396. Stalin: The Bolshevik Revolution (Part 2)
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From the Russian Civil War in 1918 to Lenin's death in 1924, this is the story of how Joseph Stalin went from brutal subordinate to master of the party machine. Now the Bolsheviks had only just seized power when the country collapsed into a conflict that pitted Russian against Russian. Why did the revolution descend into civil war? And how did Stalin position himself as Lenin's successor? Even after Lenin rebuked him and called for his removal. Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
And me, William Durampel.
Now, last time uh we left Stalin in nineteen seventeen, and he was, do you remember, a rather unimpressive man, the man nobody noticed in the room, a poor orator, a plodding theorist, nobody's idea of the next dictator. And uh we are, I'm delighted to say, joined by Giles Milton, friend of the show and author of the Stalin Affair, The Impossible Alliance that won the war, to discuss Stalin's rise in the shadow of Lenin. And uh Giles first of all, I just want to know, were we unfair but you know, describing him as sort of like a lackluster bean counter pre nineteen seventeen?
No, I think you are absolutely right. Um, he very rarely appeared in public as well, was not known generally in Russia, hated public speaking because he had quite a thick Georgian accent. And so um, no, I think he was unremarkable. And who could have predicted the future that is about to unfold for him? And we'll we'll we'll look at why and how that might have come about, um, and whether it was his force of personality, whether he got lucky or what it was. Charles.
Just sketch for us the start of the Civil War. I I'm so full of it at the moment, having just watched Dr. Shivago for the fifteenth time. So I have a very clear sort of fictional version of it in my head. Give us the facts. What what should we be thinking of when uh we think of the start of the Civil War? What caused Russian to turn on Russian in nineteen eighteen?
Well, Lenin and his revolutionary Bolsheviks have seized power, the Russian Revolution, and they've seized power in Petrograd, now St. Petersburg, in Moscow, and in various towns and cities across the country. But the whole country is by no means with them at all. There are still very, very powerful forces, which we now call White Russians or the White Russian armies, who absolutely detested this revolutionary new regime and were prepared. To do absolutely anything they could do to crush it. And on paper, they were very powerful. They had some of the leading generals from the First World War, they had big armies, and crucially, they also had the support of quite a number of the Western powers. Many people forget this now, but Britain, France, America, Japan were all throwing their weight behind the white Russian armies to try.
and snuff out uh Lenin Stalin and his new regime before they got too powerful.
Giles, um just to give a picture of who they are, are they the m are they all monarchists in the old establishment or are they a whole mixture of other people too who don't like uh the the look of the Bolsheviks?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–7:44
2
How did the Russian Civil War begin and why did Russia turn on itself in 1918?
7:44–17:40
3
What role did Stalin play as a political commissar during the Civil War and how did he use brutality?
17:40–32:38
4
How did the rivalry between Stalin and Trotsky develop and what was Lenin’s stance?
32:38–42:53
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Empire: World History
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