Private property for the first time became the dominant method to handle land and industry. Banking had grown in importance. The entire edifice was premised on a stable system of exchange; this was the pound sterling which acted as the world's currency. Gold had become the ultimate standard of value for all the major non colonised countries.

The British government at an early stage, in 1916, limited their adherence to the system and by 1931 removed the system altogether. The essence of the global capitalist system, that is the mechanism that held it all together, ceased to work.

How did the USSR manage to survive until 1989? In 1917, Russia was an ancient sprawling empire across thousands of miles of land. Despite a sophisticated and wealthy Court in Moscow, her peasantry was some of the poorest in all of Europe. There were a few isolated western factories, but the population was illiterate and there was no education except for an elite. Yet despite the invasions in 1918-1920 and the intense poverty of the people, Russian forces were able, just 25 years later, to repel the German invasion in 1942. Russia sacrificed 25 million people in the process.

The 30 years from 1914 to 1944 represent years of such death and turmoil at every level that it is hard to exaggerate the suffering across the globe. Many of the events of this period have become so seared into people’s memory, contemporary events are frequently compared and contrasted with them. More people than ever were involved in, or affected by war, and at the times when there was no war, there was chaos across the global economy, which affected everyone’s lives.