Young Putin, the KGB and the Soviet Union (TRIH ep 159)

1986 · Resource

This episode is the first of a short multi-part series tracing the late Soviet Union, its collapse and the rise of Vladimir Putin. Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook set out the cultural and political background that shaped Putin — his 1952 birth in Leningrad, KGB career and posting to Dresden — and place him in the context of Soviet generations shaped by the Brezhnev era. The hosts discuss key late-Soviet leaders (Andropov, Chernenko) and focus on Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms (perestroika and...

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