Kyle G’s posterous

 



May 15, 2009

Capitalism, Communism & the Domino Theory

Two different types of political systems are Communism and Capitalism.
Capitalism is the political system which allowed freedom of speech. An example of it was America, seen as the 'land of oppurtunity'. Because of this, many people migrated there and some made their fortune. Unlike the USSR, they had many different political parties. The country followed a democratic policy.
Communism is the complete opposite. Countries like the USSR were communist countries and the people there had a limited freedom of speech. They had only one political party and people voted within this party for who they wanted to represent them. Land and industry was all owned by the state and the profits were used for the good of everyone. The communist based all their beliefs upon a German philosopher by the name of Karl Marx.

The 'Cold War' was the relationship that was shared between the USA and USSR after the second world war. They had been allies during the war but for the last four years, all the main fighting had taken place in the USSR. America, Britain and France hadn't fought and helped, so many soldiers from the USSR had died. This made the USSR angry as they hadn't done anything to help them at all in those years. It was called the 'Cold War' because no fighting happened but there were threats that nuclear weapons would be involved, and possibly therefore, the end of humanity. Stalin had wanted Churchill and Roosevelt to join in the fighting.

There was also the thought of the domino theory. It was made by Capitalists as they had fears that if one country became communist, all the other countries in that are would become communist too. America considered this a bad thing as it would help the USSR. The picture above shows the domino theory illustrated. The soldier is an American soldier and is trying to stop the dominoes falling. The other man has 'Vietcong' written on his hat, showing that this was causing Vietnam to fall over and become communist. This is biased as falling over is presented as communist and so obviously the artist is in favour of capitalism.

Links For Further Reading:

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May 13, 2009

Effects Of The WWII

http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/effectsofthewar

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May 1, 2009

Some have said that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was the single most important reason for the start of the Second World War. Would you agree with this judgement? Explain your answer.

I think that there are several reasons for and against that statement. The main reasons for the against are displayed in SCAB.
 
Suspicion
 Chamberlain never trusted Stalin, due to his commnist beliefs. Stalin didn't trust Chamberlain either. He thought that Britain would pull out of the war; leaving Russia to fight Germany alone. This suspicion made each side wary of signing the Pact. The Anglo-Soviet Pact agreed to defend Poland although Poland didn't trust Russia or Britain in their country. They thought that they would invade them.
Choice
 Stalin had the choice to either sign the Anglo-Soviet Pact with Britain, or the Nazi-Soviet Pact with Germany. The first option brought lots of disadvantages but only a few advantages. Russia would have to do most of the work and they wouldn't really benefit anything from it. The second option with Germany provided many advantages. Including half of Poland. This gave Russia a bigger incentive to join the Nazis instead of the British.
Appeasement
Appeasement had created a bad reputation for Britain and so they had to choose Germany so that the reputation of the British wouldn't be inflicted upon them. Germany's reputation was one of security so they knew that they would be protected, unlike if they had allied with the British.
Britain Delayed
Stalin had a requested a meeting with Lord Halifax, but he had been refused. The British did eventually do something, they sent someone who was unable to do anything and they sent him by a boat so he took a while to get there since he was going by a slow method.
 
This shows how the World War II could have been avoided by Britain acting sooner and making an alliance with Russia. Instead, Germany did and they signed a pact to say they wouldn't fight. This meant that Britain did not have Russia on their side.
 
It may not have been the most important reason though as things like appeasement were also important towards the beginning of the world war as they made Hitler think he could get away with everything, which proved wrong in the end when Britain declared war on Germany for invading Poland.
 
Overall, I think that the most important reason for the start of the second world war was the Nazi-Soviet pact as this was what made certain that Poland was going to be invaded, especially since Poland was between Russia and Germany. This meant that Britain knew this was their time to act and so this led to the war. It also partly determined how long the war would last as it would last longer than if Russia and Britain had been the ones to form the alliance.

     
Click here to download:
Some_have_said_that_the_Nazi-S.zip (274 KB)

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May 1, 2009

Neville Chamberlain has been accused of being directly responsible for the Second World War. Would you agree that he is guilty of this?

There are a number of different reasons why Neville Chamberlain could be responsible for the Second World War, but there may also have been many other factors that directly lead to the war.
Firstly, he could be to blame as Appeasement allowed Hitler to think that he could get away with doing anything. This was because he was able to gain land without any arguments from countries like Britain and France, This made him think that he was able to do anything and get away with it. Because of this, Hitler was becoming too powerful.
Nevilled Chamberlain also too long to declare war upon Hitler. This gave Hitler time to plan out a war and gave him time to build up an army and become a powerful nation once again, able to defeat Britain in war.
Britain was one of the most powerful nations in the world and should have used it's power to protect other countries from Hitler invading them. The failure to do so meant that Hitler was a bigger threat to other countries.
 
However there are many other reasons for the start of WWII that wern't in control by Neville Chamberlain.
First of all was the harsh terms in the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler was aiming to break these terms and get revenge on the Allies. If the Treaty wasn't so harsh then maybe Hitler wouldn't be in power at all. After all, one of the things he promised was to recover from these punishments. He also may not have retaliated as he would have nothing to retaliate against and his country wouldn't have to be recovered.
Secondly, Mussolini destroyed the peace after WWI. By invading Abyssinia it shocked the world, especially after the First World War. He upset the balance of peace in the world and made the world more wary to any more invasions/incidents in the future. Nobody knew who would be on their side if they started a war so nobody wanted to start one in case they would have no chance.
Also, many people say that Hitler may have been the type of person who would start a war anyway. This could mean that any leader could have cause Hitler to start the war, it didn't necessarily have to be Chamberlain. The only reason it was Chamberlain was because Britain was one of the world's strongest powers.
Finally, Hitler had made an agreement with Russia, known as the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This meant that Russia was no longer going to fight against Hitler and so the allies were weakened and so were scared to go to war.
Overall, I think that Neville Chamberlain did little to cause the war. Many problems across the globe led to the war, things that were out of Neville Chamberlain's hands but were blamed on him due to his involvement in the appeasement of Hitler.

         
Click here to download:
Neville_Chamberlain_has_been_a.zip (490 KB)

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April 24, 2009

All About Appeasement

(download)

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March 27, 2009

Hitler's rise to power
How did Hitler come to power?
 
-Five years prison sentence.
-Let out after less than a year.
-By 1923, he was the leader of the Nazi Party.
-He wrote a book about his ideas.
He had to get people within to help him to take over the country, making it communist as it was a forced take over of the country.
In July 1932, the Nazi party was the biggest in Reichstag which was the German parliament building. In November the same year though, the Nazi vote had gone back down again.
He thought that other politicians would be able to control Hitler and the Nazis. This was a mistake as Hitler had organised an election that would make sure that they did well.
 
Parliament in Great Britain. it was set in fire just before the 1933 election and Hitler blamed the communists.
 
Because people were scared of the communists people began to vote for the Nazis so that the Nazi vote increased and by 1934, he had tightened his grip on Germany and banned other political parties.
 
Why Did people support Hitler?
 
Because he had promised them just what they wanted.
This way people felt better about themselves and looked up to hitler, seeing him as a great leader who would help them.
He offered farmers higher prices for the produce to make up for what they had lost during the depression. He offered the unemployed jobs, including building roads, stadiums, etc. He also promised the middle class that he would restore the small businesses problems and restore tha vallue of savings.
 
Nazi Beliefs
 
-Hitler wanted to get back what he had lost in the Treaty Of versailles. This included things like remilitarising the Rhineland.
-Hitler's idea was that the 'master race' was blond, blue-eyed Ayrans.
-He also planned to kill Jews, ginger people, etc.
 
-He wanted to get his people more than they had had before the Treaty Of Versailles.
-He could get this better by making more jobs for his people.
How and why was Hitler able to come to power?
 

Hitler was able to come to power because he used the people's needs against them. Because of the Wall Street Crash and Treaty Of Versailles, the people were left in ruins and Hitler was promising them their old lives back. He also used events against them, things like the fire of Reichstag, which he blamed on the communists to get more voters. He democraticallly came into power but then turned the country into a communist country.
 
Links for further reading:
 

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March 24, 2009

The Rise Of Hitler And The Second World War - Important Links
Neville Chamberlain:
 
All about Neville Chamberlain's life and the things he did while he was Prime Minister.
A detailed history of the life of Neville Chamberlain. Be warned - this source is not as reliable as the first one.
 
Appeasement:
 
A basic definition of 'Appeasement' with some cartoons relating to Hitler.
A BBC website talking about why Chamberlain resorted to appeasement.
 
The Munich Agreement
 
A webpage talking about what was agreed and the outcomes and reactions.
An overview of the Munich Agreement and the views of the different countries.
 
Rise Of hitler
 
A timeline where you can click on the events and learn more about them.
An interactive way of learning about Hitler. You can test yourself on your knowledge and learn while doing so.
 
Causes of WWII
 
Talks about the five most important causes.
Talking about the European cause of the WWII.

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March 17, 2009

The Abyssinian Crisis

(download)

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March 12, 2009

The Abyssinian Crisis

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February 27, 2009

The Manchurian Crisis And The League Of Nations

  
 
 
The manchurian crisis began in 1931 after the Wall Street Crash had left them unable to sell their silk and rice, but also unable to make enough rice. Because of this, the Japanese needed more land in order to farm more rice. At the time, Japan was the most powerful force in Asia due to the World War I. Japan needed to find an excuse to invade more land though.

In Manchuria, Japan owned the South Manchurian railway. In 1931 there was an explosion on a section of this railway, known as the Mukden Incident. The Japanese said that this was China sabotaging the railway and so Japan took this an excuse to invade Manchuria. Manchuria was already being owned by Japan, China and Russia. When this happened, Japan first invaded Mukden but then proceeded to take over the rest of Manchuria.

The Chinese government called the League Of Nations for help and they sent Lord Lytton to review the situation. In October 1932, he reported back, saying that he agreed that Japan should leave China. The Japanese took this badly and as a result of it, they left the League Of Nations. The League could then not agree to what sanctions should be placed upon Japan and Japan continued to invade more of China in 1937.

In 1932, Japan renamed Manchuria, Manchukuo. The Japanese were not the biggest threat to peace for long as soon Hitler came into power in Germany.

The Manchurian had a bad effect on the League Of Nations, especially now that everyone saw them as weak and useless as they had failed in Manchuria. This meant that now countries wouldn't ask the League for help.
Links for further reading:
 
 
 

 

 

 

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