WEBVTT - Part Three: A Tale of Two Snipers: Simo Häyhä, Lyudmila Pavlichenko & the Eastern Front 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.800 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Shot nazis your 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.440 weekly podcast that reminds you that maybe your grandfather was 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.200 cooler than you fought, or if you're one of our 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.600 German listeners, he's probably about as uncol as you already. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.800 Know, eyeballing grandpa across the table. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.840 Yeah, I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy and with me today 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.160 is the Carl Casarda. Are you hey? 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:27.040 It's super great to be back. It's always a joy 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:29.000 to be on the show and see you and hang 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.280 out and talk about really cool topics. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:36.199 Yeah. And then Sophie is here too, our producer, Hi, Sophie, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.640 him Magpie. That's it. There's no one else to credit. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.080 I certainly wouldn't credit Ian, who spends hours turning all 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.720 of this into everyone wants to say. Hi Ian, Hi Ian, 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:51.720 Hi Ian Hi Ian. And on women did our theme music? 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.800 This is part three of four on a series about 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.200 snipers in World War Two. But unlike every other time 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:03.640 I've done multi part series, if you just showed up 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.560 to this episode to hear about the deadliest woman in 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:11.640 military history, you're actually fine. Parts one and two are 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.640 great and they're worth listening to. And they set up 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.720 a lot of the context, and but this one's sort 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.240 of a different one. It's kind of like somewhere between 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:24.280 a new episode and a continuation of an episode. I'm 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:27.360 sure everyone listening is really concerned about the way that 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.920 we formulate numbering in our episodes. They probably spend as 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:32.360 much time thinking about it as I do. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:35.560 It's kind of like knowing about World War Two but 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:37.679 not knowing about World War One. You can kind of 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:38.640 do that, but it's weird. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.200 Yeah, I don't know as much about World War One. 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:46.480 I'm still learning as constantly, Like I think that the 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:48.080 main thing that stuck with me. I listened to the 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.040 whole some whole really long history podcast about World War One, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.720 and the main thing I remember is people running at 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.360 machine gun nests by the thousands and how horrible was 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.000 That's the main thing I remember. 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.040 Yeah, that was a real lesson in mechanization and modernization, 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:05.600 wasn't it. 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:11.919 Yeah. But last week we talked about Simo, the Finn 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.040 who hid in the snow, potentially the deadliest sniper in history. 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.800 There's a lot of people sort of vying for that spot, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.800 but not in a fun Highlander way, just like historians, 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.960 you know, although actually a lot of people were vite. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:27.440 Thirty six people vied with the person we're going to 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.400 talk about today. This week, we're gonna talk about someone 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.000 who I think is even cooler, another person who answered 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.160 the call to stop an invading authoritarian force, Ludmilla Pavlchenko. 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:39.440 You heard Ludmilla. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.799 Yeah, a female sniper in the Soviet Union that let's say, 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.840 how do we use the parlance, racked up quite the 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:48.480 body count. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.400 Yeah yeah, And it's funny because people every now and 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:56.399 then you can kind of tell, like, ah, you know whatever, 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:58.560 they didn't kill near She didn't kill nearly as many 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.919 people as like these other men or whatever. She killed 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.079 way more people than any American ever has well as 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.560 a sniper, Americans drop some nukes, but. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:12.320 And firebombs and other things. 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.839 But yeah, yeah, yeah, okay from a sniper point of view. 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.360 So she's credited as the most successful woman sniper in history, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.799 the deadliest woman in military history. She single handedly brought 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.640 down three hundred and nine Nazis. As the most commonly 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.919 cited count, which was the American who's super famous, Chris Kyle. 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:35.840 He's at like one hundred and fifty or something. I 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:36.160 don't know. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:37.720 I don't know the number. 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.560 I don't remember. I didn't actually watch American Sniper. It 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:43.320 didn't seem like. 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:46.560 I doubt that movie has a lot to do with reality. 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:47.600 But that's a different topic. 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:49.000 Yeah, fair enough. 0:03:49.520 --> 0:03:52.160 Neither is Chris Kyle's book. But ooh, that's another topic. 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.240 It's okay, neither does the lady who are talking about 0:03:55.240 --> 0:04:00.680 today's book, to be honest, okay, fair propaganda, it's a 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.600 thing that governments do. That's our that's our theme song. 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.160 So all the while, she was also fighting against the 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:11.880 sexism of the Soviet military, which, to be clear, was 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.200 not as bad as the sexism as any other military 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:16.719 because women were allowed in it, and they were allowed 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.360 to fight. They just had to. It was hard for 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:23.599 them to do. And she also you know that she 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.599 might have boned the first Lady of the United States, 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:27.520 Eleanor Roosevelt. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:31.360 No, but I'm extremely curious talking about bodycounts. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.400 So we're gonna start with it. We'll get to that part. 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.200 And I'm not even it's actually in today's it's not 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:47.680 even in Wednesdays, so that you're welcome everyone. We will 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.719 start with the history of women fighting in the military 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.320 in Russia, which predates the Russian Revolution. This part surprised me, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.080 and also this includes women who fought in the military 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:04.440 against the revolution. The Russian Revolution briefly upended traditional conservative culture, 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:08.039 although Stalin reinforced you know, brought it all back or whatever. 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:13.400 But even traditional conservative Slavic culture, as least according to 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.240 some of the sources I read, has a different set 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.000 of roles available to women than in cultures further west. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.239 In the Slavic household, a woman's duties might include chopping wood, 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.280 driving tractors, and fighting whatever is necessary to take care 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.039 of the family. That can still be women's work, even 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.800 in a like patriarchal situation in which the woman is 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.840 like subject to the rules of the household and stuff. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.440 You ever seen that Instagram video by Meg Boggs. She's 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.040 a Mexican woman who's a fitness influencer. She puts on 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.640 a Russian accent, and she does push ups with like weights, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.920 and she's a large woman, and she says, I can't 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:52.680 do a Russian accent and save my life. She says, 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:54.839 I don't want to be strong like man who looks pretty. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.120 I want to be strong like bitch that fights bears 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:57.800 in the forest. 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.680 I think a bear would be in somewhere. Yeah, it's Russia. 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.120 It's bears. No, I actually haven't seen that, but I 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:06.560 can totally get the vibe. 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.240 Yeah, I mean that's that's kind of it. I h 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.159 and it fucking rules. And it's not actually a Russian 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.720 woman's a Mexican woman, which also is completely fine by me. 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.320 But that's the traditional feminine values that we're talking about 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:23.760 that are coming into play. This isn't a paint slavic 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.120 culture as like gender equal. It's just different, and it's 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:29.479 different in a way that seems to have made it 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.839 easier for women to make their ways to the front lines. 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.400 Mostly they did this in partisan units during World War Two, 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:36.960 and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.279 I also did it in the military itself. Have you 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.280 heard of the women's battalions the uh what is this 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.119 one called the like Women's Battalion of Death or something 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.200 like that. I've curious. 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.440 It's like this like one of the more maybe not 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.240 a ground fighter, but like one of the most amazing 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.080 instances for a topic for another day, or like the 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:57.640 night witches that were the pilots for example. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.320 Yeah, we're going to get to them. Oh cool, I'm 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.600 this is this is going to be a ADHD whole 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.840 of an episode. I'm really excited about it. One day 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.080 we're going to do a proper Russian Revolution episode. This 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.080 is not that day. But in nineteen seventeen, year of 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.040 the Russian Revolution, come out to actually two different revolutions. 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:19.720 You have the February Revolution, which actually happened in March, 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.520 but they have a different calendar, so to them, it 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:24.119 happened in February. To the rest of the world happened 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.120 in March, and you wind up with something called the 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.760 Provisional Government, and morale for staying in World War One 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.240 was dropping fast with the ending of this artum or whatever. 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:36.800 The provisional Government, which was not necessarily radical, was like, 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.960 what the fuck do we do? One woman had an idea. 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.920 Her name was Maria butch Cervera. She was already a soldier. 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:47.560 She'd fought like hell to get to fight with the men, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.120 and eventually the way she'd eventually been able to fight 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.360 with the men in World War One is a commander 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.200 helped her write a personal telegram Desar Nicholas the Second 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.680 for permission to go fight the front. She started off 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.000 as a but soon she was a corporal in charge 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.559 of eleven men, and she is the first Russian woman 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.840 to lead troops in the formal military. You want to 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.240 guess when the US pulled off having a woman lead 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:11.560 troops in the formal military. 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:14.000 Oh, I don't know, But since you're asking that question 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:15.640 and thinking of how things are, I'm going to say 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.480 I might be off. But let's go with two thousand 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:18.840 and five. 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:24.800 You actually it was a very progressive country. Is nineteen 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:26.240 eighty nine when. 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.880 Oh, I underestimated us a little bit? 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:34.400 Yeah, Linda Bray commanded US troops while invading Panama. Which 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:38.600 is the funny thing is whenever you're like, like girl power, go. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.400 Invade a diversity, win for operation just because. 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:48.120 Yeah. So February Revolution nineteen seventeen, troops are losing morale, 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.880 Maria is like, let's make all women military formations. So 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.720 they formed sixteen all women military formations with a total 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:01.160 of about five thousand fighters. This is a couple interesting points. First, 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.640 several have names like first Russian Women's Battalion of Death, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.000 which is really fucking metal and it just needs to 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:13.200 be acknowledged. This one the first women's Russian Russian Women's 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.080 Battalion of Death was run by Maria herself, who was 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.560 very strict and who kept getting wounded in battle and 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:23.920 then kept going back to the front lines. Anyway, I'd 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.679 always figured it was the Communists who first put women 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.680 into uniform in Russia, Right that that seems like the 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.240 kind of thing the Communists would be more likely to do, Right, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.840 But it comes before that, And an all women's unit 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.800 actually protected the Winter Palace, trying and failing to stop 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.160 the Red Army in the October Revolution later that year. 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:48.640 So they were a counter revolutionary force by whatever called standards, 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.280 and the Bolsheviks champions of women's liberty. The first thing 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.200 they did not the first thing, within like a month 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.680 or so of like taking power, they dissolved all the 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:02.800 women's units. To be fair, I don't know whether this 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:04.800 is they were like women shouldn't fight, or whether this 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.920 was like all the women are shooting at us. I'm 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:14.400 not sure which. Usually Again, I I don't want to 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.080 be like, oh, I don't know about the October Revolution. 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.400 I know a decent bit about the Russian Revolution, but 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.680 I haven't deep dived it the way that I'm intending to. 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:24.679 But in general, it is referred to as when the 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:28.920 Bolsheviks took power, and this is sort of true. In 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.599 the October Revolution. It was actually a pluralistic assortment of 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.360 left revolutionaries, which included the anarchists who did a lot 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.280 of the most dangerous work. As always, you had the Mensheviks, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.079 and you had the srs, who are like a grarian socialists, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:45.480 kind of the social democrats. This coalition later falls apart 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.560 when the Bolsheviks introduced the secret police, the Cheka, and 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.080 then start attacking their former allies, which is how you 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.120 end up with a you know how like the Russian 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:57.600 The Russian Civil War has like all the armies named 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.520 in colors. Have you heard this? I really like this 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.520 because it's so it makes some things kind of clear 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.240 in this weird way when you just name all of 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.320 these armies. Where you have the Red Army, you have 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.679 the White Army. You have the White Army as the capitalists. 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:14.120 It's not actually necessarily all capitalists, a lot of social democrats, 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:16.680 it's the people fighting against the revolution. You have the 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.920 Black Army, which are the anarchists which split off from 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:21.800 the Red Army. We'll talk about that. And then you 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.760 have the Green Army, which are kind of the brotherhood 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:30.400 without banners from the Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.280 not a game, the show, which is a game in 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.920 the name. These are the peasants who are like, we 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.319 are sick of everyone showing up and just fucking taking 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.719 all of our stuff. The Bolsheviks are doing it, but 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.160 they're not capitalists. In fact, they're specifically anti capitalist. They're 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.600 sort of anarchistic and socialistic and they want to basically 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.199 self govern and so they go to war also against 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.959 the Bolsheviks and the capitalists. I want to know more 0:11:54.960 --> 0:12:00.400 about them, but that's to come back to the women's 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.040 I've run across this a lot while researching the show 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:06.360 that women combatans and units are like cool, but they're 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:10.120 also kind of just used for propaganda purposes. Basically, they're 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.960 used to like shame men into fighting, Like even the 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.040 women are doing it. What the fuck is wrong with you? 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:20.520 Friend of the pod mother? Nope, what's that name? Is 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:22.839 not in the script? That lady, the Irish goth lady 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.840 who works with union miners, who has a magazine named 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:35.000 after her mother Jones. Yeah, mother Jones, Like she used 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.920 to do this shit. She would show up and be like, well, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.040 come on, I'm fighting and I'm a woman, what's wrong 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.280 with you? Right? And it's like fine, right, but it 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:46.800 kind of makes me sad. It's like failing the revolutionary 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:50.760 Bechdel test, you know, when like women are only doing 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:53.800 this thing for men rather than doing it for their 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:59.959 own power and sake. Anyway, I have all these battalions, 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:04.679 they are largely under resourced, and they don't last too long, 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.040 even before the Bolsheviks take power and dissolve them. They 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.040 were often taken off the front lines and put like 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.120 guardian railroads or whatever, because a lot of it was 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.720 just propaganda. A lot of it was just like, sure, 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:17.760 we'll let you form these battalions in order to shame 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:21.640 men into going back to fight this ridiculous war. That 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.199 do you know what Russia was doing in World War One? 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.680 I actually don't. I only know about like France and 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:27.640 Germany and shit. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.160 You mean actually in the combat in the war itself. 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:31.959 Like I mean when you. 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:34.640 Say that, why they were doing it? What was their 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:36.240 skin in the game in World War One? 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.920 It was not that different than World War Two, which 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.120 was the Germans were doing their thing and the Russians 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.600 had to combine against it. The Germans have always been 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.040 about fighting the Russians, and they ever were fighting on 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.640 the west. So the reason is they always wanted to 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.600 fight Russia, but there were these treaties in place that 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.360 prevented them from doing so without being invaded from the west. 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.439 So they would invade west to provide ground to protect 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:06.640 the German homeland while they went east, all right, which 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.360 is a weird, convoluted concept. But being stuck in the 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:12.160 middle got them kind of cornered between these what they 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.560 saw as two enemies. But Germany always saw Russia and 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.760 of course the Soviet Union as the ultimate enemy that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:18.800 they really wanted to fight. 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.960 Yeah, Europe is so weird. It is I don't know. 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.880 I don't know what to say that. Besides, that's just weird. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.240 Before we move on, I want to loop back on one 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.240 thing real quick. I was thinking about something. There's a 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.760 gray space in terms of a woman led military operation, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.960 which isn't exactly what you're describing. But in eighteen sixty three, 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:42.720 Harriet Tubman led the COMBA. 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.280 He fair, Yeah, totally, So that's it's not that is 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:46.160 a really good point. 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.640 She wasn't in the military, but she did lead a fight. 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.240 So that's like an interesting example in the middle, but 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.440 then eighteen sixty three and then what'd you say, nineteen 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.840 eighty nine, so a long time between those two events. 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.840 Yeah. No, that's actually a really good point point, and 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.840 the fact that she's sort of kept out of the 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:08.640 traditional military structure but absolutely led it, and women so 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:13.000 often were fighting in informal capacities, right and leading in 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.720 informal capacities. But then, oh, that's really interesting. 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.560 I really like rad Off for that because she deserves no. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:24.840 Yeah, yeah, So Maria the woman who got you know, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.120 wrote a letter being like, hey, can I fight? And 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.760 then also can we form these battalions? Her story doesn't 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:33.440 end there. She's anti Bolsheviks, she's probably anti communist. Soon 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.040 she's allied with the White Army and the army that 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:38.400 is opposed to the Communists. That includes everything from the 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.760 far right to monarchists to republicans to social democrats, everyone 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.040 who's like not fuck the right army. She's captured by 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.240 the Bolsheviks, she escapes, she goes to the US. She 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.680 tries to rally the US and Britain to intervene in Russia. 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.160 This will be the one of two times that this 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:58.200 will come up in today's episodes, and then she'll go 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.880 back to Russia to fight with the White Army. She 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:03.920 tries to form a women's medical detachment, and then she's 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.280 caught and executed by the Bolsheviks. In nineteen twenty and 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.320 there's another woman fighter of note during the Russian Civil War, 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:15.560 and I'm not going to get too into her because 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.000 she's like basically my favorite person in history, and eventually 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:19.920 I'm going to do like ten episodes about her. It'll 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.240 just be like, twenty twenty four is the year of 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.280 Maria Niki Farova. But there's a woman named Mickey nor 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.760 Maria Niki Farova. Everyone is named Maria in this story, 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.560 and she's a Ukrainian anarchist who forms the Blackguards in 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.920 the summer of nineteen seventeen in Ukraine. The Blackguards soon 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.920 spread into Russia itself. They're run by the Moscow Federation 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.840 of Anarchist Groups. These weren't all women units, but the 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:43.840 very first one was led by a woman, and she 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:48.320 stayed a revolutionary leader throughout the war until she dies. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.520 But spoiler alert for whenever I do an episode about her, 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.760 but this is a fairly elite unit, the Blackguards, in 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.640 a way that I didn't realize the first time I 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.920 read about it. A lot of anarchists were just in 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:02.440 a Red Guard. But to join the Blackguard you had 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.919 to be vouched for or by three different comrades, and 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.600 you had to be vouch for for reliability, responsibility, and 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.000 for ethical behavior. And so the vouching says it was 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.359 an elite army, but it was like an ideologically elite army. 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.040 Like you couldn't be a bandit. You could be a 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.520 Robin Hood style bandit, but you couldn't be a like 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.760 the kind of person who's going to take advantage of 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:25.199 power to hurt people. And I love the idea that 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:29.000 the like spec ops anarchist unit that is the like 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:30.920 thing that you have to like be really fucking good 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:35.800 at anyway. And they mostly are working as guerrilla detachments, 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.959 working in tandem with the Red Guards until the Red 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.600 Guards turn on them and then there's a whole thing. 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:44.800 And actually there's a Bastard's episode about not about Marine Iikuphroba, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.480 but about Ukraine and the anarchist there and Makno and 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.800 all that stuff that I recommend people check out from 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.280 a couple of years ago. You wait, year that was 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.439 you known what was a Christmas one, so just look 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.920 for Christmas, so you're probably a The talking shit on 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.399 Bolsheviks is one of my favorite pastimes. And it's true 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.720 that they dissolve the women's units, but pretty much immediately 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:13.119 the USSR and the Bolsheviks legally mandated equality between women 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.960 and men, and like just in a sweeping women in 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.040 man are equal, there's no difference between them in the 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.320 eyes of the law, and then proceeded to not actually 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.639 follow the law and continued to discriminate against women. But 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.040 it it got shit started. The fact that you have 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.439 this de jura de jure djur is one of these 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:35.960 words I write all the time, but I don't say 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:41.240 out loud. Equality legal equality, but they needed de facto equality. 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.280 By nineteen eighteen, the USSR passed the Family Code, which 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:49.440 continued to push basically feminism. It separated marriage from religion, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:53.560 It legitimized children from unmarried parents, and it extended the 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:58.280 right to divorce. In nineteen twenty, they legalized abortion. Stalin 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.000 would later reverse this because he wanted there to be 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.399 more Russians he could send into a meat grinder. He 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.960 also reversed the legalization of homosexuality. He also made bastards 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:14.480 into bastards again. He made divorce harder. He I don't 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:15.560 like Stalin very much. 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.320 Well, I mean he really corrupted something that was on 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.159 a very positive track, right, I mean, that's besides all 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.080 of the other things that one could say about Stalin. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.000 You see this when people talk about these movements now, 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.600 it's all corrupted with the overshadowing horrible presence of Stalin 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.720 and everything that came before him is lost in the 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.800 horrors that he actually committed, which really ruins any concept 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:38.560 around it, I know. 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.199 And it's like frustrating because like I want to have 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.080 conversations about why I disagree with the Bolsheviks, but I 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.879 can't even have that because like Lenin looks like a 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.800 fucking saint compared to Stalin. 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:49.440 Yeah, when you talk about any of it, and like 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.880 you're not talking about Bolshevism or communism, you're talking about Stalinism, 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:54.800 and that's the more official word, but that's not the 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:55.640 word that gets used. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.680 Yeah. No, well Marx's Leninism is the word that they use. 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.240 But as annoying because I think the Bolsheviks is that 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.040 we'll talk about it when we do Civil War episodes. 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.639 They murdered all their opponents and shit, they just like 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:12.439 still were a better and fucking still anyway. Yeah, so, 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.520 but you know what else is probably better than Stalin. 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.679 It actually is better than Stalin. And that's what's so 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.840 great about Stalin is Stalin makes even Bolshevism look good, 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.280 and he even makes these ads look good. 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.320 Wow, nothing like modern convenience is delivered to your door 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.880 for your prosperity. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.960 Yeah, most of these ads probably won't send lots of 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.639 people to die for no reason or criminalize homosexuality. If 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.639 you get the ad for one of the many politicians 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.800 who are trying to criminalize homosexuality, then never mind. They're 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:52.239 roughly equivalent to Stalin, which they'd love to hear, just 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:59.840 like you'll love to hear these ads. And we're back 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:05.199 so overall, even though I'm talking shit on like some 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.680 things that didn't quite work out in revolutionary Russia. In 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.520 terms of feminism, this is way more feminist than the 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:13.240 US and way more feminist than most places you could 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:15.400 be looking at in the world, which isn't saying much 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.520 much like our comparison about the ads looking really good. 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:22.760 And when I first heard about women snipers in World 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.119 War two. I was like, yeah, of course, it's like 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.119 the one thing the USSR was really good at was 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:28.879 like equal opportunity for women. 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:29.160 Right. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:35.119 But of the eight hundred thousand women who fought in 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:38.560 the Red Army in World War Two, only eight thousand 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.040 of them were actually able to see combat. They were 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.520 kept out of frontline roles, they were made into nurses, 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.160 they were like given support roles left and right. And 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.919 the eight thousand who did see frontline combat had to 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:52.720 fight like hell internally to get that. 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.760 Everyone's equal with someone more equal than others. Right, It's 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:57.960 like it's yeah, there's this whole thing that you see 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.480 when you mentioned just a moment ago about like these 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:03.239 like these goals and then reality and also how some 0:22:03.240 --> 0:22:05.159 things are more progressive than others. But when we look 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.600 at history, it's so easy to lose context about if 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.000 you put yourself in the place of time of then things, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.520 we can't balance things by our view now and what 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:17.840 we would consider progressive now you have to think about 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:20.879 was progressive then. And every one of those steps is 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:22.840 where we get to to get to now, right, and 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:24.840 we still have many more to go, but it all 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:26.320 has to be in context. 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:30.679 No, that's that's absolutely true, And like, this is the 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:33.320 only military in World War two that has women in 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:37.520 it in any kind of frontline capacity, you know, any 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:42.280 official military. And about a third of these eight thousand 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.639 women fighting in combat were snipers. There is an entire 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.639 school for women snipers. At one point it might have 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:53.080 put what years started in the script, I'm not really sure. 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:58.480 And yeah, about one percent of all the women in 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.840 the military saw combat. I were like trying to see combat. 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.119 I wonder why it was so overwhelmingly on the sniper 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.359 side of things. I mean, from here's an example of 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:09.040 this that I see from what I do. In terms 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.800 of even just competition, like shooting skill is frequently something 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.680 that has nothing to do within a form of gender identity. 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:19.080 It's completely based on the individual and the dedication they 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:22.080 put into it. And also, which is interesting, at least 0:23:22.080 --> 0:23:25.119 in the modern day, so often the preconceived notions of 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:27.000 what it means to be a good shooter or to 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:30.480 be good or skilled at marksmanship. That of course, men 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:32.480 in air quote are supposed to just be born with 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:35.439 women aren't necessarily indoctrinated with that, and then when they 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:37.800 come to learn, they're a much more open mind and 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:39.560 they learn faster and usually are better. 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:43.720 It is one of the things where I like, I 0:23:43.760 --> 0:23:45.720 spent a while fall i'velled down in this rabbit hole 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:50.160 about like it has been my experience. I sometimes teach 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:52.600 new people how to shoot firearms, right, And I used 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.320 to live at a range, and it has been my 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.399 experience that women are better at shots, like in a 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:01.679 natural sense. And I hate gender essentialism, and so I'm like, well, 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:03.479 what the hell's going on with this? And a lot 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:05.119 of people have like put a lot of thought into it. 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.680 Most of it's sort of nonsensical thought, but this idea 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:09.639 of like being open minded and not coming in with 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:12.879 like macho assumptions, and then it seems like at the 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.119 highest levels of competition it actually average. It just evens 0:24:16.160 --> 0:24:18.440 out again, and it's like a sport in which men 0:24:18.480 --> 0:24:21.760 don't have an advantage. There's no biological advantage to being 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:22.720 a man in shooting. 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.320 I just think it's a clean slate thing, which I mean, 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:27.320 no matter how much we want to keep ourselves out 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.199 of the corrupting influences of how society likes to function, 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:35.359 it's still there and coming to the to the plate 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:37.479 with something a fresh mind and a clean slate and 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:39.200 not being told this is what you're supposed to do 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:41.439 or thinking or what you're supposed to do, and taking 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:44.320 construction well, whoever or whatever reason that is the case 0:24:44.720 --> 0:24:46.639 means you're going to learn faster and better. It's just 0:24:46.680 --> 0:24:48.960 the reality. And then you said, like it levels off 0:24:48.960 --> 0:24:51.440 at the top, showing everyone can be equally as good. 0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:54.840 It's just coming to the table without an already corrupted perspective. 0:24:56.320 --> 0:24:58.159 No, that makes a lot of sense. And you know, 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.959 anyone who's listening who's like, oh, I was not raised 0:25:01.000 --> 0:25:04.080 in a gendered way that gave me access to firearms. 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:06.640 If you're interested in learning, it is a thing that 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:12.159 your gender is not any kind of hindrance at I 0:25:12.200 --> 0:25:17.440 mean that whatever, stop people anyway. And there's so much 0:25:17.440 --> 0:25:20.199 discourse run sports and shit right now, as if anyone 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:22.120 cared about women's sports until all of a sudden trans 0:25:22.119 --> 0:25:27.800 women existed. But yeah, the standout the military with the 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:29.880 most women fighting in World War Two was the Italian 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:33.720 Partisan Resistance because it was a partisan resistance and so 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.480 thirty five thousand women were fighting against fascism as part 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:41.119 of the Italian partisan resistance, and resistance movements everywhere have 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:45.800 been friendlier to women. Overall, Russian women were also on 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:48.480 the front lines of partisan resistance. Before the Red Army 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:52.720 mobilized women stepped up, there was this unofficial engineer Corps 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:55.560 that built anti tank fortifications and laid booby traps. As 0:25:55.560 --> 0:25:58.200 our Operation Barbarossa was coming. Because it happened so fast, 0:25:58.440 --> 0:26:01.080 there wasn't time to mobilize the military, and so just 0:26:01.119 --> 0:26:03.879 like local women were like, all right, well, let's go 0:26:03.960 --> 0:26:08.440 fucking blow up some tanks. You know, later these women 0:26:08.520 --> 0:26:11.040 joined up with the partisans trap behind Nazi lines, although 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:14.119 primarily at that point in support roles that are just 0:26:14.160 --> 0:26:17.840 as important, like medical, cooking and smuggling messages around the 0:26:17.880 --> 0:26:22.679 sort of often the traditional women's roles within informal militaries 0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:27.159 and resistance movements, this especially like courier and all that 0:26:27.240 --> 0:26:32.359 kind of shit. But now let's talk about Ludmila Pevlchenko, 0:26:32.880 --> 0:26:36.840 our sniper. She's Ukrainian. She was born in Kiev what's 0:26:36.840 --> 0:26:40.240 now Ukraine but was then the Russian Empire on July twelfth, 0:26:40.320 --> 0:26:43.560 nineteen sixteen, which is, you know, before the Russian Revolution, 0:26:44.160 --> 0:26:47.800 but not by a lot. Her father was a Red 0:26:47.880 --> 0:26:50.680 Army Communist Party guy who was highly decorated for his 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:53.639 role in the Russian Civil War, and she was a 0:26:53.640 --> 0:26:57.159 tomboy like half of the women on this show. She 0:26:57.200 --> 0:26:59.800 got really into shooting. She joined a group that was like, 0:27:00.560 --> 0:27:03.360 I didn't bother writing down as like some really long acronym. 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:05.960 It's like an acronym with like nine or ten letters 0:27:05.960 --> 0:27:12.960 in it. Yeah. It It is basically the like, let's 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:16.200 teach non army people, like non army kids army shit 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:18.560 in the name of sport, but also because it's a 0:27:18.560 --> 0:27:21.480 good idea in case there's like a war whatever. It's 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:24.240 like boy Scouts, only everyone does it and you get 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:26.880 real guns and they teach you how to fly planes, 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:30.560 and it's like not quite mandatory, but it's like basically mandatory. 0:27:30.600 --> 0:27:34.760 In order to get led into the better schools, you 0:27:34.800 --> 0:27:36.720 have to join this other group. In order to join 0:27:36.760 --> 0:27:38.399 that group, you have to join this group. And so 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:42.240 everyone's a boy scout basically, and so she's a boy 0:27:42.280 --> 0:27:48.199 scout and she doesn't start off into shooting until a 0:27:48.240 --> 0:27:51.800 local boy is like, I'm better than you at this, 0:27:52.840 --> 0:27:56.119 and then she was like, oh no, I'm going to 0:27:56.160 --> 0:27:59.280 be better at it, you than you. Girls can fucking 0:27:59.359 --> 0:28:02.240 do anything they fucking want Apparently one of her main 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:04.480 hobbies as a kid was beating up boys who tried 0:28:04.520 --> 0:28:06.400 to tell her what she couldn't couldn't do as a girl. 0:28:08.920 --> 0:28:11.080 And she got really good at shooting because she practiced 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:13.160 all the time, which is a classic way to get 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:16.439 good at stuff. Anyone's wondering how to get good at stuff, 0:28:16.920 --> 0:28:19.080 usually it am Alvest practicing all the time. 0:28:19.000 --> 0:28:21.160 The exact opposite of some of the things we see 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:22.960 on the internet, which competition will get you killed in 0:28:23.000 --> 0:28:25.480 the streets. She's proving this exactly to be wrong. 0:28:26.560 --> 0:28:28.840 That's true. Do people say on the internet like, oh, 0:28:28.840 --> 0:28:32.400 if you practice competition shooting, then you're like, yes, there's. 0:28:32.200 --> 0:28:34.600 This concept of what they call training scars and like, 0:28:34.640 --> 0:28:38.240 for example, shooting competition. Even my dynamic ones like I 0:28:38.400 --> 0:28:42.280 run don't really have rules around cover or concealment or 0:28:42.440 --> 0:28:45.320 things that are very important in an actual combative situation. 0:28:45.760 --> 0:28:48.720 And so there's a certain subset of usually do nothing 0:28:48.720 --> 0:28:50.480 people that will say that this is the kind of 0:28:50.520 --> 0:28:52.200 stuff that gets you killed in the streets because you're 0:28:52.200 --> 0:28:54.600 not using cover properly while on the clock, but at 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:57.000 the same time on the clock and learning how to shoot. Well, 0:28:57.560 --> 0:28:59.880 what is combat if it's not a timed course of 0:29:00.320 --> 0:29:03.040 with a part time that ends with someone dying. So 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:05.960 being good, yeah, proficient with your weapon is a critical 0:29:06.000 --> 0:29:08.680 part of this. And yes, but people do claim the 0:29:08.720 --> 0:29:11.080 competition will give you scars that will get you killed. 0:29:11.080 --> 0:29:13.760 In reality, it's ridiculous, but it's a thing. 0:29:15.080 --> 0:29:17.960 Yeah, that sounds like something people would say. What I 0:29:18.000 --> 0:29:21.040 have found is very effective with gunfights is to avoid them. 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:24.280 Number one way to yes, that is the best way 0:29:24.320 --> 0:29:25.760 to not get shot is to not be shot at. 0:29:25.800 --> 0:29:27.040 And the best way to not get shot at is 0:29:27.080 --> 0:29:29.560 not being a gunfight. Yeah, if you can avoid it. 0:29:29.600 --> 0:29:34.120 Sometimes life doesn't make that possible, but hopefully true. 0:29:34.200 --> 0:29:38.120 Yeah, yeahah no, it is worth like, depending on your 0:29:38.120 --> 0:29:40.360 threat model, it is worth training in this. So I 0:29:40.440 --> 0:29:43.200 just like, yeah, but like I just had people the 0:29:43.680 --> 0:29:45.600 exaggerated idea of the number of fights they get in. 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:47.160 And if you get into a lot of fights, you 0:29:47.240 --> 0:29:50.959 actually really shouldn't carry a gun. If you find yourself 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:52.959 in a bar fight on a regular basis, you are 0:29:52.960 --> 0:29:55.320 not someone who should carry a firearm until you stop 0:29:55.320 --> 0:29:58.320 getting into bar fights because you can't get into bar 0:29:58.360 --> 0:29:59.520 fights because you have a gun on you. 0:29:59.600 --> 0:30:02.600 Something's there right there, right something with either the situations 0:30:02.600 --> 0:30:05.720 you're putting yourself in or your social skills. Something's going 0:30:05.760 --> 0:30:07.640 awry if that's happening on the rig. 0:30:08.400 --> 0:30:15.560 Yeah, so she likes getting into regular fistfights learning how 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:19.720 to shoot. But then classic bad thing happening to women 0:30:19.760 --> 0:30:22.320 on this show. So if he can probably guess so 0:30:22.360 --> 0:30:23.960 if he also with the script in front of her, 0:30:25.160 --> 0:30:28.040 she meets a guy, only in this case she doesn't 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:30.640 fall for him. She's just sixteen and marys a piece 0:30:30.640 --> 0:30:32.800 of shit abusive doctor who's like a grown ass adult 0:30:32.840 --> 0:30:36.240 who's marrying a kid. So she does that, she's a 0:30:36.320 --> 0:30:37.720 kid of her own, and then she's like, you know, 0:30:37.760 --> 0:30:40.000 I actually I've thought about this and I don't like 0:30:40.480 --> 0:30:43.120 being married to an abusive piece of shit guy. So 0:30:43.160 --> 0:30:45.600 she leaves him. I don't know whether she ever actually 0:30:45.640 --> 0:30:48.520 ever formalized or divorce or she just left him. There's 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:50.520 some like things where it comes up as possibly she 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:53.560 never did. I don't care. And then she becomes an 0:30:53.640 --> 0:30:56.480 arms manufacturer, like in a metal working way. She moves 0:30:56.520 --> 0:30:58.600 to Kiev. She gets a job at an arms manufacturer. 0:30:58.600 --> 0:31:02.680 She's like grinding metal to make guns or something, and 0:31:03.080 --> 0:31:06.280 she takes night classes at a university for a history degree. 0:31:06.720 --> 0:31:09.920 She's also running track and doing pole vaulting and taking 0:31:09.920 --> 0:31:13.440 a sniper training class. This I don't believe she slept. 0:31:13.600 --> 0:31:16.400 I think is the Also, she's a fucking single mother 0:31:18.200 --> 0:31:19.360 at this alone. 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:22.080 Oh I'm me, And all of this speaks to her 0:31:22.120 --> 0:31:23.760 fortitude before even the main topic. 0:31:23.920 --> 0:31:24.040 Right. 0:31:24.080 --> 0:31:26.440 The fact that she fell into that situation is one thing, 0:31:26.480 --> 0:31:29.280 but being able to escape it shows a lot of 0:31:29.320 --> 0:31:33.120 internal strength and fortitude. So that's in itself another indication 0:31:33.200 --> 0:31:34.640 of who she is as a person. 0:31:35.440 --> 0:31:38.440 No, totally. Then, I think she's like in her third 0:31:38.520 --> 0:31:40.920 or fourth year. She's in her early mid twenties. You 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:45.240 get Operation Barbarossa, where Germany and its allies like Finland. 0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:48.000 We talked about it last time they invade the USSR. 0:31:48.600 --> 0:31:50.400 It's not going to go really well for him. Unfortunately, 0:31:50.400 --> 0:31:53.840 it's not going to really go well for anybody. She's 0:31:53.880 --> 0:31:57.200 one of the first volunteers and they're like, that's so great, 0:31:57.440 --> 0:32:02.400 I really appreciate the UK. We need nurses, and she's like, 0:32:03.320 --> 0:32:07.360 I'm a fucking sniper. I took sniper classes. I have 0:32:07.440 --> 0:32:10.840 all of these awards for sniping. I don't have any 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:14.960 medical training. I'm a sniper, and they're like, no, you're 0:32:15.000 --> 0:32:17.480 a little lady. Your nails are done nice, and you're 0:32:17.520 --> 0:32:20.320 five foot one, so she's even shorter than our last hero. 0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:23.720 Her nails were done up because, like the men, she 0:32:23.760 --> 0:32:25.600 put on her best clothes and shit in order to 0:32:25.640 --> 0:32:27.920 go to the recruiting center. Right, the men got dressed up, 0:32:27.920 --> 0:32:29.000 so she figured she would too. 0:32:29.200 --> 0:32:31.640 And you're expected to meet social norms no matter what. Right. 0:32:32.280 --> 0:32:36.040 Yeah, So there's a couple different accounts of how this happens. Next, 0:32:36.280 --> 0:32:39.280 she eventually convinces them to take her, and the funnest 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:41.880 one is that she comes back in and she dumps 0:32:41.880 --> 0:32:44.200 her awards and certificates and shit on the dude's desk 0:32:44.320 --> 0:32:48.200 and is like, I'm a fucking sniper And she has 0:32:48.240 --> 0:32:51.040 to fight through a mountain of bullshit, including telling They 0:32:51.040 --> 0:32:53.680 tell her that she can't join unless her husband gives permission, 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:55.880 and she's like, I haven't seen him in three years. 0:32:55.880 --> 0:32:57.920 I don't know where he lives, Like what the fuck. 0:32:58.880 --> 0:33:05.000 Eventually she strong arms her way into the military. There's 0:33:05.000 --> 0:33:07.000 a couple versions of what happens is also in this 0:33:07.120 --> 0:33:11.040 next part her own autobiography. It's called Lady Death, and 0:33:11.080 --> 0:33:15.680 the English translation it's probably not written by her. It's 0:33:15.720 --> 0:33:21.400 probably ghost written Soviet propaganda. Just frankly, it is a sanitized, 0:33:21.440 --> 0:33:25.440 Soviet approved version. It doesn't mention the Molotov ribbon tromp packed. 0:33:25.800 --> 0:33:28.080 It also talks about a bunch of fucking battles, and 0:33:28.120 --> 0:33:30.040 it talks about like not what she was doing, but 0:33:30.080 --> 0:33:34.400 what other people were doing during the battles. And I 0:33:34.400 --> 0:33:36.840 don't know whether that's a like, as a good communist, 0:33:36.880 --> 0:33:40.400 you don't center yourself, or if it's a she might 0:33:40.400 --> 0:33:43.280 have been like, sure, you can write my biography whatever 0:33:43.520 --> 0:33:46.080 you're fucking stalin. You can do whatever you want. 0:33:46.680 --> 0:33:50.720 Probably didn't have much choice, Yeah, unlike the book, Unlike 0:33:50.760 --> 0:33:52.960 the book about Chris Kyle, ooh, we won't go there. 0:33:56.760 --> 0:33:59.480 So she gets into the army and they're like, that's cool. 0:34:00.000 --> 0:34:04.040 There's one problem. We actually don't have any guns. We 0:34:04.200 --> 0:34:06.400 just like, we have a lot more troops than we 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:10.600 have guns. Here's a hand grenade. Why don't you go 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:14.520 dig trenches? And isn't as bad as it sounds. There 0:34:14.520 --> 0:34:17.600 were I've read accounts of like people who are like 0:34:17.640 --> 0:34:20.560 literally just told like I don't care, go attack those 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:22.880 tanks with your fingernails. If you don't do it, We'll 0:34:22.920 --> 0:34:25.440 fucking shoot you, you know. Like that is how the 0:34:25.480 --> 0:34:28.200 Red Army rolled sometimes, but it's not always how they rolled. 0:34:29.120 --> 0:34:32.560 In this case, it was go dig trenches, probably in Moldova, 0:34:32.600 --> 0:34:34.640 which is a country immediately south of Ukraine, which is 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:37.279 part of the USSR starting in nineteen forty after some 0:34:37.320 --> 0:34:40.759 shit got annexed from Romania during Operation Barbarossa. They were like, 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:44.480 we're fucking taking Moldova back whatever. So that's probably where 0:34:44.520 --> 0:34:49.480 she starts off digging ditches and they're like, look, if 0:34:49.480 --> 0:34:54.120 you get attacked, throw the hand grenade and run, which 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:57.759 is better than go attack the Germans. All we have 0:34:57.840 --> 0:34:58.840 for you is a hand grenade. 0:34:59.520 --> 0:35:01.960 Yeah, reminds me of an apocryphal story. I don't think 0:35:01.960 --> 0:35:04.000 it's a poker fule. It's probably a true story from 0:35:04.080 --> 0:35:06.480 one of these accounts that I read in which the 0:35:06.520 --> 0:35:08.919 Red Army was told one division was told you must 0:35:08.920 --> 0:35:11.640 cross this river and the commander reported back that a 0:35:11.680 --> 0:35:14.600 significant number of the troops under his command couldn't swim, 0:35:14.920 --> 0:35:17.360 and they're like, do it anyway, and so, you know, 0:35:17.400 --> 0:35:19.440 they reported back, we lost a third of our men 0:35:19.480 --> 0:35:22.200 crossing the river. And now what like that sort of 0:35:22.239 --> 0:35:23.720 insanity was reality. 0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:28.680 Yeah, yeah, that is. I've read accounts of people who 0:35:28.719 --> 0:35:34.200 had to do that kind of shit, But you know, 0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:38.359 this wasn't as bad. Soon her unit is overwhelmed by 0:35:38.360 --> 0:35:41.080 the blitz Creek and she does get her first rifle, 0:35:41.120 --> 0:35:42.959 and she gets it because the guy next to her dies. 0:35:43.040 --> 0:35:45.600 Is the most likely version of this story. One version 0:35:45.680 --> 0:35:49.799 is that he's like, take this young padawan and go 0:35:49.880 --> 0:35:53.960 forth and kill Nazis. You know, probably not without the 0:35:54.160 --> 0:35:56.040 without the cultural reference, unless he was a time traveler 0:35:56.040 --> 0:35:58.640 who unfortunately died at the front on the Eastern Front. 0:35:59.239 --> 0:36:01.600 Maybe if out he in the course of the war 0:36:01.640 --> 0:36:05.279 with a Mozona gaunt. I'm not sure so. And I 0:36:05.280 --> 0:36:07.040 will say this man who died and gave her a 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:10.040 rifle just for the assist is one of the most 0:36:10.080 --> 0:36:11.800 successful anti fascists in history. 0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:16.080 Sometimes it isn't what you do, but what you leave behind. 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:18.920 Yeah, what you set up for someone else to do, 0:36:19.000 --> 0:36:19.200 you know. 0:36:19.320 --> 0:36:21.520 Yeah. Yeah. 0:36:21.560 --> 0:36:24.520 Her first two kills are two Romanian fascists and rapid 0:36:24.520 --> 0:36:27.880 succession at long distance. This becomes her signature move is 0:36:27.920 --> 0:36:30.719 two quick kills before retreating to cover. Whereas a lot 0:36:30.719 --> 0:36:33.560 of snipers like pop up, shoot one and pop down. 0:36:33.760 --> 0:36:37.920 She's like pop up, shoot two, and pop down. And 0:36:38.920 --> 0:36:40.800 she doesn't work alone. She works with a team of 0:36:40.840 --> 0:36:43.600 snipers and they basically will just like go set up 0:36:43.640 --> 0:36:45.759 in the woods, kill a couple Nazis, then move to 0:36:45.800 --> 0:36:49.239 a new location. At the start of the war, she's 0:36:49.320 --> 0:36:54.239 racking up ten kills a day by doing this. She's 0:36:54.320 --> 0:36:57.239 a badass counter sniper. She ends up sent on all 0:36:57.239 --> 0:36:59.560 the most dangerous missions. Anytime there's like, oh fuck, we 0:36:59.600 --> 0:37:02.120 need to get the sniper taken care of, right, And 0:37:02.160 --> 0:37:05.440 so these are duels basically, and there are duels of 0:37:05.520 --> 0:37:07.760 who can sit still the longest and when the moment 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:12.000 is perfect, hours or days later, immediately kill the other person. 0:37:13.760 --> 0:37:17.960 And she wins every single time, thirty six times in total. 0:37:19.200 --> 0:37:22.920 One of these duels lasted three days, and supposedly she 0:37:22.960 --> 0:37:25.040 didn't eat or drink when she was on these missions. 0:37:25.560 --> 0:37:28.919 I don't actually believe that. I just I don't think 0:37:28.920 --> 0:37:31.919 that someone sat still for three days and didn't drink water. 0:37:32.880 --> 0:37:37.480 Yeah, but the amount of psychological tension and self discipline 0:37:37.880 --> 0:37:40.040 to be able to do even what she was able 0:37:40.080 --> 0:37:41.799 to do to stay still for that sort of thing, 0:37:42.000 --> 0:37:44.399 oh yeah, hard to fathom. Like, I mean, how many 0:37:44.480 --> 0:37:46.160 of us can sit still long enough through a one 0:37:46.200 --> 0:37:49.080 minute short on YouTube anymore. And she's in the field 0:37:49.080 --> 0:37:51.160 for three days with a rifle, waiting for someone to 0:37:51.200 --> 0:37:54.840 try to kill her on a interestingly competition event that 0:37:54.920 --> 0:37:56.000 includes a part time. 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:01.160 Yeah, yeah, no, it is like and if someone yeah, like, 0:38:01.200 --> 0:38:04.879 she was probably shitting and pissing herself right hard. She's 0:38:05.000 --> 0:38:07.879 just like, yeah, because you are waiting for the other 0:38:07.960 --> 0:38:10.200 person to flinch. You are waiting for the other person 0:38:10.200 --> 0:38:12.440 to move and give away their position, you know roughly 0:38:12.440 --> 0:38:15.200 where they are. And after three days she says, the 0:38:15.239 --> 0:38:17.160 hardest thing she ever did in her life. You know, 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:21.120 after three days, hey moved and she shot him. 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:24.520 You know, either way, for anyone that's ever actually done 0:38:24.560 --> 0:38:27.520 anything in terms of just field exercise, a person at 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.200 one hundred yards one hundred meters same thing equivalent for 0:38:30.239 --> 0:38:33.400 this that doesn't want to be seen won't be seen. 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:36.000 People in a forest environment. In the right environment, you 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:40.120 can disappear like a ghost, but movement immediately attracts the eye. 0:38:40.840 --> 0:38:45.319 Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. She's also using a Mozonna Gaunt, 0:38:45.400 --> 0:38:48.200 much like Simo before her, but hers is a scope. 0:38:48.239 --> 0:38:51.120 She uses a four x scope. I believe that I 0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:53.880 think she didn't use a helmet. I think a helmet 0:38:53.960 --> 0:38:56.160 like exposed her too much. It had her too high up, 0:38:56.200 --> 0:38:58.560 it made her too visible. She has a lot of 0:38:58.600 --> 0:39:04.319 head injuries, so it is, but she survives, so who knows. 0:39:04.840 --> 0:39:07.320 Helmets are also really difficult with the scope and stuff. 0:39:07.320 --> 0:39:10.040 If you're shooting a ninety one out with a scope, 0:39:10.160 --> 0:39:12.200 you can use a helmet, but it's really in the way. 0:39:13.120 --> 0:39:17.200 Yeah, yeah, it makes sense. She also has this habit 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:19.280 of getting hit in the face with mortars and trapnel 0:39:19.320 --> 0:39:22.279 and shit a lot. A total of four times, I 0:39:22.280 --> 0:39:24.799 think three of the times her head injuries, and in 0:39:24.800 --> 0:39:26.200 one of the times is an injury that I don't 0:39:26.200 --> 0:39:29.319 know what is. She gets really nasty concussions. She also 0:39:29.360 --> 0:39:31.400 gets promoted a lot. These are the two things that 0:39:31.480 --> 0:39:33.520 she's good at, well three things. She's very good at 0:39:33.560 --> 0:39:35.680 killing Nazis, she's very good at getting hit in the head, 0:39:36.160 --> 0:39:38.200 and she's surviving getting hit in the head is a 0:39:38.200 --> 0:39:40.480 better way to phrase it. And getting promoted up through 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:44.200 the ranks mostly the I don't know what she ends 0:39:44.280 --> 0:39:45.960 up at as like a G lieutenant or something, but 0:39:46.000 --> 0:39:51.279 mostly the like not commissioned officer ranks. The Nazis reach 0:39:51.360 --> 0:39:58.320 Odessa and she's fighting them. The Romanian army reaches Odessa 0:39:58.360 --> 0:40:00.759 and the Soviets fight like hell to stop them. It 0:40:00.800 --> 0:40:03.480 took seventy three days for the invaders to take the city. 0:40:03.760 --> 0:40:05.920 The invaders lost twice as many people as the Red 0:40:06.040 --> 0:40:08.880 Army did defending it, even though the Reds were outnumbered 0:40:08.920 --> 0:40:13.120 five to one. In seventy five days, she killed at 0:40:13.239 --> 0:40:16.120 least one hundred and eighty seven fascists, and at this 0:40:16.239 --> 0:40:19.120 point she is more successful than any sniper in American history, 0:40:19.200 --> 0:40:22.719 including to the modern day. And this is not where 0:40:22.719 --> 0:40:24.719 she stops. What we already said three on nine is 0:40:25.120 --> 0:40:30.319 where she stops. Stopping the Nazis is like more important 0:40:30.360 --> 0:40:35.560 than it's possible to say. When the Romanian fascists take Odessa, 0:40:35.680 --> 0:40:39.200 there's the nineteen twenty one Odessa massacre where upwards of 0:40:39.239 --> 0:40:42.360 one hundred thousand, one hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews are murdered, 0:40:43.320 --> 0:40:47.480 and the Red Army does, however, successfully evacuate one hundred 0:40:47.520 --> 0:40:52.080 thousand people out of the city, including Jews, and helps 0:40:52.120 --> 0:40:56.000 get people away. She and her unit withdraw. They go 0:40:56.040 --> 0:40:59.080 to Sevastopool next, which is a city on the support 0:40:59.120 --> 0:41:02.359 city on the Black Seat. It's the largest city in Crimea. 0:41:02.480 --> 0:41:04.800 And this is part of where the current Ukrainian conflict 0:41:04.840 --> 0:41:07.680 is happening, where it's part of Ukraine, but Russia's like noah, 0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:09.840 it's ours, it used to be ours, fuck you or whatever. 0:41:09.960 --> 0:41:10.160 You know. 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:12.800 Yeah, I know the stuff happening today has a direct 0:41:12.840 --> 0:41:15.560 line to not long ago. These things all linger on on, 0:41:16.840 --> 0:41:17.080 I know. 0:41:17.160 --> 0:41:20.040 And it's so interesting too, because like whenever I read 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:21.799 about like cool Soviet it's like at least half the 0:41:21.800 --> 0:41:25.680 time they're Ukrainians or even the cool nineteenth century like Russians, 0:41:26.160 --> 0:41:28.680 Like I mean, like, oh right, this is you know, 0:41:28.760 --> 0:41:32.160 Ukraine and Russia were like culturally and geographically distinct, but 0:41:32.200 --> 0:41:35.040 not completely. You know, they weren't separate. It was almost 0:41:36.200 --> 0:41:38.200 maybe it was like being from the south versus being 0:41:38.200 --> 0:41:38.800 from the north. 0:41:39.480 --> 0:41:42.000 You know, yeah, no, totally. And it's like and it's 0:41:42.000 --> 0:41:44.040 one of those places that's a crucible over and over 0:41:44.040 --> 0:41:46.400 again where I think it was a Dan Carlin that 0:41:46.480 --> 0:41:49.319 used this phrase, but like double victim, they're like they 0:41:49.320 --> 0:41:51.640 get it from both sides in certain circumstances, and it 0:41:51.680 --> 0:41:52.600 makes a different place. 0:41:53.920 --> 0:41:56.360 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, But you know 0:41:56.400 --> 0:41:59.640 what else makes a lot of sense taking advantage of 0:41:59.680 --> 0:42:05.600 these sweet sweet deals to spend your money, not on 0:42:05.760 --> 0:42:08.319 things that could help you survive the coming crisis, not 0:42:08.640 --> 0:42:10.799 on your friends go fund me so that they don't 0:42:10.840 --> 0:42:16.640 lose their house, but instead whatever we're advertising. Eh. 0:42:16.760 --> 0:42:18.399 Yeah, I like to buy food from as far away 0:42:18.440 --> 0:42:20.080 as possible, so that I know that it came from 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:22.600 me with a truck and using a lot of diesel fuel. 0:42:22.640 --> 0:42:24.360 That's one way to I think makes a lot of 0:42:24.400 --> 0:42:25.000 sense as well. 0:42:25.719 --> 0:42:34.920 Yeah. Climate accelerationism, Yeah, I mean that's our motto. Yeah, 0:42:35.480 --> 0:42:38.279 and we're back and I'm continuing to find out how 0:42:38.320 --> 0:42:43.960 far I can push certain types of things. So she 0:42:44.040 --> 0:42:48.760 fights in the siege of Sevastopol, where this is probably 0:42:48.760 --> 0:42:50.560 where she does most of her counter sniping. Is storying 0:42:50.640 --> 0:42:57.279 this siege at this point, there's this story where she 0:42:57.360 --> 0:42:59.960 falls in love with a fellow sniper and him Alexey Kitsenka, 0:43:00.880 --> 0:43:05.120 and she gets married during the siege, and then he 0:43:05.239 --> 0:43:08.919 dies and it's tragic, you know, and it's a tragic thing. 0:43:09.719 --> 0:43:13.240 She's so heartbroken. She never marries again. This probably didn't happen. 0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:17.920 She probably didn't marry this guy. She doesn't mention him 0:43:17.960 --> 0:43:22.960 in her autobiography. And also there's a bunch of parallels 0:43:22.960 --> 0:43:25.120 to another Soviet war hero, a lady. We'll talk about 0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:29.840 about this exact same like tragic death, woman mourning in 0:43:29.880 --> 0:43:34.600 the front lines thing. Maybe she did, maybe she married 0:43:34.600 --> 0:43:39.359 this guy. I don't know rip either way, this dude died, 0:43:39.600 --> 0:43:45.799 Stop shooting Nazis. He's cool people in my book. But 0:43:46.760 --> 0:43:52.200 so Vastpool goes really badly for well again, everyone but 0:43:52.640 --> 0:43:56.239 the Russians in particular. The city actually holds for the 0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:59.720 first major attack, so and the Soviets launching amphibious landing 0:43:59.760 --> 0:44:03.279 to leave the siege. But then the siege continues and 0:44:03.640 --> 0:44:06.480 Germany just bombs the ever loving shit out of the city. 0:44:07.040 --> 0:44:10.160 Eleven buildings are left standing in this city by the 0:44:10.280 --> 0:44:11.320 end of the fucking siege. 0:44:12.480 --> 0:44:15.480 You know what's funny about that is they found this 0:44:15.520 --> 0:44:18.680 out at Stalingrad as well, that the bombing was actually 0:44:18.680 --> 0:44:22.319 counterproductive because it provided the perfect environment. I mean, it 0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:26.440 sounds terrible and the city's gone. It makes it more defensible. 0:44:27.840 --> 0:44:30.880 It also makes us prime place to be a sniper. 0:44:32.120 --> 0:44:36.280 Yeah, oh interesting, all the ruins. 0:44:36.360 --> 0:44:39.040 Yeah, like the Stallingrat was called the War of the 0:44:39.120 --> 0:44:41.480 Rats because everyone was crawling through what was left, and 0:44:41.520 --> 0:44:44.920 the concealment and cover was immense better than if the 0:44:44.920 --> 0:44:45.800 buildings were intact. 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:51.200 Yeah, war is something that I hope I managed to 0:44:51.200 --> 0:44:56.160 successfully avoid my whole life. So Woodmiller says, of the 0:44:56.200 --> 0:45:00.480 time we mowed down hitlerrites like ripe grain, which is 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:02.239 what she uses a set of Nazis every time I've 0:45:02.320 --> 0:45:05.239 seen it. At least she was given an award for 0:45:05.280 --> 0:45:07.239 having killed two hundred and fifty seven people, and her 0:45:07.280 --> 0:45:11.000 response was I'll get more. The Germans wanted her to 0:45:11.040 --> 0:45:14.600 switch sides. They are terrified of her. They're like driving 0:45:14.640 --> 0:45:19.879 around with megaphones being like Ludmila pavel Chenko. Come over 0:45:19.960 --> 0:45:23.319 to us. We'll give you chocolate. I'm not making that 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:26.160 part up and make you a German officer. 0:45:27.840 --> 0:45:30.399 We have chocolate, we have amphetamines. Come on over. 0:45:31.280 --> 0:45:35.919 I know for some reason this didn't work. I'm I mean, 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:38.160 must have been pretty mediocre chocolate. 0:45:39.400 --> 0:45:40.879 Actually, scho Co cola is pretty good. 0:45:41.320 --> 0:45:44.440 But hey, okay, okay, Well she's just really committed. 0:45:44.440 --> 0:45:47.960 Then was speaks to her dedication that she was not 0:45:48.120 --> 0:45:50.120 turning sides for Schoco Cola. 0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:54.320 Yeah, by the end of her time in that siege, 0:45:54.360 --> 0:45:58.080 she'd killed three hundred and nine Nazis. Supposedly. I have 0:45:58.160 --> 0:45:59.640 not seen a direct quote from this. I think this 0:45:59.640 --> 0:46:02.880 particul killed quote as apocryphal, but this concept is absolutely 0:46:02.920 --> 0:46:05.200 what she believed. She was asked if she's felt bad 0:46:05.200 --> 0:46:07.279 about killing so many people, she said, I didn't kill people. 0:46:07.320 --> 0:46:10.160 I killed Nazis, which is the comparison to like Simo, 0:46:10.239 --> 0:46:11.839 where he was like, I did what I had to do, 0:46:12.320 --> 0:46:15.240 you know, and he like Now She's like, fuck these Nazis, 0:46:15.480 --> 0:46:19.200 which is legit. That's how I would feel, she probably said. 0:46:19.280 --> 0:46:21.640 Hitler writes if she said this quote at all, but 0:46:21.680 --> 0:46:24.560 I do have direct quotes from her about it, like 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:28.040 the only feeling I have is the great satisfaction a 0:46:28.120 --> 0:46:30.160 hunter feels when he has killed a beast of prey 0:46:32.239 --> 0:46:37.320 or another quote. Every German who remains alive will kill women, children, 0:46:37.400 --> 0:46:41.759 and old folks. Dead Germans are harmless. Therefore, if I 0:46:41.880 --> 0:46:44.080 kill a German, I am saving lives. 0:46:45.920 --> 0:46:48.200 And she's not wrong if that's if that quote is true. 0:46:48.920 --> 0:46:51.520 That was legitimately correct at the time, right, I mean 0:46:51.640 --> 0:46:53.600 every piece of ground, as you said that they that 0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:56.840 they acquired more people were going to gas chambers. 0:46:57.120 --> 0:47:00.239 Yeah, no, it's just and that one we do have. 0:47:00.760 --> 0:47:02.160 I think she said that to the US media. 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:05.319 So she was. 0:47:05.320 --> 0:47:08.040 Wounded by shrapnel from a mortar again. This is her 0:47:08.080 --> 0:47:10.399 fourth injury, and it takes her out of the fight. 0:47:10.840 --> 0:47:13.239 But she's really fucking important to the Soviets at this point. 0:47:13.280 --> 0:47:15.200 She's one of the best snipers in history, and she's 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:18.319 really good propaganda. So they get her out through the 0:47:18.360 --> 0:47:21.120 siege lines and a submarine. I want to watch. I 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:23.160 know there's a movie about the siege of Sebasspol that 0:47:23.200 --> 0:47:25.399 she's in, but I haven't seen it. I just want 0:47:25.400 --> 0:47:27.640 to watch the movie about the person who's like sneaking 0:47:27.680 --> 0:47:30.080 in in a fucking submarine to go rescue this lady 0:47:30.520 --> 0:47:34.000 and this probably saves her life. Her entire rifle division, 0:47:34.000 --> 0:47:37.000 the twenty fifth was wiped out during the siege, including 0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:38.359 the man that she may or may not have been 0:47:38.360 --> 0:47:43.400 married to. After that, she's not sent back to the front. 0:47:43.600 --> 0:47:47.359 She's sent around as a propagandist. She meets Stalin and 0:47:47.520 --> 0:47:49.040 like the I think the only thing she said about 0:47:49.040 --> 0:47:50.399 it was like, he's not as tall as I would 0:47:50.440 --> 0:47:54.919 have thought. Apparently he's kind of short. I think he's 0:47:54.960 --> 0:47:59.319 like her height. I'm not actually sure. I'm sure someone knows. 0:47:59.280 --> 0:48:00.560 Incredibly base her. 0:48:01.320 --> 0:48:05.520 Yeah. At this point, she gets the name Lady Death, 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:09.400 or maybe she had it already. I love how everyone 0:48:09.520 --> 0:48:11.880 is like the enemy gave her the name Lady Death, 0:48:13.080 --> 0:48:15.360 much like they gave Simo the name the White Death. 0:48:16.160 --> 0:48:20.200 I think her fucking handlers gave her that name. And 0:48:20.480 --> 0:48:25.239 is there my guest her name then, Lady Death? Yeah no, 0:48:25.360 --> 0:48:25.960 I don't think. 0:48:25.800 --> 0:48:28.000 So, so shut the fuck up, haters. 0:48:28.320 --> 0:48:32.080 Yeah. I would guess that the Nazis probably called her 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:34.799 that bitch who keeps shooting Nazis, which is like the 0:48:34.880 --> 0:48:38.080 second best name you could possibly have, or like subtitle, 0:48:38.400 --> 0:48:39.520 you know, yeah, subtitle. 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:40.080 I would agree. 0:48:40.080 --> 0:48:40.680 I would agree. 0:48:40.880 --> 0:48:43.160 I actually wonder what their slur was for her. I've 0:48:43.200 --> 0:48:45.879 never heard it, but I'm sure it wasn't really really nice. 0:48:45.920 --> 0:48:47.160 I'm sure it wasn't very nice. 0:48:47.440 --> 0:48:49.880 Yeah it was. 0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:52.680 It was probably kind of mean. Yeah, like something you 0:48:52.719 --> 0:48:53.520 might read on four. 0:48:53.400 --> 0:48:58.640 Chune, right, Yeah, that what the Nazis are so up 0:48:59.440 --> 0:49:04.279 I can't even sentence. So she's now a propagandist. She's 0:49:04.320 --> 0:49:05.840 not really excited about this role, but she does what 0:49:05.880 --> 0:49:08.800 she has to do. At this point, the US is 0:49:08.880 --> 0:49:11.600 dragging its heels. We're involved in the Pacific theater, but 0:49:11.640 --> 0:49:14.000 we're staying out of Europe. It's too messy. I guess 0:49:15.040 --> 0:49:19.080 someone knows, and I don't know Lady Death is I mean, 0:49:19.080 --> 0:49:21.040 I guess they haven't attacked us basically, and there isn't 0:49:21.080 --> 0:49:24.319 the political will to go have half a million people dying, 0:49:24.320 --> 0:49:27.239 which is what ends up happening. So Lady Death goes 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:29.440 off to the US to meet with the Roosevelts to 0:49:29.480 --> 0:49:32.040 convince the US to stop being chicken shit and start 0:49:32.080 --> 0:49:36.960 fighting Nazis. It's hard to imagine this brief period where 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:39.200 the US and the USSR buds, but the US is 0:49:39.200 --> 0:49:41.560 like sending a ton of weapons and shit at this point, right, 0:49:42.360 --> 0:49:45.759 And she is the first Soviet citizen received by a 0:49:45.880 --> 0:49:50.200 US president, and she becomes friends with the first Lady, 0:49:50.920 --> 0:49:57.040 Eleanor Roosevelt, and by becomes friends with I mean probably 0:49:57.080 --> 0:50:03.160 had romantic and or sexual RelA relations with because you know, 0:50:03.239 --> 0:50:07.400 Eleanor Res Roosevelt was gay as hell. 0:50:07.560 --> 0:50:10.920 I have to admit I did not know that. But 0:50:11.080 --> 0:50:14.800 this tracks, it tracks, and when you say it, I didn't, 0:50:15.160 --> 0:50:17.000 I feel bad that I didn't know that. Actually, that's 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:18.160 that's that's important. 0:50:18.280 --> 0:50:20.759 Well, everybody's a little gay magpie. But what are we 0:50:20.800 --> 0:50:21.759 talking to from here? 0:50:22.800 --> 0:50:27.520 So she's bisexual? Yeah, and rather she exists before any 0:50:27.560 --> 0:50:31.560 of these definitions have any meaningful sense. But the longest 0:50:31.719 --> 0:50:34.000 romantic relationship of her life is not with her husband. 0:50:34.040 --> 0:50:35.560 It is with a woman we're going to talk about. 0:50:36.520 --> 0:50:40.359 And now we're going to just completely go away from 0:50:40.440 --> 0:50:45.400 Russia and talk about gay presidents, or rather gay first ladies. 0:50:45.920 --> 0:50:48.760 Because Sophie, do you think we should rename this podcast 0:50:48.760 --> 0:50:51.960 ADHD History with Margaret and then end that We'll just 0:50:52.160 --> 0:50:54.840 end the title with like dot dot dot because it 0:50:55.239 --> 0:50:56.880 like as if we trailed away while we were in 0:50:56.920 --> 0:51:01.560 the busy middle of titling. It sure excellent, Okay, cool. 0:51:01.480 --> 0:51:03.279 And unless you change your mind about five minutes to 0:51:03.320 --> 0:51:05.839 have an new titter for the podcast, could happen? 0:51:05.920 --> 0:51:07.480 Wait what was the other one? Oh yeah, no, yeah, 0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:08.760 totally yeah. 0:51:09.040 --> 0:51:11.600 What an amazing woman though, and like rack up three 0:51:11.640 --> 0:51:14.680 hundred and nine Nazi kills and then go over the 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:16.000 United States and then. 0:51:16.000 --> 0:51:17.680 You know, fuck the president's wife. 0:51:17.840 --> 0:51:21.040 Yeah, I mean, I mean Roosevelt. I do we use 0:51:21.120 --> 0:51:24.200 that word? I mean cockt Roosevelt right in the most 0:51:24.239 --> 0:51:25.400 awesome way, right. 0:51:25.360 --> 0:51:28.879 Yeah, I like I never used the word cook as 0:51:28.920 --> 0:51:31.680 like an insult. 0:51:31.719 --> 0:51:32.719 Yeah, he's in the. 0:51:32.719 --> 0:51:34.040 Script he was. 0:51:34.120 --> 0:51:35.080 Maybe he was into it. 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:38.080 I don't think so, but I also don't care. And 0:51:38.080 --> 0:51:40.960 we'll talk about that. We'll talk about why. Like I mean, 0:51:41.000 --> 0:51:44.360 he's not even whatever. He's as far as presidents go, 0:51:44.520 --> 0:51:46.520 he's not on the worst list. 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:49.879 This must have been kept incredibly quiet, though, because all 0:51:49.920 --> 0:51:53.680 of the enemies would have used this to their propaganda advantage, 0:51:53.719 --> 0:51:56.080 and that we haven't heard this as common knowledge is 0:51:56.080 --> 0:51:57.520 indicative of it didn't get out. 0:51:58.120 --> 0:52:00.240 Well, I'll talk about the history of it too, okay. 0:52:00.320 --> 0:52:03.959 So Eleanor Roosevelt was the first Lady of the Ust 0:52:04.080 --> 0:52:06.760 in World War Two. She was a prolific letter writer, 0:52:07.239 --> 0:52:10.680 fortunately for gay history, because she wrote thousands of letters 0:52:10.680 --> 0:52:13.839 to her main lover, a woman named Laurena Haycock, who 0:52:13.920 --> 0:52:17.480 goes by Hick Hick. I just looked up the etymology 0:52:17.520 --> 0:52:20.680 for fun. It's a man's nickname, sometimes short for Richard, 0:52:20.920 --> 0:52:22.920 but at this point it is already been used as 0:52:23.000 --> 0:52:26.120 slang for provincial and backwater. So she is from a 0:52:26.160 --> 0:52:30.080 real blue, blue collar rural background. So it's kind of 0:52:30.080 --> 0:52:32.320 a power move of a nickname to go by Hick. 0:52:33.840 --> 0:52:35.920 She is the first woman to have a byeline on 0:52:35.960 --> 0:52:38.480 the front page of the New York Times or by 0:52:38.480 --> 0:52:40.640 a different source, to be have a byline in the 0:52:40.680 --> 0:52:43.000 New York Times at all. She was the most famous 0:52:43.040 --> 0:52:46.440 woman journalist of her era. And she I mean, she 0:52:47.520 --> 0:52:49.920 fucking boostrapped herself. She was the daughter of an itinerant 0:52:50.000 --> 0:52:52.400 butter maker, and she just worked really fucking hard at 0:52:52.480 --> 0:52:55.400 journalism and managed to get herself working for the Associated Press. 0:52:56.840 --> 0:52:59.600 And just when she'd finally found found her way out 0:52:59.640 --> 0:53:02.440 of cover women's issues, they're like, hey, do you want 0:53:02.440 --> 0:53:04.799 to go cover the first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. And there's 0:53:04.800 --> 0:53:07.040 two versions of this story. One is she's mad about 0:53:07.040 --> 0:53:10.160 it and she's like, no way, I just got myself 0:53:10.160 --> 0:53:12.560 out of women's work. And the other is that after 0:53:12.600 --> 0:53:15.400 her first interview with Eleanor Roosevelt, she's like, oh, yeah, no, 0:53:15.480 --> 0:53:18.120 you should assigned me. You should assigned me full time 0:53:18.160 --> 0:53:18.800 to this lady. 0:53:19.239 --> 0:53:22.000 This is very important and I have many studies to 0:53:22.040 --> 0:53:22.600 be done. 0:53:22.920 --> 0:53:27.920 Yes, Eleanor Roosevelt is interesting for her own right. She 0:53:28.040 --> 0:53:31.200 drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She was the 0:53:31.239 --> 0:53:34.040 first US delegate to the UN. She campaigned for civil 0:53:34.120 --> 0:53:36.480 rights for black people in the US. She was basically 0:53:36.480 --> 0:53:39.319 a die hard progressive and feminist. She was also the 0:53:39.400 --> 0:53:43.279 longest serving first Lady of the United States, and she 0:53:43.400 --> 0:53:46.439 pretty much did her husband's campaigning for him since she'd 0:53:46.480 --> 0:53:48.600 lost since he'd lost the use of his legs, probably 0:53:48.680 --> 0:53:51.080 due to polio. And you know, we lived in an 0:53:51.360 --> 0:53:53.600 enable a society then and we live in enable ast 0:53:53.600 --> 0:53:58.279 society now. During the Great Depression, she set up this 0:53:58.320 --> 0:54:01.960 like weird, oddly social, like market socialist town in West 0:54:02.000 --> 0:54:06.600 Virginia for miners who'd been blacklisted for union organizing, where she, 0:54:06.680 --> 0:54:09.880 like the government bought everyone houses and paid for things 0:54:09.880 --> 0:54:12.719 and then was like, okay, now go forth and be 0:54:12.840 --> 0:54:14.560 economically useful. 0:54:14.719 --> 0:54:14.920 You know. 0:54:16.560 --> 0:54:20.799 She banned mail reporters from attending her press conferences to 0:54:20.800 --> 0:54:24.279 give more opportunities to women reporters. She tried to go 0:54:24.320 --> 0:54:26.680 to Europe to volunteer for the Red Cross during World 0:54:26.680 --> 0:54:29.520 War Two. Eventually she listened to reason, which was that 0:54:29.960 --> 0:54:31.839 if you're captured as a pow and you're the first 0:54:31.880 --> 0:54:33.719 Lady of the United States, is going to fuck up 0:54:33.760 --> 0:54:34.719 the war, you. 0:54:34.680 --> 0:54:35.719 Know, kind of a problem. 0:54:36.160 --> 0:54:39.560 Yeah, Like I hate when women like can't go do 0:54:39.640 --> 0:54:43.320 the exciting thing because of like rules. But I'm actually 0:54:43.320 --> 0:54:45.160 that makes sense. It makes sense that she didn't go 0:54:45.239 --> 0:54:47.600 do it right, but she wanted to. The spirit was there. 0:54:49.239 --> 0:54:51.480 She spent the war trying to get the US to 0:54:51.560 --> 0:54:55.799 let in more refugees, including Jewish refugees from Europe. Her 0:54:55.840 --> 0:54:58.719 greatest regret on her deathbed was that she hadn't succeeded 0:54:58.719 --> 0:55:01.000 in forcing the US to accept basically all the Jews 0:55:01.040 --> 0:55:04.239 who were coming. And this is particularly interesting because she 0:55:04.360 --> 0:55:09.640 started off her political career as basically as an anti Semite. Specifically, 0:55:09.680 --> 0:55:12.040 she fell for the association of Jews with like evil, 0:55:12.080 --> 0:55:16.480 capitalist wealth or whatever. So she definitely wasn't perfect and 0:55:16.520 --> 0:55:19.880 there's a lot of myth making going on, but like, 0:55:20.400 --> 0:55:25.000 she's interesting, and she does not like her marriage to 0:55:25.040 --> 0:55:28.239 Franklin Roosevelt, the guy everyone calls FDR because he lives 0:55:28.239 --> 0:55:30.520 in the shadow of Theodore Roosevelt, who is his like 0:55:30.640 --> 0:55:34.719 fifth cousin once removed or something. Which do you know 0:55:34.760 --> 0:55:39.480 Eleanor Roosevelt's maiden name? No, I do not, but what 0:55:39.640 --> 0:55:41.279 is it Roosevelt? 0:55:42.480 --> 0:55:42.680 Ah? 0:55:45.360 --> 0:55:50.040 Yeah, because she is the niece question mark. Okay, so 0:55:50.080 --> 0:55:54.200 this is interesting. She is the niece of Theodore Roosevelt 0:55:55.280 --> 0:55:59.520 and she marries her fifth cousin, and fifth cousin is 0:55:59.600 --> 0:56:02.839 far away. That like, no one knows who your fifth 0:56:02.880 --> 0:56:06.160 cousin is unless you're royalty, unless you are like American 0:56:06.200 --> 0:56:09.560 plutocrat royalty or traditional royalty, you don't know who your 0:56:09.560 --> 0:56:15.280 fifth cousins are. There's actually nothing wrong. I'm gonna someone's 0:56:15.280 --> 0:56:16.960 gonna edit what I was about to say and make 0:56:17.000 --> 0:56:20.160 it sound real bad. But whatever, there's nothing wrong with 0:56:20.200 --> 0:56:22.040 marrying your fifth cousin. No one knows who their fifth 0:56:22.040 --> 0:56:26.680 cousins are. That said, it's kind of funny that she 0:56:26.760 --> 0:56:28.680 managed to pull a feminism. She got to keep her 0:56:28.719 --> 0:56:29.480 maid a name, right. 0:56:31.400 --> 0:56:34.320 Yeah, it's interesting too, So this is right, fifth cousin 0:56:34.400 --> 0:56:37.279 is quite separated, and it's not like it might be 0:56:37.320 --> 0:56:39.600 fourth cousin I'm bad at But it's not like Iceland 0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:41.080 where you need a dating app to make sure you're 0:56:41.120 --> 0:56:47.320 not related. On top of that, it's interesting to also 0:56:47.440 --> 0:56:49.840 note just how much of the power brokerage this country's 0:56:49.880 --> 0:56:52.239 always been under for how long it has. 0:56:52.280 --> 0:56:56.840 Yeah, totally, yeah, that's like, honestly, my only problem with 0:56:56.920 --> 0:56:58.719 this is that it's like, God, I hate that there's 0:56:58.719 --> 0:57:01.600 like royal families in the United States, you know. I mean, 0:57:01.640 --> 0:57:06.680 I remember, like, my mom voted for Clinton in twenty sixteen, 0:57:06.719 --> 0:57:09.400 but she didn't vote for in the primary because she 0:57:09.480 --> 0:57:12.320 just was like, we shouldn't have fucking royal families. She 0:57:12.360 --> 0:57:15.320 probably didn't cuss, we just shouldn't have royal families in 0:57:15.360 --> 0:57:21.600 the United States, you know. Anyway, So while she'd been pregnant, 0:57:21.920 --> 0:57:24.760 she caught her husband cheating on her, and she decided 0:57:24.760 --> 0:57:28.600 to just not forgive him. She also decided to stick 0:57:28.760 --> 0:57:31.000 around with the marriage, should not fuck up his career. 0:57:31.760 --> 0:57:35.280 So they were married, but they weren't together. Yeah, she 0:57:35.400 --> 0:57:37.840 might have had an affair with her her bodyguard. I 0:57:37.840 --> 0:57:39.960 don't know as much about that, but she had a 0:57:40.000 --> 0:57:43.240 passionate She was passionately in love with Hick, the journalist 0:57:43.320 --> 0:57:45.800 designed to cover her. Soon the two are going on 0:57:45.840 --> 0:57:48.600 all kinds of multiple month vacations around the world together. 0:57:49.240 --> 0:57:52.840 Hick moves into the White House, leaving the Associated Press 0:57:52.840 --> 0:57:57.240 and getting government jobs instead. They write each other letters daily, 0:57:57.520 --> 0:58:02.000 sometimes twice a day. There are more than three thousand 0:58:02.080 --> 0:58:05.160 letters that archives have between the two of them over 0:58:05.200 --> 0:58:09.600 the course of their twenty nine year relationship. When the 0:58:09.680 --> 0:58:13.720 letters became unsealed in nineteen seventy nine. They're full of 0:58:13.800 --> 0:58:17.000 quotes that say things like I wish I could lie 0:58:17.000 --> 0:58:19.880 down beside you tonight and take you in my arms. 0:58:21.080 --> 0:58:24.720 The New York Times headline was Letters by Eleanor Roosevelt 0:58:24.720 --> 0:58:28.000 detail friendship with Lorraina. Haycock. Ah. 0:58:28.120 --> 0:58:31.560 So even when this became possible to be public knowledge, 0:58:31.600 --> 0:58:33.880 of course it was downplayed and to turned into something 0:58:33.880 --> 0:58:35.760 other than it was, not to let it be the 0:58:35.800 --> 0:58:38.680 actual liberating moments it really really really. 0:58:38.520 --> 0:58:42.560 Was, yeah, exactly. Hick gave her a ring, which she 0:58:42.640 --> 0:58:47.440 wore at the inauguration. She wrote, Hick, Darling, Oh, I 0:58:47.440 --> 0:58:49.440 want to put my arms around you. I ache to 0:58:49.480 --> 0:58:52.120 hold you close. Your ring is a great comfort. I 0:58:52.160 --> 0:58:54.080 look at it and think she does love me, or 0:58:54.120 --> 0:58:57.720 I wouldn't be wearing it. Eleanor kept a photo of 0:58:57.800 --> 0:59:00.440 Hicck in her study and kissed it every morning and 0:59:00.560 --> 0:59:04.600 night because they're just, you know, historically close friends. 0:59:05.680 --> 0:59:07.880 This is really sweet, actually kind of, I mean it is. 0:59:07.960 --> 0:59:10.440 First I didn't know about this. This should be common 0:59:10.520 --> 0:59:11.439 not either. 0:59:11.800 --> 0:59:16.040 Yeah, like, and one version I've read is that Hicks 0:59:16.080 --> 0:59:18.760 who convinced Eleanor to get over her anti semitism, not 0:59:18.840 --> 0:59:20.560 that Hick was Jewish, but that she just wasn't a 0:59:20.600 --> 0:59:22.120 piece of shit, you know, And she's like, Hey, I 0:59:22.160 --> 0:59:24.000 found a hole in your fucking politics. We should talk 0:59:24.000 --> 0:59:27.040 about this, you know. They co wrote a book together 0:59:27.120 --> 0:59:29.600 called Ladies of Courage that's a tribute to strong women 0:59:29.640 --> 0:59:35.560 in history. Eleanor Roosevelt surrounded herself with lesbians. She cohabitated 0:59:35.640 --> 0:59:38.680 with like I think two lesbian couples for like thirty years, 0:59:40.200 --> 0:59:42.600 and there were rumors but nothing more about any of 0:59:42.600 --> 0:59:46.080 this while she was alive. Her son, when the letters 0:59:46.080 --> 0:59:48.880 were unsealed in the late seventies, he was like, oh no, 0:59:49.000 --> 0:59:51.920 this is like because she like grew up reading Jane Austen. 0:59:52.160 --> 0:59:53.200 That's why she writes like that. 0:59:55.280 --> 0:59:59.640 Could you imagine being in the upper Echelonza Garment at 0:59:59.640 --> 1:00:02.880 this time and knowing this and the people that were 1:00:02.920 --> 1:00:05.560 trying to keep this under wraps. It must have been 1:00:06.560 --> 1:00:11.280 quite the challenge the fact that we the fact that 1:00:11.280 --> 1:00:13.440 this isn't common knowledge now, Like I said, embarrassed that 1:00:13.440 --> 1:00:15.959 that's not the case. Yeah, imagine back in forty four 1:00:16.400 --> 1:00:19.240 when Hitler's throwing every slurry can at FDR, et cetera, 1:00:19.800 --> 1:00:20.920 and this isn't in the. 1:00:20.920 --> 1:00:26.440 Open yeah, no, and it gets into this, Okay, it 1:00:26.480 --> 1:00:29.880 ties into this even deeper history. She is not the 1:00:29.960 --> 1:00:32.880 first lesbian first Lady of the United States of America. 1:00:33.920 --> 1:00:35.880 The first one that we know about was a woman 1:00:35.960 --> 1:00:40.240 named Rose Cleveland, who was actually not married to Grover Cleveland. 1:00:40.840 --> 1:00:44.280 Grover Cleveland had been single when he was elected and US, 1:00:44.360 --> 1:00:48.840 I don't know if it's law or established custom, is 1:00:48.840 --> 1:00:51.880 that a family member comes in as first lady. So 1:00:51.920 --> 1:00:56.200 his sister, Rose Cleveland serves as first Lady until eventually 1:00:56.280 --> 1:00:59.080 he marries his fucking ward. Because it's the nineteenth century, 1:00:59.120 --> 1:01:02.880 he's a creep. Rose's nickname as a kid was Johnny. 1:01:04.240 --> 1:01:07.080 She eventually moved to Italy with a lady named Evangeline 1:01:07.120 --> 1:01:09.520 to spend the rest of their lives together. In their 1:01:09.560 --> 1:01:14.479 love letters, Evangeline called Rose my Viking, and their love 1:01:14.640 --> 1:01:18.560 was accepted because there wasn't The word for lesbian isn't 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:22.439 at this point, and romantic friendships between upper class white 1:01:22.440 --> 1:01:27.720 women in the United States, these are fairly common. Sometimes 1:01:27.720 --> 1:01:29.920 it was sexual, sometimes it was just a way to 1:01:29.960 --> 1:01:32.240 carve out some freedom and have women to hang out with. 1:01:33.280 --> 1:01:37.479 And this historically close friends thing is really messy because 1:01:37.480 --> 1:01:43.880 it was actually super normal. It just lesbian romantic relationships, 1:01:43.920 --> 1:01:47.280 whether they fucked or not, were super normal and they 1:01:47.320 --> 1:01:52.560 just weren't acknowledged. That's the best I can figure out. 1:01:51.680 --> 1:01:55.840 And I don't know, because you're right, Hitler, absolutely. I mean, 1:01:55.840 --> 1:01:58.480 at this point, he's murdering lesbians by the Midt fourty, like, 1:01:58.640 --> 1:02:02.880 he's clearly aware of the Scissor brigade and he wants 1:02:02.920 --> 1:02:06.440 to kill them all and so like, so you're right, 1:02:06.480 --> 1:02:11.920 he's not leading with that and so. But to Rose's 1:02:12.440 --> 1:02:15.360 rest of her life, they moved to Italy and they 1:02:15.440 --> 1:02:18.200 organized relief efforts during World War One for refugees, and 1:02:18.240 --> 1:02:21.960 then Rose died of the Spanish flu at age seventy two. 1:02:22.160 --> 1:02:24.840 Evangeline wrote a book about Tuscany and then dedicate it 1:02:24.880 --> 1:02:27.200 to Rose, and they were buried side by side under 1:02:27.240 --> 1:02:29.640 matching gravestones in Italy. You can see a photo of it. 1:02:29.640 --> 1:02:32.840 It's really sweet. Both of these first women were revealed 1:02:32.880 --> 1:02:36.440 only years later by archivists, and in both cases, so 1:02:36.560 --> 1:02:40.520 many people tried to suppress the letters. So many people 1:02:40.520 --> 1:02:42.360 were like, it is our job to make sure that 1:02:42.360 --> 1:02:45.080 these archives never come out, you know, which is the 1:02:45.080 --> 1:02:47.280 opposite of a historian's job. If you're listening now, and 1:02:47.320 --> 1:02:51.080 you think I should suppress this, you're wrong. As a 1:02:51.080 --> 1:02:56.480 tangential example of that, one of the social history archives, 1:02:57.240 --> 1:03:00.360 I'm not going to name it, no whatever, a social 1:03:00.400 --> 1:03:02.520 history archive, and this is this is a thing I 1:03:02.560 --> 1:03:06.600 got told in person, and so it has all of 1:03:06.600 --> 1:03:09.720 this information about Dutch leftists joining the Nazis, including Dutch 1:03:09.720 --> 1:03:12.920 anarchists joining the Nazis because you know, they hated the 1:03:12.960 --> 1:03:14.760 Dutch government. When the Nazis came in, a bunch of 1:03:14.840 --> 1:03:19.480 leftists became fucking Nazis, right, And a lot of historian 1:03:19.440 --> 1:03:21.720 and a lot of archivists didn't want that information to 1:03:21.720 --> 1:03:23.800 get out because it looks really bad for the left, 1:03:24.520 --> 1:03:28.160 and fuck that. Our job as historians is to I'm 1:03:28.200 --> 1:03:30.520 not a historian. My job is to tell stories out 1:03:30.560 --> 1:03:34.320 of the shit I find. But like you know, anyway, whatever, 1:03:34.360 --> 1:03:35.200 I'm annoyed by it. 1:03:35.440 --> 1:03:37.200 Yeah, not to cross wires. But one of the things 1:03:37.200 --> 1:03:39.840 that we say in TST is that which should be destroyed, 1:03:39.920 --> 1:03:42.160 that which would be destroyed by the truth, should not 1:03:42.160 --> 1:03:43.880 be spared its demise. And I agree with that one 1:03:43.920 --> 1:03:46.720 hundred percent. The truth is always the most important thing 1:03:46.720 --> 1:03:49.120 to figure out, and there's covering things up to change 1:03:49.160 --> 1:03:52.120 the narrative is doing a disservice not only to people 1:03:52.160 --> 1:03:53.480 in history, but the future. 1:03:54.400 --> 1:03:58.240 Yeah totally. And if if my like ideological positions can't 1:03:58.240 --> 1:04:00.560 handle the truth, I'll just change my ideal logical. 1:04:00.320 --> 1:04:02.800 Ping and I'd like them to get destroyed, right actually absolutely? 1:04:02.880 --> 1:04:10.240 Yeah, yeah, So anyway, the archive is burying this lesbian history, 1:04:10.280 --> 1:04:11.760 and it makes me think about like how much of 1:04:12.560 --> 1:04:14.280 how much of our history is actually buried, not just 1:04:14.280 --> 1:04:16.720 as like the love that can't speak its name, but 1:04:16.760 --> 1:04:19.160 a love that did speak its name, like like these 1:04:19.160 --> 1:04:23.000 women were together, right, and then historians and archivists and 1:04:23.280 --> 1:04:26.880 like publicists and estates of the family just actively burying 1:04:27.480 --> 1:04:31.280 the information, like how many gay journals were just burned 1:04:31.280 --> 1:04:33.040 by the family as soon as they were found. 1:04:33.400 --> 1:04:36.080 You know, this is something I refer to on Enrange's 1:04:36.120 --> 1:04:41.080 intentionally induced amnesia. And there's so many instances I've run 1:04:41.120 --> 1:04:43.240 into this one blows my mind. There's been a few 1:04:43.320 --> 1:04:46.520 that just like, how is this not something that's like 1:04:46.560 --> 1:04:48.280 not only is it not well known? How is it 1:04:48.320 --> 1:04:51.360 not in just like ninth grade history books, for example, 1:04:51.440 --> 1:04:51.800 that has. 1:04:51.680 --> 1:04:52.840 Been left totally. 1:04:52.720 --> 1:04:55.800 Out of a historical narrative and it's because there was 1:04:55.840 --> 1:04:58.800 a vested interests and not make sure it wasn't there. Yeah, 1:04:58.880 --> 1:04:59.640 that's dangerous. 1:05:00.560 --> 1:05:02.680 And we've had like a decade or two of people 1:05:02.720 --> 1:05:04.800 actually starting to say the truth, and now already the 1:05:04.840 --> 1:05:06.640 reaction is coming in and being like, we can't talk 1:05:06.680 --> 1:05:10.840 about the fact that people historically it touched the tips 1:05:10.840 --> 1:05:14.400 of their penises together. However, gay menosex, I don't know, Well. 1:05:14.200 --> 1:05:16.600 That destroys the earth on the planet. It's like Ghostbusters 1:05:16.640 --> 1:05:17.640 and you cross the streams. 1:05:17.840 --> 1:05:23.160 Oh that makes sense. Actually, yeah, no, totally. But as 1:05:23.240 --> 1:05:26.800 for Lude Miller and Eleanor Roosevelt, we're going to talk 1:05:26.840 --> 1:05:30.480 about them as well as a high femme fighting ace 1:05:30.680 --> 1:05:32.600 with the most combat kills in the sky of any 1:05:32.600 --> 1:05:39.200 woman in history on Wednesday. I like that. I like that. 1:05:39.320 --> 1:05:45.200 Thanks Thanks women launching bullets in the Nazis Yeah, just 1:05:45.200 --> 1:05:46.360 tugs up my heart strings. 1:05:46.640 --> 1:05:49.960 I know it's just beautiful. But if people want to 1:05:50.000 --> 1:05:55.360 see you launch bullets in the ballistic cell also whatever 1:05:55.360 --> 1:05:56.120 else you want to plug. 1:05:57.040 --> 1:06:00.000 Yeah, so you can find me at range dot tv, 1:06:00.160 --> 1:06:02.840 which is a where you can find all my decentralized 1:06:02.880 --> 1:06:07.680 distribution points, completely crowdfunded, no sponsors, no overlords, and so 1:06:07.720 --> 1:06:10.320 it's completely Hopefully some of you out there haven't seen it, 1:06:10.440 --> 1:06:12.000 check it out and like it, and if you really 1:06:12.080 --> 1:06:15.200 like it, support the effort, because in Range has strangely 1:06:15.240 --> 1:06:18.640 becomes sort of I guess edutainment, but a movement in 1:06:18.680 --> 1:06:21.000 a way. So appreciate everyone out there that's keep into 1:06:21.040 --> 1:06:21.280 the live. 1:06:23.000 --> 1:06:28.280 Hell, yeah, I want to plug. Even this morning, I 1:06:28.320 --> 1:06:29.760 was like, I know what I'm going to plug today, 1:06:30.280 --> 1:06:34.840 but now I don't know, So go oh, I have 1:06:34.880 --> 1:06:39.720 a stubsack? What I have a substack? We were almost there? 1:06:39.920 --> 1:06:40.160 Was there? 1:06:40.200 --> 1:06:43.400 All right? Yes, I write a newsletter. Today's, for example, 1:06:43.640 --> 1:06:47.040 was about my advice for writing fiction in the End Times, 1:06:47.040 --> 1:06:49.840 and it's my advice for new writers. And you can 1:06:49.840 --> 1:06:52.440 find it if you google Margaret Killjoy substack, or if 1:06:52.480 --> 1:06:54.960 you're the weirdo who types r l's into the bar, 1:06:55.080 --> 1:07:00.840 it's Margaret Kiljoy dot substack dot. I assume Colm, Sophie, 1:07:00.880 --> 1:07:01.320 what do you got? 1:07:02.640 --> 1:07:05.280 Listen to sad Oligarch. It's a series hosted by j 1:07:05.440 --> 1:07:06.680 Kanrahan or. 1:07:06.680 --> 1:07:10.320 Cools of If you like Russia history, if. 1:07:09.920 --> 1:07:13.840 You're wondering why these uh Rich Russian guys keep falling 1:07:13.880 --> 1:07:14.720 out of the sky. 1:07:15.240 --> 1:07:18.400 Check it out. Is there gonna be one about the 1:07:18.440 --> 1:07:24.160 Russian that just fell on the plane? Yes? Hell yeah, 1:07:24.320 --> 1:07:25.200 See you all Wednesday. 1:07:25.920 --> 1:07:27.360 Bye. 1:07:28.680 --> 1:07:31.160 Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of 1:07:31.200 --> 1:07:34.320 cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, 1:07:34.480 --> 1:07:37.720 visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out 1:07:37.800 --> 1:07:41.200 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get 1:07:41.200 --> 1:07:42.040 your podcasts.