Today’s episode is the second of a two part programme with Dr Martin
McCauley, formerly a senior lecturer in Russian and European history at the University of London. Dr McCauley has a long standing interest in the Soviet Union, having conducted research there in the late 1950s. He is the author of a wide range of books on the Soviet Union, including The Khruschev Era, and the excellent, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union. 

In this programme I discuss the issues of historical approaches and methods  with Dr McCauley and try to find out a bit more about how he came to his conclusions on the Soviet Union. This is a fascinating insight into how pastiches of a country are built up over time.

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right.

Today’s episode is the first of a two part programme with Dr Martin McCauley, formerly a senior lecturer in Russian and European history at the University of London. Dr McCauley has a long standing interest in the Soviet Union, having conducted research there in the late 1950s. He is the author of a wide range of books on the Soviet Union, including The Khruschev Era, and the excellent, Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union.

This first programme is taken from a lecture given at Guiseley School to Sixth Form students in March of 2014. In the lecture, Dr McCauley looks at the origins of the Marxist-Leninist ideology, and how successive leaders of the union tried and failed to reform the system over a period of some 70 years. He also takes some time to explore the reasons for the collapse of the Union, and makes some interesting points about the clan-like system of political patronage in operation in the USSR. 

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