Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's

out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

Thank you for downloading this Arts and Ideas podcast from the free thinking team at the BBC.

This is the BBC.

Hello. This edition of Freethinking does something odd. It's exploring the history of a country

that doesn't exist anymore. And it's odd because if you're above a certain age, say,

your early 40s, that country seemed like an immovable part of the global furniture.

But if you're below that age, it probably has the same meaning as Bohemia, Prussia, or the

Holy Roman Empire, a place that exists only between the pages of a year 10 history textbook.

Yet this country pretty much won the Second World War. It also abused human rights on a massive scale.

It produced some of the greatest composers and artists of the 20th century,

and it also spawned countercultures that matched anything that flower power or freaking out could manage in the West.

So, coming up, stories of the Soviet Union, from its youth, its women, and its architect.

Soft-voiced, I'd want to be sure to put to Mr. Stalin.

Soft-voiced, practical, a man of the people who would do his duty.

We'll start with a man who stood at the centre of the whole thing.

He liked to tear up cigarettes and use the shreds of tobacco in his pipe.

He collected watches.

He liked to luxuriate in a steam bath.

They called him Vojd, the boss.

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