-
By 1949 the development of a communist state in China radically changed the fortunes of France in Vietnam, a shift in dynamics that made the war for France virtually un-winnable. In 1950, a well armed Democratic Republic of Vietnam Army inflicted devastating losses on the French along the Chinese border, supported by Chinese supplies and training. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If
-
The Communist Party of Great Britain was established in 1920 and was heavily influenced by Comintern, the Communist International organisation in Moscow. Lenin was interested in shaping the party in Britain and other European countries, imposing the principal of democratic centralism on party members. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.
-
The Nazis always intended to wage a war of annihilation in the Soviet Union and both soldiers and civilians would die in unprecedented numbers. In the Nazi camps Soviet soldiers were left to starve, but the Soviet political officers, the commissars, were targeted for immediate execution wherever they were discovered. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subs
-
Between the the late 1940s and late 1950s, as Cold War politics swept Europe, the Italian Social Movement, a neo fascist party, tried to merge into the wider parliamentary political right. Using electoral pacts with the other parties of the right, they saw their electability gradually improve, but faced angry resistance on the streets from those with long, bitter memories of Mussolini’s crimes. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert int
-
In the aftermath of the Second World War, a centre right Christian Democratic Party emerged and by 1947 the Communist Party of Italy had been expelled from its coalition. The far right was able to reinvent itself in the Italian south, but were much diminished by the end of the 1940s. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show
-
In order to rule China, Mao knew he needed to dominate the peasantry. In order to do this he divided Chinese peasant villages, creating new social classes in an otherwise socially conservative world that had little experience of such concepts. Mao created a landlord and poor peasant class and gave the latter free reign to terrorise the former (and in many cases educated them to do so). The result was rural anarchy, which only benefitted the Communist Party. Explaining History helps you understan
-
During the 1920s and 1930s, communist parties across Europe and beyond fell under the control, often voluntarily, of Comintern, the Soviet body dedicated to foreign subversion. This podcast explores the prominence that Comintern agents rose to in Eastern Europe after the Second World War how non ‘Moscow Communists’ were viewed with suspicion by Moscow. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present
-
The Stalinist regime, in the mid 1930s brutally purged towns and cities of those they considered to be socially deviant. Beggars, gypsies, prostitutes and thieves were exiled and sent to labour colonies and camps in a bid to change them into ‘productive’ soviet citizens and to socially change the nature of soviet towns and cities. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the sho
-
The origins of Stalin’s imitators, admirers and henchmen in Eastern Europe is explored in this podcast. Walter Ulbricht of East Germany, Boleslaw Beirut of Poland and Matyas Rakosi of Hungary respectively were the first generation of post war Stalinists to rule Eastern Europe, but their long association with Soviet communism from 1919 onwards through Comintern made them trusted and loyal candidates for power. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations
-
Initially, Mao proceeded with caution against the social enemies of the Communist Party, using the tools of state repression left behind by Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang. Assigning a new legal social class status to all Chinese citizens saw many later condemned to forced labour, imprisonment Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support t