Doomed Soldiers: Polish Armed Underground Resistance During & After WWII

Doomed Soldiers

A non-proft, all-volunteer project dedicated to the preservation of the history of the fallen Democratic Underground Soldiers from the Polish Home Army (AK), Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (NSZ), WiN, ROAK, and other Patriotic Armed Underground organizations who gave their lives fighting Nazi and Communist occupiers during and after II World War.

A fascinating site that continues to develop the historical record but also uses that history in support of "lustration" (the policy of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police in the successor governments or even in civil service positions.). 

---
FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Primary Source Documents for the Study of Russian/Soviet History

Primary Source Documents for the Study of Russian/Soviet History
Recommended by Dr. James Harris, University of Leeds & THF

http://academic.shu.edu/russianhistory/index.php/Main_Page (Translated Documents, Medieval to Modern Russia, from Seton Hall University, New Jersey)

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/intro.html ("Revelations from the Russian Archives", Library of Congress)

http://hcl.harvard.edu/collections/hpsss  (Interviews with Soviet Emigres. Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System online)

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF. You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below: video audio

Have You Ever Heard Lenin's Voice? Listen to Lenin

Listen to Lenin:

Born in Simbirsk, Russia, Vladimir Ilich Lenin recorded at least a dozen gramophone records in the period 1919-1921, including this tribute to his faithful colleague Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov.

Obviously, this recording is in Russian. The British Library has provided a transcript with the recording available from the site linked below.

Listen to Lenin (outside THF network).

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russian Archives Online > Film Clips & Photographs from the Archives

Karasnogorsk Archives

Be one of the first to watch these historic film clips from the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo Archive at Krasnogorsk.

Link to clips (outside THF network).

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russian Archives Online > A Short History of The Red Army

A Short History of The Red Army

from the Russian Archives Online.

Link to history (outside THF network).

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russian Archives Online > A Romanov Album

A Romanov Album

Photographs of the Romanov's from the Russian Archives Online.

Link to gallery (outside THF Network).

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russian Archives Online > Soviet Propaganda

Soviet Propaganda:

This collection of examples of Soviet-era propaganda is arranged chronologically from the Bolshevik Revolution to the Cold War arms race.

The exhibition is hosted by The Russian Archives Online

Link to exhibition (outside THF network).

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Further Reading re 'Russia, Germany & the Alliance System: 1872 -1914'

Recommended by Dr. Alastair Kocho-Williams, Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West of England.

Bridge, F. and Bullen, R. The Great Powers and the European States System 1814-1914

Geiss, I. German Foreign Policy, 1870-1914

Geyer, D. Russian Imperialism, 1860-1914

Hildebrand, K. German Foreign Policy from Bismarck to Adenauer

Kennan, G. The Fateful Alliance: France Russia and the Coming of the First World War

Lieven, D. C. B. Russia and the Origins of the First World War

Lowe, J. The Great Powers, Imperialism and the German Problem, 1865-1925

Mackenzie, D. Imperial Dreams, Harsh Realities: Tsarist Russia's Foreign Policy 1815-1917

Langer, W. European Alliances and Alignments, 1871-90

Langer, W. The Franco-Russian Alliance

Taylor, A. J. P. The Struggle for Mastery of Europe

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:


video audio

The Alliance System 1872-1914: Timeline

Compiled by Dr. Alastair Kocho-Williams, Senior Lecturer in History, University of the West of England.

1872: Three Emperors’ League (Dreikaiserbund)
- Germany - Austro-Hungary - Russia
- Reconciliation of Austria and Germany
- Reconciliation of Austria and Russia

1873: Military Convention for mutual defence (Russia & Germany); Schonbrunn Convention (Russia & Austria)

1879: Dual Alliance
- Germany - Austro-Hungary
- 5 Years
- Against Russia- Isolates France

1881: Dreikaiserbund renewed
- Germany - Austro-Hungary – Russia
- Mutual defence
- Prevention of Austro-Russian conflict in Balkans
- Allows for Austrian annexation of Bosnia if deemed necessary

1882: Triple Alliance
- Germany - Austro-Hungary - Italy

1887: Reinsurance Treaty
- Germany – Russia
- 3 Years
- Does not apply in war against France or Austria
- Incompatible with Triple Alliance – not renewed in 1890

1890: Reinsurance Treaty not renewed
- Bismarck dismissed
- German shift to Weltpolitik and creation of Schlieffen Plan to deal with war against France and Russia

- 1894: Franco-Russian Alliance
- Directed against Triple Alliance powers
- Duration as Triple Alliance
- France becomes Russia’s main creditor allowing for the expansion of industry, railways and armaments

1904: Entente Cordiale
- France - Britain

1907: Anglo-Russian Convention
- Completes Triple Entente

---

FREE history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download podcasts to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:





video audio

The Russian Provisional Government, 1917

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

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.

There is no single book on the Provisional Government. There are good chapters on it in James D. White, The Russian Revolution: A Short History and in Ronald Kowalski’s The Russian Revolution. There is also a good essay by Howard White in A Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, edited by E. Acton et. al.

---

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Trotsky & The Bolsheviks 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

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.

For further reading see Ian D. Thatcher, Trotsky and Ian D. Thatcher, ‘Trotskii and Lenin’s Funeral’ in History, April 2009.
---

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

The 1905 Russian Revolution: Causes, Course, Consequences

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.


In 1905 Russia became famous as a centre of Revolution. The eyes of Europe were focused upon modern forms of discontent, especially the mass strike, in an old political order. This talk covers the beginnings, development and end of this remarkable period in late imperial Russia history. Was this an opportunity for Tsarism to reform itself, or was 1905 simply a foretaste of what was to come in 1917?

For further reading the best single volume account is by Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905: A Short History (2004)
A good collection of recent scholarship can be found in J. Smele & A. Heywood (eds), The Russian Revolution of 1905: Centenary Perspectives (2005) 

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

The Bolshevik State: Survival & Consolidation, 1917-1924

Ian Thatcher, Brunel University.

When the Bolsheviks declared a new government in October 1917 many a commentator, including many Bolsheviks, thought that it could not survive as a one-party regime. It would have either to give way to the Constituent Assembly or to transform itself into a broad coalition of socialists of all types. This talk examines why of all the attempted communist revolutions in Europe of this time (Germany, Hungary, Slovakia etc.) only the Bolshevik regime in Russia survived. It also asks whether the price paid for survival – the consolidation of a one-party dictatorship meant that the ideal of socialism was lost.

For further reading see:
Christopher Read's detailed and readable From Tsar to Soviets (1996).
Ronald Kowalski's The Russian Revolution (1997) contains many primary documents.
James D. White's The Russian Revolution: A Short History (1994) is clear, concise and informative.


View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russia & The First World War

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

The Russian Agrarian Crisis?

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

The 1917 Russian Revolutions

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Stalin's Foreign Policy

Alastair Kocho-Williams, University of the West of England.

This podcast examines Stalin's foreign policy in the interwar years. Dr Kocho-Williams examines Stalin's foreign policy aims during the 1930s, discussing the failure of collective security and the conclusion of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939. The podcast covers the Soviet Union's conduct of foreign policy using both diplomacy and the Communist International.

Contents:

1. The aims of Soviet foreign policy under Stalin, 1928-1941
2. Collective Security and its failure
3. The Soviet Union and the Spanish Civil War
4. The Nazi-Soviet Pact, August 1939
5. The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, June 1941

---

View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio

Russia, Germany & the Alliance System: 1872 -1914

Alastair Kocho-Williams, University of the West of England.

This podcasts deals with Russia, Germany and the system of alliances created in the late 19th Century. These alliances would prove to be crucially important in the build up to the First World War. The alliances are looked at, and questions are asked as to how significant they were with respect to the First World War, and if in fact were a contributing factor to its outbreak.

Contents:

1. The Bismarckian Alliance System (1871-1890)
2. The Franco-Russian Alliance (1893/4)
3. The Triple-Entente
4. Crises and the outbreak of the First World War

---
View free resources and further details related to the study of this topic.

View other free history presentations and resources produced by THF.

You can download to your mp4 player and/or mobile phone for free by visiting the THF Podcast Homepage or by subscribing to one of the RSS feeds below:

video audio