Really enjoying the podcast. Babylon Berlin has not gotten nearly enough commentary in the English speaking-world, and this podcast does a great job bringing up interesting points beyond the plot.
My one qualm so far was the historical sum-up of the Russian Revolution. I think it would have been better to just hit on the outline of important and relevant events, because the extra info and interpretations weren’t well-informed imo. I think it’s important to look at the Czarist state, the provisional government, and the Soviet government, and the politics and motivations of the various political factions to really get what it was about.
There was a reason the Bolsheviks won the Civil War — they were very popular, and they were popular because they supported giving power to workers councils. Meanwhile the provisional government had the support of over a dozen invading armies from other countries, funding, and weapons the Bolsheviks did not have. Communists won because they committed to ending the World War, redistributing lands to poor peasants, and giving power to the workers councils. And they delivered immediately upon taking power. Meanwhile, the provisional government and before that the Czarist fought for the rule of a privileged elite, killed millions of men by sending them off to WW1, and were committed to an antiquated oppressive which didn’t represent the masses.
When you read all sides in the literature, both from contemporaries and later historians, I think the Bolsheviks come out looking a lot more sympathetic than all other forces. It’s really worth reading Trotsky and Victor Serge’s histories of the Russian revolution to get a more accurate sense and hear the side we never hear.
Stalin was a massive break from all the promises of the revolution and the ideas of the Bolsheviks, and he took over thanks to his role in the bureaucracy as a benefactor to careerists and other less ideologically committed elements.
So Lenin, Trotsky, and their cothinkers are not the mass-murdering evil geniuses only committed to power which you claim. Stalin is a different story.
Anyways it’s a deep and complicated subject, so I’ll leave it at that.
My only other issue was the love of the modern music in the cabaret 😂. Couldn’t stand it. It totally took me out of the show when they used modern music in a period drama that is so convincing. They should have stuck to doing good renditions of music that would have actually been played at the time. My biggest gripe with the show lol
