Where to Start Reading Soviet History

Get access to The Backroom (90+ exclusive episodes) and support 1Dime Radio: https://www.patreon.com/OneDime

This week on 1Dime Radio, I am joined by Noj Rants, one of the sharpest new voices in Soviet history on YouTube. We go straight at the myths that both mainstream commentators and newer Marxist sympathizers tend to repeat, especially about the Lenin era, the Soviets themselves, and how the Soviet state actually functioned. We talk about bad historiography, timeline compression, “Lenin died, then Stalin took over” simplifications, Civil War narratives, archives, and why so much of Soviet history discourse ends up polarized into propaganda versus counterpropaganda. 

In the Backroom segment on Patreon, NOJ Rants, and I keep going for four more hours, continuing the conversation. It is split into two parts, covering a wide range of Soviet history debates across multiple periods. In these two Patreon exclusive episodes, NOJ Rants, and I continue our conversation about contentious events in Soviet history, from the development of the Bolshevik one‑party state to the realities of Soviet “democracy.” We also discuss the Stalin period, the Red Purges, and NOJ Rants' hot takes on Marxism‑Leninism and the lessons of Soviet state-building.  I basically throw every question you can imagine at him and get his take on the biggest controversies, interpretations, and myths. We also get into the state of left-wing YouTube today, and how prominent leftist creators, especially Marxist-Leninists, tend to cover Soviet history.

Timestamps:

00:00:00  The Backroom Preview 

00:04:51  The Best Soviet History YouTuber

00:10:05  Where to start reading Soviet history, the best historians and books

00:20:19  Stalin Wasn't a Dictator According to the CIA?  

00:37:43 The Soviet archives 

00:42:36  How the Russian Civil War Timeline Gets Re-Written

00:44:44  Soviet elections, Mensheviks, SRs, & the Socialist Opposition

00:47:43 The Truth About Imperialist Encirclement

01:11:52  The Constituent Assembly and Bolshevik Consolidation

01:29:05   Was Soviet Democracy a real thing? 

01:33:19  Prelude to the 4-hour Backroom Segment (Parts 2 and 2)

GUEST:

NOJ Rants (YouTuber, Soviet history)

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nojrants

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