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Joseph Stalin was a powerful dictator that was born on 1879 and died in 1953. He was also known to be a very disciplined leader because of the way he controls and treats the Soviet people.
Stalin was the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was the only man that helped and improved the Soviet regime and also helped organized Europe after the World War II has ended in 1945. When Lenin died, a struggle on the leaders happened in Russia. And when this happened Stalin saw how completely different Russia had become. He saw how people were fighting and struggling on their lives due to poverty and low leadership in their country. When he realized how these things completely changed the way the Russians were and how they lived, he was determined to transform the Soviet Union into a powerful industrial state.
This became a part of the reasons why he started to launched his first five-year plan in 1928. His plan was about two goals.
Stalin wanted rapid growth of heavy industry and increased in farm production through collectivization of agriculture. In these plans he used a lot of the nation's resources into building electric power stations, steel mills, and other industries that were needed. But this caused a major effect on the Soviet agriculture because this plan caused a widespread of food shortage throughout the nation of Russia. And it was very hard for the Russians because they have less food to eat. It also mostly affected the peasants because they were forced to give up their land and work on farms and other large enterprises. And the ones who opposed and did not follow to his orders were eventually killed in which these things are examples of forced communism that had happened because of his plans and strategies.
Stalin still wanted to achieve his goals, so then he created a new kind of government, which is called a totalitarian state. In a totalitarian state, the government is a single-party dictatorship that controls every aspect of the lives of its citizens and that the rights of the people count for nothing. In this kind of government the people in Russia should follow without question and that they are forced to be silenced. Totalitarian state also supports nationalism; and Stalin decided to use propaganda, censorship, and terror to force his commands on the Soviet people. He also used a secret police to spy on the people who refused to follow him and that they will face huge punishment and even death possibly. This was known as The Great Purges.
Stalin and Lenin were mostly the leaders that supported the idea of a world communist revolution.
These years were very hard, uncertain, and difficult for the Soviets because they are forced to obey even if they don't like to. I believe that Stalin was a leader that ruled in a complex way and is very difficult to withstand by the people in Russia at that time. And his ideas and ways are powerful examples on how an unorganized country became a very disciplined country that brought pain and hardships that were forced to faced by the Russians.

Posted by Burton at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments

Dr. Zhivago was a very intelligent doctor that came from nowhere and in coincidence he witnessed the killing of the soldiers of Russia to the civilians living there. He saw blood on the streets that filled the icy ground on winter.
Those days were very cold and he also felt and understood how the people were feeling on that time. And those people rallied because they knew there was no leadership in Russia anymore and they wanted a new leader. But when they did that, the soldiers suddenly attacked them with their horses and killed those civilians with their swords.
The movie expressed and explained well on what was happening to Russia. People were fighting all the time and killing didn't stop because their country was in a crisis.
Base on the movie, I think Dr. Zhivago depicted the Russian revolution as days of struggle and pain that are very difficult to endure for the people living there before.
Some of the reasons why the Russians wanted a change in their country were because the people were so tired watching other people get killed, and they were sick of fighting with each other. These people wanted peace in their country. And they were annoyed and deeply angry on how their ruler, Czar, was leading their country.
And because of WWI the Russians run out of their financial things were they started to lose food, and starvation increased mostly on the peasants living there at that time because they didn't have a lot of money to buy food for themselves.
The film depicted or described communism in Russia as a result of the revolution. Communism happened in Russia because the Russians didn't like the way they live. And they wanted to get paid the same amount of money on their jobs. That's why communism started in Russia. Vladimir Lenin was the man who led the communist people. And he thought that communism would make the people living in Russia happy and would reduce the war of the Russians with each other, and peace would happen eventually.
When Dr. Zhivago came back to Moscow, communism already started. He realized that he was in a position that even if he is a doctor, no one will look at him on a high level because they were all at the same level, and that they deserved to be treated with the same kind of respect with one another. This was a result of communism.
Dr. Zhivago at first was unaware that his house was being occupied and shared with other different families. And he was shock to know that he had a little share of the house that he used to owned and have all of it before. So then he was forced to lived in one room with his family.
This turned out to be so hard for him, and his life became a bit miserable that even if he is a doctor, he would still have the same amount of money that others have.

Posted by Burton at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

World War I was a war that started from August 4, 1914 to November 11, 1918. The war was also known to be called the Great War or World War. The term World War I wasn't called on that name until a second worldwide conflict happened in the year 1939, which was the second World War or World War II. World War I was known to be one of the most violent and destructive wars that happened in the European history.
Basically the war was about military conflict where mostly it happened in Europe but a lot of countries were involved too, including the United States and other nations throughout the world. There were more than 10 million people that were killed and more than 20 million who got wounded on the war.
Once the war began, the countries prepared their military for defenses and offenses of their own countries that involved their entire populations and economic resources for them to succeed victory, which created competition to them. The main countries that were involved in the war were Germany, France, and England. The France and England were the allies that fought against the Germans. But there were also other countries that were involved, they were Italy and Russia.
These countries made trenches and stayed there for a long period of time.
Economic and imperial competition were some of the reasons that brought them into war.
France and Russia were the first countries that began to fight with each other, which was called the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The reason of their war was because France suffered with pain of the loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany. And this made the France so angry at the Germans.
And sooner or later, nationalism became a problem for Austria-Hungary and the Balkans in which at that time people were fighting with each other because of the conflict of people with different groups.
Imperialism also became the reason of WWI. When the Industrial Revolution started in Europe, it created an increase in manufacturing for products and goods. And the main countries that needed these new products were France, Great Britain, and Germany. This was the result of the "Scramble-for-Africa." These countries competed to gain territory and natural resources in Africa; and Great Britain and France gained the most products founded in Africa. This caused the Germans to fight with the French and the English people.
World War I was also known to happen because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914. Around those years Europe was known to be a mixture of nations with power that a little mistake in these nations can start a war.
Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy were the allies. And Russia, Britain and France were the countries that were also the allies that fought against them on the war.
These strong countries looked forward on the war and started to build up their military. But when the war began it was very destructive in which a lot of soldiers and civilians were killed due to their modern weapons like tanks, planes, machine guns, cannon, etc. On the war it was believed that the Russians had less weapons that on the end they just happened to quit. They also have low leadership where their armies where fighting with each other and killed their leaders. This caused an impact on their alliance that affected France and Britain.

In the end of World War I, the political order of Europe was falling down. And the Germans, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires got weaker. This was the time when the Ottoman Empire soon followed them. The war was unforgettable. And I believe that the people that died left memories that could be remembered and could also never be forgotten.

Posted by Burton at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments