Tag Archives: communism

Now the people of Europe began to hear a new sound, a sound that would haunt them throughout the years of war — the wail and shriek of air-raid sirens. At night, the lights of Europe went out and the “blackout” made familiar streets strange places of darkness. Street lamps were left unlit and windows were covered with heavy draperies. Any stray gleam of light might help guide enemy bombers to their targets. Hurrying about their wartime duties, the people of Britain and France began to wonder. They had not wanted war and yet war had come. Why? What had …

The ideas that attracted these Russians came mostly from a man named Karl Marx. Marx was born in Germany in 1818, the son of Jewish parents who had become converted to Christianity. He began the study of law, but soon dropped it to study philosophy. After receiving his degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Jena, he became the editor of a newspaper. When the German government ordered the paper to stop publication, Marx moved to Brussels. He returned to Germany to take part in the unsuccessful revolution of 1848, but by 1850 he had settled in London, …

WHILE INDUSTRY was transforming the United States, the same thing was happening in Western Europe. The change was most noticeable in Germany, because Germany was not unified until 1870, it started to become industrial much later than Great Britain and France, but it soon began to catch up with its neighbours. Within a few decades it was producing more than they were of several key commodities, including the most important one of all, steel. Like the American government, the German government imposed tariffs on foreign manufactures and encouraged its national industry in other ways. The results were much the same …