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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hi again everyone, I'm Eves and you're listening

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Speaker 1: to This Day in History class, where instead of going

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Speaker 1: back to the future, we go back to the past.

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Speaker 1: Today is October. The day was October nine. The British

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Speaker 1: newspaper The Daily Mail published a letter reported to have

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Speaker 1: been sent by Grigory Zinoviev, who was chairman of the

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Speaker 1: Communist International, to the Communist Party of Great Britain. It

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Speaker 1: was published just four days before the United Kingdom general election.

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Speaker 1: Though many people took the letter seriously at the time,

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Speaker 1: it's now considered to be a forgery. In the nineteen

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Speaker 1: three UK general election, the Conservative Party won the most seats,

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Speaker 1: but the Labor Party and the Liberal Party won enough

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Speaker 1: seats to create a hung part Lament, which happens when

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Speaker 1: no single political party wins a majority in the House

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Speaker 1: of Commons. So in n Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin

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Speaker 1: resigned in Britain's first ever Labor government, formed with Ramsay

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Speaker 1: McDonald as Prime Minister. The government had the support of

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Speaker 1: the Liberals, but it was still a minority government, with

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Speaker 1: only one ninety one members of Parliament in the Commons.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of opposition to the new Labor government.

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Speaker 1: The Labor government gave diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: and agreed to loan Russian money. An incident called the

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Speaker 1: Campbell case also ignited opposition and led to accusations of

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Speaker 1: McDonald being lenient on communism. John Ross Campbell was the

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Speaker 1: acting editor of the Workers Weekly, a newspaper controlled by

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Speaker 1: the Communist Party of Great Britain. After the newspaper published

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Speaker 1: an open letter that urged military members to quote turn

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Speaker 1: your weapons on your oppressors, Campbell was charged under the

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Speaker 1: Incitement to Mutiny Act of sev but the Labor government

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Speaker 1: dropped the prosecution on August thirteen. This, along with other

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Speaker 1: alleged pro Soviet activity involving the Labor Government, helped lead

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Speaker 1: people to fear a Communist threat in leadership and contributed

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Speaker 1: to the downfall of McDonald's government. In early October, Liberal

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Speaker 1: Party leader H. H. Asquith called a motion of no

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Speaker 1: confidence in McDonald's government. The Liberals hoped that the Conservative

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Speaker 1: Party or the Labor Party would be forced to enter

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Speaker 1: a formal coalition with them, but McDonald called for a

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Speaker 1: general election, which was scheduled for October twenty nine, even

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Speaker 1: though there was a slim chance of Labor winning it.

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Speaker 1: But on October nine, British intelligence agents in Riga sent

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Speaker 1: the text of the Zenoviav letter to London. The letter

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Speaker 1: was addressed to the Central Committee of the British Communist

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Speaker 1: Party and signed by Zenoviev, Secretary of the Communist International

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Speaker 1: Otto willakujin In, and Arthur McManus, a member of the

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Speaker 1: common Tern's executive committee and is Presidium. The Communist International

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Speaker 1: or common Tern, was a Soviet organ that promoted world

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Speaker 1: revolution and communism through propaganda and subversion. The zenovia Of

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Speaker 1: Letter encouraged leaders of the British Communist Party to incite

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Speaker 1: revolution among the factory workers and armed forces of Great Britain,

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Speaker 1: and it was dated September. Soviet officials and the British

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Speaker 1: Communist Party said that the letter was not legitimate, but

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Speaker 1: a copy of the letter was leaked to the press

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Speaker 1: four days before the controversial general election. The zenovia Of

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Speaker 1: Letter was published as the front page story in the

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Speaker 1: Daily Mail. It was published under the headline civil war

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Speaker 1: plot by Socialist Masters, with the subheading Moscow orders to

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Speaker 1: our reads. The Labor government's political opponents used the letter

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Speaker 1: to drum up a red scare in the media. The

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Speaker 1: publication of the letter humiliated the Labor government it but

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Speaker 1: it did not have a huge effect on the Labor

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Speaker 1: vote in the nine general election. Still, the Conservative Party

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Speaker 1: won the election. The Labor Party's loss was likely not

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Speaker 1: due to the Zenobia letter controversy and instead due to

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Speaker 1: the success of the Conservatives and the collapse of the

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Speaker 1: Liberal vote. Conservatives largely believed the letter was authentic, while

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Speaker 1: British intelligence deemed it a forgery. The authenticity of the

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Speaker 1: letter has been the subject of much debate since, and

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Speaker 1: the letter later underwent investigations, but there is no solid

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Speaker 1: proof of who wrote the letter, and the original letter

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Speaker 1: has not been discovered. I'm Eve Scheffcote and hopefully you

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: t d I h C podcast. We also accept electronic

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Speaker 1: letters at this day at I heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's soode. We'll be back tomorrow

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Speaker 1: with another one. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,

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