Red Chapters: Turning Points in the History of Communism

On the night of October 24, 1917, a police patrol stopped two men on the streets of St. Petersburg. Failing to recognize their quarry, they let them pass. One of them was the future founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In this program, we will investigate the circumstances of the October Revolution and explore what could have led to democracy in Russia instead of dictatorship.

In late 1922, Lenin wrote a secret speech censuring General Secretary Stalin, to be read the following spring at the Twelfth Party Congress. But on March 9, 1923, Lenin suffered a debilitating stroke and the speech was never given. This program focuses on the sequence of events surrounding the twist of fate that left Lenin speechless and presented Stalin with a way into supreme power.

The shocking murder of Sergei Kirov, a charismatic Party member whose popularity threatened Stalin's power, impacted the lives of millions. However, the truth behind it has remained a mystery. Examine the facts surrounding the murder and shed light on the horrific era of purges that followed, in which thousands of suspected enemies of the people were brutally executed.

The Dadu is a swift and dangerous river, long associated with the defeat of armies that could not escape across it. For the Maoist Communists in 1935, crossing that river meant the survival of their cause. This program documents the story of the Communist revolution in China, providing an excellent overview of the years before, during and after the Party's rise to power.

The Cultural Revolution, which started in 1966, had less to do with culture than with a violent attempt to control the minds of the Chinese people. Yet it was a play, which slyly criticized Chairman Mao, that raised the curtain on this horrendous period in China's history, acting as a catalyst for the brutal reforms.

On October 9, 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed. His mangled body was dumped in an anonymous grave with the hope he would be forgotten. Che's enemies, however, had underestimated him. In this program, General Gary Prado, the officer in charge of Che's capture and nurse Susan Osinaga, who cleaned Che's dead body, discuss Che's appeal as a Communist martyr.