Archive for the “World War I” Category
By: Michelle L
Lauren and Julia’s presentation on the Russian Revolutions taught me a lot about the Russian history during World War I. When they were talking about the person named Vladimir Lenin, it led me to many thoughts. This man had done so many things to improve the lives of many Russians of that time. When the Russian economy was on the floor and hopeless, Lenin stood up and made the changes.
Lenin formed the New Economic Policy (NEP) and improved in restoring the foreign trade/investments of Russia. He also changed the country name to Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and made a council formed of people contributed to Bolshevik Revolution (now called the communist party). With all these changes made, Russia was beginning to regain its powers, and the factories and farms were beginning to run normal. Learning this made me think this: anybody can dream, but only some can accomplish that dream. I bet that there were so many people of that time who wanted to help out and stand up to change the country’s situation. However, how many of those people really took that step forward and sacrificed to make those changes? Not a lot.
This man ended his life at quite a young age due to a stroke–which usually comes to older people. As this happened, the fight for power in the country rose again. This reminded me greatly of ourselves today. Once we have help to a problem, we are too much in relief and don’t think about the possible consequences to problems. And when that problem occurs and we don’t have the help, we just fall into the pitch again and struggle for another person to come and take us out of trouble. My point again is that people who do something for their country and its people leave their name. Leaving their name may seem like nothing, but look at us now. We write, we learn, we act, and we talk about this man who even died at a young age. Take a step forward and don’t hide your thoughts. History is happening at this moment.
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Another request form a friend, I hope you understand. Sincerely -Daniel
Learning about World War I was really interesting how the events of many countries were totally different but also similar in a way. The one I most enjoyed learning was about the Five Year plan by Stalin in Russia. It was interesting from the beginning, how he planned to catch up other industrialized countries that are about 100 years ahead of Russia. This plan brought many negative things to happen such as lower class having a very little power or none at all, they were killed, were disappeared, and there was no privacy, but other than those, it was really successful. They did catch up other countries, didn’t become the best, but was modernized a lot.
Even though it was pretty successful, it was not that good idea to become to have five year plan and totalitarianism, how the government had full power, in my opinion. It caused a lot of death to happen and also the country became separate i say, how the government and the people were against each other. If there was no totalitarianism, i think they could become strong too in ten years with all everyone following the president or the leader, and loving their countries that they would work really had just for their country.
Maybe not though, if Russia didn’t modernized, then this country might became the target of other strong countries that are hungry for more lands, and it might lose its land and then became really weak country like the countries in Africa. Then they might lose a lot of people and then they will become really powerless and won’t able to catch up other strong countries anymore in many of centuries.
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 After the sudden death of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were two successors of
Lenin. Trotsky wanted to spread communism, but Stalin wanted the Soviet
Union to be one big communist country that was more powerful than all of the
other countries. Stalin took power and his 5-year plan was made.
Stalin believed that the Soviet Union was behind all of the other European
countries by about 100 years. His 5-year plan was to bring the Soviet Union
back to the modern world. This was just a list of goals that seemed to be
impossible for the country. Surprisingly, the plan worked. It later expanded
into the 10-year plan, but anyhow, the Soviet Union was as modern as the
European countries. How did he do it?
Stalin needed many workers for this 5-year plan. He would just set off many
workers in an empty area and tell them to build stuff. Almost everyone in
the Soviet Union had to work for the high goals and good future of the
Soviet Union. The people were, of course, miserable. Could this be a start
of a revolt and a revolution? Not likely. Stalin had secret police to spy on
people. He asked the children if any of their parents were saying anything
against the Soviet Union and its plans. The people were not safe saying when
they were saying things that were bad for the Soviet Union. They would be
disappeared if they did. The people could not do anything about this. Stalin
killed so many people in his lifetime for his country, but was it worth it?
In my opinion, Stalin did a good job raising the Soviet Union back to
modernization. This could probably not be done by any ordinary person. He
had incredible leadership and he made good decisions.
Although he killed many of his people for the country, more could have died
if other countries got more powerful. If other countries became more
powerful, then the Soviet Union would be able to do nothing if they decided
to take control over the country. I believe that Stalin making sacrifices
for the future was not a bad decision.
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William couldn’t find his password, so I am posting his essay with my ID.
The trench warfare was an amazing time in history in my opinion. This was
during World War I. Soldiers were forced to live a very uncomfortable life
in the trenches, never knowing when they will die. Two long, parallel lines
of dug up land was terror to many soldiers that lived inside them. These
trenches were located between Germany and France. They were forced to live
and do almost everything in mud. They rarely had fresh food and could barely
sleep.
?
When the commander of a group of soldiers gave orders to attack the opposing
trench, he is basically telling them to suicide. In the middle of the two
trenches, there were barbed fences, flying bullets everywhere from the enemy
trench, mines, bombs, and attacking tanks.
?
Pretty obviously, many people died. Not much was gained on both countries so
those lives were like being wasted.
?
Now compare the soldiers?lives with ours. They were in a living hell,
living in nothing but mud and weapons. They ate mud, couldn’t sleep, and
worst of all, were waiting to be dead when their commanders ordered an
attack. The moment the commander orders an attack, the soldiers know that
nothing could save them from everything trying to kill them.
?
At least most of us have not had this experience so far in our lives and we
probably won in the future. At least most of us have food on our tables
and a bed to sleep in now. To most of us, this is heaven compared to the
lives of the soldiers during the trench warfare.
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By: Michelle L.
World War I, as we have learned, occurred due to continuous conflicts during the 20th century. These problems weren’t supposed to be problems in the first place—they led from the effort to make peace. In this process, the European countries formed alliances to help each other out, such as the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. If a question was asked: whether these alliances helped make peace or not, the better would be no.
As the European countries were on a battle for power and survival, they needed all the help they can possibly get for their benefit. One way that I noticed (and Mr. B had explained to us in class) was with the “balance of power.” This meant just as it says: if one country made an alliance with another country to gain more power, the opposing country would find another ally and balance that power. With the use of this “strategy,” many countries were able to gain the help they needed and also stay within the boundaries of the Great Powers. To compare with a problem occurring today, I read an article talking about the future balance of power in the Far East. The article seemed to compare the powers between Japan and China.
United States, who currently is said to be the hegemony of Japan, Republic of Korea, and Taiwan, has been taking a big role in the Far East countries since 1945. With Japan’s economy rising, (as it said in the article) United States’ needed future partner in controlling the Asian countries could possibly be Japan. If this happens, the competition between China, which is already a fast growing country and Japan may create another balance of power in the Asian side of the world. When reflecting this back to World War I, all the countries that grew stronger and stronger had more chances. But at the same time, opposing countries didn’t want to lose. As this went on and on the never ending war occurred.
We cannot deny the fact that these problems will continue on for a very long time. As chapter 13.1 had shown us, the three main causes of the Great War—imperialism, militarism, and nationalism—are still causes of current issues such as the China-Japan relations. The beginnings may not be large, but even the smallest reasons are able to cause huge wars. It’s like when you see one ant in your house. You think that if you just kill that one, the problem is solved. What you don’t notice is the whole group of ants behind your couch. The only way to get rid of that huge swarm is finding something else that’s strong and large enough to over-power them. Will we be able to come to a time when the balance is stable? I wonder if that’s even possible.
 
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