Day 132 - I'm Stallin
Today in WHAP we had a guest lecture on communism from Mr. Eppig.
Before we get started on this, I have a statement to make. An Open Letter to Mr. Profitt - Now, I know that over here at WHAPJACK we tend to take a lot of shots at Mr. Profitt with little snarky remarks here and there, to liven up the atmosphere. However, right now I'd like to thank Mr. Profitt. Why, you may ask? Well, the reason is that Mr. Profitt didn't schedule a reading quiz on Friday, allowing me to be able to watch the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War tomorrow night instead of having to study for a reading quiz. So, thank you Mr. Profitt for your helpful scheduling. Much appreciated! Best wishes, Jack Corrales.
Mr. Eppig started class off with a power point presentation, using the quote "I believe in one thing only, the power of human will."
The first slide was Collectivization, which had three subsections apart of it: The Five Year Plan, De-Kulakization, and Kokholz. The Five Year Plan was a list of Stalin's economic goals. Kulakization, rather dekulakization as we found out was the arrests and executions of wealthy peasants. Then, Kokholz was a sort of collective farm where everyone would pitch in and work together.
He then moved onto the story of a grain farm who hid some of hid crops, in order to sustain himself and his family. He was found out, put in a show trial, and then sent off to Siberia. Fear tactics were frequently used and were effective during this time to keep order.
The first five year plan was centered around implementing a new economic policy and the Gosplan. The Gosplan was essentially about circumventing issues due to their lack of industrialization... they weren't used to making tanks so it was difficult to make a whole bunch of them, which is why they weren't as well prepared for the war as other more industrialized countries.
So, to the Russians at the time, Stalin portrayed himself as some sort of father figure, and replaced all religious iconography with iconography of himself. In fact, it was very common for people to have a picture of Stalin in their house. Essentially, he was deified, and transcended his title.
Universalism was the next mentioned topic. At this time, Russia was nationalist in form but socialist in context. They were all technically socialist, but practiced their own nationalism.
Vilification is essentially ethic minorities. Eventually, these "minorities" were completely taken away or no longer given, like religion slowly being cut out of society.
So the final thing we talked about during class would be the Jewish/Zionist doctors. Initially, these doctors were blamed for Stalin getting sick so they where all promptly shipped off to Siberia and killed. Then, later when he was actually sick, there were no legit doctors to treat him so college students who just graduated had to care for him. Basically, if there were good doctors there he could have been saved. He died, and his funeral was a very elaborate presentation for the whole country.
Something I haven't talked about on here, but probably should mention would be the AP exam. In terms of what I'm doing to study, I'm going to watch all the crash course videos the day before the exam as my sole form of studying just so I can comment "Like this if you're studying this the day before the AP test", and really rep the procrastinating spirit. (Seriously though, go look at the comments of a CC video and it's either procrastinators or someone mad at John Green.)
With that, the bell rang and we were dismissed. Until Tomorrow!
Before we get started on this, I have a statement to make. An Open Letter to Mr. Profitt - Now, I know that over here at WHAPJACK we tend to take a lot of shots at Mr. Profitt with little snarky remarks here and there, to liven up the atmosphere. However, right now I'd like to thank Mr. Profitt. Why, you may ask? Well, the reason is that Mr. Profitt didn't schedule a reading quiz on Friday, allowing me to be able to watch the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War tomorrow night instead of having to study for a reading quiz. So, thank you Mr. Profitt for your helpful scheduling. Much appreciated! Best wishes, Jack Corrales.
Mr. Eppig started class off with a power point presentation, using the quote "I believe in one thing only, the power of human will."
The first slide was Collectivization, which had three subsections apart of it: The Five Year Plan, De-Kulakization, and Kokholz. The Five Year Plan was a list of Stalin's economic goals. Kulakization, rather dekulakization as we found out was the arrests and executions of wealthy peasants. Then, Kokholz was a sort of collective farm where everyone would pitch in and work together.
He then moved onto the story of a grain farm who hid some of hid crops, in order to sustain himself and his family. He was found out, put in a show trial, and then sent off to Siberia. Fear tactics were frequently used and were effective during this time to keep order.
The first five year plan was centered around implementing a new economic policy and the Gosplan. The Gosplan was essentially about circumventing issues due to their lack of industrialization... they weren't used to making tanks so it was difficult to make a whole bunch of them, which is why they weren't as well prepared for the war as other more industrialized countries.
So, to the Russians at the time, Stalin portrayed himself as some sort of father figure, and replaced all religious iconography with iconography of himself. In fact, it was very common for people to have a picture of Stalin in their house. Essentially, he was deified, and transcended his title.
Universalism was the next mentioned topic. At this time, Russia was nationalist in form but socialist in context. They were all technically socialist, but practiced their own nationalism.
Vilification is essentially ethic minorities. Eventually, these "minorities" were completely taken away or no longer given, like religion slowly being cut out of society.
So the final thing we talked about during class would be the Jewish/Zionist doctors. Initially, these doctors were blamed for Stalin getting sick so they where all promptly shipped off to Siberia and killed. Then, later when he was actually sick, there were no legit doctors to treat him so college students who just graduated had to care for him. Basically, if there were good doctors there he could have been saved. He died, and his funeral was a very elaborate presentation for the whole country.
Something I haven't talked about on here, but probably should mention would be the AP exam. In terms of what I'm doing to study, I'm going to watch all the crash course videos the day before the exam as my sole form of studying just so I can comment "Like this if you're studying this the day before the AP test", and really rep the procrastinating spirit. (Seriously though, go look at the comments of a CC video and it's either procrastinators or someone mad at John Green.)
With that, the bell rang and we were dismissed. Until Tomorrow!
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