Peter Hitchens: Why Christmas in the USSR was great | SpectatorTV
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2 жыл бұрынPeter Hitchens and historian Robert Service discuss spending Christmas in the USSR. Peter spent Christmas in Moscow in 1990, unaware that it would be the last Christmas the Soviet Union saw. At Christmas in 1973, Robert Service was in Leningrad, having the 'most miserable Christmas of my life'.
Peter Hitchens is a columnist for the Mail on Sunday.
Robert Service is a fellow at Oxford and Stanford universities, and has written acclaimed biographies of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky.
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@davidlovatt2335 2 жыл бұрын
That was absolutely brilliant. Many thanks to Peter and Robert for sharing their experiences.
@mili3212 2 жыл бұрын
This interviewer is excellent! Very cheerful and allows them both enough time to elaborate on their stories.
@adambritain5774 2 жыл бұрын
As a very private man, and understandably so, it is nice to hear Peter Hitchens talk more about his family life. I bet he's absolutely great in a social setting.
@Puma9621-d2c 2 жыл бұрын
I could listen to Peter all day - a very compelling interviewee.
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
@@Puma9621-d2c He can be a bit of a "Casandra" at times but here I agree, this was an excellent discussion.
@shaunh5316 2 жыл бұрын
Really enjoyed this engaging interview, about a subject that I know little about. Cindy Lu brought the best out of the two guests.
@HebrewsElevenTwentyFive 2 жыл бұрын
Always interesting to hear people much older than me talking about their experiences in the midst of political intrigue that I am not too well read upon! God bless you all 🙏🏾
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
For a start you might pick up a copy of Robert Service's excellent book: Trotsky-A Biography.
@HebrewsElevenTwentyFive 2 жыл бұрын
@@autodidact537 Thank you for the recommendation.
@kevinrobb86 2 жыл бұрын
" a bag of magic beans" of all the things I like about this guy is his dry humour
@cormacodalaigh912 2 жыл бұрын
She's a wonderful interviewer
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
She really didn't interview them at all, she started the ball rolling & let Robert Service & Peter Hitchens do the rest.
@ChristAcolyte Жыл бұрын
@@autodidact537 That's what a good interviewer does? A good interviewer lets the subject speak, only serving to start the conversation.
@robertortiz-wilson1588 Жыл бұрын
Loved hearing this stories!
@jujuanogara6088 2 жыл бұрын
Heartwarming
@pauld5723 2 жыл бұрын
The lady presenter has a warmth to her that makes her stand out.
@dpf2122 2 жыл бұрын
Hitchens' wife and daughter seem like real troopers, good for them.
@josiahroberts3721 2 жыл бұрын
The BEARD - hell yeah.
@jbob34345 2 жыл бұрын
This interviewer has such a nice and infectious, even the dooomed PH looked happy for once..almost
@darrenlee9237 2 жыл бұрын
Absolutely fascinating insight into a hidden world from another era. Made all the more interesting by the beautiful and wonderfully intelligent Cindy Lu prompting such interesting answers from these two veteran intellectual heavyweights.
@Rudolph1722 2 жыл бұрын
At 6:54, the people listening to Brejnev are making a hand gesture, possibly when they hear things they agree with. Does someone know anything about that?
@MeTheRob 2 жыл бұрын
No Xmas is complete without a bag of magic beans.
@khankrum1 2 жыл бұрын
Yet we've got the Christmas prawns this year!
@kleomenis456 2 жыл бұрын
Weird to see people being able to celebrate X-Mas in communist Russia. Glad he had fun there for sure. It's amazing to hear.
@kleomenis456 2 жыл бұрын
@@borbo23 so it's completely the opposite of what we are told. Especially the quote you told me fully. Thanx.
@bogthing1 2 жыл бұрын
The USSR may be gone, but the madness remains. Great segment, Thank you.
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
The madness of the rotten West you mean ?
@eg4848 2 жыл бұрын
To be fair don't Eastern orthodox celebrate Christmas in January anyway? I imagine back in those days even if there wasn't an anti-religious state the 25th of December would be another normal day?
@tsmay4598 2 жыл бұрын
You would have thought they would know that.
@f1delcastr0 2 жыл бұрын
Who chose the film clips? Peter Hitchens is talking about his wife going to Detsky Mir and they show a Melodiya records shop, Robert Service is talking about his time in Leningrad and they show a clip of what even the dullest of video editors must surely realise was Moscow.
@tsmay4598 2 жыл бұрын
Well, Christmas in Russia is on 6th January. 6th January is probably pretty grim in England.
@eleveneleven572 2 жыл бұрын
This reminds me of back in the 80's my parents went on a cheap holiday to Communist Bulgaria, God only knows why. They told me of how they went into a restaurant to get some food and the only meal they could offer was a plate of peas. Their own hotel only provided breakfast which was mainly bread. Fortunately they were taken in by an America couple who stayed at an American hotel which had everything on offer. Even so they'd lost considerable weight after two weeks there, and my parents were both quite slim to begin with. The shops were just row upon row of empty shelves. Then there were the currency touts offering 3 or 4 times the official exchange rates and offered to buy items of my parents clothing. How my father didn't get arrested I don't know.
@mpersad 2 жыл бұрын
A terrific set of interviews again. Robert Service is without a doubt one of the finest historians to have written on Russia and the Soviet Union. When so many others were apologists for the horrors of the USSR he bravely, and forensically, documented the horrors of that wicked regime. A great man.
@Ryudo916 2 жыл бұрын
So brave to serve the people in power
@christophekeating21 2 жыл бұрын
@@borbo23 Learn the difference between the past and the present tense. Back in the seventies, such apologies were far more common.
@ajs41 2 жыл бұрын
Who's the interviewer?
@ianinkster2261 2 жыл бұрын
I don't know but I saw her first.
@pauljones5066 2 жыл бұрын
GREAT interviewer! - what's her name? In retrospect, the USSR was a very sick society. nice to see old boys reminiscing about the merits of the free market and belief in God.
@chrispeterson7865 2 жыл бұрын
Cindy Yu
@MontyCantsin5 2 жыл бұрын
@Paul Jones: ‘’nice to see old boys reminiscing about the merits of the free market and belief in God.’’ 🤢
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
Your society is and was sick not USSR
@Joker-yw9hl 2 жыл бұрын
Would be interested to hear Peter's views over the current crisis in Ukraine. He always adds some sanity amidst a media hysteria. Let's poke the Russian bear and be surprised when he snarls
@holdfast453 2 жыл бұрын
As much as I admire Mr Hitchens (shook hands in London, The Phoney Victory at my bedside as I type this), I’d like to remind him not to get carried away with cheap nostalgia nonsense. Being born and bred behind the Iron Curtain myself, in one of the typical concrete suburban sprawls, I’d never had his ‘shocking’ encounter with rodents and other pests while growing up there. On the contrary, I’d have my shocking encounter with the Bed Bugs of London soon after my arrival to these shores years ago. Peter, leave this yellow bollocks to The Sun and focus on what you do best!
@h.r7050 2 жыл бұрын
Same here, not even in pionersky lager did I get lice - guess what, where did I see my first nits ever - correct, on my child's napper, when the said child attended a minor private school in the UK.
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
Exactly!
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
@@h.r7050 😭😭😭
@anthonyspinks2640 2 жыл бұрын
I want to know what Peter's thoughts are of Russia in Ukraine and Russia in Chrimea I thought these 2 country s previously belonged to Russia?
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
"Chrimea?"
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
They have always been Russian. Only the evil West created the fake state of Ukraine and Ukronazis
@jamesdean1143 2 жыл бұрын
Russian Christmas is on January 7.
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
He even got Breznyev there in 1990 💩💩💩💩💩😂😂😂
@silapornraktanyakit7995 2 жыл бұрын
The conclusion with Mr. Hitchens, ironically for some people, is he is incredibly open minded, an observer of existence.
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
you mean a spy and an agitator /infiltrator of another sort ?
@AlessioAndres 2 жыл бұрын
Peter Hitchens is the closest thing to James Bond. 🤣
@richardj9016 2 жыл бұрын
Just adding the 100th comment
@dyl0n 2 жыл бұрын
Cindy is a babe
@DWS-rx8gw 2 жыл бұрын
When are you emigrating Hitchens
@mfr58 2 жыл бұрын
Sounds like Christmases to come in the west from now on.....
@h.r7050 2 жыл бұрын
I studied Lenin, said Bob Service, who criticised Martin McCauley for his greedy TV appearances on Sky in the early 1990s ahem ahem and then went on to be Abramovich's expert..... Oh, how history makes me laugh....
@thomasboyd1433 2 жыл бұрын
I never heard North Shropshire politically it put Full P.R STV voting system in England on the map.
@glowmentor 2 жыл бұрын
14:42, yes, love, the USSR is gone, but Communist China hasn't - and it's just as 'unique'.
@workingproleinc.676 2 жыл бұрын
Seething westerner here mei mei
@margaretingleby679 2 жыл бұрын
I don't think cutting Russia off from the West will achieve regime change or a weakening of resolve , it seems the citizens have survived much worse during the Soviet era .
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
Long live Vladimir Putin ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
@neuronneuron3645 2 жыл бұрын
He's talking about how there is the possibility for peace, love, and joy in an oppressive empire. It's an allegory for surviving the modern world - Christmas in the USSR. Though the means by which it was possible does not extend universally. One cannot simply rely on one's spouse to get them through difficult circumstances.
@burtingtune 2 жыл бұрын
Brezhnev and Biden have a lot in common.
@jimmyg9186 2 жыл бұрын
Senile, unelected hacks snoozing through the impending collapse of their once-great countries.
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
Who the heck was "Brezhnev?" LOL
@jimmyg9186 2 жыл бұрын
@@autodidact537 you weren't at the top of your class, were you?
@h.r7050 2 жыл бұрын
Peter, you must have been rubbing shoulders with a certain Christopher Steel at that time. He was kicking around there at the time, pretending to be 2nd Secretary?
@jamesrowsell9346 2 жыл бұрын
"christmas wasnt recognised by the soviet authorities" This is such a misleading sentence, christmas as a celebration in modern terms didnt really gain popularity in England until dickens revived it. Russia is culturally pretty different, especially back then, there needs to be some kind of context.
@jimmybobby4824 2 жыл бұрын
Okay ? What’s your point? Trying to defend the Soviet Union’s anti religious policies?
@silapornraktanyakit7995 2 жыл бұрын
What’s interesting about this interview is that Peter Hitchens decided to live it, while the Oxford professor has a reserved theory mentality.
@castelodeossos3947 Жыл бұрын
In Saudi Arabia, the religious police would go round offices to remove any Christmas cards or other Christmassy things in the infidels' offices. They didn't go into the infidels' homes, however. 'very final', 'incredibly unique'?
@phil4499 2 жыл бұрын
He needs to get back to Russia.
@clonie9963 2 жыл бұрын
Anecdote about Brezhnev could be Joe Biden 2021
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
Who the heck was: "Breshnev?" LOL
@clonie9963 2 жыл бұрын
@@autodidact537 there I've sorted it for you zzzzz
@si4632 2 жыл бұрын
Was peter hanging out with his jewish friends there
@autodidact537 2 жыл бұрын
What an idiotic question.
@vtwright139 2 жыл бұрын
These old lads, from England, talking about terrible hotels in Russia? Hilarious!! Have they never seen Fawlty Towers??
@vtwright139 2 жыл бұрын
....and then talking about octogenarian leaders??? Am I the only one getting the f***ing irony here???
@vtwright139 2 жыл бұрын
are we trying to resurrect those final days of the USSR from the 1990's? Get in there and finally do the smash and grab we didn't fully execute? This is frightening shit
@glowmentor 2 жыл бұрын
12:10 - 'not naturally friendly to the idea of Christmas'!?! Is this interviewer for real? Does she know anything? And she calls it 'traditions'!?! Thank goodness for the answer.
@28pbtkh23 2 жыл бұрын
For goodness sake, there is nothing sinister about her choice of words here.
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
Breznyev in 1990??????? 💩💩💩💩💩 You got the names and surnames wrong ! Good grief !
@glowmentor 2 жыл бұрын
Interviewer is dreadful. Is she actually interested? She seems to think it's all really funny. What is she laughing at at 14:24!?
@28pbtkh23 2 жыл бұрын
She was laughing before she had heard the rest of the answer. Old women played a significant role in the USSR, either by supporting the regime or by quietly defying it, by entering dank churches for example.
@paulleader4 2 жыл бұрын
She did a fine job. Don't be so arrogant
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
My thoughts exactly. She should run a kindergarten not this type of interviews
@natashaj3788 Жыл бұрын
@@paulleader4 she was horrible. Don't be patronizing 💩
@darrenlee9237 2 жыл бұрын
Absolutely fascinating insight into a hidden world from another era. Made all the more interesting by the beautiful and wonderfully intelligent Cindy Lu prompting such interesting answers from these two veteran intellectual heavyweights.
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