russia – Explaining History Podcast

The Tsar Liberator and Russia’s Peasants

Hi folks, here’s a quick video I’ve put together for students on the long term causes of the Russian Revolution and the revolutionary period that began in 1861 with the emancipation of the serfs.

Pravda and Stalin’s Terror

Noam Chomsky pointed out when he was observing the role of the press during the Vietnam War, that it had a significant role to play in atrocities. The job of print and broadcast media, he argued, was to legitimise and explain away mass killings and to tell the story of why they were necessary. LookingContinue reading “Pravda and Stalin’s Terror”

Stalin and the Gulags

Here I address the question as the the economic rationale behind the Gulag system and its dismantling after the Stalin era.

Nixon and Kissinger 1968-74

The Watergate Scandal is the first thing most people think of when Richard Nixon’s name is mentioned. Whilst this was the defining point of his presidency, the shadow it casts blots out other important aspects of the years from 1968 to 1974. Nixon’s very own Cardinal Wolsey, Henry Kissinger, came to exert an enormous amountContinue reading “Nixon and Kissinger 1968-74”