To Compare The Lives Of Ordinary Citizens In The 1920s And 1930s

The life of a citizen in 1920’s and 1930’s in the USSR and USA
In this essay I am going to compare the lives of ordinary citizens in 1920’s and 1930’s in the USSR and USA.
Let’s begin with the USA. In the 1920’s many europeans envied the people of USA because the standard of living was the highest it had ever been. The American workers were earning on avarage nearly twice as much money as workers in any other country in the world.
The manufacturers started using assembly lines in factories to make producing goods faster and cheaper. Even ordinary citizens were able to buy these modern ‘gadgets’.
Herbert Hoover, who was president at the time believed that with a lot of hard work and a bit of good fortune, anyone could make money. Ordinary
American factories were overproducing goods and profits were beginning to fall. As word spread about the falling profits, everyone wanted to sell their shares, but there was no-one to buy them. The crash affected almost everyone. Banks were hit hard when customers who borrowed money to buy shares couldn’t afford to pay it back. The factory owners were also badly affected. They couldn’t sell their goods at home or abroad, so they had to close their factories. Factory closures let to record levels of unemployments. This crash let to the Great Depression.

In 1932 the Americans who were struggling in the Great Depression wanted a change in politics. They did not vote for Hoover any more, but instead chose Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had a reform program called New Deal, which he promised would get USA back on to its feet.
The New Deal helped everyone, the state was given 500 million dollars to help homeless and starving people, New loans were created with very low interest for the people struggling to pay their mortgages, the farmers were paid to produce less to increase the prices of their products and the working conditios of the factory workers were improved and they were allowed to join trade
The Government made five-year plans for each of the country’s main industries. The government set high targets high targets for industries such as coal, steel and oil.
To feed the town workers, Stalin brought in a system of collective farms. Each farm was called a kolkhoz. In these the peasants worked together to fulfil a productive plan. They did not own the land so they could not sell the produce for themselves. All carts, horses, tools and cattle had to be given over to the kolkhoz. Most peasants hated this system, especially the better-off ones called kulaks. So Stalin decided to ‘wipe them out as a class’. Some of the kulaks were shot shot or sent to prison, others were forced to settle on poor-quality land. In totla five million kulaks were wiped out.
In Stalin’s Russia, people were not allowed to think for themselves - they were told what to think by the government. In schools, the childeren were only taught Stalin’s version of the history: for example photographs were retouched. Stalin’s picture appeared everywhere - in schools, offices, factories, town squares and stations. Places were also named after him, such as Stalingrad, Stalinko and Stalino. Radio, films and newspapers were also controlled by the state. As a result the state’s slogan appeared everywhere. Even writers, poets and artists were controlled by the state. The Soviet citizens were tought to believe that Stalin was all-knowing and all-powerful.