Autocracy Now!

Could Huey Long's personality, travelling-salesman charm, and Share Our Wealth populism catapult him into the White House?

In this episode, we find out. 

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The good people of the United States Senate were not prepared for Huey P. Long.

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In 1953, in a final convulsion of paranoid violence, Stalin suffered a massive stroke. As his underlings jockeyed and vied for position, alternating between their lust for power and fear that the man who had dominated their lives for decades might recover, he passed from the world's stage. 

In this episode, we will discuss that passing, talk briefly about what happened afterwards, and attempt to get some kind of a handle on the legacy of Stalin - the leader who brutally butchered his own people and saved Europe from the Nazis, and who presided over a state founded in idealism and run on blood, violence, and terror. 


Following this, the Autocracy Now podcast will take a short break, before returning with our (shorter) series on Huey P Long, the Louisiana politician who changed the course of history. 


In the meantime, you can find us on Twitter @autocracynow and keep up to date with everything I'm up to via www.physicspodcast.com, the sister podcast about physics.

Be kind to each other. 

As we bring our series on Stalin to its conclusion, I'm posting the full and unedited interview with Simon Ings, author of Stalin and the Scientists, about Stalin's impact on the sciences.

This originally appeared on the www.physicspodcast.com Physical Attraction feed - so on the off-chance that there's someone out there who listens to Autocracy Now but doesn't yet listen to my main show, go and check it out! 

Towards the end of Stalin's life, he became ever more paranoid, embittered, isolated, and vengeful. As his various ministers and members of the Politburo jockeyed for power and position around him, using his fits of paranoia to exact revenge on one another, the only thing that united them all was fear: fear that they would not outlive the dying old man, and instead, die at his hand. 

Autocracy Now can be found at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com and our sister podcast can be found at www.physicspodcast.com, along with various ways to contact and support the show. 

One more episode on Stalin to go to follow this. 

As World War Two wound down to a close, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill held several meetings to carve up the world. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin realised that nuclear weapons would be the main factor in the post-war balance of power - and ordered Beria, his sadistic head of the NKVD, to obtain one by any means necessary. 

The Second World War was an incredibly complex conflict, fought on multiple fronts between various aggressors. It's difficult to pinpoint an individual moment and describe it as the conclusive "turning point". But more historians will point to the Battle of Stalingrad than any other single event as the moment when the probabilities shifted, and the outcome of the war moved towards a Nazi defeat. 

In this episode, we'll describe Stalin's role in the war - including the brutality with which he treated his own soldiers. Some slight concessions may have been made to fighting for patriotism rather than Communism in the "Great Patriotic War" - but the Communists would deem who was sufficiently patriotic. 

You can follow us on Twitter @autocracynow, our sister show @physicspod, and you can download all the archival episodes of both on www.autocracynow.libsyn.com or www.physicspodcast.com . On the latter site, you'll find the option to donate to the show if you want to help us out, or contact with any questions, comments, or concerns. 

Stalin's Great Terror took place in the 1930s, with its most bloodthirsty peak in 1937. Two years later, Nazi Germany would invade Poland and the Second World War would begin. 

But before the storm of war, there was a most remarkable peace treaty.

You can listen to our sister podcast, Physical Attraction, at www.physicspodcast.com where you'll also be able to donate to the show; you can listen to all back episodes at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com or where-ever you listen to podcasts. 

Stalin's "Great Terror" was not limited to eliminating his political rivals. Soon enough, detentions and executions were occurring according by quota. In 1937, the killing and persecution rose to its virtually indiscriminate peak. 

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After the death of Kirov, Stalin would turn his wrath towards the Old Bolsheviks that remained as key revolutionary figures in his own right. His fellow Communists could remember a time when Stalin was not Lenin's divinely appointed successor; and for that, they had to be destroyed. 

Visit the website at www.autocracynow.libysn.com, or our sister podcast at www.physicspodcast.com, where you can contact me with any concerns, questions, comments and so on.