WEBVTT - Part Two: Beria: Stalin's Pedophile Cop & the Soviet Oppenheimer 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:05.680 Also media here, everyone, Robert Evans here, and before we 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.880 get to the episode, obviously a lot of people in 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.399 Gaza need a lot of different help. But we've been 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:15.360 connected to the Algazawi family by a friend of ours 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.640 who's doing aid work there right now. They are trying 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.759 to get fourteen members of their family out of Gaza 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.200 before you know, things get any worse for them, and 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:29.240 they're raising money to do so on go fund me. 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.440 If you google help al Gazawe family escape Gaza go 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.960 fund me, you can find it. Algazawie is spelled a 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:40.880 l g h a zz a w. I. Yeah, we're 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.040 trying to help them, you know, get to a safer place, 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:49.480 so please consider donating if you can. Oh yeah, it's 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.160 behind the Bastard's a podcast that opens in a different, 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:59.120 slightly less competent way each week. Because when you you know, 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.160 when you're on top, baby, it's time to slack off. 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.840 It's time to just really really fuck up hard. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.679 That's how I that was so annoying. 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.800 What are you doing, Sophie? Are all annoying? 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.520 Who are we? Where are we? When are we? These 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:16.360 are all questions. 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:18.240 I mean I could answer them, but I feel I 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:19.840 could be also annoying. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.039 Well, speaking of not annoying, true, Joe Kasabian, our guest 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.200 host of the co host of the Lions Led by 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.840 Donkeys podcast, author of numerous books of science fiction and 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:34.440 one book of non fiction. 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.680 Joe, Hello, Hey, it's it's good to still be here 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.960 getting you know, intensely very appilled with everyone else. Oh no, 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:46.399 Barry appelled is a bad, bad way to turn that. 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:49.760 I've already said it. I didn't poison quite a few people. 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.520 I do already have spies coming to Oregon. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.720 Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I mean we all do, right. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:59.160 That's the lesson from Laverni Barria is always be spying 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.080 on your friends and co workers. It's the only way 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.639 to stay ahead of them, you know, which is why 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.560 I've got you know, I don't actually know what joke 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.160 to make about this, because it will get increasingly creepy, 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.359 just like Laventi Barria, who has gotten increasingly creepy by 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.760 this point in the story. Now, Joe, when we left off, 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.960 Lavrenti is, you know, helping to run the cheka in 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.359 George I A. He has helped to overthrow the nationalist 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:34.560 movements and the Mensheviks in the rest of the caucuses 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:38.720 and deliver them to the USSR neatly wrapped and packaged 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:44.000 with a bow on top. Thank yeah, thanks for that. 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.120 It's gonna go great. It's gotta go great now, Joe. 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.440 One criticism often lobbied against the modern Western left is 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.520 that it is basically a bunch of cliques and friend 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.640 groups organized around a political tendency, and not really a 0:02:55.680 --> 0:02:58.959 mass movement capable of building or holding power. Now, there 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:02.240 are fair aspect to this criticism, but one interesting thing 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:03.880 that you get beat over the head with when you 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.000 study Stalin is that the leadership cast of the Soviet 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.280 Union was just a handful of cliques and friend groups, 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:13.440 all of which were also increasingly cults of personality. Right, 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.320 it was like people's friend groups, and they were all 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:18.880 shitty friends, but they were all kind of buddies, and 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.679 like the ruling cast was like a bunch of buds 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:24.720 fucking each other over. 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:25.080 You know. 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.640 The only thing that separates like, you know, your theory 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:32.240 reading group and the central Soviet is having a bunch 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:34.880 of people like Barrio willing to fill mass graves for you. 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:38.840 Yes, yes, And that is how Stalin ruled in the 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.960 early days of the USSR. After Lenin died in Trotzky 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.600 was expelled, Stalin and his gang of buddies ruled from 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.280 a compound in the capitol and basically spent all of 0:03:48.320 --> 0:03:52.080 their time together. Stalin's gang would use the familiar form 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.880 t y to refer to him, which I understand is 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:57.240 the Russian equivalent of like calling someone bro, but really 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.840 meaning it right, like this big. It's the same thing 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:01.920 that people in Hitler's inner circle would use, like the 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.880 familiar term do with him, where it's like, we don't 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.240 really have this in English as like grammatical constructs, but 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.000 it's like casually referring to somebody instead of being like 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.440 grand you know, leader or fewer or whatever, you're like, hey, buddy, 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:19.000 you know it only really you know, weird, you know 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:24.880 it's crazy in there. Oh my god. Definitely. So one 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:28.480 term you'll hear applied to Stalin's crew is commanda, which 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:33.000 is the Russian word for team. Sheila Fispatrick, author of 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.920 on Stalin's Team, which is a book about said team, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:40.240 prefers this word. She uses the term team, but notes 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.920 quote alternatives are available. You could call it a gang 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.400 sika if you wanted to claim that its activities ruling 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.279 a country had an illegitimate quality that made them essentially 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.880 criminal rather than governmental. You could call it the polit 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.479 bureau that is, the executive organ of the Communist Party's 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.680 Central Committee, elected by a periodic party congresses, which is 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.479 semi correct since the membership was very similar, but owing 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:03.080 the Stalin preference for informal working groups, never quite the same. 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:06.159 Or you could call it a faction, another pejorative term 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.880 and Soviet discourse. For my part, when I read histories 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.719 that really discuss, especially the social dynamics of the people 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:15.719 around Stalin, I see a lot that's familiar to the 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:19.560 way that like cults of personality form online around influential 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.839 people who grow deranged and throw their followers into increasingly 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.920 aggressive crusades against whoever they hate. I'm thinking about a 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:28.160 specific moment on Twitter where a lady made chili for 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:30.839 somebody and it just brokes some people out of their 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.440 fucking minds because they were all friendsly of this one 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.480 fucking freak, and yeah, spend their time abusing each other 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:36.719 on the. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:38.960 Internet or the door dash discourse. 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:42.880 Right, you get these like you get a couple of 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.560 influential people and then their hangers on and buddies and 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.039 they all just kind of like have these private little 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:50.480 groups where they chat and lose their minds together. Right, 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.080 That is kind of what happens with the gang around Stalin, 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.960 with him and his buddies, as they as the time 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.920 that they're in power gets longer, and thus the distance 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:02.920 between the period of time in which they lived anything 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:05.960 that resembled a normal life gets further away. You can 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.800 also see like when people get crazy rich suddenly, right, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:13.600 how they increasingly lose touch with reality and eventually lose 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.520 their minds. Yeah, it's exactly. And these people, like, once 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.560 you're in power in the way that Stalin and his 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:21.880 friends are, you're able to bend a lot of reality 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.839 around you, and it does derange you to an extent. Right, 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.560 there's dynamic much power that much. 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.000 Well can end up normal regardless of what their intentions are. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:32.280 It's fucking impossible. 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:34.920 The last thing Kanye got right before he lost his 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.599 mind for the same reasons. Right, No one man should 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.760 have all that power, No one friend group should have 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:41.680 all that power. 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.159 No one man should have that much power, and that 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:46.080 one man should not have a record deal. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:50.760 No, No, absolutely not so less sinister, but perhaps not 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.240 much less dangerous. I also see very normal dynamics of 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:58.599 friendship replicated in a situation where decision makers had absolutely 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.000 zero outside accountability or real access to the world outside 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.520 of their little circle of buds. And I'm going to 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.560 quote from Sheila again here, to a degree unusual among 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:11.880 political leaders, Stalin's political and social life were intertwined. He 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.000 socialized largely with the team in their Krimlin apartments or 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:17.600 out at his datcha. And by the way, when we 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:19.480 use the term datcha, this is like a normal thing. 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:22.400 And it's not just Russia, in Russian life, but like 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.680 I mean, it's normal in Ukraine too. Most a lot 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.360 of people have like a little country house. Sometimes it's 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.800 just like a little shack or a cabin, yeah, that 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:31.640 you like go to during the summer. You have a 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.040 garden there, you know. In Stalin's case, the datcha is 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:38.760 like a mansion, you know, but it's where you go 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:40.680 to hang out on the weekend to get away from it. 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:47.080 Not my people's revolutionary hero in his Soviet country house. Yeah, 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:52.040 all true. You know, revolutionaries for the common man have 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.200 multiple homes in picturesque places. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.760 Yes, yes, very normal behavior. Yeah, so it is important 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.680 to note that Stalin's gang or friend group are not 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:05.320 just inconsequential toadies. While Stalin always exercised the ultimate power, 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.520 the men that he surrounded himself with were not just 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.000 there to like fluff him up. They ran important ministries 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.440 and sometimes did so competently. Right, Some of these guys 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.000 know what they're doing, at least in some situations. Now, 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.400 nearly all of them get into positions where the things 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:22.240 they have power with wildly exceed their capabilities. 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:22.480 Right. 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:25.240 That happens often, but they all most of them have 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.480 actual areas of expertise too, where they're actually reasonably competent, 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:31.760 which is why some stuff that, like, you know, the 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.000 USS are it's not the Nazis, right, the Nazis. The 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:37.920 only thing the Nazi state ever accomplishes is death. The 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.520 Soviet Union does stuff like completely reverse the state of 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.959 illiteracy in the Russian aaries right like, it has legitimate success. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:48.000 It actually is a state. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:53.080 Yeah, not every empire is like black and white evil 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.040 at the We all like to think of them that 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.480 way because it makes conceptualizing them much much easier. Yeah, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.400 that they ever did anything good for their citizens, and 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.800 even the most horrific empires of all time. There wasn't 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.240 that positive for people in it for a period of 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.720 time until it hits its termal decline, right at some point. 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.280 Right, it's important to remember, like the USSR doesn't beat 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.280 the US to getting a man into space on accident. Right, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.640 there were things they did well, right because unlike the Nazis, 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.920 they weren't just dedicated to murdering everything around them. You know, 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.400 there were things that were accomplished, and it's accomplished by 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.160 a lot of these guys. Right, they're parts of this 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.280 because they're not bad at everything. So you know the 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.960 kind of core group what becomes the core group because 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.400 Barry is not part of Stalin's inner circle yet, but 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.200 as you know, if you watch the movie Death of Stalin, 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.520 it eventually includes guys like Molotov of the Molotov Ribbon Trot, 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:48.200 packed our buddy Laveria Malankov, Nikita Krushchev. You know, these 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.440 guys are all kind of they're not all in his 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.840 inner circle yet, but they're kind of coming together in 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:54.800 his inner circle during this period of time. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.839 Around drinking and watching cowboy movies. They which was. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.959 I hated doing that, Stalin loved to make them do that. Yes, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.320 it's the thing that he did that I like the most. Like, 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.439 un ironically, that's pretty cool. 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.240 It's like an ultimate flexx is We're gonna sit around 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:15.720 watching shitty spaghetti westerns like Blackout and pissing on yourselves 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:18.320 from my own entertainment. It's kind of be a version 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:19.000 of a court jester. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:24.000 Yeah, exactly, exactly people's jester. So for a man of 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.840 Barry's ambition in this period, rising up the ranks of 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.320 the Cheka in Georgia and making a name for himself 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.480 was like, this was not his ultimate goal. This was 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.200 he saw it as an integral part of his plan 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.520 to worm his way into Stalin's gang. And Barry it 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.600 was savvy enough to recognize that emulating the Great leader's 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:44.000 tactics was what was going to help him form his 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.360 own power base within Georgia and later the USSR. So 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.959 Barry began to gather a gang of the worst killers 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:54.720 and rapists in the Secret Police around himself. They socialized together. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:59.320 he's kind of doing a mimicry of Stalin's inner circle, right, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.040 you know, he gets these guys together, they hang out together, 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.360 they socialize, they eat, they drink, they brainstorm new methods 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:06.320 of torturing people. 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.360 Just normal everyday guy stuff. Yeah, just guys, be bros. 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:15.120 You know. Victor Surge a Russian Marxist revolutionary who fought 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.160 as a Bolshevik. He starts out as an anarchist, but 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.200 he fights as a Bolshevik during the revolution and becomes 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.280 a critic of Stalin described Baria and his friends this way. 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.040 The only temperaments that devoted themselves willingly and tenaciously to 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.679 this task of internal defense were those characterized by suspicion, embitterment, harshness, 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:35.000 and sadism. The check has inevitably consisted of perverted men 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.600 tending to see conspiracy everywhere and to live in the 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:42.160 midst of perpetual conspiracy themselves. Now this is part two, 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:44.320 and I'm sure after part one we've already got some 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.480 weird Soviet Union stands attacking these episodes as anti Communist propaganda, 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:50.920 which is why I bring up Surge. Most of the 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.120 lurid details of Barious crimes come from other Communists, because 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.480 that's mostly who he murdered. At this point. In fact, 0:11:58.559 --> 0:12:01.640 Barria's biographers spend a lot of time busting myths about 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.520 him by other communists because some of those guys were 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.200 just making up shit about him to hide their own 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.600 crimes in the post Stalinist era. Not Surge though. I 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.600 think he's a pretty reasonable on the ball dude, and 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.680 we'll stop talking about him soon. But I do want 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:19.800 to show Joe a picture of Victor Surge, because my god, 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:21.679 this guy had Look at the drip on this man. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.880 Look at this outfit, Sophie, look at that. 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:27.280 Oh the hell? 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:30.760 Yeah that he's got like a fucking like fur lined 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.640 cape on a military uniform. He's got these like circle 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:38.240 glassle he's got his hair slicked back like he's just undeniable. 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:40.720 Drip. You can he looks like he's about to fight 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.800 the photographer. Yes, he sure does. He's got that look 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:50.040 on his face. Just incredible drip. Now. 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:55.760 Another Georgian, Jaranti Kikozzi, described barious checkists this way as 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.560 quote men without kith or kin, who in most cases 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:01.120 knew no trade, had no ad ucation, and were skilled 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.240 only an espionage and murder. Some were sadists by nature. 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.840 Some entered the service as insurance for themselves. And this 0:13:08.000 --> 0:13:10.560 is definitely in line with how most people want to 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.800 view the kind of humans who carry out crimes of 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:16.240 this nature, but I don't really think it's broadly accurate. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:18.160 It's at least I mean, there's some guys that that 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.240 is absolutely a fitting description of who are in the cheka, 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.760 but it doesn't fit everybody. Biographer Amy Knight tells the 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:27.280 story of a check a man named Schulmann, and it's 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:31.800 like shul apostrophe m a n He was responsible for 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:34.600 guarding prisons and carrying out executions, and is known to 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.320 have murdered at least three hundred people with his bare hands. 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.280 God Like, I don't know if he was strangled like like, 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.840 but like personally killed three hundred people, right. 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.640 Like, once you start hitting the hundreds, he probably switches 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.680 it up just to keep Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.040 You want to avoid getting like the murderer's equivalent of 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:51.120 tennis elbow. 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.080 Murderer's niece in the Tommy John surgery because you blow 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:00.640 out your elbow killing political Yeah yeah, yeah, you get fucking. 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.280 Carpoald tunnel because you're strangling so many dudes. 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:05.720 Doctor said, I got to do a knife next. 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:12.240 Yeah, it's a medicinal gutting knife. So despite this, and 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.200 contrary to Kekozzi's description, Shulman was a family man, you know, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.480 outside of his murdering job. He's known as being like 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.760 a pretty good husband and father and seems to have been. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.240 He's described as being inclined by nature to just be 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.640 a bureaucrat, a paper pusher. He was so not naturally 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.600 suited to being a killer that in order to psych 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.200 himself up to execute people, he had to quote in 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.320 This is Night writing, create in himself the necessary bloodthirsty 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.480 mood of the commandment of death by narcoticizing himself by 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.280 every means available and bringing himself to a complete state 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.520 of insanity. So he basically he has to get fucking 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.760 blackout drunk to murder people, right, because he just doesn't 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:50.760 quite equivalent of a. 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.640 Berserker, right, right, right? I Mean that's also a lot 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.160 of people want to believe the most simple thing, most easily, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.080 the most thing easy for them to understan and to 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.440 them as a normal human being, is like, well, I 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:05.480 wouldn't do that. No one I know would do that. 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.960 Only insane, bloodthirsty maniacs would do something like that, And 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.960 that is just demonstrably untrue throughout history. Yeah, whether it 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:17.680 be dudes in the Checha ss Indset's group in Gestapo, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.440 you name it, Like, the vast majority of people are normal, 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:25.800 and that is why it's terrifying. That's easy alt bloodthirsty psychopaths. 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:27.440 But the reason why it's scary is because it's it 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:28.640 could be your fucking neighbor. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:31.760 Yeah, and there are don't don't get me wrong. There 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.000 are a number, a higher number than average, and an 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:35.840 average group of people among the czech I just like 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.680 the ass are fucking bug fuck nuts. Oh, but not 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.320 most of them at any given point in time, because. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.000 They're just normal people. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.600 Yeah, Like you need more people than just the crazies 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.400 to get all this killing done. You know. Now, we 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.360 don't know how many people Barria had executed in Georgia 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.920 during this period. Former chechist Dumbadzi, a major source on 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:59.960 Baria in this time, estimates that about eighty percent of 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.440 executions were never publicized. Right, so we just will not 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.440 know how many people were killed. One of the bloodiest 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:08.960 moments in Bria's tenure came after a rebel leader, if 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.000 Aliko Zugeli, was captured. He had been planning a revolt 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.480 and once he gets captured, he begs the Cheka, hey, 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.640 let me tell my comrades don't do this, like give 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:20.960 up trying to fight the state. It'll save a lot 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.200 of lives. But Barry is like, no, no, no, we 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.600 want there to be an uprising because when there's an uprising, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:28.880 then we can kill a bunch of people. Right then 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:30.840 we can actually get rid of these folks rather than 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:33.680 letting them lie dormant in the state. And for a 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.040 few days, this revolution carries off, and it's like a 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.600 Menshevik uprising right against the Bolsheviks. It has a lot 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:42.440 of particularly and kind of like the rural and areas 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.280 outside of the big cities. They hold a decent amount 0:16:45.280 --> 0:16:47.960 of territory for a while, right again, mostly in these 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:50.600 areas where the Mensheviks had been dominant. But by September 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.520 of nineteen twenty three, the Cheka had cracked down, arresting 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.160 the ringleaders, and Baria made an offer to the arrested 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:59.360 prisoners as they awaited execution. You are defeated, but the 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.720 fighting contains use here and there. You the Committee, are 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.040 able to stop these armed detachments. Make a declaration urging 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.479 these isolated attachments to put down their arms, and on 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.159 our side, we will not harm them. We will stop 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:12.080 all the rests and mass executions. 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:14.080 I feel like that was a lie. 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.320 Look, if you are carrying out an uprising and the 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:19.639 people say, if you give up and go home, we 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.800 won't kill any of you, They're absolutely going to kill 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:23.199 all of you. 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:24.160 Right, I can't believe. 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.280 I can't trust levent I Beria. I know who can 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:28.439 you even trust anymore? 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.200 If not Baria. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.680 So the arrested leaders signed a document in which they 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:39.080 identified themselves as upper class revolutionaries, which was not entirely true, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.320 and once Barria has this document, he uses it as 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.320 the pretext to carry out mass arrests and executions anyway, 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.320 using this sign confession to publicize that the uprising had 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.960 really been like wealthy, recidivist spoil sports trying to end 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.600 the people's revolution. This provided all the justification needed for 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.639 a full purging of the countryside and all remaining Menshevik 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:03.200 sympathizers Therein night rights, armed detachments composed of army and 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:06.400 Cheka troops raided villages and killed entire families and one 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.560 Georgian village, all families bearing one particular last name were 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.200 completely annihilated, including women and small children. Some estimates on 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.639 the number of those arrested and executed by the Cheka 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.640 ranged as high as seven thousand to ten thousand, including 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.360 prominent Menshevik leaders. Good God, So yeah, got to get 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:24.200 those kids killed. 0:18:24.240 --> 0:18:27.840 You know those kids are plotting. Yeah, you know, they're 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:29.320 not going to go to bed on time, They're not 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.560 gonna want to go to school in the morning. Can't 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:33.600 handle that kind of kind of revolutionary behavior. 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.200 Yeah, And it's we go back to like the killing 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:38.240 of the czar and his family. And I think it 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.800 was absolutely justified to kill the czar and his wife, right, 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.719 they had done sure, committed crimes against humanity, They had 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:45.920 millions of deaths on their hands. What else are you 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:48.320 supposed to do to those people? But when you kill 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.399 their kids, And I've heard the counter argument that, like, well, 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.080 you know, these people had been so brutalized by the czars, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:55.760 if those kids were alive, they would have been a 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:59.400 threat to the revolution. And like, I understand how that 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.200 logic can take hold, But the unfortunate reality is when 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.080 you start your revolution by murdering kids, you tend to 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:07.199 keep murdering kids. 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.600 Yeah, that wall has been broken down. Yeah, yeah, like 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.919 that taboo no longer exists, even though it should. And 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.200 like you know, there's troubling parts of history that were 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.760 like you can simultaneously understand the motivations of a group 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.480 of people while also saying, yeah, that was incredibly fucked yup. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.240 It's like Nat Turner's rebellion where they killed the children 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.120 of slave owners, and it's like, I get where their 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:35.080 heads are right to the extent that it's possible, but 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:38.040 those kids didn't do anything because they're babies, you know, 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.560 Like it's both of those things can be true. So, 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.600 as is usually the case of this period of time, 0:19:44.680 --> 0:19:48.000 these corpses are tossed into mass graves and buried in secret, 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:50.680 which is a deliberate provocation to the cultural values of 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:54.120 the Georgian countryside in which Barria had been raised. Funerals 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.440 are like this huge community endeavor, like where everybody gets 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.800 together there. It is supposed to be a thing with 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.480 a lot of ceremony to it. And so this is 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.840 specifically like him kind of turning his back on a 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.760 lot of the culture he had been raised in by 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.240 wiping out these people and then denying them any kind 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:12.960 of acknowledgment that they'd ever existed. 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.520 You know that that's unsurprising because like the Soviet Union, 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.000 as a whole is a project of Russian chauvinism, and 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.200 as a Georgian man, he has to go above and 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.480 beyond divorcing himself from his Georgian identity to advance in 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:28.160 the culture. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.320 And that is definitely the argument you'll hear from a 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.600 lot of writers, you know, especially ones who like are 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.359