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Revolutions Podcast - Starving To Death
The Revolutions Podcast has been THE favourite podcast of mine, and if you've never heard me talk about it 50 times, you're never heard me talk about podcasts. Starting from Volume 3, covering the French Revolution, Mike Duncan has done a masterful job of describing various revolutions in the Western hemisphere, starting with describing the historical conditions that lead to the revolutions, the social and political questions that became the catalysts for them, the revolutions themselves, and their aftermath. He is currently coming to the planned end of Volume 10, the Russian Revolution, which sadly will be his last revolution.
I highlight today's episode not because it's particular masterpiece in Duncan's epic, but because it's such a buried moment. In 1921, due to conditions set by Soviet agricultural policy, added to the hardships of the civil war against the Whites, and two years of droughts, you end up with a famine in the Soviet Union (still not called that, I think), which leads to 10 million people dying, until Western countries come to relieve the Soviet population. I had never heard of this famine. This 10 million deaths are just a blip in the incredibly bloody 20th century. And because these deaths are less intentional than the Holodomor a decade later and no one had propaganda gains to make out of using it against the Soviet Union, it just gets swiped under the carpet as a kind of accidental disaster. But it's so goddamn terrible. No wonder many Russians still seek the security of a strongman who can deliver stability to them, and that Putin can exploit their desire to stay in power.
(And yes, I generally know about what Mike Davis has described in Little Victorian Holocausts though I haven't read the book yet.)
A footnote to say that while I'm glad for Duncan to have made this revolution the one he has published the most about, I don't find it's actually a very huh, interesting?, revolution? A lot of the pre-revolutionary intrigue was fascinating, but once the 10 days are past, it's basically a story of Lenin betraying everything he claimed to stand for and establishing the most absolute dictatorship, crushing all enemies. It's actually very depressing. Maybe Duncan is not doing this revolution justice, I don't know.
(Another note: I'm never online on Friday nights, I should have made this Podcast Thursday. Oh well.)
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#PodcastFriday is a tag where people recommend a particularly good episode from a podcast. The point of this tag is NOT to recommend entire podcasts--there are too many podcasts out there, and our queues are already too long, so don't do that. Let's just recommend the cream of the crop, the episodes that made you *brainsplode* or laugh like crazy. Copy this footer so people don't start recommending whole podcasts. :P
The Revolutions Podcast has been THE favourite podcast of mine, and if you've never heard me talk about it 50 times, you're never heard me talk about podcasts. Starting from Volume 3, covering the French Revolution, Mike Duncan has done a masterful job of describing various revolutions in the Western hemisphere, starting with describing the historical conditions that lead to the revolutions, the social and political questions that became the catalysts for them, the revolutions themselves, and their aftermath. He is currently coming to the planned end of Volume 10, the Russian Revolution, which sadly will be his last revolution.
I highlight today's episode not because it's particular masterpiece in Duncan's epic, but because it's such a buried moment. In 1921, due to conditions set by Soviet agricultural policy, added to the hardships of the civil war against the Whites, and two years of droughts, you end up with a famine in the Soviet Union (still not called that, I think), which leads to 10 million people dying, until Western countries come to relieve the Soviet population. I had never heard of this famine. This 10 million deaths are just a blip in the incredibly bloody 20th century. And because these deaths are less intentional than the Holodomor a decade later and no one had propaganda gains to make out of using it against the Soviet Union, it just gets swiped under the carpet as a kind of accidental disaster. But it's so goddamn terrible. No wonder many Russians still seek the security of a strongman who can deliver stability to them, and that Putin can exploit their desire to stay in power.
(And yes, I generally know about what Mike Davis has described in Little Victorian Holocausts though I haven't read the book yet.)
A footnote to say that while I'm glad for Duncan to have made this revolution the one he has published the most about, I don't find it's actually a very huh, interesting?, revolution? A lot of the pre-revolutionary intrigue was fascinating, but once the 10 days are past, it's basically a story of Lenin betraying everything he claimed to stand for and establishing the most absolute dictatorship, crushing all enemies. It's actually very depressing. Maybe Duncan is not doing this revolution justice, I don't know.
(Another note: I'm never online on Friday nights, I should have made this Podcast Thursday. Oh well.)
----
#PodcastFriday is a tag where people recommend a particularly good episode from a podcast. The point of this tag is NOT to recommend entire podcasts--there are too many podcasts out there, and our queues are already too long, so don't do that. Let's just recommend the cream of the crop, the episodes that made you *brainsplode* or laugh like crazy. Copy this footer so people don't start recommending whole podcasts. :P