Giles Milton

speaker

1,435 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 2d ago

Giles Milton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 3.

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Empire: World History · 397. Stalin: Killing Trotsky (Part 3) · 20 Sep 2026 podcast

Now, we spoke in the last episode about he has this role in the mechanisms of the party, which enables him to place his own supporters in key positions.

And he really begins to form what becomes known as a troika around him.

There's Stalin, the Zenoviev, and the Skamenev, two loyal supporters of Stalin, and they begin to engineer.

Uh, Trotsky out of the picture.

And so Trotsky is removed of Commissar for Military Affairs.

That happens in January 1925, soon after Lenin's death.

Then he's voted off the Politburo.

This is a pretty big step.

Then he's expelled from the party completely by 1927.

And then he's sent into exile in 1928.

So, in the space of four years, or actually three years really, Trotsky is outmaneuvered and just pushed.

Yeah, he could have done that, but he didn't.

Um, there are, of course, all sorts of shenanigans and maneuverings taking place.

What's um extraordinary is who backs Stalin as well.

If you look at this, Kamenev, one of his key supporters, one of the members of this Troika, Kamenev was married to Trotsky's sister, Olga.

So this has the elements of sort of family feud about it that actually mem individual members of the family are turning against their own.

This is what Trotsky was to.

I think um Mr Self Interest comes into play here as well.

You know, they see which ways the wind is blowing.

You know, it's very uh this is typical of politicians, isn't it?

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