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Speaker 1: You know who else was over with star Nicholas the

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Speaker 1: Second Sophie. By the end of this episode, all of

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Speaker 1: the people in Russia, the people, they made their opinions

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Speaker 1: on him very clear. This is behind the bastards. The

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Speaker 1: podcast that is not particularly competently handled by me, but

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Speaker 1: is competently handled by my producer Sophie and our guest

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Speaker 1: on this beautiful, beautiful day, Jeff May Jeff, it's me.

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Speaker 1: It's me. Aren't you people sick of me yet? No? No,

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Speaker 1: never get sick of you. And but you know who

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Speaker 1: I am kind of sick of as like Sophie said,

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Speaker 1: Nicholas the Second of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, ready for him

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Speaker 1: to be dead? Huh, we're all there will be a

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Speaker 1: four partner because you need to understand the position of

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Speaker 1: the Bolsheviks, who also were like kind of wish this

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Speaker 1: guy wasn't around anymore. Yeah, Like all we did is

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Speaker 1: just talk about him. Yeah, they had the living with

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Speaker 1: them for a long time. Yeah. So I think maybe

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Speaker 1: we can all understand why in this period after the

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Speaker 1: Russo Japanese War, increasing numbers of people are like, well,

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Speaker 1: we probably had to kill that guy at some point. Huh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he should no longer have hit. You know, he has

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Speaker 1: a fist that I would like to shoot in basement.

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Speaker 1: He is a man that they no longer should be

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Speaker 1: living and definitely not the ruling large country. Unfortunately for Russia,

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Speaker 1: they would not get better at picking people to lead

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Speaker 1: large country. It's pretty much like it hasn't been downhill

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Speaker 1: since Nicholas, because as we've established he was he was terrible,

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Speaker 1: But it hasn't been uphill. It's just kind of been

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Speaker 1: like this flat plane of Russian history. Russian history is

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Speaker 1: a series of lateral moves. Really, it's it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things we could try to like you can try

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Speaker 1: to parse out who you think was like Worstan objective terms,

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Speaker 1: the ussr or Zist Russia. But it's like they we're

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Speaker 1: going from a good system to a bad system. They

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Speaker 1: were like going from all right, I've I've eaten a

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Speaker 1: lot of food out of his drunk dumpster filled with poop.

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Speaker 1: Now I eat from trash. Can see if better? And

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Speaker 1: no it was not. It was not much better. You know. Um.

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Speaker 1: One of the joys of this episode for the listener,

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Speaker 1: Jeff is going to be hearing you do a much

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Speaker 1: better job of a Russian accent than I do. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. I always think I'm good at stuff and

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Speaker 1: then I hear it later and I'm like that sounds

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Speaker 1: like shit. Yeah, that is also somethings are Nicholas the

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Speaker 1: second probably could have identified with. I thought it was

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Speaker 1: a lot better at running Russia than I turned out

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Speaker 1: to be. I did not expect to have my head

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Speaker 1: get cut up. Who knows, you know, it's you win

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Speaker 1: some youel lose something. I mean, he kind of keeps

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Speaker 1: his head. Um, he just doesn't get to do anything

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Speaker 1: else with it past a certain point. So one thing

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Speaker 1: we didn't get to last time but should probably talk

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Speaker 1: about now is that is a part of his attempt

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Speaker 1: to put down the rebellion. Nicholas does give Russia a

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Speaker 1: constitution on October seventeenth, nineteen o five. So he cracks

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Speaker 1: down brutally, kills a shipload of people, um allows programs

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Speaker 1: to occur across the country. But he does be like,

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Speaker 1: all right, you get your duma, you know. He he

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Speaker 1: agrees that you get to have like the Russian people

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Speaker 1: get to have some representation government. Now all right, all right, fine, fine,

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Speaker 1: we will let you speak after I shoot thousand w

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Speaker 1: you get to vote. Um, it is good trade, good

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Speaker 1: trade because he's the autocrat of Russia. In the documents

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Speaker 1: that like announced this constitution, it's framed as the czar

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Speaker 1: imposing civil rights on the people, like I am forcing

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Speaker 1: you to have rights. Now, you better believe you are

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Speaker 1: going to live rights. Um. But they do get a

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Speaker 1: bicameral parliament. One of the houses of parliament has like

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Speaker 1: pretty full representation of the people who get to vote

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Speaker 1: with kind of close to universal suffrage um. And the

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Speaker 1: other house is kind of like a House of lords.

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Speaker 1: Situation was a little bit less representation, but it's a

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Speaker 1: lot more than people had before. Like it is it's

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Speaker 1: one of those things on objective terms, Oh yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is a big move forward towards democracy in Russia and

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Speaker 1: towards like a more representative you know, social uh and

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Speaker 1: political system. Um. But Nicholas doesn't really take it seriously

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Speaker 1: because he doesn't think he should have had to do this,

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Speaker 1: Like he hasn't been convinced this is a good idea.

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Speaker 1: He just tried to bribe people with it. And he

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Speaker 1: spends the rest the next several years basically anytime things

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Speaker 1: happen that he doesn't like he dissolves the Duma UM,

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Speaker 1: and he like makes there be elections for a new

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Speaker 1: one until he gets his way, and he's kind of

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Speaker 1: plotting to get rid of it from day one. He

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Speaker 1: is not he isn't bought in on this as a

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Speaker 1: good idea. Part of his comeback plan after the Civil

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Speaker 1: War and the horrible disaster um in fucking uh with

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Speaker 1: fighting Japan is to create a far right anti Semitic militia. UM.

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Speaker 1: He had kind of a far right anti Semitic militia

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Speaker 1: in the Black hundreds, but those were very organized. They

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Speaker 1: did a lot of economic damage to He wants to

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Speaker 1: do a better job, you know, he wants his proud boys. UM.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say. Yeah. Also, something that we have

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Speaker 1: seen similarly, it is uncomfortable how many of the things

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Speaker 1: in the story of Russia, the Czaris, Russia falling apart,

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Speaker 1: are like, all right, well that's not that, that's not

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Speaker 1: that unfamiliar. We had one of those like the other day.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's going on right now up in Canada. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So this, this anti Semitic militia he forms is called

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Speaker 1: the Union of Russian People, and it was kind of

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Speaker 1: a political and respectable equivalent to the Black Hundreds. By

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Speaker 1: nineteen o six, it had three hundred thousand members. In

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Speaker 1: the wake of the Revolution, Nikki grew a lot more

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Speaker 1: anti Semitic, as did Alexandra, his wife, the Czarina. Simon

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Speaker 1: Montfior writes Nicholas's table talk was peppered with anti Jewish banter,

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Speaker 1: typical of many a European aristocrat of this era telling

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Speaker 1: his mother how a courtier amused us very much with

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Speaker 1: funny Jewish stories, wonderfully good at imitating Jews, and even

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Speaker 1: his face suddenly looks Jewish. That's pretty cringe. Yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: a that's one of those things where you're like, I

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Speaker 1: don't know, man, this is this is even beyond it's

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Speaker 1: the times. Yeah, we're like, yo's the time. But I

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Speaker 1: think even at this time people would be like, man,

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Speaker 1: it's not no, he is and like again his he

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Speaker 1: A lot of his ministers are repeatedly like the the craze,

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Speaker 1: the sex crazed rapist monk is like cool it with

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Speaker 1: the anti semitism. Maybe calm down a little bit. When

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Speaker 1: rest Boutin is like sitting you down, we need to

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Speaker 1: talk about some of the things you're saying. People are

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Speaker 1: starting to talk, you will not look um. Alexandra regularly

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Speaker 1: would talk about quote rotten vicious jews um. After like

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Speaker 1: someone would say the name of someone which sounded like

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Speaker 1: they might be Jewish, um, she would like call out whenever,

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Speaker 1: like so she would have all these arguments with her

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Speaker 1: husband about like the ministers say to do this, and

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Speaker 1: she doesn't like it because the ministers were usually saying,

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Speaker 1: you need to give a little more power to the people,

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Speaker 1: you need to not be so anti semitic, YadA, YadA,

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Speaker 1: and Alexander would be like, no, funk that you've got

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Speaker 1: to be powerful. Who said that? And he'll say someone's

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Speaker 1: name and she'll be like, oh, that's gotta be at

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Speaker 1: jew um, Like she's that kind of person. She sucks

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Speaker 1: too again Yeah, I was going to say, I think

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Speaker 1: you just say she sucks, yeah, because of her her

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Speaker 1: ending is so tragic and her children absolutely did not

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Speaker 1: deserve to be gunned down like that. Because of how

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Speaker 1: sad the end is. She gets this kind of rap

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Speaker 1: as being like maybe a little bit histrionic, but like

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Speaker 1: basically a sympathetic person and like she's trashed, terrible person.

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Speaker 1: She's a really really bad human being. She's a bastard. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she sucks really bad. Um. Yeah, and racism was kind

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Speaker 1: of it was not this is not as we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: This is not in line with things because Nicholas Jewish

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Speaker 1: people are. This isn't just like he learned some slurs

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Speaker 1: and like he goes back to some some jokes that

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Speaker 1: are kind of racy because he doesn't really think about it.

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Speaker 1: Jewish people represent modernity to him, um, and that's the

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Speaker 1: thing he hates more than anything, because modernity is the

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Speaker 1: enemy of czarist power. Um. He saw he would stay

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Speaker 1: say stuff like the Englishman is a yid um like,

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Speaker 1: which is a slur against Jewish people, like to say that,

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Speaker 1: like yeah, really fucked up. And the reason he's saying

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Speaker 1: that is like, well, they're modern and they're successful and

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Speaker 1: they're they've they've they're not an autar like a monarchist

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Speaker 1: state in the same way that I am. Like people

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Speaker 1: have power, like they've they have modernized with the times

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Speaker 1: and mechanized and like that's gotta be Jewish influence because

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Speaker 1: that's the only reason people wouldn't want to live as

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Speaker 1: literal slaves to his are Um, he's just like out

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Speaker 1: of his mind, kind of which is what being a

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Speaker 1: king does to you. I think I was going to

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Speaker 1: go on kind of rude, Yeah, kind of, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of rude in December of nineteen o five and anti

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Speaker 1: Semitic forgery. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which

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Speaker 1: we have done several episodes about bad book. I would

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Speaker 1: I would say, Um, this gets published by the Petersburg

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Speaker 1: Military District Press, probably under the orders of Nikolasha, that

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Speaker 1: guy who cut his dog in half. Um and wit

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Speaker 1: who's his prime minister. There's as prime minister discovers that

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Speaker 1: the Interior Ministry is printing up the Protocols of the

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Speaker 1: Elders of Zion and like sending them out all throughout

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Speaker 1: nineteen o five and nineteen at late nineteen and nineteen

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Speaker 1: o six during these programs, and when he reports this

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Speaker 1: to Nicholas writes quote, his Majesty was silent and appeared

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Speaker 1: familiar with all the details. So there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: people who will allege that the Protocols of the Elders

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Speaker 1: of Zion, which have a big role in the Holocaust,

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Speaker 1: and a bunch of like all of the programs that

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Speaker 1: occur in Russia during the Russian civil war was deliberately

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Speaker 1: directed by the art that he like approved it. It

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Speaker 1: was definitely again there's a lot of kind of debate

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Speaker 1: over the exact origin of it, but it was definitely

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Speaker 1: spread by his secret police um. In The Last Czar,

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Speaker 1: author Edward Radzinski cites several people close to Nicholas the

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Speaker 1: Second who claimed that he did not create He did

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Speaker 1: not order the creation of the protocols, and he didn't

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Speaker 1: believe they were real. They were the result of a

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Speaker 1: secret police conspiracy within Russia. This like right wing conspiracy

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Speaker 1: that acted under the tsars no os Um. And in

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Speaker 1: this telling of events, this conspiracy was actually angry at

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Speaker 1: Nicholas because he didn't buy into the protocols of the

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Speaker 1: Elders of zion Um and he refused to back as

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Speaker 1: much violence as they wanted. I think this is kind

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Speaker 1: of a lie, and I'll tell you why. Because when

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Speaker 1: Nicholas gets kicked out of office and he's sitting it

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Speaker 1: alone in like a safe house with his family, one

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Speaker 1: of the things he reads his daughters and son is

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Speaker 1: the protocols of the Elders of zion Um. So even

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Speaker 1: if he didn't sign off on it, it's not exactly

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Speaker 1: like he's like, yeah, don't listen to it. I will

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Speaker 1: say I don't think he signed off on it specifically,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think he ordered its creation. And the

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Speaker 1: reason why is because that was a very competent job

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Speaker 1: that did a lot of damage and was successful, and

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Speaker 1: I don't think Nicholas could have been a part of

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Speaker 1: something successful. Is that a deleted scene from Anesthesia? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: where he helps spread the protoct where his his soldiers

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Speaker 1: spread the protocols of the elders of his zion to

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Speaker 1: cartoon bat Yeah where where while rest butan is like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it kind of seems like a

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Speaker 1: little like that might buy you a NYS. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: bad guy breaks the fourth wall. We don't actually believe

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Speaker 1: these Disney if it was a Disney movie instead of uh,

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Speaker 1: I forget the company. I thought it was Disney until

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Speaker 1: this exact second. Yeah, many people do. But if it

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Speaker 1: was a Disney movie, that scene would have been in it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: um yes, and that would have been most of the movie. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: resputing would have been the villain, but for a different reason. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the That would have been the thesis statement of

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Speaker 1: the movies. Um. So, by the end of nineteen o six,

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Speaker 1: the royal couple had already met with rescput and twice

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Speaker 1: he gets introduced by nikolasha Um and they meet him

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Speaker 1: the first couple of times at like functions with other nobles,

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Speaker 1: because again he's kind of this like cult leaders slash curiosity.

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Speaker 1: So if you're having a party, yeah, bring Resputant because

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Speaker 1: he's he's both this healer and this mystic, but he's

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Speaker 1: also a peasant um and noble people are like fast

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Speaker 1: needed by peasants. There's a lot of like idolization of

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Speaker 1: of of peasants. There's this ideal of the peasants is

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Speaker 1: like this noble like salt of the earth, the soul

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Speaker 1: of Russia, and they have this sacred bond with the Romanovs,

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Speaker 1: that this this beautiful and like almost religious thing that

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Speaker 1: the Romanovs believe in, that they have this like psychic

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Speaker 1: connection to the peasantry, and all of the nobles feel

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Speaker 1: this way. It's not that different from how a lot

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Speaker 1: of multimillionaire conservative thought leaders like Ben Shapiro will like

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Speaker 1: pose with their f one fifties and cowboy hats, even

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Speaker 1: though it's like Ben, you've never needed a truck, You've

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Speaker 1: never needed a truck. Not once in your life. Are

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Speaker 1: you helping move? Yeah, And you've never needed a hat.

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Speaker 1: You don't go outside that often. And also that hat

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Speaker 1: looks like it's a twenty gallon hat on your head.

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Speaker 1: But you know it's like Ronald Reagan going to his

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Speaker 1: ranch or George Bush going to and like I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: chop some firewood, you know, I'm gonna put up a

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Speaker 1: fence or whatever. Like it's I will say this. At

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Speaker 1: least with Bush, he grew up ranching. He had more

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Speaker 1: experience with it than but a lot of these guys do.

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Speaker 1: And there's this idea that like this connects me to

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Speaker 1: the regular people. And it's kind of like how nowadays,

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Speaker 1: if you're kind of a right wing political leader, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna want a lot of appearances where you're gonna like

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Speaker 1: sit down with farmers and truckers and you can be

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Speaker 1: like seen with them or like a minor blue collar

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Speaker 1: It's it's blue collar tokenism, is what it is. And

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Speaker 1: there's a peasant tokenism within the upper crap class in Russia.

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Speaker 1: But also they're all too scared to meet with real

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Speaker 1: peasants because sometimes peasants like revolt and stuff and they're gross.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, for whatever reason, obviously occasionally I

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Speaker 1: don't go to go to a bar in any in

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Speaker 1: your hometown. Yeah. Just go to any bar, not the

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Speaker 1: night before Thanksgiving in your hometown and just take a

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Speaker 1: look around. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's that's what these people

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Speaker 1: don't want to do. So they want that connection with

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Speaker 1: the essence, but they don't want to like sit at

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Speaker 1: a sports bar at eleven thirty on November five and

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Speaker 1: like here the kinds of things people say at sports bars.

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you, I've been I've gone in my

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Speaker 1: fair share of Boston bars to watch like Patriots games

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Speaker 1: or something and been like I'm sorry, what was that?

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Speaker 1: You think we've heard some anti semitism today, dude, the

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Speaker 1: amount of times you can hear like the phrase like

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Speaker 1: one of the good ones, like well, I'm sorry, what

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Speaker 1: was that? So this is I mean, Resputant is kind

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Speaker 1: of this token peasant who the nobles. He shows up

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Speaker 1: at these and that, and that's how the Romanovs meet him,

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Speaker 1: is like look at this. He's both this mystic and

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Speaker 1: this healer, and he's also this peasant who represents this

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Speaker 1: this sacred connection that we we Romanovs justify our rule

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Speaker 1: by um. So they meet him a couple of times,

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Speaker 1: but the first really close meeting they have is in

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Speaker 1: October of nineteen o six when Resputant telegrams them. So

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Speaker 1: you can tell already even before he's in good with

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Speaker 1: the family, he's he's savvy enough and is like made

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Speaker 1: enough of a connection at these parties that like he

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Speaker 1: can telegram this arena directly. It's like having a cell

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Speaker 1: phone in the eighties, Yeah, exactly, Like what do you do?

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Speaker 1: If Resputin had been in the eighties, he would have

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Speaker 1: had a massive car phone and he would have done

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess his body weight and cocaine every forty

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Speaker 1: eight hours. He would have been an entire season of

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Speaker 1: Miami Vice. Yeah, and it would have he would have

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Speaker 1: died in a shootout with somebody. Um yeah, yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a zero percent chance he does not die in a

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Speaker 1: swimming pool, like he absolutely machine gunned by the whichever

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Speaker 1: cartel isn't sponsoring us. Um yeah, So rest Mutant telegrams

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Speaker 1: the Zarnz arena and says like, Hey, I'm coming into

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Speaker 1: town and I have a sacred icon for you. Right. Basically,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like a picture of a saint in

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Speaker 1: like precious metals and stuff icons generally in the Orthodox religion,

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Speaker 1: or just shitty paintings because you weren't supposed to make anything.

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Speaker 1: Look yeah, yeah, yes, that would be that would be idolatry.

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Speaker 1: He's got this shitty painting. He wants to give it

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Speaker 1: to them, um, and they're like okay, so they agree

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Speaker 1: to see him. And when he arrives, it just so

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Speaker 1: happens that Alexei has, like the czar son has like

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Speaker 1: hurt himself and his bleeding. And this happens a bunch

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Speaker 1: like he'll he'll like walk into a door knob or

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Speaker 1: some ship and then he'll bleed for seventeen days. You

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Speaker 1: see him like folding up his pocket knife and putting

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Speaker 1: it away. Something happened. So Resputon comes in and he

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Speaker 1: sees that Alexei's bleeding um, and he sees how scared

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Speaker 1: the Romanovs are for their son, uh. And he talks

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Speaker 1: with them for more than an hour and they take

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Speaker 1: him into the nursery to pray over Alexei. And this visit,

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Speaker 1: everything he says during it leaves this profound impression on

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Speaker 1: the r and Zarny they find him very comforting, and

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Speaker 1: from this moment on, Restputant is increasingly difficult to separate

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Speaker 1: from the royal family. The Czar will say to his ministers,

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Speaker 1: who get disturbed by the fact that, like Number one,

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Speaker 1: it's a state secret that their son has hemophelia. People

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Speaker 1: can't know that. But this, this dude who just like

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Speaker 1: who will He'll spend a day with the royal family

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Speaker 1: and then he'll go drinking and whoring in St. Petersburg

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Speaker 1: and his ministers will be like, this is a problem.

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Speaker 1: You gotta you gotta get rid of this guy, and

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Speaker 1: these are will be like, look, I will deal with

329
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Speaker 1: like any number of outrages caused by this dude doing

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Speaker 1: whatever he wants to do if he can stop one

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Speaker 1: like hysterical fit that my wife has. I mean, who

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Speaker 1: among us? Am I right? I mean? What? Seriously? Like?

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Speaker 1: I not even like I have. I have both been

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Speaker 1: the person in a relationship with fucking PTSD and been

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Speaker 1: in a relationship with somebody with PTSD. And man, if

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Speaker 1: if there was just a dude I could call and

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Speaker 1: he would stop one or both of us from losing

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Speaker 1: our minds for the better part of a day. Um, yeah,

339
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Speaker 1: I probably would have told that dude some ship, you know,

340
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Speaker 1: like yeah, man, I mean the the wife whisper and

341
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Speaker 1: just fix the problem. It's both because it's not just

342
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Speaker 1: he's able to calm down to the tsar arena. I

343
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Speaker 1: think he is able to calm down the tsar. Again.

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Speaker 1: These are for all their faults. People who really love

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Speaker 1: their kid, and their kid is like they have their

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Speaker 1: traumatized by this, like being your son several times a

347
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Speaker 1: year nearly bleed to death, Like is a trauma that's

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Speaker 1: going to like damage you. And it's it's also should

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Speaker 1: be reminded that reciput and is is charming. Yeah he's

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Speaker 1: good at this. Yeah yeah, like you know, he's got

351
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Speaker 1: a silver tongue. There's a reason he finds himself in

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Speaker 1: the situations he is. He's smart, he's charming. He fuss

353
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Speaker 1: that crazy and it's it's also like people shouldn't take

354
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Speaker 1: this he is. I think he is a grifter. I

355
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Speaker 1: think he knows there's an extent to which he's a

356
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Speaker 1: con man um. But I also think he recognizes that, like, well,

357
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Speaker 1: sometimes it is a good thing just to be able

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Speaker 1: to calm people down when they're freaking out, especially like

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Speaker 1: sick and scared children and like their moms. And I

360
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Speaker 1: can see how this guy could be like, well, actually

361
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Speaker 1: I'm doing a good thing here, Like these people are

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Speaker 1: are need me um, and they kind of do. Like

363
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Speaker 1: that's the thing he's not. He is a grifter. He's

364
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Speaker 1: not grifting them. They're really getting value out of this.

365
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Speaker 1: He is in a lot of ways. A lot of

366
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Speaker 1: people say, for this arena, he's like a therapist um,

367
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:03,440
Speaker 1: which don't exist at that point in time. And that's

368
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Speaker 1: the closest thing. Yeah, is the Russian the turn of

369
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Speaker 1: the century version of Ms. Cleo. Yeah, And he's he's also,

370
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Speaker 1: it's worth noting, not really that bad an influence on

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Speaker 1: the Czar and Zarina. He will later on give them

372
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Speaker 1: some really stupid advice, but like he's they the Czar

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Speaker 1: comes up with worse advice on his own for himself,

374
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Speaker 1: you know, Like this is not a man who was

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Speaker 1: making great decisions consistently before Rasputin. So one of the

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Speaker 1: things he's able to do is he's really able to

377
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Speaker 1: like calm down Alexei. They noticed that Alexei seems to

378
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Speaker 1: recover more quickly um from his bleeding episodes when Rasputin

379
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Speaker 1: is around Um and he's he's he's great with the

380
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Speaker 1: daughters to like, they all love him, they'll talk to him,

381
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Speaker 1: they can fight in him. He brings them gifts. Um

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Speaker 1: Montfior Sebastia or Simon Montfior notes that Grigory Resputin had

383
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Speaker 1: a way of quote making even Tzars feel they were

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Speaker 1: privileged to be in his company. And from what I

385
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:58,080
Speaker 1: can tell, the way he did this with Nicholas was

386
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Speaker 1: by playing on the fact that the Romanovs have this

387
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Speaker 1: belief in like the sacred union of Czar and the peasants.

388
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Speaker 1: This is the center of Nikki's concept of the universe.

389
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Speaker 1: The fact that Um like this is the center of

390
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Speaker 1: Nikki's concept of the universe, that he has this bond

391
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Speaker 1: with the peasants, but also the government that he runs

392
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Speaker 1: spends billions a year making sure that he's never in

393
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Speaker 1: direct contact with the peasants. So getting to spend time

394
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Speaker 1: with rest mutant, who he would regularly call a real

395
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Speaker 1: Russian peasant, that's how he would introduce him to other

396
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Speaker 1: rich people was like he said, like he's a transformer

397
00:20:27,480 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, yeah, we got a real peasant here. Um.

398
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Speaker 1: This is intoxicating to him because because rest mutants like,

399
00:20:35,920 --> 00:20:38,160
Speaker 1: of course I have a mystical connection with you, mis

400
00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:40,199
Speaker 1: are of course like I and every other peasant, we

401
00:20:40,280 --> 00:20:43,640
Speaker 1: really love you like and that's that's what Nicholas wants

402
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:45,760
Speaker 1: to hear. He doesn't want to feel like, well, I

403
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Speaker 1: just had to kill fifteen thousand people to secure my reign.

404
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:50,880
Speaker 1: He wants to hear that like, no, no, no, I'm

405
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Speaker 1: a peasant and trust me, all the peasants love your ass. Man. Yeah, man,

406
00:20:54,720 --> 00:20:56,920
Speaker 1: you didn't. You haven't been at the peasant meetings because

407
00:20:56,920 --> 00:21:00,800
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you can't be you twenty for seven bro.

408
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:04,879
Speaker 1: I mean we're there's fan clubs, we have merch there's

409
00:21:04,920 --> 00:21:09,040
Speaker 1: there's people have you on t shirts? Oh yeah, and yeah,

410
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:12,560
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's cool. Um. So, he's he's both

411
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,479
Speaker 1: able to be like this living embodiment of the connection

412
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Speaker 1: there has to the peasants of Russia, and he's also

413
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 1: able to convince Thesar that he has special powers given

414
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:23,639
Speaker 1: to him by God which are going to save the

415
00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 1: Czar's air. Um. So, I think Nikki felt on some

416
00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:31,119
Speaker 1: level that like God had sent this magical peasant to

417
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Speaker 1: him to like as a reward for killing all those

418
00:21:34,160 --> 00:21:37,439
Speaker 1: people kind of Um, you get that feeling. And you

419
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: know who else will reward you for killing people? Jeff,

420
00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:44,679
Speaker 1: some very interesting sponsors. And guess that's right, all of

421
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 1: our sponsors, Sophie. What yeah, um, you know in particular, Uh,

422
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:54,120
Speaker 1: just send him proof of of the crime and they

423
00:21:54,119 --> 00:21:58,680
Speaker 1: will send you a free meal box, a free free

424
00:21:59,119 --> 00:22:04,160
Speaker 1: William refrigerator perry with enough flag points. Yeah that's right. Yeah,

425
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:08,040
Speaker 1: So so get get on down to dot com and

426
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:20,640
Speaker 1: also commit murder. We're back sated. Yeah, you've all, you've

427
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 1: all killed one person and gotten your female box. Have

428
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 1: you slaked your thirst for blood? That? One of the

429
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,720
Speaker 1: things that all behind the Bastards fans know is that

430
00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 1: when you draw your machete, you can't sheathe it again

431
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 1: until it's tasted the blood of an enemy whose death

432
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,880
Speaker 1: gets you a meal box from. I mean, how else

433
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: are we gonna eat? How else we're gonna eat? Well, cannibalism.

434
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: But as Resputant grew closer to the Royals, their ministers

435
00:22:47,800 --> 00:22:51,920
Speaker 1: and the family grew to hate him. Um so like

436
00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 1: the other Romanovs, like the cousins and whatnot, his uncles

437
00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:59,200
Speaker 1: and ship they are, they don't like this guy because

438
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 1: like they keep getting edged out by him. The ministers

439
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:04,199
Speaker 1: don't like Rasputin because they're like, he's not listening to us,

440
00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 1: He's just listening to this this dude who, by the way,

441
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,120
Speaker 1: smells horrible and fox all their wives, right, Like, that's

442
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 1: that's the rest. I don't pay that. I'm gonna fuck

443
00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: all your wives. Yeah, no, we've seen that guy. You've

444
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,359
Speaker 1: seen We've seen him in college. He had to truly,

445
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 1: he played Djurido and he fucked everybody's wives. Um, and

446
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:25,960
Speaker 1: that's that's Rasputin. So there's a lot of reasons he's

447
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: unpopular with the people around the romanovs um and his

448
00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 1: Despite all this, his council becomes increasingly influential. Um. He's

449
00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 1: generally anti war, probably because he's a pretty smart guy

450
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: and he recognizes, like, I got a good thing going here.

451
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 1: This dude's not good at anything. If he gets into

452
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:47,400
Speaker 1: a war, he might wind up getting overthrown. And then

453
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: where's Rasputin gonna be? Also, Resputen lover or not a fighter?

454
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:54,679
Speaker 1: I think we've estoundished. Definitely a lover, not a fighter,

455
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,760
Speaker 1: although I gotta say, based on some of the stories,

456
00:23:57,800 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 1: probably would have been a good boxer. He could take hits.

457
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 1: I feel I feel like that very man's got a

458
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: strong chin. Yeah, the real fight of the century would

459
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: have been Grigory Resputant and Joe Frasier, Right, are just

460
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 1: the They just inherited that Russian steel jaw. Um so

461
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: he uh. Yeah, I should note something here, probably about

462
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,280
Speaker 1: the kind of parents that Nicholas and Alexandra were. They

463
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 1: get a lot of credit historically because again they did

464
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: love their kids. Um. They put their kids sometimes before

465
00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,720
Speaker 1: the lives of millions and millions of Russians. Um. But

466
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 1: if you're and so, yeah, if you are rating totalitarian

467
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 1: dictators as parents, he's probably top of the list. He's

468
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:48,120
Speaker 1: definitely a better father than Saddam, better father than Stalin, um,

469
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:52,080
Speaker 1: better father than Castro, better father than you know, I

470
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: don't know, but char Alissad's probably a bad father. Yeah.

471
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,200
Speaker 1: I mean his one of his sons repeatedly murdered people

472
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: at parties, would like machine gun the women dancers and

473
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: stuff during like drunken bachan als. That's not great parenting.

474
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: Was that was? Or that was? I think I think

475
00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: that was? Yeah, I get him mixed up. Sometimes. My friend,

476
00:25:13,480 --> 00:25:15,160
Speaker 1: my friend was in the marines, and he sent back

477
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:18,479
Speaker 1: this photo of him holding like a gold ak. Yeah,

478
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,199
Speaker 1: and he was just like, we went into the pells,

479
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: look what we got. There were a lot of those

480
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: around at the time. Yeah, they sure were. Um so yeah,

481
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 1: they they're probably better parents than most dictators, but he

482
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:34,200
Speaker 1: and his wife were not great parents. Uh. And I'm

483
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 1: going to read a quote from the Romanovs that I

484
00:25:35,920 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: think makes that clear. The Empress concentrated on baby sweet Alexei,

485
00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:43,439
Speaker 1: who was escorted by two Cossack bodyguards at all times,

486
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: while she treated her daughters, known by the collective acronym

487
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: O t m A or OTMA for Oga, Tatiana, Maria

488
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: and Anastasia as a single entity, dressing them in identical

489
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: clothes or when the older two could no longer wear

490
00:25:56,240 --> 00:25:59,359
Speaker 1: youthful dresses, in pairs the big two and little to

491
00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: The girls shared rooms and twos slept on hard beds

492
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: and suffered cold baths every morning, so they grew up

493
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: without a trace of hatur. Their only luxury was a

494
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: single pearl and diamond for their birthday, and each had

495
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: their own favorite coutier sent The family, especially the girls,

496
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:17,960
Speaker 1: embraced photography, taking thousands of family shots with their box

497
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: brownie cameras. Anastasia even pioneered the selfie sitting on a

498
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:24,000
Speaker 1: mirror on a chair before a mirror, holding a camera

499
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:27,240
Speaker 1: at her waist. So that's kind of weird, right, the

500
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: it seems unnecessary. Yeah, and to give them a shitty

501
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: it's like a shitty one unit. Yeah. Man. Cold baths, Yeah,

502
00:26:37,320 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: cold baths, which I don't know that the czar and

503
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: Czarina are taking. Um. And just also well, all of

504
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: the sun is his own person. All of our daughters

505
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: are collectively one child autma. That's a little messed up.

506
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: That is. That is especially because you could make it mote. Yeah.

507
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: And there's Alexei. As he grows up becomes kind of

508
00:26:56,520 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: there's some quotes that he's kind of he's pretty spoiled.

509
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: He doesn't sound like a pleasant kid to be around.

510
00:27:01,280 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into detail on that because

511
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 1: he is a small child who's sick his whole life

512
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: and then gets murdered. So I don't really want to

513
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 1: like dunk on Alexei Romanov. That kind of seems fucked up,

514
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: um because he had a bad enough run of it.

515
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,199
Speaker 1: But I don't think they're very good parents. I just

516
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:19,920
Speaker 1: think they're not abusive parents. Um, not to everyone, but yeah,

517
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: I mean to the people. Not they are, but yeah,

518
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:26,479
Speaker 1: they're just kind of like weird and sort of shitty

519
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: to their daughters, but not in like a mean way.

520
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,439
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's uncomfortable to me. Referring to

521
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: four girls as a single person. Um to save time

522
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:41,880
Speaker 1: is kind of not great. I'm emblematic of a future problem. Yeah. Yeah,

523
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: that didn't get to happen because Bolsheviks had access to handguns.

524
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,960
Speaker 1: But um it probably I don't know, there probably would

525
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: have been some fascinating therapy sessions if these people had

526
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: all like gotten to live out their lives. So the

527
00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: Romanov girls were as much as as possible, pretty normal

528
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: kids for their socioeconomic status. Alexei didn't really get that

529
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: chance because again, he's dying most of his childhood. He's

530
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 1: gonna be in bubble wrap. Yeah, like anything could do it,

531
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: Like he could fun again, he could like walk into

532
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: a door knob and that could be the end of him. Um.

533
00:28:16,200 --> 00:28:19,160
Speaker 1: So it's it's a rough childhood for little Alexei, which

534
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: is why we're not going to dunk on him too

535
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: much for growing up kind of spoiled. It would be

536
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 1: hard not to spoil your son if he was always

537
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 1: on death store um. Yeah. And also the rightful and

538
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: to a sixth of the world's land mass. Yeah. Um.

539
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 1: A big part of resputants appeal is that he was

540
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: able to convince Nicholas the Second that Alexei was going

541
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: to live long and inherit the realm. He would say

542
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 1: stuff like oh yeah, ohya was what respute and called

543
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: Alexei will triumph because he's not an ordinary earthly being.

544
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: There's never been such a zar. The look in his

545
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: eyes is similar to Peter the greats. I mean, Peter

546
00:28:53,320 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: the Great was dead and Alexei was half dead, so

547
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: I guess that's part of it. No, this it's so hard,

548
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: Like every there were there's obsession with Peter the Great.

549
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 1: You either loved him or hate him. Yeah, And then

550
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the night. It's the thing that you

551
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: can if you're if you're trying to get like these

552
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: are drunk on the possibility of the future. You try

553
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 1: to convince him that his son is going to be

554
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: a new Peter the Great, because then he'll that Peter

555
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: the Great was a strong tsar and he also didn't

556
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: die at age thirteen or whatever. Um it was a giant.

557
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: He was a big man. Um Alexei was not ever

558
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: going to be a big man. UM boiler alert. He

559
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: was never going to end up a man. Yeah yeah, yeah,

560
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: that that is. That is one of our classic Vladimir

561
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: ilioch Lennon spoilers. Um so ras mutant was also capable

562
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:43,120
Speaker 1: of calming down the increasingly anxiety riddled, riddled hypochondriacts arena.

563
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: Nicholas needed this because in nineteen oh seven there's another

564
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: attempt at overthrowing his government. Now this one occurs through

565
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: the Douma UM and it's it's an attempt to democratically

566
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: take more power for the people from the czar. We

567
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: might call this the people of Russia being like, hey,

568
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 1: maybe we should have an absolute ruler anymore, because it

569
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to work very well. Let's try and change

570
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: this a little bit. But Nikolai, yeah, yeah that. Nicholas

571
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: dissolves the government, He arrests all of the Socialist elected

572
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: leaders he can get his hands on. Um, he destroys

573
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: the Social Democratic Party through purges. Now Nicholas is Prime

574
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: Minister at the time. A guy named Stolypin begs him

575
00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: to allow more democratic reforms and lift restrictions placed upon

576
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: the Jews. Um. Stolypin is the guy who's like, hey,

577
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: you know when the Tsar is ranting about Jews being

578
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: behind the over the revolution, you know, one day Stolypin's like, well,

579
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: I think if I was Jewish and had to live

580
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: under your government, I would be throwing bombs at your men.

581
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: To um, He's he's one of these occasional rational humans

582
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: who wanders into the Tsar's orbit. Yeah, then just just

583
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: drops a little piece of information, but it's just for

584
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: the wrong century. Yeah, it's not going to get through

585
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 1: the Tsar's head. Now is not the time? Yeah, Stolypin

586
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: season and the revolution coming, and again he's kind of

587
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 1: trying to head it off. He does. He's rational enough

588
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: to be like, well, the Tsar is not going to

589
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,280
Speaker 1: wind up, is not going to be able to be

590
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: the absolute ruler fresher forever. But we can probably work

591
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: out a situation where he has some power and his

592
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: family keeps their wealth and influence and like doesn't get

593
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,120
Speaker 1: murdered in abasement. But Nikki is not going to have

594
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: that ship. Uh Nicholas tells on my watch, keep my

595
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: family alive, not if I'm in Judge NICKI tells Stolypin quote,

596
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: an inner voice keeps insisting more and more that I

597
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: don't take this decision. So far, my conscience has not

598
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: deceived me. I intend to follow its dictates. The heart

599
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: of the czar is in God's hands, so be it.

600
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 1: So he's saying it's pronounced Soviet. Yeah, that's what's coming.

601
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: Was Soviet. Um. Yeah, he's like, he's like, me, keep

602
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: my watch, not on my watch. And he's also saying

603
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: that like, because I don't want to give up power,

604
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: and because God put me here, it means God doesn't

605
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:58,880
Speaker 1: want me to give up power, which some could call

606
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: circular logic. Yeah, that is that is right there. That's

607
00:32:02,840 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: that's royalty one on one. Yeah. They do that ship.

608
00:32:05,680 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: They pull that ship off all the time. Sometimes you

609
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: get magna carted because of it, and sometimes you don't. Yep,

610
00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:13,520
Speaker 1: that is that is the way it works. Sometimes you

611
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: feel like a magna carta. Sometimes you feel like having

612
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:18,720
Speaker 1: your family get massacred in the basement because you've got

613
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: everyone roped into World War One, which is what we're

614
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: about to talk about. Oops. So um. Yeah, and that

615
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: is h Nicholas, you could. It would probably be fair

616
00:32:29,360 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: to say Nicholas does not have as much guilt in

617
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: starting World War One as Kaiser Wilhelm Um, who's probably

618
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: the one dude who gets the most blame. Um, Yeah,

619
00:32:40,520 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean you could. Obviously there's history involved

620
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: in that, but I mean you can. That's all the

621
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,040
Speaker 1: way back to the Franco for sure. It's one of

622
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: those things Blaming any individual ruler is almost like because

623
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 1: they're all locked into these systems, these systems of alliances

624
00:32:56,600 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 1: and grievances and like promises to back one another up.

625
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 1: That like everyone was going to so mad that they

626
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:06,960
Speaker 1: got their dicks pushed in the dirt. And then to

627
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 1: then have the treaty the Palace of Versailly where they

628
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: signed the armistice, the treaty, like that's so insulting that

629
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: like you you know that there's gonna I mean they

630
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: literally called it, yeah, exactly, And it's one of those things,

631
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,640
Speaker 1: like there's a lot to say about like the the

632
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 1: decisions these guys made that made World War One happen,

633
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 1: but like if it had been a totally different set

634
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: of rulers could have happened ten years earlier. Ten years later,

635
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, I don't know that if it's

636
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: fair to say it was. It had to happen because

637
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: they did pull their fat out of the fire A

638
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: bunch of times before this. There's like ship in nineteen

639
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 1: o nineteen o nine or whatever, like a bunch of

640
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: different things. Times this almost happens, Like there's this um

641
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: in nineteen o eight, there's this um like um Nicholas

642
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 1: helps arrange a revision of this treaty UM with Austria

643
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: that creates fheres of influence over the Balkans. So like

644
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: Austria gets to be influential over this because the Balkans

645
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: have been controlled by the Ottomans for a while, right um,

646
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:08,759
Speaker 1: and they've kind of lost control in this period, and

647
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 1: like who's gonna wind up in charge your different chunks

648
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,120
Speaker 1: of the Balkans? Is this big, this thing that keeps

649
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: threatening to cause a giant European war. So Nikki makes

650
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: this like treaty with the Austrians that splits up influence

651
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: over the Balkans um. And then there's this whole conflict

652
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: breaks out with the Serbs, who the Czar considers to

653
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: be basically Russians and the Serbs want to take Bosnia,

654
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 1: and the Austrians are like, well, no, this is like

655
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: part of our sphere of influence and like we don't

656
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:37,480
Speaker 1: want you to do that. And so basically, this deal

657
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: that Nicholas has made over the Balkans with Austria goes

658
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: sour almost immediately, and Austria and Russia very nearly go

659
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:47,480
Speaker 1: to war in nineteen o eight, which would have been

660
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: a World War One situation. All of those alliances were

661
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: still in place. So it's one of those things where

662
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: like they're right up to the shooting before this kind

663
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: of thing gets pulled off. Yeah, they're playing Jenga, Yeah exactly.

664
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: Gets at some point in time the tower is going

665
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: to go down. It's just when's it going to go? Yeah, exactly.

666
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: And the reason, the big reason why it doesn't go

667
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,239
Speaker 1: this time is that Russia is in the process of

668
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: rearming and reorganizing its military after the revolution, and Nikki's

669
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: advisors are like, basically like, we don't we don't have

670
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: the toys you want. We just got our asses kicked. Um,

671
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: you don't want to get into a European war right now,

672
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: we couldn't handle Japan. Like give us some give us

673
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: some time. We couldn't hear we couldn't handle one island

674
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: that we were racist about. Yeah, we couldn't handle one

675
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:34,320
Speaker 1: island we were racist about. Who had to ship troops

676
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: in um from overseas, and and you want to start

677
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 1: a war with all of Europe, Like, no, that's not

678
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: gonna work out, buddy, And Nicholas does take the good

679
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: advice uh in this in this time they backed down,

680
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: but there's this understanding that like, well, it's gonna happen. Eventually,

681
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:53,479
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen. Um. So some things do go better

682
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,239
Speaker 1: for Nikki. In the years leading up to the war.

683
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:58,120
Speaker 1: He starts to appoint some more competent ministers, a guy

684
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: named Sukomlinov who arms the military and reorganizes it and

685
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 1: does get it into much better shape. Russia starts to

686
00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: get some more money. Um, they like pay for this

687
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: rearming because they have this this run of really good

688
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: harvests and this railway system that had been one of

689
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: the few good things that Nicholas and his dad put

690
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: through was they they massively expanded the railways in Russia.

691
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: And in this period right after the Russo Japanese War,

692
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: that starts to bring up a bunch of money. Um,

693
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:29,400
Speaker 1: So things are going better domestically for Nikki at this period,

694
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: but there's also constant scandals with rasputant Um letters between

695
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: he and the Czar, and he and one of his

696
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: daughter's leak, and particularly the letters with Resputin and Alexandra.

697
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 1: They really seem sexual. They're like talking about like I

698
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:45,319
Speaker 1: went to lay my head on you. I can't wait

699
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: until you're back. And that's obviously like the rumor seems

700
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: mildly scandalous. Yeah, and it's unlikely. I don't like Rasputint

701
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 1: fucked damn near everybody. But he was also pretty smart,

702
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 1: and I think he would know like, well, that's the

703
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: one thing you don't want to do, like never put

704
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: it in writing. No, Well, yeah, I don't want Well

705
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: he did put it, I mean he yeah, he wrote

706
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: letters to her, But I don't think he would have

707
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: liked that's like too much of a risk to have

708
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: sex with the Zarna, because that's gonna piste off the zar.

709
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:14,839
Speaker 1: You can keep Tisar going forever and you can fuck

710
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 1: everybody else's wife, but if you suck the Zarina also,

711
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: what if she gets angry at you? Right, you've got

712
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:21,719
Speaker 1: this grift going. You don't want to mess that up

713
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 1: with starting a relationship. Um. I don't think he's that dumb.

714
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't believe that that resputant and the

715
00:37:28,800 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 1: Tzarrena actually did anything, but a lot of people believe

716
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: they do in this period. Yeah, I mean yeah, And

717
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:41,399
Speaker 1: it's it's like it it's just kind of like fuels

718
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,399
Speaker 1: the anti Esarist you know movement that like okay, now,

719
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: like this this monk is in and and who knows

720
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: what kind of decisions the Romanovs are making because the

721
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: Tsars being concolded by this monk and um, his wife's German.

722
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 1: We don't like that either, YadA YadA, YadA. Um. And

723
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,280
Speaker 1: well all this is going on. Um, So he gets Sputin,

724
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 1: gets kicked out for a while, right like these letters leak,

725
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: and the Czar does send him away um because he

726
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: he gets embarrassed by this. Um. But then in late

727
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, Alexei gets sick again and it's serious enough

728
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: that the priests do last rites on the little boy,

729
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: like they really think he's right about to die. Um.

730
00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 1: So the Zarns are gonna get desperate and they telegram

731
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: rest mutant and he responds saying the little one will

732
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,440
Speaker 1: not die and advises them not to let the doctors

733
00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: bother Alexei too much. Um, and Alexei recovers and so

734
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,319
Speaker 1: obviously that brings rest muting back into the family, right,

735
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: he just says, and he's get back in here. You

736
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: Harry's son of a bit. He does seem to have

737
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,359
Speaker 1: an ability to like heal this kid like people at

738
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 1: the time. I can't really explain it. There's a number

739
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: of theories. Probably the most likely is that he would

740
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: tell them not to send the doctors back in, and

741
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:54,160
Speaker 1: the doctors were prescribing Alexei blood thinners without knowing what

742
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: they were doing. And that's not good for if your

743
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,839
Speaker 1: blood doesn't clot, you don't want blood vennings. You want

744
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: to blood thicker, Yeah, you want to thick it. You

745
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: want to put some like pepped in up in that,

746
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: you know, really really thicken that blood up, a little bit,

747
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: pour a little bit of corn starch in it, you know, um,

748
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 1: that kid of cornstarch ivy. That'll fix him. But so

749
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:17,760
Speaker 1: there's a theory that like maybe all it's as simple

750
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 1: as like resputant doesn't trust doctors and the doctors are

751
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: not good at what they're doing in this period, and

752
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 1: so keeping the doctor's away helps him recover. It's possible,

753
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: you know what, to help An apple a day. An

754
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: apple a day, is that a blood thicker that is?

755
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how many apples he eats.

756
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: He does eat a lot of guava jam that's brought

757
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: by John Hercules, friend, John Hercules coming back with the

758
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: guava jam to paste up those wounds. Yeah, it's fucking amazing. Yeah. Um,

759
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fourteen, things are broadly speaking doing better

760
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: for Nicholas the second. The economy of Russias in great shape.

761
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 1: The military has reformed itself to a significant degree. It's

762
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: been going to gym. He had been going to the gym.

763
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: You know, he's lost some weight's little less depressed. He

764
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: got a he got a calm subscription too, So he's

765
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,800
Speaker 1: on like a good level. Yeah. Yeah, he started taking

766
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,319
Speaker 1: CBD just like at night. But it's really helped with

767
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: his sleep patterns. Um. He's just in a good He's

768
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: just in a good place. Um. And it's actually like

769
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: this is a period of time in which it kind

770
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: of seems to guys like Lennen that Zarism has won

771
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,879
Speaker 1: Lennon writes like these letters where he's despairing in this

772
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,239
Speaker 1: period that like, well, we almost had them in like

773
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 1: nineteen o five, but it seems as if they've they've

774
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 1: they've beaten us, and they've they've successfully you know, it's

775
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: gonna keep going another three hundred years. Like he's really

776
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: like kind of heartbroken in this period about Lenin. Yeah, buddy,

777
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,480
Speaker 1: don't give up. Yeah, don't give up. Man. You're right,

778
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: You're almost there. Yeah, you're on the cusp. Baby, you're

779
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, you are going to get to do

780
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: some real, real ship very soon. Um. Yeah. There's a

781
00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: one of the things that disappoints Lennon. There's this big

782
00:40:59,760 --> 00:41:02,760
Speaker 1: work strike and I think nineteen fourteen in one region

783
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: that gets put down by like shooting a hundred and

784
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: fifty people to death, and all of the socialists in

785
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: Russia are like, oh, we're gonna have another nineteen o five,

786
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 1: We're gonna have another revolution. This is gonna like spark

787
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 1: things off. Um, but nothing happens because everyone else is

788
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: like things are going well enough for the rest of

789
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: Russia that people are like, well, I didn't know those

790
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: people that he shot, so I'm not gonna stare things up. Yeah,

791
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: next time, don't get shot. Yeah. Speaking of not getting shot,

792
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 1: you know who sucked at not getting shot, the Archduke

793
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: of Austria. God. At least we've got a medium good

794
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 1: band's name out of it, which one Frans Ferdinand? Oh right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

795
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 1: of course, of course. Yeah. It's a history restaurant. You

796
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: know what, ads are about to happen. But instead of

797
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:44,880
Speaker 1: listening to these ads, just put this, put this on

798
00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 1: mute for a couple of minutes. Queue up some Franz Ferdinand.

799
00:41:47,719 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: Just just rock out for a little bit, you know, Yeah, yeah,

800
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: have some of you time we're back. So did you

801
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: enjoy that? That too? Was an odds eram I tell

802
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 1: you nothing gets me up like Franz Ferdinand. I liked them, Yeah,

803
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,480
Speaker 1: I enjoyed them when they were I have no issues

804
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:14,720
Speaker 1: with them. Um. You know who did have an issue

805
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: with Franz Ferdinand Kvrolo, Prince EP Prince Prince and the

806
00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: Black Hand, Yeah, I believe, which he expressed via bullets

807
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,640
Speaker 1: on June. UM. This makes everybody big mad. This is

808
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: a real problem for for for Europe. Um. And part

809
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 1: of the problem is that the Black Hand as you noted,

810
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: the terrorist group this guy's a member of had kind

811
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: sort of been trained by Serbian military intelligence. Now this

812
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,479
Speaker 1: is the start of this is like a historical Rube

813
00:42:44,520 --> 00:42:48,320
Speaker 1: Goldberg machine. Yeah, like that's literally the first the first

814
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: like the coin going in this tiny dominoes start falling

815
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: and they end with um, the entire modern world. Uh yeah, yeah, exactly. Um.

816
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 1: So this is a problem for Calist because Serbia is

817
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: kind of like a satellite state of Russia. Right. The

818
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 1: Slavs are like cousins to the Russians, like we have

819
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: this the Southern Slavs are cousins to the Russians, like

820
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: we have this responsibility to the Serbs. Um. So his

821
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: government is giving aid to the Serbian government, and the

822
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: Serbian government trains this terrorist group that then murders the

823
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: Archduke of Austria, which is allied to Germany. Um. And

824
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: so like you know, things start to go awry. Um.

825
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: The Kaiser, being a very smart man, gives Austria a

826
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 1: blake check to respond to Serbia. Um. Russia is forced

827
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,840
Speaker 1: to be like, well, will defend Serbia um, And France

828
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:36,839
Speaker 1: is like obviously forced to say like, well, we'll come

829
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: in on your side, and the British are like, well,

830
00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: we don't want to get involved, but the Germans say, well,

831
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: then we're going to invade fucking um, what is it,

832
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: the fucking the Belgium in order to get to France

833
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: and France up faster, and the Jury and the English

834
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: are like, well, if you invade Belgium then we're going

835
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,360
Speaker 1: to get involved in the war. And pretty soon, you know,

836
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: just sitting here like, come on, we've been waiting for

837
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: this is great to great for us. There are many

838
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: Frenchmen already we have been waiting for this for like

839
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: what thirty years now is something like that, come on, yeah,

840
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: we'll smack your bit up. And that is there's a

841
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: lot of excitement among some people for this. Um. Nikki

842
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:18,759
Speaker 1: kind of checks out for a large chunk of the

843
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,480
Speaker 1: lead up to World War One. Um, he's on his yacht.

844
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: This is the summer, this is when he goes yachting.

845
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: So he's like classic Nikki, classic Nikki. He's on his

846
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: fucking boat when this is all going down. That's so Nikki.

847
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: From the Romanovs quote, Nicholas's decision to remain closeted there

848
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:37,759
Speaker 1: is strange, even with his new phones, he was still

849
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,719
Speaker 1: too removed. At the great test of his hard one autocracy,

850
00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:44,360
Speaker 1: the autocrat was barely present, leaving the initiative to Sazanov

851
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,239
Speaker 1: in the generals. Now, none of these generals or ministers

852
00:44:48,239 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: are like all that good. Um. His Stolypin, the guy

853
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: who was like pretty smart, who was his minister for

854
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: a while, gets killed by a bomb. Um. Again, this

855
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:00,439
Speaker 1: happens a lot, O know. He gets shot to death,

856
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 1: He gets bombed but survives, and then get shot to death.

857
00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: There's constant terrorist attacks against all of his our's men.

858
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: You you, you mix them up sometimes, um, But he

859
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: doesn't have a lot of Nikki doesn't have a lot

860
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: of good people around him. Um. The generals want to

861
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,800
Speaker 1: partially mobilize. Um, well, some of them want to mobilize.

862
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 1: Some of them want to partially mobilize. Nikki agrees to

863
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:22,959
Speaker 1: partially mobilize because he doesn't want to like commit fully

864
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: because again he's kind of like this milk toast dude.

865
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to He doesn't really like he's never

866
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: He's the guy who will get drunk and talk ship

867
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 1: but he doesn't want to throw punches. Um. But then

868
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: his generals will say we can't just partially mobilize. We

869
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: have to fully mobilize. We can't fight Germany without a

870
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 1: full military. So then he'll say we're going to do

871
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,200
Speaker 1: a full mobilization. And then his cousin, the Kaiser, calls

872
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: him and threatens him, and then he reverses again and

873
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 1: goes back to a partial mobilization. But then his generals

874
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 1: are like, are you going to really take that ship?

875
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: And then he mobilizes the army um and yeah. As

876
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: he as a situation grows more serious and things get

877
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: closer and closer to war, the Czar gets overcome with

878
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: panic and anxiety. Rest Mutant telegrams his wife, who sends

879
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: this message to her husband. This is Resputin talking to

880
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: the zarins Arena. A terrible storm hangs over Russia, disaster, grief,

881
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: murky darkness and no light. You are this, our father

882
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: of the people. Don't allow the madmen to triumph and

883
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: destroy themselves in the people. Yes, they'll conquered Germany, but

884
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: what of Russia. Never for all time as a land

885
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: suffered like Russia drowned in her own blood. Great will

886
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 1: be the ruin grief without end, which is kind of

887
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: make you think he might have he might have had

888
00:46:31,719 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bee line to something because

889
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,440
Speaker 1: he's got he's no domin that ship. Yeah, that's not

890
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 1: a bad description of the next decade or so, well,

891
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 1: couple decades of Russian history, to be fair though, that's

892
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,240
Speaker 1: pretty much a good forecast for most of Russian history.

893
00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:49,320
Speaker 1: If you know your Russian history, A good forecast is

894
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,560
Speaker 1: grief without end. Yeah, grief without end. Storm clouds are rising,

895
00:46:54,239 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: well yeah, yeah, they've been here for quite some time now. Yeah, So,

896
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: long story short, we have a World War One. Um. Now,

897
00:47:02,120 --> 00:47:04,520
Speaker 1: Nicholas gets, you know, some blame for that because of

898
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: his decisions, but obviously there's not great options here. If

899
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 1: he'd abandoned Serbia, they'd probably would have been rioting because

900
00:47:11,000 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 1: it would have piste off the Russian right wing. But

901
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:15,799
Speaker 1: a lot fewer Russians would have died if he had

902
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: abandoned Serbia. That part is that doesn't happen with war.

903
00:47:19,360 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: If you're not in a war, generally less of your

904
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:26,439
Speaker 1: population population dies. Um. Now, the war doesn't go well.

905
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 1: There's a couple early victories against the Austrians, but then

906
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:33,280
Speaker 1: the Germans get involved, and boy howdy, the Russian military

907
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: just cannot go toe to toe with the Germans in

908
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: this period. Like, I know that the Germans have an

909
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: interesting history. You know, their win loss record isn't particularly great,

910
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:45,720
Speaker 1: but they generally have a formidable military. Pound for pound,

911
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 1: they're pretty good at fighting. And Russia learns this very quickly,

912
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 1: to the loss of several hundred thousand Russian soldiers. She's

913
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: like those helmets with point on head, they look very silly,

914
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 1: and then they just stabbed them with their helmet point. Yeah, which, yeah,

915
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:05,879
Speaker 1: was the primary German tactic. It was extremely effective. Yeah,

916
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:08,319
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was very like you know

917
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:11,760
Speaker 1: Looney Tunes ask a variation of fighting. Yeah, the pointy

918
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: helmet and the machine gun really changed warfare forever. You

919
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:16,840
Speaker 1: know what it is. They saw they saw the human

920
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,600
Speaker 1: cannonball one time at a circus, and they were like that, honestly,

921
00:48:20,719 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: isn't that far off from some of the things the

922
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:27,320
Speaker 1: Kaiser did. So Nikki, when this war starts to go badly,

923
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:29,800
Speaker 1: does the thing that he does when his own decisions

924
00:48:29,840 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 1: go badly, and he starts firing and reshuffling generals and ministers.

925
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: Eventually he decides the only way to turn this desperate

926
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: situation around is for the most competent man in Russia

927
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 1: to take personal control of the army. And of course,

928
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: in Nikki's view, the most competent man in Russia is

929
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: Nicholas the Second, So he this is gonna go great.

930
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: What he'd wanted to do this in nineteen o five

931
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 1: in the war against Japan and had been argued down,

932
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 1: And like, there's a wonderful counter factual, like what if

933
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: Nikki had sailed off with that fleet, you know, wound

934
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,719
Speaker 1: up at the bottom of the sea, could have saved

935
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:06,680
Speaker 1: everybody a lot of grief. Yeah, he's he's in the

936
00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: he's in there and his yacht. Yeah, everybody else is

937
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:12,680
Speaker 1: in their massive military Uh they're they're big boats and everything.

938
00:49:12,719 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: Like that's a big fleet and then just some little

939
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: schooner right next to it. Um. So yeah, he gets

940
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: his way. Um And yeah. Part of why he's convinced

941
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,760
Speaker 1: that this is a good idea because again his ministers

942
00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 1: are this time, like, you don't want to do this

943
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: if it's a bad idea for you to take. You

944
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:34,560
Speaker 1: don't really know how to do anything with the military,

945
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: Like you shouldn't be handling this at all. But rasp

946
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: Mutant is like, well, Yeah. Absolutely, you've got to be there.

947
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 1: You know, your your God's chosen vessel. That's just the right.

948
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: You got to the picts, the people that are like

949
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:50,919
Speaker 1: in charge of just like we've talked about this man,

950
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 1: he's taking personal command of the army. Why oh good.

951
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: The dude who fucked my wife said so yeah, that

952
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: guy that cut me last week. Co that's that's smelly

953
00:50:01,680 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: dude over there with the lice in his beard. I

954
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:07,000
Speaker 1: mean he is. He is actively fucking my wife right

955
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 1: now as we're talking about this, just making eye contact

956
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:13,160
Speaker 1: with me. This pre manson asshole over here is just

957
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: banging out my wife telling you to go to war.

958
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: Everything is gonna go poorly. Nick, Nick, Nick, stop it.

959
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to have an intervention with him. Nick does

960
00:50:24,280 --> 00:50:26,560
Speaker 1: the thing that Nick does his entire life, which is

961
00:50:26,600 --> 00:50:29,479
Speaker 1: not listened to anyone who knows anything. And I'm gonna

962
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,240
Speaker 1: quote what comes next from a write up in History Net.

963
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,800
Speaker 1: When he left to take up his new heavy responsibility,

964
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: as he described it, Alexandra praised him for having fought

965
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 1: this great fight against the overwhelming consensus of advisers and

966
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: commentators for your country and thrown alone and with bravery

967
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: and decision you bravely. It's like you've got an electrician

968
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 1: over at the house, like rewiring something, and your wife's

969
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,160
Speaker 1: like what, you're just letting him get in there. Why

970
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:00,200
Speaker 1: don't you do that? NICKI go grab a four can

971
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:05,800
Speaker 1: stick it in that socket. Fight the battle against the house. Yeah,

972
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: everyone's against you, but I believe you can fix this. Um. Yeah,

973
00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: it's great, she continued. Never have they seen such firmness

974
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: in you before. God appointed you at your coronation. He

975
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:20,000
Speaker 1: placed you where you stand, and you have done your duty.

976
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:23,240
Speaker 1: Our friends, prayers arise day and night for you to heaven,

977
00:51:23,280 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 1: and God will hear them. It is the beginning of

978
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: the great glory of your reign. He said so, and

979
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: I absolutely believe it. I mean, this is where we're going. Yeah,

980
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 1: and rast mutant is just pouring that for him, like,

981
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,879
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this is this is what God wants now.

982
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,800
Speaker 1: Nicholas believed his presence would inspire peasant soldiers the quote

983
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: devoted souls, um, who he believed loved him. Um. Initially, uh,

984
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: this seemed to be the case because again there is

985
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: this like attitude that like, well the nobles are ship

986
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 1: but the czar is good. We do like the czar

987
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:00,839
Speaker 1: loves us, he just doesn't know about the fucked up ship.

988
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: So like at first when he shows up in you know,

989
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,479
Speaker 1: hanging out around the army, meeting the troops like this

990
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: is uh, kind of has a magical effect on so

991
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: it's really motivating. You know. Like even the generals who

992
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:16,160
Speaker 1: are critical about this about him taking commander, like, well,

993
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:19,919
Speaker 1: the soldiers do this really does make them happy. So yeah,

994
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: this really does like have an initially positive impact, but

995
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: it has this negative effect to which is that before

996
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 1: he takes command, if things go bad on the battle front,

997
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: it's some general's fault, it's some noble's fault. It's not

998
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: his fault. Now, everything that happens is his personal fault.

999
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:40,919
Speaker 1: He's all you, baby, Yeah, it's all you. That's the thing.

1000
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,799
Speaker 1: When you take control. He wants the ball. He's like,

1001
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:46,960
Speaker 1: you know, he's like Jordan's he can give me the ball. Yeah,

1002
00:52:47,239 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: the ball. I'm gonna continue with that quiote from History Net.

1003
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: The Czarina's warped intrigues to strengthen the Ours resolve. We're

1004
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:55,879
Speaker 1: part of her campaign to make her husband a more

1005
00:52:55,920 --> 00:53:00,000
Speaker 1: forceful person and essentially timid man. A picture of loving tenderness.

1006
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 1: In their domestic life, Nicholas tended to stutter when facing unpleasantness.

1007
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,839
Speaker 1: His wife's shining ambition was to persuade him to rule

1008
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 1: like Ivan the Terrible. The Emperor unfortunately is weak, she

1009
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: had told the British ambassador when he questioned the decision

1010
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 1: to change command. But I am not and I intend

1011
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:19,799
Speaker 1: to be firm. Okay, is this really the moment that

1012
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: you want to have your courage found? Yeah, this might

1013
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:24,919
Speaker 1: be the moment to be like putting some of them

1014
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: Jim's in a lockbox in Switzerland to get the family

1015
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: out of the country. Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe we'll do

1016
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: the next but maybe like a small uprising is what

1017
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: you want. You dip your toe. You don't dive in

1018
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: the deep end. No, you know, you don't dive in

1019
00:53:38,680 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: the deep end with like you don't want to start

1020
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,560
Speaker 1: your career as a military commander in the middle of

1021
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: World War One, in the middle of something called the

1022
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 1: Great the Great War, Maybe not a time for the

1023
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 1: amateurs to like get up in there again. Recently, you

1024
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,000
Speaker 1: got your your ass beat by an island that you

1025
00:53:56,040 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: were racist against. Yeah, do you think you're gonna like yeah,

1026
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 1: and and and by the way Japan part of the world. Yeah,

1027
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:08,360
Speaker 1: part of the world. Um, who you have now started

1028
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 1: a fight with? You have now a warred with? Yeah.

1029
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:15,320
Speaker 1: So in her daily letters and telegrams, Alexandra repeatedly urged

1030
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:17,680
Speaker 1: her husband to be stern. She seemed to think that

1031
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 1: if he was displeased and enraged instead of gentle when

1032
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 1: his generals failed and got a lot of men killed,

1033
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,439
Speaker 1: then they'd lead better. She's like, well, when they lose

1034
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:27,560
Speaker 1: this battle and a hundred thousand men die, you're not

1035
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 1: being mean enough to them, because that is the problem.

1036
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: You know, They're just not clearly the problem. Yeah, for

1037
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 1: what it's worth. A lack of confidence and decisiveness was

1038
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: one of Nikki's many shortcomings as a war leader. He

1039
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: had one really excellent general, a guy named Bruce Lav

1040
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 1: who several times carried out offensive offensives that would beat

1041
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 1: back the Austrians and like open up. They would like

1042
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: win such a big victory that it would open opportunities

1043
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 1: to attack the Germans and maybe even make some major

1044
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,160
Speaker 1: gains because like, oh, this Austrian army just collapsed and

1045
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,399
Speaker 1: now we can get around the flank of this German army.

1046
00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: And every time Bruce a of does this Nikki fails

1047
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 1: to give him reinforcements. Um, because he sucks at everything,

1048
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:07,839
Speaker 1: because he's bad at everything. Yeah, I think he's. Yeah,

1049
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:12,280
Speaker 1: he's he's he's bad at all of the stuff he tries.

1050
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:16,720
Speaker 1: I think it's important to say yeah. And he's unfortunately

1051
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: trying a lot right now. Um. Bruce Alov later blamed

1052
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,800
Speaker 1: a lot of this on the royal attendants around Nicholas,

1053
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: who quote failed to use the most decisive measures, including

1054
00:55:26,000 --> 00:55:28,919
Speaker 1: even force, to dissuade Nicholas the Second from assuming those

1055
00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 1: duties for which he was so ill suited by reason

1056
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: of his ignorance, inability and utterly flaccid. Will I do

1057
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 1: like the idea of somebody just kicking the ship out

1058
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:41,799
Speaker 1: of him to get him. Bruce law is looking back

1059
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: at the guys in the Kremlin, the other the dudes

1060
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:46,000
Speaker 1: in the capital and being like you should have fought

1061
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: him to keep him away from the army, Like you

1062
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:52,360
Speaker 1: really literally should have fought him a kick his ass.

1063
00:55:52,480 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 1: Someone needs to hit him and I cannot, but you,

1064
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: he has cousins. He's not going to kill you if

1065
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: you punch him. Um, stop this ship? Uh so Nikki,

1066
00:56:03,120 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 1: Uh generally would lose himself in the day to day

1067
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 1: tasks of of being in a military camp rather than

1068
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: actually commanding, which is probably not for the worst. He

1069
00:56:11,560 --> 00:56:14,840
Speaker 1: loved watching his soldiers in their splendid uniforms march around

1070
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:17,680
Speaker 1: quote the Supreme Commander's view of the war during that

1071
00:56:17,719 --> 00:56:20,960
Speaker 1: Supreme National crisis was of maps with brightly colored pins

1072
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:25,320
Speaker 1: indicating true positions, and have picked regiments, some amazingly beautiful

1073
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: and astounding, he enthused, whirling in review. His Stavka, that's

1074
00:56:29,760 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: his command post stay became an enlarged version of summer maneuvers.

1075
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: These are much enjoyed the reviews the reviewers were so tidy, clean,

1076
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: cleanly and well dressed and equipped such as I have

1077
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: seldom seen even in peacetime. Truly excellent. At least one

1078
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 1: plan yeah strong, Kim John Eel vibes on this motherfucker

1079
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: at this point time, while actively losing a war. Again,

1080
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:53,000
Speaker 1: it can work if nobody's fighting a war with you,

1081
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 1: because you've got nukes. You know, it doesn't work so

1082
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:59,239
Speaker 1: well when the Germans are sixteen feet away. It's gonna

1083
00:56:59,239 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: be rough. There's at least one case where a planned

1084
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: defensive is delayed because he wanted to review the Imperial

1085
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:07,080
Speaker 1: Guard units that we're going to take part. He wanted

1086
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: to see the march in front of him. Um, but

1087
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:12,680
Speaker 1: he couldn't do that because the Tsarevich his his son

1088
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:15,080
Speaker 1: was bleeding and so like, well, we can't have the

1089
00:57:15,360 --> 00:57:17,439
Speaker 1: we can't have the offensive until they get to see

1090
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 1: these guys march. And I got to take care of

1091
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: my kids. So like, can we push this two weeks?

1092
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:25,960
Speaker 1: I need a post blood parade before war can happen. Yeah. Um,

1093
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: not great as military things go. While the Czar is

1094
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,959
Speaker 1: playing with his toy soldiers, his real soldiers are dying.

1095
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: In Titanic numbers, one and a half million Russians would

1096
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 1: die fighting in the war and another million are still missing.

1097
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 1: So you know, like something like that, two or three

1098
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 1: million dead conservatively, probably another four million would be wounded.

1099
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,600
Speaker 1: More than one point three million civilians also perished. Uh.

1100
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: The Tzar was mostly focused on the fact that he

1101
00:57:52,840 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 1: missed his wife during this period of time. Um. So

1102
00:57:55,960 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: that's that's great again, good to love your life, not

1103
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: when you've just gotten like five million is people killed.

1104
00:58:04,440 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: Maybe ignore your wife. You have bigger problems. I'm sorry,

1105
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:11,080
Speaker 1: but you do. I mean, who among us hasn't accidentally

1106
00:58:11,120 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 1: cost anywhere from three to five million lives just because

1107
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: you were I mean one time, but like I was young,

1108
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:23,520
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, we all have that sewing your wild

1109
00:58:23,520 --> 00:58:27,520
Speaker 1: oats period. So when he visited field hospitals, Nicholas would

1110
00:58:27,520 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: hand out huge racks of medals to his injured soldiers.

1111
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:33,760
Speaker 1: He was convinced they found this inspiring. One of his

1112
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:37,000
Speaker 1: generals felt otherwise, noting that those are quote did not

1113
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 1: know how to speak with the troops and thus tended

1114
00:58:39,160 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 1: to just not say anything. So he's just kind of

1115
00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: mutely handing medals to dying men, and they didn't. They

1116
00:58:44,640 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 1: were not inspired by this. They were like, oh, this,

1117
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,240
Speaker 1: this seems weird. Maybe this guy shouldn't be a charge.

1118
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:52,400
Speaker 1: Does this mean I can stab you with these medals?

1119
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:55,200
Speaker 1: You've lost my legs, sir. There's this one wild moment

1120
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:57,480
Speaker 1: where there's this again. One of these few generals he

1121
00:58:57,480 --> 00:59:01,360
Speaker 1: has who's competent General alexeiev Um, he's not a nobleman.

1122
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:03,800
Speaker 1: He's actually like a normal person who just rose to

1123
00:59:03,840 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: command by dint of being good at things. Um, And

1124
00:59:07,720 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 1: Alexandra fucking hates him because during this whole war, while

1125
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,520
Speaker 1: like millions are dying. She keeps trying to like give

1126
00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: noble boys who say nice things to her regiments to command.

1127
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:19,919
Speaker 1: She's like writing Nikki, like could you give this man

1128
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 1: control of this regiment? I think he'd really appreciate it,

1129
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:26,520
Speaker 1: And oftentimes like rass Buten is like advising her of like,

1130
00:59:26,520 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 1: oh yeah, give this regiment to this guy, probably because

1131
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:32,440
Speaker 1: he wants something. Um And General Alexeiev is like no

1132
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:34,960
Speaker 1: and tells these are like, you can't do this. We're

1133
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:37,560
Speaker 1: fighting a war. Your wife doesn't get to determine who

1134
00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: runs these military units from the capital. She doesn't know

1135
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:44,120
Speaker 1: anything about this, And Alexandra starts writing and he and

1136
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 1: when Alexia finds out that rest mutant is behind a

1137
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 1: lot of this, he starts telling this are like, you

1138
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:50,280
Speaker 1: can't listen to this, dude, and you have to stop

1139
00:59:50,320 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 1: sending letters home across this vast expanse of country with

1140
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 1: military secrets in them. It could end badly. Um, please

1141
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:02,520
Speaker 1: please stop doing that. Please stop doing this. Alexandra writes

1142
01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,640
Speaker 1: her husband that any person quote so terribly against our

1143
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:09,280
Speaker 1: friend who's rest Sputin couldn't possibly be blessed by God.

1144
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 1: And when he gets cancer in nineteen sixteen, she celebrates

1145
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 1: telling her husband that God had sent him cancer for

1146
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:19,400
Speaker 1: disrespecting Resputin. Um. He's like the one dude keeping your

1147
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:23,360
Speaker 1: military of flow. Yeah, Like, there are two competent guys here,

1148
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: and you've sat on both of them because they don't

1149
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:28,840
Speaker 1: like your friend to the priest who fox everybody's wife. Now,

1150
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 1: by the end of that year, Nicholas is thoroughly broken

1151
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 1: by the realities of war and by his own incompetence.

1152
01:00:33,920 --> 01:00:36,320
Speaker 1: One of his noble officials noted that he seemed quite

1153
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 1: apathetic and was no longer seriously interested in anything he goes.

1154
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 1: He's a pathetic loser. Yeah, um yeah, so things aren't

1155
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:50,480
Speaker 1: going great. He keeps taking battlefield advice from rest mutant

1156
01:00:51,000 --> 01:00:56,480
Speaker 1: um and um, yeah, it's it's it's just kind of

1157
01:00:56,520 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 1: a disaster. Um. He Some of this advice, like in

1158
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:05,240
Speaker 1: June of nineteen sixteen, leads to this uh like failure

1159
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:08,240
Speaker 1: to support Bruslov again in the situation that causes like

1160
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: what could have been a victory to be a horrible defeat. Um.

1161
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,720
Speaker 1: And this is kind of the fact that this goes

1162
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: so badly and that it's so clearly the Tzaar's fault

1163
01:01:16,160 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: sends his army for the first time to the verge

1164
01:01:18,360 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: of mutiny. Soldiers start openly mocking him as the little

1165
01:01:22,080 --> 01:01:25,840
Speaker 1: colonel Um, and protest protests and riots start to break

1166
01:01:25,840 --> 01:01:28,040
Speaker 1: out in Russia again, just like in nineteen oh five.

1167
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 1: Soldiers start joining revolutionaries, sometimes even handing over their guns. Um.

1168
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 1: Everything gets really ugly. By the end of nineteen sixteen,

1169
01:01:36,720 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: there's this conspiracy of Romanov nobles to murder rasputin Um

1170
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: and they get the job done. Uh. This sends the

1171
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 1: r into a tailspin emotionally, and by the start of

1172
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:49,760
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, Nikki's prime minister has to sit him down

1173
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 1: and warn him that people hate him and his wife

1174
01:01:52,040 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: so much that if he doesn't install a new government

1175
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 1: he will be overthrown by force. This prime minister, a

1176
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: guy named Brazianko, gives him some of the first good

1177
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 1: advice he actually listens to. Sire, not a single honest

1178
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:07,560
Speaker 1: or reliable man is left in your entourage. All the

1179
01:02:07,600 --> 01:02:11,240
Speaker 1: best have either been eliminated or have resigned. The Czar

1180
01:02:11,400 --> 01:02:14,920
Speaker 1: responds by asking Rodzianko. He asks his new prime minister

1181
01:02:15,040 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 1: like he has this moment of lucidity, and asks is

1182
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:20,360
Speaker 1: it possible that for the last twenty two years I

1183
01:02:20,400 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: have just done nothing but funk up constantly, and God

1184
01:02:23,360 --> 01:02:25,720
Speaker 1: bless him. Rodzianko, who is in all of our position

1185
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: in this, says, yes, like you have. You have been

1186
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,800
Speaker 1: doing the wrong thing the entire time you've been Zara right.

1187
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:34,680
Speaker 1: He's just like, no, it's the children who are wrong. Nope, No,

1188
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 1: it's you. You, you were wrong, you were wrong. It's

1189
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:40,720
Speaker 1: always been you and m The dynasty does not last

1190
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:43,920
Speaker 1: much longer. Alexandra urges him to fight to the last,

1191
01:02:43,960 --> 01:02:46,880
Speaker 1: to rally troops crusted the rebellion, kill as many Bolsheviks

1192
01:02:46,880 --> 01:02:48,880
Speaker 1: in the street as he has to do anything but

1193
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:51,360
Speaker 1: give up his power. She thinks he needs to prove

1194
01:02:51,400 --> 01:02:54,880
Speaker 1: that he has quote the autocrat, without which Russia cannot exist.

1195
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:57,280
Speaker 1: But out in the streets, the people of Russia have

1196
01:02:57,280 --> 01:02:59,800
Speaker 1: decided they don't really need a czar anymore. Now we

1197
01:02:59,840 --> 01:03:02,320
Speaker 1: don't need to dial into the details of this. Uh.

1198
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: There's other stories you can find, including the Revolutions podcast,

1199
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 1: of what is actually happening in the streets. But on

1200
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:13,280
Speaker 1: March fifteenth, nineteen seventeen, Nicholas the Second abdicates the throne.

1201
01:03:13,360 --> 01:03:16,720
Speaker 1: A broken man and I'm gonna quote from history at

1202
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 1: one more time. Here quietly these are remark that he

1203
01:03:19,880 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: had been born for misfortune, a notion many of his

1204
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:26,080
Speaker 1: subjects shared. Russians believed that the Tsars were either lucky

1205
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:28,640
Speaker 1: or unlucky, and that Nicholas fell into the latter category

1206
01:03:28,680 --> 01:03:31,920
Speaker 1: for many reasons, including mass deaths caused by a stampede

1207
01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: of celebrance in his coronation and more deaths in nineteen

1208
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:37,600
Speaker 1: o five during the war with Japan. He himself, when

1209
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: defending his faithful decision to lead the army, had reminded

1210
01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: an imperial cousin that he had been born on the

1211
01:03:42,640 --> 01:03:46,440
Speaker 1: Saints Day of Job the righteous sufferer. Perhaps he reflected

1212
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 1: a scapegoad was needed to save Russia, and he was

1213
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:53,040
Speaker 1: ready to accept his destiny. I mean to be the victim.

1214
01:03:53,120 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: The czar had said, may the will of God be done,

1215
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 1: which is some real narcissist ship to pull. Like yeah,

1216
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:01,720
Speaker 1: and so he was, He's doing this, born under a

1217
01:04:01,760 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: bad sign ship, and it's like, no, dude, you did

1218
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: you did this. You're not unlucky. You didn't. You're not

1219
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:11,600
Speaker 1: the scapegoat who is like sacrificing himself nobly for Russia.

1220
01:04:11,920 --> 01:04:18,240
Speaker 1: You caused all of this, like you because I did

1221
01:04:18,280 --> 01:04:23,120
Speaker 1: all this ship Yeah, um, yeah he's the guy from that.

1222
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: I think you should leave sketch in the banana costume,

1223
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:28,120
Speaker 1: Like yeah, we're all trying to find the guy that

1224
01:04:28,200 --> 01:04:32,400
Speaker 1: did that. Yeah, that's that. That is Nikki in this period. Um.

1225
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 1: But you know, he abdicates a lot of people celebrate,

1226
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:41,160
Speaker 1: and you know the government um doesn't last a lot longer.

1227
01:04:41,200 --> 01:04:43,920
Speaker 1: He initially gives it up to his m his younger

1228
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: brother Mikhail, who becomes briefly the czar for like a minute. Um,

1229
01:04:50,160 --> 01:04:53,600
Speaker 1: brief is the understatement of the century. Yeah, Michael is

1230
01:04:53,600 --> 01:04:56,640
Speaker 1: a bit smarter than his big brother and like quits

1231
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,440
Speaker 1: pretty much immediately, like gives power to the newly formed

1232
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 1: provisional government. Um. That that's his whole job at this point,

1233
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: it's just like right off. Yeah. The Zar tries to

1234
01:05:07,560 --> 01:05:10,560
Speaker 1: make one last speech as the monarchy has dissolved, to

1235
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 1: his troops, asking for God's blessing and victory in the war. Um.

1236
01:05:14,640 --> 01:05:17,000
Speaker 1: But the new government suppresses this speech because they're like,

1237
01:05:17,120 --> 01:05:20,760
Speaker 1: we're not gonna win this war. Like, no, have you

1238
01:05:20,920 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: seen Germany? They're fighting all of us and kind of winning, right,

1239
01:05:25,400 --> 01:05:28,160
Speaker 1: now we're not going to squeak this one out. Yeah,

1240
01:05:28,200 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: they've got cool boats. Yeah. Um. Nicholas was still insistent

1241
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 1: upon the end that he was not hated by his soldiers. Quote,

1242
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:39,240
Speaker 1: my soldiers hated me, not they hated my crown and throne.

1243
01:05:39,280 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: But once I was divested of them, they made no

1244
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 1: accusation against me. What injustice have my people suffered that

1245
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:49,440
Speaker 1: I haven't suffered with them? And that is really unhinged

1246
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 1: and inaccurate at the time he says it. It eventually

1247
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 1: does come true because one of the things that we've

1248
01:05:54,360 --> 01:05:58,840
Speaker 1: talked about, Nicholas has repeatedly had groups large groups of people,

1249
01:05:58,920 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 1: including women and children, killed and and starved in order

1250
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:05,320
Speaker 1: to keep his government in power. He's been doing that

1251
01:06:05,360 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: for twenty two years um. And now after he has

1252
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:12,400
Speaker 1: thrown out of power, his family is going to suffer

1253
01:06:12,480 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 1: in a way that a lot of families in Russia

1254
01:06:14,720 --> 01:06:17,680
Speaker 1: have been suffering under the tsars Um. They're going to

1255
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:23,120
Speaker 1: feel it. Yeah, he I don't think it's kind of

1256
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:26,840
Speaker 1: like obviously number one, a bunch of little kids get murdered. Uh,

1257
01:06:26,880 --> 01:06:28,800
Speaker 1: so you can't feel good about that. And also I

1258
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 1: don't think Nicholas ever realized, like even for a moment. Hey,

1259
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 1: you know, the thing that's happening to your family is

1260
01:06:34,760 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: the thing you spent twenty two years doing to anyone

1261
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: who stepped out of line. Maybe you're a monster. He's

1262
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:44,360
Speaker 1: just not that kind of guy. No, And I think

1263
01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 1: nobody's really going to know. I think they're the bad guy,

1264
01:06:48,320 --> 01:06:51,600
Speaker 1: even when they are clearly the bad guy. Yeah. Um,

1265
01:06:52,120 --> 01:06:54,920
Speaker 1: and he he doesn't uh, he gets you know. He

1266
01:06:54,960 --> 01:06:56,840
Speaker 1: and his family get moved around from one place to

1267
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:00,360
Speaker 1: the other. There's this provisional government under Kerensky and the

1268
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:04,040
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks eventually take over. There's the White Russians, these kind

1269
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:06,400
Speaker 1: of some of them are pro monarchists, a lot that

1270
01:07:06,440 --> 01:07:08,560
Speaker 1: they're all anti communists. You know, they rise up and

1271
01:07:08,560 --> 01:07:10,400
Speaker 1: there's this big war. This Zar and his family get

1272
01:07:10,400 --> 01:07:12,280
Speaker 1: moved around a bunch, and they finally end up in

1273
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: the House, the House of Special Purpose. Um. And the

1274
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:19,920
Speaker 1: reason why he and the other Romanovs are all massacred

1275
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:22,200
Speaker 1: because it's not just his family they killed. The Bolsheviks

1276
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 1: round up all the Romanovs in Russia they can get

1277
01:07:24,360 --> 01:07:28,400
Speaker 1: their hands on and execute them kind of one by one. Um.

1278
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:30,360
Speaker 1: You know, Lenin plays a big role in this he

1279
01:07:30,440 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: certainly signs off on it. The Soviet of Uhlan. I

1280
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:36,840
Speaker 1: think it is like the regional Soviet really wants doesn't

1281
01:07:36,880 --> 01:07:39,480
Speaker 1: want to keep these people alive, because there's debate between

1282
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 1: Bolsheviks of like do we keep them alive or do

1283
01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:44,480
Speaker 1: we kill them? The locals who are actually responsible for

1284
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:48,040
Speaker 1: like housing them want to murder them, and Lennon signs off.

1285
01:07:48,560 --> 01:07:50,920
Speaker 1: Um in part because the White armies are advancing and

1286
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:53,120
Speaker 1: they don't want the Czar and his family to get captured,

1287
01:07:53,160 --> 01:07:58,120
Speaker 1: and YadA, YadA, YadA. Um there's this again. I think

1288
01:07:58,160 --> 01:08:00,800
Speaker 1: that the justified thing would have been to like, yeah,

1289
01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:02,960
Speaker 1: let's have a you know, a trial, or if we

1290
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:04,800
Speaker 1: can't have a trial, just execute the Zar in this

1291
01:08:04,960 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: arena because they committed a bunch of crimes. Um. But

1292
01:08:08,600 --> 01:08:11,000
Speaker 1: instead they decided to shoot the entire family in a basement,

1293
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: which is not justified. Um No, I mean that's not

1294
01:08:14,800 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 1: fully justified. Yeah, killing Theazar and his wife fine, Killing

1295
01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:21,679
Speaker 1: like a ten year old hemophiliac boy and like four

1296
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:25,559
Speaker 1: teenage girls is not cool. Um. That's how you stop

1297
01:08:25,560 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 1: a batman from happening. Yeah, that is how you stop

1298
01:08:28,000 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 1: a batman. Um. You know, like you if you don't

1299
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,240
Speaker 1: kill him, then baby, you got yourself a batman going.

1300
01:08:34,680 --> 01:08:38,080
Speaker 1: You know, that's how they I think it is justified. Um.

1301
01:08:38,320 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 1: Certainly like within kind of Bolsheviks circles, it is uh.

1302
01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:44,200
Speaker 1: One of the things again we've talked about some of

1303
01:08:44,200 --> 01:08:48,000
Speaker 1: the ways in which like popular representations of this are sanitized.

1304
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:51,320
Speaker 1: One of the things that sanitized is how fucking ugly

1305
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:55,519
Speaker 1: these killings are. Um. Yeah, people, I remember I had

1306
01:08:55,560 --> 01:08:59,240
Speaker 1: gotten written up in when I was a teacher for

1307
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:04,080
Speaker 1: like being too graphic about history, about the descriptions of stuff.

1308
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:07,719
Speaker 1: And he's like, remember, like I didn't have the smartest

1309
01:09:08,080 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 1: principle that I worked with. And he's like, remember we're

1310
01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:13,120
Speaker 1: we're we're doing this like P it's PG. Think it

1311
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:17,640
Speaker 1: his PG. I'm like, in what world was history? PG? No? Um?

1312
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:20,439
Speaker 1: And it is important to note, like so the Czar

1313
01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:23,839
Speaker 1: and Zarina die pretty much immediately when the shooting starts.

1314
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:26,839
Speaker 1: All of their kids have all of the diamonds, seventeen

1315
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:29,880
Speaker 1: pounds of diamonds sewn into their clothing and like they

1316
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: act as body armors. So the kids survived the initial

1317
01:09:32,560 --> 01:09:36,600
Speaker 1: flood of bullets. Um, isn't that isn't that just it?

1318
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:41,160
Speaker 1: The royalty even gets diamond body arms, diamond body armor. Yeah.

1319
01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:47,160
Speaker 1: Um so one of the Bolsheviks then kills Alexei by

1320
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:49,599
Speaker 1: shooting him in the head. Um, but the girls are

1321
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:52,920
Speaker 1: still untouched. Um and I'm gonna read one last quote

1322
01:09:52,960 --> 01:09:56,200
Speaker 1: from the Romanovs here. We set about finishing them off.

1323
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:59,200
Speaker 1: As Eurowski and Ermakov stepped over the bodies towards them,

1324
01:09:59,200 --> 01:10:02,800
Speaker 1: they scrambled, ouched and covered their heads. Urowski shot Tatiana

1325
01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:04,880
Speaker 1: in the back of the head, splattering Olga in a

1326
01:10:04,920 --> 01:10:08,360
Speaker 1: shower of blood and brains. Next, the blood drenched Iermakov

1327
01:10:08,520 --> 01:10:11,240
Speaker 1: kicked her, kicked her down and shot her in the jaw.

1328
01:10:11,479 --> 01:10:14,519
Speaker 1: But Maria, wounded in the leg and Anastasia were still alive,

1329
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 1: crying out for help. Ermakov wheeled round to stab Maria

1330
01:10:18,040 --> 01:10:21,400
Speaker 1: in the chest, but again the bayonet wouldn't pierce her bodice.

1331
01:10:21,680 --> 01:10:24,679
Speaker 1: He shot her. Anastasia was the last of the family moving.

1332
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:27,720
Speaker 1: Slashing his bayonet through the air, Ermakov cornered her, but

1333
01:10:28,040 --> 01:10:31,000
Speaker 1: stabbing manically against her diamond armored bodice, he missed and

1334
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:33,400
Speaker 1: hit the wall. She was screaming and fighting until he

1335
01:10:33,479 --> 01:10:36,000
Speaker 1: drew another pistol and shot her in the head now

1336
01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:39,640
Speaker 1: berserk with intoxicated blood lust, burning Ermakov's fun back to

1337
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:43,120
Speaker 1: Nicholas and Alexandra, wildly stabbing first one then the other,

1338
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:46,080
Speaker 1: so hard that his bayonet cracked bones and pinned them

1339
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:50,200
Speaker 1: to the floorboards. One of the servants, Anna Diemidova, suddenly stirred,

1340
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:53,559
Speaker 1: Thank God, God had saved, God has saved me. Ermakov

1341
01:10:53,640 --> 01:10:57,200
Speaker 1: stabbed her until she was silent. This is like, Okay,

1342
01:10:57,240 --> 01:11:01,840
Speaker 1: so God didn't fully save, fully save um. This is like,

1343
01:11:02,000 --> 01:11:04,960
Speaker 1: that's pretty It's one of those things. We've been talking

1344
01:11:04,960 --> 01:11:08,960
Speaker 1: a lot about the brutality of the Czarist regime. Um.

1345
01:11:09,000 --> 01:11:11,200
Speaker 1: The Bolsheviks rightly get a ton of credit for how

1346
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:13,479
Speaker 1: brutal a shipload of stuff that they did was. They

1347
01:11:13,520 --> 01:11:17,320
Speaker 1: are about to kill a few million people, UM, through

1348
01:11:17,360 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 1: a variety of ways, mostly through starvation. UM. But I

1349
01:11:21,040 --> 01:11:23,479
Speaker 1: think you have to also see the brutality in this

1350
01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:29,440
Speaker 1: killing as a as part of this cycle of violence

1351
01:11:29,960 --> 01:11:33,320
Speaker 1: that has been present in Russia for forever and largely

1352
01:11:33,360 --> 01:11:37,640
Speaker 1: exists to stop threats to the monarchy. Right, these you

1353
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:42,080
Speaker 1: don't murder as viciously as these people murder the Romanovs

1354
01:11:42,120 --> 01:11:44,720
Speaker 1: do if you are not filled with hate. Lenin was

1355
01:11:44,760 --> 01:11:47,559
Speaker 1: filled with hate because his brother is executed in eight

1356
01:11:47,720 --> 01:11:50,720
Speaker 1: six for taking partner in a plot against the ar right,

1357
01:11:50,800 --> 01:11:52,680
Speaker 1: Like you know how you know in true crime when

1358
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:55,240
Speaker 1: they're like, this was clearly a crime of passion. Yeah,

1359
01:11:55,360 --> 01:11:57,599
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing here, is like these aren't These

1360
01:11:57,600 --> 01:12:03,160
Speaker 1: aren't summary executions of political enemies. These are passionate massacres. Yeah,

1361
01:12:03,160 --> 01:12:09,160
Speaker 1: these are passionate massacres driven by generations of hate and violence. Um,

1362
01:12:09,200 --> 01:12:13,880
Speaker 1: and it it it's it's you can't understand how things

1363
01:12:13,960 --> 01:12:17,559
Speaker 1: get so much uglier for Russia after this point if

1364
01:12:17,600 --> 01:12:21,479
Speaker 1: you don't understand how brutal and horrific Zar Nicholas the

1365
01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:24,160
Speaker 1: Second's regime was. And that's why this has been a

1366
01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:27,599
Speaker 1: great story, Jeff. Some could say, some could say a bastard,

1367
01:12:28,200 --> 01:12:30,280
Speaker 1: and that's gonna do it for our epic four partner

1368
01:12:30,360 --> 01:12:35,320
Speaker 1: on Czar Nicholas the second, the last romanov uh In,

1369
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:37,640
Speaker 1: A real dick, a real piece of it was. It

1370
01:12:37,720 --> 01:12:40,599
Speaker 1: was so delightful spending a fortnite talking about this son

1371
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:43,680
Speaker 1: of this. We didn't talk more about Zar Nicholas the

1372
01:12:43,720 --> 01:12:45,840
Speaker 1: Second than I have ever talked about Zar Nicholas the

1373
01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:50,040
Speaker 1: Second before. That's fair, and that's that's about you know,

1374
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:52,120
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I've you know, of all

1375
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:54,400
Speaker 1: the stuff I've studied, it's very interesting to see it

1376
01:12:54,479 --> 01:12:57,559
Speaker 1: from that fresh perspective of like, you know, the last

1377
01:12:57,560 --> 01:12:59,880
Speaker 1: time I studied this twenty years ago. Yeah, so like

1378
01:13:00,439 --> 01:13:03,280
Speaker 1: it's nice to get that refresher of like, oh yeah,

1379
01:13:03,400 --> 01:13:07,320
Speaker 1: fun this guy. Yeah, it's this. It's this weird thing that, like,

1380
01:13:07,560 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 1: I think, just because we're so distant from them historically,

1381
01:13:11,240 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 1: probably in part because of how horrible their end was,

1382
01:13:14,320 --> 01:13:16,599
Speaker 1: we tend to put these guys in a different basket,

1383
01:13:16,720 --> 01:13:19,879
Speaker 1: kings in general, in a different basket from like Stalin

1384
01:13:20,080 --> 01:13:23,519
Speaker 1: and Saddam and Bashar al Assad and like dictators. No,

1385
01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:27,320
Speaker 1: he was a dictator, Like he was the same dude,

1386
01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:32,879
Speaker 1: you know, monarch be that. Yeah. Uh so yeah, good stuff.

1387
01:13:33,280 --> 01:13:36,800
Speaker 1: Um well, Jeff, you got any plugable to plug? Well,

1388
01:13:36,840 --> 01:13:38,640
Speaker 1: I I tell you what if if you if you

1389
01:13:38,760 --> 01:13:41,000
Speaker 1: enjoyed our time together, which of course we did, you

1390
01:13:41,040 --> 01:13:42,960
Speaker 1: guys should check out I have a lot of really

1391
01:13:43,000 --> 01:13:45,960
Speaker 1: great podcasts that you would we would really like. Um.

1392
01:13:46,000 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 1: I do a bi weekly interview show called Jeff Has

1393
01:13:48,360 --> 01:13:52,200
Speaker 1: Cool Friends, or interview all of my very interesting friends. Uh,

1394
01:13:52,240 --> 01:13:54,320
Speaker 1: and you can check that out Patreon dot com slash

1395
01:13:54,400 --> 01:13:58,120
Speaker 1: Jeff May for early uncensored episodes with bonus content, as

1396
01:13:58,160 --> 01:14:01,760
Speaker 1: well as access to shows like with Kim Crawl, which

1397
01:14:01,800 --> 01:14:04,519
Speaker 1: is a great monthly podcast I do as well. You

1398
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:06,720
Speaker 1: can also check out Tom and Jeff watch Batman on

1399
01:14:06,720 --> 01:14:10,639
Speaker 1: the game Fully Unemployed Network with Tom Ryman, who's done

1400
01:14:10,640 --> 01:14:13,880
Speaker 1: the show before. Friend of the Pod, you guys know,

1401
01:14:14,080 --> 01:14:16,800
Speaker 1: and then of course, uh, Pops and you don't even

1402
01:14:16,880 --> 01:14:19,479
Speaker 1: like sports, both on the Unpopular Opinion Network and then

1403
01:14:19,640 --> 01:14:21,880
Speaker 1: you know, Hey, I'm on the internet. Find me at

1404
01:14:21,960 --> 01:14:24,120
Speaker 1: Hey there, Jeff row Yeah, I like to talk and

1405
01:14:24,160 --> 01:14:27,200
Speaker 1: make jokes and things. Yeah, find him on the internet.

1406
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:29,400
Speaker 1: Tell him why you think we need to go back

1407
01:14:29,439 --> 01:14:32,240
Speaker 1: to having a zar in Russia? You know, my monarchist

1408
01:14:32,320 --> 01:14:35,760
Speaker 1: listeners get out there. You know, we kind of have one. Yeah,

1409
01:14:36,439 --> 01:14:39,080
Speaker 1: you got your wish friends. Yeah, I was. I was, like,

1410
01:14:39,080 --> 01:14:42,040
Speaker 1: we've had one since like two thousand and six. Unfortunately,

1411
01:14:42,080 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 1: he's good at it. Oh, I mean he's a he's

1412
01:14:44,479 --> 01:14:48,160
Speaker 1: a talented, very very good at being bizarre. Much better

1413
01:14:48,200 --> 01:14:52,320
Speaker 1: than Nicholas the Second Jesus Christ. No, Nicholas the Second

1414
01:14:52,320 --> 01:14:56,120
Speaker 1: was good at extending it a little, but yeah, boy,

1415
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:57,720
Speaker 1: he was you know what, he was fine at being

1416
01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:00,000
Speaker 1: a czar. He was bad at doing all the stuff

1417
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:03,520
Speaker 1: stars have to do. Yeah, if he had, like ironically,

1418
01:15:03,560 --> 01:15:05,759
Speaker 1: if he'd given the people what they wanted and become

1419
01:15:05,800 --> 01:15:08,240
Speaker 1: like a ceremonial monarch, he could probably could have lived

1420
01:15:08,240 --> 01:15:10,400
Speaker 1: the rest of his life as a very happy, rich person,

1421
01:15:10,560 --> 01:15:14,679
Speaker 1: not dealing with stress. He owned a yacht like a motherfucker. Like, dude,

1422
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:16,839
Speaker 1: why do you need to be in charge of everything?

1423
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:21,479
Speaker 1: You suck at it? It seems miserable, like it's job.

1424
01:15:22,280 --> 01:15:24,120
Speaker 1: You know, when you see these things where people like,

1425
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:26,760
Speaker 1: you know, something like Seinfeld makes like, you know, three

1426
01:15:26,800 --> 01:15:29,240
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars or something like that, and then they're

1427
01:15:29,320 --> 01:15:31,559
Speaker 1: like and then he's like, I gotta make a new thing.

1428
01:15:32,080 --> 01:15:36,040
Speaker 1: I would be like, no, I'm I'm done. Yeah, I'm

1429
01:15:36,120 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 1: done forever. I'm just gonna sunk off for the rest

1430
01:15:39,080 --> 01:15:43,200
Speaker 1: of my life and my entire lineage will be set forever. Yeah,

1431
01:15:43,280 --> 01:15:45,560
Speaker 1: it's the you know, the only person in all of

1432
01:15:45,640 --> 01:15:47,960
Speaker 1: human history who's actually been smart enough to do that

1433
01:15:48,160 --> 01:15:53,680
Speaker 1: is the MySpace guy from perfect perfect way to handle it.

1434
01:15:53,760 --> 01:15:56,800
Speaker 1: You know, dude, he probably buy an island and just

1435
01:15:57,040 --> 01:15:59,240
Speaker 1: take off six million dollars. You don't need to do

1436
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:02,120
Speaker 1: other things, like I can't go for the just get

1437
01:16:02,120 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 1: out for the life of me. And I understand people

1438
01:16:04,320 --> 01:16:05,760
Speaker 1: like we get bored. I'm like, I don't know, take

1439
01:16:05,760 --> 01:16:09,439
Speaker 1: a painting. Yeah, like the the idea of people that

1440
01:16:09,479 --> 01:16:11,400
Speaker 1: are just like, well, I just have to keep creating.

1441
01:16:11,439 --> 01:16:13,360
Speaker 1: And it does make me feel like kind of a

1442
01:16:13,360 --> 01:16:16,400
Speaker 1: piece of ship. Yeah, Like I think like if I

1443
01:16:16,400 --> 01:16:18,479
Speaker 1: won the lottery, I'd be like, oh, I'm done. Just

1444
01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:21,639
Speaker 1: not companies. It's like Bill Waterson, you know, retiring from

1445
01:16:21,640 --> 01:16:23,800
Speaker 1: Calvin and Hobbs, He's still painting ship. He just doesn't

1446
01:16:23,840 --> 01:16:26,640
Speaker 1: feel the need to show everybody because he's fine. He

1447
01:16:26,680 --> 01:16:29,320
Speaker 1: made his money. Yeah, and he made that money, by

1448
01:16:29,320 --> 01:16:33,639
Speaker 1: the way, without making merch, without selling out. Yeah. Who's

1449
01:16:33,680 --> 01:16:37,479
Speaker 1: the who's the dictator equivalent of Bill Waterson? Probably poll

1450
01:16:37,560 --> 01:16:39,920
Speaker 1: Pot Actually that's not a really positive one. But he

1451
01:16:39,960 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 1: didn't sell out, you know, because I was thinking of

1452
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:46,440
Speaker 1: the other version around, who would be the biggest dictator

1453
01:16:46,640 --> 01:16:50,639
Speaker 1: of um, the comic strip world too, That would be Schultz.

1454
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:53,439
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Jim, David Jim, Yes, yeah, you're right,

1455
01:16:53,479 --> 01:16:55,600
Speaker 1: that is the right answer. That is the right answer, right,

1456
01:16:55,640 --> 01:16:58,760
Speaker 1: because he seems like he because he doesn't do the

1457
01:16:58,800 --> 01:17:01,600
Speaker 1: work anymore, right, Like he doesn't know Jim kind of

1458
01:17:01,640 --> 01:17:04,400
Speaker 1: like he's done with all of those like airport novelists do.

1459
01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:07,640
Speaker 1: He's like Jim Patterson or whatever, James. You guys do

1460
01:17:07,720 --> 01:17:10,840
Speaker 1: it like in comics. In comics when they have like

1461
01:17:10,880 --> 01:17:13,160
Speaker 1: these superstar artists and then you find out later that

1462
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:15,559
Speaker 1: all they do is like draw the head of the

1463
01:17:15,640 --> 01:17:18,519
Speaker 1: character and then like everything he has like a studio.

1464
01:17:19,280 --> 01:17:23,040
Speaker 1: Some very famous comic book artists rarely touch pencil to

1465
01:17:23,040 --> 01:17:27,800
Speaker 1: paper anymore. That's why I stand Derek Robinson. Derrick Robertson's great.

1466
01:17:27,880 --> 01:17:30,960
Speaker 1: I love that dude. He's so nice too. Yeah. Um,

1467
01:17:31,120 --> 01:17:34,559
Speaker 1: well fuck these are well, I mean he got fun

1468
01:17:34,760 --> 01:17:39,040
Speaker 1: maybe yeah he kind of sucked himself. Yeah, yeah, that's

1469
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:42,920
Speaker 1: not he really this is this is really the funk

1470
01:17:42,960 --> 01:17:46,519
Speaker 1: around and find out illustrated. Yeah, it's the funk around

1471
01:17:46,600 --> 01:17:49,559
Speaker 1: and find out. And also your your children are going

1472
01:17:49,600 --> 01:17:52,680
Speaker 1: to find out because you insisted on sucking around for

1473
01:17:52,720 --> 01:17:55,720
Speaker 1: so much longer than it should have been obvious to

1474
01:17:55,760 --> 01:17:58,839
Speaker 1: you to stop sucking around. But no funk around. Everyone

1475
01:17:58,960 --> 01:18:02,400
Speaker 1: finds out. Yeah, and then there's no more romanovs um.

1476
01:18:02,479 --> 01:18:04,160
Speaker 1: But at least we get to dunk on you on

1477
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:07,120
Speaker 1: a podcast that century later. It is funny. He was

1478
01:18:07,160 --> 01:18:09,360
Speaker 1: so scared of being seen as a bad ruler and

1479
01:18:09,400 --> 01:18:11,800
Speaker 1: he did all of the things that shared everyone now knows. Well,

1480
01:18:11,840 --> 01:18:14,160
Speaker 1: that's the worst of the czars. Like that's the guy

1481
01:18:14,200 --> 01:18:16,920
Speaker 1: who sucked the most at it. I would say Ivan

1482
01:18:16,960 --> 01:18:21,160
Speaker 1: the Fourth still owns like the historical He's still got

1483
01:18:21,200 --> 01:18:24,640
Speaker 1: like the gold medal as far as like history is concerned.

1484
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:30,160
Speaker 1: Because Ivan was efficient and good at the job Nicholas was.

1485
01:18:31,080 --> 01:18:34,840
Speaker 1: Nicholas was inept, and so that's even somehow it's somehow

1486
01:18:34,880 --> 01:18:39,240
Speaker 1: way worse. At least Ivan the Fourth was like unadept motherfucker. Yeah,

1487
01:18:39,240 --> 01:18:41,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, I have more respect

1488
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:44,160
Speaker 1: for a dictator who had to fight to become a dictator.

1489
01:18:44,200 --> 01:18:46,679
Speaker 1: You know, Saddam Hussein had to Like he didn't get

1490
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:49,280
Speaker 1: handed that ship. You know, nobody was gonna nobody was

1491
01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:51,880
Speaker 1: gonna give Saddam Hussein I rack. He had to take it.

1492
01:18:51,960 --> 01:18:54,719
Speaker 1: You know, Nikki had taken a lot of stuff. Yeah,

1493
01:18:54,840 --> 01:18:59,160
Speaker 1: he showed did he showed did Well. That's that's probably

1494
01:18:59,280 --> 01:19:02,360
Speaker 1: enough for today. Um, come see us next week. We'll

1495
01:19:02,360 --> 01:19:05,040
Speaker 1: talk about someone who is not czar Nicholas the second,

1496
01:19:05,280 --> 01:19:07,840
Speaker 1: all right, look forward to it, and and uh, we'll

1497
01:19:08,000 --> 01:19:11,360
Speaker 1: hope to come back someday in the future. Absolutely, all right,