w. 37

w. 37

This week I haven’t had as much time to work on the blog. Here’s a quick rundown of what we did this week.

Friday

You started with reading the beginning of chapter 33 (pp. 965–967). If you didn’t finish reading and/or you didn’t understand some of the material, you want to ask for help. When you are working in groups you want to take advantage of having classmates who can help you. Often, hearing how a classmate interprets the material can be very beneficial. It can help you find new words, phrases, and explanations for understanding the issues we’re discussing.

You also want to think about being active in looking up words that are new to you. Writing down these words can help you remember them. And this training will not only help you in this class, but it can help you in your English class (duh!), högskoleprovet (both the English parts as well as the Swedish parts, which has REALLY HARD WORDS), and it will definitely  help you when get to college too. (Did you know that A LOT of your college material is going to be in English? ’Fraid so.)

We looked at eastern Europe (I asked about capitals. I wanted you to focus on what countries are in eastern Europe), talked about the Iron Curtain, and then I briefly introduced the Truman Doctrine. We’ll talk more about this on w. 38. I gave you a small excerpt from the speech Truman made, which talked about two “worlds” or societies. And then I gave you the following list.

1.	-  a judicial system (courts/domstolar) that is independent from the government or any single political party
2.	- an independent news media (not controlled by the government or a single political party)
3.	- a TV channel that delivers propaganda for the government
4.	- independent publishers (förlag), where the publishing of books is not subject to government approval
5.	- the ability to move freely within the country
6.	- a secret police that has the right to take you into custody in secret
7.	- elections where the winning candidate has won by 99%
8.	- the ability to check out books from the library without fear that the government will know what you’re reading
9.	- the ability to exhibit art or perform music or drama of all kinds without getting approval first from the government
10.	- the ability to send material to others without fear that the government will intercept it
11.	- the threat of imprisonment or other punishment (e.g., being sent to labor camps) as a consequence of criticizing the government or ruling party
12.	- the threat of not getting a job, a promotion, entrance into school — for yourself or your family — as a consequence of criticizing the government or ruling party
13.	- a school curriculum (läroplan) independent from political parties
14.	- the opportunity to run for political office without fear of intimidation (hotelser)
15.	- the right to import literature, films, and music from other countries
16.	- the right to practice a religion, including attending church and participating in religious ceremonies
17.	- an educational system where entrance to programs and determination of grades are based on performance (how well you perform on tests and in courses) rather than on connections (knowing the right people) or bribery
18.	- forced-labor camps where people can be sent — and likely tortured — as a way to encourage people to not cross the government

You were to think about the issues in the list in connection with the two worlds, but you were also supposed to think about them in connection with society today.

Tuesday

We focused on issues connected to the U.S. and the Soviet Union coming out of the war. Below I’ve written some of these points in brief, but they aren’t going to mean anything without your notes. But if you are uncertain what we discussed or why it’s important, that’s something you want to ask about:

-       the need to re-build Europe after WWII

-       the geographical importance of Germany. (It’s in the middle of Europe!)

-       lessons learned from WWI

-       the division of Germany between the U.S., GB, France and the Soviet Union

-       why the Soviet Union didn’t want help from the U.S. in rebuilding (see additional capitalism & communism points below)

-       the introduction of a new currency into the American, British, and French sectors of Germany

-       the Berlin Blockade & Airlift (see YouTube clip below)

LIBERAL CAPITALISM	COMMUNISM
- embraces free trade (that is, it is easy to trade because there are few tariff barriers) - few obstacles to the free flow of capital and goods - embraces civil liberties - embraces individual freedom	- hostility toward world capitalist system and international economics - wants to abolish market economies - interests of the Soviet Union go ahead of interests of the individual - working class is heroized (treated as heroes)

Books

Here are some of the books I've brought to class to show you:

Available as pdf here

w. 36

W. 36

FRIDAY

We started with a little quiz, which most people did well on. :)

The term "market economy" tripped up some people, which I knew might happen. I had not written that down during our previous lesson. A market economy describes an economic system where industries respond to the market -- that is, how many products are being sold. Thus, a market economy is one where supply and demand determine prices and access to goods. Thus . . . a market economy is the basis of capitalism.

Some people got confused regarding freedom of speech/press as well as having multiple political parties. Communist countries are one-party states. There are not democratic systems that allow for multiple political parties. And one of the ways that this is achieved is through limiting freedom of speech and information. So communist countries do not have freedom of speech/press, and they do not have multiple political parties that are freely and fairly represented in the government or parliament (riksdag).

Please review the table on capitalism and communism posted here on the blog (w. 35).

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We also discussed:

Axis countries vs. Allies

Axis Germany Italy Japan

Allies Great Britain France United States Soviet Union

Great Britain and France were militarily fighting against Germany more or less from the beginning of the war. The Soviet Union got pulled into the war when Germany attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The United States got pulled into the war after it was attacked at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.

Obvsiously, Japan in not in Europe, but because Japan was allied with Germany and Italy, the United States chose to fight not only against Japan in Asia, but also against Germany along with Great Britain in Europe -- which Great Britain had long been hoping would happen, as Great Britain was more or less fighting alone until the U.S. joined them.

We talked about the fact that the Western armies (U.S. + GB) attacked Germany and Italy from the West, and the Soviet army (also known as the Red Army) attacked Germany from the east. (See the map on p. 942.)

After World War II, we'll see that the Soviet Union will have political and economic control over those countries in eastern Europe that it helped to liberate.

After World War II, the political and economic ideologies of the United States (along with Great Britain and France) will dominate western Europe, which they helped liberate.


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Atlantic Charter

During the war, before the United States was even fighting in the war, the president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the prime minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, secretly met on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean to discuss what should happen with  Europe once the war was over (and they had won). They laid out a series of eight points, and these together became known as the Atlantic Charter.

You'll find this on Vklass, but I'll post it here, too.:
(some vocabulary and a Swedish summary follow)

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THE ATLANTIC CHARTER (1941)

“President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill held a highly secret meeting on board a warship off Argentina, Newfoundland, from 9–12 August 1941 to discuss post-war peace objectives. Its outcome was this charter.” (Origins of the Cold War, p. 122)

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THE ATLANTIC CHARTER

Joint declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.

First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;

Fourth, they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;

Fifth, they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security;

Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want;

Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;

Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Winston S. Churchill

Source: Samuel Rosenman, ed., Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol.10 (1938-1950), 314.

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http://usinfo.org/docs/democracy/53.htm

Some vocabulary + a Swedish summary:

aggrandizement – increase power, status, or wealth – or land, in this case

in accord with – according to

sovereign rights – the rights and privileges of a nation

pending – awaiting

From Wikipedia:

Deklarationen bestod av åtta punkter:

1. Storbritannien och Förenta staterna skulle inte söka att få territoriella vinster
2. Alla territoriella förändringar skulle ske i samförstånd med folk som berörs därav
3. Alla nationer har rätt till självbestämmande
4. Handelshinder skall motverkas
5. Det skall tas fram ett globalt ekonomiskt samarbete för socialt välstånd
6. Frihet från begär och fruktan
7. Frihet för haven
8. Avväpning av aggressiva nationer och allmän nedrustning efter kriget

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Lastly, we noted where we'll be going with the Cold War:

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 Events of the Cold War

(Atlantic Charter)

Post-WWII division of Germany 
United Nations - 1945 - (still exists)
Berlin Blockade/Airlift -1948
Truman Doctrine - 1947
Marshall Plan - 1948
Korean War - 1950-53
NATO - 1949 - (still exists)
Warsaw Pact - 1955-1991
Hungarian Revolution - 1956
Berlin Wall - 1961-1989
Cuban Missile Crisis - 1962
Prague Spring - 1968
Vietnam War - post-WWII- 1975

Lastly, here's Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech, given in 1946 in Fulton, Missouri

And here's the text of what he's saying in this clip:

 From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.


You can find the full text of the speech here.

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TUESDAY

We continued with Capitalism + Communism

We then discussed different issues connected with the Soviet Union from the early 1920s through World War II.

-       Soviet industrialization

-       totalitarianism

-       propaganda and censorship

-       Holodomor

-       1939 German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact

-       1940 Katyn Massacre

Slides from this part of the lecture are on Vklass: “Slides 5 Sept.”

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We looked at some images of the devastation in Europe during World War II. I then read from the introduction to the book Savage Continent: Europe in the Aftermath of World War II by Keith Lowe. (This text is also uploaded on Vklass: “Savage Continent Introduction.”)

The point was to help you understand how utterly destroyed much of Europe was after WWII. Not all of Europe was in this horrible of a state – for example, Sweden, which was not directly involved in the war did not suffer such destruction. And even on the continent, some places were hit harder than others. But much of Europe were devastated and took a very long time to get “up and running” again.


This week, as we are talking about the end of WWII, this was in the news:

You can read the article here