Explaining History

One of the more overlooked aspects of the history of Soviet Communism is the last years of Trotsky's life at Coyoacan in Mexico. This podcast explores the man and his feuds within his own movement, the plot to assassinate him and his relationships with his patron and eventual enemy Diego Rivera. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert inte...

Japan enjoyed spectacular military successes from December 1941 to February 1942, but from May to November that year was dealt a series of defeats that would ultimately spell doom for the Japanese war effort in the Pacific. Why was the Japanese advance halted in the South Pacific so quickly? Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert intervie...

The Five Year Plans involved and immense bureaucratic effort to industrialise Russia on a massive scale. Beyond the massive cost to the Russian people and the coercion of much of the population, there was also an immense degree of participation and consent in the grand historical undertaking to build socialism. This podcast explores the efforts of the Stakhanovites and other participants in the pl...

Why did so many western intellectuals decide to offer their support to the Soviet Union in the 1930s? Writers like George Bernard Shaw, Freda Kirchwey and left intellectuals like Sidney and Beatrice Webb all gave Stalinism a veneer of legitimacy whilst hoping their own countries would stay steadfastly non communist. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversa...

By the late 19th Century Russia was a rapid increase in acts of terrorism against the state, the assassination of government ministers, bombings of state buildings and attempts (eventually successful) on the lives of the Tsars. The terrorists were well educated members of Russia's middle classes, waging their own war against the state on behalf of Russia's peasants. Why? This Explaining History po...

How did Germany's defeat in World War One lead to a revolution that swept away the Kaiser and result in the rise of a liberal socialist government? What compromises and deals did the new administration make to prevent the spread of communism and how did that affect the development of the republic? Answers to all this and more are here in this Explaining History Podcast. Explaining History helps yo...

Theodor Herzl is credited with being the father of Zionism and the intellectual force behind the founding of the state of Israel, even though he died nearly half a century earlier. How did Herzl's ideas emerge and evolve in the mid to late 19th Century and how was he influenced by the growing climate of intolerance across Europe in the last quarter of the century? Explaining History helps you unde...

How did Germany deal with the legacy of the Holocaust and Nazism? How did West and East German governments address the memory of crimes committed during the war? 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 & Get Exclusive C...

What did ordinary German people know or think about the genocide of the Jewish people? This podcast encourages students of Nazi Germany to move away from simplistic views of German Moralities. 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...

Both Britain and Germany had tried to starve each other into submission on the high seas in the First World War. The British were slow to adopt new tactics in the Second World War against the renewed threat of U-Boats, but by 1944, the British and Americans had devastated the German U-Boat fleet. How had these changes come about? Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through cri...

Why did Roosevelt agree to help arm Britain and France before America joined the war? How did his Arsenals of Democracy Speech affect the nation? What effect did Lend Lease have on America's future enemies? 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 sh...

Why did the USA offer billions of dollars in aid to Europe in 1948? How did the USSR react to this? This podcast explores the dangers to liberal democracy and the fragile peace in 1948 and George Marshall's plan to rescue Europe and keep America from fighting the next war. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the...

When President Harry Truman announced a huge military aid package to Greece in 1947 it signalled a sea-change in America's stance in the growing Cold War, and showed a willingness to commit fully to the fight. This podcast explores the wider context of that decision, and challenges students to consider: What does this all really show us? Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century thr...

Why did Trotsky, the hero of the Red Army and the most likely candidate to succeed Lenin, fail to become leader of the USSR after his death? How did Stalin use his position to build a powerbase of mass support? 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 an...

After 1917 there were radical changes to almost every walk of life, women, children and families all radically altered as service to the new Communist state took centre stage in everyone's lives. How did Lenin impose his own ideas of the role and the nature of individuals on the rest of Russia? Listen to this podcast for the answers. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through...

How did the February Revolution happen? Why did it escalate from a series of protests over food shortages to the abdication of the Czar and the establishment of the Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet? 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...

Why did Russia explode into violence and anarchy in 1905? How the the Czar react? Russia's experience in 1905 set the stage for the revolution in 1917 and showed to all sides, the Czar, workers, peasants and nobles, who could trust who, and how high the stakes were. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to...

Before the revolution, Russia's aristocrats played a key role in Russian society, and presented themselves in 1917 as an alternative to the Czar. They were utterly destroyed as a social class by the Bolsheviks from 1918 onwards. 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, p...

How had the Russian Civil War affected Russia? The was had devastated the country and killed over ten million Russians, and it produced three crises for Lenin to deal with. His solution was to veer away from communism and to use immense violence to crush opposition. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to...

The effect of the collapse of Germany in 1918 and the armistice was to bewilder a nation that believed in ultimate victory. As the German Army marched back to the Reich, appearing undefeated, many ordinary Germans looked to more radical voices for explanations. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the...