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In present day Volgograd, one of the largest Second World War memorials in the world stands. The city, once known as Stalingrad, is home the gigantic concrete and steel sculpture, The Motherland Calls, which was built in 1967, eleven years after Stalin himself had been denonced and disgraced by his successor. The immense losses that the USSR suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany and its allies will shape Russian memory for centuries to come and this podcast explores the creation of the memorials
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John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson both saw Vietnam as the vital frontline in America’s struggle against communism, but it was Chinese, as opposed to Soviet communism they were most concerned about. The widely accepted ‘Domino Theory’ which postulated that one country in Asia after another would fall to the communist rule was widely accepted across the administrations of both presidents, and it was also a vision that Mao and his inner circle hoped for. However, the lack of understanding about Ind
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In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the French Fourth Republic commenced a purge of former members of the wartime Vichy regime that had collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. However, by 1947, under the new conditions of the Cold War, the enthusiasm for anti fascist trials had waned and instead anti communism replaced it. This was accompanied by a swift revival of prewar fascist movements such as Action Francais, but the most successful figure on the fascist right by the 1950s was
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From 1932 to 1952 the Republican Party was unable to win a presidential election in the United States of America. The economic model that they had championed for much of the 1920s and which had only been partially abandoned by Herbert Hoover in 1931-32 was ditched far too late and was replaced firstly by Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and then the enormous state intervention required by the Second World War. The economist Yanis Varoufakis succinctly summed up the outcome of the conflict when he said that fascism was crushed by a combination of StalinStalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878…
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There are numerous competing histooriographies of the Stalinist terror, which peaked in 1937. The pretext of the assassination of Kirov, that Stalin may well have had a hand in was simply that, an excuse for Stalin to shore up his own personal power by targeting for the first time the party itself. The disaster of collectivisation and the failure of the Soviet famines left Stalin highly vulnerable in 1934, an experience he would never forget nor allow to be repeated. Explaining History helps yo
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Anti communism became a defining aspect of American politics during the 1940s and 1950s, not just for the right wing of the Republican Party, but also for the Democrats and the liberal intelligentsia and journalists the traditionally supported the party. They shifted to the right throughout the period, and whilst some decried McCarthy’s methods, others began to lend them tacit and then vocal support. Liberals saw communism as antithetical to their beliefs and believed it could and should be resi
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The Second World War was a national humiliation for France, enduring occupation, collaboration with the Nazis and Vichy complicity in the Holocaust. The violent purge of collaborationists after the war saw tens of thousands of mainly low level members of Vichy and the French civilians who had been friendly with the occupying Germans assaulted, imprisoned or killed. High profile collaborators like Peirre Laval were tried and executed, whereas other fascist figures evaded justice and re-emerged as
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The conquest of the Soviet Union was an idea that had been at the forefront of HItler’s thoughts since the 1920s. Exploiting the resources of Russia and the Ukraine for the benefit of Germany was not a new concept and it had most recently been tried during the last year of the First World War. Hitler and Himmler had grand visions of a transformed landscape, full of vast German cities, relying on Russian slaves to work the land for German farmers. When the USSR didn’t collapse quite as readily as
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In 1937 many Soviet citizens had traumatic memories of collectivisation, anti Kulak campaigns and famine from the period 1928-33. Many could sense that a new time of crisis was emerging and saw the arrest of party members as the beginnings of a dramatic change. Few had any knowledge of how indescriminate and far reaching the terror would become, as the regime searched endlessly for imagined enemies within. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations an
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One of the defining features of American political discourse in the 21st Century is the almost unstoppable rise of political lying. Throughout the Obama presidency an ecosystem of right wing think tanks, commentators and of course Fox News has propagated everything from willful distortions of events and selective readings of policy to outright fabrication. Donald Trump recognised the political potential of this when he became the centre of the ‘birther’ movement, which alleged that Barack Obama was not born in the USA and was ineligible to be president. Conspiracy theories in American politics have deep roots, however and one of…