Joseph Stalin and Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is when the government or someone has total control over a state, country, and city, ect. Joseph Stalin was a totalitarian. He had total control over Russia. He first was promoted as Secretary General of the Communist party. From there he was against Trotsky for power. He allied himself with Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev. But Stalin now turned against Lev Kamenev and Grigori Zinoviev and allied with Nicolai Bukharin in order to get rid of Trotsky. They succeeded, Trotsky got run out of Russia, he was later found found in Mexico were he was murdered. Joseph Stalin had an idea on how to industrialize Russia. Russian was about a hundred years behind other advanced countries. So Stalin decided to put the five-year plan into action. Basically everybody has to work about 2 times harder. In order to catch up with the rest of the countries. The poor and dangerous working conditions caused many deaths. Most of the complexes built for the five-year plan were built by slaves who were sentenced there for crimes they didn’t commit. About 3.7 million people were sentenced for counter-revolutionary crimes. About 6.7 million were put to death, 0.7 were expatriated and 2.7 million were forced to go to camps (which were called the Gulag) the majority of the people sentenced to camp ended up dieing. This just shows the amount of power Totalitarianism gives somebody.

Film Lesson:Dr.Zhivago

The Russian Revolution begun around 1917, many people of Russia didn’t like their Czar. During the war the soldier’s jus got up out of the drenches and walked home. They met up with the replacing soldiers; all the soldiers including the replacement soldiers killed the military leaders. While all these soldiers, Dr.Zhivago Being one of them were in war The Czar was assassinated, Civil war broke out in Russia and now Moscow was controlled by a communist government. When Dr.Zhivago went home he found at least 15 families living in his mansion. He got home confused not knowing what all those people were doing in his house. In a Communist government everybody has to share everything. Dr.Zhivago’s mansion was good enough for 15 families. So he, his wife and his father in law were living in his bedroom.

Causes of WWI

World War 1 started on 1914. One of the reasons/causes of WWI was all the countries militaries. Every Country begun to build up there armies. Every year starting from 1880 Europe would spend more and more money on their military. So it was like a competition to see who would build the bigger army. With all of these countries on each others borders with an army , war was bound to happen. Another cause is Imperialism. France took over most of Africa . The British had control over some countries in 5 continents. When Germany decided to gain control on other countries as well, that created more rivalry towards Germany. Now the big and main reason World war 1 had begun was when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated . Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the austro-Hungrian Throne. But on June 28 , 1914 Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo princip. Gavrilo Princip was a Serbian nationalist , sent along with 3 other men to assassinate Franz Ferdinand . Now When This assassination occurred Austro-Hungary was furious. So they declared war on Serbia. Now Most of the European countries had alliances with other countries. So when Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Serbia had an alliance with another country and that country with another and so on.The same with Austro-Hungary.

The Opium Wars

The Opium war started when Britain wanted Chinas tea. China was always an isolated country. So china didn’t want to trade with any nation. This made the British pretty furious. So the British decided to make the Chinese drug addicts in order to trade their tea for their opium. (The drug) The British succeeded. The Chinese people were addicted and couldn’t stop taking Opium. No one in China knew how to plant or even find Opium. So their only source was Britain. The British started trading their opium for Chinas tea. The Chinese emperor didn’t approve of this; Opium was destroying their nation. But Britain didn’t choose to stop; they were making a lot of money out of their tea, when they got it for a little price (opium). The Chinese decided that they had to go to war in order to stop these trades. But unfortunately Britain won. Because of Chinas isolation they were behind in technology. But Britain wasn’t. Their steam powered boats, cannons and machine guns were no match for Chinas swords and sailboats.

The White Man's Burden

The meaning for burden is a chore, duty, job, etc. So basically it’s someone’s responsibility .Now the white man’s burden would mean the white man’s job/responsibility. The poem was written during United States imperialism towards the Philippine islands. So the author Rudyard Kipling was writing about how its Americas job to imperialize other countries like they were doing to the Philippine islands. In my opinion I think that America is still imperialistic. Now America is imperializing Iraq like they were doing to the Philippine islands.

Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa or also known as the Race for Africa occurred around 1840.
Europe was deciding how to break up Africa so different countries can conquer different parts of Africa. The main countries were Britain, France and Germany. The Main reason for the race for Africa was its resources. Many countries were after Africa’s resources. After the cure for Malaria was found and the machine gun was invented it became very easy for the Europeans to conquer Africa.

Film Lesson: "Mountains of the Moon"

Richard Burton and John Speke were the main characters in the movie.
They were sent to Africa to discover the source of the nile river. They went and did find it. The lake was named Lake Victoria , After the queen of England. Richard and jhon were also trying conquer Africa, Many men before tried but no one could ever succeed, Due to 2 main reasons. One that the people(Tribes)of Africa would kill them and two that many explorers would die of melaria , a disease caused by misquito bites. But now it was different because the cure for malaria was discovered and machine guns were invented, so they can protect themselves from the African tribes.