logo
episode-header-image
May 2023
56m 31s

Living Behind the Iron Curtain

David Runciman
About this episode
This week David talks to Katja Hoyer and Lea Ypi about life under communism. East Germany was the most successful of the communist states of Eastern Europe, measured by economic prosperity and sporting success. Did the GDR ever really offer a model of how Soviet-style communism could give people what they wanted, including social mobility and consumerism? Wh ... Show More
Up next
Today
Politics on Trial: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein
For the final episode in this series David talks to historian and political scientist Glen Rangwala about the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006. What plans did the Americans have for Saddam before the Iraq war began? How was it decided what to charge him with once he ... Show More
57m 57s
Jan 18
Politics on Trial: O. J. Simpson vs the Evidence
For the penultimate episode in this series David examines the criminal trial of O. J. Simpson in 1995 to ask what it reveals about how power really works in America. How did the prosecution fail to grasp what was really happening in the courtroom? Did jury selection decide the ou ... Show More
1h 18m
Jan 14
Politics on Trial: The Gang of Four vs the New China
In today’s episode David explores the trial that gripped China at the end of 1980: the case against the three men and one woman accused of being responsible for the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). How did the court try to hold Mao’s followers responsible for ... Show More
1h 1m
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2021
Living through the fall of communism
Professor Lea Ypi reflects on her childhood years, which witnessed the final years of communism in Albania and the fraught transition to capitalist democracy. In conversation with Rob Attar, she also considers what these experiences have taught her about the true nature of freedo ... Show More
49m 36s
Mar 2024
Back in the USSR: the Soviet Sixties
Within just a few years of Stalin's death in 1953, the Soviet Union had sent the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. An era of renewal and excitement beckoned. Speaking to Danny Bird, Robert Hornsby tells the story of how Soviet society embraced the 1960s – from new ... Show More
45m 50s
Apr 2023
322: East Germany: Life Behind the Iron Curtain
The German Democratic Republic was born in the ashes of the Second World War, and described itself as a socialist “workers’ and peasants’ state”. The country struggled for much of the latter half of the 20th century, relying on economic support and political backing from the USSR ... Show More
1h 6m
Feb 2023
The Cold War Gets A Wall
February 22, 1962. The city of Berlin is cut in half by a concrete and barbed wire wall. On the west side, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy is giving a rousing speech when suddenly, what look like balloons explode above the crowd, revealing Soviet-red flags. “The Communists w ... Show More
33m 46s
Feb 2022
The Fall of the Soviet Union
In August 1991 there was an attempted coup in the Soviet Union as communist hard-liners sought to re-establish the dominance of Soviet rule in Russia and its satellite states. The coup attempt collapsed after three days and it eventually led to the collapse of communism. Mikhail ... Show More
28m 16s
Jun 2024
Communism in America
<p>The history of the United States' relationship with communism is one littered with fear and persecution. So where did the American Communist Party come from? How powerful has it been in the last century? And where is it now?</p><br><p>In this episode of American History Hit, D ... Show More
51m 59s
Jul 2023
Stalin: History & Critique of a Black Legend w/ Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro & David Peat
<p>Special, early access to an extended conversation about the imminent release of the new translation (by <a href= "twitter.com/huck1995">Henry</a> and Salvatore) of Domenico Losurdo's <em>Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend</em> from Iskra Books.  The release of the ... Show More
2h 38m
Aug 2023
East Germany Re-Examined: Why Its Legacy of Socialism & Anti-Imperialism Still Matters
tail spinning
29m 36s
Nov 2023
Writing the History of Money and Monetary Policy
What do the histories of currency and monetary policy tell us about societies at large, political structures, and cultures? Ekaterina Pravilova and Rebecca Spang tackle these questions, respectively, in two important books that examine the history of the Russian ruble from the ti ... Show More
58m 24s
Jan 2024
The Life and Death of Vladimir Lenin
<p>Vladimir Lenin died just over 100 years ago, on the 21st of February, 1924. The Russian revolutionary leader fought in no battles, spent much of his time in libraries and was in his 40s before he held high public office. Yet he managed to take over one of the world's largest e ... Show More
36m 46s