American, French, Russian Revolution

The American Revolution, French Revolution, and Russian Revolution are known as the three great revolutions in world civilization. There are many things that relate these three revolutions, as well as many things that make them very different than one another. \ The American Revolution had started because of a dispute between the British and the Colonists. Since Britain was the mother country, everything the colonists made went back to Britain. Parliament started to tax the colonists on many items that were not taxed in the past. The colonists put up a fight that, if, parliament could make laws for the colonists then the colonists should have representation so their views are being looked at as well. One of the first and most famous acts is the Stamp Act of 1765. This Act enraged colonists and was quickly repealed after being put into affect. The second act was the Navigation acts, this stated that the commerce between Britain and the new world that was once not being watched will now be on a very close watch and tightly enforced. In 1783 the Paris Treaty stated that the 13 former colonists were now sovereign states and equal to all others. Most of the white males were able to vote and hold office in the new democratic government rather then following a monarchy. The people of the new world tried making forms of government starting with the Articles of Confederation.

The French Revolution had started in 1789, because of a dispute over finances and taxation. The money issues stemmed from a series of wars between France and Britain, France and Austria, and France and Prussia. Due to the costly wars more taxes had to be paid, but whom were they going to tax? In France the middle class and peasants were taxed much higher before all of the wars had happened. The church and nobles had to pay almost nothing in taxes. There were three estates in France. The first estate being clergy, the second being nobles and the third was all of the people that were not in the church or held nobility. In 1789 the estates met up outside of Paris at Versailles, they argued about voting. The third estate said that “ one man, one vote”, which means that the majority held the most votes, while the other two estates disagreed. They called in King Louis XVI, he decided with the Third estate.

Next in line for the third estate was a constitution. This would mean that they would be able to stand for themselves and there would be no more absolute monarchy once a constitution was in place. The poor or lower class took the lead. Many people wanted a constitutional monarchy like England has. The Parisian mob took control and collected a group of radicals, mostly being the underclass. The assembly was forced to listen to the group and give in to the demands of the poor. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen was much more then the Bill of Rights that was created during the American Revolution. Towards the end of 1791, the new constitution was finished and ready to be put into affect. Powers were shared between the king and parliament. Parliament even had some stronger power over the king.

The Russian Revolution started around the end of world war one. Russia had lost a lot of territory to Germany and Austria. Generals and the higher class were not reliable in the military and were completely incompetent. There were food riots all over Russia and the troops refused to listen to their superiors. The March Revolution was one of the three revolutions that Russia had during this time period. The Tsar Nicholas the second removed himself from the throne. The Duma, or Parliament of Russia were ignored and held no power up until this point. They took over the government and called themselves the Provisional Government. The Provisional government was set up to make a Democratic constitution and have free elections. Alexander Kerensky was elected president. He believe that the only way to end the war was to have a victorious peaceful ending.

The peasants which make up more then half of the population wanted the war to end whether it was victorious or not. They were sick of loosing their sons and stated that they refused to grow crops and make goods as long as the war was still going on. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, which had about 100,000 members out of the 160 million people in Russia. He went head to head against Kerensky over power and leadership of Russia. In October Lenin got his group together and convinced them to take control of the government. He eventually took over and created the Bolshevik Dictatorship, using military force. The differences of the Revolutions were that the American revolution was very little fighting when it came to separating from the British. The French Revolution and Russian revolution had a lot of violence involved.

The American, French, and Russian Revolutions were very similar in that they were all the first of revolutions to do new things. For example the American revolution was the first to have colonies be separated from the mother land and became states with a democracy and their own set of laws. The French Revolution was the first to over throw a monarchy, and the Russian Revolution was the first to have a communist revolution. In other words to over throw the Tzar for a communist government.

For Neda is a documentary about a young woman that lives in Iran, She was shot and it was recorded using a cell phone and posted on you tube. The documentary tells you about Neda’s life and the Iranian government. Neda was a strong woman that didn’t always follow her countries beliefs. She was very outspoken and would get in trouble for not being dressed properly while out in public. When Neda was in high school she would fight with the teachers about wearing the chador, she won this fight and was excused from wearing it during school. It was time for a new presidential election, and many Iranians wanted a new president rather then Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mir Hossein Mousavi was running for the presidential position and had many followers. Iran does not have a proper system for counting votes like many countries do. They count by hand and trust in the people that are counting them. In just six hours they votes were in, which is nearly impossible with over a million voters. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won over 60 percent of the votes, which again was nearly impossible due to the fact that more then half of the population did not want him to return as president and everyone was hoping for Mir Hossein Mousavi. In the City of Terhan millions of people gathered after the election to protest the bad election, Neda being one of them.

They walked the street for days protesting and saying how unfair it was and how corupt the government was. Neda was out with her music teacher. The streets were flooded with military and many people were being beaten. Once they charged the civilians Neda and her teacher ran with the many others being chased. She was shot and died in the streets for standing up for what she believed in. In my eyes there are many questions raised from this documentary. How could one man have so much power and control over a country when there are millions of people that don’t agree with him? When will it be enough and how many lives will be lost before they are able to make a change? Will Iran get a new system for voting that is more accurate and will not lie.? I strongly feel that iran will be the next “great” revolution because there are many people living in that country that do not agree with the government. Its only a matter of time before the people that disagree with the government form together and speak up for their belifes to the president. Although I don’t personally feel that this will happen soon, I do see it happening in the future.

The Three Great Revolutions and the DVD have a lot in common with each other. The three great revolutions were the first revolutions to do that they did. The dvd shows that in Iran there could be a revolution just like these in the near future.