The History Faculty

Fantastic interview of Stalin and Great Terror expert Professor J. Arch Getty, University of California, Los Angeles, conducted by Dr. James Harris, University of Leeds, editor of Stalin: A New History.This insightful conversation traces Professor Getty's own interest in history, through his intellectual development, considering his major contributions to the study of Josef Stalin.

Watch Now:

 Podcast Video [ 51:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (2355)

"Stalin and The Great Terror' by Professor J. Arch Getty, Professor of Modern Russian History, University of California, Los Angeles.

Watch Now:

 Podcast Video [ 34:42m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (2823)

The Russian Provisional Government is discussed by historians as a failure. It is presented as not taking decisive action on a range of pressing issues. It therefore lost popular support and was easily removed from power by the Bolsheviks in October 1917. This talk gives a more sympathetic account of the range of problems confronting the Provisional Government, arguing that it was undermined largely by factors outside its control: the war, a revolution in the countryside, the lack of equilibrium in exchange between town and countryside; an urban economic crisis; the break-up of the late imperial state through national movements; a lack of international backing; and the unique environment of Petrograd. The main failing of the Provisional Government was during Kerensky’s leadership, most notably the disastrous Kornilov Affair. We should also note the great success of the Provisional Government – the fact that it did arrange elections to the Constituent Assembly in very trying and difficult conditions.

Watch Now:

 Podcast Video [30:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (1395)

Leon Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks in August 1917 after many years of separation. He was nevertheless a key figure in the establishment and maintenance of Soviet power. It was Trotsky’s strategy by which the Bolsheviks came to power. As Commissar for Foreign Affairs, it was Trotsky’s ‘no peace, no war’ policy that in the debates about whether to sign a separate peace with Germany saved the Bolsheviks from splitting down the middle. In his next post, Commissar for War, there has been no historical agreement about the impact of Trotsky’ military strategy, but the Red Army was formed on Trotsky’s principles and it was Trotsky who protected the specialists that led the Red Army to victory. Undoubtedly Trotsky was a major propagandist for the Bolsheviks; his civil war train was a legend in its own time. Trotsky did not however establish a firm support base at the peak of the Bolshevik elite. Many leading Bolsheviks, especially Stalin, resented Trotsky as an anti-party figure. Trotsky’s economic policies and prognoses found little support. Devoid of Lenin’s backing nothing was more certain than Trotsky’s defeat in the power struggle to be the next leader of the Soviet state. There is no better illustration of Trotsky’s isolation than his decision not to return to Moscow for Lenin’s funeral, despite Stalin’s quick action to inform Trotsky in the expectation that Trotsky would wish to be at Lenin’s burial.

Watch Now:

 Podcast Video [36:28m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (1613)

Soviet and Western historiography has for long identified Lenin as the most influential figure in explaining how the October Revolution of 1917 took place. This follows a comment in Trotsky’s diary of 1935 that the October Revolution would have occurred without him but only on condition that Lenin was present. This talk outlines how recent scholarship has re-evaluated Lenin’s role: he failed to prevent the February Revolution, the April Theses joined an already existing debate rather than marked a completely new point of view, State and Revolution is no guide to how the Bolshevik government developed, and it is Trotsky not Lenin who organised the October Revolution. It is only be demolishing the Lenin myth that we move closer to understanding the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Watch Now:

 Podcast Video [22:27m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download | Embeddable Player | Hits (2645)