Martin Sixsmith

Russia: The Wild East : The Rise & Fall of the Soviets Part 2 Martin Sixsmith Ladbroke edition

On 5 CD's. The second part in this fascinating Radio 4 production covers the post-revolutionary period up the present day and includes; Civil war; the Peasant's Revolution; the End of the World Revolution in 1922; industrialisation; purges and the rewriting of history; World War Two; the Nuclear Age beginning in 1949; the death of Stalin in 1953 followed by ideological expansion in the 50s and 60s under Krushchev; Gorbachev's reforms in the 80s and 90s leading to destabilisation; the Chernobyl disaster; Yeltsin and the end of the Soviet Union; Putin and the re-assertion of democracy. Finally, Sixsmith pulls all the themes of both series together and looks at Russian identity under five headings: Autocracy vs Democracy; East vs West; Collectivism vs Individualism; Multi-ethnic empire vs.

Slavic nation state.