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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

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Speaker 2: your weekly reminder that when bad things happen, people often

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Speaker 2: do good things in response to the bad things. I'm

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Speaker 2: your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest today is Mio

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Speaker 2: Wong Hi. Hello.

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Speaker 3: Hello, very very excited, very excited to be back for

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Speaker 3: my annual traditional all the Communists Get Shot episode.

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Speaker 2: It seems to be the onson I've always saw. I see,

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Speaker 2: I did give me heads up about this. Well, I

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Speaker 2: was like, who do I know who knows this history

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Speaker 2: and theory enough to talk about this with me? And

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Speaker 2: I guess I'm always like, I can't spoil the subject

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Speaker 2: to the listener because the listener has read the episode description. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but before we talk about our subject, we should talk

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Speaker 2: about the fact that our producer is Sophie Sophie. That's me.

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Speaker 2: I'm Sophie. I'm very glad that Sophie is back. That's Mia,

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Speaker 2: I'm Sophie. We also have an audio engineer who's named Rory. Hi.

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Speaker 2: Rory Hi, RII Hi Rory. Our theme music was written

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Speaker 2: for us by Unwoman this week. I've been really excited

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Speaker 2: about doing this episode. You have, You've talked about it

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Speaker 2: for a minute. I know, I know this was on

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Speaker 2: my long list at the very very beginning when I

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Speaker 2: sat down to plan out doing this show. Hell ya,

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Speaker 2: but I felt like I hadn't earned it yet.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: I also felt like I had to come to learn

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Speaker 2: more about the general context. Okay, so today, this week,

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Speaker 2: we are going to talk about one of the most

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Speaker 2: referenced but least discussed and most misunderstood moments in Western

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Speaker 2: political history. We are going to talk about the Hungarian

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Speaker 2: Revolution of nineteen fifty six. Mia, you ever heard of

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Speaker 2: the Hungarian Revolution of nineteen fifty six.

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Speaker 3: You know, this is the most oh god, I whatever

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Speaker 3: I hear about this. Now I get my like fucking

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Speaker 3: war flashbacks to the dis course trenches, and I'm thinking

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Speaker 3: about this guy posting this picture that he said was like,

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Speaker 3: this is the Hungarian revolutionaries lynching a Jewish man. And

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Speaker 3: then someone found the guys, like they found the guy's tombstone,

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Speaker 3: and it turned out that it was a Christian secret

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Speaker 3: police agent. So this is one of the most unhinged,

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Speaker 3: like discourse wise revolutions of all time. I'm excited to

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Speaker 3: hear about this because, like I have, I guess what

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Speaker 3: you would call the like mid level anarchist understanding of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: where like I don't know, like I've read my COLR. James,

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Speaker 3: I guess who writes about this a couple of times,

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Speaker 3: but like I don't actually I'm not actually like like

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Speaker 3: I've read accounts of it, but I'm really interested to

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Speaker 3: see whether my conclusions about it are backed up by

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Speaker 3: like the fullness of history, because I have I have

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Speaker 3: like takes about this.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, And that's one of the hardest things about

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Speaker 2: this event for anyone who's just coming in, who's like,

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Speaker 2: I have no idea what you all are talking about.

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Speaker 2: The reason that this revolution is so talked about without

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Speaker 2: actually being talked about, and it's a thing that everyone

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Speaker 2: has opinions about without actually reading about, is that this

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Speaker 2: revolution is famous on the internet today because one of

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Speaker 2: my favorite pejoratives, tanky, derives from this event. It is

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Speaker 2: the word for people who cheer on the antagonists of

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Speaker 2: the Hungarian Revolution. It's a word for people who watch

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Speaker 2: Star Wars and think, you know, Aldron really had it coming,

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Speaker 2: so I'm gonna do instead of a Lord of the

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Speaker 2: Rings reference. That's what I figured. That was really weird.

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Speaker 2: I know, I know, I actually know so much less

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Speaker 2: about Star Wars. Oh, don't worry, don't worry, I got

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Speaker 2: you covered. I got cover it. Okay, okay, between the

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Speaker 2: two of us, the shortest version of this history that

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Speaker 2: I could talk, I could I could come up with.

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Speaker 2: Hungary was a Soviet satellite state. It was not part

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Speaker 2: of the USSO, but it was part of the Warsaw Pact.

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Speaker 2: The aligned communist countries who shared a military alliance, who

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Speaker 2: thought that they had some vague semblance of the USSR

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Speaker 2: until they realized they didn't. They found themselves basically extracted

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Speaker 2: from colonies of the USSR. Economically, the economic conditions in Hungary,

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Speaker 2: as well as in Poland and other places like that,

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Speaker 2: were absolutely terrible. Still, most people living there on some

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Speaker 2: level believed in socialism or communism, not the Soviet occupation

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Speaker 2: and the local authoritarian regime. But people were overall left

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Speaker 2: of center. So a bunch of young communists in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, like the official youth branch of the Communist Party,

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Speaker 2: they had a demonstration in support of some other socialists

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Speaker 2: facing repression in Poland, and they found themselves machine gunned

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Speaker 2: for their trouble. So the country revolted and they did

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Speaker 2: what most cool people revolutions do. They set up workers

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Speaker 2: councils to create workplace democracy and run a socialist country

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Speaker 2: from the bottom up. The Soviets invaded with tanks. The

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Speaker 2: Red Army put down the revolution. The whole thing lasted

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Speaker 2: more or less three weeks, though fighting went on in

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Speaker 2: the countryside, and especially strikes went on across the country

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Speaker 2: for months afterwards. Those three weeks changed everything for good.

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Speaker 2: Because the Iron Curtain went down for a moment, and

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Speaker 2: the line that separated Soviet influenced countries from the rest

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Speaker 2: of the world. Foreign journalists were able to pour into

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Speaker 2: the country and actually cover what happened firsthand, including a

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Speaker 2: lot of Western communists came which, by the way, the

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Speaker 2: fact that everyone argues about what happened in this revolution

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Speaker 2: is particularly funny because we have all of the documents,

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Speaker 2: we have the official Communist Party reports, we have lots

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Speaker 2: of first hand reports from all these participants from all

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Speaker 2: over the political spectrum. Actually just look, yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 2: got to read more first like primary sources that I

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Speaker 2: usually get to for this particular episode, you know. And

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Speaker 2: so while the border was down, about two hundred thousand

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Speaker 2: people fled the country, spoiler alert for the US in

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Speaker 2: the near future. Strong borders are as much about keeping

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Speaker 2: people in the country as they are at keeping people

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Speaker 2: out of the country, And these people who fled brought

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Speaker 2: with them the truth about life under Soviet control. If

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Speaker 2: you read a lot of communist history, like I somehow

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Speaker 2: wound up doing not ever something I had originally intended,

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Speaker 2: you notice that all the original Bolsheviks, you know, whenever

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Speaker 2: you're reading about like some Bolshevik who's like, ah, it's

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Speaker 2: nineteen twenty three and I'm doing a thing, you know,

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Speaker 2: and you're like dead nineteen thirty six. Yeah, Like, how

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Speaker 2: come they all died nineteen thirty six to nineteen thirty eight.

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Speaker 2: What's going on there? They were all purged by Stalin

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Speaker 2: in the Great Purge, is what happened all the original Bolsheviks,

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Speaker 2: not all of them, but a huge number of the

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Speaker 2: original Bolsheviks get got by their own Bolshevik party. But

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Speaker 2: there's another slightly more subtle, but only slightly more subtle

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Speaker 2: shift that you see too when you read about Western communists. Yep,

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Speaker 2: any of the ones who are actually doing cool things

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Speaker 2: and actually have some fucking heart, the ones who fought

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Speaker 2: for social justice against fascism did all the good stuff,

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Speaker 2: like a ton of the Italian Partisans fall into this?

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Speaker 2: Last week's episodes had several of those main characters that

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Speaker 2: we talked about last week were Italian communists who all

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Speaker 2: left the Communist Party in the nineteen fifties yep, Because

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Speaker 2: after the Hungarian Revolution they could no longer believe that

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Speaker 2: the USSR and the Communist Party was a force for

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Speaker 2: good or even a force for communism. It was this

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Speaker 2: I'm still doing the quick version of it, I swear

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Speaker 2: it was this split in the UK Communist Party that

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Speaker 2: led to people getting called tankies for their support of

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Speaker 2: the Soviet invasion of Hungary. It is a word that

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Speaker 2: was used by communists and socialists against authoritarians, and yet

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Speaker 2: online authoritarian communists love to claim that the word tanky

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Speaker 2: is used against them because they're communists, when actually that's

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Speaker 2: completely just not true. To be fair, a lot of

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Speaker 2: right wing people, including like centrist capitalists, do use the word,

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Speaker 2: which I guess is centrist not whatever. Anyway, a lot

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Speaker 2: of people, including capitalists and right wing people use the

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Speaker 2: word tanky to critique communists at large, and that is

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Speaker 2: a misuse. It is only for the people who support

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Speaker 2: the enemy of today. Yep.

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Speaker 3: There's an interesting thing that like one of the things

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Speaker 3: you read about like the American Communist Party, well, the

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Speaker 3: thing that they believe in like the thirties and forties

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Speaker 3: is really weird because like if you like read the

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Speaker 3: descriptions of what they think the USSR is, it's like

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Speaker 3: weirdly like syndicalists, like they think it's this kind of

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Speaker 3: like they think it's the thing that the Soviet is

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Speaker 3: supposed to be, where it's like it's like this republic

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Speaker 3: of like these workers councils, right, and they like all

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Speaker 3: believe this, and they all believe this, and they all

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Speaker 3: believe this, and then like like even through Stalin right,

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Speaker 3: like they're all like you watch all these people who

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Speaker 3: are like absolutely convinced that like yeah, this is all

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Speaker 3: just sort of like like all of the stuff and

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Speaker 3: the terrors like capitalist propaganda and then Hungary hits and

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Speaker 3: they're like, oh shit, is It's fascinating because it plays

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Speaker 3: like all over the world. You get like versions of this.

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Speaker 3: There's a really funny one in China where they like

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Speaker 3: the Hungarian Revolution in like actually sort of inspires like

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Speaker 3: a wave of like kind of unrest in China over it,

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Speaker 3: because yeah, it's like not super well known, but there's

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Speaker 3: like kind of like a wave of strikes and like

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Speaker 3: you can like see like a kind of like peaking

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Speaker 3: of this that it's one of the things that kind

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Speaker 3: of like it's one of the things that influences like

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Speaker 3: the Thousand Flowers campaign and in China where like there's

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Speaker 3: this period there's a very brief period in like fifty

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Speaker 3: six and fifty seven where you can like sort of

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Speaker 3: openly criticize the party and like it's lines and like

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Speaker 3: what it's been doing, and then immediately that it all

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Speaker 3: gets cracked down on because it's a lot of it

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Speaker 3: is this attempt to sort of like draw out the

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Speaker 3: kinds of dissonance that had been you know, like like

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Speaker 3: that stuff I had been intensifying as like as like

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Speaker 3: fifty six went on because there's there's all this unrest

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Speaker 3: in poland there's all this like there's all that happens

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Speaker 3: in Hungary and like that like pisses people off, and

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Speaker 3: there's like people in the streets of like Beijing chanting

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Speaker 3: here another Hungary, whoa, and they all get fucking murdered.

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Speaker 2: Also it was another Hungary. They were right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: they all died right, like you know, like and this

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Speaker 2: thing goes on. But it's also really funny because so

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Speaker 2: the official like Chinese Communist party line is that, like

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Speaker 2: the Hungarians were all fascists and they all deserve to

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Speaker 2: be killed. But later on, because they swit from the

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Speaker 2: Soviet Union, their line is that the progue spring in

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Speaker 2: Czechoslovakia was a genuine workers uprising against the Soviets, okay,

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Speaker 2: because that was after the break or whatever. Yeah, that

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Speaker 2: was after the break. Is such a baffling position.

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Speaker 3: Like my my apps, I don't know if my favorite one,

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Speaker 3: but I do want to this one. It was one

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Speaker 3: of the Italian autonomists had this line that was like

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Speaker 3: the Hungarians were right to revolt and also the Soviets

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Speaker 3: were right to repress.

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Speaker 2: Them, which is like the most cognitive I've seen, so

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Speaker 2: like people tie themselves in ideological knots around this problem,

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Speaker 2: like all over the world, like like in every continent,

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Speaker 2: it's people are like trying to square the Soviets just

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Speaker 2: like openly acting as like the guys who fed the

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Speaker 2: workers to the machine guns. And it breaks so many

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Speaker 2: people's brains in so many fascinating ways. I think it's

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Speaker 2: because the like the tanky mind right, has this idea

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Speaker 2: where like it's just an axiom that the USSR was

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Speaker 2: good and so everything has to be warped around that,

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Speaker 2: and they're like, well, I guess you know, I don't

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Speaker 2: know you just said about like, oh, they were right

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Speaker 2: to resist, but also they were right to be cracked

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Speaker 2: down on. You just have to like come up with

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Speaker 2: ways to try and make it fit. And I think

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Speaker 2: one of the things that's so fascinating is that I

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Speaker 2: didn't come up in any kind of context in which

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Speaker 2: I would have to bother defending the idea that Stalin

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Speaker 2: was a bad man, Like yeah, you're like, well, that's

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Speaker 2: just self evident. And it's not just because I like

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Speaker 2: grew up in Cold War United States. I think any objective,

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Speaker 2: big picture view, it's like, well Stalin was bad, you know,

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Speaker 2: like the fact that we have to argue this, okay, anyway,

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Speaker 2: so it's ridiculous, yeah, right away. As soon as this

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Speaker 2: Hungarian revolution happened, there's actually this you know, you can

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Speaker 2: have that meme of two arms holding hands, you know,

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Speaker 2: the two muscle arms holding hands. Yeah, of the USSR

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Speaker 2: and the West both claiming the Hungarian revolution is capitalist. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

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Speaker 2: The West was like, see these people revolted because they

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Speaker 2: love democracy and capitalism and rock and roll or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And the USSR was like, see these people love capitalism

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Speaker 2: and rock and roll or whatever and the bourgeoisie, you know,

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Speaker 2: and they're both wrong and or lying. And I think

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Speaker 2: the governments are lying, and then the individuals who believe

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Speaker 2: the governments are wrong.

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Speaker 3: And this is the thing that like this happens so

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Speaker 3: many times over the course of this thing, because like

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Speaker 3: you know, I mean one of my like Hungry takes

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Speaker 3: right is that it is part of this line of

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Speaker 3: revolutions that is kind of distinct in some sense from

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Speaker 3: like what you would call the Soviet mainline, even though

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Speaker 3: I would argue it starts in like nineteen oh five

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Speaker 3: with the workers councils. Was like, for like one hundred years,

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Speaker 3: the thing that you were doing, if you were doing revolution,

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Speaker 3: basically from like nineteen oh five in Russia through like

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Speaker 3: two thousand and one in Argentina, was you would seize

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Speaker 3: control of your workplace and formal workers council.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's so many of these, right, I mean,

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Speaker 2: this is still a good idea frankly, yeah, yeah, yeah

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Speaker 2: it is. And like I mean they're like, like you know,

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Speaker 2: you can look at like Spain, like Hungary is one

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Speaker 2: of the famous ones. Like this happened in Algeria, this

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Speaker 2: happened in like Czechoslovakia, it happens in Oh my god.

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Speaker 2: Now now that I'm trying to list this off, I'm

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Speaker 2: forgetting a whole bunch of them, a bunch of places. Yeah, totally. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Like you know, like I mean people do this in

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Speaker 2: like Shanghai, they do this in Yeah, it happens to Vietnam.

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Speaker 3: Briefly, Like it's just like all over the world. People

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Speaker 3: do this for like one hundred years. It happens in Italy,

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Speaker 3: in France, and like because they're trying to do socialism, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: they're trying to do socialism. The thing is like, like

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Speaker 3: and this is this is the really effective ideological tactic

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Speaker 3: that both the Soviets and the Americans use, which is

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Speaker 3: that they both were like democracy is capitalism, and so

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Speaker 3: everyone tries to claim all of these revolutions that are

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Speaker 3: like like if you read like a conventional American history

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Speaker 3: of this, they will call this a liberal revolution. They

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Speaker 3: will call them liberalizing reforms. It's like, right, No, they weren't.

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Speaker 3: This is all stuff that's further left than the Soviets.

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Speaker 3: It's like they're trying. They formed the workers' councils again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And the most recent, of course co option of

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Speaker 2: this revolution has been the Hungarian nationalists and the right

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Speaker 2: wing parties who are like and they have no more

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Speaker 2: of a legitimate claim on it than anyone else, which

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Speaker 2: is to say the people have a legitimate claim on it.

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Speaker 2: Are bottom up socialists. That is far and away the

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Speaker 2: largest chunk of this revolution, as the Belgian and French

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Speaker 2: movement communists. It looks like movement communists. I don't know

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Speaker 2: that they drop a lot of letters as they wrote

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Speaker 2: about it. The nineteen fifty six revolution in Hungary was

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Speaker 2: a worker's revolution. The workers constituted the majority of the

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Speaker 2: combatants and deaths against the Russian Army, the AVO, the

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Speaker 2: secret police, and the hostile elements of the Hungarian army.

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Speaker 2: The workers organized themselves into councils and tried, in extremely

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Speaker 2: difficult conditions to elaborate a political and theoretical program which

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Speaker 2: can be criticized today, but which constituted a high point

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Speaker 2: of the limits of its time, and whenever you research

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Speaker 2: something Cold War related, you have to weighe through an

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Speaker 2: ocean of misinformation and contradictory sources. Like you. I came

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Speaker 2: in with like my assumption of a take right, and

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Speaker 2: I actually, I actually thought it was going to be

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Speaker 2: a little bit more politically diverse and a little bit

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Speaker 2: more liberal. That was actually what I was kind of

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Speaker 2: coming into it thinking, because I didn't I didn't want

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Speaker 2: to like hold my breath and hope for it to

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Speaker 2: be like really cool.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I still haven't read everything on this. There's so

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Speaker 2: much written about this, or so many eyewitnesses, but I

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Speaker 2: tried to cast as wide of a net as I could.

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Speaker 2: I wound up reading Soviets with a lot of declassified information,

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Speaker 2: a lot of non tanky communists like the Movement Communist,

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Speaker 2: a lot of anarchists, a lot of capitalists on the issue,

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Speaker 2: and I feel like I have a decent sense of it.

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Speaker 2: The Hungarian Revolution is maybe one of the clearest examples

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Speaker 2: of I've ever seen of something that we've discussed again

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Speaker 2: and again on this show. Sometimes even when you lose,

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Speaker 2: you win, just by fighting, you win. The Hungarian Revolution

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Speaker 2: famously a failed revolution, right, and that's like, oh, we

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Speaker 2: hear about it. It showed that the authoritarianism of the

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Speaker 2: USSR more plainly to the West, and in particular to

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Speaker 2: Western leftists, than anything else had before it. By invading

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Speaker 2: their own satellite state, the USSR torpedoed any chance they

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Speaker 2: had of winning the Cold War, as my argument, because

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Speaker 2: they entirely and irrecoverably broke the international communist movement by

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Speaker 2: so blatantly giving up on their principles. But you know

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Speaker 2: it isn't giving up on my principles. Oh no, the

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Speaker 2: foundings and services that support this podcast, that's right. Oh no,

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Speaker 2: I support all of them because I'm a liberal revolution

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Speaker 2: that's me. Here's some stuff. I like all of it.

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Speaker 2: And Rebeck, So I feel like half the stories we

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Speaker 2: talk about and okay, now I'm gonna do the context part.

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Speaker 2: Everyone's been waiting for that. I feel like half the

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Speaker 2: stories we talk about in Europe could be traced back

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Speaker 2: to the revolutions of eighteen forty eight, which makes sense.

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Speaker 2: The revolutions of eighteen forty eight were the anvil on

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Speaker 2: which most modern socialist ideologies were formed, and more than

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Speaker 2: people necessarily realize, like socialism and liberalism and all of

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Speaker 2: these different sort of modern political ideologies were in response

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Speaker 2: to each other. Socialism wasn't just a like something that

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Speaker 2: showed up late and was like, hey guys, I'm here too,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's actually one of the foundational things of

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Speaker 2: the modern political landscape. We're not going to get into

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Speaker 2: the revolutions of eighteen forty eight two greatly because I

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Speaker 2: don't know. One day, when I have nothing else to do,

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Speaker 2: I'll probably spend an entire year covering the revolutions of

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Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight. There's so many of them, there's so

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Speaker 2: much stuff. It's I know, I know, you can throw

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Speaker 2: I think Wagner is in a story at some point.

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Speaker 2: Marx is in it, Pecuon's in it, pacoonin comes off

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Speaker 2: a little bit better.

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Speaker 3: A guy who challenged Marks to a duel is in it.

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Speaker 3: Hell yeah, it's August.

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Speaker 2: I think I actually just want to read historical fiction

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Speaker 2: about eighteen forty eight. I actually don't think. I don't

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Speaker 2: want to read. It's too much stuff. It's too much,

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Speaker 2: it's too big, h which is why I do a

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Speaker 2: little segmented podcast for everyone. So one thing that is

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Speaker 2: important to understand about the Hungarian Revolution in particular, but

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Speaker 2: also the eighteen forty eight revolution. Is that nationalism in

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Speaker 2: the ninth middle of the nineteenth century, it was both

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Speaker 2: new and leftist, not in a national socialist way. Words

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Speaker 2: just change meanings. Sometimes. Hungarian nationalists were fighting for independence

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Speaker 2: from the Austrian Empire. They were spurred on less by like,

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Speaker 2: but we want our own flag, and we love Hungary

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Speaker 2: and hate everyone who's not Hungarian. And more, we want

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Speaker 2: a democracy because actually I didn't realize this Hungary is

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Speaker 2: like one of the oldest parliamentary democracies in the fucking world.

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Speaker 2: Like they had like shit going back to like thirteen hundreds.

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Speaker 2: I think I didn't end up including all of that

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Speaker 2: in my script, so now I'm just winging it. But

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Speaker 2: they were like, look, we wanted democracy is now in

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Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight times and they were like, we want

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Speaker 2: a democracy and the king said yes. But then the

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Speaker 2: king was replaced by another king who said no, you

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Speaker 2: can't have it. Orb's a emperor or whatever the fuck.

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Speaker 2: The rebels put up a really serious fight and it

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Speaker 2: took Austria making common cause with Russia to put them down.

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Speaker 2: So there's a history of Russia invading Austria and democracy

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Speaker 2: while the rest of Europe was modernizing with textiles and mines.

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Speaker 2: Hungary was modernizing with flour mills. They were a key

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Speaker 2: point for food trade around Europe, and they started more

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Speaker 2: properly urban industrializing kind of late in the game. They

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Speaker 2: don't really have like iron ore. There's like some mines

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Speaker 2: and I think the north of the country where's some hills,

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Speaker 2: but like its resources as they can grow stuff, you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's cultural, yeah, which famously doesn't imagine being a like

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Speaker 2: I'm a country and I'm like all that matters is industry.

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Speaker 2: To hell with food and you're like, how is that?

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Speaker 2: What's your plan there? Like, don't you realize you got

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Speaker 2: to eat food?

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Speaker 3: Like that's they're calling it the Great Leap Forward. It

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Speaker 3: goes forward, which were that is admittedly a simplistic explanation,

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Speaker 3: the Great Leap Forward, that's not really accurate.

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Speaker 2: But oh god does that mean? Is that what? Like,

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Speaker 2: because we're trying to bring back adustrial production of the

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Speaker 2: United States, We the fascists are trying to bring back

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Speaker 2: industrial production to the United States right now? Is that

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Speaker 2: going to be a problem?

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Speaker 3: Okay, I will give I will give my one sentence

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Speaker 3: rant about that, which is that that is deeply unfair

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Speaker 3: to the Great Leap Forward comparing it to this, because

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Speaker 3: the Great Leap Forward, at the very least was a

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Speaker 3: response to a production bottleneck, okay, where they didn't have

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Speaker 3: enough cultural goods to produce more like industrial goods. But

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Speaker 3: they also couldn't increase your agricultural output with that increasing

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Speaker 3: your industrial output.

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Speaker 2: And this is causing an inflationary crisis, and so they

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Speaker 2: tried to like just power their way through it with

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Speaker 2: pure what if you made everyone work harder and it

401
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Speaker 2: turns out that's a terrible idea, okay, and take people

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Speaker 2: out of agriculture and put them in other things, terrible idea.

403
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Speaker 2: I think instead of comparing this to the Great Leap Forward,

404
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Speaker 2: I want to compare it to something that's going to

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Speaker 2: happen a little bit later in this story in Hungary.

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Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. In nineteen nineteen,

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Speaker 2: Hungary tried to do a revolution. We covered this a

408
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Speaker 2: little bit on the Bela Lugosi Vampire episodes because one

409
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Speaker 2: of some of my favs, some of my favor I oh,

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Speaker 2: I know it turns out in case anyone's curious, go

411
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Speaker 2: look for the vampires are on our side because Bella Lagosi,

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Speaker 2: the original Dracula, fought in the nineteen nineteen uprising and

413
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Speaker 2: had to flee the country, and also Max Shrek, the

414
00:22:14,080 --> 00:22:16,600
Speaker 2: other famous vampire actor from around the same time, was

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Speaker 2: a leftist anti fascist bouncer in Weimar, Germany. Anyway, So

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Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen Hungary tried to do a revolution, and they

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Speaker 2: tried to do it the actual communist way, where you

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Speaker 2: set up workers councils soviets and then have a bottom

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Speaker 2: up socialist society, which is, as you pointed out, the

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Speaker 2: way that every revolution tries to start, and then it

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Speaker 2: often either gets crushed or it gets co opted by authoritarians, right,

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Speaker 2: which is just so funny to me because there's like

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Speaker 2: a really clear structure. It's not like people are like, oh,

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Speaker 2: you just want socialism, but you don't want to do anything.

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Speaker 2: They're like, no, we have this structural idea and we've

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Speaker 2: tested it time and time again, where we create a

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Speaker 2: federation of these councils and then they go up to

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Speaker 2: the bigger councils and they all talk and it's bottom

429
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 2: up instead of top down, and like, that's just what

430
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:07,920
Speaker 2: socialism fucking meant. Until the twentieth century when anyway, whatever.

431
00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, what a bunch of people read about the German post

432
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 3: office and we're like, holy shit, what if socialism was

433
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 3: to post office. You think I'm joking, Go read your letted.

434
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 3: She will make this argument.

435
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: I am.

436
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 2: I am not surprised. So nineteen nineteen fails in Hungary,

437
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 2: Bella Lagosi has to flee. I think he goes to

438
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 2: buymar Germany before he comes to the States. I can't remember.

439
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 2: It was hammer Max Shrek who came as an undocumented migrant,

440
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 2: and after World War One, Hungary ended up in a

441
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,320
Speaker 2: bad spot. They ended up with a national conservative something

442
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:43,199
Speaker 2: akin to but different from, a fascist in charge. His

443
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 2: name is Admiral Horthy and he ruled from nineteen nineteen

444
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 2: until the end of World War Two. He was totally

445
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 2: down to join the Access Powers in World War Two.

446
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,560
Speaker 2: If you want to read so much cope, you should

447
00:23:53,600 --> 00:23:58,679
Speaker 2: read his Wikipedia article because it is full of cope

448
00:23:58,920 --> 00:24:02,240
Speaker 2: about the number of Jews he sent off to die.

449
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: Oh God, because he is the only Axis Power leader

450
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 2: I believe to survive the war. So he got to

451
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 2: like write a memoir Jesus Christ. Anyway, so he joins

452
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,719
Speaker 2: the Axis powers in World War Two. He's also like, uh,

453
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 2: just kidding, I hate the Axis Allies. Can you take

454
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,120
Speaker 2: me once the Red Army is like at his door?

455
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 2: Oh no, And since he was starting to get disloyal,

456
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:31,600
Speaker 2: he got the Italy treatment. Germany invaded and occupied Hungary.

457
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 2: Oh my god, they'd already deported some Jewish people, but

458
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:38,280
Speaker 2: once Germany occupied it was like four hundred thousand Jews

459
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:41,320
Speaker 2: were sent to their deaths. Jesus Christ. Yeah, and like

460
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 2: his whole thing is He's like, I tried to stop.

461
00:24:43,400 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 2: I tried to only send one hundred thousand. And I'm like, man,

462
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 2: you kill one person and you go to prison for

463
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 2: the rest of your life. I'm just gonna say this,

464
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,879
Speaker 2: like they the number I wish you should just die

465
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 2: is one. Yeah, Like yeah, like this, why do we

466
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 2: let this guy live through this? Like what the fuck? Yeah?

467
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 2: Because he was like he's like the reluctant Axis guy.

468
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 2: That's his like whole vibe. And I swear to God,

469
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 2: oh no, I just had to be a Nazi, you

470
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 2: know the horror Oh I know, God, what a pathetic

471
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 2: fucking worm. And he was like he's just like, well,

472
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 2: I hated communism so much. That I had to become

473
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 2: a Nazi. Like, look, a lot of us have spent

474
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 2: our entire political careers hating both the USSR and the fascists. Okay, also, like, like,

475
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 2: which did Churchill fun against the Nazis? You have no excuse?

476
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:40,360
Speaker 2: Totally totally, God damn it. When the Soviets, the Soviets

477
00:25:40,359 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 2: come and they capture Hungary and they put a guy

478
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 2: named Bella Michlos in charge, and he's a there there

479
00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 2: is a lot of bias in all of the stories

480
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 2: that you read about Hungary and anything fucking Cold War related.

481
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 2: And so though though if you read a leftist take,

482
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 2: including an anarchist take, they'll be like, look, the Soviets

483
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 2: invaded and they put a Nazi in charge. This is true.

484
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,200
Speaker 2: They put Bella Miklos in charge. He was a Hungarian

485
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: general who had an iron Cross that had been given

486
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 2: to him by Hitler, but he had actually defected late

487
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 2: in the war and was like literally fighting for the

488
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 2: other side. And I don't know whatever that he wasn't

489
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 2: a fucking good person, but like whatever, he gets the

490
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,680
Speaker 2: Hitler Cross for also having fought Hitler. Yeah, totally, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

491
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 2: Hitler also famously fought Hitler. True, he's sure. He's the

492
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 2: only person you ever killed Hitler, So I know, I know,

493
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:35,520
Speaker 2: people don't give him enough credit for that. So prior

494
00:26:35,560 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 2: to the Soviet capture of the country, and look, it

495
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 2: was good that the Red Army captured Hungary, Like kicking

496
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,479
Speaker 2: out the Nazis is good, right, fuck him? Yeah, they

497
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 2: stopped the Holocaust, like that's good. Famously, World War Two

498
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 2: was the three less evil empires fighting the most evil empire.

499
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:58,160
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the two of them. Admittedly, yeah, okay, fair well,

500
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 2: Italy wasn't as powerful, but oh ja yeah, no, no, no,

501
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 2: I know, you're right, You're right. I'm so sorry. I yeah,

502
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: you're all.

503
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 1: Right.

504
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 2: And so, which is funny because that's even in the

505
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 2: fucking theater of war that my family fought in. Yeah,

506
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 2: mine too. Unfortunately, so prior to the Communists capturing the now,

507
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:24,400
Speaker 2: when I from now on, when I say communist, I'm

508
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:25,720
Speaker 2: going to mean the Communist Party, which is one of

509
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 2: my least favorite semantic things has ever happened. But you know,

510
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 2: imagine a capital ce. Before the Communist took the country,

511
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 2: the Communist Party was tiny. There was a huge socialist

512
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: movement in Hungary, but it was largely Social Democratic and

513
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 2: there's also anarchists and stuff, and of course they're left

514
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 2: out of all of the histories unless you specifically look

515
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 2: for them. But yeah, the Social Democratic Party had ten

516
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 2: times the number of people and they had like organized

517
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 2: all the factory workers and shit. Soviets show up. They

518
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 2: take over all of the existing state apparatus in the country,

519
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:01,199
Speaker 2: including the a v O. The Secret police. Like basically

520
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,359
Speaker 2: the Social Democrats come over at this point, and then

521
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 2: the anarchist movement gets kind of split into a different group.

522
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 2: Like some of them are like, we're getting the fuck

523
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 2: out of here. Some of them are like, we're gonna

524
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: fight tooth and nail against the Soviets, and some of

525
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 2: them are like, hey, the Soviets said that we're allowed

526
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 2: to be legitimized, and so they became like a legitimate

527
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 2: anarchist group and then they all got liquidated. Oh never

528
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:19,399
Speaker 2: do that.

529
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 3: They're always lying and never people have tried this, They

530
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 3: always die.

531
00:28:23,600 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 2: I know, it's Lucy with the football. Come on, Charlie Brown,

532
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 2: just kick the football this time. Yeah. Oh god, I

533
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,360
Speaker 2: hate thinking about this in the context of the fact

534
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 2: that we need a popular front in order to feed

535
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 2: fascism anyway, so they take over. The Soviets takeover. They

536
00:28:40,840 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 2: start stripping the place of resources, which they call reparations,

537
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 2: so that the Hungarian workers are paid shit and all

538
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 2: their food is going to the USSR. In nineteen forty eight,

539
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 2: shit was so bad that the USSR canceled half of

540
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 2: their reparations to avoid uprisings. J Is christ by A.

541
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty nine, the Hungarian Peace Republic was formed, a

542
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 2: single party communist state. Prior to that, there was like, oh,

543
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 2: we're like communists, but there's like elections kind of asterisk,

544
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 2: you know. But the thing is is that the Hungarian

545
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 2: Communist Party was kind of largely made up of these

546
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 2: like social democrats and not actual like communists, and so

547
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 2: they kind of are like, yeah, we're what now, Okay,

548
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 2: I guess we're communists now whatever, And so they kind

549
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 2: of they have this beautiful thing where they're just doing

550
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 2: lip service to everything. They're like, oh, yeah, we're totally

551
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 2: doing the thing, and no one's doing the thing. They're

552
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: all just lying. It's brilliant rules. Yeah, and all these states,

553
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: all the Soviet satellite states, they're all extracted from territories

554
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 2: whatever you would want to call that, I would call

555
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 2: it imperialism, but obviously words of no meaning. To quote

556
00:29:52,880 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 2: historian Nick Heath quote, they sold to Hungary at above

557
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 2: world prices. This is the USSR, and bought it ex

558
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: sports at well below world prices. It's like how they

559
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 2: did their economic extraction. And I have read official Communist

560
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 2: meeting notes from the nineteen fifties where Communist Party members

561
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: say things like, well, Poland thinks were ripping them off

562
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 2: by buying their coal at terrible prices, leaving their entire

563
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 2: economy and shambles and everyone poor as hell. But they're wrong,

564
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 2: Like they don't offer any supporting evidence, Like the Communists

565
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 2: say this. They're like, well, all the workers think that

566
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 2: they're getting ripped off over a coal, which is clearly

567
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 2: not true because the party line says it's not true.

568
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 2: Oh and I think this is just the way that

569
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: the Communist Party members like have to talk, even at

570
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 2: the highest level. Yeah, they have to lace their speech

571
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 2: with disclaimers. A note to the left, don't do that.

572
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,160
Speaker 2: Don't be forced to do that. They have to lace

573
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 2: their speech full of disclaimers like don't worry, I toe

574
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 2: the party line. But some people are saying all the

575
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 2: polls are starving to death. Clearly they're wrong.

576
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 3: I also just love the just the no one having

577
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 3: the cost in a dissonance here of like, congratulations, we

578
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 3: have built communism. It's based on a price system.

579
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 2: What are we doing here? Wait? Yeah, come on, yeah,

580
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 2: come on, meet the new boss actually different from the

581
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 2: old boss, but just worse. Yeah, it's like it's just okay.

582
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 3: So like, yeah, you wake up in the morning, you

583
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 3: go to your communism job, and you get paid your

584
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 3: communism dollars. Did you work for your communism boss? And

585
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 3: your communism boss can have you arrested if you.

586
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 2: It's like, what are we doing here? What was the

587
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 2: point of this? Like, yeah, you have to pay your

588
00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 2: rent to the communism state, Like yep, yep, it's really

589
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 2: hard to make systems worse than capitalism. And hats off

590
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 2: to the USSR. They did their best. Yeah did they succeed,

591
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 2: But they tried. It's a toss up. Yeah they tried

592
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 2: little little better in some areas and worse than other areas. Yeah,

593
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 2: they're both worse. Yeah, exactly exactly the words of Actually

594
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 2: I think that was Stealin who said they're both worse.

595
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 2: Oh where Stalin win Salin did two good things and

596
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it later. Oh mayeople were gonna hold

597
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 2: that against me if you don't keep listening, all right,

598
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 2: you know, and hungry things were bad the five year plan,

599
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: which is like not actually though I bet it's a

600
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 2: perfectly fine way to organize an economyist to set up

601
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 2: a five year plan. They just keep doing bad ones. Yeah, Like,

602
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:31,680
Speaker 2: if you listening, if you wanted your life to get better,

603
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 2: make a five year plan to start working on it.

604
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 2: You got to make plans in order to get anything done.

605
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 2: So I'm not mad about a five year plan. There

606
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 2: were some thatwork.

607
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 3: Fine, it's just you just don't hear about them because

608
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 3: like I don't know, like the five year plan to

609
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: like develop the like I don't know, like you're running

610
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 3: an oil system like worked kind of hell yeah, but

611
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:50,520
Speaker 3: you don't really hear much about it.

612
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, when you're like my five year plan is to

613
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 2: make the library system more accessible, and like everyone's like

614
00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:58,959
Speaker 2: ohs and eat, you know. Like from nineteen forty nine

615
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: to nineteen fifty three, their five year plan involved turning

616
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 2: an agricultural country with no iron ore or coal into

617
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 2: a place full of heavy industry. This is the thing

618
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 2: I was comparing this too earlier. Yeah. Yeah, the capital,

619
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,440
Speaker 2: Budapest in particular, was turned into a factory town making

620
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 2: steel and guns and trucks and bikes and shit like that. Unions,

621
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 2: of course, were dissolved. Can't have unions in your communist country.

622
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 2: Woo hey, you could have them in China. It's just

623
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 2: that your union doesn't get to do anything. Oh okay, Well,

624
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 2: it's just like part of the management structure. It's great,

625
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: it's great.

626
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 3: Well, I mean it's not actually technically formally part of

627
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 3: the MANUFRA structure, but like that's functionally what it does

628
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 3: except for one time at Gianemen and then never again.

629
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: So yeah, they learned their lesson. Yeah, wages fell seventy

630
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 2: five percent between nineteen forty nine and nineteen fifty two. Jesus,

631
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 2: what the oh my god. This is the comparison I

632
00:33:57,880 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 2: want to make when I was saying I want to

633
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 2: make it, compare it to right now moving everything to

634
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:06,200
Speaker 2: heavy industry. But you know, it doesn't hurt the economy.

635
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 3: The products and services support this podcast if you buy them,

636
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 3: but if you don't buy them, it hurts the economy.

637
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:14,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually true. It actually does. It does literally

638
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: help the economy if you buy stuff. That is actually

639
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 2: the way economies work, which is why when you decrease

640
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 2: everyone's wages, you mess the economy up. And when you

641
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:23,240
Speaker 2: make things too expensive to afford and you have hyper inflation,

642
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 2: it messes the economy up. But buying stuff doesn't mess

643
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 2: the economy up unless you support things you shouldn't. And

644
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 2: you know what that's up to you, dear listener, to

645
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 2: listen to these products and services and think about which

646
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 2: ones you support and which ones you don't. And I'm

647
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 2: sure you'll agree with me that they're all good. And

648
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 2: I have personally vetted each and every one. You can't

649
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 2: legally say that YEES training is very clear. Interesting. I

650
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 2: have not vetted any of these That's the actual truth.

651
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:54,919
Speaker 2: I love that I can't lie on air. See it's good.

652
00:34:54,960 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 2: It's keeping me from lying. Here's the ads and we're back.

653
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,240
Speaker 2: Nineteen fifty two was the worst year in Hungarian history

654
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 2: for agriculture. As of that year, I don't know if

655
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 2: it got any better after that. I probably fifty five

656
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 2: percent of people were living below the minimum standard of living.

657
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,400
Speaker 2: When you're like, oh, okay, well that means that forty

658
00:35:24,400 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: five percent we're living above the minimum standard of living. Incorrect,

659
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,720
Speaker 2: Only fifteen percent of people were above the standard of living.

660
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:36,279
Speaker 2: Thirty percent of people were at it. Oh no, this

661
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 2: is oh no, yeah, you can't be doing this to

662
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 2: people like you simply cannot. No, it really didn't work out.

663
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 2: One in five workers had no winter coat Jesus Christ. Like,

664
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 2: that's like, this is something like like Chinese soldiers Moreshkua

665
00:35:53,440 --> 00:35:56,760
Speaker 2: Korea with no shoes bullshit, Like what are we doing here?

666
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 2: Like a peasant can go shoe a bear and have

667
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:03,359
Speaker 2: a coat. You know, you've made them poorer than that,

668
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 2: Like it's actually astonishing. It's like, wow, damn the wages

669
00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 2: of imperialism. Who could possibly have guessed that resource distraction

670
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 2: and redesigning someone's economy would it make people poor? Yeah?

671
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 2: Wow damn woo. So people were upset by this, including communists.

672
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 2: Four hundred and eighty three thousand Communist Party members were

673
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:28,320
Speaker 2: expelled from the Communist Party over this period. Jesus Christ.

674
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 2: That's more Communists than I've ever met. Yeah, are there

675
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 2: even that many Communists in the US?

676
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:34,160
Speaker 1: Now?

677
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 2: Like maybe maybe? And if so, it's like right of

678
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 2: that line, So what happened was everyone stole from their job.

679
00:36:46,200 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 2: It was the only way to make ends meet. The

680
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: entire economy ran on theft. The output quotas that people

681
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: were presented with were absurd, so everyone just lied about

682
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 2: meeting the output quotas. You could probably just like bribe

683
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,720
Speaker 2: the official who's also relying on you know, graft and whatever.

684
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 2: Just mean bribery. I think it just means bribery. Yeah, yeah,

685
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 2: it's like general corruption. Yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, but like Blake.

686
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it graphic is specifically about

687
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:16,439
Speaker 3: taking money out of the thing.

688
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 2: But yeah, so the entire economy is running off of that.

689
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 2: If you go to the store, you know that you're

690
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,960
Speaker 2: going to be ripped off. The scales are weighted against

691
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,240
Speaker 2: you because that's the only way the shopkeepers could survive.

692
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 2: So everyone's stealing from everyone else. Unfortunately, it's not just

693
00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 2: a like noble robinhood. Everyone's stealing from the big state corporation.

694
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 2: You know. Everyone is just trying to fucking live.

695
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 3: Which no one here has any experience of living in

696
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 3: an entire economy that is based on scams and robbing people,

697
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 3: not like none of us. What is AI?

698
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:52,880
Speaker 2: What is crypto. No one, no one's ever seen this before,

699
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:54,879
Speaker 2: no one, no one knows what a robo call is.

700
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,360
Speaker 2: I will say though, April fifteenth is annual steal something

701
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 2: from workday. Wow amn wow. I used to joke when

702
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: I worked for the anarchist publisher a K Press as

703
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 2: a freelancer that I was going to celebrate steal something

704
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:15,880
Speaker 2: from workday, and they were like, please don't. I'm like,

705
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:21,360
Speaker 2: all right, fine, you're a workaround collective. Come on, you

706
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 2: go st you gotta steal a pen, I know, like

707
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: just to maate it. I know, well, obviously I've never

708
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 2: stolen anything, but imagine someone who would have stolen something, okay,

709
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 2: girl boss, girl.

710
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: Bos so moral, so she I know, I know I

711
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:42,600
Speaker 1: was clearly never I think I've like written and published

712
00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: things about how I used to shoplift all the time.

713
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 2: Never mind anyway, as a long time ago, as a

714
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 2: love from corporation statul limitation statue limitations. I want to

715
00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 2: start a podcast is a really bad idea. I always

716
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,160
Speaker 2: wanted to start a podcast called the Statute of Limitations Podcast.

717
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 2: Oh or we just have a lawyer on the phone

718
00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:02,280
Speaker 2: call with us. People tell really cool stories of crime.

719
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 2: After the revelation. After the revelation, we could have the

720
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 2: better podcast. We can't do right now exactly all of

721
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:11,839
Speaker 2: the things we will be able to tell each other

722
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 2: if we yeah, pull off a worker council run society.

723
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 2: So all the while, there's all the usual state communist

724
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:25,400
Speaker 2: fuckery going on. There's internment and labor camps, there's internal

725
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 2: exile and deportment. I think people are getting like sent

726
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,439
Speaker 2: off to the USSR at labor camps or whatever. There's

727
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,359
Speaker 2: no religious tolerance, there's no free speech. Lots of people

728
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 2: are getting arrested for quote incorrect opinions. And dear tankies,

729
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 2: if you're hate listening this far into it. That is

730
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 2: a direct quote from communist reports of the time talking

731
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 2: about the need to crack down on quote incorrect opinions.

732
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 2: I am not putting words in their mouth. I promised

733
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:58,479
Speaker 2: you earlier that Stalin did two good things with his life. Ooh.

734
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 2: One of them was that he used to rob Banks

735
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 2: as a communist revolutionary, And honestly, that was just kind

736
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:05,400
Speaker 2: of cool, Like this is funny, It's pretty funny. He

737
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:06,880
Speaker 2: was kind of a cool guy. Ever, the moment, he

738
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:09,080
Speaker 2: was probably a terrible person. I don't know, great episode

739
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 2: of vanderwer based off of it. We're episodes. Oh shit, yeah,

740
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 2: I'm not watching second season until all of it's out.

741
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 2: That's so reasonable that this is this that season one though.

742
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 2: Oh well, I have no functional memory, so that's my

743
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 2: excuse there. That's reasonable. You know, many such cases, many

744
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 2: such cases, which is also I'm really screwed when it

745
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 2: comes to TV shows because I have to The reason

746
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:30,720
Speaker 2: I have to watch it all at once is because

747
00:40:31,040 --> 00:40:34,720
Speaker 2: I forget everything. But I also have to watch everything linear.

748
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:37,240
Speaker 2: So when like a new season, like a new season,

749
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,200
Speaker 2: a lower decks came out and I'm I just finished

750
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 2: rewatching all first four seasons so that I could watch

751
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,359
Speaker 2: season five. Oh, because I can't just jump in. But

752
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 2: Jamie Loftus helped make it so I have to watch it. Yeah.

753
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, yeah, beloved friend of the show

754
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 3: and coworker, Jamie Loftus.

755
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, we love Jamie. So that was one of the

756
00:40:58,120 --> 00:41:01,800
Speaker 2: things that Stalin did that was good. Was Rob Banks. Second.

757
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 2: He made his greatest contribution to socialism on March fifth,

758
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three, when he died. Ah, I was gonna

759
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 2: make a joke about him dying. No, I have nothing

760
00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 2: nice to say about that man. Besides the fact that

761
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 2: he was before he had any power and he was

762
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:23,399
Speaker 2: a bank robbery, he was an interesting person. He died

763
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 2: and everyone was like desperately like, oh cool, can we

764
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:29,520
Speaker 2: destalinize now? This has been just a reign of terrors,

765
00:41:29,560 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 2: like literally a rule by fear, and it affected everyone

766
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 2: at the highest levels too. So a guy named Krushchev

767
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,080
Speaker 2: came into power, and for a while in the nineteen

768
00:41:37,120 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: fifties the USSR looked like it was going to de

769
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,880
Speaker 2: Stalinize and become slightly less fucked of a place. Spoiler alert,

770
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 2: this is the guy who was about to invade Hungary.

771
00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 2: In Hungary, things start to become a little bit more free. Specifically,

772
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 2: in June of nineteen fifty three, the leader Matthias Rikassi,

773
00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 2: who called himself Stalin's Hungarian disciple, stepped aside for a

774
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 2: guy named Imare Nog. And this guy has done a

775
00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 2: lot of stalinisty things over his life Nog, but in general,

776
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 2: his whole thing was like not being as bad as Stalin.

777
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:12,600
Speaker 2: I was like his whole vibe right.

778
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:15,399
Speaker 3: But that great great bander to be able to wave

779
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 3: like I'm not as bad as Stalin well, spoiler alert,

780
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 3: it's gonna get him killed by the communists.

781
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 1: Rip.

782
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 2: I guess unless it here is always be worse than

783
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 2: Stalin were the same as Stealin. No, they'd probably get

784
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 2: killed by Stalin too, that's true. That's true. Be Stalin.

785
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 2: I guess it's never safe to be a Bolshevik. Bolsheviks

786
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:37,439
Speaker 2: will kill you.

787
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 3: Like that's always the thing is, like people always assume

788
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 3: that you're going to be like Stalin, or you're gonna

789
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 3: be on the secial committee or something. It's like, no,

790
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 3: like you're gonna be some asshole who's like neighbor gets

791
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:49,879
Speaker 3: into an argument with you over like dishwashing, and they're

792
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 3: gonna report you to the secret police and then you're

793
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:51,919
Speaker 3: gonna die.

794
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,319
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like that's like the actual like experience of this,

795
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 2: like yeah, you, oh, you'll be I've read accounts of

796
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 2: people in the Red Arm in World War Two, not

797
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 2: only like not being given a gun and being sent

798
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:07,480
Speaker 2: into battle anyway being like, well there'll be guns around,

799
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 2: just get out there, but literally told that if they

800
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 2: don't like shout like glory to Stalin enough as they

801
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 2: like charge tanks with their fingernails, that they're going to

802
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 2: be shot by the cadre who's behind them? Great, great, great, incredible. Well,

803
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:21,439
Speaker 2: I mean, look, you have to use the guings for something,

804
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 2: and it can't be shooting at the Nazis. Yeah I know, yeah, yeah, look,

805
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:26,799
Speaker 2: you have so many communists to shoot, like, I know,

806
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 2: I know. No one is better at killing communists than communists.

807
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 2: The Nazis came close, they tried, they did their past. Yeah, yeah,

808
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,200
Speaker 2: which fuck them. Actually it might be a it might

809
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 2: be a tie. Yeah, they might have. They might actually

810
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 2: have been better at it. Yeah, but anyway, A couple

811
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 2: of days later, after Nog gets into power, there's a

812
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 2: worker's insurrection in East Berlin involving a million fucking people

813
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 2: who wanted to live decent lives. Fifty or one hundred

814
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 2: people were killed when the USSR crushed that rebellion with tanks.

815
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 2: In a couple of days, looking at Hungary and the

816
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:06,799
Speaker 2: general discontent, Nog is like, maybe we should try something new,

817
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 2: a new course, he called it. And that's what it

818
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 2: was called, with like capital N and capital C. Better

819
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 2: standard of I mean, it is genuinely a better thing.

820
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 2: Nog is not actually a bad person in this story.

821
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 2: Better standard of living, No more internment, camps. Some prisoners

822
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 2: get amnesty. People can have religion, I guess, and also

823
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:32,760
Speaker 2: stop trying to force everything to industrialize. Collectivization of farms

824
00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 2: is now optional, and so a quarter of them decollectivized.

825
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,000
Speaker 2: I believe it to set up like small farms, but

826
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:40,799
Speaker 2: I don't know. It could have been trying capitalist farms.

827
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 2: I don't know. Nog was still like a pro stalin

828
00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 2: Ish guy, and he called the Great Purge of the

829
00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: lighteen thirties trial and error.

830
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 3: I guess that is technically true. They did do trials

831
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 3: and they didn't make a lot of errors.

832
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 2: But it's true. It's gonna happen to him too, because

833
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,799
Speaker 2: they even, like half of those people who get killed later,

834
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 2: the communists are like, oh, I shouldn't have killed that guy.

835
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,040
Speaker 2: There's a whole yeah, there's a whole like thing. Which

836
00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: is also funny because people now today believe that, like

837
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: all those people deserve to die. It's like the communists,

838
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 2: like the stalin Ist yeah, like the actual like stalind

839
00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:14,839
Speaker 2: didn't believe that, like what are we doing here?

840
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:15,240
Speaker 1: Yeah?

841
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: Absolutely terrible, terrible, And they tried the new course and

842
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,880
Speaker 2: for a while it must have been nice. But on

843
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 2: April eighteenth nineteen fifty five, naug is kicked out and

844
00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 2: another guy, Hegettis, is in and I probably mispronounced his name,

845
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: but it's okay because he's not going to come back

846
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,279
Speaker 2: up in the story. No more new course, back to

847
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 2: rule by fear. Peasants who don't meet their quotas are deported.

848
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 2: I believe to do labor in the USSR, but everything

849
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 2: I like, literally I like three different sources are like, oh,

850
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:45,000
Speaker 2: they get deported as if I know exactly what that

851
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:45,719
Speaker 2: means instead of just.

852
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:48,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I mean it could also mean like internal deportation,

853
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 3: because like right, yeah, like Soviet systems are set up

854
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 3: such that like you're not supposed to be have like

855
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 3: leave your area.

856
00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:55,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that.

857
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 3: There's just like a weird thing that still exists in

858
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 3: some European cities where like you can get kicked out

859
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 3: if you're like in another city and like at night

860
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 3: like to do this with like like people who look

861
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 3: not white in like Belgium.

862
00:46:05,440 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're like in another city partying, they will

863
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 2: just like fucking kick you out and send you back

864
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 2: to the city. You're like quote unquote supposed to be

865
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: in terrible stuff. Zero out of ten we hate it.

866
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,080
Speaker 2: I think that that's gonna be like a big that's

867
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 2: like a big sign of when US authoritarianism gets to

868
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,560
Speaker 2: a point where like internal travel, I mean obviously internal

869
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 2: travel isn't always safe for everyone already. Yeah, like there's already,

870
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 2: like anything, we're retally close to the borders. It's like,

871
00:46:28,920 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 2: you know, especially to further south you go, has had checkpoints,

872
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:34,239
Speaker 2: but like it can get worse. It can always get worse. Yeah,

873
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 2: and I guess they also are trying to make it

874
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 2: illegal it whatever. I don't know all the details of

875
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 2: all the laws, but like you can't go get reproductive

876
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 2: care in another state sometimes, and yeah, freedom of movement.

877
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:51,800
Speaker 2: I think it should be complete and for involve international

878
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 2: borders as well, but well there shouldn't be them, but anyway,

879
00:46:56,480 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 2: So in May nineteen fifty five, speaking of internationalization, the

880
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 2: Warsaw Pact was signed. This was the USSR's answered, well,

881
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:08,880
Speaker 2: it was the Soviet Block's answer to NATO. It is

882
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:11,720
Speaker 2: a military alliance of all the Eastern Bloc communist countries.

883
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,560
Speaker 2: This alliance ostensibly means any country will support the others,

884
00:47:16,360 --> 00:47:19,399
Speaker 2: but it also means, in effect, Soviet troops are allowed

885
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: to occupy any Eastern Bloc country as long as NATO

886
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 2: is around. To be fair, NATO is the same thing,

887
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 2: just with the US and the USSRS for all.

888
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like and there they are going to spend

889
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 3: a lot of the money and resources from that forming

890
00:47:33,200 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 3: like incredibly weird stay behind networks of like Nazis with guns.

891
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 3: We're gonna do a whole bunch of terrible shit.

892
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:42,319
Speaker 2: So it's not great, Like these things both suck. I

893
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 2: literally don't whether you're talking about the Soviets or NATO,

894
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:46,319
Speaker 2: but either way, oh, NATO, NATO, this is not talking

895
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:50,080
Speaker 2: about but yeah that the Soviets tend to be more

896
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,839
Speaker 2: like tank roly and the NATO tends to be more

897
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 2: like ooh by weird spies handed in Neo Nazia a

898
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 2: bunch of bombs and they blew a bunch of train up. Yeah,

899
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,239
Speaker 2: fair enough. Soviet troops are stationed in Hungary as a

900
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:08,680
Speaker 2: result of the War So Pact. The majority of Hungarians

901
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:12,120
Speaker 2: see themselves as under occupation and that however, my source

902
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:14,320
Speaker 2: on that is a US Army report from early nineteen

903
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 2: fifty six, which is not the most reliable source, but

904
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 2: it matches everything else I've read. I just want to

905
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: flag that one is not the safest source. But I

906
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 2: want to talk about that report from January nineteen fifty six.

907
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,839
Speaker 2: We're going to talk more later about US involvement and

908
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: lack of involvement in the Hungarian Revolution, But in January

909
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six, there was a US Army intelligence briefing

910
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 2: about Hungary about whether or not it was a reasonable

911
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 2: place to foment insurrection against communism. There were probably reports

912
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 2: like this for all the communist countries, but this is

913
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 2: the one that I read. The report decided the answer

914
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:53,719
Speaker 2: of whether or not to foment an insurrection Hungary was no,

915
00:48:54,520 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 2: saying that Hungary was quote singularly unpromising. I wonder if

916
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:02,719
Speaker 2: you're gonna be able to guess why it's unpromising. You

917
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:04,799
Speaker 2: probably aren't. It's too weird of an answer, although it's

918
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 2: an answer I like, too democratic. No, it's it's too

919
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 2: geographically flat. Oh, it's the fucking Oh, it's the Siga War.

920
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 2: You need mountains to have a gorilla war. You know,

921
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 2: one day on this show, we're gonna do my blanky.

922
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 2: The writers of Rohan who didn't have mountains and they

923
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:33,800
Speaker 2: still kicked ass. I was Emakar Cabral who was like, ah,

924
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:35,280
Speaker 2: the people are my mountains.

925
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 3: Each ship will fight a war in the planes that Oh,

926
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 3: he's the guy. He was one of the guys who

927
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:46,479
Speaker 3: like liberated Guinea Bissau and like the Cape Verde from

928
00:49:47,840 --> 00:49:48,879
Speaker 3: from the Portuguese.

929
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 2: Okay, and they killed it. They killed him before he

930
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:55,200
Speaker 2: could like because he didn't have mountains. They won the war.

931
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,320
Speaker 2: Oh okay, fair enough, Okay, okay, the people were his mountains.

932
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 2: They also like basically defeated fascist in Portugal basically like

933
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 2: they can't kick their ask so much that the government collapsed.

934
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, yeah, shit guy rules. Also, I want to

935
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 2: just make a correction of something I said earlier. Rohan

936
00:50:15,160 --> 00:50:17,040
Speaker 2: was able to go to helms deep, which were in

937
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,359
Speaker 2: the mountains, and that's true. That's true. That is how

938
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 2: they survived. So I apologize everyone. One day I'm gonna

939
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 2: have an actual person who has Lord of the Rings

940
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:27,440
Speaker 2: on here and they're gonna be like, what's the name

941
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: of the mountains, And I'll be like, man, I don't

942
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 2: know the name of the mountains. What the fuck? I

943
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 2: just like read those books a couple of times, and

944
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 2: I like the stories, like what God created the mountains,

945
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 2: like yeah, exactly. Anyway, so they look at so the

946
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 2: US Army. The US Army looks at this place and

947
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 2: is like, this is unpromising. There is less active resistance

948
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 2: there than there were in any of the other Warsaw

949
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 2: packed countries, but there was very widespread passive resistance, especially

950
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:59,480
Speaker 2: among the peasantry, because agricultural workers were under less strict control,

951
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 2: because it's harder to control people in rural areas than

952
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 2: when they're condensed into factories. Sure, if you don't meet quotas,

953
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 2: you will be deported, but there were widespread work slowdowns

954
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:14,239
Speaker 2: and shit, especially in the rural areas. And the report

955
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 2: comes out in January and Eisenhower's like, yeah, that's not

956
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,080
Speaker 2: worth fighting a world war over. I am not fomenting

957
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 2: an insurrection there, and the issue is largely dropped. I

958
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:26,320
Speaker 2: will come back and talk about some of the US involvement,

959
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 2: but that's later and less than what people claim. Meanwhile,

960
00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 2: throughout the nineteen fifties, revolts start to pop off around

961
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 2: the Warsaw packed countries, and even within the USSR. Poland

962
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 2: had been revolting, and Polish communists are like, aren't we

963
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:44,640
Speaker 2: fucking independent from the USSR? Isn't that like part of

964
00:51:44,680 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 2: our whole thing, Like I thought we were a communist country.

965
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:50,000
Speaker 2: That's like a separate country. And they were upset that

966
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 2: they had to sell coal at shitty prices to the USSR.

967
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 2: Poland's economy was completely wrecked under communism in the fifties.

968
00:51:57,200 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 2: According to communist documents, by June nineteen fifty six, you

969
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 2: have one hundred thousand polls demonstrating against the communist regime

970
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,879
Speaker 2: and fifty seven people were killed. People in Hungary were

971
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 2: aware of this happening. Declassified documents show that all the

972
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:17,800
Speaker 2: communist parties of these various countries were like saying, declassified documents.

973
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 2: They were declassified a long time ago. I'm not being

974
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 2: like I've got my no.

975
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, are these these are like Falosov Union documents, Yeah exactly,

976
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:26,720
Speaker 3: like we got all the troops.

977
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

978
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:31,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. The communist parties of all these various countries were like, oh, fuck,

979
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 2: we're losing control in nineteen fifty six, so they got

980
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 2: together to be like, what the fuck are we going

981
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 2: to do? Press and radio were starting to leave Communist

982
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 2: party control, partly due to dissent within the party. This

983
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:46,760
Speaker 2: is specifically in Hungary. The main Communist Party paper. Remember

984
00:52:46,800 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 2: I promised to you earlier that the Hungarian Communist Party

985
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:51,840
Speaker 2: was full of people who were like, were what now communists?

986
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:54,440
Speaker 2: All right? I guess I mean we were socialists. I

987
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 2: guess sure, you know, the main Communist party paper in

988
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 2: Hungary was run by communists who dis agreed with the

989
00:53:00,520 --> 00:53:07,240
Speaker 2: Communist party line. An internal Communist Party investigation from Moscow reported, quote,

990
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:12,800
Speaker 2: a practically parallel Communist party, opposed to the Central Committee

991
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 2: of the party has been created, which acts freely and

992
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 2: without impediments. Woo, that rules things. I created a second

993
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 2: shadow Communist party inside of the regular covenis from It

994
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 2: sucks less, but it was like but it was basically

995
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 2: the entire Communist Party was the shadow Communist party. The

996
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:38,000
Speaker 2: Communist Party of Hungary wasn't loyal to the Communist Party

997
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,080
Speaker 2: of Hungary, or at least its own ostensible party line.

998
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 2: People were paying lip service to the party line in

999
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 2: order to not get crushed. Several hundred dissident party members

1000
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:48,880
Speaker 2: have recently been released from prison and shit, I think

1001
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:52,279
Speaker 2: as part of the new course. And so Rakosi was like,

1002
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 2: the guy who's in charge right now, He's like, well, quote,

1003
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 2: if we arrest some others will appear, and if we

1004
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 2: arrest them, the third wave will arise and there would

1005
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:05,560
Speaker 2: be no end to that. He's just like, nah, yeah, yeah,

1006
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:07,279
Speaker 2: I would get the rest of them, like, let just keep

1007
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 2: me more. Yeah. And so that the communist guy from

1008
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 2: Moscow is writing this report. His name is Anastas mccoyan,

1009
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: and he wrote, just to quote him from his report, quote,

1010
00:54:19,280 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 2: the local Communist party should not have its own policy.

1011
00:54:22,719 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 2: It should be an executor of the Russian Communist Party's decisions.

1012
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 2: Which is just like a this isn't the USSR, Like

1013
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 2: this is such a nice, clear, blatant example of the

1014
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 2: fact that like the satellite states were just that, you know, yeah,

1015
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:40,359
Speaker 2: they're just colonies, yeah, like the US and Puerto Rico.

1016
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 2: And here's one of my favorite pieces of Soviet double

1017
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:47,319
Speaker 2: think I've ever read, from the same report, quote, A

1018
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,400
Speaker 2: situation where newspapers in the radio cease to serve as

1019
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:54,280
Speaker 2: channels of the Central Committee line also represents a violation

1020
00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 2: of internal party democracy. It is therefore necessary to get

1021
00:54:58,120 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 2: rid of all press and radio staff unwilling to implement

1022
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 2: the Central Committee's line in the name of democracy. Oh god.

1023
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 2: And so there's this thing that happens sometimes in history,

1024
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 2: and when this thing happens, you usually get a revolution.

1025
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:22,759
Speaker 2: As far as I can tell, it is when young

1026
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:27,279
Speaker 2: intellectual types start talking to and listening to workers and

1027
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:30,840
Speaker 2: vice versa. And you've got that going on in Hungary

1028
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 2: at this point. The Young Communists is the official youth

1029
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 2: organization of the Communist Party. Oh yeah, the group that

1030
00:55:38,239 --> 00:55:42,400
Speaker 2: leads the fucking revolution is part of the Communist Party.

1031
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 2: And in April nineteen fifty five, the year before the revolution,

1032
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:50,399
Speaker 2: they formed the Potophi Circle. It is named after an

1033
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 2: eighteen forty eight Hungarian national poet who fought against the

1034
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 2: Austrians back in that pro democracy leftist nationalist revolution. I

1035
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 2: was talking about the very beginnings of people were attending

1036
00:56:01,520 --> 00:56:04,959
Speaker 2: these Potfi Circle meetings. This isn't just like a book

1037
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:07,320
Speaker 2: club or whatever. I mean. Book clubs are great, listen

1038
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 2: to mine every Sunday and so okay. I was saying

1039
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,359
Speaker 2: how peasants can do passive resistance because they're not as

1040
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:17,399
Speaker 2: closely surveilled. But industrial workers have an advantage too. They

1041
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 2: can organize because they're in close proximity to each other,

1042
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 2: and they're also because they're in the cities in proximity

1043
00:56:23,600 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 2: with the po TOFI circle of intellectuals, and the two

1044
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:30,480
Speaker 2: groups start talking more and more. These people do not

1045
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: want to end communism. They are communists. They want communism,

1046
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 2: they want democratic workplace control, unions, workers' rights ideally, and

1047
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,359
Speaker 2: they're kind of split over whether they want to use

1048
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:49,279
Speaker 2: a sort of existing state Soviet infrastructure and have like

1049
00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:52,440
Speaker 2: a more top down kind of whatever, or if they

1050
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 2: want worker control of their own workplace, complete bottom up

1051
00:56:56,000 --> 00:57:01,080
Speaker 2: transformation of society. Yeah. By nineteen fifth they start having

1052
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 2: some strikes, not the Potoviy circle but workers, and the

1053
00:57:04,200 --> 00:57:09,040
Speaker 2: potovie circle starts supporting those strikes. And then okay, So

1054
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 2: this guy named Laslo Rosch, he was a Hungarian communist.

1055
00:57:13,480 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 2: He did it all. He was kicked out of the

1056
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 2: school in the nineteen thirties for being Communist party member.

1057
00:57:18,440 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 2: He fought in Spain and the International Brigades of the

1058
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:23,800
Speaker 2: Spanish Civil War take a drink for Spanish Civil War. Mentioned.

1059
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:28,320
Speaker 2: He organized underground communist shit and fascist Hungary during World

1060
00:57:28,320 --> 00:57:31,080
Speaker 2: War Two and was arrested and barely survived. And then

1061
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 2: I did say he was a state communist. He ran

1062
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:38,320
Speaker 2: the communists secret police in Hungary. Oh No, and he

1063
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 2: set up the very first show trials in that country

1064
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 2: and started persecuting religious people. And do you know how

1065
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 2: it killed him. It's not gonna be suberculous this. That's

1066
00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:50,920
Speaker 2: the other thing that kills people, the government. Yeah, the government. Yeah. No,

1067
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:53,480
Speaker 2: he was killed in a show trial, only a couple

1068
00:57:53,520 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 2: of years after he invented show trialsks, folks, don't show trials.

1069
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 2: You will die in your own show trial. Yes, simply

1070
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 2: do not do it. They're easy. I'm doing it right now. Yeah,

1071
00:58:07,400 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 2: he does not do it. Play authoritarian games and you

1072
00:58:10,960 --> 00:58:15,680
Speaker 2: win authoritarian prizes. Why do I bring him up? His wife,

1073
00:58:15,840 --> 00:58:19,920
Speaker 2: Julia Rosh was part of the Potofi circle, and they

1074
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 2: forced the government to officially say, I guess we shouldn't

1075
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:26,760
Speaker 2: have killed that guy. And one hundred thousand people turn

1076
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,920
Speaker 2: up for his new state funeral and it's one hundred

1077
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:33,600
Speaker 2: thousand anti establishment folks, m h. And it is the

1078
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 2: first big gathering of such people in Hungary since Soviet era.

1079
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:41,840
Speaker 2: And so yeah, the po Tofi circle is organizing. They

1080
00:58:41,880 --> 00:58:43,960
Speaker 2: go out all over the country to other cities and

1081
00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 2: start spreading their ideas and soon they're gonna have a revolution,

1082
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about on Wednesday. Ooh, cliffhanger. Oh, I know,

1083
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,760
Speaker 2: you gotta come back. There's a better cliffhanger, like about

1084
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:00,800
Speaker 2: five hundred words from now the script, but it would

1085
00:59:00,800 --> 00:59:02,760
Speaker 2: have been too uneven of a break. I could have

1086
00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 2: left it on the like and they've got guns, what's

1087
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:09,200
Speaker 2: gonna happen? Don't worry, They're gonna get guns, and then

1088
00:59:09,200 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 2: we'll see what happens. Oh yeah, So I'm excited for

1089
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 2: the workers getting guns. We always like the workers getting guns.

1090
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 2: I know, I know that's a big uh. Well, actually

1091
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 2: it almost ended up in the script and then got

1092
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 2: I ended up taking it out because people kind of

1093
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,640
Speaker 2: take Marxist quotes about gun control out of context. It

1094
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 2: turns out like he has this quote where Marx is

1095
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 2: a quote where he's like, I don't know whatever, like

1096
00:59:32,440 --> 00:59:34,680
Speaker 2: don't let the workers be disarmed. Yeah, it's like the

1097
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:37,640
Speaker 2: workers should never give up their guns. Yeah yeah, But

1098
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 2: that's actually in the context of a communist state, like

1099
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:45,360
Speaker 2: being the community, being the people trying to It's like

1100
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:47,240
Speaker 2: not quite as cool of a quote as even I

1101
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:50,440
Speaker 2: want it to be. And so I try to include

1102
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 2: I'll bunch of that stuff, and then I ended up

1103
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 2: cutting a lot out I also ended up cutting out

1104
00:59:54,040 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 2: a lot where I like would find sources with like

1105
00:59:56,960 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 2: really banger quotes about why like Lenin quotes about like

1106
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 2: don't do imperialism in your communist country or whatever, but

1107
01:00:04,800 --> 01:00:08,400
Speaker 2: then I couldn't source them besides to the fucking anarchist

1108
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:10,800
Speaker 2: thing from the nineteen sixties that I was quoting from.

1109
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:14,680
Speaker 2: Oh okay, there's actually an explanation for this, okay, just

1110
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:17,200
Speaker 2: that there is a bunch of stuff that Lenin said

1111
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 2: that is cut out of the official anthology that were

1112
01:00:19,280 --> 01:00:21,200
Speaker 2: published by the Soviet Union. Oh shit.

1113
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:25,360
Speaker 3: So, for example, he has this line about how national

1114
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 3: autonomy along the lines of two German guys who name

1115
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:30,560
Speaker 3: I can't remember right now, like is in and of

1116
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 3: a self reactionary okay, which is this thing that is

1117
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 3: like if you take what he's saying like seriously and

1118
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, okay, like you're not supposed to have

1119
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:41,880
Speaker 3: like national cultural autonomy. This also kind of like annihilates

1120
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 3: the basis of sort of like a bunch of the

1121
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 3: way stylist national liberation like functions where you're supposed to

1122
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,520
Speaker 3: have your own sort of like nationalist workers movement, et cetera,

1123
01:00:50,520 --> 01:00:50,840
Speaker 3: et cetera.

1124
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 2: Et cetera. And that shit is fucking gone. They cut

1125
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:57,720
Speaker 2: that shit out of the speeches, like the writings, So

1126
01:00:57,800 --> 01:01:01,360
Speaker 2: there's shit that Lenin said that is just not in

1127
01:01:01,480 --> 01:01:04,880
Speaker 2: the official things were they like edited down his like things.

1128
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 3: And because and because like those official copies of like

1129
01:01:07,440 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 3: Lenin's writings and whatever are the ones that like are

1130
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 3: a lot of the ones that got digitized, they's sometimes

1131
01:01:11,920 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 3: hard to find things that he actually said.

1132
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 2: It's also in translation too, right, so you're searching searching

1133
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 2: a quote, and so if it's not the exact same translation,

1134
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:21,600
Speaker 2: it's gonna be different.

1135
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:24,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like I learned this from a very very

1136
01:01:24,280 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 3: angry trust Gate professor I had in college. That guy,

1137
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 3: I hope he's having a good day.

1138
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:29,960
Speaker 2: It was. It was a whole thing I learned a

1139
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 2: lot about. Trotsky is still a disaster, but they have

1140
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,200
Speaker 2: a lot of very funny beefs that have to do

1141
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:38,560
Speaker 2: with like specific quotes that were cut out.

1142
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:44,440
Speaker 4: But the styllamists, Hell, yeah, it's a good time. Well,

1143
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:48,680
Speaker 4: there's gonna be lots of good revolution and stuff on Wednesday.

1144
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:52,440
Speaker 4: In the meantime, I guess I already plugged book club,

1145
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:57,000
Speaker 4: but I do a book club and Mia, you did.

1146
01:01:57,120 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 4: I just introduced you and assumed everyone listening to who

1147
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 4: you were. But that might not be the case.

1148
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 2: There might be someone who doesn't know who you are.

1149
01:02:05,480 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 2: Who are you? How'd you get here? I am Mia Wong.

1150
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 2: I am one of the hosts of the podcast It

1151
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:12,760
Speaker 2: Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and

1152
01:02:12,760 --> 01:02:15,840
Speaker 2: how to put it back together again. I guess I'm

1153
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:18,240
Speaker 2: also There's a lot of people who don't realize I'm

1154
01:02:18,280 --> 01:02:21,560
Speaker 2: also the Ice Must Be Destroyed girl on originally Twitter

1155
01:02:21,560 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 2: and now just blue Sky. So yeah, I do those things.

1156
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:29,480
Speaker 2: We have a podcast. It's good History is most vindicated poster.

1157
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:32,560
Speaker 2: That is what people are calling you. It was funny.

1158
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 3: I was talking about this today and I was like, well, yeah,

1159
01:02:35,360 --> 01:02:37,920
Speaker 3: of course obviously was like, yes, I took the incredibly

1160
01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 3: bulld political position of regardless of what administration is in power,

1161
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 3: the Gestapo was bad. And I was like, yeah, I

1162
01:02:43,800 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 3: don't know this.

1163
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:47,040
Speaker 2: This is like being vindicated for saying that water is wet,

1164
01:02:47,080 --> 01:02:49,919
Speaker 2: Like it's like, this is the easiest shit of all time.

1165
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 2: Like I will say though, Okay, so for anyone who's listening,

1166
01:02:54,040 --> 01:02:58,960
Speaker 2: MIA's posts always end with furthermore no yes, more over,

1167
01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 2: ice must be destroyed. Moreover, ice must be destroyed. And

1168
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:05,040
Speaker 2: I reached a point because you also have like really

1169
01:03:05,080 --> 01:03:07,400
Speaker 2: good tweet threads. Sometimes I reached a point every now

1170
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:09,640
Speaker 2: and then where I'm like, man, could you just stop?

1171
01:03:09,880 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 2: Like everyone knows this, no, but I can't. It's an

1172
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 2: active hatred act of grief active. And for me it

1173
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:21,160
Speaker 2: came around first is before I even knew you. I

1174
01:03:21,200 --> 01:03:23,160
Speaker 2: was like, oh, it's the ice must be a destroyed girl.

1175
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:25,120
Speaker 2: And then like I was like, oh, I'm friends with

1176
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:27,400
Speaker 2: the ice must be destroyed girl. That's so cool. And

1177
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:30,000
Speaker 2: then eventually I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it.

1178
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:32,320
Speaker 2: I want to read the thread without seeing that every time,

1179
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 2: but as it swings around, I'm like, no, it just

1180
01:03:36,440 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 2: really needs to be said constantly.

1181
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:40,400
Speaker 3: And yeah, because someone asked you and no one else's

1182
01:03:40,600 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 3: and like I don't know, I can. Yeah, Like I

1183
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 3: was doing it in the wake of like just sort

1184
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:47,320
Speaker 3: of collapse of occupy Ice, and like as it was

1185
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:50,080
Speaker 3: sort of falling apart, and like someone had to try

1186
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:53,160
Speaker 3: to keep the fucking flame alive in some public way,

1187
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 3: and yeah, a person shoued out to be me, even

1188
01:03:55,720 --> 01:03:57,440
Speaker 3: though I had like a thousand followers at the time,

1189
01:03:57,480 --> 01:03:58,200
Speaker 3: and I was just like some.

1190
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:02,919
Speaker 2: Dipshit, but I are a dipshit with a ton of followers. Yeah.

1191
01:04:02,960 --> 01:04:05,240
Speaker 3: It's that you too can be some random person who

1192
01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 3: then suddenly does a thing, and you can you can

1193
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 3: do good in the world.

1194
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 2: All right, Well that's it. Listen to more cool Zone

1195
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:19,600
Speaker 2: Media podcasts and we'll talk to you on Wednesday.

1196
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:25,520
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1197
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:26,480
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media.

1198
01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 3: For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website

1199
01:04:29,800 --> 01:04:33,479
Speaker 3: Foolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1200
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,360
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.