empires ended after 1945, how independence was achieved in different cases, and the consequences for the new nations. Strong answers compare peaceful and violent transitions and assess the lasting legacies of colonialism.

Causes of decolonisation

The Second World War shattered the prestige and resources of the European imperial powers. Britain, France and the Netherlands were exhausted and indebted, and Japanese conquests in Asia (1941-1945) had exposed the vulnerability of European rule and encouraged local nationalists. After the war, both new superpowers, the USA and the USSR, were broadly anti-colonial in rhetoric, and the new United Nations (1945) enshrined the principle of self-determination.

Within the colonies, educated nationalist leaders built mass movements demanding independence, drawing on ideologies of nationalism, socialism and pan-Africanism. Figures such as Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru in India, Sukarno in Indonesia, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam mobilised popular support. The cost of holding empires by force became increasingly unacceptable to war-weary European publics.

The processes: peaceful and violent transitions

Independence came in very different ways. In India, mass non-violent resistance led by Gandhi and the Congress Party pressured Britain into withdrawal; independence in August 1947 was accompanied by the violent Partition into India and Pakistan, in which around one million people died and millions were displaced. In Ghana (the Gold Coast), Nkrumah's largely peaceful campaign achieved independence in 1957, the first sub-Saharan African colony to do so, inspiring others.

Elsewhere, independence required armed struggle. The Indonesian National Revolution (1945-1949) forced Dutch withdrawal. In Vietnam, the defeat of France at Dien Bien Phu (1954) ended French Indochina but drew the country into Cold War conflict. The Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962) was a brutal eight-year conflict against France in which hundreds of thousands died. In Kenya, the Mau Mau Uprising (1952-1960) was suppressed with great violence before independence in 1963. The year 1960, the "Year of Africa", saw seventeen colonies become independent.

Consequences and challenges for new nations

Independence rarely brought stability or prosperity. Colonial borders, often drawn for European convenience, cut across ethnic and religious lines and produced later conflict, as in the Nigerian Civil War (Biafra, 1967-1970) and recurring violence in the Indian subcontinent. Many new states had economies geared to exporting raw materials to the former colonial power, leaving them dependent (a relationship critics called neocolonialism).

Politically, hopes for democracy were often disappointed. Weak institutions, ethnic divisions and economic crisis led to one-party states, military coups and authoritarian rule in many countries. The Cold War intensified instability as the superpowers backed rival factions, fuelling conflicts in the Congo, Angola and elsewhere. Some leaders sought a third path through the Non-Aligned Movement (founded at Belgrade in 1961) to avoid taking sides between the blocs.

Legacies and historiography

The legacies of empire remain contested. Decolonisation roughly tripled the membership of the United Nations and reshaped global politics, giving formerly colonised peoples a voice. Yet the economic and political problems many post-colonial states faced have prompted debate over whether to blame colonial exploitation and arbitrary borders, the choices of post-independence leaders, or the distorting pressures of the Cold War.

Historians influenced by thinkers such as Frantz Fanon and later postcolonial scholars stress the deep psychological and structural damage of colonial rule, while others emphasise the agency and choices of nationalist leaders after independence. SACE answers should weigh the inherited problems of empire against the decisions made by new governments.