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Speaker 1: Also media here, everyone, Robert Evans here, and before we

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Speaker 1: get to the episode, obviously a lot of people in

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Speaker 1: Gaza need a lot of different help. But we've been

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Speaker 1: connected to the Algazawi family by a friend of ours

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Speaker 1: who's doing aid work there right now. They are trying

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Speaker 1: to get fourteen members of their family out of Gaza

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Speaker 1: before you know, things get any worse for them, and

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Speaker 1: they're raising money to do so on go fund me.

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Speaker 1: If you google help al Gazawi family escape Gaza go

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Speaker 1: fund Me, you can find it. Algazawie is spelled a

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Speaker 1: l g h a zz a w I.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: We're trying to help them, you know, get to a

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Speaker 1: safer place, so please consider donating if you can. Oh,

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Speaker 1: welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast that

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Speaker 1: makes you sad. That's the promise we make with Behind

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Speaker 1: the Bastards is that after listening to this episode, your

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Speaker 1: life will be worse. And to help me make your

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Speaker 1: life worse, the Great Joe Kasebian Joe, welcome to the program.

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Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for having me back. I'm glad to finally

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Speaker 2: get my my Behind the Bastards hat trick.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, wait, what's the hat trick?

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Speaker 3: So that's a sports reference that you know that you

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Speaker 3: should really know.

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Speaker 1: I was about to say, because I don't. I don't

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Speaker 1: know you as a hat guy, Joe.

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Speaker 3: Three times in oh okay, yeah, okay.

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Speaker 2: So for everybody listening, they have to take their hat

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Speaker 2: off and throw it somewhere anyway.

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Well, well, well they're all busy doing that,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw you a story of a real piece

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Speaker 1: of ship.

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Speaker 2: Joe.

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Speaker 1: What do you know? Joe Kasabian, host of the Lions

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Speaker 1: Led by Donkeys podcast, author of several books. What's your latest, Joe?

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Speaker 2: So my latest up front? Now, yeah, I have a

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Speaker 2: military science fiction series coming out. The first two books

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Speaker 2: are are currently out. You have The Undying The whole

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Speaker 2: series is called The Undying Legion. So if you look

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Speaker 2: up the Undying Legion series or my name, you could

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Speaker 2: find it. Uh. And the first two books are currently

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Speaker 2: out and the third book will be out next month.

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Speaker 1: Excellent, exegon excellent. And you also have your work of nonfiction,

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Speaker 1: The Hooligans of Kandahar. People should check out all of

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Speaker 1: your books. Now you know who didn't write fiction, but

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Speaker 1: did lie enough to be considered a fiction writer. Oh boy,

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Speaker 1: Lavrinti Barrio. What do you know about Lavrinti Barria. No, yeah, oh.

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Speaker 2: I would be brought in for Burrio, wouldn't I?

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Speaker 1: Oh he is.

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Speaker 2: He is.

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Speaker 1: If you've watched the Death of Stalin, he's the bad guy.

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Speaker 1: I mean everyone is the bad guy and the Death

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Speaker 1: of Stalin except for maybe Zukov, but he's the bad guy,

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Speaker 1: and the Death of Stalin's the dad guy everything. He

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Speaker 1: was the bad guy in real life too, one of them.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: We open like a lot of our episodes with like

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Speaker 1: comparisons to the usually the Nazis. Right, we'll call King

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Speaker 1: Leopold the Hitler of African colonialism, or like the British

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Speaker 1: Empire slow Nazis, because Nazis are like everyone's touchstone for

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Speaker 1: the absolute depths of human evil. And one of the

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Speaker 1: things that's interesting about Laventi Barria is that Stalin himself

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Speaker 1: compared him to a Nazi during the Yalta I think

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Speaker 1: it was the Yalta Conference. When he's talking to like

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Speaker 1: FDR he calls Barria r Himmler. Like that's how he

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Speaker 1: introduces Barrier to the President, like, this is my Himmler. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I got one too.

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Speaker 2: We all got a Himmler. Everybody's got Churchill after Churchill

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Speaker 2: like said, Stalin is a bastard, but he's our bastard.

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Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, he's Himmler, but he's our Himmler.

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Speaker 1: He's our Hemmler. It's cool, we got one. I actually

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Speaker 1: don't agree with that comparison. He's not much like Himmler.

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Speaker 1: I guess he kind of you know, Himler runs the SS,

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Speaker 1: Barrier runs the Secret Police, because that's the comparison. But

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Speaker 1: like Himmler is a hardcore believer, right, Himler is not

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Speaker 1: like a like a fair weather Nazi. He's like he's

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Speaker 1: like into the occult. He's trying to He's got a

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Speaker 1: castle where he's doing rituals and shit.

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Speaker 4: Like.

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Speaker 1: One thing you can say about Himler is he believed

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Speaker 1: all that kookie nonsense, really into witches, really into witches.

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Speaker 1: I don't think Barria believed. I don't think Barria was

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Speaker 1: really like in his I don't think Barria Barry was

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Speaker 1: a communist and that that was like the system he

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Speaker 1: worked in. But I don't think he was like a

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Speaker 1: hardcore believer.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Maria was a was a power guy, right, and he

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Speaker 1: was going to do whatever would get him into power.

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Speaker 2: He I think he was the kind of guy my

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Speaker 2: knowledge of Barria is like he would have been. He

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Speaker 2: would have glommed onto any system that would allow him

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Speaker 2: to do what he did right right.

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Speaker 1: He would have at least attempted to do, which I don't

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Speaker 1: do to like take any blame away from the horrible

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Speaker 1: state communist system that existed in the USSR, particularly under Stalin.

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Speaker 1: It's just that's not the kind of dude Barria was.

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Speaker 1: He was a consummate opportunist. It's just the love of

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Speaker 1: the game. He just loves being an asshole in a government,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: He was. He would have the excels. That's just such

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Speaker 2: a good.

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Speaker 1: Piece of ship. I had a line in here about

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Speaker 1: how he's got a body count only rivaled by these

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Speaker 1: Australian dudes I met once in a Berlin hostel, but

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Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if that was an obvious enough joke.

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Speaker 1: Don't don't room next to Australians and a hostile guys.

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's just a mess, you know. The don't

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Speaker 1: true Australians. Don't room next to Australians anywhere. Don't stay away.

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Speaker 1: That's why they're on that island.

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Speaker 2: You know they need to be there. It's the only

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Speaker 2: thing that contains them is the isolation and countless venomous

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Speaker 2: animals that will murder them if they step on a line.

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Speaker 1: Would you get kicked out of the UK for being

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Speaker 1: too much of a hooligan? You know it says something.

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Speaker 1: There's one thing I can say positive of Australians. I

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Speaker 1: love the national pastime of hooning. Yes, I have to

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Speaker 1: give them shit because Australians and Texans are the two

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Speaker 1: peoples on the world that are like closest in their

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Speaker 1: in their overall temperament, and neither of us likes to

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Speaker 1: hear it, but it's it's undeniable when you spend time

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Speaker 1: with both.

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Speaker 2: Australia is Texas. If Texas wasn't connected to anything else, yeah,

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Speaker 2: if we will vacuum.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of Texas, a lot of people say that Texas

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Speaker 1: of Eastern Europe is Georgia. I don't know if anyone's

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Speaker 1: ever said that.

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Speaker 2: Joe actually as someone who lived in both Texas and Georgia.

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Speaker 1: All lot, Well, that's where our friend Barria is born

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Speaker 1: and Georgia the country is in a tough historic position.

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Speaker 2: If you just look at.

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Speaker 1: A map, you can and you and you have a

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Speaker 1: vague knowledge of like the last thousand years, you can

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Speaker 1: like put together in your heads some of the problems

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Speaker 1: Georgia was likely to have had. Right, they're kind of

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Speaker 1: in the middle. If you're if you're the Terps, right,

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Speaker 1: if you're the Ottomans, Georgia is in the way of

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Speaker 1: where you want to get to, right.

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Speaker 2: That's Europe.

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Speaker 1: George is also in the way of getting to places

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Speaker 1: you want to go. If you're Russia, George's in the way.

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Speaker 1: They're just kind of they're one of those speed bump countries,

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Speaker 1: and they're gonna wind up having kind of a tumultuous

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Speaker 1: history as a result of just kind of being in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a bunch of shit. So, by the

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Speaker 1: end of the seventeen hundreds, Russia has won most of

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Speaker 1: Eastern Georgia in a gentleman's game of murder each other

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Speaker 1: with the Ottomans. Russian interest in the area peaked whenever

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Speaker 1: the Turks looked tired or weak, and would fade whenever

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Speaker 1: Turkey looked like it really wanted to throw hands. By

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Speaker 1: the middle of the eighteen hundreds, this tug of war

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Speaker 1: had gone Russia's way often enough that most of Georgia

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Speaker 1: winds up in possession of the Czars, who treated the

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Speaker 1: Georgians about as carefully as they treated everything else. Right,

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Speaker 1: not great, it's not great, about.

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Speaker 2: As great as Russia currently treats Georgians within sporters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a generally accurate way to look at it.

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Speaker 1: So Georgians buy and larger, not thrilled with this situation.

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Speaker 1: But since the Turks hadn't really been any better, some

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Speaker 1: of them started looking at some radical solutions to their

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Speaker 1: having a government problem. And socialism's kind of the new

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Speaker 1: hotness at this point. So in Georgia, socialism is kind

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Speaker 1: of it becomes kissing cousins with nationalism, right, And by

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Speaker 1: the start of the nineteen hundreds there were two broad

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Speaker 1: socialist groups that were kind of gaining influence in Georgia.

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Speaker 1: You got your Mensheviks and you got your Bolsheviks. Bolsheviks

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Speaker 1: basically means the majority party and Mensheviks means the minority party.

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Speaker 1: But the Mensheviks are much more numerous than the Bolsheviks.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a fuck game there, right.

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Speaker 1: The Mensheviks are kind of it's not really accurate to

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Speaker 1: view them as social Democrats the way we know them,

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Speaker 1: but they're closer to that than what becomes the government

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Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union, right, and that sounds pretty good

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Speaker 1: to a lot of Georgians. And so the Mensheviks are larger,

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Speaker 1: they're more organized than the Bolsheviks, and the Bolsheviks are

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Speaker 1: going to spend all of subsequent history pretending it had

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Speaker 1: always been the other way around.

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Speaker 2: Right Again, that sounds very familiar, exact same like, I'm

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Speaker 2: Armenian and Georgians and Armenians are the brothers culturally, very

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Speaker 2: very very similar. Even in our own revolutionary history of

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Speaker 2: like the First Republic of Armenia, the conflict between the

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Speaker 2: Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks is literally identical. Yes, yes, it's

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Speaker 2: through the Caucuses in general, the story is, the story rhymes.

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Speaker 1: And this is you know, Barria is a little more

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Speaker 1: Georgia focused, but he also he spends most of his

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Speaker 1: early career in his aerba Jan and he is kind

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Speaker 1: of his whole life is his whole early political career

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Speaker 1: is in the trans Caucuses. Because you, as you said,

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Speaker 1: you can't really separate a zerba Jan, Armenia, Georgia during

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Speaker 1: this kind of revolutionary period and what had once been

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Speaker 1: the Russian Empire, like they're all very tied together.

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Speaker 2: Once they became the one country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, exactly. So our subject for this week, Lavrenti

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Speaker 1: is born right in the middle of this kind of

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Speaker 1: surge in socialist organizing in Georgia on March twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety nine. So I believe he's an ares pisces

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Speaker 1: cusp the worst.

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Speaker 2: I don't know anything about signs. I just know whenever

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Speaker 2: a sign is pronounced, the people that I know that

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Speaker 2: are into them always just like cy heavily, like of

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Speaker 2: course God, or that's exactly what he is.

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Speaker 1: That's always by response whatever somebody brings up, like oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this famous person is this sign. You roll your

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Speaker 1: eyes and go, oh God, obviously whatever you just said.

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Speaker 1: Becoming the head of the NKVD. What a pisces move,

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Speaker 1: that's classic. It's right on the pisces. Yeah, the doing

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Speaker 1: the Caden massacre, Katian massacre, that's a classic airy shit, right.

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Speaker 1: Not surprised he's got vote in him.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you wouldn't expect that from say, a cancer.

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Speaker 1: Oh god, no, no, no, no, no, I'm sure one

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Speaker 1: of the Nazis was a cancer. They anyway, Lavrenti Pavlovitch.

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Speaker 1: Barria Is becomes a baby March twenty ninth, eighteen ninety nine.

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Speaker 1: He's born in a small village, Merculi, which is kind

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Speaker 1: of out in the boonies near the Black Sea coast.

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Speaker 1: His family are Mingrelian, which is an ethnic minority in

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Speaker 1: Georgia with its own language but not a written one,

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Speaker 1: so they use the Georgian language for writing, but they've

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Speaker 1: also got their own language. That's kind of just an

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Speaker 1: oral tradition. The fact that he's Mingrellian is going to

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Speaker 1: become relevant much later near the end of his life

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Speaker 1: because Mingrellians are different, right, They're not the same as

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Speaker 1: everyone else in Georgia. And in the late stalin Is period,

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Speaker 1: anyone who's part of an ethnic group that isn't Russian

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Speaker 1: or mainstream Georgian is gonna have a bad time.

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Speaker 2: Right unfortunately, still kind of currently true.

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Speaker 1: Well, still, this is if you know one period in

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Speaker 1: Russian history, there's some broad strokes you'll be accurate about

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Speaker 1: in most of it, right. So Barrias Georgia was considered

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Speaker 1: by Western Europeans to be among the most backwards parts

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Speaker 1: of the continent. One visitor in eighteen ninety one from

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Speaker 1: Germany claimed they didn't even know about crop rotation, which

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Speaker 1: might speak more to his racism than actual agricultural practice.

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Speaker 1: But it's undeniable that this was seen as the middle

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Speaker 1: of nowhere in most people's eyes, and as a result,

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Speaker 1: it's much more culturally isolated than most parts of the

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Speaker 1: Western Russian Empire. It's not a very cosmopolitan place. Barrya's mother,

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Speaker 1: Marta Ivanova, was twenty seven when she had him, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty late in that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, surprising. I was expecting you to say fourteen or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like, I mean, she'd had some

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Speaker 1: other kids, I think before. And she is described by

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Speaker 1: barry a biographer Amy Knight as a quote simple, deeply

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Speaker 1: religious woman who attended church regularly all her life. Some sources,

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Speaker 1: including Knight's biography, claim she came from a noble background,

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Speaker 1: although it was a branch of the nobility that had

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Speaker 1: no money. Another biographer, I read a guy named Sangster,

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Speaker 1: and a couple other people have come into argue that

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Speaker 1: he was probably had no noble blood. It was kind

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Speaker 1: of a rumor, might have been like a family legend.

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Speaker 1: We've got this ancestry, but there's not evidence of it.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of this comes down to like family

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Speaker 1: law as opposed to something that likes.

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Speaker 2: It's very much a Caucasian thing to have, like deep

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Speaker 2: family lore that is not at all grounded in reality,

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Speaker 2: Like he started as like her great great uncle once

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Speaker 2: removed story and then like spreads throughout your family till

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Speaker 2: it's just spoken as just unassailable fact.

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Speaker 1: And it's tough because part of it there's probably almost

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Speaker 1: certainly everyone has some noble ancestry because nobles fuck a

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Speaker 1: lot of their servants and have a lot of illegitimate children.

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Speaker 1: Like Stalin is going to be taken care of by

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Speaker 1: this rich guy his mom worked for, right, Like he's

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Speaker 1: this rich guy's gonna give them a lot of money,

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Speaker 1: and Barry, his mom's gonna have the same situation. And

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Speaker 1: we don't know, Well, was it just because she worked

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Speaker 1: for this guy he considered her part of the family,

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Speaker 1: so he helped out. Is it because they were stopping?

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Speaker 1: Is it because there's like that he had an illegitimate

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Speaker 1: kid with her, right, Like we will never know.

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Speaker 2: You know, maybe she's working the whole time. You know,

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Speaker 2: maybe she's working.

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Speaker 1: The whole time, right, Maybe she's got a little that

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Speaker 1: in Nancy Reagan magic. Nothing against that, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, Barry a family, the mcgrellian throat goats.

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Speaker 1: So it's interesting to note that a lot of Marxist

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Speaker 1: rebel lee like Marxist leaders, because all Marxists are kind

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Speaker 1: of members of an illegal party in this period, whether

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Speaker 1: you're kind of more in the Menshevik or the Bolshevik side,

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Speaker 1: the Tsar doesn't like what you're doing. Most of the

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Speaker 1: leaders of these Marxist organizations have a background where there's

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Speaker 1: some nobility. A lot of them come from the cashless nobility,

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Speaker 1: which is like a big thing all throughout Europe. You've

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Speaker 1: got like your nobles who are rich, and you've got

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Speaker 1: your nobles who squandered everything. So they've got the blood

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Speaker 1: but nothing else. I know, the the ones I respect more, yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: And a lot of leftist leaders in this period, particularly

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Speaker 1: if youth organizations, are these like cashless nobles, and it

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Speaker 1: makes sense because they they tend to benefit from much

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Speaker 1: more of an education. But they're not really even though

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Speaker 1: they're nobles, they're not really the same class as the

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Speaker 1: people with money because they don't have any fucking money.

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Speaker 1: So it's not hard to see, right, like why that

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Speaker 1: would be the case. MARTA's got a pretty difficult life.

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Speaker 1: Her first marriage gives her one son, who dies young.

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Speaker 1: Her husband dies too, so she marries again. She has

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Speaker 1: three more kids, one of them, Anna, is born deaf mute,

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Speaker 1: another who is Barry, his brother we know nothing about,

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Speaker 1: so he probably died young too. And then she's got Barria,

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Speaker 1: who's the only boy we know survived to adulthood. And

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Speaker 1: by the way, her second marriage with Barry his dad

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Speaker 1: in the same way as the first, and that her

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Speaker 1: husband dies the Barry of family husbands have a proud

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Speaker 1: tradition of dying instantly after making kids.

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Speaker 2: We don't know if Laventi had something to do with

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Speaker 2: any of this.

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Speaker 1: It's not a zero percent chance, right.

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Speaker 2: If someone told me, like, you know, when he was

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Speaker 2: barely able to walk, he sank a knife into someone's neck,

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Speaker 2: I'd be like, yeah, cross.

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Speaker 1: You hear a lot about like, yeah, you know, this

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Speaker 1: kid killed his mom and childbirth or whatever. Right, common story.

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Speaker 1: Barria pops out with a knife and shanks his dad.

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Speaker 2: Right in the gut. I mean, from my own family history,

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Speaker 2: you know what, I'm okay with this.

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Speaker 1: So Barry is going to be the only boy to

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Speaker 1: make it to adulthood. And it's probably not surprising that

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Speaker 1: Marta dobts on him, right. He is a mama's boy.

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Speaker 1: Stalin is as well. And another thing I've noticed when

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Speaker 1: you read about a lot of the more influential like

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Speaker 1: rebel leaders in Russia in this period, decent number of

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Speaker 1: them are mom as boys, you know.

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Speaker 2: Huh.

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Speaker 1: So if you want your kid to overthrow the government,

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Speaker 1: spoil them a little bit, moms, you know, it's good

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Speaker 1: for him.

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Speaker 2: Rama's boy grown up. So I guess I'm just waiting

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Speaker 2: for my time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, don't let the uh, don't let

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Speaker 1: the immigration board hear that.

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Speaker 2: I already got my residency cars.

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Speaker 1: So one of his peers later recalled that he quote

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Speaker 1: grew up on the hands of his mother, who earned

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Speaker 1: by her sewing. So that's kind of how she keeps

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Speaker 1: the lights on, although the lights are not like electric lights,

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Speaker 1: so she actually keeps the lights on by it. It's

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Speaker 1: how you buy the candles, yeah, buying candles.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So here's how Night describes Laventi as an adolescent in

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Speaker 1: the book, Barria, Stalin's first lieutenant. Barria was a mediocre student,

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Speaker 1: not excelling in any subject but considered cunning and devious.

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Speaker 1: After completing school and Sukumi in nineteen fifteen, Barria went

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Speaker 1: to the city of Baku, in a Zerbajan, where he

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Speaker 1: enrolled in the Baku Polytechnical School for Mechanical Construction, remaining

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Speaker 1: there for the next four years. Baria probably chose Baku

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Speaker 1: for his studies instead of Tabilisi, which was much closer

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Speaker 1: to home, because it offered the specific course he was

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Speaker 1: interested in. Nonetheless, Baku was almost six hundred kilometers from home,

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Speaker 1: quite a distance for a boy of only sixteen. Barria

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Speaker 1: says in his autobiography that he supported himself, his mother,

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Speaker 1: his sister, and young niece by doing office work during

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Speaker 1: school vacations. Now, these claims that Barria is a shitty student,

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Speaker 1: but you know, supports his family and somehow gets into

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Speaker 1: Baku Polytechnic are primarily supported by a family friend and

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Speaker 1: later comrade in the USSR government named Danilov. And Danilov

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Speaker 1: is the guy who's like, yeah, he wasn't book smart,

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Speaker 1: he was a shitty student, but he's just cunning. We

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Speaker 1: get a different version of what happened in a summary

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Speaker 1: of Barria I found on globalsecurity dot Org, which is

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Speaker 1: a think tank founded in two thousand that focuses on

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Speaker 1: defense and foreign policy. Bob Woodward likes them. I don't

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Speaker 1: know much more about them beyond that, but they seem

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Speaker 1: to be relatively credible, and this scans with some other

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Speaker 1: things I've read. In school, Barria did very well as

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Speaker 1: the best student the villager's pride. He went to study

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Speaker 1: in Sukumi. Apparently they always moved in vain desire to advance,

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Speaker 1: to be the first in any cost. And this is

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Speaker 1: kind of a discrepancy. You'll get like Barry is either

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Speaker 1: this shitty student who's super cunning and gets by on

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Speaker 1: being a schemer, or he's a pretty good student who's

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Speaker 1: like really well respected in town because he's this local

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Speaker 1: boy who does well. The fact that there are discrepancies

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Speaker 1: in this and almost every other fact about the man

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Speaker 1: comes down to the fact that most of what we

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Speaker 1: know about Barria comes from either coworkers who later helped

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Speaker 1: to murder him and thus wanted to make him look bad,

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Speaker 1: or his own cult of personality right, which is also

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Speaker 1: full of shit. So it is really hard to know

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Speaker 1: much for certain about, particularly his early life. Polish writer

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Speaker 1: Thaddeus Whitlan an early Barria biographer even called Barria the

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Speaker 1: man without history. Of course, Andrew Sankster notes, he then

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Speaker 1: spends pages on his early life, how he dressed, and

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Speaker 1: even his thought processes, how he behaved in school, and

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Speaker 1: from this the reader can only assume it is mere conjecture.

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Speaker 1: So again, like, there's so much bullshit about this guy,

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Speaker 1: even in the pretty good biographies. And I'm not shitting

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Speaker 1: on night here. I think her book is generally quite good,

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Speaker 1: but like there's just a lot of maybees with Barry.

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Speaker 2: That's like, you know, kind of part and parcel with

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Speaker 2: a guy like Barrier, right, yes, yes, he when he

390
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Speaker 2: comes to power, he's known for being terrifying, which you know,

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Speaker 2: obviously we'll get to and one of the most terrifying

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Speaker 2: things you can do, and something that he had the

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Speaker 2: power to do was erase his own history. Then you

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Speaker 2: can't use it against them, right, And that's a part

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Speaker 2: of it. And also one thing Sangster will note is

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Speaker 2: that most early Barrier biographies are written after his execution

397
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Speaker 2: when he becomes so Stalin dies they kill Barria and

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Speaker 2: guys like Krushchev comes into power next, and Krushchev and

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Speaker 2: everyone who kind of survives from the Stalinist era. They're

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Speaker 2: all complicit in the crimes of the Stalinist era, and

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Speaker 2: they all I want to blame everything that went bad

402
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Speaker 2: in that period on Barria because it's it really works

403
00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:06,679
Speaker 2: out well for them. So the books about him in

404
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Speaker 2: this period are basically just novels with Barria as the villain,

405
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Speaker 2: and he was a villain. But that doesn't mean everything

406
00:20:11,840 --> 00:20:16,120
Speaker 2: in those novels is true, right, Yeah, For his part,

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Speaker 2: Sangster agrees that Barria was actually probably a really good student,

408
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Speaker 2: and I kind of think he's right about this because

409
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Speaker 2: from what I've read, Baku Polytechnic's a pretty competitive school

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Speaker 2: and it's not super common for kids like Baria from

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Speaker 2: poor villages to go there if they're not really good students,

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Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, I mean, far be it for me

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Speaker 2: to say anything positive about the city of Baku. But

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Speaker 2: everything written about the Polytechnic is very, very good. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I've never heard it as like, you know, it's not

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Speaker 2: a schlup school or anything like that, and especially being

417
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Speaker 2: from a village, being from a cashlest noble family or

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Speaker 2: just maybe a regular poor family, whichever family, Yeah, you

419
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Speaker 2: had to show some kind of promise in order to

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Speaker 2: get in it, and they're not going to allow some

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Speaker 2: mass who's coasting by on mediocre grades. But is quote

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Speaker 2: unquote cunning. You can cunning on standardized testing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah maybe if he was getting like an English degree

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Speaker 1: where bullshitting was part. But he's like an architecture, right,

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Speaker 1: you presume he had to show some promise.

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Speaker 2: It's always the architects, Robert, you.

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Speaker 1: Can't never Look, I've been saying this for years, Joe.

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Speaker 1: We have to kill all the architects, you know, and

429
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:25,879
Speaker 1: I know that's half of our listeners. We're huge among architects,

430
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:28,199
Speaker 1: but you're all, you're all the death of this world.

431
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 2: And you can't trust them. I don't know what it is.

432
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 2: It's a lot like horses. I don't know what it is. Yeah,

433
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:34,040
Speaker 2: don't trust them.

434
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:36,920
Speaker 1: No horses, no architects. That's the new that's the new

435
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,560
Speaker 1: anarchist flag. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to get people

436
00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 1: to adopt.

437
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:40,680
Speaker 2: That's right.

438
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:43,879
Speaker 1: But if you hate architects, you know who's working to

439
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,240
Speaker 1: destroy them all and end all laws about how you

440
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:51,760
Speaker 1: can and can't build a house are sponsors. So buy

441
00:21:51,760 --> 00:21:53,680
Speaker 1: from them and help them lobby Congress to make it

442
00:21:53,760 --> 00:22:00,920
Speaker 1: legal to do your own electrical work, you know, say

443
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:06,199
Speaker 1: we're back and I just in the break rewired my

444
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,640
Speaker 1: entire home. I've I've found out that if you don't

445
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,480
Speaker 1: put that plastic coat around the wires, it really cuts

446
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,920
Speaker 1: down on the weight, you know, of your house, which

447
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: is helpful.

448
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and now I have nothing but mail to mail plugs,

449
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 2: like the suicide plugs holding all together. I'm really happy

450
00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 2: that they ponied up the money to get like, you know,

451
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:31,640
Speaker 2: awareness out there for Rube goldberg S ways to kill

452
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 2: yourself of electricity. I'm all on board for it.

453
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's let's actually, Sophie, can we get a

454
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:39,680
Speaker 1: sponsorship from the people who make those mail to mail

455
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:41,680
Speaker 1: plugs on Amazon that burn down your house and kill

456
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:42,199
Speaker 1: your family?

457
00:22:42,840 --> 00:22:44,440
Speaker 2: I think that's for them.

458
00:22:44,560 --> 00:22:45,360
Speaker 3: Probably not.

459
00:22:46,520 --> 00:22:47,800
Speaker 2: I would just assume.

460
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 1: No, buy him anyway, folks, They're probably safe. It's speaking

461
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,920
Speaker 1: of product to buy once. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Barrier would

462
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,679
Speaker 1: have liked them. He liked killing people. So there's a

463
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: weird mentioned by one of the first Soviets to chronicle

464
00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: Barrier's life, that he and his family were supported by

465
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: cash gifts from a wealthy noble that his mom worked

466
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:11,160
Speaker 1: as a servant for kind of again makes me wonder

467
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:13,320
Speaker 1: if she was maybe getting some strange There are rumors

468
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 1: that actually Baria might be this guy's son. It's plausible,

469
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 1: but you get this like literally the same thing happened

470
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 1: with Stalin. So I think the fact is just this

471
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 1: is not a really uncommon social relationship. Like if your

472
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:29,080
Speaker 1: mom was hot in rural Georgia, she probably had like

473
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:32,480
Speaker 1: a wealthy patron, right, and why not. It's hard to

474
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: get by back then. You know your husband's gonna die

475
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: three times in your life. You need money from somewhere.

476
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 2: I mean, what are your options, right, You're a penniless

477
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:44,080
Speaker 2: dirt farmer, or you let some like rich guy clap

478
00:23:44,119 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 2: them cheeks for like fifteen seconds every two weeks. Who

479
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: wouldn't Who wouldn't signed me up?

480
00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:54,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm on board. I'm well, no, actually, you

481
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: and I are both dying at age nineteen after fathering

482
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:59,080
Speaker 1: our fifth child.

483
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 2: In the climate.

484
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,120
Speaker 1: So when Barrio was five or six, Russia gets convulsed

485
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: by revolution for the first time in his life. We

486
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: know now that this was the prelude to the nineteen

487
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:14,400
Speaker 1: seventeen Revolution, but at the time a lot of people

488
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: would have seen the complete and devastating crackdown by the

489
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 1: Tsar as evidence that the regime was pretty strong. Right,

490
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:22,639
Speaker 1: you get this this, this does not go well and

491
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: the Tsar kills so many fucking people. Now in those

492
00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: days again, the left wing opponents of the Tsari system

493
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: are Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks are a tightly centralized

494
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: party led by Lenin, who is not in country for

495
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: a lot of this period, and they want a one

496
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:39,880
Speaker 1: party right, he's in Germany for a spell. I think

497
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:41,520
Speaker 1: he moves around a bit. I'm not an expert on

498
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:43,960
Speaker 1: his whole movements, but he's he's out of the he's

499
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: out of the country leading from Afar for most of

500
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: Barrie's early life, and the Bolsheviks are very centralized. They

501
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: are a one party state that wants one party control

502
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: of a proletarian dictatorship. Right, that's the whole idea. The

503
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: Mensheviks are again, closer to social demo and as a result,

504
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 1: are more popular for most of Barry's childhood because most

505
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: people generally prefer not one party rule to one party rule.

506
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: That does change rapidly at points.

507
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 2: But whenever anybody throws around a term like dictatorship. It's

508
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 2: to turn off.

509
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: I'm not on board. I'm not generally on board. Now

510
00:25:18,119 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: in this case, you can debate, like, if your choice

511
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 1: is dictatorship of the proletariat to the czar, don't I

512
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: don't think you're wrong in saying like, well, let's try anything,

513
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:27,879
Speaker 1: but having a fucking czar.

514
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 2: I get it. You know, if I was ruled by

515
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 2: Zar Nicholas, I would accept anything that is not to Zarna.

516
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: Anything that's not Theizar. It makes sense to me, logical step.

517
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: From the age of sixteen on, Barry is going to

518
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: be his mother's primary means of financial support, which means

519
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 1: that he's able to when he moves to Baku. Kind

520
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: Of one of the things he does he gets involved

521
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: in socialist organizing and one of his jobs for the

522
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:54,199
Speaker 1: student organization he's in. Because he's working full time, he

523
00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: has a lot of connections with workers that are also

524
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 1: organized in different Marxist like unions and stuff, and he's

525
00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,680
Speaker 1: able to make connections between the student group that he's

526
00:26:02,680 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: ad at the college and these like laborers who are

527
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: not super educated. Right, So that's kind of his earliest

528
00:26:08,840 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 1: job as a not even quite a revolutionary but certainly

529
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: an activist at this.

530
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 2: Stage, more just like your run of the mill organizer

531
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 2: at the time.

532
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now to note though, there is a revolutionary aspect

533
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 1: to even being run of the mill as an organizer,

534
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,640
Speaker 1: because this is still treason, right, like, this is illegal,

535
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: you know, light treason, you might call it, but treason.

536
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 2: Nonetheless, you're still going to get a visit by some

537
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:31,920
Speaker 2: dudes who are going to drag you into a dark basement,

538
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 2: right right, the Okrana is not going to be thrilled

539
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:36,840
Speaker 2: with what you're getting up to. And by the time

540
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 2: the big dub dub uno is underway, that's World War One.

541
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 2: Everyone hates it when I when I use those terms

542
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:44,120
Speaker 2: for them, I gotta say, I'm not a fan.

543
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: Not No, nobody likes it. I don't like it, but

544
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:49,880
Speaker 1: I'm doing it much like having a czar. It's it's

545
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,000
Speaker 1: just one of those things that can't change until there's

546
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 1: a bloody revolution, so you know, I.

547
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 2: Guess or.

548
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: Anyway, So by the time World War One starts, he's

549
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: sixteen or so, and he and several fellow students set

550
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: up in a legal study circle, pouring over the works

551
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: of Marxist theory. Baria is treasurer of the group, and

552
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: in March of nineteen seventeen he joins the Bolshevik Party.

553
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: Now this only happens, he only becomes a Bolshevik after

554
00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: the revolution gets that czar out of their hair, right

555
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: they wash him out. And prior to that point, Baria

556
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: is into again radical politics, but we don't have any

557
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: evidence of him participating in like armed revolutionary activity. So

558
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,240
Speaker 1: right after he joins the Bolshevik Party, he gets conscripted

559
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: into the army and he's sent to the Romanian Front

560
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: to serve as essentially a combat engineer, right, I think

561
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: he's actually doing like hydraulic shit, probably to make sure

562
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: that troops have water, is as best as I can

563
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: term it.

564
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 2: Make sure this water only has the minimum amount of

565
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:50,119
Speaker 2: colra necessary.

566
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't what too little cholera, right,

567
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,920
Speaker 1: Like you know, a growing soldier needs some cholera.

568
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes it strong, like one of those things.

569
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 2: It's like, there's so many episodes in that arc that

570
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 2: would make the world a much better place. If a

571
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 2: bullet sailed just like five centimeters to the left of

572
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 2: the right.

573
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's that sad, sad story about that

574
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: British sniper who has Hitler in his sights, and we

575
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: know this is true because like he remembered it, and

576
00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:21,440
Speaker 1: Hitler's like, yeah, I saw this guy get a beat

577
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: on me and the brit The brit was like, well,

578
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: the fighting was basically over. They were in retreat, and

579
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:29,199
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want one more boy to

580
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: die today. And you can't blame a man for doing that, but.

581
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 2: Motherfucker must have kicked his own ass harder than anyone else.

582
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: It's one of those moments from history. It's like, what

583
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: is the lesson here? Kill more teenagers?

584
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 2: Like never take mercy on your enemies because one of

585
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 2: them might be Hitler.

586
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,320
Speaker 1: It's like that woman who like stops Hitler from committing

587
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: suicide by trying to like talk him out of it.

588
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, what what do you get from this?

589
00:28:58,160 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: Like where do you?

590
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 2: Where do we? Where do we truide? Hitler puts her

591
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 2: arm rounders, like have you heard of betterhelp?

592
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: Don't learn lessons from history people, That's the primary lesson

593
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: of this podcast. Ignore everything I say and get on

594
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: with your life.

595
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 2: Especially if you got a motherfucker at your crossairs and

596
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 2: he has a weird little mustache. You have no choice.

597
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 1: Shoot anyone with a mustache. That's that's really the lesson.

598
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 1: So by this point, when Barria gets sent to the

599
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: Romanian Front, Russia is you know, the Czar is no

600
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,520
Speaker 1: longer in power, and the government that replaces it is

601
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: essentially democratic, right, this the Bolsheviks are not in charge yet.

602
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: This is not the USSR. It's kind of a socialist

603
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: democratic state. It's not a very functional socialist democratic state, right,

604
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: which is right? Yeah, And this is the Caucuses, so

605
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: things are even like a little messier. But this ailing

606
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: new democracy is still fighting the Tsar's war, right, which

607
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: is a bad call. There's they probably should have done something. Besides,

608
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: it's continuing to fight World War One. It seems like

609
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: a like a like an easy uh self, like an

610
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: easy own goal. It's like, you know, it's really unpopular

611
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: or that drove revolution. I have I have an idea.

612
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: What if he keeps doing it? Yeah, let's keep throwing

613
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: down with the Germans.

614
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 2: If we beat him at another generation of our men

615
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 2: into a grinder to make some kind of multi ethnic mush.

616
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, great, great call. So it doesn't go well, right,

617
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: and there's going to be a Bolshevik revolution, and we're

618
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: all familiar with kind of the broad terms of this,

619
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: and this is when Barria kind of gets involved. Right

620
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,960
Speaker 1: during this this very chaotic period, he becomes the Bolshevik

621
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: revolution party representative for his military unit, because all of

622
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: the units have like effectively these unions, and his is

623
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,280
Speaker 1: a Bolshevik one. And when the war finally ends, he

624
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: moves back to Baku, where the Bolsheviks are now ascendant,

625
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 1: and the rest of his Aerbijan, I think it's still

626
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: more Menshevik, but like Baku, the Bolsheviks are really starting

627
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: to pick up a lot of steam. And he gets

628
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: a position on the staff of the head of the

629
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: Baku Soviet of Workers Deputies. Right, so he's he's it's

630
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 1: kind of just because he's known as And this again

631
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: makes me think those things about him not being a

632
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: good student are not accurate. He keeps getting positions that

633
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: are kind of high despite not having much experience, because

634
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: the stuff he's doing is always like he's the treasurer,

635
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: he's organizing, he's doing like bureaucratic shit because most people

636
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: don't want to do that, and he's got that kind

637
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: he's got that, he's got an organizer brain. Right, he's

638
00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: good at organizing, like like departments in shit, and he's

639
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,680
Speaker 1: willing to do that kind of boring but necessary work

640
00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: to lay the grounds to like actually have a large

641
00:31:41,840 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: organization that does shit. And that's why he keeps getting

642
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: put in positions because like most people want to do

643
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: the sexy stuff, and Barry is like, I'll do the hard,

644
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: bullshit paperwork stuff. It's not bullshit Like.

645
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 2: That's that's the key to power is doing the stuff

646
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 2: that nobody else wants to do and doing it well. Well.

647
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: Again, I say this a lot. This is also the

648
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 1: story if like Chochescu, if you overthrow the government and

649
00:32:03,240 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: are running a revolutionary party and there's a quiet little

650
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: dude who doesn't say much but he's always taking on

651
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,680
Speaker 1: bullshit work and you know, really helpful. Shoot that guy

652
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: immediately immediately, you.

653
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 2: Know, he volunteers to run the people's DMV. Take that

654
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 2: motherfucker out back immediately.

655
00:32:20,680 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. That man needs to end up in a

656
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: fucking quiet little grave. So this was not an auspicious

657
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:30,920
Speaker 1: time to be helping to run the Baku Soviet because

658
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: with Russia, you know, breaking out in revolution, a lot

659
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: of people are like trying to take advantage of this,

660
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 1: and one of the people trying to take advantage of

661
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:40,880
Speaker 1: this as a result of the war is Turkey, right,

662
00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: and Turkey's like, maybe we can have a little Azerabashan

663
00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: as a treat. So they invade and they wind up

664
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: in charge of Baku for a little while in nineteen eighteen.

665
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: They are not in power there long because spoiler after

666
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, the Ottoman Empire doesn't do great.

667
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't do very well, man, but they sure

668
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,920
Speaker 2: did a lot of damnfull they finally died. They shared it.

669
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 1: They went out like they went out like heroes if

670
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: heroes are constantly fucking up everything around. They went out

671
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: like a dying empire. I guess it's probably better.

672
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 2: To say so.

673
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 1: Pretty soon, you know, the Turks are back out, and

674
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:20,719
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks kind of wind up in quasi power. You know,

675
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,000
Speaker 1: they have a lot of power in the city. After

676
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: the Turks leave, they're not in absolute power, and they're

677
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,959
Speaker 1: kind of fighting with another party for actual control of

678
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: the city. Now, Baria, being young enough that he's not

679
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,719
Speaker 1: yet well known in politics, is picked to be a

680
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,480
Speaker 1: mole for this party, the Musabat party that are kind

681
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: of have turned themselves into the primary opposition of the Bolsheviks,

682
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 1: and they are to this day the oldest party in

683
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 1: a Aerbijan. Still they're gonna They spend long periods of

684
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: time kicked out of the area, exiled, a lot of

685
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:54,240
Speaker 1: their people get killed, but they still do exist. And

686
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: Baria being you know, a pretty young guy, and being

687
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 1: this dude who he's had some prominent roles, He's got

688
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 1: some trust in the Bolsheviks, but he's also not a

689
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 1: face man, right Like, he's somebody that is not super

690
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 1: well known personally, is picked as a perfect mole to

691
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 1: infiltrate the Musavut Party. And I'm going to quote from

692
00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: that write up in Global Security. He worked as a

693
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: clerk at the Caspian company White City, performed various assignments

694
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,279
Speaker 1: trapped underground. In the fall of nineteen nineteen, Berria joined

695
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: the counterintelligence of the Committee of National Defense of the

696
00:34:23,680 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: Azerbaijan Republic. Subsequently, this period of Barrie's life caused a

697
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: lot of rumors. It was said that he consciously worked

698
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: on the Azerbaijani nationalists and even was an agent of

699
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: the British And you'll basically get claims that he was

700
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: working every side of like the political conflicts in azerba

701
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,000
Speaker 1: Jan in this period. He's some people will say he

702
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,879
Speaker 1: was actually a Musavut agent, like spying on the Bolsheviks.

703
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:46,880
Speaker 1: He was a Bolsheviks spying on the Musavuts.

704
00:34:46,920 --> 00:34:47,399
Speaker 2: He was like.

705
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: Spying for the British on everybody. There's no real evidence

706
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: for most of that. I think the likeliest thing here

707
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: is that he is spying for the Bolsheviks on the

708
00:34:58,040 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 1: Musavut party.

709
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: I do love that a Georgian guy is like a

710
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,280
Speaker 2: hardline as Azerbaijani nationalist.

711
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:09,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's like he's going hard for that, which

712
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: like spoilery, he's not at all in the Zerban nationalist

713
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: He is going to kill a lot of Zerbashani nationalists

714
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:18,640
Speaker 1: along with a lot of Armenian and Georgian nationalists. That's

715
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: going to be his first real big gig for the

716
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: US is what's happens.

717
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 2: When you give someone from the Caucas's power over the Caucases. Yeah,

718
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: because nobody hates us more than we hate ourselves.

719
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: Yeah again, much like Texans exactly. So if you read

720
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,799
Speaker 1: more casual articles about Barria, they will all note that

721
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:40,319
Speaker 1: he's a member of this anti Bolshevik Musavat Party and

722
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: calling them anti Bolshevik is like not entire It's close

723
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: enough if you're getting like a broad summary of what's

724
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: going on there. But I think Amy Knight's biography does

725
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: a better job of contextualizing who these folks were and

726
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: what Burya did with them. Quote. The Musabat Party had

727
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 1: originally been formed in nineteen eleven to nineteen twelve by

728
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: a group of intellectuals associated with the RSDRP. It later

729
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: shifted ideologically to the right and became the party of

730
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: the Rising a Zherbashani bourgeoisie. After a period of cooperation

731
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:10,600
Speaker 1: with the Bolsheviks and Baku, during which they supported the

732
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: Soviet the Musivitists increasingly opposed Bolshevik policies by late nineteen seventeen.

733
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,439
Speaker 1: In early nineteen eighteen, they had become the Bolsheviks' most

734
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: formidable rivals. In the autumn of nineteen nineteen, Berry was

735
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: assigned by the Bolsheviks to conduct counterintelligence within the ruling

736
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: Musovak government. So you have this party that is it

737
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: starts as an intellectual party that's pretty left wing, but

738
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 1: like social democrat right, and they're willing to work with

739
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks and Baku for a period of time when

740
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 1: kind of in the most chaotic post revolutionary period. But

741
00:36:42,040 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 1: as the Bolsheviks start to gain power and it becomes

742
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 1: clear that they are not willing to compromise or share

743
00:36:47,120 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: power with anyone else, the Musivitists, in part because they

744
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: represent a lot of people in the bougeoisie, but also

745
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 1: because they just aren't a one party state, increasingly reformed

746
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,319
Speaker 1: themselves as an opposition party to the Bolsheviks, right, And

747
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:02,879
Speaker 1: that's kind of what happens here. And again you can

748
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:06,919
Speaker 1: find sources who say Barry is working with them legitimately,

749
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,839
Speaker 1: and that wouldn't be so weird because he's an opportunist

750
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:11,680
Speaker 1: and they are in power for a period of time,

751
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: so it's not impossible that he is. He's doing both that,

752
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,000
Speaker 1: like he's really trying to hedge his bets here. He's

753
00:37:17,040 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: feeding some information to the Bolsheviks in case the Bolshoviks win,

754
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:22,879
Speaker 1: but he's also trying to help the Mucivitists because maybe

755
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: they're going to win. And Barria is this kind of

756
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: like wherever the wind blows is kind of where I'm

757
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: going to try to make, you know, a place for

758
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: myself right.

759
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 2: A few days old have now he would just work

760
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 2: for like the Young Turks Network or something. Yeah, like

761
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 2: that audience Capri failed, you just go work for Ben Shapiro.

762
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: You know, he is one of these guys who like

763
00:37:44,040 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: would absolutely have made a hard right turn if that

764
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 1: had been the way to gain power, right. But the

765
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 1: Whites are never really like, I know, there's ever a

766
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: period where they're like winning well enough where he is

767
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: that he would have considered that right, But it does

768
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: kind of look like they're superiod where he's willing to

769
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: make maybe make his peace with the Musavits, you know,

770
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 1: if that's going to be who winds up in power.

771
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: But you know, we don't really know. And certainly the

772
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks believe that he is legitimately spying on the Mucivitists

773
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 1: for them, right, And this is going to become a

774
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:18,840
Speaker 1: problem for Barria right away because while he's going to

775
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: get a bunch of other gigs spying, you know, back

776
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: in Georgia, the Bolsheviks are going to keep using him

777
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 1: as a spy. In like nineteen twenty, not long after

778
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 1: this period, after the Bolsheviks win, he's going to be

779
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,480
Speaker 1: tried by the Central Committee in his Aerbuzhan for being

780
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: a mucivitist spy, and the case is resolved in his favor.

781
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: But every time he gets in trouble within the party,

782
00:38:37,760 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: the allegations come back up because it's the easiest way

783
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:42,920
Speaker 1: to like fuck with him, right, is to point out that, like,

784
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: well you did this at one point, we don't really

785
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 1: know whose side you were on.

786
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 2: That's a good example of like how he becomes the

787
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: guy he is because he got picked as a spy

788
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 2: being disloyal or whatever, goes to trial, gets away with that,

789
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,640
Speaker 2: he's like in the future, he's like, well, that's never

790
00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 2: gonna have again.

791
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, one thing that definitely suggests he was a

792
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 1: legitimate spy for the Bolsheviks is again they keep using

793
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: him as one. And after the Bolsheviks kind of gain

794
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: the upper hand in Baku, he gets sent back home

795
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: to Georgia to do some spying, right, And in Georgia,

796
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:19,839
Speaker 1: into Blisi, the Mensheviks are in charge, right, they are

797
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: the dominant party when he gets sent there, and the

798
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks are not cool with this, so they have guys

799
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: like Baria go among the peasants to try to prod

800
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 1: them into maybe overthrowing the government again and seeing if

801
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: that works out better for everybody. So Baria moves to Tablizi,

802
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: where he constructs his very first spying network. And Joe,

803
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: do you remember when you constructed your first spying network

804
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: to overthrow the government in power?

805
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 4: Oh?

806
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:45,879
Speaker 2: I was but a young boy.

807
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You make a lot of mistakes, right,

808
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 1: We all make a lot of mistakes when we're overthrowing

809
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:54,919
Speaker 1: a political party. You know, it happens, and that's gonna

810
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 1: this is a messy period for Baria. I'm gonna quote

811
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: from Knight's biography here. Not surprisingly, he was soon arrested

812
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,359
Speaker 1: along with the entire Bolsheviks Central Committee in Georgia. Thanks

813
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: to the efforts of the Georgian Bolshevik Georgi Sturia, Baria

814
00:40:07,760 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: was freed on the condition that he leave Georgia within

815
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 1: three days, but he remained adopting the false name Lakerbea

816
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 1: and working in the Russian embassy. So he makes this

817
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: promise to leave, and then instead of leaving, he flees

818
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: to the embassy and he gets right back to working

819
00:40:22,040 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 1: as a spy to try to because this is the

820
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,960
Speaker 1: Russian embassy and the Russian government is controlled by the

821
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks at this point. I know, there's this is a

822
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: very messy period of time, right, this would have been

823
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: what the first Georgian Republic period, so right, yes, yeah,

824
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: And so he is hiding out in the Russian embassy

825
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,120
Speaker 1: because that is a Bolshevik embassy, and still continuing to

826
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: work to try to overthrow the Mensheviks in Georgia, and

827
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: kind of right around this time, the Russian government concludes

828
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: a treaty with Georgia, but like most treaties between Russia

829
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: and a neighbor, it's more of a wink by the

830
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: Russians than a promise. The Mensheviks take their side of

831
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: the treaty seriously, though, and they free all of the

832
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,440
Speaker 1: imprisoned Bolsheviks that who had just tried to overthrow the government,

833
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: and they even make it legal for the Bolsheviks to

834
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:09,160
Speaker 1: have meetings and publish newspapers. Again, the Mensheviks are really

835
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: this is again another lesson, don't give anyone the benefit

836
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: of the doubt in a revolution.

837
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, someone tries to overthrow the government, maybe

838
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 2: you like keep him.

839
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: In prison, right, yes, maybe this is relevant in the

840
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:20,680
Speaker 1: United States.

841
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: I don't know.

842
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: I've never read anything about our recent history. So when

843
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: the latest Bolshevik plot to take power is revealed, because

844
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: they try again, Barya gets arrested again and he goes

845
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: on a hunger strike, but it's like one of those

846
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 1: he skips dinner hunger strikes, you know, it doesn't last

847
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: very long, and he gets sent out of Georgia on

848
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: a prison convoy. By August, he's back in a Zerbashan

849
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: and he gets back to being a student. He kind

850
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 1: of goes back to school for a while, and he

851
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: catches a side gig for the Bolsheviks, who at this

852
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: point are doing very well in Baku. But Lenin has

853
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: demanded at this point that Zerbazhan be brought over into

854
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: what's becoming the USSR wholesale and the Bolsheviks in Baku

855
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: start a serious effort to do just that. It's possible

856
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,279
Speaker 1: that this is when Baria meets Stalin for the first time,

857
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: because Stalin is part of this effort that Lennon's pushing.

858
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: Gives a speech in Baku in November of nineteen twenty.

859
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: Now at this time, bury a specific job is Executive

860
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the Expropriation of the

861
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: bourgeoisie and the improvement of working life. And they love titles,

862
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 1: They fucking love titles. That's too long for a job title, right,

863
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,399
Speaker 1: And what that job actually is is he's taking shit

864
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,320
Speaker 1: from like rich people in middle class people and theoretically

865
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,359
Speaker 1: splitting it up among the working class. Now, how much

866
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:41,880
Speaker 1: of that gets split up and how much of that

867
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 1: gets lost to rampant corruption? Well, it's a zherbash yet

868
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:46,480
Speaker 1: you know thinks so.

869
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 2: That has changed. Let's be fair.

870
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: It's the Caucasus, right, it's heastern Europe again.

871
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 2: Thankfully, this no longer happens.

872
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 1: It's a place populated by humans, so a lot of

873
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,720
Speaker 1: it disappears into corruption. The Night Rights of this period

874
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,760
Speaker 1: in his life, this organization was charged with forcibly seizing

875
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: property on behalf of the Bolsheviks rather unsavory business, and

876
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: Baria again was doing the paperwork. When the commission was

877
00:43:10,280 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: abolished in February nineteen twenty one, Beria took the opportunity

878
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: to persuade the Central Committee to support him in his

879
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:18,759
Speaker 1: studies as an architect builder. He received a stipend from

880
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 1: the Baku Soviet, but only after a couple of weeks

881
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:23,600
Speaker 1: the Central Committee made him abandon his studies to work

882
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 1: in the Azerbaijan political police, the infamous Cheka. And this

883
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: is when he becomes a secret policeman. And that's what

884
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: we're going to get to after this next ad break.

885
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: So be the secret police in your life and arrest

886
00:43:39,239 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: these products into your home.

887
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 3: Cop. Don't tell people to be cops.

888
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: But cops of products, Sophie.

889
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 2: Is it a cop or is it a spy or

890
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:51,359
Speaker 2: is it both? Yeah?

891
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: Both, spy on these products. Whatever it takes to get

892
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: them into your home. You know, that's what we believe.

893
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 3: Don't listen to him.

894
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:05,919
Speaker 2: We're back.

895
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: So the Cheka are the secret police in Georgia and

896
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: the Jereberson and everywhere, right, and they're going to go

897
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: through several This is what ends up the different checkas

898
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:19,719
Speaker 1: all eventually end up as the NKVD, right, which all

899
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: eventually ends up as the KGB. You know, this is

900
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 1: like a process.

901
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,319
Speaker 2: Right. If there's one thing that Soviet Union likes more

902
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 2: than titles, it's changing those titles arbitrary.

903
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: God, so many, I'm going to call them the Cheka.

904
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: For most of the period before like Barria is in

905
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,279
Speaker 1: Moscow and the USSR is fully settled, but they go

906
00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: through some different names, right, but it's generally everyone still

907
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:44,399
Speaker 1: generally calls them the Checka at various points because they're

908
00:44:44,400 --> 00:44:47,439
Speaker 1: still the secret police, right, whatever titles they're picking. Right,

909
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 1: this is the position where Barry is going to truly

910
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: shine because the first big task the Bolsheviks need from

911
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: him is to overthrow the Armenian government. Now, Joe, have

912
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: you ever tried to overthrow the Armenian government?

913
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 2: I cannot legally answer that question.

914
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 1: It's a whole thing, right, it's this we gotta do stuff.

915
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 2: Did I make it this long of life without knowing

916
00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 2: Barrier was involved in the overthrow of the first Median republics?

917
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yeah, And of.

918
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:17,280
Speaker 2: Course he came from Azerbaijan to do it, God damn it. Yeah.

919
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 1: Well at this point he's coming in from Georgia, but

920
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 1: through but through Baku. Right there in the.

921
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 2: Mix, they're in the mix there.

922
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's clear. So there's a lot that you have

923
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 1: to do to overthrow the first Armenian Republic, and Barria,

924
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,239
Speaker 1: along with several of his colleagues, put together different plans

925
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: for how they might make this happen. Right, And it's

926
00:45:37,640 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 1: one of those things where like there's a lot of

927
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: like different pitches, and Barrias is kind of the one

928
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:47,399
Speaker 1: that winds up being the the kind of basis for

929
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: the plan they eventually And I've been.

930
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 2: In a lot of writers room and I feel like

931
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 2: a writer's room with Lavrenti Berry would be the worst

932
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 2: one ever. It is.

933
00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: It's a terrible writer's room. He's always suggesting fucking bottle episodes.

934
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:04,040
Speaker 1: So Barrya's boss is a guy named Mirkafar Bagarov. He's

935
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: just a twenty four year old who's in head of

936
00:46:05,719 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 1: the Baku Cheka. He's got a reputation for brutality, and

937
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:13,160
Speaker 1: he likes Baria because Barrya is willing to do fucking anything.

938
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: He is perfectly willing to get his hands dirty. So

939
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 1: at twenty one, Barria gets promoted to be Bagarov's assistant.

940
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: And this is, you know, the start of a fairly

941
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,760
Speaker 1: rapid series of promotions. Because people are killing and dying

942
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 1: so rapidly, it's easy to move up if you're really

943
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: willing to kill, you know. And it's interesting. Bagarov is

944
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 1: kind of the only guy other than Stalin maybe that

945
00:46:37,800 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: Barria ever works under without later overthrowing or killing. Right,

946
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,399
Speaker 1: This is like one of the very few people who

947
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: is Barrya's boss that he does not murder or otherwise

948
00:46:47,719 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: help to destroy.

949
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 2: I wonder what the difference was, because it wouldn't be

950
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 2: like dirt, like Barria was more than comfortable killing people

951
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:55,760
Speaker 2: who had dirt on him.

952
00:46:55,960 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think maybe truly friends.

953
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,280
Speaker 2: There's likes one friend.

954
00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, they might have just kind of been buds. And

955
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: also I think it's that, like he knows Bagarov is

956
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 1: never really rising above a certain level, so he doesn't

957
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: need to write. He kind of can leap frog over

958
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: him without fucking him. And it's useful to have a

959
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: guy like Bagarov who like owes you a favor that

960
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 1: you can, you know, trust. That's as much as.

961
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 2: Barry It's more likely than Barria having an actual friend.

962
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:25,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, well like his one buddy. Now. Andrew Sangster argues

963
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,400
Speaker 1: that Barria begins in the check a quote a lifelong

964
00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: habit of intrigue against his own superiors and the hope

965
00:47:31,120 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: that he could destabilize them to his own advantage. His

966
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:37,480
Speaker 1: next boss, Ivan Pavlinowski, pleaded at staff meetings for his

967
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,399
Speaker 1: deputy Barria to cease intrigues against him. So like Dry

968
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: please stop plotting to overthrow me to it.

969
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 2: Joh, stop it, O god, it's a complaint to have

970
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,520
Speaker 2: in your employee record. Like I know personally, I have

971
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 2: never been publicly told at like you know, like the

972
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 2: firefighter's board or whatever by my captain to please stop

973
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:00,640
Speaker 2: plot against it.

974
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: Please stop plotting my murder. You can't, you have to.

975
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,520
Speaker 1: You can't do this anymore. It is really funny.

976
00:48:07,920 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 2: You know.

977
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: Again, the death of Stalin not wildly accurate to the

978
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: to the direct history. I do think it gets like

979
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 1: the broad strokes of the relationships pretty well. Yeah, but

980
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: the Armando Ynucci, the writer is also the guy who

981
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 1: did a veep and he did a show that Veep

982
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:28,319
Speaker 1: is kind of based on that was based on UK politics.

983
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: I always forget the name, and he's like, I want

984
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 1: to see him do like a three season series about

985
00:48:33,920 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: the early Soviet politics and the Caucuses, because you could

986
00:48:38,520 --> 00:48:41,960
Speaker 1: make a wildly entertaining comedy about this. Like a lot

987
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: of people die, but everyone is such a piece of shit.

988
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 1: There's all so much backstabbing and overthrowing each other.

989
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 2: A lot of fun, like a young Stalin treatment. Yeah, yeah,

990
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:53,640
Speaker 2: like Coba.

991
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: If you ever watched the there's a really good TV show,

992
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:02,319
Speaker 1: The Great, which is about Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah, it's

993
00:49:02,320 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: one of what's her name, the great, uh fucking Catherine, Yeah,

994
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 1: the who's who's a czar Zarita Zarza. I always forget

995
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: the proper term when it's the woman, but she's fully

996
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 1: in charge and Zorena anyway, Zarena. But one of the

997
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 1: things that show gets really well and again wildly inaccurate

998
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:22,240
Speaker 1: to the literal like steps of history, but it gets

999
00:49:22,239 --> 00:49:26,399
Speaker 1: really well the kind of constant backstabbing and like overthrowing

1000
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: and shit in that that's a long time hallmark of

1001
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: Russian politics.

1002
00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to its credit, it never even attempts to

1003
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 2: be accurate and even says like this is not accurate

1004
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:42,240
Speaker 2: in like the ticker before the show starts every episode.

1005
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 2: It's still fucking wonderful.

1006
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:46,640
Speaker 1: It's fun, it's got got some got some great performances

1007
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:50,160
Speaker 1: by h Nicholas Holt, one of my favorite actors. Good

1008
00:49:50,200 --> 00:49:54,240
Speaker 1: ship check it out, three real solid seasons. So Barria

1009
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: is going to prove no less brutal to his colleagues

1010
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,120
Speaker 1: than he is to the citizens of a Zerabash and

1011
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: Georgia and Armenia. Sangster writes, quote. The Czecka's main task

1012
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: was to crush any counter revolutionary group, which was interpreted

1013
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:11,239
Speaker 1: with the whitest possible guidelines. It was a time of

1014
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 1: festering chaos, distrust, in sheer brutality. In nineteen twenty one,

1015
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: the Troika system was announced, which was a three man

1016
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 1: committee empowered to judge and execute on the spot, and

1017
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 1: Barria played a major role in such proceedings. In his

1018
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,839
Speaker 1: area of responsibility in his very early twenties, he had

1019
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: become accustomed to having people killed, not in the front

1020
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: line of war, but dragged off the streets or out

1021
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: of their homes and shot in police cells. But so

1022
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 1: much more personal though, Yeah, yeah, it really is.

1023
00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 2: There's a difference between a guy who's, you know, seen

1024
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 2: a lot of conflict and kills people in the trenches

1025
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 2: of World War One, because that's largely impersonal, and you know,

1026
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 2: a soldier's mindset is much different than a guy who's

1027
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:51,280
Speaker 2: murdering someone in a dank basement.

1028
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, you always you have, at least on your conscience,

1029
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,719
Speaker 1: like because obviously war focks people up, but like, yeah,

1030
00:50:57,880 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: I shot some people because they were shooting at me,

1031
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:02,400
Speaker 1: as different from I pulled this guy away from his

1032
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,320
Speaker 1: family during dinner. This dude I'd worked with for years,

1033
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: and I shot him in the back of the head.

1034
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:12,600
Speaker 2: Right that they can't fight back. They're in a damp basement, probably, Yeah,

1035
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 2: a lot of torture has happened before this.

1036
00:51:15,480 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: Yes, and this causes a tremendous amount of paranoia, right,

1037
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,359
Speaker 1: even among the winners in these conflicts, right, they they

1038
00:51:22,440 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: It kind of breaks everybody's mind, right, and the atmosphere

1039
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:30,319
Speaker 1: grows paranoid enough that occasionally the right people are arrested. Right.

1040
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: Sometimes that even happens off people.

1041
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:35,800
Speaker 2: You'll eventually grab someone guilty.

1042
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of those people is Barria. Shortly after

1043
00:51:39,080 --> 00:51:41,560
Speaker 1: his appointment to the Checke, he gets taken into custody

1044
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,640
Speaker 1: by the Cheka under suspicion of anti revolutionary activity. Now,

1045
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: this was right, because he is executing a lot of revolutionaries.

1046
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: But all of the people he's killing pretty much are socialists, right,

1047
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 1: But this is not accurate in the way they care about,

1048
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 1: and he is set free and continues to work killing revolutionaries. Now.

1049
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 1: I noted a few times I'm not wildly in love

1050
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:06,800
Speaker 1: with any single source for these episodes, largely because trying

1051
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:08,759
Speaker 1: to do a biography. If a guy like Barria is

1052
00:52:08,800 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: just this horrifying task, given how much disinfo is pumped

1053
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 1: out in his lifetime, Knight's book seems pretty good. I've

1054
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: definitely found a couple of conclusions in her book that

1055
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 1: I've considered shaky. I like Sangster's writing, and I think

1056
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:24,160
Speaker 1: he's reasonably careful, but he also might be kind of

1057
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 1: a weird right winger. Like just looking at his bibliography,

1058
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,760
Speaker 1: I don't see anything overly insane, but his book contains

1059
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: like a casual Jordan Peterson quote. Oh yeah, so that

1060
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: was one of the things. So I'm like, well fuck,

1061
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 1: And I had like looked into the guy and like,

1062
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:44,800
Speaker 1: I don't see anything right. No, his biggest thing is

1063
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: he's like obsessed with this guy. Yeah, he's he's a professor,

1064
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 1: and he writes this book about Alan Brooke, Churchill's right

1065
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:55,440
Speaker 1: hand critic, like this this reappraisal of Lord Alan Brooke,

1066
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,080
Speaker 1: who's this World War two British military officer. Like I

1067
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:01,640
Speaker 1: don't know much about Alan Brook, but I don't see

1068
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: anything that's like inherently crazy about any of this. So

1069
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. I just want to let you be

1070
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson quote into worried man. Wait was that in

1071
00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:11,760
Speaker 1: his book about Barrier?

1072
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1073
00:53:12,680 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, were he like it's that is.

1074
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 2: The most.

1075
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: Possibly be It immediately made me like backtrack and check

1076
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 1: on a bunch of shit that I had. And again

1077
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 1: I didn't run into anything that was like obviously wrong.

1078
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:27,319
Speaker 1: Most of what he said lines up with most of

1079
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:29,480
Speaker 1: what Knight said. And like again that was.

1080
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 2: Like like biography done in Jordan Peterson's voice.

1081
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, the thing about Barrier, I didn't love it. Yeah,

1082
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: And I've got like a couple of different quotes from

1083
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 1: this or books that I use for this Night's book,

1084
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 1: Sangster's book. There's another book called On Stalin's Team that

1085
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 1: I use a lot later that's about like the whole

1086
00:53:47,440 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: gang around Stalin. There's a little bit of the Stalin

1087
00:53:51,400 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: hype house. Yeah, the Stalin hype house. So like I

1088
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:56,479
Speaker 1: tried to be broad with this, and again I didn't

1089
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: catch Sangster just lying about anything, but you should. No,

1090
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 1: you're not going to find any like perfect sources on

1091
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:08,200
Speaker 1: a guy around whom there's so much disinfo, right, and

1092
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, the two big I think the two big

1093
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:14,680
Speaker 1: things that you can argue about in terms of like

1094
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: what kind of Guyberia was that you can support with

1095
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: a lot of evidence. One is he was an absolute

1096
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: psychopath and one of like the most unhinged, violent evil

1097
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:26,799
Speaker 1: people within the Soviet government. And the other is he

1098
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: was as violent and evil as he had to be

1099
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:32,359
Speaker 1: to survive within the system, and he was a guy

1100
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: who wanted to maintain power and was willing to do

1101
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:38,480
Speaker 1: terrible things to keep himself alive, but was not wildly

1102
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:42,239
Speaker 1: worse than most of his colleagues, which doesn't mean he's good. Right,

1103
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: Those are kind of, broadly speaking, the two barriers that

1104
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 1: you can make the case see both.

1105
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,480
Speaker 2: Yes, Like I can see those the caveat of being like, yeah,

1106
00:54:51,520 --> 00:54:56,839
Speaker 2: he was surrounded by yeah, human beings. Yeah, but there's

1107
00:54:56,920 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 2: not many people that rose to the the lengths that

1108
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 2: he did this, so of union asterisk that we're aware of, Yeah,

1109
00:55:05,520 --> 00:55:09,759
Speaker 2: did the things that he did on his own personal time.

1110
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,840
Speaker 1: Yes, and that we will be talking about that later

1111
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 1: as well. It takes a bit to build that because

1112
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:16,080
Speaker 1: a lot of that starts to happen. At least we

1113
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 1: have documentation of the sex abuse stuff once he hits Moscow,

1114
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 1: which we're not at yet right, So anyway, I just

1115
00:55:23,640 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 1: wanted to like, FYI, you should know this about our sources.

1116
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:31,279
Speaker 1: You know, Area has layers like an ogre. Yeah, yes,

1117
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,239
Speaker 1: and so do his biographers. And speaking of sayingster you

1118
00:55:34,280 --> 00:55:36,680
Speaker 1: get lines like this during a discussion of how Barria

1119
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:39,720
Speaker 1: and his fellow checkists abuse their powers that I found interesting.

1120
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,759
Speaker 1: Even modern day police officers and an open liberal democracy

1121
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 1: sometimes querry the activities of their next door neighbors. And

1122
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: it is understandable that in a ruthless society the sense

1123
00:55:50,200 --> 00:55:54,680
Speaker 1: of suspicion and doubt increases exponentially. And what he's not

1124
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: wrong in that, like, yeah, modern police officers abuse their

1125
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 1: powers to spy on like women they're stalking and their

1126
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: neighbors and shit all the time.

1127
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 2: Would hire Leventi Barry.

1128
00:56:08,400 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that part of makes me think, like, well,

1129
00:56:11,040 --> 00:56:14,520
Speaker 1: maybe the Jordan Peterson thing was like not evidence of

1130
00:56:14,520 --> 00:56:17,640
Speaker 1: anything sinister, because he's kind of being like, modern cops

1131
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 1: are terrible in a lot of the same way as

1132
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:21,319
Speaker 1: Barrio was, And I don't disagree.

1133
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:24,840
Speaker 2: Actually, this is when those horrible moments, even the worst

1134
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:26,440
Speaker 2: guy in the world is right, you know.

1135
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: Not not in not inherently and unreasonable cabins.

1136
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 2: So many other quotes you could pick before you sit

1137
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 2: al John fucking Peterson.

1138
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:38,560
Speaker 1: It's you know, my dad likes Jordan Peterson. And my dad,

1139
00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 1: for the record, like voted for Trump once and didn't

1140
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:45,920
Speaker 1: the second time and now considers the Republicans to be

1141
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: like a very unhinged and dangerous anti democratic, like anti

1142
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,480
Speaker 1: democracy party. But he still thinks Jordan Peterson's like he's

1143
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:55,480
Speaker 1: not on Twitter, you know, he doesn't see it.

1144
00:56:55,640 --> 00:57:00,880
Speaker 2: You have an opinion on the Chinese uh dick sucking

1145
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:02,240
Speaker 2: machines that pet Peterson.

1146
00:57:03,239 --> 00:57:05,319
Speaker 1: He didn't believe me when I told him that. So

1147
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:07,600
Speaker 1: you do have to keep in mind there are some

1148
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:10,879
Speaker 1: normies out there that like casually read Jordan Peterson's self

1149
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:12,960
Speaker 1: help book about and we're.

1150
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 3: Like across it a lot, like a lot of a

1151
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:18,200
Speaker 3: lot of on like when you when you meet somebody

1152
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 3: like for the first time they and you ask them,

1153
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 3: like what they're reading. A lot of times it's that,

1154
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:27,920
Speaker 3: and it's very innocent because they're not criminally online.

1155
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 4: Like we are, Like they just don't know or are

1156
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 4: not focused on politics at all, and and they just

1157
00:57:34,560 --> 00:57:36,720
Speaker 4: come across a self help book and they're like, Wow,

1158
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 4: this is really interesting, and it's like oh, and then

1159
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 4: you have to give them a bad news about him,

1160
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:42,000
Speaker 4: and you're.

1161
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:47,880
Speaker 1: Like, believes the Chinese government is harvesting come from prisoners.

1162
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:51,640
Speaker 2: And actually, sir, did you know? And it also means

1163
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 2: they haven't listened to an interview from Jordan Peterson in

1164
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:58,040
Speaker 2: the last several years.

1165
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 1: It's they have it's this the book, same thing. I

1166
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: have some like friends who are not online and fairly

1167
00:58:05,200 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: nice people who like listened to Joe Rogan ten years

1168
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 1: ago and are like, yeah, he seems fine, and it's like, well, yeah, yeah,

1169
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 1: Like how much is it worth arguing about this?

1170
00:58:15,320 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 2: Like I myself was the first podcast I ever listened

1171
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 2: to is Joe Rogan, And you know, I listened to

1172
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 2: it for a fair amount of time until like Brett

1173
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 2: Weinstein and shit started coming on and I was like, ooh,

1174
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 2: this is this is too fucked up for me.

1175
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So I don't know. I haven't listened to

1176
00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:35,840
Speaker 1: Sangster's podcast appearances, but like I haven't run into anything

1177
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 1: at least in his bibliography that makes me think he's

1178
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 1: like clearly insane. But people should be aware of this

1179
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: caveat so even within the checkup, Barria is controversial. He

1180
00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:49,040
Speaker 1: was accused of repeatedly convicting the wrong people for political

1181
00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:53,200
Speaker 1: gain or plain mean spiritedness, and for allowing actual political

1182
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 1: enemies of the New State to escape. Right Like, he's

1183
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:59,320
Speaker 1: constantly letting people who are actually trying to like bring

1184
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:02,720
Speaker 1: back the monarchy to get out of jail and executing

1185
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 1: like socialists who had fought against the czar.

1186
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 2: When you put when you put so much resources into

1187
00:59:08,480 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 2: taking out your own political opponents, you kind of missed

1188
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:13,880
Speaker 2: the broader spectrum of actual political opponents.

1189
00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: Right right, And in between executing and arresting basically whoever,

1190
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 1: he engaged in some light pedophilia. All right, Yeah, there

1191
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 1: we you go. We're not getting into like the most

1192
00:59:24,640 --> 00:59:27,920
Speaker 1: problematic stuff, but this is bad. He first met Nina

1193
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:31,920
Speaker 1: Gagechkory age sixteen, through one of her relatives, who was

1194
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:35,520
Speaker 1: a prominent Georgian Bolshevik. He had spent this guy her

1195
00:59:35,720 --> 00:59:38,120
Speaker 1: Her relative had spent time in prison with Baria and

1196
00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 1: apparently told Nina, hey, I was locked up with this

1197
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: weird murderer everybody scared of. He should go on a

1198
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:46,200
Speaker 1: date with this guy. I mean that's how I met

1199
00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:49,600
Speaker 1: my first wife. Sure, right, you know who wouldn't take

1200
00:59:49,640 --> 00:59:50,800
Speaker 1: that that bitch.

1201
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 2: I mean so yeah, I say, you know, it's one

1202
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 2: more thing he hasn't cobbled with Stalin.

1203
00:59:54,960 --> 01:00:01,160
Speaker 1: Yeah girls, instead of his his online dating profile. Instead

1204
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:03,560
Speaker 1: of like holding up a fish, it's this like bloody dude.

1205
01:00:03,600 --> 01:00:06,560
Speaker 1: He shot in the back of the head, like you know,

1206
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 1: thanks to a pickup truck once again, Yeah Texans and

1207
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:14,480
Speaker 1: his quotes from Jordan Peterson. So they go on a

1208
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: date or whatever, and Barria proposes soon after, and when

1209
01:00:18,080 --> 01:00:20,360
Speaker 1: they get married in nineteen twenty one, she is still

1210
01:00:20,360 --> 01:00:23,640
Speaker 1: a child. Now we get different accounts of what I

1211
01:00:23,680 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 1: don't know, if you'd call you wouldn't call this a

1212
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:26,840
Speaker 1: meet cute, But we get different accounts of how they

1213
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 1: actually meet, and none of them are from flawless sources.

1214
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 1: One story comes from Stalin's daughters, Fetlana Alilujeva, who was

1215
01:00:34,360 --> 01:00:36,439
Speaker 1: a bit of a mess herself, although it is hard

1216
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: to blame her for that, right Stelen is her dad.

1217
01:00:40,240 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 2: You get some grace from me for that.

1218
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 1: She claims that Barria visited Nina's village when he was

1219
01:00:45,800 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 1: promoted to the same job that he did for the

1220
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:51,480
Speaker 1: Checka in Baku, but Intoblisi, Nina came to him to

1221
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:53,000
Speaker 1: beg for her brother's release.

1222
01:00:53,120 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 2: Quote.

1223
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:56,440
Speaker 1: Barria had arrived in a special train, Nina entered his

1224
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:59,000
Speaker 1: car and never again saw her native village. She was

1225
01:00:59,040 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: carried off her beauty, having caught the police boss's fancy.

1226
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: He locked her up in a compartment. That was how

1227
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:08,960
Speaker 1: she became his wife. Now that's a pretty horrifying story.

1228
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:12,200
Speaker 1: The timing of Barry's actual promotions with when we know

1229
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:14,920
Speaker 1: he met Nina doesn't quite match up. Now, it's it's

1230
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,360
Speaker 1: very likely, in fact that Svetlana might have the broad

1231
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:20,000
Speaker 1: strokes right, but have gotten some dates and stuff wrong.

1232
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:24,200
Speaker 1: You know, wouldn't be weird, Sangster notes. Quote the story

1233
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 1: Stalin's daughter relates probably grew from the possibility that they

1234
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:31,280
Speaker 1: had eloped on Barry's train. Despite his sexual predatory nature.

1235
01:01:31,360 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: The marriage lasted end quote. She remained in love with

1236
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 1: her charmer for the rest of her life.

1237
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 2: How many people get whisked away in their own personal train,

1238
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 2: you know, right?

1239
01:01:40,120 --> 01:01:43,000
Speaker 1: I mean that is pretty romantic if you discount all

1240
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 1: of the horrible things.

1241
01:01:44,000 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 2: You want to get on my murder train, baby girl? Yeah?

1242
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:48,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, who doesn't Who doesn't want to murder train? Right?

1243
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 2: I know? I could go for a murder train, so

1244
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:53,280
Speaker 2: I have to settle for a public train. Sucks.

1245
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:58,960
Speaker 1: Yeahs no, no, no, there's cameras. It's fucked up.

1246
01:01:59,200 --> 01:01:59,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1247
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:02,560
Speaker 1: So Amy Knight provides a different accounting of events. She

1248
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:06,080
Speaker 1: notes that Barria met Nina when Nina was fifteen, and

1249
01:02:06,320 --> 01:02:08,840
Speaker 1: Nina comes to visit her relative in prison when he's

1250
01:02:08,880 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 1: locked up with Barria. Baria, from prison is enraptured by

1251
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 1: the beauty of this child and remains obsessed with her.

1252
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 1: When the Bolsheviks take Georgia, Nina moves to Tableisi with

1253
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 1: her adopted family, and Baria becomes a regular HouseGuest. Quote.

1254
01:02:22,680 --> 01:02:25,560
Speaker 1: Nina was still young and a lighthearted schoolgirl. She once

1255
01:02:25,640 --> 01:02:28,960
Speaker 1: carelessly joined other students in a demonstration against the Bolsheviks,

1256
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:30,640
Speaker 1: despite the fact that she was living in the home

1257
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:33,560
Speaker 1: of a prominent Bolshevik. She later recalled in an interview

1258
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 1: given when she was already in her mid eighties how

1259
01:02:35,800 --> 01:02:38,200
Speaker 1: on that occasion she came home soaking wet because the

1260
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: police had sprayed the student demonstrators with water. Sasha's wife, Mary,

1261
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,400
Speaker 1: was furious, threatening to whip Nina because she had expressed

1262
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: opposition to the Bolsheviks. One day, Barria stopped her on

1263
01:02:48,160 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: her way to school and asked her to meet him

1264
01:02:49,760 --> 01:02:52,280
Speaker 1: later for a talk. Nino agreed, and when they met,

1265
01:02:52,280 --> 01:02:55,160
Speaker 1: barr a proposed marriage. She recalled, We sat on a

1266
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: bench Lavnti was wearing a black topcoat and a student's

1267
01:02:57,760 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 1: service cap. He told me that for a long time

1268
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:02,160
Speaker 1: he had been very taken with me. What is more,

1269
01:03:02,200 --> 01:03:04,080
Speaker 1: he said that he loved me and wanted to marry me.

1270
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: I was sixteen years old at the time. And so

1271
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:09,520
Speaker 1: that's the version of events that she would later give,

1272
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,000
Speaker 1: you know, Nino would later you see it both as

1273
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:15,240
Speaker 1: Nino and Nina. That's the version that she would give, right.

1274
01:03:15,640 --> 01:03:17,600
Speaker 1: And in this version of events, which like, I don't

1275
01:03:17,600 --> 01:03:19,760
Speaker 1: know which of these all of these are bad because

1276
01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:24,400
Speaker 1: she is a child in all of these, her recollection

1277
01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:26,040
Speaker 1: of events is that like, yeah, he kind of like

1278
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 1: sweeps her off her feet, right.

1279
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:32,400
Speaker 2: No, did romantic hopeless romantic romantic Baria. Yeah.

1280
01:03:32,440 --> 01:03:34,920
Speaker 1: Now, in this version of events, Barria wanted to go

1281
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: to Belgium to study oil processing for the Soviet government,

1282
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't send an unmarried man, and she agrees

1283
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 1: to marry him because it's better to have one's own

1284
01:03:43,200 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: family than to live in someone else's, which is not

1285
01:03:45,640 --> 01:03:48,480
Speaker 1: an uncommon story that like, and again you have to

1286
01:03:48,520 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 1: think this is a different time. She's like living with

1287
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,000
Speaker 1: her parents and under her dad's roof and is like, well,

1288
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 1: I would rather be the number two person in my

1289
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:56,439
Speaker 1: household than.

1290
01:03:56,360 --> 01:03:58,400
Speaker 2: A child in my household. Yeah.

1291
01:03:58,600 --> 01:04:03,439
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm not trying to give Barria any

1292
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:06,760
Speaker 1: slack here, but like that's her recollection of why she

1293
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 1: makes the call.

1294
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:12,040
Speaker 2: Right sixteen for the era wouldn't have been too out

1295
01:04:12,040 --> 01:04:13,760
Speaker 2: of pocket or anything.

1296
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:16,880
Speaker 1: It was not the norm, but it was not something

1297
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: that most people would have considered really problematic either, right.

1298
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:25,120
Speaker 2: It's not like, you know, like the story about Stalin's

1299
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 2: underage mistress is much more glaring because I believe she

1300
01:04:28,840 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 2: was either thirteen or fourteen.

1301
01:04:30,320 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, thing, and He's there's a lot going to be

1302
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:35,520
Speaker 1: a lot more problematic shit about Barrier, underage people and

1303
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:37,720
Speaker 1: just women in general that's coming later.

1304
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 2: This is the most the most innocent thing about him,

1305
01:04:40,080 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 2: because at least it was romantic.

1306
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,600
Speaker 1: But at least that's how Nino recalls it. Right now, again,

1307
01:04:45,640 --> 01:04:48,680
Speaker 1: I want to really emphasize every variant of the story here,

1308
01:04:48,720 --> 01:04:52,160
Speaker 1: including Nino's agrees that Barry had deliberately sought out a

1309
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:55,560
Speaker 1: child bride, right, calling the pedophile very fair.

1310
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:58,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I take back what I said gross.

1311
01:04:58,480 --> 01:05:00,720
Speaker 1: Her version of events is that like, I was down

1312
01:05:00,760 --> 01:05:04,440
Speaker 1: because it meant more freedom for me, basically being number

1313
01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:06,720
Speaker 1: two in a household as opposed to a child, which

1314
01:05:07,120 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: again that's what she recalls.

1315
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:11,560
Speaker 2: And she gets to go to Belgium, who doesn't.

1316
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: Tragically, Baria never winds up visiting Belgium. This just doesn't happen.

1317
01:05:18,200 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 1: In late nineteen twenty two, he gets transferred to to

1318
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:22,640
Speaker 1: Bleezy as part of a plan by the Bolsheviks to

1319
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:25,800
Speaker 1: make their suppressing suppression of outlying territories seem less like

1320
01:05:25,840 --> 01:05:28,920
Speaker 1: a foreign occupation by having locals do the mass murdering

1321
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:31,680
Speaker 1: of dissonance. And again this is part of why Svetlana's

1322
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: account that he kidnaps her on a train doesn't quite work,

1323
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:36,640
Speaker 1: because they have already met by the time he's made

1324
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 1: head of the Cheka, right or deputy head of the

1325
01:05:40,280 --> 01:05:42,120
Speaker 1: check or something like that. There's a lot of different

1326
01:05:42,160 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: titles he goes through, so by this point, although still

1327
01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:50,200
Speaker 1: pretty young, Barrya's personality is fully formed and his driving

1328
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:52,840
Speaker 1: motivation seems to be the desire to improve his own

1329
01:05:52,880 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 1: situation through cunning and brutal violence. He becomes known for

1330
01:05:56,640 --> 01:05:59,560
Speaker 1: such quotes as, when we Bolsheviks want to get something done,

1331
01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:02,840
Speaker 1: los our eyes to everything else. Never a good sign,

1332
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:05,520
Speaker 1: good way to do some mass murdering, I always say,

1333
01:06:06,560 --> 01:06:10,600
Speaker 1: Sophie will tell you. That's my catchphrase. Baby podcasters are

1334
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:11,240
Speaker 1: the same way.

1335
01:06:11,640 --> 01:06:11,720
Speaker 3: So.

1336
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:15,200
Speaker 1: Georgian nationalism was still a major force in the area,

1337
01:06:15,240 --> 01:06:18,000
Speaker 1: which threatened Soviet plans to unite it with the Zerbazan

1338
01:06:18,120 --> 01:06:20,920
Speaker 1: in Armenia as a single block within the Greater USSR.

1339
01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 1: Barya is tasked with crushing this desire for independence. Mensheviks

1340
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,000
Speaker 1: are also murdered in moss and by nineteen twenty two,

1341
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:31,840
Speaker 1: mass graves had become a common sight Sangster rights. During

1342
01:06:31,840 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: these early years, Barra proved to be cunning and proficient

1343
01:06:34,200 --> 01:06:37,440
Speaker 1: at seeking out and killing the opposition. Whole families and villages.

1344
01:06:37,480 --> 01:06:40,000
Speaker 1: People with the same surnames or the slightest connections were

1345
01:06:40,080 --> 01:06:42,720
Speaker 1: murdered by the Checha and the army. There was no mercy.

1346
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 1: It amounted to thousands upon thousands of victims of his

1347
01:06:46,800 --> 01:06:49,880
Speaker 1: own participation in these crimes. Barya would later write whatever

1348
01:06:49,960 --> 01:06:52,560
Speaker 1: cruelty that the checha had to carry out receded in

1349
01:06:52,560 --> 01:06:55,280
Speaker 1: my youthful conception at the time into the foggy distance,

1350
01:06:55,520 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 1: and I pictured only the difficult, dangerous obligations in the

1351
01:06:58,480 --> 01:07:03,200
Speaker 1: name of humanity's happiness. This is accurate also to Sam

1352
01:07:03,200 --> 01:07:05,400
Speaker 1: Bankman Freed, who recently got sentenced to twenty five years

1353
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:08,320
Speaker 1: in prison. If you can't tell anyone anything that I

1354
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:11,320
Speaker 1: do is justified because I'm doing it for the happiness

1355
01:07:11,320 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 1: of humanity. Again, you gotta shoot them, you know.

1356
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 2: You know, the one thing that really improves humanity's happiness

1357
01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:21,880
Speaker 2: from my own personal experience is mass graves.

1358
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:24,600
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Oh my god, who doesn't love a nice

1359
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:27,080
Speaker 1: mask grave. You can have a picnic on them and

1360
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:29,960
Speaker 1: flowers grow wells green.

1361
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:30,240
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1362
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:30,560
Speaker 2: Ass.

1363
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 1: People talk about the downside of mass graves all the time,

1364
01:07:34,320 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: but never any of the benefits.

1365
01:07:35,960 --> 01:07:38,040
Speaker 2: You know, everybody's so negative all the time.

1366
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:41,640
Speaker 1: A couple generations later, free bones. Who doesn't like bones?

1367
01:07:42,040 --> 01:07:45,479
Speaker 1: You know, skulls are expensive. I know, my skull guy

1368
01:07:45,600 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: is fucking taking an arm and a leg out of

1369
01:07:47,200 --> 01:07:47,920
Speaker 1: me these days.

1370
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 2: And you know, several generations, you know, thousands of years

1371
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,760
Speaker 2: in the future. Boom oil uh huh, that's right again.

1372
01:07:55,240 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 1: It's almost green Joe, you know, circ thinking, Yeah, exactly exactly.

1373
01:08:01,600 --> 01:08:04,200
Speaker 1: You turn them from people who are using oil and

1374
01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:07,280
Speaker 1: polluting to people who are generating oil.

1375
01:08:07,040 --> 01:08:09,240
Speaker 2: And natural energy. Baby mm hmmm.

1376
01:08:10,360 --> 01:08:14,520
Speaker 1: It's like a solar panel. So barius thoroughness earned him

1377
01:08:14,520 --> 01:08:17,080
Speaker 1: the respect of Stalin, who was known to deport several

1378
01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:19,680
Speaker 1: loyal Bolsheviks to the East for the crime of not

1379
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:23,240
Speaker 1: getting along with Barria. In one case, Barria asked for

1380
01:08:23,280 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 1: a deported rifle to be recalled to Tablizi so that

1381
01:08:26,280 --> 01:08:29,240
Speaker 1: he could beat the man for fun. Other gifts given

1382
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 1: to Barria for his service in nineteen twenty two included

1383
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:34,120
Speaker 1: a gold watch for courage and a pair of Browning

1384
01:08:34,160 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 1: automatic rifles, which is a legitimately rad gift. A pair, yeah,

1385
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 1: a pair. Can't just have one, bar Man, you gotta

1386
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: double down on that shit.

1387
01:08:43,240 --> 01:08:46,040
Speaker 2: Do you have barrier fucking bars at Kimbo, which is

1388
01:08:46,120 --> 01:08:51,439
Speaker 2: like the ultimate version h fuck.

1389
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 4: So.

1390
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 1: By the spring of nineteen twenty two, the Federation of

1391
01:08:54,880 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 1: Transcaucasian Republics, which Barria and his colleagues had battered into

1392
01:08:58,520 --> 01:09:02,000
Speaker 1: submission on Moscow's orders, was inducted into the USSR. As

1393
01:09:02,040 --> 01:09:05,040
Speaker 1: a single entity. The actual road to this point was

1394
01:09:05,080 --> 01:09:07,760
Speaker 1: so brutal. Again, they have to kill all of these

1395
01:09:07,880 --> 01:09:12,400
Speaker 1: Armenian and Azeri and Georgian nationalists, politicians and all of

1396
01:09:12,400 --> 01:09:15,480
Speaker 1: these like kind of middle of the road's social democrats

1397
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 1: who had wanted their to want an independent Armenian or

1398
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:22,400
Speaker 1: a Zeri republics right or Georgian republics. You have to

1399
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 1: kill all of these people, right. And this means that

1400
01:09:25,640 --> 01:09:28,080
Speaker 1: like Barria and his colleagues are murdering so many people

1401
01:09:28,400 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: that Lenin becomes aware of how many people have been

1402
01:09:31,360 --> 01:09:34,400
Speaker 1: massacred to avoid and this isn't just to avoid them

1403
01:09:34,560 --> 01:09:36,519
Speaker 1: entering the USSR. A lot of its people are killed

1404
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:40,280
Speaker 1: to avoid having them join the USSR as separate CAUCAUSUS

1405
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:43,800
Speaker 1: states right for whatever reason, this is important, and Lenin

1406
01:09:43,840 --> 01:09:45,920
Speaker 1: gets kind of pissed off and he demands the check

1407
01:09:45,960 --> 01:09:49,000
Speaker 1: US sees its violence in Georgia. Now, this is going

1408
01:09:49,040 --> 01:09:51,320
Speaker 1: to be a pattern. Every time there's like a mass

1409
01:09:51,320 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 1: purge that kills a shitload of people, whoever's running the

1410
01:09:54,600 --> 01:09:57,960
Speaker 1: USSR will have to once it ends, punish the people

1411
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:01,040
Speaker 1: who did the massacre in order to lie try and

1412
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:06,400
Speaker 1: make the survivors not rebel basically right, because.

1413
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:09,160
Speaker 2: Like Lennon is a guy who really fucking hated the Caucuses,

1414
01:10:09,560 --> 01:10:12,760
Speaker 2: and even he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow.

1415
01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:15,759
Speaker 1: Down, her, buddy, you kill how many people?

1416
01:10:15,800 --> 01:10:16,439
Speaker 2: Come on? Man?

1417
01:10:17,400 --> 01:10:19,320
Speaker 1: And I think part of why he's pissed is that, like,

1418
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:20,920
Speaker 1: he is aware that a lot of the people who

1419
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:25,240
Speaker 1: get killed were people who like made the revolution happen, right,

1420
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:29,479
Speaker 1: and then get murdered. Now by then, most of the

1421
01:10:29,479 --> 01:10:32,120
Speaker 1: people who might have provided resistance to an ambitious man

1422
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:34,760
Speaker 1: like Barria were dead, and he used his position in

1423
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,679
Speaker 1: Georgia as an engine to repel, to propel himself upwards

1424
01:10:37,680 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 1: into the hierarchy of the USSR. During this time, revolutionary

1425
01:10:41,280 --> 01:10:43,759
Speaker 1: fervor was still fresh, and men like Barria were expected

1426
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:47,599
Speaker 1: to live somewhat experimental lifestyles in line with their radical beliefs.

1427
01:10:47,920 --> 01:10:51,280
Speaker 1: Private displays of wealth were frowned upon, and Barria eventually

1428
01:10:51,360 --> 01:10:54,960
Speaker 1: formally requested to share quarters with his boss because communal

1429
01:10:55,000 --> 01:11:01,479
Speaker 1: living was seen as proper communist stuff. Again, yeah, horrible roommate,

1430
01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:04,240
Speaker 1: he's planning to kill you constantly. Actually, it's a lot

1431
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 1: like most roommates I've had.

1432
01:11:05,439 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair.

1433
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:09,200
Speaker 1: So he spends a significant amount of time with lower

1434
01:11:09,280 --> 01:11:14,800
Speaker 1: ranking checkists, which historian antonov Osinko notes was absolutely to

1435
01:11:14,920 --> 01:11:15,639
Speaker 1: spy on them.

1436
01:11:15,800 --> 01:11:16,160
Speaker 2: Quote.

1437
01:11:16,439 --> 01:11:20,120
Speaker 1: At first everyone trusted Lavarenti Barria completely, but upon knowing

1438
01:11:20,160 --> 01:11:22,240
Speaker 1: him better, they were not able to be friendly with him.

1439
01:11:22,360 --> 01:11:24,920
Speaker 1: He was a master of intrigue and denunciation like no

1440
01:11:24,960 --> 01:11:26,560
Speaker 1: one else. He was able at the right moment to

1441
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:29,240
Speaker 1: unleash a nasty rumor in order to ensnare his rivals

1442
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:31,280
Speaker 1: on the weight to the top. Then he would persecute

1443
01:11:31,320 --> 01:11:33,719
Speaker 1: them one by one. In doing so, the young Barrio,

1444
01:11:33,760 --> 01:11:36,519
Speaker 1: whenever necessary, would convincingly play the role of a good

1445
01:11:36,520 --> 01:11:40,439
Speaker 1: old chap, simple and jolly. That's how we remember him,

1446
01:11:41,080 --> 01:11:42,560
Speaker 1: jolly old Barria.

1447
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:45,880
Speaker 2: I always think of Laventi Barrias as a jolly old chap.

1448
01:11:47,120 --> 01:11:49,240
Speaker 2: And then has this guy ever been in a room

1449
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:51,360
Speaker 2: with anyone he wasn't actively spying on?

1450
01:11:52,280 --> 01:11:56,440
Speaker 1: Well, no, but you know who amongst us hasn't constantly

1451
01:11:56,479 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 1: spied upon our bosses and subordinates in order to sophie

1452
01:12:02,160 --> 01:12:05,839
Speaker 1: hey present company excluidedo.

1453
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:09,559
Speaker 2: I have like three guys going through my producer's trash

1454
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:10,640
Speaker 2: as we speak.

1455
01:12:11,840 --> 01:12:15,080
Speaker 1: Normal stuff. Speaking of normal Joe, That's the end of

1456
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:15,519
Speaker 1: part one.

1457
01:12:16,760 --> 01:12:17,200
Speaker 2: Of four.

1458
01:12:17,840 --> 01:12:19,879
Speaker 1: What do you got for plugs to be plugged?

1459
01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:24,559
Speaker 2: I am the host of the Lines of My Donkey's podcast.

1460
01:12:24,680 --> 01:12:29,120
Speaker 2: We talk about military disasters, crazy stories from military history,

1461
01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:32,599
Speaker 2: and also all around horrible shit, much like your show.

1462
01:12:32,760 --> 01:12:35,719
Speaker 2: And I'm also a science fiction author. And you can

1463
01:12:35,760 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 2: find my newest series, The Undying Legion anywhere that you

1464
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:42,800
Speaker 2: procure your books from.

1465
01:12:43,680 --> 01:12:47,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, check out Joe's books, check out Joe's podcast.

1466
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:51,880
Speaker 1: And you know, get really good at digging if you

1467
01:12:52,040 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 1: intend to get into revolutionary politics. You know, always good

1468
01:12:55,920 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 1: to be able to dig a big hole. You know

1469
01:12:57,439 --> 01:12:58,920
Speaker 1: a lot of things you can do with a whole

1470
01:12:59,000 --> 01:13:00,439
Speaker 1: lot of things. You can put the whole.

1471
01:13:00,600 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 2: So the supervisors, you can put in the whole.

1472
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:06,920
Speaker 1: Supervisors, your boss, your roommate, your roommate boss, put them

1473
01:13:06,920 --> 01:13:10,240
Speaker 1: all in the hole. That guy, problem's gone. Yeah, that

1474
01:13:10,280 --> 01:13:17,000
Speaker 1: guy you dislike. That guy you like everyone. Yeah, yeah,

1475
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:19,639
Speaker 1: that's the number one person to put in the hole.

1476
01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:20,120
Speaker 2: Anyway.

1477
01:13:21,320 --> 01:13:26,640
Speaker 1: This has been Behind the Bastards, Goodbye.

1478
01:13:27,800 --> 01:13:30,760
Speaker 3: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1479
01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:33,479
Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1480
01:13:33,560 --> 01:13:37,519
Speaker 3: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app.

1481
01:13:37,600 --> 01:13:39,919
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast