Well, Czechoslovakia was supposed to be the feel-good country of the 20th Century but it didn’t quite work out that way, as it was invaded by the Nazis, enjoyed a couple years of uneasy freedom and then flipped to the commies in 1948.  In this episode I discuss a little bit about Czech […]

Cominform was the “Communist Information Bureau” that Stalin kicked into existence as a response to the Marshall Plan.   Although it didn’t really have any teeth, the organization was significant in that what it represented – a bloc forming rather than a broad, sweeping communist movement.   The Communist Parties of the nations involved would […]

It’s been a while since I’ve been on – I’ve been very busy with my business, www.reddragonherbs.net.  Things will calm down after the holidays and I’ll be ready to resume the podcast and expand it with more social media activity.   I figure as the pop culture of the times change, it’s going to be …

There’s a lot going on in this episode in the immediate aftermath of WWII… The commies are looking like they’re going to gain control in Greece and the Soviet Union is trying to reach her tentacles out into Turkey, which would put the communist world at a big strategic advantage in the Middle East. In …

In June of 1946 the US Navy tested two atomic bombs on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in order to test how well a navy would withstand an atomic attack – or were they projecting force to intimidate the USSR?  With 46,000 men involved and 90 surplus ships as targets (and tens of thousands …

George Kennan was a real cold warrior – at least at the very beginnings of the Cold War.  His Long Telegram and “X Article”/”Sources of Soviet Conduct” were key documents of the period that greatly influenced thinking.   In this episode I talk a little bit about Kennan’s career and the significance of these two …

This 1937 book is one of the most important philosophical works of the Cold War in my opinion because Mao Zedong breathed life into communism as an ideology by making it more recognizable to the third world – replace the bourgeoisie with the landlord and imperial occupiers and the urban proletarian with the peasant farmer. …

Today we’re looking at an essay from October of 1945 by George Orwell called “You and the Atom Bomb”.  In this essay Orwell speculates on the future of the world and gets a few things right and is off target on a few other things, either way it’s good insight into the times from one …

Today we’re looking at the division of Germany immediately following WWII.  This is significant because, well, it will ultimately end up as the major fault line and focal point of the Cold War.  Germany will truly be where East meets West in the world going forward. In this episode we will just look at the …

The story of one of the most famous songs of Russia (and the world, really) is very similar to that of Alexander Nevsky.   This song is remarkably unpolitical, which leads us to ask if it’s a sign of things to come for the USSR – will they abandon revolutionary zeal in favor of more …