Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Shot nazis your
Speaker 1: weekly podcast that reminds you that maybe your grandfather was
Speaker 1: cooler than you fought, or if you're one of our
Speaker 1: German listeners, he's probably about as uncol as you already.
Speaker 2: Know, eyeballing grandpa across the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy and with me today
Speaker 1: is the Carl Casarda. Are you hey?
Speaker 2: It's super great to be back. It's always a joy
Speaker 2: to be on the show and see you and hang
Speaker 2: out and talk about really cool topics.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then Sophie is here too, our producer, Hi, Sophie,
Speaker 1: him Magpie. That's it. There's no one else to credit.
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't credit Ian, who spends hours turning all
Speaker 1: of this into everyone wants to say. Hi Ian, Hi Ian,
Speaker 1: Hi Ian Hi Ian. And on women did our theme music?
Speaker 1: This is part three of four on a series about
Speaker 1: snipers in World War Two. But unlike every other time
Speaker 1: I've done multi part series, if you just showed up
Speaker 1: to this episode to hear about the deadliest woman in
Speaker 1: military history, you're actually fine. Parts one and two are
Speaker 1: great and they're worth listening to. And they set up
Speaker 1: a lot of the context, and but this one's sort
Speaker 1: of a different one. It's kind of like somewhere between
Speaker 1: a new episode and a continuation of an episode. I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone listening is really concerned about the way that
Speaker 1: we formulate numbering in our episodes. They probably spend as
Speaker 1: much time thinking about it as I do.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like knowing about World War Two but
Speaker 2: not knowing about World War One. You can kind of
Speaker 2: do that, but it's weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know as much about World War One.
Speaker 1: I'm still learning as constantly, Like I think that the
Speaker 1: main thing that stuck with me. I listened to the
Speaker 1: whole some whole really long history podcast about World War One,
Speaker 1: and the main thing I remember is people running at
Speaker 1: machine gun nests by the thousands and how horrible was
Speaker 1: That's the main thing I remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a real lesson in mechanization and modernization,
Speaker 2: wasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But last week we talked about Simo, the Finn
Speaker 1: who hid in the snow, potentially the deadliest sniper in history.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people sort of vying for that spot,
Speaker 1: but not in a fun Highlander way, just like historians,
Speaker 1: you know, although actually a lot of people were vite.
Speaker 1: Thirty six people vied with the person we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about today. This week, we're gonna talk about someone
Speaker 1: who I think is even cooler, another person who answered
Speaker 1: the call to stop an invading authoritarian force, Ludmilla Pavlchenko.
Speaker 1: You heard Ludmilla.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a female sniper in the Soviet Union that let's say,
Speaker 2: how do we use the parlance, racked up quite the
Speaker 2: body count.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And it's funny because people every now and
Speaker 1: then you can kind of tell, like, ah, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: they didn't kill near She didn't kill nearly as many
Speaker 1: people as like these other men or whatever. She killed
Speaker 1: way more people than any American ever has well as
Speaker 1: a sniper, Americans drop some nukes, but.
Speaker 2: And firebombs and other things.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, okay from a sniper point of view.
Speaker 1: So she's credited as the most successful woman sniper in history,
Speaker 1: the deadliest woman in military history. She single handedly brought
Speaker 1: down three hundred and nine Nazis. As the most commonly
Speaker 1: cited count, which was the American who's super famous, Chris Kyle.
Speaker 1: He's at like one hundred and fifty or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know the number.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I didn't actually watch American Sniper. It
Speaker 1: didn't seem like.
Speaker 2: I doubt that movie has a lot to do with reality.
Speaker 2: But that's a different topic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Neither is Chris Kyle's book. But ooh, that's another topic.
Speaker 1: It's okay, neither does the lady who are talking about
Speaker 1: today's book, to be honest, okay, fair propaganda, it's a
Speaker 1: thing that governments do. That's our that's our theme song.
Speaker 1: So all the while, she was also fighting against the
Speaker 1: sexism of the Soviet military, which, to be clear, was
Speaker 1: not as bad as the sexism as any other military
Speaker 1: because women were allowed in it, and they were allowed
Speaker 1: to fight. They just had to. It was hard for
Speaker 1: them to do. And she also you know that she
Speaker 1: might have boned the first Lady of the United States,
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: No, but I'm extremely curious talking about bodycounts.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna start with it. We'll get to that part.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even it's actually in today's it's not
Speaker 1: even in Wednesdays, so that you're welcome everyone. We will
Speaker 1: start with the history of women fighting in the military
Speaker 1: in Russia, which predates the Russian Revolution. This part surprised me,
Speaker 1: and also this includes women who fought in the military
Speaker 1: against the revolution. The Russian Revolution briefly upended traditional conservative culture,
Speaker 1: although Stalin reinforced you know, brought it all back or whatever.
Speaker 1: But even traditional conservative Slavic culture, as least according to
Speaker 1: some of the sources I read, has a different set
Speaker 1: of roles available to women than in cultures further west.
Speaker 1: In the Slavic household, a woman's duties might include chopping wood,
Speaker 1: driving tractors, and fighting whatever is necessary to take care
Speaker 1: of the family. That can still be women's work, even
Speaker 1: in a like patriarchal situation in which the woman is
Speaker 1: like subject to the rules of the household and stuff.
Speaker 1: You ever seen that Instagram video by Meg Boggs. She's
Speaker 1: a Mexican woman who's a fitness influencer. She puts on
Speaker 1: a Russian accent, and she does push ups with like weights,
Speaker 1: and she's a large woman, and she says, I can't
Speaker 1: do a Russian accent and save my life. She says,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be strong like man who looks pretty.
Speaker 1: I want to be strong like bitch that fights bears
Speaker 1: in the forest.
Speaker 2: I think a bear would be in somewhere. Yeah, it's Russia.
Speaker 2: It's bears. No, I actually haven't seen that, but I
Speaker 2: can totally get the vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's that's kind of it. I h
Speaker 1: and it fucking rules. And it's not actually a Russian
Speaker 1: woman's a Mexican woman, which also is completely fine by me.
Speaker 1: But that's the traditional feminine values that we're talking about
Speaker 1: that are coming into play. This isn't a paint slavic
Speaker 1: culture as like gender equal. It's just different, and it's
Speaker 1: different in a way that seems to have made it
Speaker 1: easier for women to make their ways to the front lines.
Speaker 1: Mostly they did this in partisan units during World War Two,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but
Speaker 1: I also did it in the military itself. Have you
Speaker 1: heard of the women's battalions the uh what is this
Speaker 1: one called the like Women's Battalion of Death or something
Speaker 1: like that. I've curious.
Speaker 2: It's like this like one of the more maybe not
Speaker 2: a ground fighter, but like one of the most amazing
Speaker 2: instances for a topic for another day, or like the
Speaker 2: night witches that were the pilots for example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to get to them. Oh cool, I'm
Speaker 1: this is this is going to be a ADHD whole
Speaker 1: of an episode. I'm really excited about it. One day
Speaker 1: we're going to do a proper Russian Revolution episode. This
Speaker 1: is not that day. But in nineteen seventeen, year of
Speaker 1: the Russian Revolution, come out to actually two different revolutions.
Speaker 1: You have the February Revolution, which actually happened in March,
Speaker 1: but they have a different calendar, so to them, it
Speaker 1: happened in February. To the rest of the world happened
Speaker 1: in March, and you wind up with something called the
Speaker 1: Provisional Government, and morale for staying in World War One
Speaker 1: was dropping fast with the ending of this artum or whatever.
Speaker 1: The provisional Government, which was not necessarily radical, was like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck do we do? One woman had an idea.
Speaker 1: Her name was Maria butch Cervera. She was already a soldier.
Speaker 1: She'd fought like hell to get to fight with the men,
Speaker 1: and eventually the way she'd eventually been able to fight
Speaker 1: with the men in World War One is a commander
Speaker 1: helped her write a personal telegram Desar Nicholas the Second
Speaker 1: for permission to go fight the front. She started off
Speaker 1: as a but soon she was a corporal in charge
Speaker 1: of eleven men, and she is the first Russian woman
Speaker 1: to lead troops in the formal military. You want to
Speaker 1: guess when the US pulled off having a woman lead
Speaker 1: troops in the formal military.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know, But since you're asking that question
Speaker 2: and thinking of how things are, I'm going to say
Speaker 2: I might be off. But let's go with two thousand
Speaker 2: and five.
Speaker 1: You actually it was a very progressive country. Is nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine when.
Speaker 2: Oh, I underestimated us a little bit?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Linda Bray commanded US troops while invading Panama. Which
Speaker 1: is the funny thing is whenever you're like, like girl power, go.
Speaker 2: Invade a diversity, win for operation just because.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So February Revolution nineteen seventeen, troops are losing morale,
Speaker 1: Maria is like, let's make all women military formations. So
Speaker 1: they formed sixteen all women military formations with a total
Speaker 1: of about five thousand fighters. This is a couple interesting points. First,
Speaker 1: several have names like first Russian Women's Battalion of Death,
Speaker 1: which is really fucking metal and it just needs to
Speaker 1: be acknowledged. This one the first women's Russian Russian Women's
Speaker 1: Battalion of Death was run by Maria herself, who was
Speaker 1: very strict and who kept getting wounded in battle and
Speaker 1: then kept going back to the front lines. Anyway, I'd
Speaker 1: always figured it was the Communists who first put women
Speaker 1: into uniform in Russia, Right that that seems like the
Speaker 1: kind of thing the Communists would be more likely to do, Right,
Speaker 1: But it comes before that, And an all women's unit
Speaker 1: actually protected the Winter Palace, trying and failing to stop
Speaker 1: the Red Army in the October Revolution later that year.
Speaker 1: So they were a counter revolutionary force by whatever called standards,
Speaker 1: and the Bolsheviks champions of women's liberty. The first thing
Speaker 1: they did not the first thing, within like a month
Speaker 1: or so of like taking power, they dissolved all the
Speaker 1: women's units. To be fair, I don't know whether this
Speaker 1: is they were like women shouldn't fight, or whether this
Speaker 1: was like all the women are shooting at us. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure which. Usually Again, I I don't want to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I don't know about the October Revolution.
Speaker 1: I know a decent bit about the Russian Revolution, but
Speaker 1: I haven't deep dived it the way that I'm intending to.
Speaker 1: But in general, it is referred to as when the
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks took power, and this is sort of true. In
Speaker 1: the October Revolution. It was actually a pluralistic assortment of
Speaker 1: left revolutionaries, which included the anarchists who did a lot
Speaker 1: of the most dangerous work. As always, you had the Mensheviks,
Speaker 1: and you had the srs, who are like a grarian socialists,
Speaker 1: kind of the social democrats. This coalition later falls apart
Speaker 1: when the Bolsheviks introduced the secret police, the Cheka, and
Speaker 1: then start attacking their former allies, which is how you
Speaker 1: end up with a you know how like the Russian
Speaker 1: The Russian Civil War has like all the armies named
Speaker 1: in colors. Have you heard this? I really like this
Speaker 1: because it's so it makes some things kind of clear
Speaker 1: in this weird way when you just name all of
Speaker 1: these armies. Where you have the Red Army, you have
Speaker 1: the White Army. You have the White Army as the capitalists.
Speaker 1: It's not actually necessarily all capitalists, a lot of social democrats,
Speaker 1: it's the people fighting against the revolution. You have the
Speaker 1: Black Army, which are the anarchists which split off from
Speaker 1: the Red Army. We'll talk about that. And then you
Speaker 1: have the Green Army, which are kind of the brotherhood
Speaker 1: without banners from the Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: not a game, the show, which is a game in
Speaker 1: the name. These are the peasants who are like, we
Speaker 1: are sick of everyone showing up and just fucking taking
Speaker 1: all of our stuff. The Bolsheviks are doing it, but
Speaker 1: they're not capitalists. In fact, they're specifically anti capitalist. They're
Speaker 1: sort of anarchistic and socialistic and they want to basically
Speaker 1: self govern and so they go to war also against
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks and the capitalists. I want to know more
Speaker 1: about them, but that's to come back to the women's
Speaker 1: I've run across this a lot while researching the show
Speaker 1: that women combatans and units are like cool, but they're
Speaker 1: also kind of just used for propaganda purposes. Basically, they're
Speaker 1: used to like shame men into fighting, Like even the
Speaker 1: women are doing it. What the fuck is wrong with you?
Speaker 1: Friend of the pod mother? Nope, what's that name? Is
Speaker 1: not in the script? That lady, the Irish goth lady
Speaker 1: who works with union miners, who has a magazine named
Speaker 1: after her mother Jones. Yeah, mother Jones, Like she used
Speaker 1: to do this shit. She would show up and be like, well,
Speaker 1: come on, I'm fighting and I'm a woman, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with you? Right? And it's like fine, right, but it
Speaker 1: kind of makes me sad. It's like failing the revolutionary
Speaker 1: Bechdel test, you know, when like women are only doing
Speaker 1: this thing for men rather than doing it for their
Speaker 1: own power and sake. Anyway, I have all these battalions,
Speaker 1: they are largely under resourced, and they don't last too long,
Speaker 1: even before the Bolsheviks take power and dissolve them. They
Speaker 1: were often taken off the front lines and put like
Speaker 1: guardian railroads or whatever, because a lot of it was
Speaker 1: just propaganda. A lot of it was just like, sure,
Speaker 1: we'll let you form these battalions in order to shame
Speaker 1: men into going back to fight this ridiculous war. That
Speaker 1: do you know what Russia was doing in World War One?
Speaker 1: I actually don't. I only know about like France and
Speaker 1: Germany and shit.
Speaker 2: You mean actually in the combat in the war itself.
Speaker 2: Like I mean when you.
Speaker 1: Say that, why they were doing it? What was their
Speaker 1: skin in the game in World War One?
Speaker 2: It was not that different than World War Two, which
Speaker 2: was the Germans were doing their thing and the Russians
Speaker 2: had to combine against it. The Germans have always been
Speaker 2: about fighting the Russians, and they ever were fighting on
Speaker 2: the west. So the reason is they always wanted to
Speaker 2: fight Russia, but there were these treaties in place that
Speaker 2: prevented them from doing so without being invaded from the west.
Speaker 2: So they would invade west to provide ground to protect
Speaker 2: the German homeland while they went east, all right, which
Speaker 2: is a weird, convoluted concept. But being stuck in the
Speaker 2: middle got them kind of cornered between these what they
Speaker 2: saw as two enemies. But Germany always saw Russia and
Speaker 2: of course the Soviet Union as the ultimate enemy that
Speaker 2: they really wanted to fight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Europe is so weird. It is I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say that. Besides, that's just weird.
Speaker 2: Before we move on, I want to loop back on one
Speaker 2: thing real quick. I was thinking about something. There's a
Speaker 2: gray space in terms of a woman led military operation,
Speaker 2: which isn't exactly what you're describing. But in eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 2: Harriet Tubman led the COMBA.
Speaker 1: He fair, Yeah, totally, So that's it's not that is
Speaker 1: a really good point.
Speaker 2: She wasn't in the military, but she did lead a fight.
Speaker 2: So that's like an interesting example in the middle, but
Speaker 2: then eighteen sixty three and then what'd you say, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty nine, so a long time between those two events.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that's actually a really good point point, and
Speaker 1: the fact that she's sort of kept out of the
Speaker 1: traditional military structure but absolutely led it, and women so
Speaker 1: often were fighting in informal capacities, right and leading in
Speaker 1: informal capacities. But then, oh, that's really interesting.
Speaker 2: I really like rad Off for that because she deserves no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So Maria the woman who got you know,
Speaker 1: wrote a letter being like, hey, can I fight? And
Speaker 1: then also can we form these battalions? Her story doesn't
Speaker 1: end there. She's anti Bolsheviks, she's probably anti communist. Soon
Speaker 1: she's allied with the White Army and the army that
Speaker 1: is opposed to the Communists. That includes everything from the
Speaker 1: far right to monarchists to republicans to social democrats, everyone
Speaker 1: who's like not fuck the right army. She's captured by
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks, she escapes, she goes to the US. She
Speaker 1: tries to rally the US and Britain to intervene in Russia.
Speaker 1: This will be the one of two times that this
Speaker 1: will come up in today's episodes, and then she'll go
Speaker 1: back to Russia to fight with the White Army. She
Speaker 1: tries to form a women's medical detachment, and then she's
Speaker 1: caught and executed by the Bolsheviks. In nineteen twenty and
Speaker 1: there's another woman fighter of note during the Russian Civil War,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to get too into her because
Speaker 1: she's like basically my favorite person in history, and eventually
Speaker 1: I'm going to do like ten episodes about her. It'll
Speaker 1: just be like, twenty twenty four is the year of
Speaker 1: Maria Niki Farova. But there's a woman named Mickey nor
Speaker 1: Maria Niki Farova. Everyone is named Maria in this story,
Speaker 1: and she's a Ukrainian anarchist who forms the Blackguards in
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen seventeen in Ukraine. The Blackguards soon
Speaker 1: spread into Russia itself. They're run by the Moscow Federation
Speaker 1: of Anarchist Groups. These weren't all women units, but the
Speaker 1: very first one was led by a woman, and she
Speaker 1: stayed a revolutionary leader throughout the war until she dies.
Speaker 1: But spoiler alert for whenever I do an episode about her,
Speaker 1: but this is a fairly elite unit, the Blackguards, in
Speaker 1: a way that I didn't realize the first time I
Speaker 1: read about it. A lot of anarchists were just in
Speaker 1: a Red Guard. But to join the Blackguard you had
Speaker 1: to be vouched for or by three different comrades, and
Speaker 1: you had to be vouch for for reliability, responsibility, and
Speaker 1: for ethical behavior. And so the vouching says it was
Speaker 1: an elite army, but it was like an ideologically elite army.
Speaker 1: Like you couldn't be a bandit. You could be a
Speaker 1: Robin Hood style bandit, but you couldn't be a like
Speaker 1: the kind of person who's going to take advantage of
Speaker 1: power to hurt people. And I love the idea that
Speaker 1: the like spec ops anarchist unit that is the like
Speaker 1: thing that you have to like be really fucking good
Speaker 1: at anyway. And they mostly are working as guerrilla detachments,
Speaker 1: working in tandem with the Red Guards until the Red
Speaker 1: Guards turn on them and then there's a whole thing.
Speaker 1: And actually there's a Bastard's episode about not about Marine Iikuphroba,
Speaker 1: but about Ukraine and the anarchist there and Makno and
Speaker 1: all that stuff that I recommend people check out from
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. You wait, year that was
Speaker 1: you known what was a Christmas one, so just look
Speaker 1: for Christmas, so you're probably a The talking shit on
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks is one of my favorite pastimes. And it's true
Speaker 1: that they dissolve the women's units, but pretty much immediately
Speaker 1: the USSR and the Bolsheviks legally mandated equality between women
Speaker 1: and men, and like just in a sweeping women in
Speaker 1: man are equal, there's no difference between them in the
Speaker 1: eyes of the law, and then proceeded to not actually
Speaker 1: follow the law and continued to discriminate against women. But
Speaker 1: it it got shit started. The fact that you have
Speaker 1: this de jura de jure djur is one of these
Speaker 1: words I write all the time, but I don't say
Speaker 1: out loud. Equality legal equality, but they needed de facto equality.
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighteen, the USSR passed the Family Code, which
Speaker 1: continued to push basically feminism. It separated marriage from religion,
Speaker 1: It legitimized children from unmarried parents, and it extended the
Speaker 1: right to divorce. In nineteen twenty, they legalized abortion. Stalin
Speaker 1: would later reverse this because he wanted there to be
Speaker 1: more Russians he could send into a meat grinder. He
Speaker 1: also reversed the legalization of homosexuality. He also made bastards
Speaker 1: into bastards again. He made divorce harder. He I don't
Speaker 1: like Stalin very much.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he really corrupted something that was on
Speaker 2: a very positive track, right, I mean, that's besides all
Speaker 2: of the other things that one could say about Stalin.
Speaker 2: You see this when people talk about these movements now,
Speaker 2: it's all corrupted with the overshadowing horrible presence of Stalin
Speaker 2: and everything that came before him is lost in the
Speaker 2: horrors that he actually committed, which really ruins any concept
Speaker 2: around it, I know.
Speaker 1: And it's like frustrating because like I want to have
Speaker 1: conversations about why I disagree with the Bolsheviks, but I
Speaker 1: can't even have that because like Lenin looks like a
Speaker 1: fucking saint compared to Stalin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you talk about any of it, and like
Speaker 2: you're not talking about Bolshevism or communism, you're talking about Stalinism,
Speaker 2: and that's the more official word, but that's not the
Speaker 2: word that gets used.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, well Marx's Leninism is the word that they use.
Speaker 1: But as annoying because I think the Bolsheviks is that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it when we do Civil War episodes.
Speaker 1: They murdered all their opponents and shit, they just like
Speaker 1: still were a better and fucking still anyway. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: but you know what else is probably better than Stalin.
Speaker 1: It actually is better than Stalin. And that's what's so
Speaker 1: great about Stalin is Stalin makes even Bolshevism look good,
Speaker 1: and he even makes these ads look good.
Speaker 2: Wow, nothing like modern convenience is delivered to your door
Speaker 2: for your prosperity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, most of these ads probably won't send lots of
Speaker 1: people to die for no reason or criminalize homosexuality. If
Speaker 1: you get the ad for one of the many politicians
Speaker 1: who are trying to criminalize homosexuality, then never mind. They're
Speaker 1: roughly equivalent to Stalin, which they'd love to hear, just
Speaker 1: like you'll love to hear these ads. And we're back
Speaker 1: so overall, even though I'm talking shit on like some
Speaker 1: things that didn't quite work out in revolutionary Russia. In
Speaker 1: terms of feminism, this is way more feminist than the
Speaker 1: US and way more feminist than most places you could
Speaker 1: be looking at in the world, which isn't saying much
Speaker 1: much like our comparison about the ads looking really good.
Speaker 1: And when I first heard about women snipers in World
Speaker 1: War two. I was like, yeah, of course, it's like
Speaker 1: the one thing the USSR was really good at was
Speaker 1: like equal opportunity for women.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: But of the eight hundred thousand women who fought in
Speaker 1: the Red Army in World War Two, only eight thousand
Speaker 1: of them were actually able to see combat. They were
Speaker 1: kept out of frontline roles, they were made into nurses,
Speaker 1: they were like given support roles left and right. And
Speaker 1: the eight thousand who did see frontline combat had to
Speaker 1: fight like hell internally to get that.
Speaker 2: Everyone's equal with someone more equal than others. Right, It's
Speaker 2: like it's yeah, there's this whole thing that you see
Speaker 2: when you mentioned just a moment ago about like these
Speaker 2: like these goals and then reality and also how some
Speaker 2: things are more progressive than others. But when we look
Speaker 2: at history, it's so easy to lose context about if
Speaker 2: you put yourself in the place of time of then things,
Speaker 2: we can't balance things by our view now and what
Speaker 2: we would consider progressive now you have to think about
Speaker 2: was progressive then. And every one of those steps is
Speaker 2: where we get to to get to now, right, and
Speaker 2: we still have many more to go, but it all
Speaker 2: has to be in context.
Speaker 1: No, that's that's absolutely true, And like, this is the
Speaker 1: only military in World War two that has women in
Speaker 1: it in any kind of frontline capacity, you know, any
Speaker 1: official military. And about a third of these eight thousand
Speaker 1: women fighting in combat were snipers. There is an entire
Speaker 1: school for women snipers. At one point it might have
Speaker 1: put what years started in the script, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: And yeah, about one percent of all the women in
Speaker 1: the military saw combat. I were like trying to see combat.
Speaker 2: I wonder why it was so overwhelmingly on the sniper
Speaker 2: side of things. I mean, from here's an example of
Speaker 2: this that I see from what I do. In terms
Speaker 2: of even just competition, like shooting skill is frequently something
Speaker 2: that has nothing to do within a form of gender identity.
Speaker 2: It's completely based on the individual and the dedication they
Speaker 2: put into it. And also, which is interesting, at least
Speaker 2: in the modern day, so often the preconceived notions of
Speaker 2: what it means to be a good shooter or to
Speaker 2: be good or skilled at marksmanship. That of course, men
Speaker 2: in air quote are supposed to just be born with
Speaker 2: women aren't necessarily indoctrinated with that, and then when they
Speaker 2: come to learn, they're a much more open mind and
Speaker 2: they learn faster and usually are better.
Speaker 1: It is one of the things where I like, I
Speaker 1: spent a while fall i'velled down in this rabbit hole
Speaker 1: about like it has been my experience. I sometimes teach
Speaker 1: new people how to shoot firearms, right, And I used
Speaker 1: to live at a range, and it has been my
Speaker 1: experience that women are better at shots, like in a
Speaker 1: natural sense. And I hate gender essentialism, and so I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: what the hell's going on with this? And a lot
Speaker 1: of people have like put a lot of thought into it.
Speaker 1: Most of it's sort of nonsensical thought, but this idea
Speaker 1: of like being open minded and not coming in with
Speaker 1: like macho assumptions, and then it seems like at the
Speaker 1: highest levels of competition it actually average. It just evens
Speaker 1: out again, and it's like a sport in which men
Speaker 1: don't have an advantage. There's no biological advantage to being
Speaker 1: a man in shooting.
Speaker 2: I just think it's a clean slate thing, which I mean,
Speaker 2: no matter how much we want to keep ourselves out
Speaker 2: of the corrupting influences of how society likes to function,
Speaker 2: it's still there and coming to the to the plate
Speaker 2: with something a fresh mind and a clean slate and
Speaker 2: not being told this is what you're supposed to do
Speaker 2: or thinking or what you're supposed to do, and taking
Speaker 2: construction well, whoever or whatever reason that is the case
Speaker 2: means you're going to learn faster and better. It's just
Speaker 2: the reality. And then you said, like it levels off
Speaker 2: at the top, showing everyone can be equally as good.
Speaker 2: It's just coming to the table without an already corrupted perspective.
Speaker 1: No, that makes a lot of sense. And you know,
Speaker 1: anyone who's listening who's like, oh, I was not raised
Speaker 1: in a gendered way that gave me access to firearms.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in learning, it is a thing that
Speaker 1: your gender is not any kind of hindrance at I
Speaker 1: mean that whatever, stop people anyway. And there's so much
Speaker 1: discourse run sports and shit right now, as if anyone
Speaker 1: cared about women's sports until all of a sudden trans
Speaker 1: women existed. But yeah, the standout the military with the
Speaker 1: most women fighting in World War Two was the Italian
Speaker 1: Partisan Resistance because it was a partisan resistance and so
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand women were fighting against fascism as part
Speaker 1: of the Italian partisan resistance, and resistance movements everywhere have
Speaker 1: been friendlier to women. Overall, Russian women were also on
Speaker 1: the front lines of partisan resistance. Before the Red Army
Speaker 1: mobilized women stepped up, there was this unofficial engineer Corps
Speaker 1: that built anti tank fortifications and laid booby traps. As
Speaker 1: our Operation Barbarossa was coming. Because it happened so fast,
Speaker 1: there wasn't time to mobilize the military, and so just
Speaker 1: like local women were like, all right, well, let's go
Speaker 1: fucking blow up some tanks. You know, later these women
Speaker 1: joined up with the partisans trap behind Nazi lines, although
Speaker 1: primarily at that point in support roles that are just
Speaker 1: as important, like medical, cooking and smuggling messages around the
Speaker 1: sort of often the traditional women's roles within informal militaries
Speaker 1: and resistance movements, this especially like courier and all that
Speaker 1: kind of shit. But now let's talk about Ludmila Pevlchenko,
Speaker 1: our sniper. She's Ukrainian. She was born in Kiev what's
Speaker 1: now Ukraine but was then the Russian Empire on July twelfth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixteen, which is, you know, before the Russian Revolution,
Speaker 1: but not by a lot. Her father was a Red
Speaker 1: Army Communist Party guy who was highly decorated for his
Speaker 1: role in the Russian Civil War, and she was a
Speaker 1: tomboy like half of the women on this show. She
Speaker 1: got really into shooting. She joined a group that was like,
Speaker 1: I didn't bother writing down as like some really long acronym.
Speaker 1: It's like an acronym with like nine or ten letters
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah. It It is basically the like, let's
Speaker 1: teach non army people, like non army kids army shit
Speaker 1: in the name of sport, but also because it's a
Speaker 1: good idea in case there's like a war whatever. It's
Speaker 1: like boy Scouts, only everyone does it and you get
Speaker 1: real guns and they teach you how to fly planes,
Speaker 1: and it's like not quite mandatory, but it's like basically mandatory.
Speaker 1: In order to get led into the better schools, you
Speaker 1: have to join this other group. In order to join
Speaker 1: that group, you have to join this group. And so
Speaker 1: everyone's a boy scout basically, and so she's a boy
Speaker 1: scout and she doesn't start off into shooting until a
Speaker 1: local boy is like, I'm better than you at this,
Speaker 1: and then she was like, oh no, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be better at it, you than you. Girls can fucking
Speaker 1: do anything they fucking want Apparently one of her main
Speaker 1: hobbies as a kid was beating up boys who tried
Speaker 1: to tell her what she couldn't couldn't do as a girl.
Speaker 1: And she got really good at shooting because she practiced
Speaker 1: all the time, which is a classic way to get
Speaker 1: good at stuff. Anyone's wondering how to get good at stuff,
Speaker 1: usually it am Alvest practicing all the time.
Speaker 2: The exact opposite of some of the things we see
Speaker 2: on the internet, which competition will get you killed in
Speaker 2: the streets. She's proving this exactly to be wrong.
Speaker 1: That's true. Do people say on the internet like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you practice competition shooting, then you're like, yes, there's.
Speaker 2: This concept of what they call training scars and like,
Speaker 2: for example, shooting competition. Even my dynamic ones like I
Speaker 2: run don't really have rules around cover or concealment or
Speaker 2: things that are very important in an actual combative situation.
Speaker 2: And so there's a certain subset of usually do nothing
Speaker 2: people that will say that this is the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that gets you killed in the streets because you're
Speaker 2: not using cover properly while on the clock, but at
Speaker 2: the same time on the clock and learning how to shoot. Well,
Speaker 2: what is combat if it's not a timed course of
Speaker 2: with a part time that ends with someone dying. So
Speaker 2: being good, yeah, proficient with your weapon is a critical
Speaker 2: part of this. And yes, but people do claim the
Speaker 2: competition will give you scars that will get you killed.
Speaker 2: In reality, it's ridiculous, but it's a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds like something people would say. What I
Speaker 1: have found is very effective with gunfights is to avoid them.
Speaker 2: Number one way to yes, that is the best way
Speaker 2: to not get shot is to not be shot at.
Speaker 2: And the best way to not get shot at is
Speaker 2: not being a gunfight. Yeah, if you can avoid it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes life doesn't make that possible, but hopefully true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeahah no, it is worth like, depending on your
Speaker 1: threat model, it is worth training in this. So I
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, but like I just had people the
Speaker 1: exaggerated idea of the number of fights they get in.
Speaker 1: And if you get into a lot of fights, you
Speaker 1: actually really shouldn't carry a gun. If you find yourself
Speaker 1: in a bar fight on a regular basis, you are
Speaker 1: not someone who should carry a firearm until you stop
Speaker 1: getting into bar fights because you can't get into bar
Speaker 1: fights because you have a gun on you.
Speaker 2: Something's there right there, right something with either the situations
Speaker 2: you're putting yourself in or your social skills. Something's going
Speaker 2: awry if that's happening on the rig.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she likes getting into regular fistfights learning how
Speaker 1: to shoot. But then classic bad thing happening to women
Speaker 1: on this show. So if he can probably guess so
Speaker 1: if he also with the script in front of her,
Speaker 1: she meets a guy, only in this case she doesn't
Speaker 1: fall for him. She's just sixteen and marys a piece
Speaker 1: of shit abusive doctor who's like a grown ass adult
Speaker 1: who's marrying a kid. So she does that, she's a
Speaker 1: kid of her own, and then she's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I actually I've thought about this and I don't like
Speaker 1: being married to an abusive piece of shit guy. So
Speaker 1: she leaves him. I don't know whether she ever actually
Speaker 1: ever formalized or divorce or she just left him. There's
Speaker 1: some like things where it comes up as possibly she
Speaker 1: never did. I don't care. And then she becomes an
Speaker 1: arms manufacturer, like in a metal working way. She moves
Speaker 1: to Kiev. She gets a job at an arms manufacturer.
Speaker 1: She's like grinding metal to make guns or something, and
Speaker 1: she takes night classes at a university for a history degree.
Speaker 1: She's also running track and doing pole vaulting and taking
Speaker 1: a sniper training class. This I don't believe she slept.
Speaker 1: I think is the Also, she's a fucking single mother
Speaker 1: at this alone.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm me, And all of this speaks to her
Speaker 2: fortitude before even the main topic.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The fact that she fell into that situation is one thing,
Speaker 2: but being able to escape it shows a lot of
Speaker 2: internal strength and fortitude. So that's in itself another indication
Speaker 2: of who she is as a person.
Speaker 1: No, totally. Then, I think she's like in her third
Speaker 1: or fourth year. She's in her early mid twenties. You
Speaker 1: get Operation Barbarossa, where Germany and its allies like Finland.
Speaker 1: We talked about it last time they invade the USSR.
Speaker 1: It's not going to go really well for him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's not going to really go well for anybody. She's
Speaker 1: one of the first volunteers and they're like, that's so great,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the UK. We need nurses, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm a fucking sniper. I took sniper classes. I have
Speaker 1: all of these awards for sniping. I don't have any
Speaker 1: medical training. I'm a sniper, and they're like, no, you're
Speaker 1: a little lady. Your nails are done nice, and you're
Speaker 1: five foot one, so she's even shorter than our last hero.
Speaker 1: Her nails were done up because, like the men, she
Speaker 1: put on her best clothes and shit in order to
Speaker 1: go to the recruiting center. Right, the men got dressed up,
Speaker 1: so she figured she would too.
Speaker 2: And you're expected to meet social norms no matter what. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So there's a couple different accounts of how this happens. Next,
Speaker 1: she eventually convinces them to take her, and the funnest
Speaker 1: one is that she comes back in and she dumps
Speaker 1: her awards and certificates and shit on the dude's desk
Speaker 1: and is like, I'm a fucking sniper And she has
Speaker 1: to fight through a mountain of bullshit, including telling They
Speaker 1: tell her that she can't join unless her husband gives permission,
Speaker 1: and she's like, I haven't seen him in three years.
Speaker 1: I don't know where he lives, Like what the fuck.
Speaker 1: Eventually she strong arms her way into the military. There's
Speaker 1: a couple versions of what happens is also in this
Speaker 1: next part her own autobiography. It's called Lady Death, and
Speaker 1: the English translation it's probably not written by her. It's
Speaker 1: probably ghost written Soviet propaganda. Just frankly, it is a sanitized,
Speaker 1: Soviet approved version. It doesn't mention the Molotov ribbon tromp packed.
Speaker 1: It also talks about a bunch of fucking battles, and
Speaker 1: it talks about like not what she was doing, but
Speaker 1: what other people were doing during the battles. And I
Speaker 1: don't know whether that's a like, as a good communist,
Speaker 1: you don't center yourself, or if it's a she might
Speaker 1: have been like, sure, you can write my biography whatever
Speaker 1: you're fucking stalin. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Probably didn't have much choice, Yeah, unlike the book, Unlike
Speaker 2: the book about Chris Kyle, ooh, we won't go there.
Speaker 1: So she gets into the army and they're like, that's cool.
Speaker 1: There's one problem. We actually don't have any guns. We
Speaker 1: just like, we have a lot more troops than we
Speaker 1: have guns. Here's a hand grenade. Why don't you go
Speaker 1: dig trenches? And isn't as bad as it sounds. There
Speaker 1: were I've read accounts of like people who are like
Speaker 1: literally just told like I don't care, go attack those
Speaker 1: tanks with your fingernails. If you don't do it, We'll
Speaker 1: fucking shoot you, you know. Like that is how the
Speaker 1: Red Army rolled sometimes, but it's not always how they rolled.
Speaker 1: In this case, it was go dig trenches, probably in Moldova,
Speaker 1: which is a country immediately south of Ukraine, which is
Speaker 1: part of the USSR starting in nineteen forty after some
Speaker 1: shit got annexed from Romania during Operation Barbarossa. They were like,
Speaker 1: we're fucking taking Moldova back whatever. So that's probably where
Speaker 1: she starts off digging ditches and they're like, look, if
Speaker 1: you get attacked, throw the hand grenade and run, which
Speaker 1: is better than go attack the Germans. All we have
Speaker 1: for you is a hand grenade.
Speaker 2: Yeah, reminds me of an apocryphal story. I don't think
Speaker 2: it's a poker fule. It's probably a true story from
Speaker 2: one of these accounts that I read in which the
Speaker 2: Red Army was told one division was told you must
Speaker 2: cross this river and the commander reported back that a
Speaker 2: significant number of the troops under his command couldn't swim,
Speaker 2: and they're like, do it anyway, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: they reported back, we lost a third of our men
Speaker 2: crossing the river. And now what like that sort of
Speaker 2: insanity was reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that is. I've read accounts of people who
Speaker 1: had to do that kind of shit, But you know,
Speaker 1: this wasn't as bad. Soon her unit is overwhelmed by
Speaker 1: the blitz Creek and she does get her first rifle,
Speaker 1: and she gets it because the guy next to her dies.
Speaker 1: Is the most likely version of this story. One version
Speaker 1: is that he's like, take this young padawan and go
Speaker 1: forth and kill Nazis. You know, probably not without the
Speaker 1: without the cultural reference, unless he was a time traveler
Speaker 1: who unfortunately died at the front on the Eastern Front.
Speaker 1: Maybe if out he in the course of the war
Speaker 1: with a Mozona gaunt. I'm not sure so. And I
Speaker 1: will say this man who died and gave her a
Speaker 1: rifle just for the assist is one of the most
Speaker 1: successful anti fascists in history.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it isn't what you do, but what you leave behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you set up for someone else to do,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Her first two kills are two Romanian fascists and rapid
Speaker 1: succession at long distance. This becomes her signature move is
Speaker 1: two quick kills before retreating to cover. Whereas a lot
Speaker 1: of snipers like pop up, shoot one and pop down.
Speaker 1: She's like pop up, shoot two, and pop down. And
Speaker 1: she doesn't work alone. She works with a team of
Speaker 1: snipers and they basically will just like go set up
Speaker 1: in the woods, kill a couple Nazis, then move to
Speaker 1: a new location. At the start of the war, she's
Speaker 1: racking up ten kills a day by doing this. She's
Speaker 1: a badass counter sniper. She ends up sent on all
Speaker 1: the most dangerous missions. Anytime there's like, oh fuck, we
Speaker 1: need to get the sniper taken care of, right, And
Speaker 1: so these are duels basically, and there are duels of
Speaker 1: who can sit still the longest and when the moment
Speaker 1: is perfect, hours or days later, immediately kill the other person.
Speaker 1: And she wins every single time, thirty six times in total.
Speaker 1: One of these duels lasted three days, and supposedly she
Speaker 1: didn't eat or drink when she was on these missions.
Speaker 1: I don't actually believe that. I just I don't think
Speaker 1: that someone sat still for three days and didn't drink water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the amount of psychological tension and self discipline
Speaker 2: to be able to do even what she was able
Speaker 2: to do to stay still for that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, hard to fathom. Like, I mean, how many
Speaker 2: of us can sit still long enough through a one
Speaker 2: minute short on YouTube anymore. And she's in the field
Speaker 2: for three days with a rifle, waiting for someone to
Speaker 2: try to kill her on a interestingly competition event that
Speaker 2: includes a part time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, it is like and if someone yeah, like,
Speaker 1: she was probably shitting and pissing herself right hard. She's
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, because you are waiting for the other
Speaker 1: person to flinch. You are waiting for the other person
Speaker 1: to move and give away their position, you know roughly
Speaker 1: where they are. And after three days she says, the
Speaker 1: hardest thing she ever did in her life. You know,
Speaker 1: after three days, hey moved and she shot him.
Speaker 2: You know, either way, for anyone that's ever actually done
Speaker 2: anything in terms of just field exercise, a person at
Speaker 2: one hundred yards one hundred meters same thing equivalent for
Speaker 2: this that doesn't want to be seen won't be seen.
Speaker 2: People in a forest environment. In the right environment, you
Speaker 2: can disappear like a ghost, but movement immediately attracts the eye.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. She's also using a Mozonna Gaunt,
Speaker 1: much like Simo before her, but hers is a scope.
Speaker 1: She uses a four x scope. I believe that I
Speaker 1: think she didn't use a helmet. I think a helmet
Speaker 1: like exposed her too much. It had her too high up,
Speaker 1: it made her too visible. She has a lot of
Speaker 1: head injuries, so it is, but she survives, so who knows.
Speaker 2: Helmets are also really difficult with the scope and stuff.
Speaker 2: If you're shooting a ninety one out with a scope,
Speaker 2: you can use a helmet, but it's really in the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. She also has this habit
Speaker 1: of getting hit in the face with mortars and trapnel
Speaker 1: and shit a lot. A total of four times, I
Speaker 1: think three of the times her head injuries, and in
Speaker 1: one of the times is an injury that I don't
Speaker 1: know what is. She gets really nasty concussions. She also
Speaker 1: gets promoted a lot. These are the two things that
Speaker 1: she's good at, well three things. She's very good at
Speaker 1: killing Nazis, she's very good at getting hit in the head,
Speaker 1: and she's surviving getting hit in the head is a
Speaker 1: better way to phrase it. And getting promoted up through
Speaker 1: the ranks mostly the I don't know what she ends
Speaker 1: up at as like a G lieutenant or something, but
Speaker 1: mostly the like not commissioned officer ranks. The Nazis reach
Speaker 1: Odessa and she's fighting them. The Romanian army reaches Odessa
Speaker 1: and the Soviets fight like hell to stop them. It
Speaker 1: took seventy three days for the invaders to take the city.
Speaker 1: The invaders lost twice as many people as the Red
Speaker 1: Army did defending it, even though the Reds were outnumbered
Speaker 1: five to one. In seventy five days, she killed at
Speaker 1: least one hundred and eighty seven fascists, and at this
Speaker 1: point she is more successful than any sniper in American history,
Speaker 1: including to the modern day. And this is not where
Speaker 1: she stops. What we already said three on nine is
Speaker 1: where she stops. Stopping the Nazis is like more important
Speaker 1: than it's possible to say. When the Romanian fascists take Odessa,
Speaker 1: there's the nineteen twenty one Odessa massacre where upwards of
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand, one hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews are murdered,
Speaker 1: and the Red Army does, however, successfully evacuate one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people out of the city, including Jews, and helps
Speaker 1: get people away. She and her unit withdraw. They go
Speaker 1: to Sevastopool next, which is a city on the support
Speaker 1: city on the Black Seat. It's the largest city in Crimea.
Speaker 1: And this is part of where the current Ukrainian conflict
Speaker 1: is happening, where it's part of Ukraine, but Russia's like noah,
Speaker 1: it's ours, it used to be ours, fuck you or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the stuff happening today has a direct
Speaker 2: line to not long ago. These things all linger on on,
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting too, because like whenever I read
Speaker 1: about like cool Soviet it's like at least half the
Speaker 1: time they're Ukrainians or even the cool nineteenth century like Russians,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, like, oh right, this is you know,
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia were like culturally and geographically distinct, but
Speaker 1: not completely. You know, they weren't separate. It was almost
Speaker 1: maybe it was like being from the south versus being
Speaker 1: from the north.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, no, totally. And it's like and it's
Speaker 2: one of those places that's a crucible over and over
Speaker 2: again where I think it was a Dan Carlin that
Speaker 2: used this phrase, but like double victim, they're like they
Speaker 2: get it from both sides in certain circumstances, and it
Speaker 2: makes a different place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, But you know
Speaker 1: what else makes a lot of sense taking advantage of
Speaker 1: these sweet sweet deals to spend your money, not on
Speaker 1: things that could help you survive the coming crisis, not
Speaker 1: on your friends go fund me so that they don't
Speaker 1: lose their house, but instead whatever we're advertising. Eh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like to buy food from as far away
Speaker 2: as possible, so that I know that it came from
Speaker 2: me with a truck and using a lot of diesel fuel.
Speaker 2: That's one way to I think makes a lot of
Speaker 2: sense as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Climate accelerationism, Yeah, I mean that's our motto. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're back and I'm continuing to find out how
Speaker 1: far I can push certain types of things. So she
Speaker 1: fights in the siege of Sevastopol, where this is probably
Speaker 1: where she does most of her counter sniping. Is storying
Speaker 1: this siege at this point, there's this story where she
Speaker 1: falls in love with a fellow sniper and him Alexey Kitsenka,
Speaker 1: and she gets married during the siege, and then he
Speaker 1: dies and it's tragic, you know, and it's a tragic thing.
Speaker 1: She's so heartbroken. She never marries again. This probably didn't happen.
Speaker 1: She probably didn't marry this guy. She doesn't mention him
Speaker 1: in her autobiography. And also there's a bunch of parallels
Speaker 1: to another Soviet war hero, a lady. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: about this exact same like tragic death, woman mourning in
Speaker 1: the front lines thing. Maybe she did, maybe she married
Speaker 1: this guy. I don't know rip either way, this dude died,
Speaker 1: Stop shooting Nazis. He's cool people in my book. But
Speaker 1: so Vastpool goes really badly for well again, everyone but
Speaker 1: the Russians in particular. The city actually holds for the
Speaker 1: first major attack, so and the Soviets launching amphibious landing
Speaker 1: to leave the siege. But then the siege continues and
Speaker 1: Germany just bombs the ever loving shit out of the city.
Speaker 1: Eleven buildings are left standing in this city by the
Speaker 1: end of the fucking siege.
Speaker 2: You know what's funny about that is they found this
Speaker 2: out at Stalingrad as well, that the bombing was actually
Speaker 2: counterproductive because it provided the perfect environment. I mean, it
Speaker 2: sounds terrible and the city's gone. It makes it more defensible.
Speaker 2: It also makes us prime place to be a sniper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh interesting, all the ruins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the Stallingrat was called the War of the
Speaker 2: Rats because everyone was crawling through what was left, and
Speaker 2: the concealment and cover was immense better than if the
Speaker 2: buildings were intact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, war is something that I hope I managed to
Speaker 1: successfully avoid my whole life. So Woodmiller says, of the
Speaker 1: time we mowed down hitlerrites like ripe grain, which is
Speaker 1: what she uses a set of Nazis every time I've
Speaker 1: seen it. At least she was given an award for
Speaker 1: having killed two hundred and fifty seven people, and her
Speaker 1: response was I'll get more. The Germans wanted her to
Speaker 1: switch sides. They are terrified of her. They're like driving
Speaker 1: around with megaphones being like Ludmila pavel Chenko. Come over
Speaker 1: to us. We'll give you chocolate. I'm not making that
Speaker 1: part up and make you a German officer.
Speaker 2: We have chocolate, we have amphetamines. Come on over.
Speaker 1: I know for some reason this didn't work. I'm I mean,
Speaker 1: must have been pretty mediocre chocolate.
Speaker 2: Actually, scho Co cola is pretty good.
Speaker 1: But hey, okay, okay, Well she's just really committed.
Speaker 2: Then was speaks to her dedication that she was not
Speaker 2: turning sides for Schoco Cola.
Speaker 1: Yeah, by the end of her time in that siege,
Speaker 1: she'd killed three hundred and nine Nazis. Supposedly. I have
Speaker 1: not seen a direct quote from this. I think this
Speaker 1: particul killed quote as apocryphal, but this concept is absolutely
Speaker 1: what she believed. She was asked if she's felt bad
Speaker 1: about killing so many people, she said, I didn't kill people.
Speaker 1: I killed Nazis, which is the comparison to like Simo,
Speaker 1: where he was like, I did what I had to do,
Speaker 1: you know, and he like Now She's like, fuck these Nazis,
Speaker 1: which is legit. That's how I would feel, she probably said.
Speaker 1: Hitler writes if she said this quote at all, but
Speaker 1: I do have direct quotes from her about it, like
Speaker 1: the only feeling I have is the great satisfaction a
Speaker 1: hunter feels when he has killed a beast of prey
Speaker 1: or another quote. Every German who remains alive will kill women, children,
Speaker 1: and old folks. Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I
Speaker 1: kill a German, I am saving lives.
Speaker 2: And she's not wrong if that's if that quote is true.
Speaker 2: That was legitimately correct at the time, right, I mean
Speaker 2: every piece of ground, as you said that they that
Speaker 2: they acquired more people were going to gas chambers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's just and that one we do have.
Speaker 1: I think she said that to the US media.
Speaker 3: So she was.
Speaker 1: Wounded by shrapnel from a mortar again. This is her
Speaker 1: fourth injury, and it takes her out of the fight.
Speaker 1: But she's really fucking important to the Soviets at this point.
Speaker 1: She's one of the best snipers in history, and she's
Speaker 1: really good propaganda. So they get her out through the
Speaker 1: siege lines and a submarine. I want to watch. I
Speaker 1: know there's a movie about the siege of Sebasspol that
Speaker 1: she's in, but I haven't seen it. I just want
Speaker 1: to watch the movie about the person who's like sneaking
Speaker 1: in in a fucking submarine to go rescue this lady
Speaker 1: and this probably saves her life. Her entire rifle division,
Speaker 1: the twenty fifth was wiped out during the siege, including
Speaker 1: the man that she may or may not have been
Speaker 1: married to. After that, she's not sent back to the front.
Speaker 1: She's sent around as a propagandist. She meets Stalin and
Speaker 1: like the I think the only thing she said about
Speaker 1: it was like, he's not as tall as I would
Speaker 1: have thought. Apparently he's kind of short. I think he's
Speaker 1: like her height. I'm not actually sure. I'm sure someone knows.
Speaker 3: Incredibly base her.
Speaker 1: Yeah. At this point, she gets the name Lady Death,
Speaker 1: or maybe she had it already. I love how everyone
Speaker 1: is like the enemy gave her the name Lady Death,
Speaker 1: much like they gave Simo the name the White Death.
Speaker 1: I think her fucking handlers gave her that name. And
Speaker 1: is there my guest her name then, Lady Death? Yeah no,
Speaker 1: I don't think.
Speaker 3: So, so shut the fuck up, haters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I would guess that the Nazis probably called her
Speaker 1: that bitch who keeps shooting Nazis, which is like the
Speaker 1: second best name you could possibly have, or like subtitle,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, subtitle.
Speaker 3: I would agree.
Speaker 1: I would agree.
Speaker 2: I actually wonder what their slur was for her. I've
Speaker 2: never heard it, but I'm sure it wasn't really really nice.
Speaker 3: I'm sure it wasn't very nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was.
Speaker 2: It was probably kind of mean. Yeah, like something you
Speaker 2: might read on four.
Speaker 1: Chune, right, Yeah, that what the Nazis are so up
Speaker 1: I can't even sentence. So she's now a propagandist. She's
Speaker 1: not really excited about this role, but she does what
Speaker 1: she has to do. At this point, the US is
Speaker 1: dragging its heels. We're involved in the Pacific theater, but
Speaker 1: we're staying out of Europe. It's too messy. I guess
Speaker 1: someone knows, and I don't know Lady Death is I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess they haven't attacked us basically, and there isn't
Speaker 1: the political will to go have half a million people dying,
Speaker 1: which is what ends up happening. So Lady Death goes
Speaker 1: off to the US to meet with the Roosevelts to
Speaker 1: convince the US to stop being chicken shit and start
Speaker 1: fighting Nazis. It's hard to imagine this brief period where
Speaker 1: the US and the USSR buds, but the US is
Speaker 1: like sending a ton of weapons and shit at this point, right,
Speaker 1: And she is the first Soviet citizen received by a
Speaker 1: US president, and she becomes friends with the first Lady,
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt, and by becomes friends with I mean probably
Speaker 1: had romantic and or sexual RelA relations with because you know,
Speaker 1: Eleanor Res Roosevelt was gay as hell.
Speaker 2: I have to admit I did not know that. But
Speaker 2: this tracks, it tracks, and when you say it, I didn't,
Speaker 2: I feel bad that I didn't know that. Actually, that's
Speaker 2: that's that's important.
Speaker 3: Well, everybody's a little gay magpie. But what are we
Speaker 3: talking to from here?
Speaker 1: So she's bisexual? Yeah, and rather she exists before any
Speaker 1: of these definitions have any meaningful sense. But the longest
Speaker 1: romantic relationship of her life is not with her husband.
Speaker 1: It is with a woman we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: And now we're going to just completely go away from
Speaker 1: Russia and talk about gay presidents, or rather gay first ladies.
Speaker 1: Because Sophie, do you think we should rename this podcast
Speaker 1: ADHD History with Margaret and then end that We'll just
Speaker 1: end the title with like dot dot dot because it
Speaker 1: like as if we trailed away while we were in
Speaker 1: the busy middle of titling. It sure excellent, Okay, cool.
Speaker 3: And unless you change your mind about five minutes to
Speaker 3: have an new titter for the podcast, could happen?
Speaker 1: Wait what was the other one? Oh yeah, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally yeah.
Speaker 2: What an amazing woman though, and like rack up three
Speaker 2: hundred and nine Nazi kills and then go over the
Speaker 2: United States and then.
Speaker 1: You know, fuck the president's wife.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean Roosevelt. I do we use
Speaker 2: that word? I mean cockt Roosevelt right in the most
Speaker 2: awesome way, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like I never used the word cook as
Speaker 1: like an insult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's in the.
Speaker 1: Script he was.
Speaker 2: Maybe he was into it.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but I also don't care. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that. We'll talk about why. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: he's not even whatever. He's as far as presidents go,
Speaker 1: he's not on the worst list.
Speaker 2: This must have been kept incredibly quiet, though, because all
Speaker 2: of the enemies would have used this to their propaganda advantage,
Speaker 2: and that we haven't heard this as common knowledge is
Speaker 2: indicative of it didn't get out.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll talk about the history of it too, okay.
Speaker 1: So Eleanor Roosevelt was the first Lady of the Ust
Speaker 1: in World War Two. She was a prolific letter writer,
Speaker 1: fortunately for gay history, because she wrote thousands of letters
Speaker 1: to her main lover, a woman named Laurena Haycock, who
Speaker 1: goes by Hick Hick. I just looked up the etymology
Speaker 1: for fun. It's a man's nickname, sometimes short for Richard,
Speaker 1: but at this point it is already been used as
Speaker 1: slang for provincial and backwater. So she is from a
Speaker 1: real blue, blue collar rural background. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: a power move of a nickname to go by Hick.
Speaker 1: She is the first woman to have a byeline on
Speaker 1: the front page of the New York Times or by
Speaker 1: a different source, to be have a byline in the
Speaker 1: New York Times at all. She was the most famous
Speaker 1: woman journalist of her era. And she I mean, she
Speaker 1: fucking boostrapped herself. She was the daughter of an itinerant
Speaker 1: butter maker, and she just worked really fucking hard at
Speaker 1: journalism and managed to get herself working for the Associated Press.
Speaker 1: And just when she'd finally found found her way out
Speaker 1: of cover women's issues, they're like, hey, do you want
Speaker 1: to go cover the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And there's
Speaker 1: two versions of this story. One is she's mad about
Speaker 1: it and she's like, no way, I just got myself
Speaker 1: out of women's work. And the other is that after
Speaker 1: her first interview with Eleanor Roosevelt, she's like, oh, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you should assigned me. You should assigned me full time
Speaker 1: to this lady.
Speaker 2: This is very important and I have many studies to
Speaker 2: be done.
Speaker 1: Yes, Eleanor Roosevelt is interesting for her own right. She
Speaker 1: drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was the
Speaker 1: first US delegate to the UN. She campaigned for civil
Speaker 1: rights for black people in the US. She was basically
Speaker 1: a die hard progressive and feminist. She was also the
Speaker 1: longest serving first Lady of the United States, and she
Speaker 1: pretty much did her husband's campaigning for him since she'd
Speaker 1: lost since he'd lost the use of his legs, probably
Speaker 1: due to polio. And you know, we lived in an
Speaker 1: enable a society then and we live in enable ast
Speaker 1: society now. During the Great Depression, she set up this
Speaker 1: like weird, oddly social, like market socialist town in West
Speaker 1: Virginia for miners who'd been blacklisted for union organizing, where she,
Speaker 1: like the government bought everyone houses and paid for things
Speaker 1: and then was like, okay, now go forth and be
Speaker 1: economically useful.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: She banned mail reporters from attending her press conferences to
Speaker 1: give more opportunities to women reporters. She tried to go
Speaker 1: to Europe to volunteer for the Red Cross during World
Speaker 1: War Two. Eventually she listened to reason, which was that
Speaker 1: if you're captured as a pow and you're the first
Speaker 1: Lady of the United States, is going to fuck up
Speaker 1: the war, you.
Speaker 2: Know, kind of a problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I hate when women like can't go do
Speaker 1: the exciting thing because of like rules. But I'm actually
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It makes sense that she didn't go
Speaker 1: do it right, but she wanted to. The spirit was there.
Speaker 1: She spent the war trying to get the US to
Speaker 1: let in more refugees, including Jewish refugees from Europe. Her
Speaker 1: greatest regret on her deathbed was that she hadn't succeeded
Speaker 1: in forcing the US to accept basically all the Jews
Speaker 1: who were coming. And this is particularly interesting because she
Speaker 1: started off her political career as basically as an anti Semite. Specifically,
Speaker 1: she fell for the association of Jews with like evil,
Speaker 1: capitalist wealth or whatever. So she definitely wasn't perfect and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of myth making going on, but like,
Speaker 1: she's interesting, and she does not like her marriage to
Speaker 1: Franklin Roosevelt, the guy everyone calls FDR because he lives
Speaker 1: in the shadow of Theodore Roosevelt, who is his like
Speaker 1: fifth cousin once removed or something. Which do you know
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name? No, I do not, but what
Speaker 1: is it Roosevelt?
Speaker 3: Ah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she is the niece question mark. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this is interesting. She is the niece of Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: and she marries her fifth cousin, and fifth cousin is
Speaker 1: far away. That like, no one knows who your fifth
Speaker 1: cousin is unless you're royalty, unless you are like American
Speaker 1: plutocrat royalty or traditional royalty, you don't know who your
Speaker 1: fifth cousins are. There's actually nothing wrong. I'm gonna someone's
Speaker 1: gonna edit what I was about to say and make
Speaker 1: it sound real bad. But whatever, there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: marrying your fifth cousin. No one knows who their fifth
Speaker 1: cousins are. That said, it's kind of funny that she
Speaker 1: managed to pull a feminism. She got to keep her
Speaker 1: maid a name, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting too, So this is right, fifth cousin
Speaker 2: is quite separated, and it's not like it might be
Speaker 2: fourth cousin I'm bad at But it's not like Iceland
Speaker 2: where you need a dating app to make sure you're
Speaker 2: not related. On top of that, it's interesting to also
Speaker 2: note just how much of the power brokerage this country's
Speaker 2: always been under for how long it has.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, yeah, that's like, honestly, my only problem with
Speaker 1: this is that it's like, God, I hate that there's
Speaker 1: like royal families in the United States, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember, like, my mom voted for Clinton in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: but she didn't vote for in the primary because she
Speaker 1: just was like, we shouldn't have fucking royal families. She
Speaker 1: probably didn't cuss, we just shouldn't have royal families in
Speaker 1: the United States, you know. Anyway, So while she'd been pregnant,
Speaker 1: she caught her husband cheating on her, and she decided
Speaker 1: to just not forgive him. She also decided to stick
Speaker 1: around with the marriage, should not fuck up his career.
Speaker 1: So they were married, but they weren't together. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: might have had an affair with her her bodyguard. I
Speaker 1: don't know as much about that, but she had a
Speaker 1: passionate She was passionately in love with Hick, the journalist
Speaker 1: designed to cover her. Soon the two are going on
Speaker 1: all kinds of multiple month vacations around the world together.
Speaker 1: Hick moves into the White House, leaving the Associated Press
Speaker 1: and getting government jobs instead. They write each other letters daily,
Speaker 1: sometimes twice a day. There are more than three thousand
Speaker 1: letters that archives have between the two of them over
Speaker 1: the course of their twenty nine year relationship. When the
Speaker 1: letters became unsealed in nineteen seventy nine. They're full of
Speaker 1: quotes that say things like I wish I could lie
Speaker 1: down beside you tonight and take you in my arms.
Speaker 1: The New York Times headline was Letters by Eleanor Roosevelt
Speaker 1: detail friendship with Lorraina. Haycock. Ah.
Speaker 2: So even when this became possible to be public knowledge,
Speaker 2: of course it was downplayed and to turned into something
Speaker 2: other than it was, not to let it be the
Speaker 2: actual liberating moments it really really really.
Speaker 1: Was, yeah, exactly. Hick gave her a ring, which she
Speaker 1: wore at the inauguration. She wrote, Hick, Darling, Oh, I
Speaker 1: want to put my arms around you. I ache to
Speaker 1: hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I
Speaker 1: look at it and think she does love me, or
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be wearing it. Eleanor kept a photo of
Speaker 1: Hicck in her study and kissed it every morning and
Speaker 1: night because they're just, you know, historically close friends.
Speaker 2: This is really sweet, actually kind of, I mean it is.
Speaker 2: First I didn't know about this. This should be common
Speaker 2: not either.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, and one version I've read is that Hicks
Speaker 1: who convinced Eleanor to get over her anti semitism, not
Speaker 1: that Hick was Jewish, but that she just wasn't a
Speaker 1: piece of shit, you know, And she's like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: found a hole in your fucking politics. We should talk
Speaker 1: about this, you know. They co wrote a book together
Speaker 1: called Ladies of Courage that's a tribute to strong women
Speaker 1: in history. Eleanor Roosevelt surrounded herself with lesbians. She cohabitated
Speaker 1: with like I think two lesbian couples for like thirty years,
Speaker 1: and there were rumors but nothing more about any of
Speaker 1: this while she was alive. Her son, when the letters
Speaker 1: were unsealed in the late seventies, he was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: this is like because she like grew up reading Jane Austen.
Speaker 1: That's why she writes like that.
Speaker 2: Could you imagine being in the upper Echelonza Garment at
Speaker 2: this time and knowing this and the people that were
Speaker 2: trying to keep this under wraps. It must have been
Speaker 2: quite the challenge the fact that we the fact that
Speaker 2: this isn't common knowledge now, Like I said, embarrassed that
Speaker 2: that's not the case. Yeah, imagine back in forty four
Speaker 2: when Hitler's throwing every slurry can at FDR, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and this isn't in the.
Speaker 1: Open yeah, no, and it gets into this, Okay, it
Speaker 1: ties into this even deeper history. She is not the
Speaker 1: first lesbian first Lady of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: The first one that we know about was a woman
Speaker 1: named Rose Cleveland, who was actually not married to Grover Cleveland.
Speaker 1: Grover Cleveland had been single when he was elected and US,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's law or established custom, is
Speaker 1: that a family member comes in as first lady. So
Speaker 1: his sister, Rose Cleveland serves as first Lady until eventually
Speaker 1: he marries his fucking ward. Because it's the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: he's a creep. Rose's nickname as a kid was Johnny.
Speaker 1: She eventually moved to Italy with a lady named Evangeline
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of their lives together. In their
Speaker 1: love letters, Evangeline called Rose my Viking, and their love
Speaker 1: was accepted because there wasn't The word for lesbian isn't
Speaker 1: at this point, and romantic friendships between upper class white
Speaker 1: women in the United States, these are fairly common. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it was sexual, sometimes it was just a way to
Speaker 1: carve out some freedom and have women to hang out with.
Speaker 1: And this historically close friends thing is really messy because
Speaker 1: it was actually super normal. It just lesbian romantic relationships,
Speaker 1: whether they fucked or not, were super normal and they
Speaker 1: just weren't acknowledged. That's the best I can figure out.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, because you're right, Hitler, absolutely. I mean,
Speaker 1: at this point, he's murdering lesbians by the Midt fourty, like,
Speaker 1: he's clearly aware of the Scissor brigade and he wants
Speaker 1: to kill them all and so like, so you're right,
Speaker 1: he's not leading with that and so. But to Rose's
Speaker 1: rest of her life, they moved to Italy and they
Speaker 1: organized relief efforts during World War One for refugees, and
Speaker 1: then Rose died of the Spanish flu at age seventy two.
Speaker 1: Evangeline wrote a book about Tuscany and then dedicate it
Speaker 1: to Rose, and they were buried side by side under
Speaker 1: matching gravestones in Italy. You can see a photo of it.
Speaker 1: It's really sweet. Both of these first women were revealed
Speaker 1: only years later by archivists, and in both cases, so
Speaker 1: many people tried to suppress the letters. So many people
Speaker 1: were like, it is our job to make sure that
Speaker 1: these archives never come out, you know, which is the
Speaker 1: opposite of a historian's job. If you're listening now, and
Speaker 1: you think I should suppress this, you're wrong. As a
Speaker 1: tangential example of that, one of the social history archives,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name it, no whatever, a social
Speaker 1: history archive, and this is this is a thing I
Speaker 1: got told in person, and so it has all of
Speaker 1: this information about Dutch leftists joining the Nazis, including Dutch
Speaker 1: anarchists joining the Nazis because you know, they hated the
Speaker 1: Dutch government. When the Nazis came in, a bunch of
Speaker 1: leftists became fucking Nazis, right, And a lot of historian
Speaker 1: and a lot of archivists didn't want that information to
Speaker 1: get out because it looks really bad for the left,
Speaker 1: and fuck that. Our job as historians is to I'm
Speaker 1: not a historian. My job is to tell stories out
Speaker 1: of the shit I find. But like you know, anyway, whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm annoyed by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not to cross wires. But one of the things
Speaker 2: that we say in TST is that which should be destroyed,
Speaker 2: that which would be destroyed by the truth, should not
Speaker 2: be spared its demise. And I agree with that one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. The truth is always the most important thing
Speaker 2: to figure out, and there's covering things up to change
Speaker 2: the narrative is doing a disservice not only to people
Speaker 2: in history, but the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah totally. And if if my like ideological positions can't
Speaker 1: handle the truth, I'll just change my ideal logical.
Speaker 2: Ping and I'd like them to get destroyed, right actually absolutely?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So anyway, the archive is burying this lesbian history,
Speaker 1: and it makes me think about like how much of
Speaker 1: how much of our history is actually buried, not just
Speaker 1: as like the love that can't speak its name, but
Speaker 1: a love that did speak its name, like like these
Speaker 1: women were together, right, and then historians and archivists and
Speaker 1: like publicists and estates of the family just actively burying
Speaker 1: the information, like how many gay journals were just burned
Speaker 1: by the family as soon as they were found.
Speaker 2: You know, this is something I refer to on Enrange's
Speaker 2: intentionally induced amnesia. And there's so many instances I've run
Speaker 2: into this one blows my mind. There's been a few
Speaker 2: that just like, how is this not something that's like
Speaker 2: not only is it not well known? How is it
Speaker 2: not in just like ninth grade history books, for example,
Speaker 2: that has.
Speaker 1: Been left totally.
Speaker 2: Out of a historical narrative and it's because there was
Speaker 2: a vested interests and not make sure it wasn't there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's dangerous.
Speaker 1: And we've had like a decade or two of people
Speaker 1: actually starting to say the truth, and now already the
Speaker 1: reaction is coming in and being like, we can't talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that people historically it touched the tips
Speaker 1: of their penises together. However, gay menosex, I don't know, Well.
Speaker 2: That destroys the earth on the planet. It's like Ghostbusters
Speaker 2: and you cross the streams.
Speaker 1: Oh that makes sense. Actually, yeah, no, totally. But as
Speaker 1: for Lude Miller and Eleanor Roosevelt, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about them as well as a high femme fighting ace
Speaker 1: with the most combat kills in the sky of any
Speaker 1: woman in history on Wednesday. I like that. I like that.
Speaker 2: Thanks Thanks women launching bullets in the Nazis Yeah, just
Speaker 2: tugs up my heart strings.
Speaker 1: I know it's just beautiful. But if people want to
Speaker 1: see you launch bullets in the ballistic cell also whatever
Speaker 1: else you want to plug.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can find me at range dot tv,
Speaker 2: which is a where you can find all my decentralized
Speaker 2: distribution points, completely crowdfunded, no sponsors, no overlords, and so
Speaker 2: it's completely Hopefully some of you out there haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: check it out and like it, and if you really
Speaker 2: like it, support the effort, because in Range has strangely
Speaker 2: becomes sort of I guess edutainment, but a movement in
Speaker 2: a way. So appreciate everyone out there that's keep into
Speaker 2: the live.
Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, I want to plug. Even this morning, I
Speaker 1: was like, I know what I'm going to plug today,
Speaker 1: but now I don't know, So go oh, I have
Speaker 1: a stubsack? What I have a substack? We were almost there?
Speaker 3: Was there?
Speaker 1: All right? Yes, I write a newsletter. Today's, for example,
Speaker 1: was about my advice for writing fiction in the End Times,
Speaker 1: and it's my advice for new writers. And you can
Speaker 1: find it if you google Margaret Killjoy substack, or if
Speaker 1: you're the weirdo who types r l's into the bar,
Speaker 1: it's Margaret Kiljoy dot substack dot. I assume Colm, Sophie,
Speaker 1: what do you got?
Speaker 3: Listen to sad Oligarch. It's a series hosted by j
Speaker 3: Kanrahan or.
Speaker 1: Cools of If you like Russia history, if.
Speaker 3: You're wondering why these uh Rich Russian guys keep falling
Speaker 3: out of the sky.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Is there gonna be one about the
Speaker 1: Russian that just fell on the plane? Yes? Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: See you all Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
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