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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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Dr. Adrastos Omissi is a lecturer in Latin literature and his specialty is the later Roman Empire. We spoke about his latest book on panegyrics associated with the Roman civil wars of the Later Roman Empire.