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How Soviet Russia prepared for WWII with Mark Harrison
Check out this book here https://amzn.to/3eIEmvT
Interview Timeline
Mark Harrison has been a historian studying the Soviet Union and the Soviet economy for many decades. We talked about his latest project, a book about the Soviet economy just prior to WWII which he co-authored. The Industrialization of Soviet Russia Volume 7 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
0:51 – Mark talks about how he got into studying Soviet history and its economic history and how it pertains to WWII.
3:07 – Mark talks about how the book breaks down the subject and its place in a book series on Soviet history.
10:45 – Mark talks about how few people in the Soviet system wanted to make final decisions.
13:43 – Mark talks about how much control the central authority had over outlying areas of the Soviet Union.
18:45 – Mark talks about how a good harvest in the Soviet Union at this time hurt Stalin’s plans.
21:07 – Mark talks about how the Politburo decided how many armaments to make.
26:15 – Mark talks about how the Soviets were planning for massive future war. Stalin was also very worried about the fifth column and the “unconscious” enemy.
30:09 – Mark talks about Soviet strategy for future war.
34:05 – Mark talks about allied support to the Soviet Union and what the Soviets had expected.
39:15 – Mark talks about the various archives used for the research.
44:09 – Mark talks about Soviet and German record keeping and differences between Hitler’s and Stalin’s leadership styles.
49:18 – Mark talks about the Lithuanian KGB and archives about it.
53:29 – Mark talks about jet propulsion in the 1930s.
1:09:35 – Mark can be found by googling “Mark Harrison Warwick”. He also has a blog which can be found by googling the previous phrase and adding the word “blog.”
Links of interest
Book’s home page – www.palgrave.com/9781137362377
For more “Military History Inside Out” please follow me on Facebook at warscholar, on twitter at Warscholar, on youtube at warscholar1945 and on Instagram @crisalvarezswarscholar
Guests: Mark Harrison
Host: Cris Alvarez
Tags: military, history, military history, conflict, war, interview, non-fiction book, Soviet Union, Germany, KGB, purges, agriculture, industrialization, WWII, world war two, Stalin, Hitler, Politburo, strategy
Check out this book here https://amzn.to/3eIEmvT
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