Collapse of Zimbabwe

By: Paul Ji

 

Zimbabwe, like many other countries in history, collapsed when a financial crisis hit it.  Although it’s economy appears to be stabilising after years of crisis rampant inflation, shortages of food due to agricultural productions decrease are ubiquitous.  According to the CIA World Factbook, Zimbabwe’s economy economy recorded a real growth of 6% in the course of a decade.

For quite a long period of time, Zimbabwe was known as the “jewel” of Africa because it was abundant in natural resources and productive farmland.  Not only that, they were leading manufacturers, had a strong banking sector, vibrant tourism, and more dams than any other Sub-Saharan countries.  Such economy lead to a strong GDP growth of 4.3% annually.  However, everything started change at the end of the 1990’s when Mugabe started the land reform.

Mugabe, was the veteran pro-independence leader who won the British-supervised independence elections, declared that the large farmlands owned by the white “settlers” were stolen from the native people of Zimbabwe.  Although some of Mugabe’s advisers knew better than to upend property rights and advised him against him, Mugabe authorized the seizure of nearly all of the 4,500 commercial farms.

These farms made up 60% of the country’s economy, and just as the advisers expected, the farmland seizures resulted in a pullout of foreign investment, defaults on farm bank loans, and a massive decline in agricultural production.  As the production went down, the prices of food went up simultaneously.  Mugabe, in order to stay in power, tried to coin money in order to match the rise of the cost of food.

Within one year, the majority of the financial investors fled because they did not want to risk their business being seized, dozens of banks collapsed, commercial farmland lost an estimate of three-quarters of its aggregate value, and the demise of the agricultural sector led to a widespread famine.  The Zimbabwean government tried to blame the country’s economic collapse on Western conspiracies, racism, and the continuous years of drought, but everybody knew what had caused the economic collapse.

As a result, the exorbitant amount of inflation was so bad that at point, the inflation rate surged to 3,732%. In order to tackle the inflation crisis, they brought in a new currency.  Ten billion dollars in the old Zimbabwe currency became one zimdollar dollar.

Over the last few years, the Zimbabwe’s economy settled down a little bit, but they are still in a lot of political uncertainty.  They are hoping that they would be reform their whole economic system and stabilize a constant GDP growth.

Works Cited

-“Zimbabwe Profile.” BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14113249 (accessed September 21, 2012).

-“Africa: Zimbabwe.” CIA World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/zi.html (accessed September 21, 2012).

-Richardson, Craig. “How the Loss of Property Rights Caused Zimbabwe’s Collapse.” CATO Institute. http://www.cato.org/publications/economic-development-bulletin/how-loss-property-rights-caused-zimbabwes-collapse (accessed September 21, 2012).

Collapse of Mexico

By: Ibis Almada

 

The Mexican Revolution started with the conflicts between the Liberals and the Conservatives. They had fought an intense war with tons violence and destruction. The costs of the war bankrupted Mexico’s economy, and therefore Juárez, the current president, was not able to pay the foreign loans of the country. After receiving help from the U.S and fighting to make the French leave the country he was able to regain the economic stability.

Then came Porfirio Diaz, who was the main direct cause of the revolt and collapse of 1910. Diaz continued the reforms from Juárez. He developed industries, modernized the agriculture and mining with new technology. Economy grew and foreign trade increased, but later on he created massive inequality in Mexican society; close to a 90% of the land was owned by foreigners, which gave them huge involvement in the Mexican economy. Two strikes in Mexico, one against the Cananea Copper Company in Sonora and the second at the Rio Blanco textile mills in Veracruz, created national political discontent. Consequent to these events, serious financial troubles disrupted the last years of the Diaz dictatorship.

When Diaz was forced out of power Zapata took over and seized southern haciendas and divided them with peasants farmers, trying to fix the inequalities that Diaz had caused. Sadly Mexico again became involved in ruinous violence. A civil war broke out between Huerta’s forces with Villa in the North and Zapata in the South. In 1920 Obregón was elected president and in the next four years put down several rebellions and built a new consensus among the leading forces of the revolution.

The revolution created a sense of nationalism for the Mexicans and the leading force for the economic and cultural change.

Work Cited

Graseck, Susan. Caught between two worlds: Mexico and the Crossroads. Edited by Julia Liu.

Collapse of China

By: Katherine Szetu

 

During the Qing Dynasty there wasn’t a national army but rather regional armies. Out of all the armies the most powerful was the northern-based Beiyang army under Yuan Shikai. In 1911 the Xinhai revolution took place and rebels establish a provisional government in Nanjing under Sun Yatsen’s command. Since the revolutionist were not strong enough to defeat Beiyang army they decided to do a deal with Yuan Shikai, who was incharge of Beiyang army. The negotiation was to end the reign of the Quing and unify China, and Yuan to become president. However, Yuan became authoritarian and the south rebelled again but they were too weak. In 1915 he wanted to become emperor and the south rebelled again, but this time Yuan was by himself because his commanders had abandoned him. He died in 1916 and left china fractured politically.The warlord era began.

This era lasted from 1916-1928 when the country was divided into military cliques. Each warlord owned a piece of land as small as a district or as big as a province and they ruled it however they wanted.They governed with terror and exploited the people by taxing them really high. They fought with each other often in order to obtain land and were always recruiting people for their armies. However, their soldiers were not trusted people because they fought for the person that paid them the most.They killed many people, destroyed farms, and worsen the economy. While this warlords were fighting for land, in the north warlords were fighting for the control of Peking, the capital. Claiming that they wanted to unify China. The warlord period delayed China’s development, increased suffering and political disorder, since the people with military were the ones that could rule.

Work Cited

-“Warlord Era.” Cultural China. http://history.cultural-china.com/en/34History7222.html (assessed September 9, 2012).

Collapse of Soviet Union

By: John Mark Shorack

In 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly known as the USSR, dissolved. This was not due to economic or political failure, it was the liberation and democratization of the states inside the USSR that led to its collapse (Brown 2011).

At the time of the fall, the USSR was already falling behind in terms of technological advances, and their economy was suffering severely (Brown 2011).

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, during his time still tried to restore the Soviet Union and stabilize its economy (History 2012). But, three fatal transformations inside the Soviet Union let them to collapse.

First of all, the breakdown of the “Command Economy.” The Command Economy is where the government controls everything. From how much you make of each product, to how much your price is. During Gorbachev’s ruling, he slowly started giving more freedom to the companies, but this backfired. There was no other stable economy in the USSR that was not a command economy, so the new freedoms did not help (Brown 2011).

Secondly, another fatal transformation were open elections for a new legislative. In these elections many pro-Soviet leaders lost, and some anti-Soviet leaders one. This turned out to be more of a problem than it seemed, because soon there was freedom of Speech, and even Freedom of Press. Even banned books started being printed. This was a step towards democratization, but it went farther than intended (Brown 2011).

The third, and final transformation that led to the fall of the Soviet Union, was when the Eastern European Soviet Satellites had their own elections and Communist leaders lost. Each country, slowly, had their own election and decided to move away from the Soviet Union, and become independent. This however was not the last fatal death of the USSR (Brown 2011) .

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics finally dissolved in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin, demanded for Russia’s sovereignty. This caused shock over all of the Soviet Union, but in the end without a shot being fired, Russia became sovereign, and the USSR collapsed (Brown 2011).

Works Cited

-Brown, Archie. “BBC – History – World Wars: Reform, Coup and Collapse: The End of the Soviet State.” BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/soviet_end_01.shtml (accessed September 9, 2012).

-A&E Television Networks, LLC.. “Fall of the Soviet Union” History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts.” History.com “History Made Every Day ” American & World History. http://www.history.com/topics/fall-of-soviet-union (accessed September 9, 2012).