Russian Humour Is Pushing People Into Canals | Stalin: Yalta & Last Days (Part 5)

Communist or capitalist, we all just want to be at home watching TV. Stalin: Yalta & Last Days (Part 5) Chapters: 00:00 - Yalta Conference 05:11 - Stalin is Aura Farming 10:32 - Potsdam: Where are the boys? 14:51 - Gold Medal Syndrome 19:08 - Stalin’s Dinner Parties 22:08 - Prank patrol 25:07 - Stalin’s film club 30:55 - Doctors Plot 34:03 - Bring back embalming! 37:23 - Summing up Stalin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:40Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Ving vs. History. It's part five of the Stalin story. Erasio Gould is still here.

• 0:47Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Still in his massive hat.

• 0:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  I don't know why he asked for a hat that big.

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Well, every time I see the camera, which is only at the end and the beginning of the episode, I realise how big my hat's been for the whole time. And it does sort of make you regret some of those things I've said.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  You asked for the big hat, mate.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  If I say anything even remotely serious, it looks...

• 1:03Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Okay.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  I look completely absurd.

• 1:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  But it does make my head look smaller.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  This is the final part of our extended Stalin series, part five. We were having too much fun, so we had to make it a five-part. And I think the man deserves it.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  In part, we did well.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  We've been eating good, man.

• 1:24Speaker 01

  We've been eating well.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  We do need a bit more greens, because even looking at what's coming up, it's a lot of meat.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  It's a lot of meat.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Yep. And this is, yeah, this is gonna cause a...

• 1:32Speaker 01

  It's Dad's night out at the curry house, and we've gone too hard, and we haven't got enough vegetables.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 1:37Speaker 01

  So, you know, at some point, there'll be some greens.

• 1:39Speaker 02

  We had to put it back for a while, actually.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  In a bit. Let's have some, let's have some meat.

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  All right? I can mix-grill for a bit.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  We'll deal with the consequences later. So, we left off with Operation Uranus. Stalin...

• 1:54Speaker 02

  Which is, would you say that's a funny name?

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Do you know what? For the magnitude, for the significance of the operation, it is, I'm kind of like, I don't think you should call it that.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. It always kind of like, it's almost too obvious to make a joke about, but it's just, it's too big.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  You're saying that Hitler loses the war at Operation Bum.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  It's like, there's not even any point saying that's a bit funny. It's just so stupid.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  It's almost like...

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Operation Uranus.

• 2:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, Stalin, like...

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Is it because of a translation in Russian? It doesn't sound like Uranus.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, what is it in Russian? What do they call Operation Uranus? Operatio Iran.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  Iran.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess it's not your anus.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Speaker 02

  Operation Uran.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Oran!

• 2:37Speaker 01

  But then do you think of like, you know, at Yalta, Churchill's like, "Operation what, mate? Why do you all have that?"

• 2:44Speaker 02

  It does feel like everyone's got a smug look on their face now.

• 2:46Speaker 01

  What, they're the Allies?

• 2:47Speaker 02

  You've got the Finnish smug, it's like, you've got Stalin going on like Hitler ground, you've got everyone there.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  No, it's a smug time, because they've beaten Hitler. So, the last episode, we dealt with Barbarossa.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Get to be fair, sorry, Yalta, that's kind of as smug as it gets. I mean, Potsdam, it gets a bit serious, because now we're thinking about the Cold War.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Well, and also Truman's just fucking nuked Japan. So, you're like, what?

• 3:08Speaker 02

  The new guy's just fucking...

• 3:09Speaker 01

  All right, fucking hell.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  A bombshell's entered the villa.

• 3:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's Casa Amor, isn't it? It's opened up.

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Fucking hell!

• 3:16Speaker 01

  Fucking hell, what?

• 3:17Speaker 02

  This is really gonna shuffle the pack.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  And also Truman is so unassuming-looking, just a little wet guy with glasses.

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Fucking hell, eh?

• 3:24Speaker 02

  We will get there. We're on Yalta first, and we'll get to Potsdam.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Right, so, Yalta is a scenic resort city on the southern coast of the Crimean Peninsula. Yeah, so it's Ukraine, but basically currently contested.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  So, there you go. It's, yeah, so it's a...

• 3:38Speaker 02

  How scenic is it now?

• 3:39Speaker 01

  Let's have a look. Yalta now.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it looks pretty nice.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  It looks pretty good.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Oh, not great.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Top 50 things to do in Yalta. Number one, avoid drones. Chekhov's house, and there's a zoo. Well, there you go. But in 1945, this is, yeah, as you say, one of the big photos.

• 3:57Speaker 02

  If you're gonna go like, top 10 photos all the time?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Fucking hell.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  You've got the Earth from the moon.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've got Quang Duck.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay, what's that?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  The Burning Monk from Vietnam.

• 4:07Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And this is probably in there, right?

• 4:09Speaker 01

  You'd say so, yeah. You'd say so. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin are meeting for the second time. They've met in Tehran.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, look at this.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  It's a second date.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're looking slightly frostier at this one.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Because...

• 4:26Speaker 02

  Stalin's probably the most Beethoven of the three, actually.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  Well, Stalin's insisted they come to him in Crimea, because he wants them to travel through the landscape of where, you know, the war has been basically fought, right? So, Yalta is, is Yalta before D-Day, or is it after D-Day? No, it must be after D-Day. Yeah.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  Well, I guess, sorry, if you're trying to read this like...

• 4:47Speaker 01

  It's Yalta's 45, isn't it? It's all 45.

• 4:49Speaker 02

  As I saw, you know, when the body language experts do breakdowns of photos and videos and stuff, we should do like a Beethoven's brother...

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Breakdown.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  ...nurse of each leader. And to be honest, Stalin's the most Beethoven's brother. And then Churchill, and then Roosevelt.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Well, Roosevelt is looking into the distance like, fucking hell.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  I'm gonna die in three months, so he's not, that's not very Beethoven's brother.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Churchill, I think, is looking for a drink.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  We've been a big part of the war effort, but like, 200, that was the people who have died in Britain, as opposed to 25 million. So, he's a little bit excited to be there, to be honest.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  He's the last one to be invited on a stag tour, like, oh, fucking, yeah, boys, what are we doing? What are we doing? Where are we going? How do you know? Lads, yeah, should we get rat-arsed tonight?

• 5:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, he's just grateful, and then that's pure, yeah, he's smug.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  He's got the most aura of the three.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  How many of your civilians have died? Yeah, try 25 million, mate. Yeah, it's still called Stalingrad, thanks to me. So, Roosevelt and Churchill arrive, Stalin does not greet them at the airfield. This is, you're right, this is in terms of like aura, you know, vibes. This is where Stalin's really cooking.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  And I think, compare that to how he got cooked by Hitler, and those two weeks, he's now come with a new, he's got a new confidence, Stalin.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  He's got a new lease of life.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  Having lost 25 million of his citizens, you know?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  He's a white woman who's just done ayahuasca.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Yes, he is. Yeah, he is.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  But it's done ayahuasca, 25 billion people.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Dangerous. So, he, so obviously the war is still going on. This is February 45. Berlin's not yet been conquered by the Russians.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  But it will be.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  It will be. They know it. In fact, at Stalingrad, when they, when they encircle Paulus, and their German troops surrender, one of them, a Russian troop, points to Stalingrad and goes, "That's what Berlin's gonna look like." Fucking hell. It's a smug time, isn't it? A lot of riot sides for the fucking biggest battle of all time. See that? Looks like Berlin will do in five months. Anyway, see you later. A bit too hard, you know, they're hitting each other a bit too hard.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  It's a Berlin in a bathtub.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, why's Paul Merton fighting for the Russians? So, Beria, Stalin's attack dog, who we'll be dealing with on the Patreon.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the worst guys who's ever lived, to be fair.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Give the rapist his flowers, which we will do on the Patreon. Anyway, so he had constructed a huge bomb-proof bunker beneath Stalin's accommodation, 25 metres of protection. Roosevelt received a bunker with only two metres of protection, Churchill no bunker at all.

• 7:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I guess is, you know, it's the power play.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Because even though the war's not yet ended, it's clear where the war's been won and lost, right?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  And these things are important. It's important to let Britain know that it's not a major player anymore.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Kind of, yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  They just, they don't try anything.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  And just to, just to really ram home, when we started this series, you know, when Stalin comes to power, it is an agrarian economy. There's, you know, there's no heavy industry.

• 7:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Right? And in the space of 15 years, he is now head of the largest land empire basically that ever has been.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  The second superpower.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  The second superpower. And he's also pretty much an atomic superpower, which we'll deal with, that's more Potsdam. Anyway.

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• 8:57Speaker 01

  So, this is what I really like about Stalin. I did not realise how much he uses booze as a political weapon. Right. So Churchill's obviously drinking heavily.

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Churchill doesn't use it as a political weapon, does he?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Oh, he just drinks.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  He just sends it.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  He's downing a pint, it's like, is that political? No, no, no, no.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  You make a statement.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Don't make a statement, just have a drink, right?

• 9:18Speaker 02

  You're having a laugh statement.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  Stalin would make it look like he was drinking, but it's actually water instead of vodka in between rounds.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Which he later punishes his generals for doing.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  There's a lot of caligula stuff from Stalin, which we'll get to. But anyway, at the end of Yalta, basically Stalin secures what he wants, which is like, he's like, we're not gonna, we're not gonna give any of this land back that we've taken from the Germans. That's our buffer zone, because I don't want to be invaded again.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. So that's the main thing, because he's, that's the main trauma. And even Putin now, the main anxiety of any Russian leader is being invaded on that huge land border without natural barriers.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:53Speaker 02

  That's why Putin is terrified of being invaded.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Give Putin, look, there's a lot of sense to what Putin's doing, as we say. So basically, at Yalta, Stalin essentially sets the tone for the rest of the 20th century.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  So the Western allies are so knackered that they go, do you know what, mate? You do what you want.

• 10:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Right. Because Stalin is, it's kind of amazing that in the space of two years, he's now the dominant power.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  And the allies are realising who's actually won the war here.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  He's the big winner.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  May the second.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  But also the biggest sacrifice and the most losses.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  May the 2nd, 1945, the Soviets capture Berlin. I can't get him, brood! Hitler kills himself in the bunker.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Thanks for that lovely noise, a soundscape from.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Just, you know, you can't, you can't say that the Soviet captured Berlin without just seeing what Hitler did.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Placing it, yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 01

  On the 9th of May, Germany is surrender and scores on the doors. 27 million Soviet citizens had died. That must be people.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  27.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Two thirds of them civilians.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Right. So, okay, fine. 6 million homes were lost. I doubt that. That's a big number.

• 11:07Speaker 02

  Surely not. 200,000 probably.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  However, now the Red Army basically occupied much of Eastern Europe. As you say, there's no relief for the Poles.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  They're like, you know, it's one thing, another over.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. It is, apparently the amount of rape is unfathomable when the Russians come back through Germany.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Because it's all payback for all the rape that happened that way.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  And the Polish are like, well, we didn't rape anyone, so why the fuck are we getting this?

• 11:31Speaker 01

  You made this point before about how, well, can we rape someone? It's like, that's not what they're thinking.

• 11:35Speaker 02

  Did I make that point?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, you made that point before, where it's like, Germany rapes more than the Soviets, and the Poles are like, well, can we have a go, please?

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Did I say?

• 11:44Speaker 01

  You've said that before.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  Did I say that? Do you remember me saying that?

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Well, you said that before and I said this before.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  I think you said it.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  I think your point is weird. It's weird that Poland in 1945 are like, can we please rape someone? I think that's weird.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Could someone in the comments mention if I have, could you point out when I said that? Because I really don't remember. That's scary. I've said so much of this podcast.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Anyway. So let's get to, let's get to Potsdam, all right?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  God.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Right. So desperate for the Poles to be able to rape someone. Anyway.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  The Western leadership at Potsdam, there's, yeah, now this is where the real.

• 12:18Speaker 02

  Different vibe, Potsdam.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  Well, different vibe, because this is where democracies comes into it, you know? Stalin's still there, the dictator, but Churchill gets yanked away from it midway through because Attlee wins.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Attlee's basically a competition winner, like, hello, what's going on?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  Truman's there, little dweeb having just dropped a fucking nuclear bomb.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah? Or no, he hasn't done that yet. No, sorry.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, guy in a bow tie, fucking.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Pressing a button.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yep. I'm, I'll be the president. First thing, what's the first thing on the agenda? Right, fair enough. Yeah, fuck it, I'm done. Done. Clear the intro. What's next?

• 12:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Again, fair enough. Why not give it to them twice? Look how happy Attlee and Truman are. They're like, oi, oi.

• 12:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, so very different. If we're reading the aura on this, they both can't believe that they're there.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Look at them. And Stalin's like, you know what?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  He's older.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  But Stalin's a bit bummed out because he's like, these guys are, these guys are new, you know?

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, where the, yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Where are the boy, where are the old guys? These aren't, these aren't Titanic figures. I'm Stalin.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  I think he doesn't want to admit that he misses Hitler as well.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Oh, he's wearing this coat. Look, this is, this is, yeah, it goes good, doesn't it? Yeah, Attlee's absolutely, Attlee looks like it's on a fucking booster seat. Christ, look at him, giddy as anything.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Attlee has no aura, to be fair to him.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Their feet don't even touch the floor. Christ.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  No aura for Truman or Attlee. For somebody who dropped the atomic bomb, Truman has no aura, surprisingly.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  No, do you know what it is? It's, no, because he's just like, yeah, I'll do that. Fuck it, what's next? And again, you know, you don't want someone who's going to think about it, right?

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Basically Stalin says, yeah, there'll be democratic elections in all these places, but, ah, it's bollocks. Because he says, it's not important who votes, it's important who counts the votes.

• 13:49Speaker 02

  Fucking hell.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Merton. Fucking hell. Well, I've got news for you, it's around at this point, we should say, this is 1945.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Been around a couple of hundred years.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been, I mean, it's getting quite tired now, 1945. So Stalin emerges from the Second World War at the height of his power, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, twice, twice nominated.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Why does he get in 48? 45, fair play, you can have it.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  What is 48?

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he's nominated, does he win though? Who's on the shortlist in 45?

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess it must be the other leaders, mustn't it?

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Hitler doesn't get nominated.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Does Hitler get nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?

• 14:23Speaker 06

  Barry is on time.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  No way. For doing what?

• 14:27Speaker 06

  Don't know, that's Barry though.

• 14:29Speaker 02

  Fucking hell.

• 14:30Speaker 06

  Oh no, enemy of the people.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Enemy of the people. Oh, right. I didn't realise that Time do worst person of the year as well.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Oh, Father of the United Nations, Cordell Hull, won in 1945. So he only got nominated. Fair play.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Who else is nominated? Anthony Eden.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Come on.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Churchill, Roosevelt, Litvinov, Edvard Benes, President Czechoslovakia.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Jan Smuts, remember Jan Smuts?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The International Committee of the Red Cross. Ah, fuck off, mate, fuck off.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  You know when Time, when Time Person of the Year, they give it to like, the key workers and stuff, they do.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Oh, fuck off. Make a decision, you cowards.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  The whistle, the whistleblower.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  The winner of the panel prize at Edinburgh this year is all the performance. Fuck off, make a decision. Do your job, you fucking sharks.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, pick the most, the most brutal dictator, like you normally do.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, come on, you leeches, all of your fucking leeches, leeching off us. Anyway.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Anyway. So communist governments are established across Eastern Europe, and now Stalin has his buffer zone.

• 15:32Speaker 02

  Which is why that, we touched on this with the GDR, where it's kind of like Stalin doesn't want to manage GDR too much. He doesn't really care, he just wants it as a buffer.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Just, yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  He doesn't need it as part of the empire, it just needs to be a non-Western.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Not Western.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  And then you have the Berlin blockade, which we dealt with in the East Germany series. And now, in, I think it's at Potsdam.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Or maybe it's at Yalta. At one of them, either Roosevelt or Truman is like, maybe it's Churchill, he put, he goes to Stalin, he's like, by the way, the Americans have tested an atomic bomb. And Stalin's like, eh, because he's already got spies in the Manhattan Project, so he knows that.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  And then Churchill's like, oh, all right, I thought you'd be more like.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Because he's already doing it.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  So let's get to his personal life, because this, this is the part of Stalin I did not know about, and this is why.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  This is what really brought you around to him.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  I love the guy, right? So he becomes a hypochondriac and he's got an intense fear of being poisoned.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  So he has his food tested with like rats and mice and shit.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Well, he's killed all his enemies now, so he's purged, and he's won World War Two. There's sort of no lands left to conquer apart from his own mind.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Ozzy Mandais. Yeah, yeah, you're right. It's kind of, what's it called? Olympic, Olympic gold medal syndrome, or gold medal syndrome, which is where.

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Can you serve in the Paralympics if you've got that?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Paralympic gold medal. Maybe, actually. That'd be good. I won a gold medal in the Olympics and then I got sad, so now I'm a Paralympian. It's an emotional crash and emptiness, people feel having reached a major life goal.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Right, okay. So you've got a bit of that.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Stalin's obviously very charming and good with his kids in public, which, and we'll be dealing with Stalin's children on the Patreon, because that's an awesome story. In private,

• 17:24Speaker 01

  he could be childish and volatile. Now, this is quite a Charlie Milner thing to do. If food bored him, he would throw it out of a window. Bored out of a window.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Shall we tell this coffee story?

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I think Charlie, you should tell the story.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  I want to talk about Boys Go Wild as well, but I think it's worth telling again. Basically, we were coming to record Boys Go Wild, Charlie had gone to set up earlier than us. I was like, okay, that's good, that's, you know, it's nice that he's gone in early. We were laughing about the fact that you'd just skydived. As we walk up, you rush past us, says, threw the wrong coffee out the window, right? So there's already so much involved in that sentence. Basically, Charlie had thrown his fresh hot coffee.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Whole latte.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Out of the window because he thought it was his old coffee.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And then I was like, how often are you throwing old coffees out the window? He was like, yeah, of course. I go, the sink's right there. And he goes, well, the window's closer. And I go, but it's going to land on people's offices and stuff, that's, you can't, you literally can't do that. This is, I'm the one fucking, on the, on the lease of this. You can't be chucking hot liquid or even old tea out the window. He goes, no, it's just a car park, you know?

• 18:26Speaker 06

  I didn't think anything was down there.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  You can look down there, you fucking idiot. Anyway, Charlie was quite into border and a bit catty back to me, I'd say.

• 18:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Basically saying like, you and who's army? Kind of. And basically talking like I'm a square because I'm not chucking my fucking hot liquid out the window.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Full latte out the window.

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Next morning, we get this email from the workspace. Hi all, I hope you're well. Sorry, the, the, the email headline is, the subject is throwing liquids out of windows. Hi all, I hope you're well. We have reports that liquids such as coffees are being thrown out of windows. This is causing your neighbours on lower floors to have stains and marks, along with some liquid coming in through their open windows. As we only clean the windows twice a year.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  A whole latte through the window.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  This does not make for a nice environment for them to work in. Kind of, he's asked that we refrain from throwing any liquid out the window. Instead, use the tea points on the floors to point this away.

• 19:26Speaker 02

  If we have many more reports like this, we'll have to investigate.

• 19:27Speaker 06

  I might just say, I'll be going through, there's been.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  No, no, don't fucking Greg, don't Greg Wallace it. Don't say you've got autism, you don't know what Ben is.

• 19:34Speaker 02

  Also, going down, there's a cafe downstairs, buying a coffee, you have to fob through, you have to go up a lift, get in there, finally getting all set up.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  It's so funny.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  But what also, what I find funny is that Charlie came down, he went, I was throwing the wrong coffee out the window. As if the problem's the coffee, not that, oh, fucking hell.

• 19:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  What am I like?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to.

• 19:58Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Cause I, I think, you're charming.

• 20:01Speaker 06

  I might just have to own it, I guess.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  I think they know, they know.

• 20:03Speaker 06

  I'm pretty sorry. I didn't think anything, I didn't think you were down there.

• 20:07Speaker 06

  I truly didn't.

• 20:08Speaker 02

  Speaking to a person covered in coffee, or like, someone's got third degree burns and you have to apologize.

• 20:14Speaker 01

  So this is what Stalin would do, right? Stalin, food bowls, chuck straight out the window. If he received a busy signal on the phone, he would smash the handset.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  I tell you, you can't send emails like that to Stalin. You can't say, oh, just throwing food out the window, please.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  But that, but that's Charlie. He'd be like, well, I'm not apologising, I'm gonna kill you. Fuck off, fuck off. I can throw a coffee out the window if I want. Yeah. I can throw a whole entire lot out the window if I want. Fuck off. At the Dacha, right, as Stalin grows older, he spends more time in the countryside retreat, he garlands, feeds the animals. He loves squirrels in particular.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Oh, he's a nice man.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  There's a kind of dad, again, it's like, you know, it's like, remember when we did Gaddafi's children? And there's those photos of Gaddafi with his boys at the zoo. And you think, you know.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Is he that bad?

• 20:59Speaker 01

  There's a softness there.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  So Hitler likes animals, Stalin likes animals. You can actually understand it though, because you can't trust humans to, animals, you can understand, they're not trying to betray, there's not a loyalty thing with animals.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  It's unconditional love.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's all they want.

• 21:13Speaker 06

  That's the most amazing bit about them.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  That is the most amazing thing about them. Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 06

  And they're themselves all of the time.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And you can't trust anyone when you're power. They all want something from you.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  So.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Really humanises them.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  But he really hated being alone because he was obviously completely paranoid. And so he had all these dinners. Now, this is probably my favourite part of the story. So he would have these mad dinners, Caligula-esque, right, where he'd get this small circle of leaders, Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov, Malinkov, all the kind of, basically the top brass that he hasn't killed.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  All of the death of Stalin cast, basically.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Basically that, yeah. So they would be ordered to appear late night with no notice. The dinner could last six hours, right, before entertainment even began. So he'd basically get everyone absolutely fucked with vodka, cognac, champagne. He would dilute his own drinks with water. And they basically had to all get fucked. People would be vomiting.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  And, and if they then.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  And this is high command. These are nice power people in the Soviet Union.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And if they collapsed, people were like, get back at the table, you're gonna kill you, right? So he had drinking games with their.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Throwing up in Stalin's toilet in his Dacha.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 02

  The thoughts must have gone through your head if you're the Dacha's toilet.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Oh, really fuck this. Yeah. Oh, no.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  I'm in Stalin's toilet.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Tito, right, who would, I mean, we'll go beyond Tito at some point. He once vomited down his sleeve so as not to disrupt Stalin eating, right? He was just at the table, just.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  And this is a powerful dictator himself.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. This is like the cabinet meeting, right? Just.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  It's like the G8, but they're all just getting fucked all the time. So.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Were you talking about some of the drinking games he does?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  So they had to, Stalin said you have to estimate the temperature, and if they guessed like a degree wrong, they had to drink three shots.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  I mean, this is stag do stuff, right? Beria, Malinkov and Mikoyan basically were persuaded the waiters to give them coloured water. So that Stalin would think they're drinking wine. But they're like, I can't do this again. It's like three nights in a row. Stalin sees that and goes fucking mental.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  What the fuck are you doing? The whole point is that you're pissed.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Having a laugh. Yeah, yeah.

• 23:15Speaker 02

  Are we having a laugh or not?

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  It's not funny unless you're throwing up all over yourself.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  What do you mean you're not drinking? I don't care if it's January.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Have a drink. Khrushchev would get, would go home so pissed that he wet the bed. And he would try and remember what happened by writing down the events of the night with the help of his wife, right? Now, now.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Cause it's so important. You had to remember what you said to him, what he's.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  It's Stalin. It's time man of the year, and he's making you get pissed. Now, this is my favourite bit. This is Stalin's drunken practical jokes. He would, is this a practical joke? He'd get officials drunk and just push them into a pond.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know if that, is that practical?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Just walk around, that's going, ah, fuck you.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  I guess because they think they're not gonna be in a pond and then they are. I guess that's the practical joke. That's the prank.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  That's just assault, isn't it? That's just pushing a drunk guy in a pond.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  The prank is they think the next step is gonna be on land, but it's actually that the next step will be in water.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Pushed into a pond by their boss. I mean, that is, I mean, it's funny. It's almost like he's just treating it like GTA. Just everyone's an NPC. Fuck off, you go in the pond. It happened so frequently, the guards drained the pond, fearing somebody would drown.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  But there's a level of absolute power where it becomes boring. He's now, what more is there to really conquer for him? There's not many more places he can really push to.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  He's beaten Hitler.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  The man who, you know, trusted.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Kicking people in the pond.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  He doesn't trust anyone anymore, you know?

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Apart from the squirrels.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Squirrels are the only people that got left.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  Hello, mate, how you doing? Fuck off, bored. You know, I think Stalin is really bored by life at this point.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  And so the only kicks he get are feeding squirrels or pushing people to ponds.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So there's a point where a drunken Beria suggests quail shooting. Stalin fires a gun into the ground, nearly hits one of his companions. He then fires it into the air and hit two of his guards with birdshot. He orders Khrushchev to perform the hopak, which is that squatting dance. Now, obviously, if you just look at a picture of Khrushchev, he looks like a potato on legs. So.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Also, he's the next leader of the Soviet Union. It's pretty funny to get him to fucking.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Khrushchev has to basically do it even though he isn't capable of doing it. And he has to smile while he's doing it.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  They would hide, he would hide tomatoes in somebody's clothes, then shove them against a wall.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  He's just rattling around bored as fuck, you know? He'd put salt in the vodka, wait for his guests to throw up.

• 25:38Speaker 02

  Russian humour, I guess, is, is a little bit more, yeah, it's more blunt, like.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  I've got to say, I've got quite a Russian sense of humour.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, uh.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  I find it quite funny.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  I was having dinner with some Russians, because my, my ex was Russian, right, and the, an uncle of hers, proper Russian, right? Said, you comedian? Look at this meme. He hands over the phone, right? It's the old timey.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Boxers.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Boxer with the top text, bottom text, right? And it said, period blood? More like sex ketchup.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Fucking hell. Sex ketchup.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  That's awful.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  Hideous.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Very Russian sort of sense of humour.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  So people would be having dinner for ages, getting drunk.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Stalin made gay illegal.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Phoebe, come on.

• 26:23Speaker 02

  Stalin made gay illegal.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  But on the pro side, Stalin made gay illegal. Yes, Phoebe, thank you. Always adding balance to the podcast. Yeah. He was a nasty piece of work with his practical jokes, but Stalin made gay illegal, so, you know, every cloud. All right, all right. Anyway.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  At around 2am, Stalin would then move everyone into his private cinema. Now, he loves films, loves American films.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  He's a cinephile.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Right, he's a cinephile. But he hated nudity in any sexual content, which is awesome. So if you were his film curator, you basically had to make sure there'd be no funny business, otherwise he would explode, like, what's this filth doing on my screen? Push you into a canal.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  He would also translate foreign films aloud despite being not good at it.

• 27:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  And then Stalin enjoyed listening to him, tried to struggle. Isn't there, there's a story where Stalin fucking, um, what does he, oh yeah, he would basically stand up and talk about what was gonna happen before it happened.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  This bit, you're gonna love this bit.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, the worst guy to watch a film is. Yeah. Oh, this bit's coming out. Look what's gonna happen. Then, isn't there a thing?

• 27:29Speaker 02

  But then also, if I'm, I wouldn't really care if I'm just trying to survive. It's not like, oh god, I really want.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  It's two in the morning, you've already thrown up twice.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  It's always like, him describing it.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  You've just come out of a canal, you're soaking, and Stalin's like, oh, watch this bit. You're like, fuck, I hate my job so much.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  If I got my keys, I'll fuck tomorrow in my pocket.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Fucking tomatoes. He would act out the scene before it happened. Isn't there a story about John Wayne? Have we got that in the script?

• 27:50Speaker 02

  He loved John Wayne.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  So there's a story about how Stalin was obsessed with John Wayne, but then John Wayne was a, was a fucking, he was an anti-communist. Maybe this is later, I don't know.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  John Wayne, Stalin then basically orders John Wayne to be assassinated. So there's these two agents that are in, that are tracking him. And then the, yeah, the film star, here we go. Stalin became so irritated by Wayne's anti-communist politics that he ordered Soviet agents to assassinate him. The story claims a Russian filmmaker with connections to Soviet intelligence warns Wayne that assassins are coming. So Wayne and an associate tracked the men down, kidnapped them, took them to a beach and staged a mock execution. So they put on their knees with their hands restrained, made to believe they're about to be shot, and then the warning worked and the agents supposedly later defect and assist the FBI.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Pretty sick from Wayne.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Fucking John Wayne. I mean, film stars nowadays aren't doing that. They're doing fucking speeches about climate change. Twats. Yeah? Why aren't you, why aren't you mock assassinating the KGB? That's a proper film star, that is. Yeah? Rather than going on and whanging on about something.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  It's apocryphal. Stalin made gay illegal, apocryphal. Banter denied.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  At five in the morning, Stalin might suggest another film, after which he would ask everyone whether they wanted something else to eat.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  Because he doesn't really have a wife at the moment.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Now, this is a bit like Charlie.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  He doesn't want to go to bed.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  He would take charge of the record player, then force everyone to listen to records like dogs barking. That's like your car. What were we wearing in the cricket? What were you playing in your car? Something fucking men groaning. A 10 minute soundtrack of men going, "Ohhhhh". And you're like, "Yeah, yeah, sick mate. Wait for it to drop." "Ohhhhh". And the drop's just, "Ohhhhh, ohhhhh, ohhhhh". Oh, it's crazy.

• 29:44Speaker 06

  Do you have a little bang on it now?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, will it get licensed?

• 29:48Speaker 06

  They'll think that, I think they'll think it's us.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  No, they won't. It's not how it works. You fucking idiot. They're like, is that, is that that famous men groan? Oh, no, it's them. It's probably them.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  So that, yeah, 10 minutes of that in the car.

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:01Speaker 06

  Get the idea.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  What's that? So who's that? Who's that artist? Should we shout their name?

• 30:04Speaker 06

  Uh, it's by Pro Sound Effects.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Pro Sound Effects. Fucking hell. Anyway.

• 30:10Speaker 06

  There's also men whimpering and lawnmower.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  No, I don't need to hear their old album. I need to do a deep dive, listening party to Pro Sound Effects. Anyway, so in the small hours of the morning, Stalin would release everyone and then he'd then just drink by himself, finally fall asleep, wake up sometime in the afternoon and just go again.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Right. So these are his, you know, and this is while the Cold War's happening. I think he's probably a bit bored by the Cold War, to be honest, because it's not, there's not the hot war.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  And then we get, now I didn't know about this. This is extraordinary. In his final years, he's even more paranoid. He says, quote, "I trust no one, not even myself." And increasingly, this paranoia becomes antisemitic.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  It's interesting.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Right. Now, he'd had Jewish associates and relatives by marriage. Okay. He had worked with Jews for decades.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, Lenin and Trotsky were Jewish.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Exactly. Right. Stalin basically starts to become antisemitic because of Israel. Because he expected Israel to weaken British interests in the Middle East. And yet, Israel quite quickly aligns with the West.

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  So.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  It's a beachhead for the West and the Middle East.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Exactly. So there are thoughts, there are plans, or there are rumours that Stalin basically orders all these concentration camps to be built in fucking like Borat region.

• 31:25Speaker 02

  Right.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Like, "My wife, Auschwitz", all that, right? In that part of Russia.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  "I'm a Mac fly."

• 31:33Speaker 01

  "I'm a mother, yes, please". And, "I am a king of the gav". All that stuff.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, Asian concentration camps, yeah.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  I know, right? "A telephone".

• 31:46Speaker 00

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• 32:15Speaker 04

  He built the first planet-wide media empire.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  He monetized the paranoia and resentment that led to Donald Trump and Brexit.

• 32:22Speaker 04

  He ruined his own family in his obsessive quest for money, power and legacy.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  This is the story of Rupert Murdoch, the real-life succession.

• 32:31Speaker 04

  Join me, Dorian Linsky.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  And me, Ian Dunst, for season 10 of Origin Story, the show that uses the past to explain the present.

• 32:39Speaker 04

  That's Origin Story, kicking off with a two-part special on Rupert Murdoch on all podcast platforms now.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  There are signs that he may have been preparing.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  His next big purge, for his next project.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  Was, yeah, was basically to carry on Hitler's work. That was the, now, this is unsubstantiated stuff. This is conjecture, but there are thoughts.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  He was knocking around the house, though, and he, he didn't know what to do with himself. He wasn't purging.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  You know, when you've defeated everyone, what do you do?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Tell them the Jews.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Go on the Jews.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  Because he was like, "Oh, wait, it's a time in history."

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Is it 1950s? Oh, that's right. Yeah.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  It's, yeah, it's just a time in history. I might as well.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Go on the Jews. Yeah. So there's, I mean, now he will die before this great big purge would happen, but it, yeah. There are thoughts that maybe he would have just, you know, just fucking, fuck it. Go for the Jews again.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Anyway, in January 1953, we come to the doctors' plot, okay? Which is where the Soviet press announced that leading doctors had been uncovered as a member of a conspiracy to murder the Soviet leadership. Many of the accused were Jewish. And so pretty much every medical specialist in the country is arrested, interrogated and tortured. You know, he's running that shit back. It's now just, let's go down to the doctors.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  So the distrust of doctors became so extreme that basically his main source of medical advice was a bodyguard who had been a vet at some point. And so by the 50s, Stalin had high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems, but he'd arrested every doctor who was qualified to treat him. So on the evening of 28th of February 1953, Beria, Malinkov, Khrushchev, they're eating and drinking with him all night. At 4am, Stalin goes to his room alone.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  I just wanted to see, like, is this midweek? Is he doing this for the weekend? Is this just meant to be like?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  It was a Saturday.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Saturday, fine. So Saturday night.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, fine, fine, fine. So Saturday night. So then he doesn't come out for 24 hours and everyone's like, hmm, that's weird. But it is a Sunday.

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  You know, give them out in the line. And he's 70 something.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Don't rest.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he's hoofing it for 70 something. You know?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  So they had strict orders not to disturb him. So at 11pm on the 1st of March, which is, must be like later that night, Sunday evening, is it? Stalin is found unconscious on the floor, heavily breathing and had pissed himself. He'd had a massive stroke, so no one touched him.

• 35:07Speaker 01

  And at one point, a cleaning woman pushed her way through, went over to Stalin and said he's dead and just started hoovering. Awesome. But he wasn't dead. He was sort of barely conscious. Some doctor or vet who was still allowed to practise arrives, basically too terrified to touch the body. They put leeches on his face and for the next several days, he drifted in and out of consciousness before, on the 5th of March, 1953, about 10 to 10 in the evening, Stalin passes away at the age of 74.

• 35:35Speaker 02

  It's an awesome time because it's like, they're all, when he's, when, when Beria thinks he's dead, Beria's like slagging him off, spitting at him, saying, "You dog". Then he comes back and he's on his knees going, "Ohhhhh", then he's dead again, "You piece of shit. I always knew I'd be better than you".

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Because now, I mean, now it's absolute chaos. Because you've got all these, everyone's terrified of Stalin. Stalin didn't really say anything about his succession, right? He didn't, it wasn't like Lenin where he was.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  But also like, this was interesting about Stalin, similar to Mao, they're not trying to build family dynasties, which is normally a big part of being one of these great leaders. You're trying to carry your line on.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Well, it's communism, isn't it?

• 36:11Speaker 02

  You just don't really, it's, like, the Stalin line doesn't really, we'll get on to his children, but it fades away. It doesn't really.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  His granddaughter runs a fucking antique shop in Portland, Oregon.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Which is awesome.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  You can really track communism's aura.

• 36:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  From Stalin, who beat Hitler, to some fucking woman in Portland with blue hair selling antique chairs. That have probably got vegan leather on them.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Probably, these days. So his funeral, the queues stretched for eight miles through Moscow. 109 people get crushed to death at the, just, you know.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Is he adding to his numbers just from the death posthumously?

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Fucking just get a little Soviet Hillsborough in there. Why not? Fucking tag on. Why not? 109 people. I'm, I'm dead and I'm still killing people. Yeah?

• 36:56Speaker 02

  If you think about how serious Hillsborough is and how much of a defining memory it is, numbers-wise, in Russia, it's like, there's like 50 million people have died in the last 20 years.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're saying like, "Oh, Hillsborough."

• 37:08Speaker 02

  "I'll never read the sun again."

• 37:09Speaker 01

  What? Hillsborough? Fucking Stalin's funeral's bigger than Hillsborough. Yeah?

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Screaming.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Screaming. Huh? 100%. Yeah. It's just, the numbers are another world.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  It's another world.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  So obviously throughout Eastern Europe, everyone gets told to like publicly mourn. It's like when the Queen died and they can only play sad songs on the radio. So then we get to the succession struggles, which obviously, if you've seen The Death of Stalin, that's how that plays out. Malinkov, Beria, Molotov and Khrushchev.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Now, Beria is the most dangerous man because he'd run the security service and he knows where everything's buried. But everyone hates him.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  Because he's.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  He's a serial killer. He's truly like, truly evil to another level.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  He's a bad egg.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  He's a bad egg. He's like burying young, like, he's raping young girls and burying them in the garden. It's like, the next level, it's like another level.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  And that's just Monday.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, Beria's a bad guy. So Beria gets confronted by everyone else and then Zhukov and the rest of the army arrest him. And they take his glasses and take the buttons off his trousers.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So he's trying to pull, he's trying to hold them off.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  It's absolutely humiliating. So he gets executed later that year and then Malinkov says, "I'll be successor", but then he gets outmaneuvered by Khrushchev. I think we'll deal with Khrushchev when we come to do that. But Khrushchev is probably quite brave in that three years later, he holds this, this amazing speech where he basically says, "We can all, let's, should we talk about it?"

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. What the fuck was that?

• 38:47Speaker 01

  What? Stalin was a maniac.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's crazy.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  I don't want to tell Taylor's out of school here, but that was fucking mental.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  And then suddenly, this is the process.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  He's the sort of Deng Xiaoping of Russia, just less successful, I guess.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  So he starts a process of de-Stalinisation. Where political prisoners are released, the victims of the terror rehabilitated, statues of Stalin start to come down. And his embalmed body was quietly removed from its place beside Lenin and buried beside the Kremlin war. So that's a shame. So that you could have had to, you could now have seen Lenin and Stalin embalmed next to each other.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, that's a great, you know, TripAdvisor. Thanks for doing Moscow.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  More embalming. More embalming, not less.

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Well, let's see Stalin's embalmed body. That's because it must still be there. Let's have a look.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  No, it's buried now. Oh, he looks so peaceful. Oh, that's nice. You can see the both of them.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, the guys.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  The boys. More embalming. More, not less.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Well, is Stalin's body now buried?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. Look, he looks so peaceful, doesn't he?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, dig it out. It's still embalmed, though.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  He's finally pushed his last official in a canal.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. So to some Stalin up, really, I mean, the death toll, only Mao can compete.

• 40:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Really. You're looking at something like 20 to 30 million deaths internally.

• 40:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's just internally.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Uh, that doesn't, that doesn't even-

• 40:13Speaker 02

  Mao didn't mean a lot of his, and Stalin actually kind of sort of did a lot. Well.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Well, this is the thing. I think Mao and Stalin-

• 40:20Speaker 02

  He manufactured his famers more than Mao did.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A whole lot more, yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  He knew what was going on.

• 40:27Speaker 01

  He knew what was going on. But also Stalin just thinks it's a necessary byproduct of progress.

• 40:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  But so did Hitler. And I feel like people need to, they're one, they're peas in a pod, as I've said. So, um, uh, when you're scoring the doors in modern Russia, he's basically, he's been rehabilitated recently by Putin.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  Putin, for that statue that went up in the Moscow train station.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:53Speaker 02

  Which was put up, I think, a couple of years ago. Um, and he's trying to rehabilitate Stalin's image. And then a British reporter called Putin out and Putin immediately said, well, you've got a statue of Oliver Cromwell outside your parliament. And it's kind of like-

• 41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  You know, if you think, obviously it's a smaller scale because it's Britain.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  But what Cromwell did in-

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Ban Christmas.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, ban Christmas.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  For three years.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  What he did in Ireland, like, I don't know, if you, it's a complicated figure. You still think Cromwell deserves to be there because of what he did. And he's an important figure. He really did bad. Stalin also won in the war. You would, you'd have a statue of Churchill, even though he did-

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Cromwell was rebuffed in Ireland. I mean, you know.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  I do sort of, actually weirdly, find myself agreeing with Putin on this one. I'm like-

• 41:34Speaker 01

  You agree with Putin on a lot.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  Much more than I think.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  You quite often come in and say, well, you know, not to agree with Putin.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  Uh, but he's, uh, he represents the strength, Russia at its strongest. So you can understand why they'd want it.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  But also as the-

• 41:48Speaker 02

  And he's the most famous Russian, probably.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And as the first guy to try communism, he kind of leaves the blueprint for what communism will become.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  You know, because he's the first one to do it.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  But then communism sort of doesn't exist really in that way at all anymore. It only really exists in like universities in the West.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  That's what I mean. But it's because it's been so delegitimized as an idea.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Because of the reality of its implementation. Now, people will say, uh, it was, it's inevitable that that would happen because that's what it takes to implement it.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  But the whole Marx's whole thing, I mean, I'll defer to the man who used to, used to-

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Say this to women with no hair so you could finger them.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Uh, Marx's whole thing was that- Nice to meet you, this guy.

• 42:33Speaker 02

  How are you? Good. Hello.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Who's got two thumbs and wants to finger nine binary women? Hello.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Marx's whole thing was that at some point, it is inevitable that the state will disappear because everyone will be living in some kind of shared utopia.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  But the irony is, is that the Russian state had never been more powerful than under Stalin.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Because it's, see, it controlled every aspect of people's life.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  So he would, Stalin would say, in order to get to the point where we're not, we don't need it.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Then it has to be really strong.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  But also-

• 43:05Speaker 01

  But that's, ironically, America is the, is the smallest state, right? That's the irony of it. In that the, the least involved state in the world is the one where-

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  People are freest. Now, that, that freedom means that you're allowed to just smear shit under the shopping centre wall.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  But freedom on the left.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Gun down children, but that's what freedom is.

• 43:23Speaker 02

  It's what freedom is.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  If you want freedom, then you go there.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you just hope that your kids get through school without being shot in the head.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  But that's freedom.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. My kids are free to be massacred. Are your kids? No.

• 43:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  So-

• 43:35Speaker 02

  But Marx was like a theory and a critique of capitalism. And then Lenin was like, well, I'm going to put my own spin on it.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 02

  And my own spin on it is that, is basically it.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  But Stalin, Stalin goes further than Lenin would have, I think. Because Lenin-

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Much further.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that's the, and then, and Trotsky, I mean, who knows what that cop would have done, but.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  It would have been interesting.

• 43:53Speaker 06

  Also, um, the fact that at the end, he just, he's kind of just getting pissed and throwing people in the pond.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, go on.

• 43:58Speaker 06

  That shows that really we're all kind of the same.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  That's a lovely thought to end on.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Communist or capitalist.

• 44:03Speaker 06

  Whatever, whoever. You just, all of us in the end just want to be at home.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Well, because he started living like you live at the end.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Chucking food out of windows. Yeah. Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 06

  I mean, he doesn't actually, if you, if people were nice to him when he was growing up, maybe none of this would have happened.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Well, there's all these points. Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  You know, communist or capitalist, we can all agree it's really fun chucking stuff out of windows that's not meant to go out of there.

• 44:23Speaker 06

  If we're all doing that, maybe it's fine.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Defenestrating lattes.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's more that unites us than divides us.

• 44:28Speaker 06

  Stalin.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Hot coffee's out of windows.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  Charlene.

• 44:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Charlene. Yeah. I mean, I mean, it's been a big series, five parts, Charlie. Your closing thoughts on Stalin on the man?

• 44:39Speaker 06

  Well, it's kind of that, really.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:40Speaker 06

  We all just want to be at home.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Chucking mates in ponds.

• 44:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 44:43Speaker 02

  Putting tomatoes in mates' pockets.

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Watching telly.

• 44:45Speaker 06

  I mean, that shows that everyone dresses up all serious, but that's all we really want to do.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  At the end of the day, you want to go watch telly and have a laugh.

• 44:51Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  All right. Well, that's a nice message to take away. Thanks for, uh, checking with us for this five part epic on the Patreon. Uh, we're dealing with Stalin's children and, uh, the life and times of friend of the pod, Lorenzo Berrio. Um, next week will be a brand new topic, uh, probably be some roughage to, um, just to sort our stomachs out after this absolute mixed grill.

• 45:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  See you next time. Until then.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  Goodbye.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 45:32Speaker 00

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