Nader Furrha

Sunday, Aug 9, 2009

Russian’s Military Importance Not At Top

The Russian military in 1947 was of crucial importance to the

citizens of The Soviet Union. The government also believed that the

Soviet Union military was the most important in its country’s success.

Russia is a poor country but what they do have money for is their

military. They spend so much money on their military that they barely

use enough on its agriculture and its industries. They had very low

money to get food they needed government help. They are going to

use less money on military spending to use more money on

agriculture and their economy. That shows you how desperate the

soviet government was(Proquest). They had to cut down on something

very important to them like their army to support the economy that

was at one of its lowest its been at in a long time. Even though the

economy was at a low and people were trying to survive the military

was still very important to its citizens and the government. The

importance of military strength to the Soviet Union in a fact that they

had to cut back on it to help with agriculture and the economy shows

how desperate the Russian’s situation was.

 In the past the Russian military has been very powerful so that’s

why its very important to them. In the picture on page 110 of John

Steinbeck’s A Russian Journal there is a little boy and his father staring

at a large military tank. The tank once belonged to the Germans and

was taken by Soviet Army. As they stare they seem to be very amazed

at the type of weapons and military accessories their Russian army

has. It excites the little boy and his father to see what a powerful army

they have. In the picture to show how important their military is to

them they have their military equipmentlaid out for the citizens to see

what they captured. Kids from Russia were having boat races to show

how excited they were when their father came back home with military

equipment from Germany. Russian government spends so much

money on their military so that its army will be the strongest and they

forget about the Russian agriculture. They need to begin to notice that

their economy is going down because they don’t have enough money

to support it because they spend so much on their military. That’s how

you know how serious Russia is about taking care of their land with

military action. Then the government realizes that their people need

help. They need a government back up.

A decrease in armed forces takes place in the Soviet Union. Not

a heavy strong decrease but a steady decrease to get things moving

on the right path. This steady decrease contributes to the labor pool.

The government also then increases expenditures on industry and

agriculture. This will give a lot of money to the farms to help people

grow crops to raise animals and produce consumer goods. “ The

increase in spending money on scientific research and investigation,

which takes advantage of tremendous strides made in many scientific

fields during world war two”(Proquest). The plan the soviets had of

cutting down on the military expense was to strengthen greatly, the

industryand the agriculture. The Russian agriculture that suffered its

worst drought in fifty years will receive a lot of the money from the

military cuts. The agriculture was at the lowest of low at this point and

the money that it will receive will help greatly not only to the farms but

to the economy. One of the most important and revealing increases

comes under the heading communicationsand transportations. This is

huge for the citizens of Russia. This was a turn that helps the economy

through one of its roughest times and showed that the government did

think about its people. Social security payment plans have increased

to a new level. The progress made by Russian government helped get

more students in schools whichmeant higher educations. Also more

jobs became available for the citizens and the country began to

bounce back from its industry and agricultural drought.

After all this cutting back on military expenses the economy and

agriculturestarted getting better for the Russian’s. The picture on page

176 0f JohnSteinbeck’s A Russian Journal shows the citizens of Russia

getting farm work done. In the picture it’s a very large farm with its
own schools and its own orchestras(Steinbeck176). In the picture the

men look like they are conditioning the land and the women are also

helping with the tea picking. Steinbeck says its because the women’s

fingers were clever. The state farm in the picture looks like it ran like

an American factory. It has the manager who runs the factory to make

sure things run smoothly. It has its employees doing the actual work to

produce food and goods. In the picture each family had its own little

apartment. Its looks like it’s a daily routine for them. The men and the

women both go off to work everyday to support themselves and their

children. The picture shows they have a lot of land for the people to

work and theira lot of people getting their job done. The women

moved across the fields in long lines and sang as they worked and they

were very pictorial( Steinbeck176). The photo seems like it only grows

one thing and that is tea. It was like a factory for growing tea. Like in

America we have lots of factories but they all do different things. In this

picture the product being produced is tea. In Wayne, MI they have a

factory that only produces Ford cars. This compares to the tea factory

they have in Russia. A difference is in Russia its not in closed doors its

all outside. Another different thing is that in Russia they shared the

profits. So its not like they got a paycheck every week showing how

much they made. They make the money then split it.

Russia’s economy was at a low and they were struggling terribly.

The government made the changes needed to be made and turned it

all around, Slowly but surely. They took something that was very

important and dear to them and cut back on its expenses towards it to

give it to some thing that was in more desperate need of it like its

agriculture and its industry. The importance of its military strength was

on hold to put its agriculture and its economy back where it needs to

be.

Nader, the good news here is that the topic you chose could

really work. You also do good work with your photo selection and with

your discussion of Steinbeck in the paper’s final paragraphs. This works

well. The major issue though (and the thing that keeps the paper from

being gradable at this point) is addressed in my comment 13. Read

over the sample papers 3s on CTools (I also sent an email on this) and

look at how the students are presenting their articles and quoting. All

the MLA stuff needs to be observed and we need to have the article set

up and discussed in the paper. Make this your priority for the next

couple of days. I think the paper works other than that but this is a

huge part of the paper that simply isn’t there. Keep at it.

http://proquest.umi.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/pqdweb?index=5&did=88
759243&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQ
T=309&VName=HNP&TS=1249784607&clientId=17822( New York
Times),

John Steinbeck, A Russian Journal, with photography by Robert Capa,

Penguin group 1948.