Friday, 20.9.1946
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Churchill's speech at
Zurich
As opposition leader, Winston Churchill delivered a speech at the University of Zurich. In Zurich, Churchill spoke about the future of the maltreated and destroyed continent of Europe. To never let such a tragedy happen again, Churchill pleaded for «building a kind of United States of Europe» with the reconciliation of Germany and France as its core. At the time of his famous speech «Let Europe arise!» in Zurich France is not ready for a reconciliation. The wounds of the Nazi’s war crimes were still too fresh. All the more, Churchill needs to be acknowledged for his visionary political thinking. Interestingly, Churchill said that Great Britain won't be part of the United States of Europe but it would assist realizing the project.
Image taken by Zorton Wegener
The creation of the European union
After the speech delivered by Winston Churchill at the University of Zurich, there was a strong thought of the creation of a Union between different countries. France is not in favour because of the recent Nazi attacks. Something that people didn't expected is that Churchill said that Great Britain won't be part of the planned European Union, but it will assist to the different projects. Apart from Churchill other politicians are involved in the European union, like the democrat Konrad Adenauer. As Churchill said, the European Union is mainly to stop the frequent and bloody wars between neighbors. Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are the main countries that are involved in this Union. Economy is another factor that could also increase with time because of the imports and exports of materials between countries as they won't charge custom for trade.
Stalin and his five-year plan
The five year plan of the URSS consisted on an efficient development of the economy. It was developed by the Gosplan based on the "strong productivity theory" which was part of the general directives of the communist party. It helped a lot in the heavy industry, that's why they had a very developed military power in the WWII. This plans consisted on improving the economy each five years, until nowadays there have been 3 plans and the URSS is planning a 4th one. As it succeeded a lot the URSS planned to build a immense railway from Moscow to Vladivostok, almost covering all Asia. This railway was started in 1904 but the construction stopped because of the economic problems during the WWI. As the economy rose in 1938 they considered continuing it.