Radio War Nerd EP #236 — Annibale's Italy on the Eastern Front, Pt. 5: The POW Legacy
Guest: Annibale
Recorded: June 28, 2020
Popular RWN guest Annibale wraps up his 5-part series on Italy on the Eastern Front in World War II. This episode: the political and cultural fallout of the Italian POWs in the Soviet Union, through films, political culture, and weaponized history...
Listen to Annibale's popular RWN series on Italy on the Eastern Front in WWII (#231, #228, #227,#226).
Check out more Annibale series: Italy's Years Of Lead (#134, #135, #136, #139); Italian Resistance in WW2 (#131); The Hundred Years War (#175, #176, #177, #180, #182, #183); Venetian Empire (#207, #208, #209, #214).
Follow Annibale on Twitter.
Total time: 2:06:50
Comments (11)
To answer John's question at the 28m mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feY5KhdXsUQ
(only the first two minutes tho)
QUESTION: Ames you mentioned a couple of times that you saw the desire of the nomenklatura of the Soviet Union to live a western lifestyle as a big part of what helped it dissolve. Have you guys done any shows or articles on this? It's not a view I've heard a lot and would like to know more.
they haven't yet done a show on it, but I've seen the opinion echoed by other people who were living there in the 90s. people who lived through this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLNKqbwec0s
Bravo! Thank you all once again! An episode about Cold War ambient dread sounds strangely fitting right now. I can already hear Annibale saying “Able Archer” in my head.
QUESTION: When contrasting the cultures of North West and NorthEast Italy, Annibale mentioned a book on regional differences in the partisan resistance. It sounds like he’s saying “The Perfect Resistance” to me, but either I’m mishearing him or the name is too common for a google search. Can anyone confirm or provide the author?
The book is this one. It's a "narrated essay" about the Resistance in the Piedmontese Alps (the Italian NW), and it claims - I think successfully - that it was the "perfect resistance", the most advanced and ultimately functional attempt to blend together the different soul of antifascism (communist, liberal, monarchist, etc) into a working machine. It's not a book about regional differences "per se", but it nicely describes the particular character of "that" resistance https://www.amazon.it/Resistenza-perfetta-Giovanni-Luna-ebook/dp/B01LX6Q12R/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
You guys mentioned the revealing impossibility of "going Galt in a pandemic". You would enjoy Cory Doctorow's novella, The Masque of the Red Death, which is about trying to go Galt only to run up against "our shared microbial destiny". (It's named after a Poe short story with a similar moral.) Audio version here: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/03/13/the-masque-of-the-red-death/
Mentioning Trotsky's assassin, have you thought of asking Michael Hudson to come on? He was Trotsky's godson. He is an economist/archeologist but his experience is such that I'm sure you would find lots to talk about. You can find lots of his interviews on Youtube.
As far as screwing people there’s the help for that. Accountants, PR people, lawyers.
Commentary on oligarchs and pandemic with people dying: 1) covid-19 was known from the beginning to not be a risk of societal wipe-out so it did not threat the total economy 2) only a small part of the labour reserve and mostly poor would die (as they always do) since they themselves could flee to their bunkers and hamptons which they also did 3) oligarchs are not only concerned with profit but also the feeling of being above law and life. Seeing the common people die reinforces this sentiment while they watch this from their bunkers 4) the crisis as a great opportunity for more corporate socialism. They are really repugnant people and the level of contempt for other people is psychopathic. Otherwise you wouldn't become an oligarch in the beginning. You have to screw everybody on your way: employees, customers, the law etc