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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who

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Speaker 1: Did Cool Stuff, your weekly reminder that there's a show

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Speaker 1: called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. I am your host,

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Speaker 1: Margaret Kiljoy, And this is part two of a two

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Speaker 1: part interview with Molly Crabapple. Hi, how are you a magpie?

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Speaker 2: How you doing?

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Speaker 1: I am very good. We record on Thursdays, and it

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Speaker 1: is the high point and the stress point of my week.

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Speaker 1: Like my week's work is a saw wave. It just

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Speaker 1: builds and builds and builds, and then I record and

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Speaker 1: then I'm done, and it's very nice. My brain turns

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Speaker 1: into complete and utter soup, but I still have another

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Speaker 1: hour before my brain can turn into soup. But it's

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Speaker 1: good because this week I get to talk about the

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Speaker 1: thing I've been reading, which is your book. Here where

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Speaker 1: we live is our country. I got it right this time,

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Speaker 1: you did?

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Speaker 2: You got it right.

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Speaker 1: Molly was getting ready to hold the book up for me,

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Speaker 1: but I double checked by looking at the file on

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Speaker 1: my which was the advanced reader copy. Anyway, this is

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Speaker 1: part two of a two parter. We are talking about

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Speaker 1: the Jewish labor booned and kind of their outsized impact

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Speaker 1: on history and the thing that I want to do

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Speaker 1: in part two. There's a couple of things I want

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Speaker 1: to One is I want to kind of track their

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Speaker 1: history a little bit more. But also I feel like

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Speaker 1: often when we talk about these like kind of also

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Speaker 1: ran leftist groups in history, you know, these ones that

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Speaker 1: are like, oh, they like did a thing, and then

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Speaker 1: they came and then they went. People tend to presume

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Speaker 1: this is like some small, niche thing. And as you

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Speaker 1: bring up a bunch of times in this book in

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Speaker 1: the build up to the Russian revolutions, while one was revolution,

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Speaker 1: one was a coup. But you know, if you're being

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Speaker 1: pedantic about revolutionary terminology and being a kind of person

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Speaker 1: who stays up at night getting really mad about Bolshevism.

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Speaker 2: Bankstard let in, I shake my fist at him.

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Speaker 1: I literally couldn't sleep the other night because I was

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Speaker 1: caught up in this stuff in my head. I have

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Speaker 1: a totally normal life and have an experience that's relatable

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Speaker 1: to other people. The thing that you point out this

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Speaker 1: was the dominant part of the social democratic revolutionaries of

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Speaker 1: the revolutionary left within Russia for.

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Speaker 2: Decades in like nineteen oh three, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Which is such a pivotal period of this and the

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Speaker 1: other thing that comes up as you talk about you're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we had you know, thirty thousand people right who are

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Speaker 1: part of the boned, and then three years later we

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Speaker 1: only have six hundred and four. I'm making that number up.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember the number.

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Speaker 2: No, it is six hundred and four. You got that?

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Speaker 1: WHOA, that's wild, Okay, I did just read it, so

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Speaker 1: I must have just been in my brain. And the

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Speaker 1: wild ebbs and flows are one really important for people

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Speaker 1: to remember because even if you feel like you're on top,

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Speaker 1: you might not stay there. But also if you feel

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Speaker 1: like you're on bottom, you might not stay there. The

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Speaker 1: bolsheviksker were a minority and then pulled one out, and well,

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Speaker 1: I guess their name is majority. But that's good, Okay.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to get into the weeds yet. My

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Speaker 1: point is this group was a really big deal, wasn't it.

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Speaker 2: The bound was a huge deal at various points in

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Speaker 2: their history. In nineteen oh three, which is the early

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Speaker 2: years of their existence, there was a group called the

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Speaker 2: Russian Social Democratic Labor Party that was supposed to be

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Speaker 2: the Marxist party that represented like all the Marxist parties

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Speaker 2: inside the Russian Empire, and the Bund was a part

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Speaker 2: of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, and the Russian

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Speaker 2: Social Democratic Labor Party would become the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks,

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Speaker 2: and then eventually would become the Communist Party of the

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Speaker 2: Soviet Union. This is sort of the daddy party. And

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Speaker 2: in nineteen oh three there was a major battle inside

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Speaker 2: the RSDLP. I apologize, this is the only acronym I

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Speaker 2: will force upon you.

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Speaker 1: Like actually, in my own notes, I was like, am

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Speaker 1: I going to say the RSDLP? And then I was like,

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Speaker 1: I think I have to with this one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went through my book getting rid

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Speaker 2: of every single acronym, but I couldn't with that one.

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Speaker 1: So no, that one is necessary.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, please the RSDLP. So the Boones helped found

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Speaker 2: the RSDLP. They were one third of the founding members.

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Speaker 2: But by nineteen oh three there starts to be a

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Speaker 2: tendency in the exiled wing of the RSDLP, which is

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Speaker 2: focused around a newspaper called Iskra the Spark, which is

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Speaker 2: led by a prematurely balding and extremely stubborn, declassed young

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Speaker 2: aristocrat named Vladimir Ulianov aka Lenin Done Dun Dunn as

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Speaker 2: well as his bestie for the moment, Julius Martov, a

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Speaker 2: brilliant young Jewish writer who had been friends with all

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Speaker 2: of the Bundhists back in his early exile in Vilna,

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Speaker 2: but primarily by Lenin. And this tendency inside the rs

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Speaker 2: DLP advocated as thing called democratic centralism, which basically meant

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Speaker 2: you all could debate ideas inside the party, but once

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Speaker 2: you made a decision, you had to do it. What

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Speaker 2: this meant in practice is that everyone had to listen

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Speaker 2: to the guy in charge, which to Lenin. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean to everyone had to listen to Lenin. And

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Speaker 2: the Boond vigorously rejected this sort of centralization, and they

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Speaker 2: had various reasons for it. Some of them are so

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Speaker 2: bizarre and in the weeds that even I could not

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Speaker 2: force myself to read the theoretical justifications for them. But

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Speaker 2: one of the big reasons was that the RSDLP, which

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Speaker 2: was the grand party of the whole Russian Empire, had

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Speaker 2: five thousand members, and the Boond, which represented the Jews

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Speaker 2: who were three percent of the Russian Empire, had thirty

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Speaker 2: thousand members.

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Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying, y'all aren't beating the allegations

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Speaker 1: of being the revolutionaries.

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Speaker 2: And also the other thing is the RSDLP half their.

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Speaker 1: Leaders were Jews too, So totally there is a big

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Speaker 1: worn in the bund.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, no, that the history of the European left.

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Speaker 2: It's real, not being the allegations. No, so the booned

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Speaker 2: which had thirty thousand members and also all the printing

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Speaker 2: presses and also access to all the good smuggling roots

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Speaker 2: because Jews had to live in the border area.

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Speaker 1: Ohhh yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 2: I mean they were the best smugglers. They literally were

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Speaker 2: in charge of smuggling like other revolutionaries in and out

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Speaker 2: of the Russian Empire as well as they were smuggling

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Speaker 2: in Iskra. At the same time as they're fighting with Lenin,

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Speaker 2: they're smuggling in Iskra.

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Speaker 1: Which is good pluralism, I will say.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they were a big tent group.

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Speaker 1: I mean the problem is with someone in the big

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Speaker 1: tent group is only pretending to be into the big tent.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't work out.

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Speaker 2: You know, no, no, then they take over the tent.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, big tent democratic. Whoever is the most

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Speaker 1: popular wins you know in one group is oh yeah.

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Speaker 2: But the boone just didn't like the idea they were

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Speaker 2: just like our group is a mass movement that has

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Speaker 2: all of these great resources. Your group is an extremely

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Speaker 2: argumentative newspaper, and we don't think we should have to

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Speaker 2: listen to you just because you claim that you represent

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Speaker 2: the entire Russian Empire, even though you have five thousand people. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and so I personally think that behind many of the

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Speaker 2: debates about like nation and ethnicity and centralism, this is

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Speaker 2: actually what it was about. That's my theory. Other historians

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Speaker 2: can yell at me for.

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Speaker 1: It, now, that's interesting.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. One of my things that I believe writing

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Speaker 2: this book, which you know again is my opinion, is

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Speaker 2: I think that many times there are things in history

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Speaker 2: that happen due to profound personality conflicts and profound personal

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Speaker 2: distrust that are then justified later by theoretical differences. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but that the theory actually was spun up to justify

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Speaker 2: why you don't want to work with the controlling megalomaniac

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Speaker 2: in your group.

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Speaker 1: Right, Okay. I have this theory about writing about the revolution,

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Speaker 1: which again totally normal thing to have a theory about,

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Speaker 1: which is that everyone is writing books that relate to

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Speaker 1: how the Bolsheviks relate to this or that group, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because the Bolsheviks are the ones who win. Like, I've

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Speaker 1: read a lot of history about anarchists in the Russian Revolution,

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Speaker 1: and it mentions Mensheviks, it mentions left srs, it mentions

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Speaker 1: the boond, but it primarily is about the relationship between

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Speaker 1: anarchists and the Bolsheviks. And this book, as far as

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Speaker 1: I've gotten, is primarily about the relationship between the booned

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Speaker 1: and the Bolsheviks, right. And I think it's because since

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Speaker 1: history is written by the victors, when you're uncovering history,

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Speaker 1: you're saying, oh, the Bolsheviks don't like to talk about

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Speaker 1: the fact that this happened, like the fact that for

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Speaker 1: a while the RSDLP was kept alive entirely by the

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Speaker 1: bond when everyone else was arrested, right, Right, And so

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Speaker 1: you're like kind of uncovering this stuff, and some of

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Speaker 1: the stuff that I've read about like anarchists is like, oh, hey,

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Speaker 1: here's where we've been left out of the story. But

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Speaker 1: because those anarchists, historians might not be reading the booned history,

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Speaker 1: Like I'm just thinking about the fact that I've read

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Speaker 1: about the booned sum But then also in this book,

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Speaker 1: like the position of the anarchists isn't as clear in

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Speaker 1: the history of the Russian Revolution within it, right, And

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Speaker 1: I'm curious about this is my own tangent for this sake.

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Speaker 1: Do you know much about the relationship between the booned

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Speaker 1: and the anarchists during the kind of Russian revolutionary period?

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Speaker 1: I don't.

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Speaker 2: I know about it more in terms of like in

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Speaker 2: Byalu Stock.

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Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, cool, I'm excited to talk to about Ballistock.

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Speaker 2: Which was, you know, a Jewish anarchist hotbed.

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Speaker 1: Right, uh Black banner, Uh huh.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I would say that the relationship between

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Speaker 2: the boond and the anarchists was one of people who

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Speaker 2: were battling for the same turf. They were both trying

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Speaker 2: to assert dominance amongst the Jewish working class. The boond

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Speaker 2: didn't particularly like the anarchists. I mean, they were socialists

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Speaker 2: in general. I would say like they were pretty dismissive

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Speaker 2: of anarchists in the way that I'm sure you're richly

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Speaker 2: sick of hearing from socialists of that era.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, but I'm curious to hear.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: The one anecdote that I do have though about anarchists

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Speaker 2: and the boond. It's actually like a really tragic anecdote.

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Speaker 2: So the Bunda had a third of their members were

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Speaker 2: women in the Russian Empire. They were an organization with

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Speaker 2: a lot of women, including a lot of women in

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Speaker 2: very prominent roles like orators, battle squad leaders, you know,

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Speaker 2: you know, leadership roles.

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Speaker 1: In a period where women couldn't even go to college

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Speaker 1: in almost all cases, you know, exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so this young woman was very beautiful I'm named

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Speaker 2: Esther Riskin, who had run away from Assidic family and

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Speaker 2: an arranged marriage, and she was a street order and

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Speaker 2: she was very charismatic, and she died because there was

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Speaker 2: a clash in Byali Stock between the revolutionaries including anarchist

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Speaker 2: socialists everyone on one side and cops on the other.

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Speaker 2: And an anarchist tried to throw a bomb at the

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Speaker 2: cops and he had throw and he blew her up.

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Speaker 2: Oh fuck yeah, not deliberately, just purely out of the

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Speaker 2: wind patterns, you know. Yeah, that was deaf something that

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Speaker 2: was brought up a lot, and like the martyrdom of

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Speaker 2: this like very beloved and beautiful orator. And also I

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Speaker 2: think it's important to note that like a lot of

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Speaker 2: conversations about like revolutionary violence. They neglect the fact that

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Speaker 2: sometimes things go wrong. Yeah, yeah, it's not just ethical problem.

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Speaker 2: It's also a sometimes the wind blows the wrong way

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Speaker 2: and you blow up your best friend by accident.

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Speaker 1: Which actually is an ethical problem.

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Speaker 2: It's just it's not like what's in your heart that

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Speaker 2: did that? You know, right, But honestly, like, I don't

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Speaker 2: have a ton of stuff. I have a friend who's

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Speaker 2: a Polish Jewish anarchist as Zuzanna Hertzberg. When she came

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Speaker 2: over to New York, we got breathtakingly drunk, just so drunk,

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Speaker 2: you know, that level of drunk, And then as two

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Speaker 2: nerds would do, we started arguing about the Boon versus

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Speaker 2: the anarchists, and she told me she had to read

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Speaker 2: archival research about how stupid the Boon was and how

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Speaker 2: right the anarchists were, and how the Boons had written

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Speaker 2: the anarchists out of history. So someday I hope that

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Speaker 2: Susanna comes on the show and she can like set

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Speaker 2: the record straight.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, does she write? Can I act sess her stuff?

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Speaker 2: I don't know if she's written about it. She's mostly

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Speaker 2: like a contemporary artist. She does these beautiful handstone banners

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Speaker 2: of like anarchist women, Oh cool, that are like hanging

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Speaker 2: in like contemporary Polish art museums. She's such a queen.

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Speaker 2: I really recommend checking out her work. But also when

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Speaker 2: Drunk has a passionate defense of the Polish Jewish anarchists

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Speaker 2: against the booned.

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Speaker 1: I mean this is interesting because, like, for example, I

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Speaker 1: could be wrong, and maybe the more I read about this,

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Speaker 1: I'll change my mind. Right.

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Speaker 2: Also, most of the book is not about the relationship

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Speaker 2: between the Boones and the Bolsheviks. Once they go to

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Speaker 2: Poland that stops fair enough.

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Speaker 1: And I think just specifically around the Russian Revolution, there's

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Speaker 1: just a thing where everyone's history has been buried. The

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union did a really good job of a racing

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Speaker 1: history and like controlling a historical narrative, and so I

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Speaker 1: feel like people's job has been to find this stuff

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Speaker 1: that has been really suppressed. And so when I say

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Speaker 1: about like about the relationship between the Bolsheviks, I kind

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Speaker 1: of mean in conversation with the fact that a lot

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Speaker 1: of this history seems to be kind of buried, right,

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Speaker 1: and so you're not necessarily going to find the other

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Speaker 1: buried histories alongside of it. Is my current working theory.

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Speaker 1: But my team wouldn't necessarily look good if they had

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Speaker 1: been included in this narrative, because, for example, the anarchists

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Speaker 1: were a major part of the coup in the October

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Speaker 1: Revolution and also shutting down the Constituent Assembly. Like the

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Speaker 1: anarchists were alongside the Bolsheviks. We're basically used as like

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Speaker 1: attack dogs by the Bolsheviks because we believed in these

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Speaker 1: certain ideals we could be talked into and we had

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Speaker 1: also a lot of like military power, like a lot

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Speaker 1: of the navy was anarchist, so we could be talked

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Speaker 1: into doing this violence and doing this dying with the

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Speaker 1: Bolsheviks then coming in and sweeping up and centralizing power

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Speaker 1: and so like. We wouldn't necessarily look good in this

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Speaker 1: narrative if we had been included more in it.

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Speaker 2: I don't think anyone really looks good in the narrative

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Speaker 2: of the Russian Revolution, including the Bundists. So by the

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Speaker 2: time nineteen seventeen rules around the bund is working really

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Speaker 2: closely with the Mensheviks. In fact, you have a lot

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Speaker 2: of Bundists who are Mensheviks. At the same time, Also,

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Speaker 2: by the time nineteen seventeen, rules around the Bund as

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Speaker 2: a party is in probably the worst shape it's ever been.

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Speaker 2: First of all, the parts of Russia that are invaded

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Speaker 2: and occupied by the German and Austrian armies are the

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Speaker 2: pale of settlement. Yeah, okay, so they're just cut off

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Speaker 2: from so many of their major bases, right like if

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Speaker 2: you think about it, like Vilna, Warsaw, Lublin, these cities

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Speaker 2: are they are sliced off, they are occupied. Also, in

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Speaker 2: the early days of World War One, the Tzarist military

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Speaker 2: decided that Jews and other nationalities as well, like people

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Speaker 2: of German ethnicity and I think people of Turkish ethnicity,

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Speaker 2: were a fifth column, and they mass deported Jews from

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Speaker 2: cities like Dvinsk, which were these major Jewish centers, and

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Speaker 2: they just put them in box cars and sent them

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Speaker 2: to the interior. And so it's really fucked by the

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Speaker 2: time that the revolution comes around. And then the final

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Speaker 2: thing that I want to say about their weakness is

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Speaker 2: that Jews weren't allowed to live in the capital city,

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Speaker 2: Saint Petersburg, except if they were like very wealthy or

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Speaker 2: they were in certain professions, and so there was not

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Speaker 2: a Jewish working class base. But the wound was not

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Speaker 2: a mass party in Saint Petersburg. It couldn't be because

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Speaker 2: there just were very few Jews living there. So you

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Speaker 2: have this situation where you have these like lifelong Buondhists

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Speaker 2: like Henrik Erlik, who becomes a major character in my book,

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Speaker 2: or Mark Lieber, whose influence isn't really as Buondists during

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Speaker 2: the revolution, it says, as Menshevik leaders and the Menshevik Party,

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Speaker 2: like every socialist party, after the working women of Petrograd

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Speaker 2: take to the streets and after the people you know,

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Speaker 2: kick out the czar and vest power in the Duma,

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Speaker 2: like after that, all of these like various socialist groups

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Speaker 2: are really about what they do now that they have power,

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Speaker 2: and especially what they do about the fact that the

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Speaker 2: country is embroiled in World War One. Two million Russians

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Speaker 2: by this point have died in World War One, right,

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Speaker 2: and you have the situation where many Mensheviks, you know,

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Speaker 2: many Bundists, had deeply opposed the war back when it

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Speaker 2: was like Bizar doing it. But now they're like, well,

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Speaker 2: Russia's free, Russia is you know, democratic, and it's.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so four hundred thousand more men should just go

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Speaker 1: die for no reason exactly.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to take back vilnan Biali stock. That's great.

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Speaker 2: And also surely young men will love to throw themselves

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Speaker 2: headfirst into a meat grinder.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, without any guns, which is the Russia specialty or boots.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, it's going to be great. So when

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Speaker 2: you write about this period between what's called the February

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Speaker 2: Revolution and the October revolution Er coup, you get the

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Speaker 2: sense of fucking doom because a lot of times the

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Speaker 2: people that you would naturally sympathize with, like I I

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Speaker 2: think the Bundists were were great, you know, I like

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Speaker 2: the Menchphix. I think they're quite ethical. People have yoked

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Speaker 2: themselves to sending millions of people into a fucking meat

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Speaker 2: grinder because of various inane, incomprehensible, bullshit reasons. I have

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Speaker 2: a part in the book where I describe how the

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Speaker 2: boond believed that, you know, according to orthodox Marxist law,

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Speaker 2: they couldn't take power because there had to be a

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Speaker 2: bourgeois revolution first, because that's how, you know, history goes

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Speaker 2: in stage.

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Speaker 1: Which is one of the most nonsensical things that people

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Speaker 1: have believed for so long.

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Speaker 2: Yes, like the salad follows the soup, that's how it goes. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: bourgeois revolution then proletarian and so because of that they

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Speaker 2: had to support these like deranged bourgeois parties that wanted

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Speaker 2: to continue throwing young men into a meat grinder with

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Speaker 2: no shoes or guns. It's truly like one of these

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Speaker 2: moments where you're like, how can someone be that theory pilled?

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Speaker 2: How can you do this? And so what I found

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Speaker 2: was that in the lead up to the October Revolution,

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Speaker 2: the Boonts basically split between people who thought it would

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Speaker 2: be a good idea to keep throwing people in the

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Speaker 2: meat grinder until such time as all the allies agreed

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Speaker 2: to stop the meat grinder business, and in between people

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Speaker 2: who were like, you can't keep throwing soldiers into the

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Speaker 2: meat grinder or else they'll overthrow you. They don't want

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Speaker 2: to go in the meat grinder, right, And so one

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Speaker 2: of the things that just like struck me was that

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Speaker 2: Lenin was one of the only figures who realized that

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Speaker 2: you can't keep sending soldiers into the meat grinder if

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Speaker 2: they would go into the meat grinder. And one of

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Speaker 2: the real things that leads to Lenin being able to

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Speaker 2: take power first within the Bolshevik Party, right because he's

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Speaker 2: not necessarily like the leader of the party when he

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Speaker 2: arrives at Finland station, right, and then you know, over

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Speaker 2: Petrograd and then over the country. Is that he's one

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Speaker 2: of the only figures in any socialist group who realizes

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Speaker 2: that you have to make a separate piece because the

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Speaker 2: soldiers are no longer willing to fight this stupid batshit

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Speaker 2: war for no reason.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it funny that, like the socialists were bad at

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Speaker 1: popular they were so bad because it seems like that

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Speaker 1: should be a logical thing if you're social, like social

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Speaker 1: and populole or whatever. They seem like words of the

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Speaker 1: same route, right, But yeah, no, like this is actually

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Speaker 1: something that I also just to continue to talk up

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Speaker 1: your book that I was consistently impressed by.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: You're obviously writing from the point of view of like

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Speaker 1: I like the Bond, right, But you're not writing from

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Speaker 1: the point of view of like my team right or wrong?

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Speaker 2: You know, no, because they were wrong a lot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And like I really appreciate that. I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate that approach to history, and especially in this time

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Speaker 1: period where people tend to pick their team as if

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Speaker 1: we're playing fantasy football about the past, you know, and

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Speaker 1: then say like my team right or wrong? Right, if

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Speaker 1: only my team had been invested with power, then we

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Speaker 1: would actually have had a good, happy world or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I really appreciated that that you're talking about, Like,

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Speaker 1: because if I were to sit back and not by

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Speaker 1: picking a team, but just by looking at the right,

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Speaker 1: I'd probably be like, well, they probably should have stopped

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Speaker 1: the war, right, Like.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they probably fucking should have stopped the war. So

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Speaker 2: I have this moment that I cut from the book

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Speaker 2: because I just ran out of pages, but it was

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Speaker 2: to me like when I translated this from the Yiddish memoir,

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Speaker 2: I was just like, ah stab. So I read the

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Speaker 2: memoirs of a Bundhist internationalist, meaning a Bundist who wanted

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Speaker 2: to stop the war named Rafael Abramovich who wrote this

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Speaker 2: amazing like two volume memoir called Two Revolution, Story of

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Speaker 2: a Generation. And he arrives pretty soon after Lenin does

400
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Speaker 2: from you know, the exile colonies in Switzerland, and from

401
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Speaker 2: the first thing he is like, we have to stop

402
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Speaker 2: the war. The war is evil, the war is stupid.

403
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Speaker 2: The war is throwing people into a meat grinder, and

404
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Speaker 2: primarily soldiers are lynching their officers and running away. We

405
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Speaker 2: can't even fight it anymore, so we have to stop it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and he is just endlessly fighting his own comrades, just

407
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Speaker 2: and Menshevik comrades, because they are bringing up like the

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Speaker 2: line graph of the dialectical progression of history. They are

409
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Speaker 2: bringing up how they need to join the adult club

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Speaker 2: of democracies with France and England. They're bringing up this,

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Speaker 2: they're bringing up that. And there's this moment where I

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Speaker 2: think it took place in it was after the July Days,

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Speaker 2: so it was like late July, and it was after

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Speaker 2: Kerensky's offensive had collapsed at the cost of hundreds of

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Speaker 2: thousands of people's lives for no.

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Speaker 1: Right and just for people following. Kerensky was the leader

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Speaker 1: of the Duma, which was the more traditional republic government

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Speaker 1: side of the Russian Revolution, and he supported continuing involvement

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Speaker 1: in the war, and so four hundred thousand people died

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Speaker 1: as a.

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Speaker 2: Result, exactly. And he also started as a socialist, but

422
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Speaker 2: increasingly becomes a meglomaniac who is wearing the czar's old

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Speaker 2: robes and doing coke until such time as he is

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Speaker 2: relieved from office.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know he was wearing, yes.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, so this is the anecdote. So there's this

427
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Speaker 2: point where Horrible, which he's just been like lobbying so

428
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Speaker 2: much to get them out of the war, and he

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Speaker 2: finally gets a chance to address the Menshevik faction of

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Speaker 2: the Soviet and he gives the speech where he's like, guys,

431
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Speaker 2: the soldiers are all lynching their officers, they're running away.

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Speaker 2: Don't you understand that these people they didn't overthrow the

433
00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:19,879
Speaker 2: Zar because they believed in socialism. They overthrew the Zar

434
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 2: because they didn't want to die in a meat grinder.

435
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 2: And if you keep sending them to die and the

436
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 2: meat grinder, they're going to overthrow you too. And right

437
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:29,920
Speaker 2: now you still have the power to end this, and

438
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 2: you can even go to the Allies and say either

439
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:34,280
Speaker 2: we're going to end it or Lenin will, But if

440
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 2: you don't end it right now, we're going to be toast.

441
00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:38,440
Speaker 2: And then he just looks at them and he's like, guys,

442
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:40,159
Speaker 2: I just want to know the plan. What do you

443
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 2: intend to do with the Great Russian Revolution? And he

444
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 2: looks at them and he realizes they're all staring at

445
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:48,879
Speaker 2: him totally blankly, and then the head of the Soviet says, ah,

446
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:52,360
Speaker 2: those are complicated questions. We'll need some time to get

447
00:22:52,359 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 2: you some answers to that, and then afterwards all of

448
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 2: these buddies of his are like, wow, you know that

449
00:22:58,000 --> 00:22:59,920
Speaker 2: was like so brave of you to say that public

450
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 2: I really agree with you, but I can't say I

451
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:05,680
Speaker 2: do publicly because I still want to go against my friends.

452
00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 1: Well, if you want to be a free thinker and

453
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:13,760
Speaker 1: not do what anyone tells you, then you should buy

454
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,960
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. That's the

455
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 1: way freethinking works. Or you could just press forward fifteen

456
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 1: seconds like probably about six d eight times, I don't

457
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:30,840
Speaker 1: know anyway, and we're back. That anecdote is so wild

458
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: to me because it's like, it's easy for people to

459
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:38,080
Speaker 1: imagine dying in a hal of gunfire, or spending their

460
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 1: life in Siberian exile, or dying of tuberculosis in the

461
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 1: prisons the Saint Paul and Mary whatever the name of

462
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:47,400
Speaker 1: that big prison that.

463
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 2: This are center, well Mary and Ringo, I don't.

464
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: Know, yeah, exactly, that one that actually a lot of

465
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: people have broken out of. But people were better at

466
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: breaking out of prison back in the day before modern technology. Anyway,

467
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:00,600
Speaker 1: people could imagine doing all of those things, but peer

468
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:06,120
Speaker 1: pressure and like echo chambers and like in group thinking

469
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 1: are more powerful sometimes than the sabers of the Cossacks.

470
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,040
Speaker 2: Not there any modern parallels to that at all.

471
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: No, I can't think of any Now we think really yeah, no,

472
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: anyone who agrees with me is correct. So it's just

473
00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:21,280
Speaker 1: like there's not really it's not an echo chamber if

474
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: they're just saying what I say, because that's just they're

475
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:26,360
Speaker 1: saying the correct things. But there is this Okay, I've

476
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: been thinking about this idea that you can theory your

477
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: way into anything, this idea that like, oh well we

478
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: have to you know, for anyone who's wondering. There used

479
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:36,600
Speaker 1: to be this idea in Marxism. There still is, but

480
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: I think the Russian Revolution kind of broke it a

481
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:41,959
Speaker 1: little bit. Where in Marxism you have to have, you know,

482
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 1: your fucking monarchy, and then you have to have the

483
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: bourgeois revolution where the rich people get power, and then

484
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:50,399
Speaker 1: you can have the socialist revolution. And if you go

485
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: out of order, it all falls apart, which leads to

486
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,359
Speaker 1: really funny things like Frederick Engels, the rich industrialist, writing

487
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: all of this like frankly racist shit against the IRA

488
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: and saying that, like, they would only be useful for

489
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 1: socialism as bodies in a war against England because the

490
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: Irish can't be proper socialists because they're already two socialists.

491
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: Oh god, they're primitive socialists. They haven't gone through the

492
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 1: correct stages of history, so they can't get there because

493
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: they're not proletarian workers working within a capitalist factory.

494
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 2: Fucking nerds, man nerds.

495
00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: And I was thinking, I was like, oh, that's insane,

496
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: No one would ever come up with that now. And

497
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:33,919
Speaker 1: then I'm like, I see this around me all of

498
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: the time. You can theory your way into anything. This

499
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: is my theory is that you can build logical arguments

500
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 1: to create wildly unethical things and call them ethical because

501
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: every step of the way is ethical.

502
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 2: Right.

503
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,679
Speaker 1: That's why at the end, after you come up with

504
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: your conclusion, you then need to look back at the

505
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:01,479
Speaker 1: beginning and be like is this evil? Like did I

506
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: just see a bad thing? You know? And I think

507
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 1: that world history would be really different if well meaning

508
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:13,440
Speaker 1: people hadn't built all these logical ideas like democratic socialism

509
00:26:13,560 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: or something which comes out of a logical urge of

510
00:26:16,040 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: like you kind of need some discipline and a revolutionary group.

511
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:19,679
Speaker 1: If you want to get anything.

512
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 2: Done, democratic centralism not democratic socialism.

513
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: Oh, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Democratic socialism is

514
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:25,120
Speaker 1: a whole separate thing.

515
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,360
Speaker 2: With oh dare you slander my d? I say, oh

516
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,119
Speaker 2: my god. The gallows.

517
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is another word that, like everything else, could

518
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: mean anything. If you say democratic socialism in like nineteen

519
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 1: oh three Russia, if you say democratic socialism in nineteen

520
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: twenty two Germany, if you say democratic socialism in like

521
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: two thousand and three Sweden. One of them is like

522
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 1: revolutionary Marxism. One of them is like a liberalism that's

523
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,240
Speaker 1: conspired against the revolution, and one of them is just

524
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: like kind of what if people have what they need?

525
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: But also a little bit milk toasting capitalist, you know,

526
00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: like versus like what people are trying to do with

527
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: democratic socialism. Now, It's like it's always different.

528
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,640
Speaker 2: Always different. Yeah, these terms mean wildly different things. Theorying

529
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 2: your way into madness. This also makes me want to

530
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 2: bring up another great theoretical moment in leftist history, which

531
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 2: is the social fascism theory. Do you know about the

532
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:20,440
Speaker 2: social fascism?

533
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: Is this the nineteen thirties Germany? Like, if you are

534
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: not our kind of leftist. You're the same as a fascist.

535
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: I can't remember, it's.

536
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 2: Kind of like that. So it was something that was

537
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:34,400
Speaker 2: advanced starting in the nineteen twenties by the common Tern.

538
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,040
Speaker 2: It was championed by Amrad Rische Zenoviev.

539
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: Okay, and the common Tern is the USSR's Communist International

540
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 1: that dictated what the communist parties of various countries should do.

541
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: Exactly, and it would make an official line and then

542
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 2: the parties would follow. So the idea of this brilliant

543
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 2: theory was that the real fascists i. Mussolini, the fascist

544
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 2: that was currently in of the country of Italy, were

545
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:08,600
Speaker 2: actually in some ways less bad than social democratic parties

546
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 2: or moderate socialist parties, who they called social fascists, because

547
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: the social democrats or the socialists were tricking workers and

548
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 2: they were leading them away from like the real revolution

549
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 2: which was just about to happen at any moment, Like

550
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 2: there's about to be a fucking orgasm of Soviet Communism

551
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 2: if it wasn't for like these tricksy social democrats. Yeah, yeah,

552
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,440
Speaker 2: the real problem, Yeah, not Mussolini, not like the rising

553
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 2: Nazi party. No, No, it's like the slightly more milk

554
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: toast socialists. Yeah, and this is a theory that has

555
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 2: huge implications for the boond so Poland in the nineteen twenties,

556
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,680
Speaker 2: when the boond found their militia, which is led by

557
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: a scarfaced bruiser named Bernard Goldstein, who you've previously done

558
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 2: an episode on the first enemy that they're fighting. You

559
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:56,719
Speaker 2: would think that it would be, you know, racist gangs,

560
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 2: or maybe the mafia or the bosses or landlords. The

561
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 2: first enemy they're fighting is Jewish communists because the Communist

562
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 2: Party of Poland, which was largely Jewish, not beating the

563
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 2: rap on this one, was following the common Turns line

564
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 2: that the real fascists were the booned and they embarked

565
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 2: on this incredibly violent war to take over unions in

566
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 2: incredibly insignificant industries like matza bakeries or low end women's

567
00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 2: shoe sweatshops, brush making places because discrimination and you know,

568
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 2: racism kept Jews out of like the big industries like steelmaking.

569
00:29:43,560 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 2: So you literally had Jewish communists knifing Jewish socialists over

570
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 2: who would dominate the second cheapest cookie shop on Krochmolna Street.

571
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: Right, Totally different than gang warfare, totally for an idea.

572
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, very very different, very very different. But the social

573
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 2: fascism thing, it had a much less inane side, which

574
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 2: is that it is what kept social democratic and communist

575
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 2: parties from uniting against Hitler because they viewed each other

576
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 2: as the real enemies.

577
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: That is one of the main lessons that we should

578
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: try and get out of the twentieth century. And it's hard.

579
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 1: I believe in pluralism between groups that can accept pluralism,

580
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: and anything that is functionally democratic can offer a certain

581
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: kind of pluralism, right, Like you talk about in your

582
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: book that you know, during the Russian revolutions that people

583
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: are like, well, we're going to have this constituent assembly

584
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: or we're going to have these democratic processes to figure

585
00:30:42,760 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 1: out how we should get along, and those are going

586
00:30:45,680 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: to be politically pluralistic, probably all talking about different kinds

587
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: of socialists.

588
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, different kinds of socialists.

589
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: Well, we're still talking about people who are like, you know,

590
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 1: disagree with each other and we can hash it out

591
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: at the ballot box. But I struggle with political pluralism

592
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: when there are groups like just you know, the Bolsheviks

593
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: who do not allow for political pluralism within their ideology, right,

594
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: they want a single party state. They want, you know,

595
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: a totalitarian system. It's hard for me to not like

596
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: I kind of get why the bond is, like, well,

597
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: I got to fight these communists who are working for

598
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: the USSR, which kills people and is bad, right.

599
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 2: And also who are attacking us with knives.

600
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: Also right exactly, And like it's a messy place to

601
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: be because also, like the common tern is like, oh

602
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: social fascism. By calling someone the real fascist, you're saying,

603
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: do violence to them.

604
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 2: Right, And that's what they did, right, Like it meant

605
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 2: like very real violence. Like at one point communists in

606
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,959
Speaker 2: Poland shoot up the Boones Sanatorium for tubercular slum children.

607
00:31:49,400 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, I found that the analysis of

608
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: the Russian Revolution yet so interesting of like what would

609
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: it have taken for power to be democratic, whether through

610
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 1: the Duma or through the Soviets, And it seems like

611
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: that is something that like the booned and like a

612
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: lot of different groups could have kind of all agreed

613
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: being like we're going to hash this out democratically, and

614
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: instead we had to have a civil war. Well there

615
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:20,800
Speaker 1: was already going to be a civil war against the capitalists,

616
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: but like, instead we have to have a civil war,

617
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,000
Speaker 1: like I think five sides, I can't remember. There is

618
00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: more than that, probably, but and it makes me sad,

619
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: like that's the actual thing that happens as I look

620
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 1: at this, and I'm just sad. I'm sad that people

621
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 1: allowed to talitarianism to shut everyone else out. But is

622
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: that me being anti pluralist against them. It feels like

623
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: the tolerance paradox were like, tolerate anyone except bigots, you know.

624
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the truth is that the Bolsheviks

625
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 2: wouldn't have won if the other groups had not been

626
00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 2: so committed to throwing millions of people into a meat grow.

627
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 2: And I think that the lesson from it is that

628
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 2: if you do have power, right like, if for some

629
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: reason you are able to seize the reins of the

630
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: state that you are able to get into power, do

631
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: not continue doing the same violent and idiotic things that

632
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 2: got the last regime kicked out of power, or very

633
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 2: soon you will find yourself on the chopping block.

634
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, totally.

635
00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: It wasn't just like like things were going fine and

636
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: then like the Bolsheviks got in like took over by

637
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:29,920
Speaker 2: you know, by being little dictators. It was that the

638
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 2: other socialist groups were advancing the continuation of this war

639
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 2: that was killing so many people. Though I want to

640
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 2: tell people this is only the first third of the book.

641
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 2: Most of the book is not about the Russian Revolution.

642
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sorry, yeah, naughty, naughty, naughty.

643
00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 2: No. But there's another moment that to me was just

644
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 2: like also like so gutting. So after the October to

645
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 2: the October Revolution and after the Constituent Assembly is shot up.

646
00:33:56,640 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 2: One of the results from that is that Ukraine, which

647
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 2: has been seeking autonomy, decides buck this, we want independence.

648
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 2: These people shot up the Constituent Assembly and the Rada,

649
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 2: which is the Ukrainian version of the Soviet, which was

650
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 2: modeled after the Soviet and Petrograd and which is led

651
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 2: by like humane socialists who believe in multiculturalism. They declare independence,

652
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 2: and there are Bundists in the Rata, there are Jews

653
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: in the Rata. Like it's you know, it's a multiracial thing.

654
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 2: It's quite idealistic project. But very soon this idealistic project

655
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:38,320
Speaker 2: is completely subsumed by the violence of a Soviet invasion

656
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,680
Speaker 2: and then making an alliance with Germany, which then proceeds

657
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 2: to act like a thieving occupier and impoverish the population,

658
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 2: and all of Ukraine sort of plunges into a horrific,

659
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 2: multi sided civil war that ends up killing two hundred

660
00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 2: thousand Jews and Bundists at first really tried to participate

661
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:01,839
Speaker 2: in the democratic project of an independent Ukraine. They didn't

662
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 2: support Ukrainian independence at first, but once Ukraine decided it

663
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:09,000
Speaker 2: was independent, they're like, fine, we're committed. We're in the rata,

664
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 2: we are mayors, you know.

665
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, multiculture Ukraine great.

666
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Also, you know, fuck what's going on

667
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 2: in Russia? Yeah, And you have these characters like this

668
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 2: guy named David Lippetz who is the mayor of Berdachev,

669
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: and the Ukrainian Rata has so little control of their

670
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 2: troops that they're unable to prevent not only horrific programs

671
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 2: from happening in his town, but programmers mock executing him

672
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:35,240
Speaker 2: and his family.

673
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 1: Oh my god, uh huh.

674
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. And when he goes to the Rata, there's Buddhist

675
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 2: delegations that go to the Rata and they're like, can

676
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,480
Speaker 2: you stop these programs that are being often carried out

677
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:51,960
Speaker 2: by people who are allied with government forces, you know,

678
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: like militia's under the control of sam and Petliura. The

679
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 2: government doesn't do anything, it doesn't help them. And so

680
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 2: almost all of the Bundists who remain in Ukraine they

681
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 2: become Bolsheviks because they see the Red Army as the

682
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 2: only force that is saving Ukrainian Jews from extermination. And

683
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 2: David Lippittz, this mayor of Bertaschev, you know, committed to

684
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian Democratic Project. After another program in his town,

685
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:21,759
Speaker 2: he goes to Kiev and enlists in the Red Army

686
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 2: and changes his name to Petrovski, and he becomes a

687
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 2: general in the Red Army. And that's what happens to

688
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:31,040
Speaker 2: the vast majority of Buddhists who stayed in Ukraine. They

689
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 2: joined the Red Army and the Bolsheviks for survival, and

690
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 2: their organization was sort of like liquidated and absorbed into

691
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 2: the Communist Party, and they were all killed during the

692
00:36:40,280 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 2: purges in the thirties on accusations of Bundhism. Anyway, and

693
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:45,719
Speaker 2: when I was reading that, the thing that like for

694
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 2: me was so horrifying, like was so tragic, was you

695
00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: have like your ideals, you have your belief in democracy,

696
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:54,319
Speaker 2: you have your beautiful mutual aid networks. You have this,

697
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 2: you have that, but ultimately, like if you don't have

698
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 2: guns and you don't have power, your dead meat. Yeah,

699
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:04,280
Speaker 2: and you end up having to ally with the people

700
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 2: who do. Yeah. I mean, what happened in Ukraine was

701
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 2: by far, like one of the most tragic parts of

702
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 2: Boone's history, and it also included the incidents where like

703
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 2: I have one story of this young Bundist woman named

704
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 2: Sarah Fuchs, who she was like one of these like

705
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,839
Speaker 2: hardened party workers, like she had rotted in jail, she

706
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,800
Speaker 2: had given speeches before rabbis who called her a whore

707
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,280
Speaker 2: because she was a woman speaking. She you know, roused

708
00:37:31,320 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 2: the troops at the front line, like she was like

709
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:37,399
Speaker 2: a tough as nails, passionate ground level organizer who really

710
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 2: had no life except for the party. And when the

711
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,919
Speaker 2: booned in Ukraine decides to go over to the Bolsheviks,

712
00:37:46,080 --> 00:37:48,719
Speaker 2: she cannot morally reconcile herself with it, because what that

713
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 2: means is that you're co signing all of the repression,

714
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 2: all of the jailing, right, yeah, all the killing of

715
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 2: the Bolsheviks do And after she herself is arrested and

716
00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: interrogated by someone who's a former comrade. She kills herself.

717
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, fuck yeah.

718
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 2: It definitely Writing this book I felt like was a

719
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,240
Speaker 2: very sobering look into the realities of power.

720
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:20,919
Speaker 1: Well, if you want an awkward ad transition, you're listening

721
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: to the right podcast and we're back. You know this

722
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: thing that you're saying about, like, well, look like you

723
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: can have all the ideals in the world, but if

724
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:35,920
Speaker 1: you like don't have some military power, there's kind of

725
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 1: nothing you can do. I was talking to an Iranian

726
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: friend about this just like the other day, about like

727
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 1: being like, look, I believed really intensely and like people

728
00:38:46,040 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: power and then watched, you know, tens of thousands of

729
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: people be killed by the Ranian regime and that doesn't

730
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 1: make this person excited about what's happening. But they're just

731
00:38:56,719 --> 00:39:00,319
Speaker 1: looking and they're like, oh, if you're up again an

732
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,919
Speaker 1: enemy that's willing to machine gun you, big marches don't

733
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: mean anything. You know, like people power is only going

734
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: to get you so far. And yeah, that idea, the

735
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,239
Speaker 1: sobering look at what's involved in like even to go

736
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: back to like when they were just fighting pograms, right,

737
00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: you know, realizing that fighting pograms meant having revolvers like that,

738
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 1: you know, like and like multiple different factions of Jewish

739
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,879
Speaker 1: leftists were like, time to build a bomb factory, because

740
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,440
Speaker 1: that's the only way to solve this problem of people

741
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: coming into our neighborhood and trying to murder us all,

742
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: you know, And I think.

743
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 2: You know, the bound was very after the experience of

744
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: Russian Revolution and after the experience of Ukraine, they were

745
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,359
Speaker 2: very sober about that reality of power. And in inter

746
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:56,840
Speaker 2: War Poland they built power, that's the thing. They built

747
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 2: it with street militias. They also built it with alliances

748
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 2: with Polish socialist groups. They also, you know, they had

749
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 2: real international alliances. They sent fighters to Spain to fight

750
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:09,719
Speaker 2: in the Spanish Civil War, They sent athletes to Red

751
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 2: Vienna during the Workers' Olympiad, like they they definitely had

752
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 2: a theory of power when it was between the wars.

753
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 2: But the problem was was that all of Europe, like

754
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 2: not just the Booned, but like all of Europe was

755
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 2: smashed under the boots of Nazi Germany. I mean the

756
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 2: Boone's like greatest flowering, like their greatest electoral victory at

757
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 2: the point at which they are by far the most

758
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 2: popular Jewish party, in Poland that is the summer of

759
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:39,879
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine.

760
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, fuck uh huh yeah, and.

761
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: The Nazis invade on September first that year.

762
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

763
00:40:47,840 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: And in writing this so I feel like, you know,

764
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 2: with Jews, like when we look at our own history,

765
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 2: one of the fucked up things that we do is

766
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:59,719
Speaker 2: we look at everything through the Holocaust, like we look

767
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 2: at it backwards, and we're like, nothing that we did

768
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:08,320
Speaker 2: was anything because the Holocaust happened, right, Like, we see

769
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 2: everything as this just like you know, land of like ash,

770
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:16,560
Speaker 2: and it keeps us from realizing like the incredible like

771
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 2: strength and beauty that people did and the fact that

772
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: they were overcome by this like again like this German

773
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 2: war machine that was so powerful that it pushed the

774
00:41:24,080 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 2: Red Army back to the suburbs of Moscow. Yeah, we

775
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:29,920
Speaker 2: like in some ways like blame ourselves for not being

776
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:30,520
Speaker 2: able to risk that.

777
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,760
Speaker 1: We're like, oh, we were wimpy because we yeah.

778
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were wimpy because we couldn't defeat a war

779
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 2: machine so powerful that it took twenty million dead Russians

780
00:41:39,160 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 2: and the entire industrial might of America and also millions

781
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 2: of soldiers from the colonies to defeat it.

782
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, it took all of the the second tier evil

783
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:51,560
Speaker 1: empires to team up against the most evil empire. You know.

784
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 1: Like this is such a good point that, like, because

785
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,040
Speaker 1: I think that there's this tendency that people have to

786
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: look back and be like, well, that didn't work, right,

787
00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: and against Nazism, nothing worked except a massive alliance and

788
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: an incredible industrialized war machine, you know, like that was

789
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: the only thing that would have stopped them. And that

790
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: makes sense to me that you're, like, this beautiful thing

791
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: that the Bondus built. There's no shame in having loss

792
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: to that. That's not a sign of not successful organizing, no, exactly,

793
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 1: Like there was no version of the world where they

794
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: could have stood up to the Nazis, like except well

795
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:33,000
Speaker 1: they did.

796
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:33,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

797
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: And like one of the other things I think you

798
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: write about is that, like there's also Jewish Polish partisan action,

799
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 1: and there's also like the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and all

800
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: this other shit.

801
00:42:45,600 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 2: You know. I mean, one thing that I wrote about

802
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 2: that I hadn't been as familiar with before I started,

803
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 2: you know, writing this book, was that the Nazis invade

804
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 2: on September first, nineteen thirty nine. The Kernels they were called.

805
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 2: You know these military men, they built such a culture

806
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 2: around the army. They flee the capital two days later,

807
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 2: and within a week they flee the country with the

808
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 2: entire gold reserve. Yeah, Marshall Ridge, Smigley, speaking of a

809
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 2: great name, Marshall Ridge Smegli. The head of the army

810
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,839
Speaker 2: flees before he even gives a last order to the army.

811
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:21,439
Speaker 2: But Polish socialists, led by a guy named Sigmund Remba,

812
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,720
Speaker 2: convinced the mayor of Warsaw that even if the country's

813
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 2: leaders had fled, that the city's capital could not just

814
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 2: submit itself to the Nazis without a fight. And I

815
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:36,760
Speaker 2: wrote an entire chapter about the Siege of Warsaw, which

816
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 2: was when the city of Warsaw, alone out of the

817
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 2: entire country of Poland, decided to try to fight against

818
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 2: the Nazis until its allies France and Britain would come

819
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 2: and save them. And they held out longer than the

820
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 2: entire rest of the country. And it was Polish socialists

821
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 2: and Bundists on the barricades, and Bundists bought, you know,

822
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 2: hand to hand with Nazi troops to try to keep

823
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 2: them from entering Warsaw. They kept one of the only

824
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 2: two newspapers full Stop running, which they printed by hand.

825
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 2: They ran soup kitchens that fed a besieged populace that

826
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 2: was starving to death. They organized teenagers with buckets of

827
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,640
Speaker 2: sand to stand on rooftops and try to snuff out

828
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 2: in sendiary bombs like These were people who fought from

829
00:44:23,760 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 2: the first days. And then when the Nazis did invade,

830
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: and when Warsaw was put under occupation, and when the

831
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:35,200
Speaker 2: creation of a ghetto was announced, the Bundist leader Arthur

832
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 2: Ziegelboim gave a public speech where he told Jews to

833
00:44:38,520 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 2: resist going into the ghetto at a time when no

834
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 2: other Jewish leader would do that, because they were so

835
00:44:43,400 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 2: afraid that if they stood up to the Nazis that

836
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 2: there would be mass executions in reprisal. And when the

837
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 2: bound was in the ghetto, they kept up their resistance.

838
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,759
Speaker 2: And the resistance wasn't just like what we think of

839
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,680
Speaker 2: as like a physical, armed thing. It also meant educating

840
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 2: children when schools were illegal, It meant saving people from

841
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 2: labor roundups. It meant publishing newspapers. Yeah, and one of

842
00:45:08,920 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 2: the things when I wrote about the ghetto, so a

843
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 2: lot of people when they think about the ghetto, they

844
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,480
Speaker 2: don't realize that this was the largest Jewish city in

845
00:45:16,480 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 2: Europe that had suddenly been compressed into an area the

846
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 2: size of Central Park. But what that meant was that

847
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: people they remained who they were. A gangster before you

848
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:30,760
Speaker 2: remained a gangster, a showgirl before she remained a showgirl,

849
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 2: and bickering leftists they remained bickering leftists. And one of

850
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:38,879
Speaker 2: the anecdotes that blew my mind when I was reading

851
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 2: the Ghetto Press was that all of these Jewish leftist

852
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 2: groups in the ghetto, all of them published newspapers, and

853
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 2: it was at risk to your life to publish a newspaper,

854
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 2: like you could be tortured to death for this, and

855
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 2: also you're starving, so you're like starving yourself to get

856
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 2: money for ink and paper. You know, you're making this

857
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 2: huge sacrifice.

858
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 1: The three things that they smuggled in to they got

859
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: were like food, printing equipment, and small arms. That's at

860
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: least that I read about.

861
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And what are the Jewish leftists of all

862
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:12,760
Speaker 2: the groups, what do they write about in their papers

863
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 2: about why the other Jewish leftists didn't understand Marx?

864
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: Fuck? Yeah, people staying who they are.

865
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, can I read you something that was written

866
00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 2: from the ghetto press by a Bundhist.

867
00:46:25,920 --> 00:46:26,319
Speaker 1: Please do.

868
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:31,120
Speaker 2: In their press, the boond commemorated lost Polish socialist friends

869
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 2: like the politician Norbert Barlitsky and the intellectual Kashmiresh Chapansky,

870
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 2: both had been murdered in Auschwitz. They promoted the theories

871
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 2: of Sigmund Freud and urged young Jews to read the

872
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 2: Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore to look at his country's independent

873
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 2: struggle and find resonance in their own fight. They turned

874
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 2: their fierce and analytical lens to France and England. Both

875
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:58,439
Speaker 2: powers shared blame for Nazi victories, wrote Voice of Youth.

876
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 2: They disregard to Japan's acts of plunder in China and

877
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 2: those of Italy and Abyssinia. They gazed with equanimity at

878
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,839
Speaker 2: Germany's resurgence under Hitlerism. The famous non intervention policy helped

879
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 2: strangle Red Spain. Foreshadowing the Martiniquan philosopher Eme Caesyer, Bundists

880
00:47:17,640 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 2: described how the Nazi slaughter was an extrapolation of what

881
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 2: Europe had inflicted on the world. It is the Hitlerrite's

882
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:27,840
Speaker 2: attempt to invoke the colonial methods of extermination that the

883
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 2: European imperialists adopted in the previous centuries and apply them

884
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 2: to the small and weak peoples of Europe when the

885
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 2: Nazis wanted to reduce them to bodies, they held most

886
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 2: fiercely to critical thought, humanism, and love. We must declare

887
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,359
Speaker 2: a fight to the death against the indifference growing within us,

888
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 2: before the world finishes off Nazism. In battle, we must

889
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 2: win a victory of morality. We must oppose brutality with

890
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 2: active empathy, the debasement of man with the defense of

891
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:02,160
Speaker 2: his dignity, and the madness of racism with the brotherhood

892
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 2: of peoples, wrote the Buddhist Ignazi Samsonovitch in an open

893
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: letter to a Polish comrade published in their newspaper for

894
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:14,840
Speaker 2: Your Freedom and Hours. I stand in the Death District,

895
00:48:14,880 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 2: and I look upon its people, poles, workers, brothers of

896
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:24,719
Speaker 2: the same shared earth. They build this terrible tomb. I

897
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 2: know powers from Hell construct these walls, not Polish workers

898
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 2: who are also enslaved. And I know one day these

899
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 2: same poles will tear down those walls beside us and

900
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: form a new life, a new city. Equally happy for everyone.

901
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:45,239
Speaker 2: After all, the workers of Paris built the Bastille at

902
00:48:45,239 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 2: the king's command, and those same workers smashed it into dust.

903
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 1: Fuck yah.

904
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it's like they never gave up on their

905
00:48:55,680 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 2: belief in human solidarity in their internationalism, and even though

906
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 2: that belief was so betrayed, you know by the Western

907
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 2: democracies that didn't accept refugees, that did so little to

908
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 2: stop the Holocaust, so betrayed by you know, France and

909
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,240
Speaker 2: Britain that didn't even held up their fucking military alliance

910
00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 2: with poland so betrayed by so many of their fellow polls,

911
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 2: that belief in human solidarity is the only thing that

912
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 2: can save us from savagery. It's the only thing that

913
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 2: keeps history from just being a revolving wheel where was

914
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 2: just take turns as victims and oppressors just take turns

915
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 2: as genocide airs and slaughtered people. And there are so

916
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,040
Speaker 2: many things that I love about Wound. I love their

917
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 2: you know, their fierce organizing. I love the whole subculture

918
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:46,839
Speaker 2: they built, the whole social world. I love the way

919
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:49,839
Speaker 2: that they like prefigured intersectionality without making it lame.

920
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: I love all of that.

921
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,359
Speaker 2: What I really like truly, like in my heart love

922
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 2: above all else. And what I think is so vital

923
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,319
Speaker 2: is that belief in human solidarity across difference that they

924
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 2: held on even in moments where it should have shattered it.

925
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: And reading those words in the Ghetto Press, while you know,

926
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:17,719
Speaker 2: well Gaza was annihilated, it just reaffirmed my belief that

927
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 2: we have nothing except that solidarity between each other.

928
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and I we were talking earlier about

929
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 1: how like it's presented as they lost, right, Yeah, but

930
00:50:28,600 --> 00:50:31,239
Speaker 1: even just like literally in the World War two fight,

931
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:35,399
Speaker 1: all of the people who refuse to give in are

932
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:40,480
Speaker 1: the reason that eventually the Nazis lost the war, like

933
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 1: every single person who made it harder for them to

934
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: do it. And there's this thing that I keep coming

935
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: back to that the show has really led me to

936
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,400
Speaker 1: believe by reading all this stuff all this time, is that,

937
00:50:56,239 --> 00:50:57,880
Speaker 1: actually I really like the way that you phrase it.

938
00:50:57,880 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 1: This like revolving door of a press or and a

939
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: press that we could be creating, but we can try

940
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:05,600
Speaker 1: and break out with solidarity. There's no bottom to how

941
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 1: bad the world could be, is what I've realized. And

942
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 1: so whenever we're not in the infinite pit of hell,

943
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:17,880
Speaker 1: it's because we've done stuff and we are all part

944
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 1: of making the world not as bad as it could be.

945
00:51:22,160 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: And so sometimes it's like easy to get down on

946
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 1: ourselves for not having like created a utopia or having

947
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 1: only created a beautiful subculture that could stop programs some

948
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: of the time, and it only lasted several decades and

949
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 1: made millions of people's lives better. You know, how dare

950
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: us only I'm not included in the US in this case,

951
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:43,279
Speaker 1: but you know, like, how dare people have only done that?

952
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: And yet it's like without the work we do, it

953
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:52,359
Speaker 1: could be so much worse. You know, we are stopping that,

954
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: and I just and the Warshaw Ghetto somehow creates this

955
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: encapsulation of that, like every thing that you just make

956
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: it so fucking hard for them, is someone else that

957
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: they're not doing that too?

958
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:10,839
Speaker 2: And the Warsaw Ghetto, which again was let's be honest

959
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:14,720
Speaker 2: that the Warsaw Ghetto was an act by very young people,

960
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 2: teens in their early twenties, who were given fifty Revolvers

961
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:22,800
Speaker 2: by the Polish Home Army and had a few dozen

962
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:24,720
Speaker 2: more that they were able to get on the black market.

963
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 2: These are kids who had no military training. They had nothing,

964
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 2: and they knew they were going to die. Most of

965
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 2: the ghetto had been exterminated, and they launched the first

966
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 2: urban revolt and occupied Europe the first one. Yeah.

967
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:41,239
Speaker 1: Fuck the other thing that I like when you were

968
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 1: talking about the Bund in interwar poland it somehow encapsulates

969
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 1: the like if there's a cool people who did cool stuff,

970
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: like for the Bund, nails it, which is the combination

971
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: of building culture and giving access to yourself and the

972
00:52:59,480 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: people around you to culture despite poverty and oppression, Like

973
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 1: giving yourself access to theater right is a big part

974
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 1: of uplifting people. And that combined with like a willingness

975
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:18,440
Speaker 1: to defend it, Like that's the formula, and they did

976
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: a really good job of that.

977
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:21,759
Speaker 2: I think we could make the world a beautiful place

978
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 2: and it's worth fighting for.

979
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, do you have any final thoughts or words

980
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: about the Bond or anything else that.

981
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 2: You want to have. I mean, it was kind of

982
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 2: the honor of my life to follow this group of troublemakers,

983
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 2: of like revolutionary poets, of disputatious radicals, of scarface bruisers.

984
00:53:42,160 --> 00:53:43,839
Speaker 2: It was the honor of my life to follow them

985
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 2: and try to get their story down. I mean I

986
00:53:46,440 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 2: did crazy things in this book. You know. I learned Yiddish,

987
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 2: went to Ukraine during the war. I also went to

988
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:53,399
Speaker 2: people's graves and I took graveyard dust and I would

989
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:54,799
Speaker 2: light a candle in front of it, and I would

990
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:57,959
Speaker 2: ask them permission to tell their stories. I always think

991
00:53:58,040 --> 00:54:01,839
Speaker 2: that history is an active necromancy as well as scholarship,

992
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,399
Speaker 2: and this book was definitely that. So I just want

993
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 2: to invite you guys to enter into their world and

994
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:09,759
Speaker 2: let yourself fall in love with them a little bit.

995
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: Fuck yim.

996
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:13,319
Speaker 2: All right?

997
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 1: Well, people should pre order the book, just to echo

998
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: something that you said last time. Pre Orders are wildly

999
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: disproportionately impactful. They help publishers decide where to put their

1000
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:31,920
Speaker 1: attention and like just publishing industries real weird and pre

1001
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 1: orders mean an awful lot. So people can pre order

1002
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 1: here Where We Live as Our Country by Molly Krabapple.

1003
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: If you're listening after April seventh, then you can post

1004
00:54:42,600 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 1: preorder it by getting it anyway, including from libraries.

1005
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 2: And you should buy extra copies for people who are

1006
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 2: wrong and give it to them. Yeah, there's something else

1007
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:54,319
Speaker 2: the boon to love. They love telling people they were wrong,

1008
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:55,360
Speaker 2: so follow in their spirit.

1009
00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:58,359
Speaker 1: Do I love it?

1010
00:54:59,200 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 2: Anyway?

1011
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,200
Speaker 1: People follow you on the internet or anything you want

1012
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 1: to plug.

1013
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 2: They can follow me on mollikrabapple dot com. My Instagram

1014
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 2: is also mollikrabapple. I will be doing a national tour

1015
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:15,719
Speaker 2: between April seventh and May twenty third. I will be

1016
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 2: on the road and then I will be doing two

1017
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:21,640
Speaker 2: London dates, so maybe we'll meet each other. And if

1018
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:23,359
Speaker 2: we do meet each other, I can't wait to talk

1019
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 2: to you about the bounds in person.

1020
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, all right, what do I have to plug?

1021
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:29,319
Speaker 2: Oh?

1022
00:55:29,760 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 1: Take care of each other. Fuck ice, stop concentration camps

1023
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:38,960
Speaker 1: out of pre Palestine, Free Palestine, and see you all

1024
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:39,399
Speaker 1: next week.

1025
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 2: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1026
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,800
Speaker 2: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

1027
00:55:50,920 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 2: visit our website Goolzonemedia dot com or check us out

1028
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:57,640
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1029
00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 2: your podcasts. EASi