Category Archives: Podcasts 2024

Constitutional Clarion. Religion and Constitution Strictly speaking, this isn’t a podcast but a YouTube video, but given that the presenter, constitutional lawyer Anne Twomey is just sitting in front of a bookshelf with the occasional image popping up beside her, it may as well be. Unfortunately it’s chopped up with advertisements, which is very annoying. But the content itself really is excellent, giving a constitutional historian’s views on current events. For this Christmas episode, she admits that she had to scratch around to find any link between Christmas and the constitution- although she did find one link with wartime legislation banning Christmas and Easter advertising that did end up in court. She then broadens her survey to look at the role of religion in the Australian constitution more generally, starting with the NSW constitution which prohibited religious men from being elected (although not appointed, note) then going on to look at the Federal constitution. She talks about various court challenges over time, e.g. The Defence of Government Schools case against government funding of private schools, the Chaplaincy Act etc. Fascinating.

Being Roman with Mary Beard A Bag of Snails and a Glass of Wine Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas- surely spoof names!- were innkeepers described on a stone excavated in a vineyard in southern Italy, and so Mary embarks on looking at inns and eating-houses generally in Roman times. Upper class Romans wouldn’t be seen dead eating publicly, but the dangers of fires in closely-settled towns meant that poorer people ate communally. Some were just take-away shops, while others were more like restaurants, mimicking the eating habits of the higher classes. Snail stew…..mmmmm.

The Rest is History. Episode 456: Fall of the Sioux: The Massacre at Wounded Knee (Part 3) At last, the final episode of this series on Native Americans. I haven’t really enjoyed this series: partially because of their flippant attitude, and also because I haven’t ever really got into this aspect of American history. Chief Sitting Bull had been seduced into Buffalo Bill’s show, and unable to see visions in the Ghost Dance phenomenon that was sweeping through the remnant tribes, he had lost all authority. He was deeply depressed when the Swiss activist and friend (something more?) Mrs Caroline Weldon left him. Meanwhile, the Indian Agent James McLaughlin teamed up with Lieutenant Henry Bullhead, of the Indian Agency (similar to the Native Police in Australia) to arrest him at his cottage. He was shot and killed. His cabin was picked up and carted around as a fairground exhibit. Then the inevitable denouement, with the massacre at Wounded Knee, when Custer’s old regiment – all raw recruits who had never known Custer, but were imbued with all the ‘honor of the regiment’ rubbish- surrounded over three hundred Lakota people and massacred them. But as we know, this was not the end of Native Americans, millions of whom still live in America today, albeit in the poorest economic and social conditions. Heather Cox Richardson wrote a post about Wounded Knee on her Substack, as she does every December 29. She wrote a book about it: Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American massacre and is obviously still shaken by it.

History Hit Following on from the episode about Tudor Christmas, Georgian Christmas takes up with the re-establishment of Christmas after being prohibited under the Puritans. In this episode, Dan Snow goes on a stroll around the streets of Islington and Clerkenwell with Footprints of London tour guide Rob Smith. It’s not all directly related to Christmas, but they do emphasize that a Georgian Christmas was a public-holiday event for working class people, who celebrated outside and in public. His guest being a tour guide, there’s lots of interesting little snippets including the fact that The Angel, Islington on the Monopoly Board was actually a pub- the only actual building other than railway stations on the board- and it was the last named, largely out of exhaustion.

Dan Snow’s History Hit The Syrian Civil War: How it Started The recent events in Syria have seen the overthrow of the Assad regime, but in many ways Assad came to dominate because of the preceding civil war that brought his father to power. This episode with Shashank Joshi, the Defence Editor for The Economist traces through the history of Syria from WWI onwards, and the consequences of the French promoting the interests of the Alawite minority- a typical colonial-power strategy. I wish The Economist wasn’t so damned expensive: it has some interesting features.

The Coming Storm Season 2 Episode 2 Flight 007 My husband was listening to this in the car with me, and he disliked the way that Gabriel Gatehouse does not challenge the conspiracies being promulgated in these episodes. I don’t agree: I think that it’s perfectly clear that he is incredulous at some of what he is hearing. In this episode Flight 007 he discusses the conspiracy theories surrounding the Federal Reserve in America, right from its formation among bankers in 1913. He focuses on the John Birch Society and one of its leaders the Democratic Party Congressman Larry McDonald, who was killed when Flight 007 was shot down by the Soviets in 1983. A staunch conservative and anti-communist, and far more aligned to the old Southern Democrat politics rather than the modern Democrat party, McDonald’s death has fuelled further distrust of the three-letter agencies in America: a distrust that Trump has capitalized on.

In the Shadows of Utopia Episode 14: The End of French Indo-China Another long episode, with a lot in it, covering the period December 1953 – July 1955. By this time the Khmer Viet Minh controlled about 1/3 of Cambodia, but not in a clearly defined area. What mattered more was what was happening over the Vietnamese border where the Viet Cong defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. This battle came eight years into the war, with the French already exhausted from WW2. It took place in a valley, with the French troops dropped by air into a clearing surrounded by jungle in the middle of a Viet Minh controlled area. The Viet Minh had brought in artillery under camouflage, with Chinese and Soviet support that had been freed up after the Korean War. It was a brutal battle with a very high death rate on both sides, and when it became trench warfare, it was likened to Verdun (in WWI). Both sides suffered from jungle sickness, and amongst the Vietnamese troops PTSD and fear was seen as being ‘rightist’, a marker of the ideological language that was used to describe behaviour. The battle was important, but even before then, there was strong international pressure for a diplomatic solution. This culminated in the Geneva Convention, where the four main powers (UK, US, France and USSR) were represented, along with China, Laos, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Omitted were the Khmer Viet Minh and Issarak. It was decided to divide Vietnam into North and South Vietnam, with Cambodia and Laos to be neutral and independent, with representative governments. So by the end of July, the first Indo China War was over, and a 300 day period was set aside for people to shift from one region to another, depending on their political affiliation. In Cambodia, Sihanouk was pleased with Geneva Accords, which put an end to Vietnamese and French interference and which left the Khmer Communists very unhappy. Some Khmer Communists went back to Vietnam or French, others stayed undercover, while others remained politically involved as an outward mask for their continued secret Communist activity. However, Sihanouk wasn’t so pleased with the “representative government” part of the Accords, because the Democratic Party was likely to win.First he held a very dodgy referendum to remind Cambodians of what he claimed as his role in gaining independence, then he abdicated as King in favour of his father (who would be no threat to him) and engaged himself in the elections in his own right. He formed a ‘movement’ based on personal loyalty to him, uniting centrists, elites and the ‘little people’ who felt aggrieved (sounds rather Trumpian to me). The elections were nasty, he suppressed the media, threatened assassination and jailed opponents. As a result his Sangkum Party won all the seats. Sihanouk played all sides: he proclaimed neutrality and to reject US overtures but accepted their money quite happily and he allowed the North Vietnamse communists to act clandestinely in Cambodia as a way of sidelining the Khmer communists.

The Coming Storm. This is the new season of The Coming Storm which continues on the rise of conspiracy thinking in America. After a very long introduction Episode 1 The Yogi tells the story of Allan Hostetter, an ex-policeman and former yoga teacher who seemed to be set off by COVID regulations and went further and further down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. No doubt, he welcomes Trump’s victory and the prospect of release.

Dan Snow’s History Hit Henry VIII’s Tudor Christmas Dan Snow is doing a series on The Origins of Christmas at different times in mainly British history. Here he wanders around Hampton Court with Historic Royal Palaces chief curator Tracy Borman, going from room to room and imagining Christmas being celebrated there during Henry’s time. As they point out, the nature of the Tudor Christmas changed over time, especially as Henry aged and couldn’t be bothered with it all. The Tudor Christmas didn’t put particular emphasis on 25 December: instead, it was a 12 day festival with two large meals every day served up to over 1000 people. It was also a predominantly religious festival too, with Henry attending chapel twice a day, and later Elizabeth spent the whole of Christmas Day in prayer.

The Documentary (BBC) The Global Jigsaw: The rebels who retook Aleppo I listened to this as the Assad regime fell in Syria, but the program was actually first broadcast in 2023. It looks at Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammed al Jawlani (although I note that this is his ‘nom de guerre’ and he’s now going by Ahmed al-Sharaa. In 2023 when this was recorded, there was scepticism about his transformation from islamic terrorist to the leader of the ‘Salvation Government’ that he was leading in Idlib province. This government allowed in aid, re-opened schools, shops and churches, and as leader he wanted to appear statesmanlike, trimming his beard and wearing casual clothes, moving around openly in Idlib. Like many, I have been appalled by the repression of the Assad government that is now being fully revealed. Let’s hope that Syria has a better future.

The Rest is History Episode 455 Fall of the Sioux: The Ghost Dance (Part 2) This is all so sad and has so many resonances with Australian Aboriginal history. From their webpage “Following the tragic death of Crazy Horse and the ruthless cessation of the Sioux way of life, the last of the great Native American leaders were gradually picked off or repressed by the U.S. Government. Few though had so pitiful a fate as the once mighty Lakota War Chieftain, Sitting Bull. Having fled to Canada in search of peace from the relentless harrowing of his people, Sitting Bull finally returned and arrived at the Standing Rock Reservation in 1883. He was unprepared, however, for the changes wrought upon his people. With the explosion of railroads and the decimation of the already flailing buffalo populations, the Great Plains had been transformed into a desolate, barbed wasteland. While, the Native Americans within the reservations were increasingly coerced into Christianity by missionaries, or controlled by Federal agents. Then, news reached Sitting Bull and his people of a messianic figure from beyond the Rocky Mountains, who would come to liberate them from their plight. With him he brought the answer to their troubles: the Ghost Dance. Would it see the drums of war sound once more?” When Sitting Bull returned to Standing Rock, everything had changed. He joined the Buffalo Bill tour, and the restaging of Custer’s last Battle. Then we have the ‘second coming’ narrative of spiritual leader Wovoka, whose Ghost Dance, if performed properly would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, ending Westward expansion and bring peace and prosperity. This is not going to end well.

History Extra A Victorian Cult: Inside the Strange World of the Agapemone I tend to think of cults today as being an American phenomenon, but especially during the 19th century, Britain had its fair share too. The Agapemone (originally called the Princites), named for Henry James Prince, who believed that he had a direct line of communication with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit told him to establish himself in Somerset, in a house purchased from the ‘donations’ of his wealthy, mainly female followers in 1856. Those who could not afford to donate their money donated their labour instead, working in the kitchen. There they were to wait for the second coming, and as they were already saved, then they weren’t going to die- which became a bit embarrassing when they DID start dying off- but no matter, because John Hugh Smyth-Pigott quickly took his place, as cult leaders tend to do. The commune limped on until the 1960s when it had become a type of old-people’s home. The episode features Stuart Flinders, the author of A Very British Cult: Rogue Priests and the Abode of Love (Icon Books, 2024).

Autocracy in America. This really is a very good series. Episode 5 Join the Kleptocracy In a kleptocracy, those in authority are united by the need to undermine the rule of law and to suppress the people in order to steal. A financial elite emerges slowly, hiding its money. From the shownotes: “Since the earliest days of the republic, America’s international friendships have shaped domestic politics. And some of those friendships helped America strengthen its democratic principles. So what happens if America’s new friends are autocrats? John Bolton, former national security adviser for President Donald Trump, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island argue that if America no longer leads the democratic world and instead imports secrecy and kleptocracy from the autocratic world, American citizens will feel even more powerless, apathetic, disengaged, and cynical.” They particularly discuss the nexus between Venezuela, China, Russia, Iran and Cuba. Within America itself, we have the emergence of SuperPACs, and the baleful influence of Elon Musk (I just can’t believe how much like a cartoon villain he is). They look at Ukraine, where the present government came to power as a rejection of strategic corruption- and look where it got them. The U.S. is vulnerable.

Episode 6 Politicize Freedom From the shownotes: “Freedom in the United States is a word that has had more than one meaning. It has meant freedom for some people and the repression of others. In a democracy, freedom also means the right to take part in politics. So how can that freedom best be secured? ” Apparently all America is united by an attachment to ‘freedom’, but I must admit that I’m always suspicious of it, especially in its American form. There is freedom in democracy but also the freedom to act in defiance of government. It’s a paradox that often those who demand ‘freedom’ most vehemently want to control the government so that they can transform the central power into their own vision. Is everything hopeless? (especially since this series was broadcast prior to Trump’s victory?) They turn to the Suffragettes, who managed to make sufficiently strong alliances with people whose politics were opposite to theirs, in order to make a common cause over the thing most important to them.

The Rest is History Episode 451: Custer’s Last Stand: The Charge of the 7th Cavalry. Do you know, I am so ignorant of ‘Cowboys and Indians’ that I don’t even know who won the Battle of Little Bighorn? From the shownotes: “The U.S. was cast into a spiralling panic following the economic depression of 1873, and waves of paramilitary violence swept through the south as the debates surrounding Reconstruction swirled on. Amidst this uncertainty, the government, under the leadership of Ulysses S. Grant and his chief advisors, began drawing up a cold blooded plan to strike into the heart of Montana and settle the issue of the Plains Indians once and for all. Meanwhile, the drumbeats of war were sounding amongst the newly united Lakota and Cheyenne themselves, spearheaded by their war chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, as the pressures of white settlers and the railroads increased. Their numbers swelled in the wake of a failed winter campaign lead by General Crook, as swarms of refugees accumulated into Sitting Bull’s village – the largest assembly of Lakota ever seen on the Plains. The stage seemed set for a mighty reckoning in the summer of 1876, as the Federal government geared up for another assault. Much to his delight George Custer, spared from the brink of disaster by his reckless impetuosity, was recruited to the 7th Cavalry marching on one of the armies closing in on the Lakota encampment near the Little Bighorn River…the Battle of the Rosebud that followed would see a six hour struggle of monumental violence.”

Spoiler alert: Custer is going to die. Tom and Dominic sheet quite a bit of blame to Benteen, but there was ambiguity in Custer’s instructions to him to come quickly and bring firearms (even though this would cause delay). It was a gruesome battle, although Custer wasn’t as mutilated as he might have been, as the Native Americans probably didn’t recognize him. News of the defeat reached New York on the 5th July, the day after America celebrated its centenary. New Yorkers read a 40,000 word report of the battle, which took the reporter 22 hours to dictate). Custer was described a slight, but vivid, figure in history.

We Live Here Now (The Atlantic). Sneaky Atlantic- it played this episode at the end of ‘Autocracy in America’ and I was hooked. It features Lauren Ober and Hanna Rosin, journalists and partners in Washington DC whose liberal and progressive neighbourhood was jarred by the arrival of a black SUV plastered with January 6 decals.

Episode 1 “We’re Allowed to Live Here’ sets the scene as Lauren and Hanna realize that their new neighbours in the house called ‘The Eagle’s Nest’ (shades of Hitler, anyone) are supporters of the January 6 rioters, and that one of them is in fact Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the only person shot by a Capitol Police officer that day, after she climbed through a broken glass panel.

In Episode 2 “You’ve Got to Get Your Militias Straight” they visit their new neighbours, and one of them accompanies Micki to the nightly vigil that she holds outside the ‘DC gulag’ where the January 6 insurrectionists are either incarcerated or awaiting jail. There they see how January 6 is mythologized, and see how the story has been changed over time.

History Hit The Golden Age of the Country House. I need to get away from all this American stuff. What better than a good old British Country House? This episode features Adrian Tinniswood, the author of The Power and the Glory: The Country House Before the Great War (Vintage, 2024) His book spans 1870 to 1914. He points out that there is no ‘typical’ owner of a Country House: there were traditional owners, nouveau riche, industrialists and Americans (like Astor, Carnegie and Rothschild) and outsiders (like Sikh princes). This tolerant upper class milieu reflected Edward 7th (the former Prince of Wales) who was tolerant of ‘new’ people. Quite a few of these people built their country houses from new, often reflecting medieval, chivalric ideals. A religious presence in the village through attendance at church services and philanthropy was important in cementing the owners’ place in the community. Despite the Downton Abbey scenario, most domestic servants (who by this time were almost all women) shifted jobs quite often, and only had a ‘career’ in domestic service of about 12 years. Country houses did have their share of murders and ghosts. The Country House phenomenon continued after WWI, but by then it had lost its confidence.

Autocracy in America Episode 3: Consolidate Power This episode looks back to Depression-era Louisiana Governor Huey Long, who sought to take over the apparatus of government in his state, just as illiberal leaders have done in other countries. They interview Richard D. White, who wrote his biography of Long called Kingfish back in 2006. Like someone else we know, Long’s political approach was to present himself as entertainer and salesman, although he did deliver on his promises at first. He survived impeachment, but then embarked on revenge by capturing the legislature, manipulating supposedly independent bodies, packing the courts, intimidating the media and embarking on violence. He was not a politician: he was a demagogue.

The Rest is History Episode 452 Custer’s Last Stand: The Battle of the Little Bighorn I must say that I’ve been a bit uncomfortable about how flippant Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook are when telling this story. Perhaps it’s that they’re star-struck from their Saturday Afternoon Matinee memories of Custer and Sitting Bull, but perhaps there’s also a thread of racism running through this as well. At one stage they pull themselves up, noting that if they were talking about the Titanic, they would be talking about incredible bravery instead of treating it so flippantly. From their website: “The Battle of The Little Bighorn is one of the totemic moments of American frontier history. However, it is also mysterious, with the exact events of that blood-soaked day difficult to trace. On the 22nd of June, George Custer marched out with vague orders to drive the vast gathering of the Lakota and their allies, under the leadership of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, towards General Terry’s force, advancing from the South. Custer, keen as ever for a charge, was hoping to score a considerable defeat over the Native Americans in time for the 4th of July centenary. Then, on the evening of the 24th of June, Crow scouts reported that the Lakota’s trail had been found, and Custer launched into action. Marching his men through the night, they arrived at the encampment the following morning, shocked to discover a camp of thousands. At 3pm, the first force attacked, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in all its horror and gore, had begun…”

In Our Time (BBC) Rupert Graves 1895-1985 I really only know Rupert Graves through his I Claudius (which I watched but didn’t finish reading -must do so someday) and I was aware of him as a World War I poet with some connection with the other British poets on the front. He was born in 1895 to a distinguished Anglo-Irish family, and his mother was part of the Von Ranke family (most famous for Leopold Von Ranke, the father of source-based history). As with other boys of his social class, he went to Charterhouse where he excelled in classics and sports. He lived most of his childhood in Spain, but he enlisted with the British army as soon as war broke out, and on account of his public school education, he was immediately given a commission. There he met Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he had a homoerotic but probably chaste relationship, and Nancy Nicholson, a nurse, whom he married. He wrote Goodbye to all That in 1926 to make money in the midst of his marital breakup, which was triggered when he fell in love with Laura Riding, after earlier forming a consenual menage a trois with her while still with his wife. He later married Beryl Hodge. He wrote over 140 books and 1000 poems, The White Goddess and a number of retellings of classical myths. The panel on this episode comprises Paul O’Prey, Emeritus Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Roehampton, London; Fran Brearton
Professor of Modern Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast and Bob Davis. Professor of Religious and Cultural Education at the University of Glasgow.

Shadows of Utopia Episode 12 Pol Pot in Paris Part II (YouTube with images) Yet another marathon episode of 2.5 hours – that’s just too long for a podcast. This episode covers 1947-1953. He starts off by returning to Vietnam, where the Viet Minh guerillas had scattered into the rural areas. The French troops were spread too thinly, and massacres in villages (for example in My Trach) were to be repeated during the Vietnam war decades later. As part of the cold war, the Sino/Soviet pact saw both Russia and China recognizing Ho Chi Minh, but Vietnam needed both Laos and Cambodia to be independent so that their own position was safe. The Communist Parties in both those parties were dominated by Vietnam, and there was no proletariat.

A nationalist movement was emerging in Cambodia, but it was sometimes at odds with Vietnam, their old enemy. The Cambodian Issarak, despite its many factions, was active in Cambodia. It joined the more intellectual student movement, but of course there was a split between those who looked to the return of the exiled Son Ngoc Thanh (then under house arrest in Paris) and those who looked to the Vietnamese Communists. The student movement in Paris approached Thanh and invited them to join them in armed struggle, but he refused because he was angling to return to Cambodia, which he did in October 1951 where he was greeted by huge crowds. By 1952 he started another magazine, which was shut down within 6 months. In 1952 he joined with Issarak (did he intend that all along?) which enraged King Sihanouk. The King and the French moved against the Democratic Party, dismissed the government and Sihanouk declared himself Prime Minister, promising independence from the French within 3 years.

Meanwhile Saloth Sar, the young Pol Pot, was still in Paris. Student study groups had formed, and Saloth Sar was invited even though his ideas did not exactly align with the unstated Communism of the student groups. At this time, French Communism was at a high point (at the French election, it gained 25% of the vote), but so too was the cult of Stalinism. Into this came the influence of Mao’s thought, with its two-step revolutionary progression, and its affirmation of its nationalist nature rather than a formula imposed from outside. So, for Saloth Sar, we had the combination of influences: Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the French Revolution itself (where the Terror was interpreted as a way of ‘saving’ the Revolution). By the end of 1952, a lot of the students in Paris were having their scholarships withdrawn by the King, and although they were talking a lot about Cambodia, they didn’t really know what was going on there. So in December 1952 Saloth Sar volunteered to return to Cambodia to check out the situation. Just as he arrived, Sihanouk abolished the National Assembly.

Emperors of Rome Podcast Episode CCXXVII – The Catiline Comparison (The Catiline Conspiracy VIII) Matt and Rhiannon have studiously avoided making comparisons between Catiline and Donald Trump, but in this episode they give in to the obvious temptation. They are joined by Professor Nick Bisley (Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University)- keeping it in the La Trobe family! They agree that there are surface similarities: a rich guy pretending to be a saviour of the poor; a macho male harking back to a golden age, and refusal to accept the results of an election. But there are so many differences too, and there is a limit to how far the parallels reach.

The Rest is History Custer vs Crazy Horse: Rise of Sitting Bull (Part 4) From Tom and Dominic’s summary (better than I could ever do) “Following the bloody Fetterman Fight, which saw the Lakota warlord Crazy Horse and his warriors ambush and massacre American troops, the American public was left stunned, its government and civilian population hungry for revenge. In the wake of this a new treaty was signed, further restricting the Lakota Sioux’s freedoms, but nevertheless signed by their political leader, Red Cloud. Still, many would not be constrained to reservations, and instead sought war. Chief amongst them was Sitting Bull, a legendary, mythologised figure of the Great American Plains and the Wild West – the embodiment of a vanished age. Born into the Lakota Sioux, and a world of shifting allegiances, violent initiation rituals, and intransigent spiritualities, as a young man Sitting Bull’s herculean destiny was sung to him by an eagle. The career that followed in his war against the U.S. government would exceed even the greatest of epics. By 1860 he was paramount leader of the Sioux Nation, when news reached him of the imminent arrival of a survey party, lead by none other than George Armstrong Custer…”

History Extra: Communism: everything you wanted to know. I’ve been getting a really good analysis of communism in its different manifestations in my Shadows of Utopia podcasts, but I thought that I’d listen to this as well. It features Danny Bird, Staff Writer at BBC History Magazine. He points out that Communism is a point in time, reached by different ideologies. It was Lenin who introduced the idea of a ‘vanguard’, and between 1919 and 1943 Comintern with its branches in different countries had a world-wide revolutionary purpose. Just as each communism is different, so too each anti-communism is different too. Stalinism was a product of Stalin’s own paranoia, but as the only successful Communist party at the time, it dominated and dictated Comintern. In a way, the Spanish Civil War operated as a release valve for Communists who were becoming uneasy about Stalin’s communism.

The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey. I heard James M. Dorsey being interviewed somewhere (Global Roaming, perhaps?) and I thought that he sounded interesting. He is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. His podcast is mainly about Middle East affairs. His podcasts are of varying lengths, and they’re interesting. Israel’s Reputational Self-Immolation was just one of the podcasts that I listened to here.

In the Shadows of Utopia Episode 9: Communism in Practice (Intro to Communism II) My, Lachlan is speaking very slowly in this episode. Actually, he’s starting to put a lot of his energy into the YouTube version, which has lots of images, so here’s the link to the video: https://youtu.be/Y3dFDwM1UXs?si=6wJh-hUnMKXILm1H

Well, Marx and Engels died without ever seeing Communism in practice. Everybody thought that, if there was to be a revolution, then it would be in industrialized Germany, which was just hanging on in the war. But canny Germany sent all the Communists off to Russia instead (hence the fantastic book To the Finland Station) hoping that they would destabilize Russia instead. After all, 1905 had been a dress-rehearsal for revolution, and now in 1917 there were two October revolutions (old calendar). The first was the revolt that led to the Tsar’s abdication and the second was the call for Peace, Land and Bread. Lenin took charge on October 5 and stormed the Winter Palace. Lachlan suggests the metaphor of nuclear energy: it was as if Marx and Engels split the atom, but as if Lenin drew up plans for the nuclear power plant.