WEBVTT - Stalin: After Dark 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:04.120 Hello again, and welcome to Behind the Bastards. I'm Robert Evans, 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.000 and this is the show where we tell you everything 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.320 you don't know about the very worst people in history. 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.880 Today with me is Brandy Posey. Hello, Hello, thanks for 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:15.880 having me. How you doing, Brandy, I'm pretty fantastic excited 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.560 to get behind some bastards. Brandy is a comedian, podcaster, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.239 funny person. Anything else you wanna say about yourself up front? 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:31.040 Good person? Uh, alleged good person exactly. Yeah. Well, today 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.320 Brandy and I are going to be talking about Joseph Stalin, 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:40.160 Joey Joe stall Yeah, yeah, Uncle Joe, the big man 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.800 in the Dictator. Maybe the most successful dictator of all time. Um, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:47.880 he's in the running. Yeah, no, he probably is. Actually, yeah, yeah, 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.320 he's in the running. One of the more prolific mustaches 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.800 in the Dictator, very famous mustache, right up there with 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:59.120 the hitler Um, although some people still rock the Staalin. Okay, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.120 so everybody in its kind of the cliffs notes of 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.240 Joseph Stalin's career. He uh took over the Soviet Union 0:01:05.319 --> 0:01:08.400 after Lennon died in four He purged a bunch of people. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.559 He starved several million more from nineteen two to thirty three. 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:13.920 During his time and power, he's estimated to have killed 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.039 at least six to nine million people, give or take 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.880 a few millions. Six to nine millions. Yeah, yeah, Like 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.600 he's right under Hitler in the in the murdering his 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.839 own people death toll um. He went up against Hitler 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.080 in one in World War Two. He might have heard 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.520 of that. Uh, and then he died and had a 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.440 movie made about that by the dude who created veep Um. 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:35.000 So that's a stalling everybody knows. That's the Stallin we're 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.399 not going to talk about today. Today is the story 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:39.800 is about the Stalin that you don't know. This is 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:46.280 Joseph Stalin after dark. Oh, this is a sultry Stalin. Okay, Well, 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.760 we're gonna start with some of j Stall's youth and 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.880 then we're gonna go into we're gonna talk about everything 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.160 but Stalin at work. So we're gonna talk about Stalin 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.800 at play, Stalin at dinner, Stalin on vacation, like a 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:03.640 weekend sta. Yeah, weekend Stalin. You know this, Stalin, Stalin's movies. Yeah, 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.440 all the stuff staling like you so, um, we're going 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.400 to kick this off with some backstory. Joseph Stalin was 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.639 born Joseph de Jugasville, which is a Georgian last name, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.640 which is you know where he was born, uh, and Georgia. 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:17.520 At this point you might look at it as like 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.080 to the mainstream Czarist Russia, it would be like the 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.960 middle of nowhere Oklahoma. And in fact, it was commented 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:24.560 on his whole life that he had like a really 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.320 thick accent. Okay, yeah, gotcha, that's interesting. He was like 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.560 a kind of down home cowboy ish, that kind of drawl. Yeah. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.600 If you were going to represent the politboro by accents, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.280 most of them would have like East Coast or West coast, 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:42.280 like slick, you know, cosmopolitan accents. And Joseph Stalin be 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.440 talking like they is like a deep set, like like 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.800 a like a sharp out of bail Oklahoma. Act sing. Yeah, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.600 he's like actually from Georgia. Yeah yeah, yeah, no, actually 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.840 that's that. I shouldn't used that Oklahoma. Yeah, that's funny. Wow. 0:02:58.000 --> 0:02:59.640 He was the son of a shoe cobbler in the 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.280 Georgia in town of Gory. His father was a drunk 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.240 and beat the ship out of him. His mother Kiki 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.639 or k k K is how it's usually spelled kept 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.160 the peace, but not all that well because she also 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.200 beat the ship out of her. Um. Yeah, this is 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.239 a really dark version of that Adam Sandler movie about 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:20.120 being a shoe cobbler. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's it's actually 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:24.519 less dark because Sandler movie is devoid of soul. And 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.880 I'm just gonna pretend that Joseph Stalin's parents are Adam 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.520 Sandler and Jack and Jill. In my head, those are 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:35.200 his parents. Actually, just some deep Sandler cuts pulling out here. 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.640 Although when I start talking about Joseph Stalin, my mind 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.760 immediately goes to Adam Sandler. Sure, sure, shut out. That's 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.720 what he did every time he would sign an order 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:48.960 for execution forman exactly had a stroke at the end, right, 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.160 And that's actually what it sounded like, a lot of strokes. Yeah, 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:53.840 But people just assumed that he was okay because he 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.280 was such a Sandler fan, but he was actually just 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:03.640 having strokes. Since thank you, well, I'm not allegedly good person. Um. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.400 Stalin's mom justified beating her son by saying she had 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.080 to quote govern her unruly treasure, which is like some 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:15.480 Norman Bates ship unruly treasures. It almost sends like how 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.039 you talk about trimming your pupid caret Absolutely have to 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.120 govern my unruly treasure, govern my unrulee Like she's always 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.960 looking at a giant bruch or a ring of some 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:29.800 kind when she's saying it her son off in the distance. Yeah, 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.560 that's definitely a sentence that you expect from a bruch wear. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.600 She wore a cape every day. It's what that sentence 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.960 says to me as an adult. She told him the 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:42.000 beatings had done him no harm. Stalin insisted he had 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.200 a terrible childhood where he wept constantly, which is probably true, 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:48.200 probably something Stalin wasn't lying about. Um, it's a lot 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.440 of pressure being an unruly treasure. It's really a lot. 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:56.279 I just want to be a boy. So Joseph's dad 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.360 was out of the picture pretty quick, but he popped 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.320 in from time to time to insist that his son 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.400 take up the family trade of making shoes. Stalin did 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.760 not want to make shoes. He liked books like Sadam Hussein. 0:05:07.360 --> 0:05:10.560 Um Kk realized that her boy was special and decided 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.560 that he should become a priest. Um because back then, 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:18.200 if you liked books, that was the default. Yeah. Hey, nerds. Yeah, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:19.960 nobody was like, you should go to Hollywood. They were 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.040 like a priest. That's the gig for you. Go read 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:28.240 the book, the one book we allow. Yeah. Um. So 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.960 as a little kid, Stalin was successful in sort of 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:34.440 the low level children's gang warfare that was common in 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:39.919 his village. But when he hit yep, just classic children's 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:45.279 gang warfare, just good old late eighteen hundreds Russia. Um. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.479 He had had a lessons though, and he stopped being 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.120 so successful because he was very short and suddenly was 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:52.359 less imposing. Other kids made fun of him because of 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:54.800 his small pox scars and his fucked up arm. His 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.799 left arm was two inches shorter than his right because 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:58.840 he'd been run over by a horse and buggy, which 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.599 is the most eighteen hundreds injury you can have. I 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:07.080 like that he's just like a like a Harold Lloyd 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.240 movie for the first eighteen years of his life. Basically, 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.880 that's amazing. Yeah, he's he's starting out rough. How do 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.039 you get rid of over by a horse and buggy? Yeah? You, 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.000 And I also would figure that you would specify either 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:22.279 the horse or the buggy hit you, but maybe he 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.360 got hit by both. Maybe, like all like four legs 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.960 and then four wheels. Yeah, so how does that make 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:30.719 your arm shorter? Is it just like it just guess 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.680 I just got like broken and it didn't grow right 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:36.880 something like that. Yeah. So I'm picturing that his parents 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.720 are Adam Sandler and Jack and Jill, and then he 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.760 is Chris Elliott from Scary Movie Too. You should really 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:46.200 get started on this screenplay perfect Like, it's a very 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.040 deep cut reference for five people that are listening. That's 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:54.200 who we do this podcast for. Um so. At age nine, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:57.760 Stalin or Joseph at this point enrolled in a theological school. 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:00.400 He was devouted first and never missed a mass. Since 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.800 this was a religious school, most books were forbidden obviously uh, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.000 and the teachers encouraged kids to write out their peers 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.000 for reading band literature. Stalin later admitted to writing out 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.119 a whole bunch of kids. So of course he loves 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:17.360 to snitch. Yeah, seeing seeds here, Joseph snitch Stalin okay uh. 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.640 At age thirteen, Joseph read a copy of Darwin's The 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:21.720 Origin of Species. He stayed up all night and told 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:24.239 KK his mom, I love the book so much, Mummy, 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.280 that I couldn't stop reading it Joseph decided that God 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.320 didn't exist, because if he did the world would be 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:31.480 more just. He dropped out of Jesus School at fourteen, 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:36.400 which horrified his mother. Fourteen, man, that's a man back then. Yeah, 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.120 that's true, Like most of you don't make it to fourteen. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.320 Fourteen year old then has lived through most ship than 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.440 like a sixty year old today. Yeah, exactly, the haggard 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.000 staring off in the middle distance, thinking about all the 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.640 lives you've seen in all the horse and buggies have 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:55.560 been run over by Yeah. Um so now young and unemployed, 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:58.360 which is the thing fourteen year olds could be back then. Uh. 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.960 He wandered into a meeting for his local Bolshevik party. Uh, 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.880 so he started being a Bolsheviks seemed to like that. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:07.040 He got a job at an observatory in eighteen nine. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:08.840 It was part time, so he was able to keep 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:11.360 up his revolutionary ways. He spent a lot of time 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.720 reading Napoleon's memoirs, and he told his friends that he 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:16.320 planned to learn from Napoleon's mistakes, which is a normal 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:19.840 thing for a like sixteen year old to tell his friends. 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.600 I mean, what an intense kid, can you imagine? Just 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:24.960 like oh, I stayed up all night reading Darwin and 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.120 I love Napoleon God. Okay, Stalin, this is I think 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.360 the most I'm actually of a person that you could 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.160 be at sixteen. If he was alive today, the first 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.480 sentence out of his mouth and any given conversation would 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:41.559 be that he didn't own a TV. Would be that guy. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.320 Oh boy. Um, he would have the same mustache though, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:49.920 Oh yeah, definitely a lot more flannel. Yeah, so much flannel. Um. 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.280 Stalin or Joseph got a job working at an oil 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.120 refinery storehouse. Working conditions there were exactly what you'd expect 0:08:56.120 --> 0:09:00.520 of bizarist oil refinery. So that's what you're saying, up 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.559 to code, and that code was not a thing. Um. 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:06.240 So Stalin was pissed that the workers were suffering and 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.240 toiling to make in his meat while the wealthy lived 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:10.720 in mansions and got to go to parties all the time, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.800 which is totally understandable. I'm on board at this point. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:20.000 I like that he organized protests. The protesters clashed violently 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.960 with police, and suddenly Stalin had to go on the run. Um. 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.479 He was arrested in nineteen o two and sent to Siberia, 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.120 which sounds like the worst thing that could happen to you. Yeah. 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:34.439 From I'm listening to another thing about rashputiness from Siberia 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:38.040 and everything they say about the area, I'm like, it 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.000 apparently wasn't that bad, Okay, because it wasn't He wasn't 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.040 sent to you getting to get sent to a prison 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:45.920 in Siberia. Just just got sent to a little town 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:47.520 in the middle of nowhere. And they gave you money 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.480 every month. That was what when they when they exiled you, 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:51.680 That's what they did, is they were just like, go 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.480 live in the middle of nowhere. Here's some money, so 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.560 you don't starve. Can I get excited? Yeah? I kind 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.040 of feel like that's a sweet gig. That sounds pretty 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.320 Can I just piss off the president enough that I 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:04.080 get to live somewhere else? Send me somewhere else and 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:06.160 give me I don't care if it's cold, it's getting 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.120 really hot, and though global warming is real, because it'll 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.120 be like a nice seventy by that time I get there, exactly. 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.840 Um So yeah, for the rest of his life, this 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.240 is like one of, if not the very best periods 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.200 of time in Stalin's whole life. He would talk about 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:24.640 it for the rest of his days. He would constantly 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.560 tell people a story about skiing into the Tiger, shooting 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:29.840 a dozen partridges, and then almost freezing to death on 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.240 his trip back. Stalin would brag about the time he 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:34.600 shot twelve birds and nearly died, even after he'd beat 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.400 Nazi Germany and conquered a fifth of the world, which 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:41.679 is weird. Wow, now he's really that that middle lot 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.000 to him? Yeah, yeah, I really had other things to 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.760 brag about by that point. Yeah, I mean well yeah. Uh. 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.640 Fast forward seven, Joseph was twenty nine and had grown 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:55.080 an influence among the Bolshevik party. Lenin came to see 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.040 him as the kind of guy who could all caps 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.320 get ship done. At this point, the bolshep X, We're 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:02.000 still fighting to overthrow the czar and it was not 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.319 going well. They were broke and they needed money for 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:07.280 more bombs to throw at the Zar's. Uh. Stalin was like, 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.040 I can get you some fucking money. His preferred method 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.560 of achieving this goal was a good old fashioned bank heist. 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.480 Stalin sat down with his boy Camo, which is what 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:18.160 you'd expect from the name of a guy you robbed 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:20.760 banks with, to figure out a plan. Uh. Stalin made 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.680 contact with the pro Bolshevik worker at a bank in Tifflis, 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.520 where he lived, who told him that a bunch of 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:29.000 money was due to arrive on June. So Stalin, Camo 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.720 and their fellow desperadoes all showed up at Yerevan Square 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.360 downtown to wait for the stage coach. It arrived at 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.000 ten thirty am, and they just started throwing grenades and 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:39.440 bombs all over the place like that was there, that 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:45.360 was their just throw bombs at everyone. So they made 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:47.160 off with the money, which was about three or four 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.840 million in modern dollars, and they killed forty or fifty people. Yeah, well, yeah, 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.520 it won't be the last time. No, no, this actually 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.040 counts as charity by the rest of Stalin's record, Yeah, exactly. 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:03.680 So it turned out that most of the stolen bills 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.240 were in like gigantic five thousand ruble notes that had 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:08.880 never been used before, and those as government had records 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.120 of all of the serial numbers on those bills. So 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.040 most of the money that Stalin had killed like fifty 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.000 people for, wound up being useless. Kom bolsheviks um. But 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.480 he'd still prove that he could, you know, get shipped done. 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.160 It wasn't entirely a wash, but it was a bummer. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.120 In nineteen o seven was also a bummer because it 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.840 was the year that Stalin's wife died. She passed in 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.920 December from some illness or another. Knowing nineteen o seven, 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.400 it might have been like a stubbed toe that exactly 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:35.880 went bear shaped, and assuming she was fourteen, and she 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.640 said I've seen enough. Yeah, I've lived too long already, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:42.240 even five children. It's time for me to leave. Stalin 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.839 claimed that quote with her died, my last feelings for humanity, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.439 you can read that is super prophetic. But he wound 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.640 up falling madly in love again and remarrying, So he's 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.440 probably just being dramatic. I think he's just a very 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:56.719 dramatic person because he was told that he was a 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.719 ungovernable treasure. What was the quote was unruly treasure and 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.960 unruly treasure. Yes, an unruly treasure. And he's just like 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.680 that's the line that he used as a young twenty 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.000 something on women. And he'd be like, look, honey, I'm 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:12.160 just I'm just an unruly treasure. I could see it working, No, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.280 especially with that mustache. No, and he's he we should 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.400 pull Okay, you've seen the young. He was a good 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.120 looking guy, Yes he was. He was a little Viti guy, 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.600 but he was a good looking guy. Exactly. No, he 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.079 had the charm, which believe, which is like, here's the thing, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.560 I don't trust people that have always been attractive, and 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.600 this is the most exactly what percent of the time 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.680 they turned out to be stalid Exactly. I've seen that 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.360 guy at so many overpriced bars. You know, he's got 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.319 like a kefia on and like, yeah, he's just he's 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.760 sitting in the back of the coffee house. Maybe he's 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.320 got a guitar. Just always oh, what's see this, We'll 0:13:49.320 --> 0:13:53.079 see this, just the effects of French accent, even though 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.840 he was born in Milwaukee. Exactly. Yeah, we all know 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:03.920 Stalin of a person Barret per Okay. So Stalin's career 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.640 kept lurching forward. He charmed Lennon, He wrote a bunch 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.720 of articles for Pravda. In May of nineteen twelve, Joseph 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.440 Jugos Feely became the editor at Pravda, which is, you know, 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.280 big old Bolshevik magazine. The next year he started to 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.720 use a noum revolution instead of Jugos Filly. He called 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:23.640 himself Stalin. We're steel so Joseph Steele. Yeah, I'm Joe Steele. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.520 Is there a modern porn star whose name is Joseph Steele? 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.160 Because it feels like somebody is like, if it's not 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.720 untapped market, Yeah, untapped market to be tapped by Joseph 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:39.680 Steele's tapper. Come on, somebody tap that. Yeah, we're given 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.840 out a name here. While Stalin was so World War 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.760 One came in nineteen fourteen, had a big deal, didn't 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:50.880 go well for Zars to Russia didn't did not. Yeah, 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:52.480 you know the rest of the story. The Zar gets 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.520 overthrow in the nineteen seventeen there's a big st civil 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.120 war and the Bolsheviks wind up in charge. Lennen rules 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:58.880 for a while, then he dies, and then through a 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:02.480 combination of cunning and murder, Stalin's in charge by uh 0:15:02.600 --> 0:15:05.200 he shared power with a group of magnates. He wasn't 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.000 an absolute ruler at this point. The magnates were powerful 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:11.040 political leaders who ruled over various aspects of the Soviet state. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.520 These are the guys that the death of Stalin. The 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:18.800 movie focuses around, guys like Malinkov and and Khrushchev cabinet. 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:20.680 For lack of a better yeah, yeah, that's a good 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.120 term for them. Um, these guys were mostly young at 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:26.280 this point in their thirties and mostly self educated. They 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.760 all lived together in the same buildings in Moscow. They 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.000 worked and feasted and partied together. And friends, Yeah, they 0:15:32.000 --> 0:15:34.960 were all. They were mostly friends. They all like had 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.680 had like sometimes a couple of like wives and girlfriends 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.880 in common. Um, they would all hang out all the time. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.280 You know, Stalin would just drop by to like talk 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:48.080 to people about things. Stalin is the Phoebe of this group. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.240 I was going to say, Rachel, Well yeah, probably actually Rachel. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.640 I just feel like Stalin would run like an idiot. 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.640 And also like, if Stalin had ended up with a 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.600 Paul Rudd, the world would have been a better place. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:05.320 that's that's unquestionable. Sure, exactly, really weird movies, but probably 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:07.720 Paul Rud would have taken like a turn for the 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.160 art house cinema. But yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, okay. Um, 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:15.200 So Stalin got married to his second wife, Nadia Alujeva 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.840 in nineteen nineteen. She bore him a son, Vassili, and 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.920 a daughter's Lana. Stalin seemed to love his wife, but 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:23.680 they were both busy, career focused people. He wrote her 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.000 sweet love letters, saying he was quote lonely as a 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:30.040 horned owl without her, and uh, signing them my kisses 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.520 your Joseph. Yeah, he's a sweet guy at this point. 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:39.200 He's a sweet guy at this point. He's killed a 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.640 lot more people by this Yes, they're starving peasants, by 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.480 by the hundreds of thousands, right, yes, you're correct, well, 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.680 by the thirties. Yeah, um, but he's a sweet guy 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:54.760 to his friends. Uh exactly. Stalin had also turned into 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.080 a sex symbol at this point, though, by the time 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.200 he's in charge, and that did not help his marriage. 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:01.600 The Wonderful Book in the Court of the Red Zar 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.080 describes one of the letters he got from a female admirer, 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.160 a teacher. Dear Comrade Stalin, I saw you in my dreams. 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:11.119 I have hopes of an audience. I enclosed my photograph. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:15.639 Damn girl, Stalin replied, comrade unfamiliar. I ask you to 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.520 trust that I have no wish to disappoint you, and 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.439 I'm ready to respect your letter. But I have to 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.800 say I have no appointment, no time to satisfy your wish. 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.959 I wish you all the best. Jay Stalin ps your 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:30.920 letter and photograph returned. Wow. I mean that's the most 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:35.639 proper way of it's actually he let somebody down. He's handled, actually, 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.840 Joseph Stalin, and this is handled being hit on by 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.680 a young woman better than most modern American politicians. Absolutely. 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.360 This is also like the first Tinder is what just happened? 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:52.280 He swiped right? Yeah, exactly, no, thank you, and he 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.560 did swipe left on a number of ladies. It's not 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.200 absolutely confirmed, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence and 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.280 that and that Ada his wife was very angry about 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.520 some of that, you know, and maybe it wasn't true, 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.840 but she just suspected it. But either way, she thought 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.800 he was fooling around and she was pissed. When you 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.160 got that kind of ego, I assume you probably are 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.000 messing around. One woman isn't going to do it for you. No, no, 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.920 when not when you're the dictator of all Russia. Now, 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.520 when we get back, we're going to talk about the 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.600 dinner party that led to the end of Joseph Stalin's marriage, Yes, 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.720 and then we're going to get into Joseph Stalin's growing madness, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.880 his wacky everything is is. We're just going to talk 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.200 more Stalin and coming up. We also have a whole 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.920 lot of drinking, a whole lot of partying, a whole 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.920 lot of vomiting, and what I'm just going to describe 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:50.120 as Joe stall pulling a chainey oh, all right, and more. 0:18:50.520 --> 0:19:01.960 After sweet Lady Capitalism sings you her lilting lullaby welcome back, 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.200 we are talking about Joseph Stalin and his troubled marriage 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.520 to not Yet. At this point, Joseph Stalin is the 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:14.040 sexy leader of the New Soviet Union. Uh not yet 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.280 and he are very much in love, except she thinks 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.880 he's cheating on her, and things come to a head 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:22.480 at one banquet in nineteen thirty two. Oh she was 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:24.600 also angry at him for starving hundreds of thousands of 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:29.359 peasants to death, which is a fair fair Stalin. You 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.280 you know, we've all been there with a partner where 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:33.439 like you think they might be cheating on you and 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.040 they're starving the Ukraine. Well, it's like when you make 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:39.159 that pros and cons list of like trying to really 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.119 break down of this relationship, has you know, has the 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.000 legs to stand forever, and you're like, okay, I mean 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.000 really he bought me flowers but he's starved a lot 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.920 of starved three and a half to four million peasants. Yeah, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.600 it's rough. It's rough. So that's where their relationship is. Uh. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.880 There at this big party, everybody's drinking heavily, and Stalin 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:02.680 had not noticed that Nadia had dressed up for the event. 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.520 She wasn't a girly girl and she didn't dress up often, 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.520 so it was a big deal that he didn't notice it. 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:12.359 Stalin did eventually notice that Nadia wasn't drinking. I'm going 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.240 to quote here from in the Court of the Red Czar. 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:17.760 Why aren't you drinking? He called over, truculently, aware that 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.439 she and Bukaran shared a disapproval of his starvation of 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.000 the peasantry, She ignored him. To get her attention, Stalin 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.720 tossed an orange peel and flicked cigarettes at her. But 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.959 this outraged her, which of course it did, which she 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.280 became angrier and angrier. He called over, Hey, you have 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:38.120 a drink. My name isn't hey? She read toward it furiously. 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.360 Rising from the table, she stormed out, it was probably 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:42.960 now that, but Yanni, which is one of these magnates, 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.959 heard her shout at Stalin shut up. Shut up. Stalin 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.399 shook his head in the ensuing silence. What a fool, 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:53.360 he muttered. Wow. Yeah, so she shot herself later that night. 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.879 Oh yeah, Yeah, nobody really knows why. Yeah, it's a bummer. 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.119 It's a really sad story. Man, that's a girl I 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.760 would like wanted to hear her, like getting her groove 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:05.159 back movie. It's like the movie that's that's the one 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.280 we deserve. No, we do not get that movie. Um, 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:12.320 we we don't get anything like that movie. Nobody knows 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.280 why she did it. There's a bunch of theories, but 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:18.960 it broke stolid. There's no evidence of it. Yeah. Um. 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:20.960 He threatened to kill himself a bunch of times. When 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.640 Nadia's mother showed up, like while the body was still 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.359 in the house, one of the doctors offered her some 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.240