Peace In Their Time

The years leading up to WWI were tough on Stalin, whatever luck he or the Bolsheviks had before and during the 1905 Revolution had run out. He personally was mostly stuck in exile, managing to escape every so often, but all too quickly caught and returned. The Tsarist regime though was chronically self-defeating, and the Revolution that would be his salvation was not long in coming.    Bibliograph...

Party business got serious after the 1905 Revolution, as the regime struck back against its enemies and the Socialists turned to every source of support they could. Stalin possessed organizational skills and a lack of scruples, so he began a hybrid life of politics and crime that got him noticed by both Lenin and the authorities.    Bibliography for this episode:    Montefiore, Simon Sebag Young S...

Having been kicked out of the seminary, young Stalin embarked on the life of a professional revolutionary in earnest. Agitation, a refusal to play nice with older party leaders, and mysterious oil refinery explosions all became his calling cards.    Bibliography for this episode:    Montefiore, Simon Sebag Young Stalin Vintage Books 2007 Kotkin, Stephen Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928 Penguin...

The biography episodes return as today I cover the early life of Joseph Stalin. Born into a conquest of the Russian Empire, young Stalin was not the most likely candidate to become a world leader. But the crucible of living under the Tsarist boot and his own violent homelife shaped him into the revolutionary that he would become.    Bibliography for this episode:    Montefiore, Simon Sebag Young S...

Today we turn back to the adventures of the Soviet Union's secret police in 1920s. They'd spend most of the decade picking off White exiles and trying to build spy networks abroad. But as the decade starting winding down, they increasingly fell under the influence of Stalin, who preferred looking inward for his enemies. 

While the Soviet Union struggled internally, it did not neglect trying to continue the Revolution abroad. Attempting to rally the troops, the idea of a workers International was rebooted as the Comintern. It would be the home away from home for many Communists and during the first decade of its existence push numerous uprisings aimed at toppling Capitalism. Not with a lot of success, but their eff...

Peacetime in the Soviet Union created an opportunity for social experimentation. The old order was gone, the Communist Party wasn't yet the juggernaut of state power it would become, and change seemed to be the order of the day.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s Trag...

The first peacetime order of business in the new USSR was to re-build the economy. And to do that, they had to liberalize and turn towards a kind of state capitalism that was dubbed the New Economic Policy, the NEP. It wasn't perfect, and the new imbalances it created started conflicts in the Communist Party.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History...

One-hundred episodes! And to celebrate, here is a completely normal weekly episode. The Soviet Union wasn't built in a day, in fact it took five years for the Bolshevik leaders to finally hammer out the details as to the new nation. And that only happened after Lenin and Joseph Stalin clashed over the question of state power, a clash that was only settled by Lenin's declining health.    Bibliograp...

The consequences of winning the Civil War at any cost came back to haunt the Bolsheviks, as it turned out the "any cost" meant millions of people starving to death in a gigantic famine. Agriculture was in ruins throughout Russia, and only the intervention of an unlikely ally prevented the problem from being worse.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A Hi...

Just because the Civil War was over didn't the misery ended. With the Whites gone, all the non-Bolsheviks who had been tolerating Lenin's government and its excesses decided it was time to turn against it. Revolt and revolution spread across the country yet again, threatening to end the Communist regime right after all its military victories.    Just as the Russian Civil War appeared to be winding...

Just as the Russian Civil War appeared to be winding down, a reborn Poland decided to make a play for some open land and invaded Soviet Russia. While the ensuing war would be an opportunity for the Bolsheviks to march on Europe, getting past the Poles proved easier said than done.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard...

During the Civil War, threats to the Revolution weren't just coming from the battlefield. The Bolsheviks very quickly realized that internal enemies in areas they controlled were a danger, and built-up their version of the secret police, the Cheka, to counter those enemies. They got out of hand.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap P...

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the Soviet Union. But the pressures of war convinced the Bolsheviks to step up their centralizing efforts, laying the groundwork for the Communist state that everyone would come to know and love.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A Pe...

This week we turn away from the battlefield and more towards what life was like on the ground in Bolshevik Russia. Long story short, the war wasn't an easy one on the civilian side either. This week in particular I touch on the precariousness of the food supply, and the collapse of urban life.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Pre...

The final White offensives kicked off as Denikin made his play on Moscow in summer 1919. While we all know the attacks wouldn't succeed, they came close enough to panic the Bolshevik leadership and stretch the Red Army to its limit.     Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s...

The first attempt to bring the Bolsheviks down once and for all didn't go very well. Striking beyond its capabilities, Admiral Kolchak's White armies stalled out on the Volga. One determined Red Army counteroffensive later, and they were in a full retreat. The Siberian Whites, the biggest group of that faction and the one most supported by the Entente, fell apart like a... well, a house of cards. ...

The opening moves of the 1919 campaigns saw action all across Russia once again, but this year opened with the White faction in a far stronger position. With bases all around Russia secured, they began positioning for attacks to bring down the Bolsheviks once and for all.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard Universi...

Today I wrap up coverage of the Russian Civil War in 1918. Mostly I'll be talking about the total mess that was Siberia, but the mess that was Central Asia gets some attention too.    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1917 Penguin Books 1998 Smith, SA Russia in Revol...

This is kind of a grab-bag episode, as I cover the Red counter-offensive against the Komuch government, the Entente landings in northern Russia, and all sorts of events in the south.    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1917 Penguin Books 1998 Smith, SA Russia in Rev...

Still mostly making things up as they went along, the Bolsheviks worked to sort themselves out in order to confront the rising military threats against them. For most of the first half of 1918 it was slow going, but under Trotsky's leadership the Red Army started to take shape.    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando...

The Russian Civil War kicked off with a freezing micro-army trudging through southern Russia, but in only half a year growing dissatisfaction with the Bolsheviks would cause it to spread across the country.    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1917 Penguin Books 1998...

The last major political obstacle to the Bolsheviks was the Constituent Assembly, which as it turned out was more of a minor bump. A much bigger obstacle was the German army, and how to satisfactorily end a fight that had long since been lost.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando ...

Today we take a break from the center and look at what was going on in the borderlands of Russia in 1917. The chaos of that empire's fall created new opportunities for autonomy for the peoples living away from the heartlands. Plus, the displaced officers of the army began to link up in Russia's south with the intent of challenging the Bolsheviks.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoff...

Do I even need to introduce this one? The Bolsheviks overcame all the odds against them, and did the dang the thing.    Bibliography for this episode:    Hosking, Geoffrey Russia and the Russians: A History The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2001 Figes, Orlando A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1917 Penguin Books 1998 Smith, SA Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis 189...