WEBVTT - Part One: Alexander Lukashenko: The Dictator of Belarus 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:07.560 M fucking hey, Bluetooth and headphones. This has been a 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:13.720 terrible morning of figuring out technology things. And it's also 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:15.960 three in the afternoon, which is nine in the morning 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.680 for me. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:22.279 the show where every week I write a very long 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.640 essay about a different terrible person and then fail at 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:30.240 the basics of setting up headphones. Um, it's it's it's 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.239 the worst. The reason we've been having such terrible technical 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.519 difficulties is that today I actually have someone in the 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.879 studio with me, which we haven't done since the plague. 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.239 But the person the studio, Yeah, my desk that's in 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.640 front of my bed in my room that is filled 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.080 with ants and pieces of guns. Um, why are there 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.400 a Garrison? Say hello to the people? Hello? Hello, Hello, Hi, 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.160 this is this is Garrison. This is Garrison Garrison. Who 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.520 are you tell the people who you are? High? So 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:02.560 some people may know me as at Hungry bow Tie 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:07.039 on Twitter or Garrison Davis tear gas proof. Um. I've 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:12.080 been covering the protests in Portland and have been working 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.480 alongside Robert Evans and some other fine fine folks while 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.759 getting shot at by federal agents for months now. Yep. 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:20.680 We we met in a cloud of tear gas, and 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.440 most of our relationship has occurred in that cloud of 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.040 tear gas. Uh. And now we are becoming podcast buddies 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:30.560 in addition to tear gas buddies, which is which is 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.280 an exciting moment. And I could have just stayed home 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.000 and recorded from there and not had to deal with 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.480 this terrible bluetooth headphone situation. It's been awful. So the situation. 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.720 We want to have Sophie on as we record, but 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.240 a variety of things make that problematic, including the way 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.480 that headphones work. Nobody sells headphones splitters anymore, so we 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.360 eventually had to go by these things that you zoomers love, 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.040 these these little headphones don't separate, separate Bluetooth. Don't blame 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:58.160 me for don't don't rope me into that. I am 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:00.920 absolutely blaming you for the state of headphones back in 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.919 my day. Back in my day, Garrison, all we needed 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:06.040 was an audio jack and then a little splitter and 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.320 you get as many headphones as you wanted on a laptop. 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:11.520 Can we circle back to the part where you say 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.680 you wanted to have Sophie on. Excuse me? Yeah, you 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:18.280 are allowed to be here because I allow you to 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:22.440 be here. Continue. Okay, So Garrison, you are you are 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.119 one of the youth. Yes, that is the future. Yes 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:28.919 I am I am the future. Yeah, you're you're famously 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:34.960 seventeen years old. What is a TikTok? I've never had 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.600 it is? It's a sound of clock mix. I feel 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:40.960 like that's not what the president's banning. And I feel 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:45.639 like you're hiding your secret, your secret millennial zoomer whatever. 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:49.679 I'm seventeen for another month, but I've never had a TikTok. Okay, 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.000 So maybe the other thing you can explain? What is 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.440 what is an ariana grande? No, goddamn Robert, you know 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:59.960 how to pronounce her name. It's a coffee from Starbucks, right, Yeah, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.440 that sounds right, favor. Now that we've settled all these 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.040 issues that the youth can teachious about the future. Um, 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:06.880 sorry about climate change, by the way, that's going to 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:09.200 be a real problem for you guys. Um, I'll be 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.840 dead of many cancers by then. Thanks for that. In 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.360 a year and a half, Um, we're talking today about 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.959 Alexander Luca Shanko. Uh. And maybe folks don't super know 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.000 about this guy, but you've probably heard about some messed 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.520 up stuff happening in Belarus. Um, he's the dictator of Belarus. 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:33.160 So this is a very timely episode. Um. And you know, Garrison, 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:35.040 I was gonna have you want to talk about Dr 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.680 Jordan B. Peterson. But considering the fact that Belarus is 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.240 rising up against his dictator right now and they're all 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:43.800 getting horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, and 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.280 We've been horribly tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets, 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:48.920 I thought this would be a fun a fun subject 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.760 that also is timely. Yeah, there's a little bit of 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.320 relatability there. What do you know about Belarus, Little to 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.520 nothing except they are now experiencing a lot of tear 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.480 gas and getting shot at by their police. So that 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:04.320 is probably true for basically everybody. I mean, I'll be honest, like, 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.160 I knew that there was a dictator in Belarus and 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.320 that he was famously called Europe's last dictator by a 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.120 bunch of like American politicians. Um, but that's that was. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:18.760 That was about of my knowledge of Belarus. Other than that, 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.480 I think they have arguments with Ukraine over who does 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.040 the best strange pig based dishes, um, which I can't 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.200 comment on, but there's some good ass pig based dishes. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:32.080 Salo man, fucking amazing. But they both have salo, So 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.480 I don't know you ever had salo, Sophie. Mm hmm. 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:42.640 It's like guacamole made out of pigs. It kind of rules. Yeah, 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.400 you're not gonna get along in Eastern Europe. I'll trust 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:51.080 you on that one, buddy. Okay, So we're gonna talk 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:56.479 Lukashenko today. Um So, yeah, once upon a time, and 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.599 by which I mean like three years ago, he was 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.240 repeatedly called Europe's last dictator by a bunch of American politicians. 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.760 And now there's a whole bunch of other dictators in 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:08.800 Europe again, so that's not really Yeah, you've got like 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:12.880 a discounting Russia if we call them like, because there's 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.960 always that debate over like how European Russia is, like 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:21.159 we've still got hungry. Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot more 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.560 dictators in Europe. So he's not he's not as special 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.440 as he used to be, but it is special because 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:29.720 uh Lukashenko has been in powerful like twenty six years, 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.440 so like throughout the whole kind of Golden Age, or 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.040 if you want to call it that, if the like 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.400 the kind of height of the European Unions influenced the 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:39.640 height of NATO's power. Um, he was like an old 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:43.680 Soviet style autocrat hanging out in the in the middle 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.120 of Europe. Um. It's it's a pretty weird story and 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.600 he's not This is going to be I think useful 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.520 because this is in the news right now. He's plays 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.200 it pretty close to the chest, So we just don't 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.640 know as much about the guy personally as we do 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.760 about some other figures. But I think it's still a 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.280 useful story to get out to people in the moment here. So, 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.440 Lukashenko survived the collapse of the USSR and basically spent 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.760 the whole period of capitalist democracy's victory lap ruling over 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.680 a nation of nine and point five million people. He 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.680 survived economic downturns, the birth of the Internet, conflicts between 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:18.640 his nation's neighbors, and a bunch of really awkward to 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.320 hang out sessions with Steven Seagal. Today though he's obviously 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.800 in trouble and for the first time in thirty years, Yeah, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.400 he's this is that. We talked about this on the 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:28.599 Segal episode. This is the guy who like gave states 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:34.520 Abolo Giant Carrott. He's just out there, Steven Seagal. Yeah, sure, 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:39.000 is just occasionally kidnapping women and locking them in a 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.640 I don't want to finish that thought. Um. Yeah, so no, 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.600 we shouldn't. So there's a lot of eyes on Belarus 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:49.760 right now. UM, we should probably start by covering some 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:53.080 basic facts. Because most people don't know anything about Belarus. Um. 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.839 Belarus is located in eastern Europe. It's about as far 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.000 east as you can go without hitting Russia. It's immediate 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:01.720 western neighbor is Poland and its habors to the north, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.560 or Latvia and Lithuania. You could call it Ukrainian Canada, 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.359 although nobody does. No one does that, including this Canadian. 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.480 Yeah and yeah, there's not really any comparisons to make 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:16.680 between Ukraine and Belarus, and in that regard, um, unless 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.000 like is Canada dictatorship. Garrison not really Okay, okay, it 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:24.200 tries not to be. Yeah, Garrison's Canadian. So I mean 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.520 our current prime minister did not get the majority of 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.520 the votes in our last election. Um, because we have 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:35.200 a weird system that is different than the electoral college. Um. 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:40.360 But has some similarities. It's weird and not great. But yeah, anyway, 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.920 it's cute how both of our countries make the same 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.680 horrible decisions. Um but but just a little bit, a 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.600 little bit a little different shine on them. Yeah. Yeah, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:53.120 that's nice. That's what friends do. So um yeah, if 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.200 you know a little bit of history and geography, you 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:57.680 can tell that Belarus has had a rough time of 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.880 it historically. Being right between Poland and Russia doesn't seem great. 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:04.160 Not not great, but there's a lot of problems with 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.080 not the best spot to have, like not maybe not 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.480 as bad as starting place as Germany, which is a 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.280 pretty rough location to have a country. Um, as you 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.840 might gather, but like they're they're they're kind of in 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.240 the middle of a lot of ship historically, in the 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.320 middle of a lot of genocide. Yeah, in the mid 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:26.080 of genocide because connect to Ukraine, Russia and Poland, there's 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.040 a lot of genocide in the adjacent area. Yeah, Belarusian 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.600 history has a couple of different points where we say 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.120 and then a shockingly high percentage of the nation's entire 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.560 population was killed in the space of a year. Uh So, Yeah, 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.480 Belarus bad place to start as a country. If you're 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:43.960 if you're playing like civilization or whatever, and this is 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:45.880 where you land, you're gonna have a rough You're gonna 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.000 have a rough game of it. Um. Belarusian identity is 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:51.000 generally traced back to kind of starting to form in 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.520 the tenth century in the establishment of the Principality of Polotsk. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.880 The first Belarusians entered history largely for their ability to 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.560 maintain and profit off of a trade route connected the 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:02.840 Vikings to the Greeks, Which is part of why it's 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:04.640 such a rough place to be is it's like kind 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:06.520 of right in the middle of a bunch of roads. 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.960 Like if you want to get anywhere in Europe from Asia, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.920 you're gonna wind up rolling through Belarus probably um. And 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.520 that you know, is a recipe for getting the ship 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:18.680 kicked out of you a bunch uh. They had a 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:20.760 lot of ups and downs the medieval period and spent 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.000 a lot of time fighting with the Mongols um, which 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:24.440 are not a group of people you really want to 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:27.480 fight um, But eventually they won. By the thirteen hundreds, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.600 what is today Belarus had become a central part of 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.760 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania UM, so Lithuanians and Belarusians 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.360 were the same people for a while. Um. At least 0:09:37.360 --> 0:09:40.520 that's what the historians I've read tend to say. I'm 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:45.120 sure there's historians who will say that that's horribly inaccurate, 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.160 but that seems to be broadly the consensus um and 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.360 that at around like the fourteen hundreds, UM, Belarus and 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.320 Lithuanian identity started to split, and by the sixteen hundreds 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.000 that whole chunk of Europe was more or less a 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.880 free for all of constant warfare between different kingdoms, between 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.880 conflicts with Moscow, Poland, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire. The 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.960 population of modern day Belarus was reduced by half over 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.080 the course of a few decades in the sixteen hundreds. Yeah, 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.719 so that's the first time a gigantic percentage of the 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:19.320 of the population dies hard. Yeah, sixteen hundreds, half of 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.320 belarusk uh theologists get murdered. Um, so that's good. In 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.880 the early eighteen hundreds, Belarus was absorbed by the Russian 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.360 Empire and became its northwestern region. So it's like the 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:33.240 Pacific Northwest for Russia. There's so many relatable elements here. Yeah, 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:36.560 that's why, in addition to Ukraine's Canada. Belarus's other nickname 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.200 that nobody calls it is Russian Oregon. That's good because 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.160 I'm both Canadian and an Orgonian. Yeah, this is really 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.839 we should be able to identify with these people. So 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.800 being in the northwest of Russia was a bad place 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.960 to be for basically all of the twentieth century. Um, 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.640 and the horrific wars of that era, World War One 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.480 and World War Two reduced the population of Belarus again 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.760 by more than the third by the end of Yeah, 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:05.360 like they just they just keep huge numbers of them, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.120 keep getting any time, like you're able to say, like, 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:11.440 and then this whole region was depopulated by this massive fraction. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.680 It's not a great history. Um So, yeah, they've had 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:16.120 a rough time of it. By the end of World 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.360 War two, Belarus, it's been half a century being either 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.200 torn apart by mechanized warfare or recovering from being torn 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.720 apart by mechanized warfare. So the region settled into its 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:26.599 new life after World War Two. Is one of the 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.080 less memorable chunks of the Soviet Union. And for a 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:35.120 while things were like relatively okay comparatively compared to everyone dying. Sure, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.800 I mean once you've hit a low that bad. Anything 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.960 besides that is comparatively good. Yeah, and they did, you know, 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:44.400 they suffered. There was quite a bit of state repression 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:47.079 in Belarus, which we'll talk about some of the effects 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.240 from a little bit later. Um. And everywhere in the 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.840 USSR had its different experiences, both good and bad. It 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.320 was a big, complicated thing that happened. Um. You can 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:00.360 make a case that Belarus was one of the parts 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:02.760 of the Soviet Union that was kind of broadly happiest 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:06.040 with the whole arrangement. I did come across interviews with 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.080 a number of Belarusian anarchists who talked about severe repression 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.360 of their cultural identity and the civic union in favor 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.080 of Russian identity. Um. This is something that happened all 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.040 over the USSR, and it seems like it was a 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:18.760 problem in Belarus. Two. Um, But it is true that 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.360 in nineteen ninety one, when the various Soviets of the 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.559 Union had a referendum on whether or not to keep 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:26.120 being the Soviet Union, Belarus was one of the few 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:30.080 places where most people wanted to keep going. Of Belarus 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.280 voted to continue being a part of the Soviet Union. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.400 It seems like people were like broadly like on board 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:40.040 with what was with what was going down, but that 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:42.160 doesn't tell the whole story. Those numbers do get cited 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:44.160 a lot as evidence that people were very happy with 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.720 the system, but things aren't quite that simple. Faith in 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.520 the Soviet government had begun to collapse in Belarus starting 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.040 in nineteen eighties six with a chair Noble disaster and 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.720 its subsequent cover up doesn't make people don't like nuclear 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.240 power plants exploding and then being covered up, and sens 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.839 of people being poisoned, not not a fan of giant 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.840 explosions then getting yeah, yeah, yeah it's not it's not 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:10.360 anyone's best day ever, and making of incompetence causing giant 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.599 explosions also a timely, timely reference. So I thought you 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:19.600 were going to do an ad pivot there. Yeah, this 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:25.000 podcast is supported by the concept of nuclear power plants 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.920 being improperly maintained. It was a real big ad gate 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:35.120 for US Raytheon sponsors blowing up this entire city. Yeah, 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:42.560 I mean they don't stop it, stop it if it's 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:46.280 if it's not okay to influence a young man to 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.360 appreciate Raytheon's fine product line, then I don't know what is. 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:54.800 As we grow up in a complicated, conflicted world, we 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.160 all need the security that comes from a raytheon based 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.520 knife missile. It makes makes me feel safe and secure 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.439 in my look. Sophie, seventeen year old isn't allowed to 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:06.480 own a firearm, but there's no law that says he 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.760 can't own a drone fired knife missile. Not in this country. 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.280 Not in this country, good country. That's how you defend 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.400 your home is with a knife missile. I thought it 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.280 was with a mae. I have those two. Um. Yeah, 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:20.640 So people got angry in Belarus over chair noble. Uh. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.400 And that was six And in ninety eight that anger 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:28.080 was compounded when an archaeologist named Zionon Pasniak discovered a 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.360 series of mass graves that dated back to Stalin's terror. 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.480 These graves were located at a place called Karapati outside 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.880 of the Belarusian capital of Minsk, and they held more 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:41.680 than a quarter of a million corpses. Okay, here we go, people, 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.680 people are not at their While most Belarusians vote to 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:48.160 stay in the Soviet Union, there's a lot of those 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:52.280 were not able to vote. Those those guys couldn't vote. Yeah, 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.120 and it does broadly make people less trusting of the 0:14:56.160 --> 0:14:58.280 government when they find a quarter of a million dead 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.720 people buried outside of their hometown own. I wouldn't, I 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:03.800 would be I would have some questions, I would we would. 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.880 Yeah that it's not great. Um, when you that's not 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:10.760 the thing you want to hear about, Like, yeah, So 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:13.200 the fact that an archaeologist working for the state was 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.400 allowed to reveal that a quarter of a million people 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:17.720 had been murdered and buried outside of Minsk is evidence 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:19.360 that in nineteen eighty eight there was a lot less 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:24.160 repression in the USSR than there is. Yeah. Yeah, I 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.280 love it when the state doesn't kill someone for saying 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.320 there's a whole bunch of dead bodies. Yeah. Obviously this 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.160 was very troubling to people, and so there were a 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.480 lot of calls to reform and accountability. Activists within Belarus 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.840 created the Belarusian Popular Front in October of nineteen eight 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.360 after mass protests that ended in fights with state security forces. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.840 And all of this brings us back around to Alexander Lukashenko, 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:48.840 who by that point was running a series of collective farms. 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.280 He was a pig farmer. Basically, um loves loves him 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.520 some collective farms, um, and was apparently pretty good at 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.640 running collective farms, and we should probably hop back in 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.520 time again at this point. UM. Alexandr Grigoryevitch Lukashenko was 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.880 born in August thirtieth, nineteen fifty four, and this much 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.600 a lot of people agree on. Uh. Pretty much everything 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.480 else about his background is up for grabs, though many 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.480 sources will say that he was born in the rural 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.120 verage village of Copius in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:21.840 but Lukashenko himself has given multiple different answers when asked 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:23.920 where he was born. He's claimed he was born in 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.760 a god forsaken half Belarusian half Russian village and also 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.680 that he was born in the city of Orsha. Uh. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.400 The reason for this discrepancy is simple. Lukashenko was more 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.760 or less than nobody for most of his life. He 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:37.640 was derided as just like a pig farmer by his 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:39.400 rivals when he came to power, and there were very 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.680 few public details about his early life. And that's kind 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.080 of the way that Lukashenko wanted it. As he began 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.200 taking over, he knew that his biography was more of 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:48.400 a tool for taking and holding power than it was 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.680 an actual work of historical importance, and as such, most 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.120 of it shall read about Lukashenko tells us less about 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.280 the man himself than it does about the culture of 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:58.840 leadership and propaganda in the U. S s R, which 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.920 I find kind of cool. Um. So, wherever you find 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:05.360 like a community, a subculture, occult, a nation, um, an 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:10.120 ideology that's based around like charismatic individual people, you will 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.439 find specific traditions about writing biographies for those figures. And 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:15.800 this is true everywhere. Um. It's not just like a 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.440 communist thing. It's not just a dictatorship thing. It's true 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.040 of market capitalism. If you go grab a biography of 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.480 Elon Musk and a biography of Steve Jobs, and a 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:25.760 biography of Bill Gates, and you know, maybe run through 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:27.840 a couple of those fawning profile pieces in like The 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.880 New Yorker of people like Elizabeth Holmes or Travis Kallinik 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.400 of Uber or the Wee Work guy, like before all 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.919 of their grips became crashing to the grad. Yeah, if 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:37.280 you read a bunch of that stuff in a row, 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.440 you'll notice a bunch of patterns. All of these biography 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.920 they feel like kind of all just the same book. 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:45.280 They are more or less. Yeah, And there's the thing, 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:46.919 like you have to in those books, you have to 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:48.840 have like, um, a period where they're working out of 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.159 a garage. There's a structure, there's there's a structure that 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:53.040 we like when we learn without the people, we like 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.960 consuming a certain arenime exactly. And they constructed you know, 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.399 Google was in this garage when it actually wasn't. You know. 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:00.119 It's the same thing. Yeah, it's the same thing. If 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.960 you if you find the books that presidential candidates all, 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.080 like every presidential candidate has to publish a stupid fucking 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:10.280 book right before they start their campaign. It's required now. Um. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.840 And they're all the same book basically, uh, because that's 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:16.040 just what we expect. Um. And if you grew up 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.320 under evangelical Christianity, like you grew up like me, Yeah, um, 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.840 you know what all of like the whenever you have 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.520 like a charismatic preacher who comes to like deliver their 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:27.639 you know, like they all have the same have the 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.679 same story. It's the same grift over and over yet yeah, exactly. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:33.399 It's it's just a thing that people need in their 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.119 stories of charismatic leaders and it's the same uh in 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.920 propagandistic biographies of Eastern Bloc leaders. Um So, one thing 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.480 that is emphasized in all of the stories about Lukashenko 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.679 is that he was his dad was absent, and he 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.920 was raised by his single mother. Uh as was Joseph 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:53.600 Stalin everybody, as with Saparmaranti is off of Turkmenistan. Nikolai 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.400 Cichesko knew his dad, but his dad was an abusive prick, 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.840 and Nikolai was always a mama's boy. So like shittier 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.200 absent father is a Soviet leadership trope. It's it's it's yeah, 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.000 it's like it's a trope that they keep that they 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:07.119 keep using. Whether it's true or not right, it's it's 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.360 still something that they will. They will still reinforce that narrative. Yeah, 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:12.520 they reinforce that narrative, and it's seen as being like 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.119 important to getting people to um to like feel the 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:21.120 way about the leader that they kind of expected. It's yeah, 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:26.320 it's like Disney, you got to kill the parents. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.399 you gotta kill the parents in order to have a 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.480 good dictator. So if you want to make a dictator, Nope, 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.119 I don't know where are you going? Anyway, continue, I 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.000 don't I don't know, Sophie, I don't know. It's it's 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.320 I'm just angry about the headphones. But you know what, 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:43.840 I'm not angry about, Sophie. You know what I'm not 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.280 angry about find products and services that support this podcast. 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:50.359 None of what's your headphones. I hope there's some wireless 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.920 head I hope. I hope Recon gets in here real quick. 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.800 If Recon starts trying to advertise on our podcast, they're 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:57.920 going to have to deal with our other sponsor, Raytheon. 0:19:58.040 --> 0:19:59.399 And I tell I'll tell you who I think is 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.360 gonna win in a fight between some people who make 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:03.880 headphones and are are good friends with the Knife Missiles. 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:15.400 It's the Knife Missiles products. We're back. Oh that was horrible. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:21.000 I accidentally made a minor adjustment to these goddamn newfangled 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:25.120 bluetooth earbuds off. The whole situation was horrible. We spend 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.520 hours getting this set up and destroyed it in a 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:34.280 few seconds. I feel comfortable saying that Soviet Union works 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.480 about as well as these horrible bluetooth headphones. In the headphones, 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.960 I responsible for multiple genocides, well not nine, Okay, okay, okay, fair, fair, 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.040 just like well, I mean you could argue series of 0:20:47.040 --> 0:20:51.880 war crimes anyway whatever whatever, Um, okay. So yeah, we're 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:55.119 we're talking about like Soviet leader tropes and Lukashenko. So 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.040 obviously all of his biographies will point out that his 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.680 dad was gone. They all will a very different things 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:07.159 about why his dad was gone, um, which is I 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.760 think kind of interesting, Like it's like the Joker. Yeah, 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.639 I think so are they like stories like well, like 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.600 is it like like yeah, kind of One of his 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.600 stories is that his dad died during World War two, um, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.120 which is like a Turkmen Boshi, the Dictaty of Turkmenistan, 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.240 had the same story his dad died in World War Two. 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.600