WEBVTT - Part One: A Tale of Two Snipers: Simo Häyhä, Lyudmila Pavlichenko & the Eastern Front 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:03.400 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:09.680 a podcast that usually isn't about shooting people. I'm your host, 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.960 Margaret Kiljoy, and that is the sketchiest introduction that I 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:18.840 will probably ever do for this show. My guest today 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.680 is also not sketchy, and his name's Carl. Hi, Carl. 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:26.880 Hey, it's so good to be here, and it's good 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:28.280 to see you again. It's been a little while and 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:31.160 it's a real treat to be on the show today. Yeah, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.760 I would say, yeah, shooting people is a sketchy thing. Sadly, 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.360 within history sometimes it's been less sketchy to shoot them 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:38.880 than to not. But that's a different topic. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:41.800 That's the main topic we're going to talk about today. 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:47.400 Cool and Carl is the host of in Range TV, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:52.199 which is a not just YouTube show where you can 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:56.080 learn about firearms. Is that a decent way to send 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:56.440 that up. 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.440 Yeah? I think so. It's a firearms channel at sensibly, 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.920 but I think it's much more a cultural historical channel 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.000 that deals with the topic of firearms through a different lens, 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:09.120 is kind of the way I put it. So we 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:10.680 try to deal with these topics in a way that 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.119 frequently other people who deal with firearms, don't approach them 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.080 from and I think that's part of the reason maybe 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:16.920 I'm here today. 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:19.880 Yeah, it is. I think the audience knows. I don't 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:21.560 tell my guests what they're going to be on to 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.160 talk about, but Sophie knows. Sophie is our producer, Hig. 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:28.560 Sophie, Hi, I do know. And then I liked that 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.319 description of your channel, Carl. I feel like that, really 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:33.120 like that. That really sums it up. 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:34.600 Thank you. 0:01:34.800 --> 0:01:35.280 That's great. 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:38.040 Yeah, folks have it. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.720 I was gonna say, I am here though, and we 0:01:41.800 --> 0:01:44.440 are here, and. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:44.600 And who else is? 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.120 But it's it's our editor, Ian, That's where. 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.240 You're going for right It is. Ian isn't here with 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.840 us on the zoom, but here's what Ian is with 0:01:54.920 --> 0:02:01.720 us spiritually always yes present. So everyone has to say 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:07.400 Hi Ian Hi Ian, Hi Ian Hi Ian. Well, and 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:10.480 our theme music was written for us by unwoman. So 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.280 this week and next week, because we're going to do 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.680 a four part we're going to talk about two extraordinary 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.720 people who had a lot in common and an awful 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:22.680 lot not in common, who are more or less on 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.400 opposite sides of a war. Carl, have you ever heard 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.920 of the Great War? The World War It's sometimes called. 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:32.040 Oh the first you need Part one of World War Two. Yeah, 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:32.560 I've heard of that. 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:34.160 Well, that's what I was going to get to is 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:37.399 actually it has a lesser known sequel called World War 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.000 two Electric Boogaloo, which is like a straight to DVD 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.000 thing that not too many people have heard of. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.960 Oh yeah, that's kind of one of those niche hipster wars. 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.119 Yeah we should probably. Yeah, you hear about the Great 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.280 War all the time, but that that hipster stuff. You know, 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.920 you got to go to special niche war markets for 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.800 that kind of content exactly. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:03:00.239 And that's what we are this week because today, Yeah, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:02.560 I'm just kind of curious when you figure out what 0:03:02.560 --> 0:03:04.320 we're talking about. One of the people that we're going 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.080 to talk about was a five foot three Finnish farmer 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.760 with a Mosin Nagant, which is an old bolt action 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.840 rifle in the Peri skis, who didn't want anyone to 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.320 invade and conquer his country. The other person we're going 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.440 to talk about was two inches shorter, still, a five 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:24.160 foot one Ukrainian gun manufacturer lady who also had a 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:28.800 Moson Neagaunt, who also didn't want anyone to invade and 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:33.480 conquer her country. Both of them, by strange accidents of history, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.600 were working counter to Hitler's plans. Although the Ukrainian woman 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:41.000 was absolutely the more anti fascist of the two. The 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:46.000 finn Simohuha is sometimes credited as the most successful sniper 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:52.640 in history. The Ukrainian Ludmila Pavlchenko is universally considered the 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.520 most successful woman sniper in history. It's actually completely possible. 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.720 The numbers and all this stuff is really blurry. It's 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.320 only possible she has more confirmed sniper kills with a 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.560 rifle than Simo because his count also includes his prolific 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.960 submachine gunning. You ever heard of these folks. 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.800 I've heard of both of them. I'm more familiar with Simo. 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:15.640 Although I'm familiar with both of them, I'm excited to 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.080 learn more about them. It is true about Simo, though, 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:19.880 I do know this, Like when you said about his 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.159 submachine gun kills, the Finns during the Winter War and 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.680 the Continuation War were greatly armed with submachine guns, and 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.240 it was part of what educated the Soviet army, let's say, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.760 on the value of those those types of weapons. Yeah. 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.400 No, it's interesting because it seems like the rifle they 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.680 used was a Russian design, and then the submachine gun 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.800 that everyone used was a finished design. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.240 Or at least a derivative thereof. Yeah, so the finish 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.760 was the Saomi, and then you later see the PPSh 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:52.279 forty one and the forty three, and they the forty 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.200 one is definitely similar the drum magazine. In fact, in 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.840 the Soviet weapon is nearly identical to the finish one. 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:04.080 Yeah, makes a lot of sense. So first we are 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.200 going to talk about Simo, which means we're going to 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.640 get to talk about my second favorite country to nerd 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.760 out about. The first one, as any listeners probably caught 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.680 on as Ireland. But the first country that I nerded 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.160 out about when I was a kid, it is Finland. 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.000 I don't know why. I mean, I do know why, 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:23.440 but it's it's a weird story. 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:24.880 Okay, what is it? 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:27.200 Okay? 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.279 When I was fourteen years old, I was at a 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.880 very large concert in Washington, DC, and I was crowdsurfing 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.279 to Blondie and I fell on top of a very 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:43.000 cute fourteen year old girl who was from Finland, and 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:44.880 we dated for many years, and I went and visitor 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.919 in Finland. See some of the more interesting parts of 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.360 that story I have to cut out because it would 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.000 show who her family is. 0:05:53.920 --> 0:06:00.440 I'm just saying that is a meat cute. 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.520 That seems like such a sweet story actually, and that 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:03.600 and that gets you to Finland, which is a place 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:06.800 that I feel like so many people don't even know exists, 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:08.680 which is a weird statement, you know how that works? Like, no, 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:10.719 it is one of those countries that's kind of like 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:13.320 off the radar for lack of a better term, although 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.240 a little more so recently with everything going on with Russia. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.359 But yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. I guess the whole 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.120 NATO thing. Have you ever been to Finland? 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.520 Either of you? A number of times? Three, three or 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:26.479 four times? 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:33.120 Actually, yeah, Sophy never Well, it's nice. The sun either 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.480 doesn't go down or it doesn't come up, depending on 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:39.400 your timing, which I think for most people means the 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:41.200 sun never goes down, because I don't know a lot 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:43.599 of people who travel to Finland in the winter unless 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.680 they live in Finland. You ever gone in the winter. 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:47.719 I've only gone in the summer. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.200 But the one time I went in the winter, it 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.640 was one of those incredibly mild winters, so I did 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.840 not experience like true Finnish winter. Yeah, so I got, 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.800 I got the real, the real, simple taste of it. 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:00.600 Yeah. 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.359 So Finland. 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:04.200 I think you're absolutely right. Finland is a sort of 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:07.000 overlooked country. And I think what a lot of people 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:11.080 assume that they know about Finland is not true. Finland 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.560 is not the country that people might assume it is. 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.600 Finland has only been a country for less than half 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.000 the time that the US has been a country. And 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.320 it's not Scandinavian. That is the one big thing that 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:27.680 I think people misunderstand about Finland, or at least Americans 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.320 misunderstand about Finland. It's a far northern country. It is 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.800 not on the Scandinavian peninsula. It is I mean neither 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:38.880 Iceland or Denmark. But those are Scandinavian countries because they're 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:45.200 culturally Scandinavian. All of these like whenever I talk about 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.160 like what counts as what and like lines on a map, 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:49.200 it's all bullshit. And this whole story is about how 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:53.520 all that stuff's bullshit, but also how it matters. So 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.240 the rest of Scandinavia, they're all Germanic pagans like fore 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.320 and Odin and Lokian shit. Well, I mean not now, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.800 but historically some of them still are. Finland is considered Nordic, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.640 but it is not considered Scandinavian. It has always had 0:08:08.640 --> 0:08:11.120 its own thing going on, like really had its own 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.240 thing going on. There are only a few other places 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.080 like Estonia and Hungary that are linguistically related to Finland 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.400 to any appreciable degree. And it's an odd man out 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.080 from Europe, just part of why it's so fucking cool, frankly, 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.120 although it is also part of why it has suffered 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:31.200 at the hands of other countries so many times. Finnish 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.800 paganism is a combination of polytheistic, like it has lots 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.800 of gods, but it's also animistic in that there are 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.520 spirits and everything in the world. Animals are considered sacred, 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.720 and each type of animal has its own like animal mother, 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.439 a sort of guardian spirit for all of that animal 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:51.360 that is distinct from the gods themselves. As best I 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.760 can tell, and I'm not actually an expert on Finnished paganism, 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:55.680 as best as I can tell, it's actually because there's 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.320 like multiple religions that are all kind of like trying 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:01.240 to share the same and like some of them are 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.080 more animistic, and some of them are more polytheistic. That's 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.200 my like, that's my best inference based on what I've read. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:10.880 But I haven't had as many conversations with Finns about 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:13.360 their paganism. 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:14.000 It does. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.679 Have you ever heard of the finish afterlife? The pagan afterlife? 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:19.640 Actually, that's not something I'm familiar with. I'm familiar with 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.120 some of the similarities of Greater European paganism in Finnish paganism, 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.000 for example, like thor and Percle, which is one of 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.000 their curse words, which is the lightning god. That's interesting, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:31.160 but not about the afterlife. 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.320 So no bed was the first finished word I learned 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.600 after kitos, which means thank you. The word for like 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.920 basically goddamn. It is the word for the old. Uh yeah, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.880 one of their old gods. The afterlife is called Twanala, 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.600 which is and the reason it's my favorite is because 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.439 it's when you die, you're dead, like more or less. 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.560 Like it's not technically that when you die you go 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.960 to a dark underground and you sleep without dreaming forever. 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.960 So like when you die, you're dead, and there's like 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:05.880 some gods that look over it, and like, you know, 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:08.080 there's all the stories about people like going there and 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:11.480 getting stuck there and retrieving wisdom and all that shit. 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.960 But like, good bad, it doesn't matter. When you die, 0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:17.600 you are fucking dead. I love it. 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:19.880 It's the strongest spiritual form of ambient. 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:26.680 Yeah, exactly. Finnish is a Uralic language, which the only 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:31.120 real relations to it being Estonian and Hungarian. And the 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.400 way that a finn once told me, because I was like, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:35.839 I went there and people were like, oh, Finish is 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.040 like nothing like any other language. And then I was like, wait, 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.200 I read a book it says it's like Hungarian, and 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.440 this old Finnish man was like, yeah, it was. Actually 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.520 my partner's dad was like, if you're on one mountaintop 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.440 and a Hungarian is on the other mountaintop like yelling, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:55.080 I guess you could maybe think it was finish. That 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:59.960 was the way to describe the difference. Uralic language is 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.520 come from a language called proto Uralic, which was spoken 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:04.480 in the Ural Mountains, which is a mountain range that 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.240 runs through chunk of Russia. Basically because actually everyone moves 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.200 around all the time and nationalism is garbage, Finnish wasn't 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.960 a written language for a long ass time. In the 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.800 sixteenth century, folks were like, well, what if we want 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.080 to write the Bible? And they were like, oh shit, 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:22.640 I guess we need a written language, right, So it 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.439 started being written, but only in religious context. They didn't 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.880 really the modern written Finish was not developed until the 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.520 nineteenth century. Everyone was writing Swedish. It wasn't that people 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.720 weren't I mean, I'm sure a lot of people weren't literate, 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.679 but it was all ruled by Sweden at this point. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.200 So the modern written Finish was developed in the nineteenth 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.040 century as part of this urge to create a Finnish 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.840 nationalism to escape centuries of Swedish and Russian colonization. I know, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.120 I just talked shit on nationalism, but it means different 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.120 things in different contexts. It's a different thing when you're 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:57.040 talking about colonized people versus anyway whatever. People probably heard 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:02.920 me rant about that before. If not, yep, okay, great, And. 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.400 Still to this day in Finland the two national languages 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.600 are Finnish and Swedish. Yeah, those are the ones you're 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.840 supposed to learn in school. Although everyone knows. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:14.200 English, yeah, and only six percent of people have finishes 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:16.960 I mean as Swedish as their like first language. It's 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.040 pretty much a leftover. There's like class shit in there too. 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.120 Yeah, it's all on the street signs though, So when 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.160 you're like, when you're wandering around, you'll see Finnish and 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.320 Swedish right next to each other, and Swedish is easier 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:29.600 as an English speaker to try and figure out, so 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.040 I can sort of decipher things through Swedish. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.160 Yeah, no, that's actually that's a really good point I learned. 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:37.760 One of the things I learned, I've been a Finland 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.640 bunch of times, and one of the times, people will 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:41.439 come up to me and they would like, oh, I'm 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:42.760 going to get this all wrong. It's been a while 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.280 since I've been there, and they if people come up 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.840 to me and talk to me, And so for longest time, 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.520 I was saying enpoo sumalainen, which I thought meant I 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:56.480 don't speak Finnish. Eventually, and everyone as soon as I 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.720 said that, people would turn around and walk away. And 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:00.440 then eventually I learned I was saying, and I don't 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.319 speak Finnish people. But then I learned that if I 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:06.120 just said I don't speak Finnish in English, they would 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:07.880 talk to me, whereas if I didn't want to talk 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:09.400 to them, I would say I don't speak Finnish and 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.560 Finnish and then they would turn around and leave, especially 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:15.160 if I said I don't talk Finnish people anyway. Right, 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.320 So is a fucking cool language. I am not good 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.200 at speaking it, as we have discovered. I know how 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:25.440 to say beer and thank you and cuss. There are 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.959 no gendered pronouns in Finnish. The same word is used 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.760 for men and women. Lots of languages do this, actually, 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.320 probably the majority of languages in the world do this, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.520 but almost no Western languages. The only exceptions that I've 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:41.680 ever been able to find of Western languages that have 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.240 no gendered pronouns are Finnish and Hungarian and Bosque and 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.240 except Have you ever heard about the secret gendered pronoun 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:52.520 in Finnish? 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:52.920 No? 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:57.560 Okay, One time a drunk Finn told me that there's 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.679 a secret, and I'm going to tell you the secret, 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.400 but can't tell anyone. There's one gendered pronoun in Finish. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.080 It is rarely used, and it is used for the 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:15.480 gender my useless piece of shit husband. And whenever I 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.559 and I've checked this by talking to Finns about it, 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:20.640 and they always start off by saying no, there's no 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.680 gender pronouns and finish, and I'm like, well, what about 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:27.240 my useless piece of shit husband pronoun? And then, especially 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:30.280 if they're drunk, they'll admit it that there is this 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.480 secret gender pronoun. I can't remember what it is. And 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.400 I tried googling this and I did not come up 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.000 with success. And I wrote my finish friend, and I 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:41.000 think my finished friend is sick of me asking this 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.680 kind of question and didn't get back to me before 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:44.720 the time of recording. 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.840 So just be a couple little things like this. For example, 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.800 there's another word that's just one word that means sitting 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.680 at home drunk in your underwear. Yeah, it's just one word. 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:57.400 So you say that one word and everyone knows what 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:59.600 you're doing that night, for example. So there's like little 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:00.640 secret like that. 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.560 Yeah, totally, spoon theory is written into the finish. This 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:05.440 is going to turn into a weird Margaret or whatever 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:08.840 spoon theory has written into it, though like, I don't 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:10.560 have the spoons to do it. I'm too tired. You 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.280 can say anyoxa, which again I might be completely butchering. 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:15.160 I learned this when I was sixteen years old and 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:20.280 have not checked since but this, you know, this idea 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.160 of like I don't have the energy, and you can 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:23.560 say it in a way that like, if you say 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.640 it in English, I don't have the energy, people are like, ah, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.680 you lazy bum get up. At least in the nineties, 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.400 I think that culture is caught on to the fact 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:34.360 that sometimes people literally don't have the energy to do 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:41.520 things anyway. Fins historically were wild and scary to the Scandinavians. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.200 Fins were seen as wizards by the Norse. If a 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.160 fin shows up in a story, you know that something 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.880 spooky is about to happen. But this is also a 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.480 conflation of the Fins with the Sami people, which is 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.760 an indigenous group in the northern in like Lopland. Right 0:15:56.440 --> 0:15:59.400 that the Scandinavians weren't really good at making these distinctions, 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.360 and neither is anyone else, because the samiyear and oppressed 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.520 people who get complated with the Finns. Finnish also only 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.520 became one culture really recently, and it's still in many 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.640 ways not necessarily one culture. The indigenous Sami of the 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.360 north exist, and then even in southern Finland there are 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:19.880 multiple regions with their own ethnicities and languages. Even if 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.000 most of them are Finnic, right, like you have the Karelians, 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:28.000 the Ingredians, and the Ingreans were almost completely genocided by 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.400 Stalin and we're going to talk about that, and that 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.160 is going to be a really major factor in understanding 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:37.040 what we're going to talk about, which is clearly Finland 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.680 and World War Two. We've clearly painted at that. But 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:47.960 you know what isn't Finland in World War two? Any ideas? 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.640 But it's the sponsors that support this podcast. 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.920 That's right, all of them. Actually, I don't know what 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.480 Nokia is doing in Finland back then. I don't know. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.080 Kia might not have started till later. There actually could 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.800 be sponsors that were on World War Two. I just 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:06.119 did that annoying thing where it's like I knew I 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:07.800 pronounced it like fins and that's not true. I just 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.080 fucked it up. I should just say no Kia. Uh, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:12.480 but that's not who we're sponsored by, unless it is. 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:13.320 I don't fucking know. 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.760 Here's some ads that let me feed my dog. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:21.480 And we're back. 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.879 They were a tire manufact o Kia was, Yeah. I 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:27.400 think they did other shit too, But I remember one 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:28.840 time I was at this like squat and I was 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:30.520 like standing on this tire and I said no Ken. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.600 I was like, that's funny. That's a phone, and they're like, 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:34.359 it's not a phone, it's a tire, and I was 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:35.240 like that makes sense. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.239 Like Mitsubishi's used to be used to make zeros, used 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.480 to make wet talk about that anymore. The zero aircraft 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:45.600 from the Japanese. Oh shit, yeah, they made they made 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:47.840 the zeros. If you if you email them about they 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:48.520 just don't reply. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.040 Yeah, there's a lot of World War two stuff that 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.840 people don't like to admit that they were making, including 0:17:53.880 --> 0:17:55.720 if you ask Finland what it was doing during World 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.399 War Two, they don't like talking about it for some 0:17:58.440 --> 0:17:59.040 weird reason. 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:01.959 But it's an interesting situation and they were. They were 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.240 in a tenuous place that put them in a really 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:05.680 interesting predicament. 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:11.359 That is the main subject of today. Yeah, so the 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:14.240 actual areas of what includes Finnish culture doesn't really line 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.720 up with a modern map. You've got folks speaking Miankili 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.440 in northeastern Swedish in Sweden, which is a Finnish dialect 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.480 sort of another Finnic language, and then in Karealia, which 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.159 is now mostly part of Russia, and then Ingria is 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.879 entirely in Russia, so lines on maps don't define culture 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:36.639 very successfully, right, But in the nineteenth century, Finland is 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:39.399 trying to become Finland, and so a poet whose name 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:43.280 I forgot to write down goes around and collects the Kalabala, 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.000 which is the Finnish great epic of all their myths 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.080 and shit, and it kind of turns it into a 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.120 single narrative. So in some weird ways, it's like, oh 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.199 the like all the traditional mythology is actually only from 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:57.680 the nineteenth century, but it draws on oral tradition before that. 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.320 These days, Finland is probably known for being happy, except 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.200 that it has a really high suicide rate, although lower 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.160 than the US is. And it's known for being a great, 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.560 great social democracy, except that the social democracy is falling 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.280 apart and fascists are gaining more and more power. It's 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.200 also known for producing very great black metal, no notes 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:19.960 this is true, and for being the place that gives 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.840 the world, gives the world the sauna, and for having 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:26.440 one hundred and eighty thousand lakes a lot of fun. 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.080 The times that I spent there, I came to actually 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.400 appreciate the suna. The sound is a really nice thing. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:36.240 So there's a real something there. The going from the 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.800 cold water to the hot sana and back and forth 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:42.040 again really is invigorating. Whether it is just a chemical 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.800 inducing moment or really healthy for you, I don't know, 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.199 but it's nice and there's just a public element to it. 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.000 There's a fact there's a public sauna in Helsinki that 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:52.360 you can go to and like, for example, they don't 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.200 have hang ups like about like public nudity like we 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:56.359 would in the US, where people just all body types 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:58.800 and everyone's together in one space. Yeah, and nobody really 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:00.760 looks at each other and it's not but if it 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:02.879 was here it would be weird. So that's an example 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.720 of our culture does form things. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:11.719 No totally, that is a yeah, yeah, I don't know. 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.760 I agree. So Finland started off through most of the 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.240 medieval era and stuff. It was like fairly tribal. The 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:20.800 southern folks started becoming more sedentary and agricultural, but were 0:20:20.840 --> 0:20:25.080 still like theoretically divided into what gets called tribal as 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.080 a really blurry word that gets used a lot of 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.800 different ways. Whereas the northern Sami we're like we're good, 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.040 We're just gonna keep hunting, fishing, like I don't know 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.639 about agriculture shit. And then in the thirteenth century, the 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:40.320 Christians were like, well, we don't want cool, pluralistic religious systems, 0:20:40.680 --> 0:20:42.600 so we're going to kill you all until you join 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.560 our blood drinking cult. So they had the Northern Crusades, 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:51.880 the lesser known Crusades, and they conquered Finland for Sweden, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.320 and basically Finland became European at this point, and it 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.920 also became Catholic. Then the Protestant Reformation hit the North hard, 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.920 and Finland went Lutheran because the Swedish king went Lutheran 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:07.600 during the nineteen forties when most of our story takes place, 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:11.080 Like ninety six percent of Finns are Lutheran, which I 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.359 do not know a ton about. But it's not anti 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:15.760 science or anti abortion, so okay. 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:17.280 It tends to be more chill. 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:20.000 I think, Yeah, that seems to be the Yeah, it's 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:22.520 like seems like in the like Catholic light kind of category. 0:21:22.720 --> 0:21:24.480 Yeah, totally. It's a high church with a lot of 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:26.679 pomp and circumstance, but a lot what seems like a 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:30.359 lot less awfulness in it. I mean not that there isn't, 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:32.520 but it's less right, and so yeah, I think we 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.480 forget because it was long ago. But like in Europe, 0:21:36.680 --> 0:21:38.160 just like in so many other places in the world, 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.639 Christianity was spread by sword and gun, and Finland and 0:21:41.680 --> 0:21:44.639 Norway and Sweden, all those places were crushed under that 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.840 similar type of the theocratical war. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.159 Yeah, no, totally, and I mean and then even the 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:53.600 places that were each doing the conquering are then going out, 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:55.840 like like Sweden conquering them, but Sweden had just been 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:58.720 conquered by Christianity. And then I don't actually know who 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:00.960 conquered Sweden with Christianity. I assume it was the English, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.600 but I haven't. I don't know, but it's like it 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:09.000 happened to them too. It's this gift that keeps on giving. 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:11.719 What's super interesting about that. I don't know if when 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:13.600 you were there, if you went to Helsinki and saw 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:16.240 the history museum, But when you go through, at the 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:18.359 bottom floor is like the oldest elements, and then it 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:20.000 goes up and as you go up, different floor, as 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.000 it goes to more modern and closer to a current time. Okay, 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:24.359 when you get to the floor, When you get to 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.639 the floor, it's like it says the Christian era, and 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:29.720 then when you go to the floor above it, it's interesting, 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:31.720 it's a word phrase that would never be used here. 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.359 They refer to it in the museum as the post 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.920 Christian era. I thought that was something. 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:42.040 Yeah, No, I I guess when I was younger, I 0:22:42.040 --> 0:22:44.399 probably I went to some like museums and shit. When 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:45.960 I went there as an adult, I was a fucking 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.840 crusty piece of shit, and I was like, I have 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.000 more memories of being passed out drunk and a gutter 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.800 outside a gay bar in Helsinki has some good conversations 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:00.080 with folks. Well passed out drunk and a gutter. I 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.840 know that passed out and talking don't whatever. Anyway, So 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.160 Finland kept having it rough. It was a poor outpost 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.080 of an empire, and that tends to go rough. About 0:23:12.080 --> 0:23:15.000 a third of the population died two years in two 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.439 years during a famine from sixteen ninety five to sixteen 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:21.520 ninety seven. It was a really cold summer followed by 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.320 a really hot winter that just fucked everything up, plus 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:28.240 snowing and floods and the combo move of the little 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.639 ice age happening, and then a whole bunch of volcanoes 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.320 had gone off all around the world, and it was 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:35.359 bad and people were like eating each other and shit, 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.080 not the majority of people, but that was the thing 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:41.240 that happened and it was really bad. 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:41.960 But don't worry. 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.520 It stayed really bad for Finland because Russia kept invading 0:23:46.560 --> 0:23:49.440 and conquering in the eighteenth century in two events known 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.000 as the Greater Wrath and the Lesser Wrath. 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.320 I had never heard of that. That's yeah, that's fun, 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.680 as though Lesser Wrath is any somehow not any worse. 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:01.320 Right, Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like how the 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:03.040 Great War it doesn't actually seem that bad when you 0:24:03.080 --> 0:24:04.480 hold it up to World War Two, but it was 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:07.399 absolutely an completely horrendous thing, you know. 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:09.399 Oh, I think you could argue in some ways, I 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:10.320 mean obviously. 0:24:10.119 --> 0:24:10.840 Okay, fair enough. 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:12.640 I don't know if those worse are good or better 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:14.280 in terms of war, but the Great War in some 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:17.520 ways was even more horrific in certain instances. 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.200 Yeah, no, fair enough. So the Greater and Lesser Wraths 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:24.360 involved Russians going around with axes murdering hundreds of peasants 0:24:24.400 --> 0:24:25.960 that ago like they would just like walk up to 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:28.760 a village and kill everyone with axes with a plague 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:33.360 happening at the same time. Then in eighteen oh nine 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:36.640 Russia got Finland and held it the wraths. They didn't 0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:39.800 really successfully hold it, and Russia held Finland for more 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.320 than one hundred years. During this time, you start getting 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:47.760 finished nationalism though, like let's be free idea, and a 0:24:47.760 --> 0:24:50.040 big part of the like leftist and labor thing for 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:54.080 decades was fighting against Russification. So the very idea of 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:58.359 making a Finland was a worker's idea and a socialist idea, 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:04.080 especially social democracy that was like always the most common 0:25:05.520 --> 0:25:08.680 wave of like I'll talk sometimes about how overall socialism 0:25:08.680 --> 0:25:11.879 in the nineteenth century had like three sides. There was anarchism, 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:16.480 there was authoritarian communism, there's social democracy, and the dominant 0:25:16.520 --> 0:25:20.640 strain in Finland I think the entire time has been 0:25:20.760 --> 0:25:26.920 social democracy. So in their own internal elections before Finland 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:29.600 becomes free, they become the first European power to give 0:25:29.640 --> 0:25:32.560 women the right to vote. Literally, women have had the 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:35.960 right to vote in Finland since before there was a Finland. 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:42.760 And nineteen seventeen is a year that comes up a 0:25:42.800 --> 0:25:45.359 lot for some weird reason, was a good year for 0:25:45.480 --> 0:25:49.159 leaving Russia. Finland was torn between the Social Democrats and 0:25:49.240 --> 0:25:53.000 right wing parties as Communists took control of Russia. The 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:55.919 right wing of Finland recently. Previously, the right wing of 0:25:55.920 --> 0:25:59.240 Finland was the like we love Russia part right, but 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.800 then when the Communie to control of the Soviet Union, 0:26:01.840 --> 0:26:04.680 they were like, we're not so sure about Russia anymore. Actually, 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:07.760 we want to be free too, So they like show 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:09.359 up in the Social Democrats like, wait, you want to 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:11.879 be free too, We actually, like finally fucking agree that 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:13.400 we want to be Finland, and they were like, yeah, 0:26:13.440 --> 0:26:15.760 we totally want to be Finland totally. This is an 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.280 employ to join the German Empire. I swear we're not 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:19.840 just looking for a different boot to lick. And they 0:26:19.840 --> 0:26:21.800 were like, sweet, I don't know why you brought that 0:26:21.840 --> 0:26:25.560 up about the German Empire. It seems completely unrelated, but sure, 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:30.720 let's be free. So Finland declared it's independence. And this 0:26:30.920 --> 0:26:33.399 was before the Bolsheviks were like we want all power forever, 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:37.320 fuck everyone, right, or kind of before they had conquered 0:26:37.359 --> 0:26:39.560 all power. So Lenin was like, chill, you can go 0:26:39.600 --> 0:26:43.720 your own way. It's cool. It helped I think this 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:46.840 is my inference a really large chunk of the Soviet 0:26:46.880 --> 0:26:49.879 forces in the northwestern Russia where the sailors who skewed 0:26:49.880 --> 0:26:53.680 heavily anarchist, and anarchists tend to be a little bit less, 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:58.600 making everyone be Bolsheviks kind of one of their things. 0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:03.919 So you have a newly through free Finland and they're like, okay, 0:27:04.040 --> 0:27:07.480 are we a socialist workers republic in a social democratic 0:27:07.560 --> 0:27:11.120 form or are we a puppet state of the German monarchy? 0:27:12.240 --> 0:27:16.080 And they had a war about it. The Reds were 0:27:16.080 --> 0:27:20.440 mostly social Democrats and only a minority of them wanted 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:23.159 to join the Bolshevik thing going on next door. They 0:27:23.200 --> 0:27:26.360 wanted no dictatorship of the proletariat. They only wanted democracy. 0:27:26.440 --> 0:27:29.040 They kind of they specifically were like, basically, we want 0:27:29.080 --> 0:27:32.720 like a France or USA without private property, like with 0:27:33.240 --> 0:27:36.480 where where workers own the means of production instead of 0:27:36.520 --> 0:27:38.400 like one dude owns everything. 0:27:38.600 --> 0:27:41.600 You know, Yeah, you could. You can still see bullet 0:27:41.600 --> 0:27:44.399 holes in buildings in Helsinki from the Reds in the 0:27:44.400 --> 0:27:45.160 White Civil War. 0:27:45.400 --> 0:27:46.040 Yeah, I believe it. 0:27:46.840 --> 0:27:49.280 And it's another thing that I thought was super interesting 0:27:49.800 --> 0:27:53.160 was in Helsinki is that while it's no longer necessarily 0:27:53.200 --> 0:27:56.520 that same level of direct conflict the areas that were 0:27:56.640 --> 0:27:58.919 quote white in the areas that were quite red in 0:27:59.000 --> 0:28:01.320 terms of like in terms of possession of the city 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:04.960 still have a different vibe when you're in them even now. 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:09.680 That makes architecturally, yeah, yeah, like restaurants, even down to basics, 0:28:09.760 --> 0:28:12.359 like just the general let's put it this way. Some 0:28:12.400 --> 0:28:14.920 places are just way more bohemian feeling and they still 0:28:14.960 --> 0:28:17.800 feel that way. Yeah, and it's leftovers that resonate from 0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:19.440 like that long ago. It's really interesting. 0:28:19.880 --> 0:28:21.639 Yeah, no, that that makes all of sense to me. 0:28:21.680 --> 0:28:25.239 This was a nasty civil war and the way it 0:28:25.320 --> 0:28:27.359 used to get explained to me was like, well, some 0:28:27.440 --> 0:28:29.679 Finns were capitalists and some were Soviets, and they had 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:33.520 a war, and the capitalist one. This is not a 0:28:33.840 --> 0:28:37.920 very good way of understanding the civil war. It was Bolsheviks. Sorry, 0:28:37.960 --> 0:28:39.960 it was not Bolsheviks as social democrats. And then the 0:28:40.000 --> 0:28:45.600 capitalists who won militarily were heavily supported by Germany. Basically, 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:48.560 Germany conquered Finland at the behest of the upper classes 0:28:48.560 --> 0:28:52.080 of Finland. Then the whites were like, hey, Germany, do 0:28:52.120 --> 0:28:54.560 you want to help us get rid of this red problem? 0:28:54.840 --> 0:28:57.000 And they're like, yeah, as long as our prince gets 0:28:57.040 --> 0:29:00.680 to be whatever anyway. So the Reds were volunteered, the 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:04.800 Whites were conscripts. The Reds included thousands of women fighting 0:29:04.880 --> 0:29:08.880 in the army the Soviets. The Soviets off to the side, 0:29:09.040 --> 0:29:11.760 were split. I actually had just assumed that they basically 0:29:11.920 --> 0:29:14.360 were the main Red Army in supporting the Red Army. 0:29:14.200 --> 0:29:17.360 They mostly kind of stayed out of it. Some supported 0:29:17.360 --> 0:29:20.680 the Reds, some worked against the Reds and effectively sided 0:29:20.720 --> 0:29:23.800 with the Whites. The Soviet soldier station in Finland who 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:26.840 sided with the Reds were buying large these anarchists two 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:30.920 hundred and fifty anarchists sailors in the Battle of RUSSOVESI was, 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:35.440 I don't know, the main largest force of Soviet forces 0:29:35.560 --> 0:29:39.000 I found fighting in the Civil War. I'm sure there's others. 0:29:39.640 --> 0:29:42.920 And this is while the anarchists were still sometimes part 0:29:42.920 --> 0:29:45.920 of the Red Army. That changes, and we'll talk about 0:29:45.920 --> 0:29:48.880 it in the next week's episodes. I don't know if 0:29:48.880 --> 0:29:50.600 anyone on the show has picked up that I'm not 0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:53.520 really excited about Bolshevism, that they tend to kill everyone 0:29:53.520 --> 0:29:55.920 that they disagree with. But if you're ever in the 0:29:55.920 --> 0:29:58.200 middle of a revolution and you're like man, I wish it. 0:29:58.920 --> 0:30:02.200 I hope someone betrayed, Like I hope someone uses this 0:30:02.240 --> 0:30:05.360 as an opportunity to just like kill everyone who disagrees 0:30:05.360 --> 0:30:10.160 with them. Well, then you should befriend the Bolsheviks, the 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:12.880 group that won the Civil War. You would think it 0:30:12.920 --> 0:30:15.520 would be the Finns because they were both sides of 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:18.080 the fight. But it was not the Finns who won 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:21.800 the Civil War. It was the Germans. The conquering Whites 0:30:21.880 --> 0:30:24.560 rounded up the Reds and their families and just fucking 0:30:24.680 --> 0:30:28.040 murdered them or just left them to starve. More than 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:30.320 ten thousand Red prisoners were left to starve to death 0:30:30.360 --> 0:30:34.720 in prison camps, and the White Field commanders got shot 0:30:34.800 --> 0:30:38.600 the shoot on the spot declaration, which was fairly literal, 0:30:38.640 --> 0:30:42.680 and it told them to execute anyone they wanted. Yeah. 0:30:42.960 --> 0:30:46.360 I had this moment where I didn't really know about 0:30:46.880 --> 0:30:49.200 this right when I was when I you know, went 0:30:49.240 --> 0:30:51.800 to Finland and until like some of the more recent times, 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:54.520 I went to this anarchist festival called Most of Pispola, 0:30:54.840 --> 0:30:57.640 and Pistola is a working class suburb of Tampaday, and 0:30:58.600 --> 0:31:00.120 at one night I was like walking home from the 0:31:00.120 --> 0:31:01.760 party at two in the morning and like the sun's 0:31:01.760 --> 0:31:04.080 still on the horizon because it's fucking Finland and it's 0:31:04.120 --> 0:31:07.400 cool as shit. And there's this big hill that runs 0:31:07.400 --> 0:31:08.720 to the middle of town and I walk up to 0:31:08.760 --> 0:31:10.920 the top of it by myself, and there's just this 0:31:10.960 --> 0:31:14.400 big monument and it's just a monument to the murdered Reds, 0:31:14.920 --> 0:31:18.880 and I just had this, like, I don't know, introspective 0:31:18.960 --> 0:31:23.200 moment thinking about that war and thinking about how, as 0:31:23.360 --> 0:31:25.040 likely as not, I would have been fucking one of 0:31:25.040 --> 0:31:25.720 those dead people. 0:31:26.360 --> 0:31:29.880 You know. Yeah, it makes the things like that make 0:31:29.960 --> 0:31:32.200 this palpable, don't it doesn't It It's like when you 0:31:32.200 --> 0:31:33.840 see it and you, like I said, you can see 0:31:33.840 --> 0:31:36.440 the bullet hole and the glass of the building, or 0:31:36.800 --> 0:31:39.240 the vibe of just different neighborhoods in the city that 0:31:39.280 --> 0:31:42.320 is still still resonate from one hundred years ago, really, 0:31:43.400 --> 0:31:46.440 but it still has that effect indelible fingerprint on the 0:31:46.560 --> 0:31:49.800 on the society in it. Yeah, and I don't I 0:31:50.520 --> 0:31:53.240 don't know, like you mentioned earlier, like how things are 0:31:53.360 --> 0:31:56.600 sometimes devolving there in terms of authoritarianism, and it's it 0:31:56.640 --> 0:31:59.960 doesn't really go away. It just it just gets quiet 0:32:00.240 --> 0:32:01.640 for a little while and then it comes. 0:32:01.440 --> 0:32:04.560 Back totally and The only positive thing is so, does 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:06.560 you know all the social Democrats have just been murdered 0:32:06.560 --> 0:32:08.120 and all their families have got murdered, right, And it 0:32:08.160 --> 0:32:12.080 actually doesn't even take a generation before social democracy is 0:32:12.080 --> 0:32:15.880 a major force in Finland again, you know. Yeah, the 0:32:15.920 --> 0:32:19.000 Whites win, and since they were boot liquor fox didn't 0:32:19.000 --> 0:32:21.880 actually believe in a free Finland, they elected the parliament 0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:25.960 elected a German prince as the King of Finland. Fortunately, 0:32:26.960 --> 0:32:30.280 Germany then immediately lost World War One and the German 0:32:30.320 --> 0:32:34.400 Empire collapsed. Finland became a republic and kind of in 0:32:34.400 --> 0:32:38.200 the weird way, like the moderates won the war, like 0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:40.600 the side that wasn't one of the sides won the 0:32:40.600 --> 0:32:43.880 war because the Whites and the Reds kind of both 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:48.880 lost bootlocking the Germans and the atrocities that the Whites 0:32:48.880 --> 0:32:51.360 had committed lost the Whites a lot of popular support, 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:53.960 and the Reds had lost all their popular support because 0:32:53.960 --> 0:32:56.920 they were dead or in exile. And so you get 0:32:56.920 --> 0:32:59.800 the moderates, the center and the center left, who more 0:33:00.040 --> 0:33:02.360 less have traded Finland off between each other ever since. 0:33:03.880 --> 0:33:09.280 So Finland messy place, beautiful place, lots of lakes between 0:33:09.320 --> 0:33:12.360 the wars, World War one and World War Two. In 0:33:12.440 --> 0:33:15.840 case anyone forgot what the two wars were, they're numerically named. 0:33:15.840 --> 0:33:17.600 It's easier to remember which one came first, which one 0:33:17.640 --> 0:33:19.920 came second. Wouldn't it be awful if they were a 0:33:19.960 --> 0:33:22.360 countdown instead, like we'd started off with like World War 0:33:22.440 --> 0:33:23.400 nine or something. 0:33:23.480 --> 0:33:26.040 You know, well, then you know how many are left. 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:29.040 That's true, which is kind of nice until you get 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:30.520 to zero, and then you just don't know what's going 0:33:30.560 --> 0:33:30.880 to happen. 0:33:31.200 --> 0:33:34.120 I believe Fenris Fenrier is going to eat the sun. 0:33:34.320 --> 0:33:36.440 And then oh yes. 0:33:39.480 --> 0:33:42.080 So between the two wars, two things of importance to 0:33:42.160 --> 0:33:46.320 our story happened. First, Finland actually managed a kind of reconciliation. 0:33:46.920 --> 0:33:50.560 I first, when I first started reading about Simo, I 0:33:50.640 --> 0:33:53.240 was like, I thought this reconciliation thing was a lie, 0:33:53.240 --> 0:33:54.840 and so I kept reading more and more about it, 0:33:54.880 --> 0:33:56.320 and I actually don't think it's a lie. I think 0:33:56.320 --> 0:34:00.000 it's true. By nineteen thirty seven, the centrist and often 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:03.280 center right Agrarians and then the center left Social Democrats 0:34:03.320 --> 0:34:06.520 were running the government in coalition. The far right is 0:34:06.560 --> 0:34:10.080 on the decline, as is authoritarianism on both sides of 0:34:10.080 --> 0:34:13.839 the spectrum. The far right parties aren't officially banned, even 0:34:13.840 --> 0:34:15.520 though they just try to stage a coup in like 0:34:15.600 --> 0:34:19.600 nineteen thirty two or something like that. But the Communist Party, 0:34:19.680 --> 0:34:23.560 the Bolshevik Control Party, is officially banned, and so the 0:34:23.600 --> 0:34:29.960 Center is holding stuff. But the other thing that happened 0:34:30.280 --> 0:34:32.960 that I think is really important to understand for this story, 0:34:33.080 --> 0:34:36.080 so Finnish culture and language extends beyond the borders of 0:34:36.160 --> 0:34:39.239 what managed to carve itself out of Finland. You've got 0:34:39.280 --> 0:34:41.719 some Finns in northeast Sweden, and more importantly, you've got 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:44.160 all these Fins over in Russia, and not just like 0:34:44.200 --> 0:34:46.040 Finns who showed up there, but like Finns who've been 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:49.640 there for ever or at least hundreds of years, right, 0:34:50.080 --> 0:34:53.080 the Angrian Finns who are mostly Lutheran, and I couldn't 0:34:53.080 --> 0:34:57.120 tell you their average politics. And also in Russia you 0:34:57.160 --> 0:34:58.920 do have all of these Reds who were fleeing the 0:34:58.960 --> 0:35:03.120 White terr and most of these Reds that start off 0:35:03.120 --> 0:35:05.360 actually fairly moderate. There are social Democrats who want to 0:35:05.440 --> 0:35:07.960 use democratic state focused means to a chief workers control, 0:35:08.680 --> 0:35:11.239 but they'd just been fucking massacred by the landowners, and 0:35:11.280 --> 0:35:13.440 so for a lot of them Bolshevik had a sudden 0:35:13.480 --> 0:35:14.240 and new appeal. 0:35:14.640 --> 0:35:14.840 You know. 0:35:15.360 --> 0:35:18.120 They were like, oh, maybe this thing that won and 0:35:18.160 --> 0:35:20.799 has a bunch of power sounds good to us, Right, 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:23.800 So a lot of the Reds went over and became Bolsheviks. 0:35:24.360 --> 0:35:27.759 But there's a problem with Bolshevism, a problem made worse 0:35:27.800 --> 0:35:31.520 by repeat villain of the pod, the Man of Steel himself, 0:35:32.239 --> 0:35:35.680 Joseph fucking Stalin. So if he was the first behind 0:35:35.719 --> 0:35:39.640 the bastards about Stalin, No, but it was like the 0:35:39.920 --> 0:35:43.279 one of the first five. Okay, it's the maybe the 0:35:43.320 --> 0:35:46.080 furthest back I ever listened to was the like Stalin's 0:35:46.200 --> 0:35:47.600 drinking party thing. 0:35:48.120 --> 0:35:50.799 Hey, for Solomon's like a like a like a like 0:35:50.840 --> 0:35:53.759 what you would equival it to, like the worst frack 0:35:53.800 --> 0:35:54.680 guy you ever met. 0:35:55.560 --> 0:36:01.279 Yeah, So he was like, what if what if I 0:36:01.400 --> 0:36:03.640 just kill all the fins and then destroy their culture? 0:36:04.960 --> 0:36:05.600 And so he did. 0:36:05.719 --> 0:36:09.200 Yeah, yeah, that's the FRACKI equivalent to, Eh, like, oh, 0:36:09.440 --> 0:36:13.560 what if we're just like go throw toilet paper at 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:14.080 their house? 0:36:14.840 --> 0:36:16.720 Yeah? 0:36:16.840 --> 0:36:21.200 Yeah. His sociopathy seemed to be his hobby, did it not? 0:36:21.600 --> 0:36:22.560 In a recurring theme? 0:36:23.120 --> 0:36:25.960 Yeah, pretty much, And he's good at coming up with 0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:28.320 excuses for it. That he comes up with I think later, 0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:31.360 so he decides to kill all the Fins and destroy 0:36:31.400 --> 0:36:34.040 their culture, including the Finnish communist in exile, the like 0:36:34.080 --> 0:36:37.960 loyal Bolsheviks. I suspect that no ideology has killed more 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:43.839 Communists than authoritary communism. Specifically, I was just there's gonna 0:36:43.840 --> 0:36:45.560 be so many times in this note whatever I think 0:36:45.560 --> 0:36:48.000 people have caught on my position on all of this. 0:36:48.320 --> 0:36:52.120 Stalin was like, we've got to destroy Finnish culture, language traditions. 0:36:52.160 --> 0:36:54.840 And while we're at at people the Ingri and Finns 0:36:55.000 --> 0:36:57.640 who lived in the area that's now Saint Petersburg, since 0:36:57.719 --> 0:36:59.840 they've lived there since before there was a Saint Petersburg, 0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:04.200 they're like, I want to say, seventeenth century migrants to 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:06.120 that area, and then Saint Petersburg came like the next 0:37:06.120 --> 0:37:09.440 century or some shit. In nineteen twenty six, there's one 0:37:09.480 --> 0:37:12.239 hundred and fifteen thousand of these Angryan Fins living in 0:37:12.239 --> 0:37:13.920 this area where they have lived for hundreds of years. 0:37:13.960 --> 0:37:17.040 They have their own Finnic language, in their own culture. 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:21.160 Nine years later, there's only seven thousand of them left. 0:37:23.440 --> 0:37:29.960 So this is a pretty successful genocide. This genocide was 0:37:30.000 --> 0:37:33.799 centrally managed and considered with the specific goal of assassinating 0:37:33.800 --> 0:37:37.520 the male population and destroying them utterly. Those who weren't 0:37:37.600 --> 0:37:40.160 killed were usually deported since Stalin was like, well, we 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:44.000 need this buffer zone. Russia's obsessed with these buffer zones, 0:37:44.360 --> 0:37:47.200 and they were like, we need this buffer zone between 0:37:47.280 --> 0:37:50.440 US and Finland where there's no Fins because they might 0:37:50.480 --> 0:37:54.000 be loyal to Finland, right, and so he sent folks 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:57.360 to Siberia Kazakistan. If he didn't just fucking kill them, 0:37:58.040 --> 0:38:00.960 Settlers from elsewhere in Russia took their homes and farms 0:38:01.000 --> 0:38:05.360 and shit. All the Lutheran churches and the Finnish language schools, radio, 0:38:05.440 --> 0:38:09.480 and newspapers were all shut down. Today, the population of 0:38:09.480 --> 0:38:13.560 Angrian Finns is about twenty five thousand. There are only 0:38:13.640 --> 0:38:19.000 seventy living speakers of the Angrian language. Left and the 0:38:19.040 --> 0:38:23.000 communist exiles. I think that they had started off helping 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:25.359 all of this happen, right, to like prove that they're 0:38:25.360 --> 0:38:29.640 good and loyal. They got purged after they helped purge 0:38:29.719 --> 0:38:31.040 the other Fins. 0:38:31.120 --> 0:38:36.400 Weirdly, it doesn't seem like there's an authoritarian movement or 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:39.000 government in this world that doesn't result in genocide. It 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:42.600 doesn't matter if it's colonial Spain invading what is now 0:38:42.640 --> 0:38:45.239 New Mexico, or Russia with Finland, it always is the 0:38:45.280 --> 0:38:48.239 same thing over and over again. Yeah, whether it's killing 0:38:48.239 --> 0:38:50.399 people or cutting their hands off or their feet off, 0:38:50.480 --> 0:38:53.040 or taking away their language or putting them in camps, 0:38:53.040 --> 0:38:55.319 it's the same thing. It doesn't matter if it's called 0:38:55.960 --> 0:39:00.920 Stalinism or communism or Nazism or whatever. Always results in 0:39:00.960 --> 0:39:01.799 the same shit. 0:39:02.239 --> 0:39:04.359 Absolutely, I don't. 0:39:04.440 --> 0:39:07.200 I don't think I really absorbed. I like when when 0:39:07.200 --> 0:39:11.640 you're I have the script, when you were saying seventy 0:39:12.160 --> 0:39:15.879 seven zero living speakers left of that of language, Yeah, 0:39:15.920 --> 0:39:20.160 you said, yeah, that is that is that is so sad. 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:24.120 I know, and most of them are older. And that 0:39:24.239 --> 0:39:26.759 mean you know that happens to so many languages. But 0:39:26.800 --> 0:39:29.200 it's just like it's it happens to those languages because 0:39:29.200 --> 0:39:33.160 of combinations of colonization and genocide, and like, yeah, but 0:39:35.239 --> 0:39:38.080 you know we have two lingo Is that one of 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:39.080 our sponsors? 0:39:41.680 --> 0:39:43.960 No, Robert and I got an ad who was it 0:39:44.000 --> 0:39:45.680 for it? Well, we did do it. We just did 0:39:45.719 --> 0:39:49.200 do an ad on by the bastards for some language thing. 0:39:49.239 --> 0:39:50.840 It might have been Rosetta Stone. 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:52.680 Yeah, I think it was Rosetta Stone. 0:39:52.920 --> 0:39:55.680 So yeah, Rosetta s don't can put out a series 0:39:55.719 --> 0:39:58.200 of saving the languages of genocide. 0:39:58.719 --> 0:40:00.359 Yeah cool? 0:40:00.600 --> 0:40:00.920 Hello. 0:40:01.960 --> 0:40:06.640 Yeah, also Rosetta Stone paycral for that idea. 0:40:06.760 --> 0:40:11.040 Yeah, that's actually that could actually sell. Yeah they should. Yeah, 0:40:11.040 --> 0:40:13.160 I trademarking that you should. 0:40:14.680 --> 0:40:17.480 I think you should be free car last to go 0:40:17.520 --> 0:40:18.759 to the trademark. 0:40:18.840 --> 0:40:21.600 We'll be back after that. Yeah, all right. 0:40:21.640 --> 0:40:23.200 A word from our sponsor. 0:40:23.120 --> 0:40:28.160 Yeah, our only sponsor, mosen Nagaunt. If you want a 0:40:28.200 --> 0:40:31.280 bolt action rifle that you can think is more useful 0:40:31.320 --> 0:40:35.239 in the modern world than actually is that is we 0:40:35.239 --> 0:40:37.680 probably shouldn't be sponsored by firearms. Never mind, We'll just 0:40:37.760 --> 0:40:43.920 use whatever ads come up randomly. Here you go, and 0:40:44.000 --> 0:40:50.160 we're back. So you know, it's nineteen thirty nine. War 0:40:50.320 --> 0:40:52.880 is brewing. Hitler is in power. He's looking for allies. 0:40:53.200 --> 0:40:56.279 Who does he find. No, not the Fins. That's going 0:40:56.320 --> 0:41:04.080 to come later. Spoiler alert. Joseph fucking Stalin. We have 0:41:04.160 --> 0:41:07.440 talked about the Molotov ribbon Trump packed before on this podcast. 0:41:07.480 --> 0:41:09.880 You can cross it off your BINGO cards now because 0:41:09.880 --> 0:41:13.160 we're talking about it now. It is the Stalin and 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:16.160 Hitler are allies for a while packed. It was signed 0:41:16.200 --> 0:41:18.919 on August twenty third, nineteen thirty nine, between Ribin Trump, 0:41:18.960 --> 0:41:22.040 who was a Nazi, and Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister. 0:41:22.960 --> 0:41:25.640 To the public eye, this was a non aggression pact, 0:41:26.360 --> 0:41:28.960 but secretly it was more than that. It was an 0:41:28.960 --> 0:41:31.200 agreement of how the two powers were going to carve 0:41:31.320 --> 0:41:34.479 up Eastern Europe, like who gets what when they start 0:41:34.560 --> 0:41:39.080 conquering shit. This secret element wasn't revealed until after the war. 0:41:39.880 --> 0:41:42.319 Hitler's big weakness. As far as I understand, I'm not 0:41:42.360 --> 0:41:44.640 a huge World War two understander in the way that 0:41:44.680 --> 0:41:47.920 there are many people who that is their life's blood. 0:41:48.360 --> 0:41:53.120 Hiller didn't have oil and Russia had oil. Sort did 0:41:53.120 --> 0:41:54.640 a remania. I think it was his ally, but he 0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:58.480 wanted more fucking oil, right. Russia had sent so much 0:41:58.520 --> 0:42:02.120 material assistance to Hitler's war machine, just running trains across 0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:04.000 the whole their massive country to make sure Hitler at 0:42:04.040 --> 0:42:07.719 everything he needed to start World War two. A week later, 0:42:08.400 --> 0:42:13.439 Hitler invaded Poland. Two weeks after that, Russia was like, sick, 0:42:13.560 --> 0:42:17.560 me too, and they also invaded Poland and the Polish defenses, 0:42:17.600 --> 0:42:20.120 who initially thought the Bolsheviks were gonna come and help them. 0:42:20.200 --> 0:42:23.080 We're like, hooray, the Soviets are here. We're like, wait, 0:42:23.120 --> 0:42:25.320 why are you shooting at us? We're not the Nazis. 0:42:25.400 --> 0:42:30.279 And then the Soviet Union invaded Poland and conquered it 0:42:30.360 --> 0:42:35.720 alongside their allies Hitler and held joint military parades and shit. 0:42:36.520 --> 0:42:39.239 This does not undermine the bravery of the people in 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:41.760 the Red Army, who later are the people who bled 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:44.040 the most to destroy Nazism. But it is a thing 0:42:44.080 --> 0:42:50.360 that's worth fucking understanding about their leader. So Stalin stopped 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:54.240 putting anti fascism into the party jargon. The new enemy 0:42:54.280 --> 0:42:59.640 was Western Powers, as like France and England, and in 0:42:59.680 --> 0:43:03.719 their secret pact they decided something that's gonna have a 0:43:03.719 --> 0:43:08.719 lot of importance to today's story. They said, Russia, you 0:43:08.719 --> 0:43:13.560 can have Finland as well as Estonia and Latvia and Lithuania. 0:43:13.880 --> 0:43:18.239 But those aren't as involved in the story. And even 0:43:18.280 --> 0:43:20.520 before the secret part of it, it was known just that 0:43:20.560 --> 0:43:23.960 the Stalin was siding with the fucking Nazis. Pushed a 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:26.480 lot of the Finnish communists over to the social democrat 0:43:26.560 --> 0:43:29.920 side of things. Already there's not a ton of Bolsheviks 0:43:30.000 --> 0:43:35.360 or like communists like Communist party communists in Finland. But 0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:39.120 seeing all this happened, like the Finns are like, oh, 0:43:39.920 --> 0:43:43.759 actually maybe this like powermonger is not our friend. So 0:43:43.800 --> 0:43:46.920 on October fifth, only a couple weeks after they'd invaded Poland, 0:43:46.920 --> 0:43:50.279 the USSR was like, hey, Finland, can we like, can 0:43:50.280 --> 0:43:53.120 we have party you just we want to set up 0:43:53.160 --> 0:43:56.360 some military bases all your neighbors. Let us do it, 0:43:56.520 --> 0:44:00.759 just give us control of huge trunks of Finland. And 0:44:01.680 --> 0:44:05.120 even the Finnish communists were like, oh, this is Russia 0:44:05.160 --> 0:44:08.040 doing an imperialism. This is the part that I like, 0:44:08.120 --> 0:44:10.600 I wasn't certain about this whole, like the communists actually 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:12.959 were against Russia thing, because I like, it's not usually 0:44:12.960 --> 0:44:14.960 the way things go. But I read this like thirty 0:44:14.960 --> 0:44:21.000 fucking page academic paper about communism in Finland during this era, 0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:24.359 because that's whatever. I can't complain. I do it for work. 0:44:24.400 --> 0:44:25.799 It is the best job anyone has ever had in 0:44:25.800 --> 0:44:28.600 the history of this world. Thank you, Sophie. So the 0:44:28.640 --> 0:44:32.359 communists are like, this is Russia doing an imperialism. There 0:44:32.400 --> 0:44:36.080 was a few tankies, there's a few holdouts who are like, actually, 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:38.520 the Finnish government, including the Social Democrats are the same 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:40.680 as the fascists, since they won't just turn Finland over 0:44:40.680 --> 0:44:44.720 to Stalin, who is allied with the fascists. But don't 0:44:44.719 --> 0:44:47.680 pay attention to that part. Finland said no to the 0:44:47.719 --> 0:44:52.160 Russians and so and then they started mobilizing for war 0:44:52.360 --> 0:44:55.120 because they were like, oh, fuck, this is going to 0:44:55.200 --> 0:44:58.719 go really bad. We just told Stalin no, that's like 0:44:58.760 --> 0:45:01.319 not a he's like more like a yes man guy, 0:45:01.760 --> 0:45:01.960 you know. 0:45:02.280 --> 0:45:06.040 Yeah. Stalin's not known for his his tolerance of no. 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:08.120 He's not really into consent, never was. 0:45:08.280 --> 0:45:15.440 No, he's a free thinker. He's a strong whatever, fucking 0:45:15.440 --> 0:45:17.800 piece of shit. So Finns. So the Fins are like, 0:45:17.840 --> 0:45:19.640 all right, we're gonna mobilize for war. And the first 0:45:19.640 --> 0:45:23.480 thing they do, just whatever, they arrest a couple hundred 0:45:23.520 --> 0:45:28.040 Communist leaders, finished communist leaders on suspicion they'd sided with Russia, 0:45:28.560 --> 0:45:32.840 but even the police reported quote, the will to defend 0:45:32.960 --> 0:45:35.680 the country, or at least loyalty towards the government has 0:45:35.719 --> 0:45:39.600 gained a footing even among the communists. And so then 0:45:39.600 --> 0:45:42.080 they let them all go except like one guy. I 0:45:42.120 --> 0:45:43.680 don't know, there's like probably one guy who was like, 0:45:43.719 --> 0:45:45.719 fuck you, I love Stalin. You know, I don't know. 0:45:46.600 --> 0:45:49.440 Even a bunch of Communist officers who had received training 0:45:49.440 --> 0:45:53.040 in the USSR were like, no, we are fucking defending Finland. 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:57.239 Fuck the USSR. They just purged all my friends. And 0:45:57.960 --> 0:46:01.520 I really didn't expect this part. I really thought that 0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:04.360 the Reds of Finland were like in a roll and 0:46:04.440 --> 0:46:11.279 help the Soviets in the coming war. They didn't. They 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:16.719 were really principal. Russia was like, all right, give us 0:46:16.719 --> 0:46:21.920 some Finland. And then it was like what the fuck. No, And. 0:46:24.920 --> 0:46:28.080 I love when you summarized history in like such a 0:46:28.120 --> 0:46:32.200 casual way. They're like they're like, nah, nah, we're doing that. 0:46:33.320 --> 0:46:35.880 Noah, bro' I'm not into that. How about you keep 0:46:35.920 --> 0:46:37.680 your Russian hands off of my Finland. 0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:41.520 Yeah, exactly. The first time I ever like had someone 0:46:41.520 --> 0:46:43.120 get mad at me about this. I used to do this. 0:46:43.880 --> 0:46:45.960 I did this tour talking about anarchism and fiction and 0:46:46.000 --> 0:46:49.040 I had ended up giving a conversation about Louise Michelle, 0:46:49.040 --> 0:46:51.200 who we've covered on this and just part of the 0:46:51.200 --> 0:46:53.400 Paris Commune. And I referred to the Paris Commune like 0:46:53.520 --> 0:46:56.200 really quickly and haphazardly, where I was like, and the 0:46:56.200 --> 0:46:58.440 government was out of town, so people were like, we're 0:46:58.440 --> 0:46:59.759 gonna have a party, but then they weren't sure it 0:46:59.840 --> 0:47:01.640 was a be a communist party or socialist party, and 0:47:01.640 --> 0:47:03.759 then they kind of got into some arguments about it, 0:47:03.800 --> 0:47:06.320 and then the Germans invaded, and someone was like, really 0:47:06.400 --> 0:47:08.160 mad that that was the way I summed up the 0:47:08.160 --> 0:47:12.040 Paaris Commune. Someone listening is really mad about how I 0:47:12.120 --> 0:47:15.279 just summed up the start of the Winter War, And 0:47:15.360 --> 0:47:16.200 I don't it's cool. 0:47:16.560 --> 0:47:18.400 What's cool as you're no longer on Twitter? 0:47:19.000 --> 0:47:21.360 Yeah, exactly, the Winter's gone. 0:47:22.840 --> 0:47:25.759 Yeah, it's it's x dot com. Now everyone knows that. 0:47:26.000 --> 0:47:27.640 It's just you know, it sounds like something you can't 0:47:27.640 --> 0:47:28.560 go to in a library. 0:47:29.440 --> 0:47:31.480 No, you just now, you just now, you just z 0:47:31.800 --> 0:47:34.640 your authoritarian dreams. Oh my god, you to become Z. 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:36.800 Yes, Sophie, I think it's a Yeah. 0:47:36.719 --> 0:47:38.839 Margaret, that was such a good joke and I just 0:47:38.960 --> 0:47:40.879 want to compliment you on it. Thank you so. 0:47:40.920 --> 0:47:48.200 Much, thank you. I appreciate it. So have you ever 0:47:48.200 --> 0:47:50.520 thought about the comparisons between the Winter War and the 0:47:50.520 --> 0:47:51.600 modern Ukrainian War? 0:47:53.760 --> 0:47:57.239 Actually, I have to admit I have. Yes, there's there's 0:47:57.239 --> 0:47:57.920 a lot going on. 0:47:58.200 --> 0:48:03.080 Huh, they're so fucking but what I've got. If I'm 0:48:03.080 --> 0:48:04.640 missing anything, please let me know if you want to 0:48:04.640 --> 0:48:06.640 expound upon any of it. What I've got is that 0:48:06.760 --> 0:48:09.520 Russia's main justification for this war was your border is 0:48:09.560 --> 0:48:12.120 too close to our cities, and we don't want the 0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:14.640 West to come attack us. And then a little bit 0:48:14.640 --> 0:48:17.560 of a but come on, we used to that part 0:48:17.680 --> 0:48:20.560 used to belong to us anyway, And then also a 0:48:20.680 --> 0:48:24.200 bunch of complete nonsense about how you're actually a fascist country, 0:48:25.000 --> 0:48:28.879 so we should have to denazify you. And in this case, 0:48:28.880 --> 0:48:30.759 in the Winter War, this was based on how seven 0:48:30.840 --> 0:48:32.960 years earlier some far right people tried to stage a 0:48:33.000 --> 0:48:36.040 coup and they lost, and then they stopped being particularly 0:48:36.080 --> 0:48:40.200 politically relevant. God, that's even the same fuck number, almost 0:48:40.280 --> 0:48:44.880 the same number of years as the Madden Euromaidan, whatever 0:48:45.280 --> 0:48:48.680 the protests in Ukraine. I'm not as good at modern 0:48:48.760 --> 0:48:51.520 history current events. Is that what you call modern history 0:48:51.600 --> 0:48:55.560 current events? I'm not as good at current events. Also, 0:48:56.320 --> 0:48:57.800 the people who are going to take up arms to 0:48:57.840 --> 0:49:01.080 defend Finland include people from every part of the political spectrum, 0:49:01.280 --> 0:49:04.319 the far right, the far left, the center right, the 0:49:04.320 --> 0:49:07.160 center left and the center all about to pick up 0:49:07.200 --> 0:49:10.040 guns and fight alongside of each other, which is like 0:49:10.080 --> 0:49:13.600 fucking Ukraine also Russia. Things is going to be easy, 0:49:13.840 --> 0:49:17.400 and then they meet an intensely fierce defense and their 0:49:17.400 --> 0:49:19.080 first attack is going to be utterly defeated. 0:49:20.600 --> 0:49:22.840 Yeah. Like like when you put that into modern you 0:49:22.880 --> 0:49:27.000 have essentially you have Zelensky commanding Azov Battalion. How bizarre 0:49:27.080 --> 0:49:31.479 is that fighting against the Wagner Group? Yeah, from Russia? Right, Yeah, 0:49:31.520 --> 0:49:35.399 what a mix of political ideologies, all sorts of things 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:39.680 mixed together for Ukrainian defense. It's it isn't that different, 0:49:39.680 --> 0:49:40.840 You're right, it's spot on. 0:49:41.239 --> 0:49:41.399 Yeah. 0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:43.080 And it's like I did an interview with a friend 0:49:43.080 --> 0:49:46.320 who was delivering an aid and to the front lines 0:49:46.400 --> 0:49:49.440 in Ukraine, and you know, and they're queer, and they 0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:52.080 were talking to a queer army commander and they were 0:49:52.120 --> 0:49:54.160 like they came out to the to the guy and 0:49:54.200 --> 0:49:56.680 we're like, oh good, I usually have to hide who 0:49:56.760 --> 0:49:59.360 I am. And they're like, that's great. When you deliver 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:02.319 to the next place, don't tell them this. They're bad, 0:50:03.280 --> 0:50:06.120 you know, Like it's fucking weird. 0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:08.520 But at the same time, and I'm not giving them 0:50:08.560 --> 0:50:12.600 any difference because that ideology doesn't was deserve any difference. Yeah, 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:14.640 but at the same time, they've been crack troops to 0:50:14.680 --> 0:50:17.359 defending eastern Ukraine, which is a weird problem to think about. 0:50:17.480 --> 0:50:22.200 Yeah, no, it Yeah, And so the comparisons to this 0:50:23.840 --> 0:50:26.040 because one of the things I really like about today's 0:50:26.080 --> 0:50:30.760 story is that it's fucking messy. It is not politically simple, 0:50:30.800 --> 0:50:32.799 and the reason I love context anyway, that's like the 0:50:32.840 --> 0:50:35.600 fucking fun of this. But like, and also I think 0:50:35.640 --> 0:50:37.360 the thing that you can get other than just listening 0:50:37.400 --> 0:50:42.680 to another podcast bestimo or something, right, but I think 0:50:42.719 --> 0:50:44.600 you have to like get a sense of all this 0:50:44.640 --> 0:50:47.320 stuff in order to like figure out who these people 0:50:47.360 --> 0:50:49.960 were and why they were fighting, and like what it 0:50:50.040 --> 0:50:52.040 meant to different people to be fighting at different times 0:50:52.040 --> 0:50:55.759 in different ways. So Russia is gearing up for war 0:50:55.840 --> 0:50:58.799 after Finland says no to their demands, and then one 0:50:58.800 --> 0:51:00.400 of the problems that they run into as they have 0:51:00.440 --> 0:51:03.080 to be like, wait, hold on, stop purging all the Fins. 0:51:03.840 --> 0:51:06.640 We need enough Finns who are loyal to us to 0:51:06.719 --> 0:51:09.200 shore up some political legitimacy for when we try to 0:51:09.239 --> 0:51:13.319 take over Finland. So then they like stop purging the 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:18.200 rest of the Fins, and then there's this whole thing 0:51:18.200 --> 0:51:22.080 with a false flag attack that isn't as interesting to me. Basically, 0:51:23.520 --> 0:51:26.319 Russia shells itself and it's like the Fins did it, 0:51:26.480 --> 0:51:30.280 and then attacks. November thirtieth, nineteen thirty nine, the USSR 0:51:30.280 --> 0:51:33.560 attacks Finland and their plan is to set up a 0:51:33.560 --> 0:51:37.280 puppet government, and they do right. Whenever they're conquering places, 0:51:37.280 --> 0:51:39.200 they're like, aha, this is now though I didn't even 0:51:39.200 --> 0:51:40.960 write down the name of it, because this puppet government 0:51:41.040 --> 0:51:45.000 is so irrelevant. It didn't last. But the Red Fins 0:51:45.040 --> 0:51:48.319 didn't rush to join the puppet puppet government, and the 0:51:48.760 --> 0:51:54.440 Soviets scarcely had enough Fins left to manage this puppet government. Instead, 0:51:54.480 --> 0:51:57.560 the communists and the socialists, the workers and intellectuals alike, 0:51:57.840 --> 0:51:59.960 they rush to the front lines to defend Finland from 0:52:00.040 --> 0:52:03.640 the Soviet Union. At least one Spanish Civil War veteran 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:06.239 who was finished came back and told everyone what he 0:52:06.280 --> 0:52:08.440 had seen in the war and seen what a piece 0:52:08.480 --> 0:52:11.600 of shit Stalin was firsthand, and how he'd betrayed the revolution. 0:52:12.880 --> 0:52:15.680 So the puppet government had no fucking support or very 0:52:15.960 --> 0:52:18.160 little support. There were a couple of the communists who 0:52:19.400 --> 0:52:22.000 went off to it or whatever. The US star doesn't care. 0:52:22.360 --> 0:52:25.400 They're not actually trying to set up a red government 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:30.719 in Finland. They're trying to fucking conquer. And so I 0:52:30.760 --> 0:52:32.640 can't get into the mind of Stalin on this one. 0:52:33.960 --> 0:52:36.600 At the start of one of the harshest winters in years, 0:52:38.400 --> 0:52:46.520 he invades Finland. It fucking winter. The Finns, there's not 0:52:46.640 --> 0:52:50.320 a lot of things. They're known for, skiing, snow hunting, 0:52:50.840 --> 0:52:56.080 and fucking pure and raw emotionless heartiness and maybe saunas. 0:52:56.719 --> 0:52:59.600 That's what Finland's known for, which. 0:52:59.440 --> 0:53:01.360 I think you just summed up the word a Finnish 0:53:01.440 --> 0:53:04.520 word sea su, which doesn't really translate into English, but 0:53:04.560 --> 0:53:06.759 that's kind of like they're oh yeah, sea sue is 0:53:06.800 --> 0:53:10.880 this weird untranslatable form of Finish fortitude based on all 0:53:10.920 --> 0:53:11.960 those things you just brought up. 0:53:12.120 --> 0:53:15.279 Yeah, it's not gonna go well, Okay, wait, I'm gonna 0:53:15.280 --> 0:53:19.080 I'm gonna tell you my favorite Finish joke. There's two 0:53:19.120 --> 0:53:21.920 brothers they haven't seen each other in twenty years, and 0:53:21.960 --> 0:53:25.800 they decide to go ice fishing. Have you heard this? Okay, 0:53:26.400 --> 0:53:27.920 So they show up, they cut a hole in the 0:53:27.920 --> 0:53:29.760 ice and they start fishing. They haven't said a word, 0:53:29.920 --> 0:53:32.400 you know. Finally, a couple hours go by, and one 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:35.240 I was like, he passed me a beer, passing the beer. 0:53:35.840 --> 0:53:37.960 A couple hours go by, Hey pass me beer, passing 0:53:38.040 --> 0:53:39.640 the beer. A couple hours go by, and he's like, 0:53:40.560 --> 0:53:43.520 how you been, And the other brother looks and says, 0:53:44.120 --> 0:53:45.960 christ did we come here to talk or did we 0:53:45.960 --> 0:53:48.560 come here to fish? 0:53:48.680 --> 0:53:52.120 That's so finish. Yeah, you can sit at a table 0:53:52.160 --> 0:53:53.759 with a fin for an hour and not say a 0:53:53.760 --> 0:53:56.400 thing and that's totally normal and fine. It's just how 0:53:56.440 --> 0:53:59.640 it works, like that's that's awesome that if you've been 0:53:59.640 --> 0:54:02.000 there and around Finnish people, that is spot off. 0:54:01.880 --> 0:54:03.359 And like America needs that. 0:54:04.080 --> 0:54:04.400 I know. 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:07.640 It's like I'm not trying to talk shit here, like, no. 0:54:07.680 --> 0:54:09.960 This isn't a negative at all. No, I don't think 0:54:09.960 --> 0:54:10.359 it's neat. 0:54:10.440 --> 0:54:10.480 No. 0:54:10.719 --> 0:54:13.000 I was there. I was there having lunch one time 0:54:13.000 --> 0:54:15.120 with a bunch of my finn friends and and I 0:54:15.239 --> 0:54:17.160 just wasn't having the spoons as we were discussing, and 0:54:17.200 --> 0:54:19.439 I just picked up my plate and went to another 0:54:19.480 --> 0:54:22.320 table and sat by myself. Yeah, and all the finish 0:54:22.440 --> 0:54:24.160 there was one other person that was America like what's 0:54:24.160 --> 0:54:26.040 wrong with him? And the Fins are like, that's fine, 0:54:26.080 --> 0:54:27.680 leave them alone. That's that's not a problem at all. 0:54:28.120 --> 0:54:31.359 Over there. That's how it works. Yeah, that's he that's 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:33.560 that's not a problem. And that's how that's how it 0:54:33.640 --> 0:54:34.080 vibes there. 0:54:34.160 --> 0:54:37.640 Yeah. And obviously all cultural norms are exaggerations and bell 0:54:37.719 --> 0:54:39.640 curves and all that sh and like you know. 0:54:40.960 --> 0:54:41.120 But. 0:54:43.280 --> 0:54:48.640 The most presented as the archetype of this style of behavior, 0:54:49.680 --> 0:54:56.520 the shootiest, huntiest moose, huntiest skiest, heartiest of all, the 0:54:56.600 --> 0:55:00.959 five foot three farmer and hunter named Simo Howe, who 0:55:01.600 --> 0:55:05.920 we're going to talk about on Wednesday. Eh, eh, a 0:55:05.920 --> 0:55:07.000 whole episode of context. 0:55:07.120 --> 0:55:10.000 Yeah, I'm excited. I mean, I know the basics of 0:55:10.040 --> 0:55:11.440 this guy, but I don't know what the depth you're 0:55:11.440 --> 0:55:13.239 going to go into. But what I can do is 0:55:13.239 --> 0:55:16.719 as a as a just a preview as for sure, 0:55:16.840 --> 0:55:21.560 is how do you describe this person other than badass? Yeah? 0:55:23.280 --> 0:55:28.520 Well, if people want to see badass shooty stuff. I 0:55:28.520 --> 0:55:32.200 don't know if you have any skiing content, but I 0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:34.960 would bet money there's videos of you shooting in the snow. 0:55:35.400 --> 0:55:37.160 How can people look up what you do? 0:55:38.400 --> 0:55:41.280 Ah, that's pretty easy. You can just go to nrange 0:55:41.320 --> 0:55:44.160 dot tv, which is a little website and All of 0:55:44.160 --> 0:55:48.480 my decentralized distribution points are there, although all of you 0:55:48.520 --> 0:55:50.200 will click on YouTube because that's what we do as 0:55:50.239 --> 0:55:54.960 consumers there. But I am decentralized and also completely demonetize, 0:55:55.000 --> 0:55:58.600 completely crowdfunded and crowd supported, so I really don't have 0:55:58.600 --> 0:56:02.359 any overlords besides viewers hopefully that want to support my work. 0:56:02.440 --> 0:56:04.359 So in range dot tv is where you can find 0:56:04.360 --> 0:56:04.840 my stuff. 0:56:06.040 --> 0:56:10.960 Hell yeah, Sophie. What about you to see pictures of 0:56:11.040 --> 0:56:11.359 your dog? 0:56:11.480 --> 0:56:13.040 Oh, they can see it on Instagram. But I want 0:56:13.040 --> 0:56:16.399 to plug specifically a series that Garrison Davis just did 0:56:16.520 --> 0:56:19.359 on It could happen here, updating folks and what's been 0:56:19.400 --> 0:56:23.000 going on since cop City got approved to be built 0:56:23.080 --> 0:56:27.640 in Atlanta. Three episodes are out as of last week. 0:56:27.719 --> 0:56:29.600 If you're listening to this in modern times, If not, 0:56:29.719 --> 0:56:32.400 go back and listen to it. Gear has been covering 0:56:33.360 --> 0:56:36.920 cop City for I don't know two years now, and 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:40.600 they've done a really good job of making you feel 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.920 like you're there and giving a clear visual understanding of 0:56:43.920 --> 0:56:45.399 what's going on. So check it out. 0:56:46.880 --> 0:56:50.120 Hell yeah, And if you want to follow me, you 0:56:50.200 --> 0:56:53.920 can google my name and I do too many different 0:56:53.920 --> 0:56:56.040 things and so you'll find a lot of them. My 0:56:56.120 --> 0:56:59.279 most recent book is called Escape from Inseill Island, and 0:56:59.320 --> 0:57:04.239 it is aner story in which protagonists have to escape 0:57:04.280 --> 0:57:09.400 an eyelid. It's full of in cells You on Wednesday by. 0:57:12.000 --> 0:57:14.520 Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of 0:57:14.560 --> 0:57:17.640 cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, 0:57:17.800 --> 0:57:21.080 visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out 0:57:21.160 --> 0:57:24.520 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get 0:57:24.560 --> 0:57:25.360 your podcasts.