WEBVTT - Part One: Samizdat: How to Self-Publish During a Dictatorship 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:04.840 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:07.640 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. 0:00:07.680 --> 0:00:10.640 You're a weekly reminder that when there's bad things, there's 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:14.600 people trying to do good things, or at least interesting things. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:17.919 I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and my guest this week 0:00:18.360 --> 0:00:19.759 is Katie Stole. Hi. 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.520 How are you ugh, I'm okay, I'm good. I'm glad 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:25.120 to be here, happy to be here. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.640 In fact, Yeah, the world's going great. 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:31.480 The world's going great. Nevertheless, I would love to hear 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:35.120 some stories about cool people who did cool stuff. Not 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:37.480 that we don't have a ton of cool people doing 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.960 cool stuff right now at this moment in time. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.560 It's true. Hey, completely unrelated. There's been all this stuff 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:47.479 about people bringing down the stock value of Tesla. But anyway, 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:49.279 through all kinds of methods. 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.680 Yeah, anyway, I'm happy to be here. I feel like 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.160 this is a bright light in the world, being able 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:58.760 to commit talk about good things. 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.240 I know, and people want to hear more good things. 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.920 Which of your various news shows should they listen to 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:06.399 or watch? 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:11.920 Oh well, I'll plug even more news. People know us 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.720 from some more News. A lot of people know me 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:17.480 and Cody from that, which is our YouTube show. But 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.039 we also have our podcast Even More News, which we're 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.360 now doing twice a week. Monday's we release one we 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.399 record Monday morning, release Monday evening, I know, and then 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.880 another one that we record Thursday's release Friday. We just 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.119 needed to add an extra episode because there's so much 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:36.080 to talk about and we couldn't get through it all. 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:37.479 Yeah, that actually makes sense. 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.200 And also we now are doing video versions of them, 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:44.640 putting on YouTube because apparently a lot of people like 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.360 to listen to podcasts with their eyes. I don't know, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:49.120 so we're doing that. 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.000 I don't understand it. I'm going to pretend to understand 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.720 it once they make us pivot to video, but for now, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:56.280 I don't understand it. 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:59.600 Yeah, it's a whole other world out there, but yeah, 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.640 sure plug that. We try to We try to find 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.080 bright spots out there too, but we do talk about 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:06.400 the bad spots. 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.040 That makes sense. Yeah, So, Katie, have you ever thought 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.040 about what it would be like to be a journalist 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.400 or a writer during like an authoritarian regime? 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.960 Is that every cross my mind from time to time? 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:21.840 It sure does. 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:26.919 Just a fun thought experiment. This week, for no particular reason, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.280 I thought, what a fun and random time to tell 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.840 the story about how people have continued cultural production and 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:38.800 news during dictatorship. But first, I'm being reminded by my 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.680 producer Sophie that I should do the rest of my introduction, 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.079 like introducing Sophie. Here's my producer, Hi, Sophie. 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:50.160 How are you, Hi, Magpie. Hi Katie. You're doing great, Magpie. 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:55.920 Thanks. Thanks. And we also have an audio engineer named Rory. 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.040 Hi Rory, Hey, Roy, Hi Rory. 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:01.960 And our theme music is written for us by unwoman. 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.560 And I think that's the rest of the introduction. You 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.000 think I would know. I'm on episode like a one 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.680 hundred and fifty. Well, actually like three hundred, because there's 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.679 two of every thing. 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.800 Yeah, anyway, congratulations, that's a lot of episodes. 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.760 Thank you. It's it's been a wild ride. It's every 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:23.840 now and then. I have these moments where I'm like, 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.200 like my most recent like substack post is basically like 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.160 it's a really weird moment to read history books for 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.480 a living, but you actually read news for a living, 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:33.600 and that's maybe even weirder. 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.880 Also a weird thing to do for a living, especially 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:37.640 right now. 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.680 Yeah, yeahm h. So we're going to just tell a 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.800 fun family story for no particular reason about continuing cultural 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:50.440 production during dictatorship. This week's story is about samas dot, 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.280 the underground publishing within the Soviet Union and the Communist 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.640 Bloc countries during the Cold War. You ever you ever 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:57.720 heard much about this stuff? 0:03:58.000 --> 0:03:58.800 No, not at all. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.720 Actually, I like it's funny because so many people use 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.640 samas dot as a I mean, I hadn't run across 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.920 it a ton myself. It's one of those words where 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:09.200 if you don't know what it means, you kind of 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:11.720 just ignore it because you're like, I don't know what 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.600 that means, and arrest the sentence makes sense that you 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.159 just sort of ignore the word. Yeah, Okay, there's an 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:22.160 irony here. I'm doing this whole episode about how people 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:27.600 created stuff and distributed it during the dictatorship of the 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:32.680 Soviet era. This is the single episode where I could 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.560 not find a source that was not behind an academic paywall. 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:39.200 This is the most i'vory towered. I had to talk 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.120 to all of my friends with academic privileges to get 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.679 access to this. Yeah, so there's a little irony there 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:52.520 that's interesting. Yeah, the shortest version of it is, for 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.440 more or less the entire time, there was a Soviet Union, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.520 there was strict censorship of the press, and the entire 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.520 time there strict censorship, they were people evading that censorship 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.440 through various means. By the time you get to the 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.240 nineteen sixties and the nineteen seventies, there's this whole culture 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.760 that springs up around samisdot or self publishing. But we'll 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:16.960 talk about why. It's actually a really clever play on 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:22.200 words later, in which people would distribute hand typed copies 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.800 of poems, novels, and news because they couldn't even access 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:30.640 like xerox machines. These were generally typed on carbon paper 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.320 and then retyped by their recipients like chain letters. 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:38.919 But good, that's yeah, beautiful actually, yeah. Just the idea 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.920 of people receiving a hand type poem or what have 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.279 you and then typing it up and paying it sending 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.120 it forward, I think is really beautiful. 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:49.840 I know totally, especially with the like crime level where 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:52.400 you're like, well, I can go to jail for the 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.880 foreseeable future if they catch me with this poem about 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.440 being sad about the ocean or whatever it is, because 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.440 not all of it political, but it was all wildly illegal, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.120 and there was a body count attached, although by the 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.280 end of it people are mostly getting time in prison 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:11.799 in a camp that kills about ten percent of the people, 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:17.680 but better than earlier where they're just dying. And samas 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:21.080 dot as a culture lasted until basically nineteen eighty seven, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.000 when Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.159 relaxed censorship and people were finally able to publish what 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:33.080 they wanted. That's one version of it. It's possible, and 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.719 I've read two different sources that have different positions on this, 0:06:36.360 --> 0:06:39.240 that political samas dot actually continued for a few more 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.520 years until the USSR actually fell completely in think nineteen 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.080 ninety two. Okay, because at least some people seem to 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.920 be censored still despite this like overall loosening. 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.400 It might be some mixture of both. 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:56.480 Yeah, it's like almost everyone got to start publishing, and 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.239 basically the anarchosynical list didn't, is the best I can tell. 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:00.880 Yeah. 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.799 The other annoying thing about researching samas dot, which actually 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:07.400 overall I really enjoyed, besides the whole Ivory Tower problem, 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.040 is that because it was caught up in the Cold War, 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.880 there's this Western narrative around it. That's basically like some 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:20.880 good anti communists who wanted individual liberty and capitalism risked 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.720 everything to spread the one real truth about what was happening. 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.720 And there is a little bit of that, right, But 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:33.160 there's not a lot a bit of that. Nor was 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:38.280 this a like we're all desperate for novels from the West. Please, Westerners, 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:43.120 come and save us with your superior storytelling. Some literature 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:45.960 from the West snuck in and was distributed to samas dot. 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.800 But a lot of it was about cultural production in 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:50.800 the Soviet Union. And actually a lot of it was 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.120 about getting cultural production out of the Soviet Union in 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.040 really cool ways. There's like all this like spy shit 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.200 where people are like using microfiche like little m hm 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.679 and like fucking taking photos of all of the book 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.720 manuscript pages and then like giving them to like foreign 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.200 dignitaries and shit who are like smuggling them out. 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:09.440 Oh wait, that's pretty cool. 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.320 Yeah, And not all of it was even like this 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:14.080 is how it is in the Soviet Union. Some of 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.640 it was like this is my poem about how I 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:20.520 wish I didn't have cancer or whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:25.560 But mostly samisdat was a culture samis dot was fun 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.520 and exciting. It was inherently cool because it was countercultural. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:32.800 A lot of it was parody, a lot of it 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.800 was like artsy as fuck. Something that we've seen again 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.880 and again in our episodes where we talk about resistance 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.120 to authoritarian communism in particular, is that a lot of 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:46.000 the people who are out in front challenging like Soviet 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:49.920 era rules and things like that are artists, and they're 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:54.280 basically challenging dictatorship through cultural production of plays and poems 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:58.040 and songs and all of this stuff. And a lot 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.760 of it was self consciously what they could called ludic playful. 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:07.400 And the CIA has poisoned all of our brains about 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.920 the USSR, to be clear, but not in the way 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.079 that authoritarian leftists claim. If you've ever critiqued the USSR 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:16.120 on social media, you end up with a lot of 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:20.480 people who are like, but actually, you know, everything was 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.079 perfect there and you only are listening to the CIA's 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.960 lies or whatever. Right, And the thing is is that 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.400 the CIA did lie about the Soviet Union and build 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.160 this false narrative, but not in the way that people claim. 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.280 The CIA worked hard in the twentieth century to make 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.240 sure that every bit of dissidence in the USSR was 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.200 co opted to seem like it's pro capitalism and pro 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:51.200 Western But while there's some of that, almost everything I've 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.280 seen about resistance to the USSR from within the Soviet 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:59.600 Bloc comes from socialists, people who believe that we should 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.400 all take care of each other. They just didn't want 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.960 a corrupt state apparatus. They didn't want this like weird 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:07.840 bad oligarchy instead. 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.440 I know, it's so interesting how we boil things down 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.760 to either you're a capitalist or you are a socialist, 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:17.520 or it's like yeah, you know, it's like, well, yeah, 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:20.720 I know I want this thing, but not by that person. 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.920 It's like I want our food system to be overhauled, 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:25.000 just not by our FK. 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:29.640 Yeah, totally, you know, totally. No. This is such a 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.360 perfect example of it, where you're like, well, I too 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.800 want more natural food in my diet. I also want 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:42.120 to keep getting vaccines on a regular basis exactly and 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:47.640 not have the worms eat my brain. Ideally, Yeah, that 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.640 should happen after I die. It's like a general rule. 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.200 Yes, then I'm fine, please have at it. 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:57.480 Yeah that's that's my hope for one day, but not 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.720 for now. So for some weird reason. I think studying 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:06.240 how people lived and acted and resisted under authoritarian regimes 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:10.640 is going to be increasingly important. And Okay, this is 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.320 a kind of tangent. I'm now offscript. There's this thing 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.640 where like we all kind of look at what's happening 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.400 right now, and it's very very easy to draw connections 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:22.840 to Nazi Germany. Right, that is a reasonable place to 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:27.040 look for our historical parallels. But it's not the only place, 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.360 Like the world is full of dictatorships that we can 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:30.840 look to. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:35.719 I know, I was just recently, like yesterday, I had 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.080 this thought of, like we could compare it to so 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.080 many things, maybe we should start mixing it up. Yeah, 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.040 instead of just well, it's the most readily available for 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.959 most people to you know, totally relate to, but. 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.520 Most especially white people in America and probably just people 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.280 raised in the American educational system. Yeah, know a hell 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.240 of a lot more about Nazi Germany than they do 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.480 about like other terrible systems, including the one that's slaved 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.200 and genocided here on this very continent called the United 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:04.120 States of America. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.880 Right exactly, we know way more about that than our 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:09.760 own history. 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.240 But AnyWho, and so there's all these other places that 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.800 we can look and like. The thing that's interesting about 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.000 the USSR and Soviet block countries, especially by the time 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.040 you're talking about the sixties and seventies, is you're talking 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.240 about what does resistance look like for people who like 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:27.400 grew up inside this authoritarian system, you know, whereas when 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.960 we look at the directly fascist governments, they didn't last 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.160 an entire generation. They were well, Franco did, actually, so 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.240 franco Is Spain is another good place that we can 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:38.360 look to for I don't know. I think this is 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:39.600 the thing I'm going to be doing for a little 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:44.280 while is looking at how people resisted dictatorships for no 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:45.400 good reasons. 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.560 Again, no apparent reason. Yeah, feels like a good idea. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:50.280 Yeah, I'm going to do it until. 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.880 It might be how can information in there for no 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:53.560 real reason? 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:58.920 But maybe yeah, yeah, exactly. So what we have instead 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:02.680 of the commune system is the capitalist system, and it 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:07.240 asks that we interject this program with the sponsors. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:18.720 So, oh, here are those sponsors, and we're back. 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:27.200 So the context, you should see her face, big old smile. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:32.480 Yeah, Russia has a long history of people passing around 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:36.959 manuscripts rather than finished books in order to bypass censorship, 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.280 because it is worth noting it wasn't like the Bolsheviks 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.000 came in and before that, like they were like happy 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.360 and free under the Czar, you know, like serfdom had 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.480 only been abolished in sixty seventy years earlier, and like 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:54.960 it was a very big unevened in autocratic society. In 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.240 seventeen ninety there was this book that was opposed to Serfdom, 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.599 a Journey from Peter's to Moscow, and it was confiscated 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.880 by the cops. So folks started passing around person to 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:09.720 person the actual original manuscripts of it, and they're just like, 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.000 so you have this like kind of lending library basically. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.160 And then in eighteen twenty five you have the Decembrist Revolts, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:18.800 which I think we've covered a little bit in the 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.040 Nihilist episodes, but there's so many revolts during all of 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.400 this time, which is where the band gets its name. 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.200 But I was going to ask, but I just said 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:30.680 to me in my brain, I went and like, don't ask. 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:31.640 That's a silly question. 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.120 Yeah, no, it almost certainly is. I haven't even specifically 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:36.680 looked it up, but like that's where they get their name. 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.000 That's who the Decembrists are is a group of revolutionaries. Yeah. 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:42.920 Cool, love that even more. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:48.240 Yeah. And they had people passing around manuscripts, and folks 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.080 started having shit published internationally, like especially like printed in England, 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:56.160 and then smuggled into the country. Maybe most famously of 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.960 all these pre Soviet Samas Dots, which don't have that 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:01.520 name yet. That name isn't coined until either fifty eight 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.840 or sixty two, probably sixty two, but I've read both. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.400 In eighteen forty eight, Doskievsky, whose name I will probably 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.800 die not knowing how to pronounce properly, he got eight 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:16.120 years in prison for passing around a letter that criticized 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:19.000 the Orthodox Church and for trying to use a private 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:23.600 printing press to evade censors. So it's not a not 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:29.080 a fucking free society, Nope. But as far as I 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.680 can tell, in the Czaris Times, it was largely the intelligentsia, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:35.440 the sort of upper middle class of academics and shit, 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:38.680 who had access to this sort of proto samis Dot. 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.720 As cool as secret handwritten publishing is, it doesn't break 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:46.520 out of a specific social circle, and it doesn't break 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:51.000 across class barriers and things that are mass produced have 0:15:51.080 --> 0:15:54.160 a much better chance of actually like reaching the masses. 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.120 By the dawn of the twentieth century, a lot of 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.040 illegal literature is being kind of mass produced. As best 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.280 as I can tell, the Bolsheviks themselves, who sort of 0:16:07.000 --> 0:16:10.160 whatever we've done, like probably at least ten episodes about 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.480 the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks and the anarchists and the 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.320 s rs and all of that, the people who are 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:18.240 going to have the revolution but aren't able to have 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:23.280 it yet. Yeah, the Bolsheviks themselves relied on underground publishing 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.720 before the revolution, And I've read a while ago for 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.600 a different episode a ton about how different radical groups 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.440 were regularly getting shit printed overseas and smuggled into the country, 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:36.040 and often in bulk. Like I think people were like 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.560 going to Switzerland and printing like a fuck ton of 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.040 leaflets and pamphlets and stuff, and then like bringing them 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:47.680 back in however they can, into Russia. But the Bolsheviks, 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:51.600 even from the beginning, while they believe that they should 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.560 be able to print whatever they want, they don't think 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.360 that other people should be able to print whatever they want, Okay, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.480 including other socialists, some communists and the anarchists and all 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.480 of those people. And I will compare this too, and 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.640 I suspect that the Mensheviks and the SRS also probably did. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.639 But I do know that the anarchists did believe in 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:13.840 a free press. And so even when the Bolsheviks were 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:15.920 like in the middle of attacking the anarchists, the anarchists 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.000 were like, well, we can't tell you can't print your newspapers. 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:19.600 We can only tell you that you can't take over 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:25.520 you know, Yeah, which I think is cool as shit. Yeah, like, yeah, 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.200 in our anarchist society in Ukraine, you can print anti 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.879 anarchist stuff. Why would we tell you that you can't. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.439 Well, right, that's the point. If you want freedom of 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.760 the press, you have to include things that you don't 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:38.879 necessarily like totally. 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.560 And I don't know whether they I don't know whether 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.560 or not they expanded that to like the monarchists who 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.080 were trying to kill them all. I don't know how 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:47.520 far it. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.879 Went or not, but yeah, like what's the line. 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.760 But yeah, but they probably weren't killing the poets. We'll 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:55.840 get to them. We'll get to the Bolsheviks killing poets 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:59.159 in a little bit. Actually, in the next paragraph. We'll 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.359 get to it, oh perfect, as soon as the Bolsheviks 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.639 seized power and put down the Russian Revolution. My super 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:07.719 short version of it that's very biased by my position 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.560 is that it was a pluralistic revolution of all sorts 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:14.119 of different socialist factions, and then the Bolsheviks were like, 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.200 just kidding, it's our revolution, went into a civil war 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:22.120 to kill all of the other competing factions and put 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:29.000 them down by force, and they instituted censorship. By the 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.800 time the USSR came into being in nineteen twenty two, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.679 all literary production was state controlled and sponsored, which is like, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.920 there's an upside to this, right, if you're a professional writer, 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:43.240 the States like, all right, well, we'll pay you to 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.560 be a poet, will pay you to make books and stuff. 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.720 Right if they liked you. If they didn't like you, well, 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.239 depending on who's in charge that year, they'll kill you, 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:58.080 or they'll put you in prison into a labor camp, 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.879 or they'll send you to Siberia, or if you're really lucky, 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.959 they just won't publish you and you'll be unemployed. 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.560 It's like a step in the right direction and concept, 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:13.600 but not in execution when we're still utilizing the tactics 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.320 from before against people that frighten you. 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.120 Yeah, totally. And it was not just like people who 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.680 wrote anti Bolshevik stuff. It was like literally just well, 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:28.080 we don't like that. You know. They had very specific 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.280 rules about what kind of literature and what kind of 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:37.280 art was encouraged and allowed and published. And among those 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.840 that they started killing right away were poets, I guess. Okay, 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:43.600 so it's like worth pointing out when we think about 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.640 poetry nowadays, we're like, oh, poetry is really cool, or like, oh, 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:48.359 poetry is that thing that we hate when our friends 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:49.840 tell us that they do, because then they'll try and 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:51.320 make us read their poetry. But we don't want to 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:52.800 read their poetry because we don't want to tell them 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.040 how we feel about it because that would hurt their feelings. 0:19:55.400 --> 0:20:01.159 You know. Yeah, before the fucking modern era, well, I 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:03.960 guess the modern era includes all this before like TV 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.320 and shit, poetry was the They were like the fucking 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:10.560 rock stars, you know, like in England you have people 0:20:10.640 --> 0:20:12.800 like lining up around the block for the new poem 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.480 that drops from Lord Byron or whatever the fuck you know. 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.640 And I mean it's not because they were like inherently 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:21.480 like smarter and cooler they totally would have watched TV 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:22.159 if they had TV. 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.679 But right, that's but that was what was available. 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:25.240 Yeah. 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:28.440 But also you thought differently of poetry in general. 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.399 Right exactly. And so when we say they're coming for 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.560 the poets, it's a different thing. It's not like, oh, 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:35.720 this person with this kind of niche hobby where they're 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.359 sort of self indulgent or whatever. I really like poetry 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:40.480 and modern poetry. I'm not trying to talk shit, just 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:42.600 it's seen differently. Yeah, and I don't want to read 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.520 your poetry, dear listener, I'm sorry or whatever. Anyway, Okay, 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.440 there was this poetry movement called the Acmeists that started 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:54.200 in the early twentieth century I want to say the 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.960 nineteen tents, but don't quote me and the Acmeists. Acme 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.200 comes from the same place as like literally like roadrunner 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.600 and shit, right, you know, like the Acme brand or whatever, 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:06.680 because Acme comes from like a Greek word that sort 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.840 of means like it's used to mean the best. It's 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:13.119 like the okay, the top of a game or whatever. 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:18.160 So the Acmists they were a response to the symbolists 0:21:18.200 --> 0:21:20.680 who came before them, and they were like, if you 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:23.880 want to write about something, just write about it as 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.160 clearly and succinctly as you can. And so this makes 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.000 it sound like they're poetry is going to be all 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:34.680 like utilitarian and kind of blocky, but it actually really isn't, 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:36.760 at least not the poet I read for this. The 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.040 poet I read for this is now one of my 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.280 favorite poets. And it's just it's beautiful stuff. And I 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:45.960 don't know enough about how to contrast it to symbolism, 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:48.840 because I'm like, well, there's still metaphor in it, you know, right, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:54.720 But the Bolsheviks they're killing people. For example, they kill 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:59.600 one of the Acmists, a poet named Nikolai Gumelev, and 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:04.080 he was not a lefty. He was a monarchist, and 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.959 he was executed in nineteen twenty one without a trial. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:10.720