Russia: The Wild East: A History, Part Two: The Rise and Fall of the Soviets

by Martin Sixsmith (Author and Narrator), David Warner (Narrator), Peter Dickinson (Narrator)

Martin Sixsmith continues his history of Russia, from the tumultuous events of 1917 to the country’s re-emergence as one of the world’s most powerful nations. After the whirlwind of the revolution, the Bolsheviks struggled to consolidate their victory. To rescue the economy and save the regime, Lenin made concessions to the people. But after his death, Stalin introduced forced collectivisation and industrialisation, condemning the Soviet people to conditions worse than those experienced under the Tsars. Nikita Khrushchev reversed the worst excesses of Stalinism, and in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on radical reforms of the communist system – unleashing unforeseen consequences that swept him from power and destroyed the USSR.

Martin Sixsmith brings his firsthand experience of reporting from Russia in the 1980s and ‘90s to his narrative, witnessing the critical moment when the Soviet Union lost its grip on power. He asks if the recurring patterns of Russian history can help us understand what has happened since 1991, when the promise of Western-style democracy aroused so many hopes for change.

Eyewitness accounts, archive recordings and personal testimony enrich his narrative, as well as readings from Russian authors and historians such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman, plus music by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others.

The final 25 episodes from the landmark BBC Radio series, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 from 11 July to 12 August 2011.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia, Audiobook

6 pages, Audio CD

First published August 25, 2011

About the author

George Martin Sixsmith, British author and journalist.
Sixsmith joined the BBC in 1980 where he worked as a foreign correspondent, most notably reporting from Moscow during the end of the Cold War. He also reported from Poland during the Solidarity uprising and was the BBC's Washington correspondent during the election and first presidency of Bill Clinton. He was based in Russia for five years, the US for four, Brussels for four and Poland for three.

Sixsmith left the BBC in 1997 to work for the newly elected government of Tony Blair. He became Director of Communications (a civil service post), working first with Harriet Harman and Frank Field, then with Alistair Darling. His next position was as a Director of GEC plc, where he oversaw the rebranding of the company as Marconi plc.

In December 2001, he returned to the Civil Service to join the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions as Director of Communications in time to become embroiled in the second act of the scandal over Jo Moore. Moore was special adviser to the transport secretary Stephen Byers and had been the subject of much public condemnation for suggesting that a controversial announcement should be "buried" during the media coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1]

Sixsmith incurred the displeasure of Downing Street when his email advising Byers and Moore not to bury more bad news was leaked to the press. Number Ten attempted to "resign him", but had later to issue an apology and pay him compensation. Sixsmith was widely expected to write a memoir or autobiography in the wake of his civil service departure, but was gagged by the government[citation needed] Instead, he produced a novel about near-future politics called Spin, published in 2004.

His second novel, I Heard Lenin Laugh, was published in 2005. In 2006 he was commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to present a series of programmes on Russian poetry, literature and art.

In 2007 he wrote The Litvinenko File, an examination of the feud between the Kremlin and Russia's émigré oligarchs.

In 2008 Sixsmith worked on two BBC documentaries exploring the legacy of the KGB in today's Russia and also presented a BBC documentary, The Snowy Streets of St. Petersburg, about artists and writers who fled the former Eastern bloc.

In 2009 he wrote The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, about the forcible separation of a mother and child by the nuns of an Irish convent during the 1950s, and the subsequent attempts of the mother and child to contact one another.[2] The book was adapted into the film Philomena, directed by Stephen Frears, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan (as Sixsmith), and written by Coogan and Jeff Pope; it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released in the UK on November 1 2013.

In February 2010 Sixsmith wrote Putin's Oil, about Russia's energy wars and their consequences for Moscow and the world.

He worked as an adviser to the BBC political sitcom The Thick of It, and the Oscar-nominated film, In the Loop.

In 2011, he presented Russia: The Wild East, a 50-part history of Russia for BBC Radio 4, the last episode of which was broadcast on 12 August.[3] His book Russia, a 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East was published by Random House.

In 2014 Sixsmith will present a 25 part programme about the history of psychology and psychiatry for the BBC radio.

Reviews

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, at five and a half hours, is fine as a basic run-through of 20th century Russian history from a British liberal-centrist perspective. These are episodes of a BBC radio series which was also a book; radio delivered by an experienced presenter, along with interviews, sound effects and occasional music, is the easiest of spoken-word formats to listen to, and I certainly appreciated it for that, as I did with Part 1. Sixsmith was one of the regular BBC news correspondents when I was growing up and his voice subtly or overtly evokes late 80s and early 90s news, adding a comfort aspect to this for listeners of an age to remember that. He is also good at clarifying and summarising events which seemed complex and tangled when absorbed from regular news (e.g. the power struggles between Putin and various oligarchs). Some may find the perspective irksomely British and/or centrist (and,as in Part 1, the repeated use of the term 'asiatic despotism' is inadequately defined, contextualised, justified etc, and is rather eyebrow-raising these days). This is content from the days when the sense of mission to establish Western-style liberal democracy everywhere was stronger and felt more confident of success and about judging the world. It's from 2011, so in the tail-end of those years, but Sixsmith was understandably shaped by witnessing the events of the fall of Soviet communism. At least there is China Mieville on the Russian revolution instead if you want a left wing perspective, but that is a much longer book about a shorter period of time. The Wild East is the sort of thing, in the BBC style of 30 years ago, that will for example mention Anthony Eden without explaining who he was. I wouldn't expect someone who'd never lived in the UK, and didn't take a particular interest in its history, to know about a brief premiership 70 years ago. But I think something has been lost domestically that the news doesn't make you learn stuff to understand it any more; as a kid this was an important way I actually learned stuff - accumulating, over the years, info that filled in the gaps and needing to hang on to it because the labels weren't there every time.

I listened to this in one day whilst sewing, and had deliberately chosen an audio with mostly familiar information so I wouldn't feel the need to take a lot of notes. There wasn't much here which wasn't covered by other audios on Russian history I've already listened to, such as Orlando Figes' The Whisperers, Svetlana Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War or A History of Eastern Europe from The Great Courses. Anything more specific I have to say about the content of this is below in the status updates. (Pasted as they don't show up below reviews on the app.

----

17.0% "Emphasises brutality of Lenin's rule - doesn't draw any 'not as bad as Stalin' comparisons and doesn't mention positives of the initial revolution. After Figes & this am realising this is a typical Boomer British Establishment historian view although I had picked up from many sources (incl some by same generation) the 'not as bad' view. NEP as capitulation to capitalism. L trying to warn about Stalin before he died."

55.0% "A lot of material I already heard in Figes' The Whisperers, Alexievich's The Unwomanly Face of War & Great Courses History of Eastern Europe (which is why I'm listening to it while sewing, no need to take a lot of notes). A few interesting pts here: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - don't remember her from UwFoW but the sort of story who must have been in it - known for exceptional courage under torture & speech at execution."

55.0% "Sixsmith goes back earlier than those other books & traces Soviet demand for sacrifice in WWII back as far as medieval Sts Boris & Gleb. Siege of Stalingrad - Hitler making it into a personal duel because of the city name.
Earlier: didn't know Arthur Ransome knew Lenin!
No-one really wanted Stalin to come to power.
Good Sixsmith discusses the republics & national minorities. Would have liked even more."

55.0% "Cites an early Russian usage of term Iron Curtain tho I didn't make a note of writer's name & it's not in the list of pre-Churchill usages on Wiki. Another Churchill quote mentioned well before WII - what a hold he had over British Boomers' sense of history.
Interesting hearing bits about Sixsmith's trip(s?) to USSR as kid with family - the bits about the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era less surprising but still nostalgic."

69.0% "Something I don't think I'd heard before: Operation Unthinkable: report commissioned by Churchill just before he retired on possibility of invading the USSR in a total war. If the West was going to do this it had to be before the Soviets also got the atom bomb. Clip of Truman saying that EE countries had totalitarian govts against their will."

69.0% "Stalin initially snubbed Mao. But had to take him seriously and ally with him due to Korean War & US intervention. This comes across as a proxy war, mentioned so soon after the allies' mooting invading USSR in late 1940s. I'd heard so little about the Korean War that this was actually sort of new and interesting."

69.0% "Up to this point (currently it's up to the succession to Stalin, only significant defiance of him/USSR mentioned was by Tito's non-alignment policy in Yugoslavia."

80.0% "Brezhnev as start of long decline. USSR went into space first but never put man on the moon.
Return of comparisons made at start btwn Lenin's & Gorbachev's economic reforms. At start mentioned that when an autocratic regime is trying to reform itself is when it's most vulnerable to overthrow: Lenin beat that rule, Gorby didn't. Gorb as apparently orthodox, didn't look like reformer."

80.0% "New small businesses of 1980s as most capitalist policy since NEP. Report about bakery gives me déja vu; was probably repeated during 89-90 as well as having seen it on news first time round.
Yeltsin as driver of reforms for full democracy not just oompetition between ideas etc within party. Reminder of when Y was seen as heroic not just drunken fool unable to do his job as degenerated to later."

99.0% "VG at making clear, briefly what the conflicts with various named oligarchs were, e.g. which industry and how they were in Putin's way and either capitulated or fell foul of him. Makes it v clear that Putin's wresting back control of the oil industry from Khordakovsky is related to foreign policy clout and controlling other countries' gas supplies - sort of thing can get lost in noise of news."

99.0% "When this was recorded, wasn't yet return to autocracy been elsewhere in EE which makes the discussion of democracy & autocracy Russia-specific. As at start (pt 1) fails to define Asiatic Despotism adequately & where it did/does apply in Asia and where not."

99.0% "More or less concludes, without overtly saying so, that dictatorship in Russia may be inevitable. But having heard a few liberal Russians say the same it's not just a matter of lazy Western stereotyping. (Russia does love stereotyping itself. It's a different way of doing things.)"

(December 2020)

[Andrei · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teine pool kogenud briti ajakirjaniku Martin Sixsmithi Venemaa audioajaloost. Erinevalt esimese osa mõningasest pealiskaudsusest ja tänu kitsamale ajavahemikule - 20. sajandi algusest tänapäevani - oluliselt faktitihedam ja kaasahaaravam. Paljud protsessid ja olulised aspektid on küll vaid põgusalt markeeritud ning sajandi teisest poolest pigem joostakse läbi, kuid eeskujuliku ülevaate saab nii revolutsiooniaja sisemistest vastuoludest kui ka II maailmasõja pöörisest. Kõige olulisemad osad puudutavad ilmselt Suure Isamaasõja kangelasmüütide lammutamist (MRPst faktini, et tsiviilisikutel ei lubatud Stalingradist evakueeruda, kuna see langetavat kaitsjate moraali) ja Stalini kuritegude ulatust (Holodomor, Katõn ja nii edasi ja nii edasi). 4/5

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A high quality overview of Soviet to autocracy, bringing Russian government full circle: providing ample evidence that it appears Russia will not be governed happily in any other way.

[Mouldy Squid · Rating 4 out of 5]

A continuation of the BBC Radio 4 series by Martin Sixsmith. This half covers the history of Russia from the Revolutions of the early 1900s to the presidency of Medvedev. Again, the series is excellent, contains dramatic readings, songs, first person accounts and interviews of leading figures by Sixsmith himself. It is clear that Sixsmith knows his Russia and provides and infectious enthusiasm for his subject. While the history is necessarily light, considering the format there is more than enough information for the lay-person to ingest. Russia: The Wild East is a great way to gain a basic understanding of Russian history and culture.

[Lena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is good, but hard to listen too. I'm not too sure how much has stuck. Might have to listen to again at some point

[Maeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook and it was masterful with music and soundbites from the time period.