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In 1973 the Conservative Party and the right of the Labour Party voted to join the European Economic Community or ‘Common Market’ as it was known. Despite opposition on the right and left, the decision to join was ratified by a referendum in 1975, but the political divisions foreshadowed endless political conflict over the issue of European integration in later decades. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the
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By 1950 the French political establishment was in a state of despair about its prospects in Vietnam. The newly reorganised army of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had inflicted defeats on France in 1950 ad Cao Bang on the Vietnam/China border. The involvement of the USA in the war brought badly needed military and financial aid, but placed an intolerable burden on French national pride. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert intervie
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In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, the popularity of international, multilateral organisations such as the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions in America was high. Wartime cooperation was looked upon favourably by most Americans, even though there was a considerable minority who favoured a return to isolationism. The Republican Party and right wing journalists and thinkers saw international cooperation, sympathies towards Britain and wartime cooperation with the USSR as ideal
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In the 1930s the deteriorating world situation presented all major political parties in Britain with profound dilemmas, whether to back pacifism, collective security or appeasement. The peripheral British Union of Fascists advocated peace with Nazi Germany in order to allow Hitler to wage his war against Europe’s Jews. 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 su
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By 1935 the Soviet regime appeared to relax its stance towards citizens deemed to be class enemies and their children. Stalin said: “A son does not answer for the father.” However, persecution of former Kulaks and former members of the Tsarist order continued regardless, as many Soviet employers or teachers did not wish to appear lenient towards ‘social aliens’ in case the political mood changed and they were accused of anti Soviet sympathies. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Ce
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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
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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.
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In the 1960s, splinter groups from the right wing Italian Social Movement began to believe that only a military coup in Italy could save the country from the threat of communism. By the late 1960s they began actively planning and carrying out bombing campaigns across Italy in order to ‘prepare the population’ for direct rule by the army. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy
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As the allied powers deliberated at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, David Lloyd George encouraged the Greek prime minister Venizelos to seize the former Ottoman city of Smyrna. The consequences for the city, once a bastion of religious and cultural tolerance, would be tragic, but to the British simply consequence of a wider imperial game in the near east. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the
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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