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During the 1930s over 100,000 American workers left the USA and crossed the Atlantic to the USSR. There they worked in automobile plants and other industrial enterprises of Stalin’s Five Year Plans. The crisis of capitalism that was evident through the great depression and the seeming dynamism of Stalin’s USSR and its rapid construction of industry convinced many that Soviet communism was the future. This podcast explores the fortunes of Stalin’s American guest workers, many of whom took Soviet
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The British political class has clung on to a fantasy of its own relevance in Washington DC for decades. The special relationship that British Prime Ministers like to refer to (a bond that perhaps existed for Roosevelt and Churchill) has been an article of faith in Downing Street for decades but not in the White House. During the second Trump presidency, it will be exposed as the fiction it is.In 1948, the British finally ended their mandate government over Palestine. As they withdrew a vicious
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In 1948, the British finally ended their mandate government over Palestine. As they withdrew a vicious civil war between Jewish and Arab communities began, followed by a full invasion by the Arab League when the state of Israel had been declared. The British had created the tensions through their handling of Jewish immigration. This episode reads from Kenneth O.Morgan’s The People’s Peace.I will be running a livestream Q&A for students on Wednesday November 20th. You can access it here, subscrib
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This is part six of the Explaining History study course based on the AQA A level history module Revolution and Dictatorship: Russia 1917-53.In this episode we explore Lenin’s creation of a new regime after the October Revolution and the beginnings of revolutionary terror and the civil war that would devastate Russia.I will be running a livestream Q&A for students on Wednesday November 20th. You can access it here, subscribe to the channel to get your reminder.Help the podcast to continue bringin
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In the late summer of 1914 a war began that was largely unexpected, unwanted and which lasted for four years, destroying the European civilisation that existed beforehand, along with large parts of the continent, the Middle East and Africa. It spawned two brutal regimes in the guise of Nazi Germany and the USSR, along with generations of physically and mentally traumatised men. This podcast, drawn from the Adam Hochschild book To End All Wars, explores the legacy of and the destructive power of
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In 1989 the Cold War came to an unanticipated and unexpectedly peaceful end, the wars that both sides imagined would happen between the USSR and the west did not occur and a new world order rapidly formed in American and European interests in the long 1990s, only collapsing between 2008 and 2016. This exploration of the late 1980s and 1990s is told through the excellent book Post Wall, Post Square by Kristina Spohr.I will be running a livestream Q&A for students on Wednesday November 20th. You c
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In the early 1950s there was an unprecedented level of political organisation in the Gulag system amongst prisoners who were able to find out about the events of the outside world and deal brutally with camp informants. In this episode we explore Anne Applebaum’s Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps to understand this transition that led to uprisings following the death of Stalin that became almost impossible for the camp authorities to control.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history e
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By early 1942 Nazi Germany was facing a moment of crisis when it came to the production of munitions and other equipment. The inherent chaos of the regime, Hitler’s selection of favourites who knew how to tell him only what he wanted to hear, along with the soaring war production of the USA, UK and USSR led to the appointment of Albert Speer as Minister for Armaments.Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining History podcast and its many years of conte
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By March 1917 a new system of dual power had established itself in the capital city Petrograd. The Provisional Government, a group comprised of the Tsar’s former ministers who refused to disband, and the Petrograd Soviet, a meeting of delegates from the committees established in factories and army regiments, existed in an uneasy partnership with one another. This episode of our AQA Revolution and Dictatorship 1917-53 study course explores in depth these two organisations and how their dysfunctio
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What happened when news of the Russian Revolution reached the empire’s rural areas? How did the largely non literate peasantry interact with this change? How did the Russian Orthodox Church carry the message of the revolution? What did the empire’s non Russian and non Christian peoples make of it? This episode explores the chaotic and fragmented way in which Russian society encountered revolutionary change. Help the podcast to continue bringing you history each weekIf you enjoy the Explaining Hi