Giles Milton
speaker
1,130 appearances
3 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 · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 2.
Appearances
He wants to be seen by all the the
thousands of people who are going to attend this funeral.
And so what does Stalin do?
He gives Trotsky the wrong date.
Well, Stalin had thought of that as well.
He calls his old mate Zhershinsky, running the checker, and ensures that any telegrams and any messages sent to Trotsky to tell him the date has been changed don't get through.
And so on the day of the funeral, Stalin, center stage, delivers a eulogy, he presents himself as the obvious natural successor to uh Lenin, and everyone's thinking
About Trotsky?
Oh, Trotsky's not here, you know.
Uh obviously he doesn't care that much about Lenin.
You can sort of see the whispering going on in the crowds, you know.
Um, it's a brilliant and totally malevolent sort of um uh act on the part of Stalin.
Uh and and, you know, he loved pieces of theatre, Stalin, and this is perhaps his most malign piece of theatre to date, is simply airbrushing Trotsky out of the most important event in
in the Soviet Union to take place in years.
So, what happens in the aftermath of Lenin's death is that Stalin begins to consolidate his grip on power.
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.
Showing 161–180 of 1,130 · page 9 of 57
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