The Original 'Worst Guys At A House Party' | The Russian Revolution of 1917 (Part 3/5)

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1:42welcome back part three of uh fin versus history on the russian revolution uh i'm here with the the commies we finally got here you know i know that you it i forced you to do this topic i lean i lean right i lean to the right i dress to the right yeah my balls lean to the right and you don't seem to be giving these guys the sympathy that you give hitler in many ways no they're they're listen lenin have you not found the characters just from a historical perspective you've come around to how thrilling these people are as all of them historical figures all of them to a man wankers get a photo get a photo as opposed to Hitler get a photo of Trotsky up yeah I'm saying at least with Hitler I wear my red tie for this at least with Hitler you know you think well that's a fun guy really that one this one these cunts Fedora Pazne thinks he knows everyone better than everyone what an absolute wanker right as opposed to Nazi high command what a bunch of lads oh yeah it's a beer hall beer hall putsch wasn't it it's a stag do it's a bit of fun it's some pints well there okay all right that's a bit much that's my that's my me on hitler right if you had to sum me up on hitler it's like hey where are we going for pints where are we going next all right czechosavaca yeah fine hey oh all right no you've ruined you've ruined it you've ruined it you've ruined the fun these cunts right uh this is the this is the biggest uh this is the origin of um actually that's these guys is it yeah yeah political correctness starts with these fuckers.

3:18No. All of it. All of the starts with these fuckers. Soviet Union, political correctness is a Soviet term. This is what I disagree with. I think Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, they were when the left had some fucking balls. No, no, no, no. Stalin's got balls. Do you think Lenin and Trotsky have balls? No. Trotsky's a fucking prick. Yeah, he is a prick but he's got facets to his character. He was also a top military commander in the Russian Civil War. These guys are fucking hard as nails. Stalin's a boss, man. I like Stalin. You like stuff. But I tell you, Come on, you must have come around to the thrill of Lenin.

3:52Studying Lenin, undeniably, there's a charisma there. What I found fascinating was that everything I listened to, which is probably different to what you've listened to, every historian on Lenin could not help but just speak of him with complete contempt. Like, he was middle class. He didn't know anyone real. He was a theorist. He was lost in books. He missed it all. He was angry. I mean, we'll get into it. His character is fascinating. He's a fascinating man. I'm not saying it's not fascinating. What I am saying though is that I don't want to go for a drink with him. Fine, yeah. And I would go for a drink with any of the Nazis.

4:25And I tell you, I tell you, do you know the one thing, the one day that ruined my life? The worst thing in all this? Finding out that Hitler killed himself? No, no. The Nazi-Soviet pact. Why? I thought, Christ. Really? You're signing a deal with these guys? Well, you think that's the worst thing they did? I don't know what to think now. Yeah, that's the lowest it got for me with the Nazis. I mean, what do you mean your friends with these cubs we're going drinking and then going laughing about how much these are boring pricks right that's what i thought but i feel like this uh form of leftism where uh they're so disciplined and uh violent they're not disciplined though they yeah i think not not they take over a whole country with a tiny minority yeah but it wasn't just from fucking about no but the country has collapsed like a pudding and they're the only people who are there to take it when there's a million other factions if there's a pudding on the floor you just need three spoons and you've got a pudding yeah but how many spoons are there in the country of russia they're all fucking running around fucking each other like mad pigs yeah we've just done an episode on some guy with a huge dick that they've pickled because he's just fucking the the country's but i'm saying that this is so far from the kind of uh the the kind of cuck liberal woke uh leftism of today these guys are fucking yeah insane they are but but also what what this starts is the whole left-wing people arguing about who's the most pure that all starts with these guys are not like uh tell me your pronouns it's not like you know winner's medals for all it's more like i'm going to kill the yeah everyone who doesn't hoist a red flag you know yeah but they're everyone who doesn't have the right pronouns right right and the pronoun guys would be nothing without these cunts sure so from my that's what makes this such a historic event right is that it's the beginning of all this sort of stuff your pronouns right pronouns don't exist before leonard comes in so listen uh it's been a loose start um but i stand by everything i said i'd rather go for a beer with any of the nazis than these fuckers but we are we're in the middle of the russian revolution uh in the last episode um we did rasputin the the czarist regime has crumbled yeah now uh we're gonna go back again because that's the problem with this topic or what is kind of thrilling about it is that there is so much going on but very little of it connects to the very end of the story right and there's this kind of maelstrom of different characters who are separated and they're kind of all hurtling they're all hurtling towards this destiny this horrible destiny of pronouns and blue hair um so lenin who is he why does he look like that what's wrong with his head they do all look trotsky and lenin do look kind of fucked they're the worst people you met at uni yeah yeah trotsky in particular i went to bristol uni yeah i've been cornered by trotsky in the kitchen yeah there's pasne telling me that i'm wrong about something i don't want anything to god trotsky's a wanker uh there's so many people i went to uni with who i would like to see dead on a desk in mexico than i was picked up the head uh so in 1870 in sabrinsk but sorry i will just say before you get going i will just say that this is the story of these three commies is fascinating and the the different relationships the how they kind of flow and change and also the different skill sets yes and how they all have different gifts and how what ends up coming up on top and they're all truly different personalities yeah trying to but it's also so like the february revolution was kind of an inevitable populist uprising the pudding the pudding fell off the counter yeah but that was inevitably going to happen it was there was kind of no way that they could maintain the czarist autocratic regime october the communist revolution was no means inevitable no not it was it could have and what's amazing about 1917 as a year is that there's so many different options that russia could have been and it keeps flitting who's on yes that is true and there's so many different people trying to make russia something else and it's just i don't know if it's just pure coincidence that three people with this much i don't know drive talent charisma politically were all on the one side yeah like is it just the coincidence that this specific like minority within socialism ends up being the dominant force in Russia for the next 80 years so uh before we get to 1917 though we are going to start with the story of Lenin now Lenin is born in 1870 his real name is Vladimir Ilyich Ulanov would you like to place this for the dumb dumbs 1870 1870 so 1870 we must remember everyone listening is very very fat and thick yeah so um it's before we can't forget that our listeners are there yeah right so 80 70s before jack the ripper hit mary jane kelly for six okay and it's after uh the cricket cricket was invented and the first six was hit so it's after sixes are a thing yeah it's before jack the ripper starts smashing women over cow corner reverse ramping Mary Shane the Chelly see you later she didn't to the stands that woman goes so they'd understand the cricket analogy yeah but they wouldn't understand who we're talking about cricket's not really in Russia at this point not at all it never really is and one of the things I don't like about in my head about Leland Trotsky is that if you try and talk about cricket they'd be like I don't like cricket yeah right because it's an imperial game yes they do like To put a lot of water on fun fires.

9:51Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah. They're the fun police. Yeah. They're the original fun police. Yeah. But there's something quite Protestant about that, don't you think? Oh, but they're nihilists. Right. They're not Lutherans at all, are they? No, but you could make an argument that the ferocity of the Marxist ideology is treated very similar to quite like a Protestant reading of the Bible. I guess Protestants still, at the end of the day, have something to live for there, don't they? Right. Yeah, I guess so. So listen, right. He's born, as you say, Vladimir Ilyich Lyanov, April the 22nd, two days after Hitler's birthday, if you're interested, but not in that year.

10:32Hitler was not yet born. Lenin was older than Hitler. Hitler's more of a fun guy because he's younger, I guess. Sure, sure. He's son of a liberal civil servant. So quite like a, I mean, upper middle class for Russia, I guess, which means his dad is a school inspector, which I don't know if I'd consider that upper middle class, but I think in the States. That's him, Ilya Ulyanov. And then his older brother, who he touched on, Alexander, nicknamed Sasha, is executed for attempting to assassinate Sir Alexander III, which I don't think he was meant to be the man of the house. Because his dad dies quite young, I think.

11:10I think it's quite, you know, they had quite a big garden. they were like you know they're living better than most Russians yes and they love their books yes he's a bookish cunt yeah very much so they're always at Waterstones he loves his mum mama mama he loves his mummy and his dad dies suddenly and then his brother gets banged up again he gets assassinated he gets killed executed that's the word I think he gets executed maybe in St. Petersburg or one of the major cities and they get they're like do you want to come watch they're like do you want to come watch your brother being hanged and this is like the first they've heard of it they're like why why are you hanging him oh because he tried to kill the Tsar what Sasha but this is a goodie boy so they're yeah they're finding out that a sex tape's been leaked yeah of your like good good son in a Berlin sex club what he doesn't yeah like just Charlie's mum yeah basically finding out where Charlie's been yeah Charlie no well no Charlie's been sexually blackmailed and the punishment because he hasn't paid up is they're going to send links to all his family yeah of him wanking his webcam my Charlie my Charlie and then you click on the link oh my god my charlie who loves a cream bun china loves a lot more than a cream yeah you don't know what a cream bun is love here you go what is a cream bun you'll see if i can cream bun is is that when you come in your own ass what's going on that's when you come in your own ass yeah cream bun yeah so basically to go to sorry charlie what noise are you making when you make a cream bun it hurts at the start and then it's good right

12:43basically when they're going to uh sasha's funeral yeah or even to see him getting hanged in the major city his mom wants to go but she can't be quite different things do you reckon you go see the sun get hanged or is it you've made the trips you you probably is it yeah should we go to the funeral the hanging what do you reckon we can only afford to go once but listen back to Lenin so yeah his middle class comfortable upbringing is shattered by the the execution of his brother and his mum wanted to go to the funeral and I think Lenin couldn't be in the country for it for something or was you know potentially on the run so he was trying to find another middle he wasn't in the run yet he wasn't on the run yet well for some reason because he gets radicalised by this for some reason he couldn't accompany his mother to the funeral so he had to find one of his neighbours to take care of his poor mum to travel across the country because a woman can't travel through Russia on her own.

13:32Listen, they got some things right. I don't think women should travel alone. And of all the bourgeoisie middle-class neighbours, all of them turned their backs on him. And that led to his kind of real, part of his real hatred of the bourgeoisie and viewed them as like immoral and selfish and, you know. Yeah, but to be fair to them, his brother has just tried to kill the Zara. I think if he could get a bit of a perspective on this, he'd be like, yeah, well, fair enough. I mean, my brother did a bit of a boo-boo. but he finds out what Alexander was into so Alexander by the way had got into Marx yeah well it's sort of like you know your older brother showing you music Andrew Tate videos yeah it's the same so he was into Tate that's what kind of forced he fell in with a bad crowd tried to kill the czar got caught hanged and then Lenin can't believe this but this is the OG like there's so many uni students you know I've had my experiences with it you go to uni there's the left wing vibe at uni but this is the originals right This is why they're so annoying.

14:30This is the first to ever do it. Yeah. So it must have felt truly exciting at that time. I guess so. Because this is the first time that anyone's even doing this stuff. They have nothing to compare it to. So Marx's literature has come in when the censors were relaxed. And he went to uni in Kazan and then starts getting radicalised. But yeah, he goes through all the stuff that his brother was into. He was like, because he thinks, well, his brother must have really thought this, believed in it to try and kill the Tsar. So what's he on about? so then he reads marks he starts forming an underground socialist cells among industrial workers is arrested in 1895 in prison then exiled to siberia for three years now this is a big important part of like your i don't know uh credentials it's your stripes right yeah going to siberia yeah if you it's kind of like doing jail time in a way if you get sent to siberia it shows that you've like that you're you've got some legitimacy yeah but also all of these guys want to get sent to Siberia for a little bit.

15:25But Siberia's not actually that bad. Seemingly not. Because like... This is just exile. It's not Gulag. Yeah, you just go to a place where there's loads of space and you can like read. I think he does lots of writing and reading and shit. He's always writing and reading. Now I must say, when he was born, by the way, this is a fun fact, when he was born, his head was so much bigger than it should have been. Really? Yeah, the midwife. He's a megamind. Yeah, he's one of yours. Yeah, megamind. This is Lenin when he's born. Yeah. So the midwife said that he will either be very intelligent or very stupid which is a quite an astute point which in a way he's both isn't he right do you not think i guess so well how is he stupid well he's he's like overeducated and doesn't know what yeah well it's so much so he doesn't know that anyone wants or needs right yeah yeah he thinks that yeah i'll just abolish money that's what everyone needs so he's in siberia which isn't that bad no uh and then he uh launches a paper called iskra right which is like a sort of marxist newspaper he loves right this is the kind of peak of the pen is muncher than the sword right this is where like yeah reddit forums this is when they're doing the most damage right yeah yeah so while he's in siberia in 1898 in minsk uh the russian socialist democratic laborers party there's so many factions by the way in this story yeah it's it's why i kind of tune now yeah the amount of committees this is the the peak of committees but it's like i didn't know russia's loved committees as much as this but they like suffering yeah it's unbelievable they just want the most to be so bored it gets ludicrous especially in 1917 the amount of committees inquiries and stuff but they last like 15 hours well it's not an inquiry we love an inquiry yeah it's not a committee right it's different yes it is british love an inquiry into what happened and the committee's like what should we do right and it's all committee it's all committee no inquiry no they should do a lot more inquiries yeah they'd learn from their mistakes they did inquiries yeah the communists never did inquiries did they no and i actually think part of the reason that commune like you know why is hitler seen as so much worse than the communists is because we had a nuremberg where the nazis were like publicly shamed and tried there was never there's never been a truck like a nuremberg for communism has there yeah none of the crimes of communism has sort of been but also um you know killing five million people was more of a well we kind of fucked that up whereas when Hitler kills 5 million people he's like well brilliant we nailed that yes it was kind of with the communists his incompetence and bad planning and management ends up I do think they hide behind that a lot well they love it they sort of love it they have the same attitudes of human life really yes that's true Hitler's got you know it's like do you want your your meat packaged and chopped and sanitised or do you want to go and laugh in the abattoir it's still ultimately a dead pig isn't it yeah This episode is brought to you by PayPal.

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18:59Brussels clean up nicely at Sweetgreen. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweetgreen's fall harvest is back on the menu. and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app. So he comes back, when he comes, he adopts the name Lenin in Siberia, in exile, starts his paper. They all adopt names. They're kind of secret names. When he comes out of exile, where he's developed a lot of his ideas, because it's not safe to be a socialist in Russia because the Tsarist police, the Okhrana, in 1903, all of the socialists meet in London because that's kind of a relatively kind of uncensored city well much like now it's what's it called London Londonisburg Londonistan not Londonistan what do they call Russian because you know how it's sort of a safe haven for oligarchs yes what's it called Londongrad Londongrad that's it yeah they're all in Chelsea it's always been Londongrad because we let we let Lenin come over we let the boys come over and they have their conference and then there was a pub I think in Islington which makes sense makes sense in the top room of a pub in Islington oh Jeremy Corbyn yeah that one yeah that pub yeah where all the barbers with all the Jeremy Corbyn pictures yeah exactly yeah they go past a Turkish that's got a picture of Jeremy Corbyn Dermot O 'Leary these are all the celebrities they're coming Lenin and weirdly I think over quite a small debate about basically how personally involved each member has to be of the communist party yeah leads to one of the key splits and there's basically two uh halves of the socialist party split up into the bolsheviks which means the majority it's russian for majority and the mensheviks which means the minority even though the names don't really make sense and it's part lenin chooses the men chooses it which is which is to be fair to him genius yeah in that no one like going to the country with a party called for the minority it's mad yeah whereas Bolsheviks were for the minority much more than the Bolsheviks.

21:07Oh yeah, yeah. Because basically if you're a Bolshevik, which Lenin was going to lead and believes in, he basically believes there should be a small professional band of revolutionary cadres who are going to lead the revolution. So it's going to be just a committed A-team who are going to overtake, throw power over power without any democratic process and that was the only way of achieving revolution. because he wasn't really interested in the popular movement. No. He was interested in people who knew what they're talking about running. You don't know what's good for you. Let me do it. Exactly.

21:41And the Mensheviks, which are run by Martov, who's a bit more of a bohemian. I think he was born in Constantinople. He's a little bit more of a weed-smoking, kind of like chilled-out leftist, right? He's head of the Mensheviks, who believes that... Yeah. Cross-eyed. Yeah, exactly. Cross-eyed fuck. Oh, yeah, because he's just fucking here. He's done some bong rips. He looks like he's hit a lot of rigs quickly. And the Mensheviks wanted it to be a slow democratic movement and when the country was prepared. And it basically ended up being Bolsheviks hard left, Mensheviks more moderate. The Mensheviks sort of wanted to let the revolution happen and then after a period of democracy, transition into a supposedly socialist utopia, as Marx had said, Lenin was like, fuck that democratic bit.

22:28Let's just fast forward to the bit where I'm in charge. one thing about lennon is he was very he seems like a very awake man yes i feel a lot of leftists these days there's a lot of uh long covid there's a lot of chronic fatigue there's a lot of like smoking weed yeah then lennon is is sat upright in his intensity and his focus he's got a right wing work ethic this is what i mean this is why this is what's interesting about the leftists of this period they're so different to what leftism is now in many ways yes or even people who spout Leninist Leninist Maoist ideas are very different to those revolutionaries I know those revolutionaries now yes and it's you know it's part of the Corbynista movement it's kind of like it's very linked to sort of Berlin nightclubs tattoos blue hair yeah nose rings a lot of very overweight people saying that it's your fault they're overweight yeah that is so different to the most Lenin who's balding at 21 yeah do you know loves exercise loves exercise yeah and is just maybe politically the most focused politician of all time.

23:35Yeah, he's so focused that he misses everything that happens, which is quite funny. Like, as in he's so... Well, he misses it up until 1917. That's what I mean. But when he arrives, his focus is so laser focused during a period of complete chaos that he manages to pull off. Still, it's extraordinary they managed to pull this off. like the it was not written in the stars no no definitely wasn't it's down to the the kind of force of nature of people like lenin trotsky a little bit styler but mainly lenin trotsky that this was pulled off because it just shouldn't that it didn't have popular support it was just down to the kind of because even like you look at the i don't know how the spread of talent ended up all being the bolsheviks because even martov the head of the mensheviks happened to just be not very good speaker a bit more chilled out but it's just it's funny how like the way the way people can talk about how brilliant lenin is in taking power yeah you compare that to if i was to say the same thing about the holocaust right like isn't it just amazing but like of all the things you do say that yeah but that's what that's what i mean is that you say that regularly one is worse one is seen as worse than the other isn't it and it's like this this ultimately is misery for hundreds of millions of people for years but you also marvel and people do marvel at the way that hitler took power yes do you know what i mean incredible so it's the same thing yeah i know but there's a double standard i what's different is i do think hitler was going on a uh a wave of he would capitalize on a wave of anti-semitism and yes yeah yeah and it was a popular and lenin through his writings his focus and his organization yeah managed to shift this insane country this massive country which is i think it's far harder to kind of like turn in many ways yeah no that is true that is the force of i mean he did there was nothing popular about him at all until very unpopular guy a massive loser i guess party as well it's because it you speak i think at every moment of this story we've got to keep cutting to a old babushka surf woman in siberia there's never been a time of more political changes in 1917 in russia and a peasant in their farm in Tiberia nothing changed nothing changes they're still just there yeah so this whole I think partly why he has this mentality of having to do it without popular support is because it's uneducated peasants most of the country yeah right yeah so he's in London and in 1902 he gets a knock on the door and they're staying in a flat near King's Cross him and now he's we should say he's met he loves going out to cold drops yard and he loves going cold drops yard he loves playing table football he's always at the British museum actually uh british library that's true the read you know the reading room in the british library you've been in there no so you can go in the british museum and they've i think it's the yeah so the british museum now if you go into that thing in the middle it's that there's still the same reading room that lennon would go into so lennon lennon the reason he goes to london um is that he realizes that if he's gonna you know study a revolution and think he's a big big thinker wants to think about the revolution he realizes that it's if he goes to a library the best libraries in the world are not inst petersburg or russia and he's also going to get banged up by the ukrana so um uh he goes to london and he's he goes with this woman he's met in exile which you should say i don't know what was her name again uh his long-suffering wife nadezhivsky krobioskaya nadezhda so she uh they fall uh all the podcasts i listened to they said well lenin she was the second love of lenin's life because the first was revolution right because he was a mistress so maybe that was the third yeah maybe he had a bit hot pyramid but um she was sort of revolutionary as well and then she was quite ill but never really took care of herself because she was just like washing lenin's pants right lenin just didn't give a fuck he just was all in on revolution so all he cared about all he cared about laser focus like books revolution something would happen like the 1905 revolution happens and lenin rather than act on it lenin goes okay let me interpret this through marx's theory and goes back to starts reading engels so that he can reframe it in his head for what it means he's always trying to reframe current events in stuff that's happened like stuff writings but he also what i find interesting about reading about lenin is the way that he bides his time and is so focused on the eventual goal yeah he's not like let's do it uh well no he misses it for the first 20 years and then it's only in 17 when he sees the opportunity because that's the only time that opportunity arises maybe anyway uh 1902 get knock on the door and uh who should be there but the most annoying guy at uni the most annoying guy at uni leon leon trotsky with his wanky glasses and his stupid hair uh he knocks on the door they've not met yet and uh he but i think he just maybe knows he's letting this there i don't know how well yeah they're both the socialist revolutionaries i'm trying to find this one picture in particular where he just looks like so like that's the one with the book title that one no that one christ oh the ultimate looks like me at uni the ultimate fuck the ultimate fuck boy yeah this guy that guy this guy's ghosting the fuck out he's shopping at cars he hosts a podcast about women's football books uh tote bag he's vegan he supports dullage hamlet fc disgusting get him away from me i don't want to see him at the weekend uh he knocks on bett-lenin's door yeah and then they have a lovely day together wanging on about revolution yeah so let's get trotsky's biography up lev david david david bronstine yeah and he was basically kind of a prodigy i think his parents were rich farmers right right and he was so clear he's just one of those uh prodigies who immediately excelled in school and basically has always been very intelligent and talented and that's kind of why he is the way he is right incredibly arrogant incredibly cocky makes people feel very stupid yes but he is a brilliant writer and a very even better speaker than Lenin one of Lenin's skills is when he's a speaker he's so laser focused and he speaks very clearly and simply but Trotsky is just a much more romantic colourful speaker but originally Trotsky does sign in the Menshevik Bolshevik split Trotsky does sign with the Mensheviks so there is a rift that appears between Lenin and Trotsky now Trotsky calls himself trotsky because he goes to it's either siberia or it's a jail and he he escapes and he forges some papers with the name of his the security guard at the jail which is yeah he yeah he just calls himself out to the guy who jailed him anyway his name blah blah blah ends up in uh in london having been arrested a bit for sort of revolutionary activity gets exiled in siberia for four years gets his stripes he gets his badge gets his siberia badge yeah it's like your coaching badge your swimming badge it's the it's the Cub Scouts for communists yeah you get your Siberia badge what's interesting about the difference between the left and the right is you don't have to have right wing credentials no and it's still very much a form of left wing politics today and one of the big flaws I think in the leftist movement is that you constantly have to prove yourself yeah and everyone is doubting everyone of not being a leftist ironically it's very very uninclusive it's very uninclusive well you just have to prove that you really are a leftist not anyone can just say but with the right if you're a fascist people believe you alright if you're like send them all back you're like well do you really want to send them all back yeah let's prove it prove that you're racist no racist asks you to prove that you're racist no just go alright do you want a pint I bet you're not racist I bet you're only pretending I bet you're not as racist as I am I'm really racist that never happens he's not a real racist no no no cut him out no he's not he's a fake he's a fake racist yeah he's not really racist like we are we're the pure racists It is much more inclusive fascism.

31:24Yeah, ironically. Yeah. Well, only a few. Well, to the right kind of person. Anyway, he's in London and he meets Lennon in London, 1902. They have a lovely day out. They go see London Eye, Big Ben. They do the aquarium. Well, they are like Lennon and McCartney, aren't they? Yeah, they are. Trotsky is definitely Lennon. Lennon. Lennon. Do you think? Yeah. The much more flamboyant, pretentious. Yes. Yeah. yeah yeah uh superior yeah and you're right you're right in that like you watch that you watch get back yeah and mccartney is pulling stuff out of the fucking air and if he's not if he's not getting the motor if he's not getting the band together that's not happening he's the most mccartney i'm a big mccartney guy i'm saying love maca yeah yeah because he doesn't he's not as you know it's not as flowery the language but he's the motor he's he's what really drives it he's fascist i reckon but currently it's fascist yeah no wings is fascist what that the i love wings i love wings the band the beatles could have been so yeah um like most of the revolutionaries they're sort of um in exile around europe uh a lot of them end up in switzerland uh because they're like going for like so long walks they're like the chocolate and then they're just kind of they're getting news in from russia and they're sort of waiting for the spark of revolution so when 1905 happens when the bloody Sunday happens, Lenin immediately gets on the train, goes straight to Russia, hopes and keeps writing pamphlets trying to urge a violent uprising.

32:55And then the revolution fizzles out and he once again flees back to Switzerland. Yeah, because the Korana cracked down and he goes back to Switzerland, goes back to the Alps. Keeps writing. During this quiet period, Lenin writes some of his most important works, materialism and empire criticism. So he's really, he loves writing. Yeah, he loves writing pamphlets. I mean, I wish, I find like, I procrastinate so much and I find stand-up writing so hard to sit down. I do wish I had some of this focus. Lenin. Just being able to... He seems like he just sits down and he just writes for five, six hours.

33:26He's never looking at his phone. Like, he just doesn't seem to procrastinate ever. Who's the Lenin of stand-up? Exactly. I don't know. It's not very Leninist mindset. No, it's not. Who's that focus? Maybe like... Acastor? Yeah, I guess so. Just cranking out intricately constructed hours. Yeah. Anyway, the point is, London Conference, there's a big split between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. And who should side with the Bolsheviks but another young man, one of the great men of Russian history. The maddest cunt of the lot. Yeah, Joseph Stalin. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times.

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36:01and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app. Now, Joseph Stalin is a Georgian. Very different. Very different. And this is why maybe I... And very different to a lot of other Bolsheviks. It's maybe why I like him more. Sure. In that he's not the wanker calling you in the kitchen telling you what to do because he's killed you already. He's an alpha. Yeah, he's an alpha. He's a terrifying alpha, Chad. And he's also the fit one. Of the three. Yes, definitely. The best looking. Yeah. And Stalin is born a peasant.

36:36It looks like Zayn Malik. Yeah. From One Direction. Born a peasant and... Born a Georgian peasant. So right on the fringes of the Russian Empire in the Caucasus region. And like, similar to Rasputin in many ways, if you're out on the fringes, there's not much to do apart from join the church. So he becomes like a priest. Then he hates the religion. He goes to religious university, but finds Marx's texts, right? and becomes radicalized through that and then starts joining a lot of socialist movements like Georgian socialist movements and what he's very good at is organizing underground work because a lot of what the socialists have to do because they're trying to avoid the secret police is they have to be quite effective in the shadows and because he's basically a Georgian crook yeah he is built to move in the shadows right so he's like a he's a sort of petty criminal who gets attracted to Marxism.

37:31Charlie's just found out that he had a hobby of drawing nudes. Is that right? Yeah, this is a special exhibition of his. So I like to doodle and apparently deface male nudes. Oh, he defaced them. He liked to deface male nudes. Well, he liked to draw a big willy over someone's face. Draw a willy on a willy? Make the willies bigger? He wrote humorous comments on them. There are 19 in total. Where? Well, he'd write comments on nude photos. On nudes, yeah. People would bring him nudes. Wait, scroll that up. That first one's funny. Fuck your mum's ass. A man should work, not masturbation. Time to reforge this, Jay Starlin.

38:03Well, now we're going through someone's private stuff, which we shouldn't be seeing. That's not for... This is public fair. Come on. It's not for public consumption. This is a man's private collection. There's a picture of a naked man standing over a naked collapsed woman. And what's the quote again? Read that. Fool. Completely forgot what to do, Jay Starlin. So he's like, he hasn't fucked the sleep woman. Now, look, if you go through some of my, you know, private... If you go on my Google Docs, some of the stuff I've written. Yeah. This one, he's written, you need to work, not wank. Time for re-education.

38:34Now show the image. What's the image? Explain the image, Charlie. It's a guy. It's a guy wanking. I don't know this lighter side to Stalin. So Stalin's a sort of petty crook and he gets attracted to the Marxists. And then the reason that this is kind of the final piece of the puzzle, if it is the Beatles. He's actually Ringo. He's Ringo. Is he? He's Ringo because he's unsung. He's in the background. and he's a thick one of the three he's the thick one of the three no one takes him seriously but he is keeping the whole thing he's the rhythm section yeah he's a rhythm section it doesn't work without ringo um starlin's doing like yellow it's like counterfactual if ringo ended up having the most successful solo career uh yes basically that's what it is but as a band at the current state uh mccartney is lennon yeah lennon is uh trotsky and ringo is starlin so starlin's doing like yellow submarine he's doing octopus whenever he gets the opportunity to write a song himself yeah it's quite like simple it's for kids my kids love octopus's garden yeah of course they won't stop singing it they love it but he you know when I was a kid I loved Stalin so it's like it's for kids yeah so Stalin the key with him is that he actually does things Lenin in this point is all writing is thinking is theorising he's a doer Stalin fucking gets on with it he's like what do you need you need money he's also truly and more than the other two even though there's a lot of blood on their hands he's like psychologically truly a sociopath yeah he loves he loves killing people like he actually is he fucking loves it I mean I think a lot of people in power can end up killing lots of people but Stalin could do that with his bare hands as well yeah yeah like for example to impress a girl once he said check this out there was a calf on like this little island in a river a baby cow baby cow yeah and he swam out there and said check this out broke all the calf's legs to impress her did it work?

40:30no no but he thought that would be like oh wow so like a so like his version of the game is like just fucking like cattle he was in peacocking you want to see something cool just punching a cow yeah do you want to fuck? no how's that? snapping a helpless baby calf it was kind of similar to like you know in Taxi Driver when he takes her to the porn theatre oh yeah that's kind of what he was like with women right yeah uh but he he ran the state like a mafia boss and at this time he ran his georgian sect like a mafia boss you know he was getting he was doing protection rackets also the way that the bolsheviks were funded you know the whole theory of the bolsheviks is that it's a professional group of revolutionaries but that needs means you gotta have money coming in yeah was uh via the dirty work of people like stalin and there's an amazing bank robbery in 1907 uh it's in tbilisi capital of georgia and a stagecoach is going through a crowded city square to deposit funds in a bank and stalin and his band of his gang they use hand grenades and revolvers to basically just kill about 40 people including bystanders and they steal 341 000 rupals which is the equivalent of millions nowadays uh some of the notes were like traceable so they couldn't really launder it but this led to a major crackdown on revolutionary groups yeah and it says that lenin and other bolsheviks publicly could condemn such actions though they secretly use the funds so there you go but this is basically this is the kind of thing stuff starling would do to fund but then the uni educated trotsky and lenin they're they don't want to know about this stuff as long as the money's coming through exactly they've got someone he can rise up it's like they've all got trust funds but they would never say that yeah Because that would then deal a good smartness there.

42:13But then this guy's really actually doing it. This guy, he's got no trust funds, just fucking robbing banks. And he, of course, has exiled to Siberia. Between 1902 and 1913, Stalin was arrested and exiled multiple times. And he also escaped from Siberia many times. He had some, there's some crazy stories. Like, have you seen the beginning of There'll Be Blood? Yes. You know when he falls down the well? Yeah. And he breaks his leg? Yeah. And then you have that big panning shot showing that it's this endless desert. And then the next shot is him he's clearly crawled through the desert to get his leg fixed right and it kind of sets him up as a character who will do anything yeah to survive and Stalin has like walked through uh he walked through a frozen wasteland desert out of a Siberian exile right for like you know 20 miles and then realized there was no way there to he was going to die so he walked all the way back so he's like constantly he's like the hardest geezer if he got lost yeah yeah so at what point does Stalin start to become like Lenin's little lap dog I don't think he's exiled from Russia he manages to stay on the ground yeah so Lenin and Trotsky are out in Europe Trotsky goes to New York yeah and Lenin is so Lenin is in the Alps in Switzerland yeah because he loves he loves fresh air and exercise yes because he's not a well man no he's got headaches yeah he doesn't eat very well smokes a lot smokes a lot uh his wife's cleaning his pants yeah he's probably got i think he's got shitty pants quite all the time he's the first dirty bottom so is yeah well the first the first dirty bottom of all time yes because the communists have dirty bottoms yeah yeah yeah um hitler's got clean breaches lennon's got skid marks on them sure but he he loves doing press-ups he loves doing exercise swimming part of the reason which is not very again not very left wing you're right uh the left has got flabby very flabby i just would wonder what lennon would think of the non-binary blue-haired fat tattooed yeah yeah he'd be he'd be fucking he'd be livid he's like this is not it's not about this it's about i'm a leninist what it's about murdering anyone who's on a middle class salary yeah what what are you talking about what are you talking about pull yourself together these guys were just built i run a feminist meme account go kill yourself go don't come call yourself a leninist when you come back to me you've killed several people yeah um but part of the reason he's the bolshevik causes such a urgent like you know straight to revolution no democracy you know no foreplay straight in the arse that's lenin's no loop no loop loops for capitalists mensheviks are like we need a bit of lube bolsheviks are like raw no lube mensheviks is still a bit of foreplay mensheviks are hitting second or third base yeah martov is like come on baby come on baby yeah and then it's like right yeah there's no time to get your clothes off martov's going down put your trousers sit on my face let's let's let's let it let's all hang out lenin bend over in the arse then i'm back to reading yeah yeah um he's reading on her back while he's yes he's got he's got his writing pamphlets on her back.

45:24Yeah. So part of the reason the Bolsheviks are like that is because Lenin thinks he hasn't got much time left. He thinks he'll die soon. And he's constantly got the melancholy and he genuinely doesn't think he's going to see a revolution in his lifetime. What? Lenincoli. Very good. Yeah. Very good. For him. Yeah, Vladimir Lenincoli. For him that's very good. Can we have a minute please? Minute silence. No, just a minute. That was so quick. It was nothing to do with poo or lube. Look at that. He's growing. Look at him. He's proud as punch, Charlie is. Lenin collie. Anyway. Anyway. Lenin knows, he knows he's going to die in his 50s, basically.

45:59He feels unhealthy and so he feels this panic to get something done before he dies. But he has a lot of Lenin collie about thinking he'll never see the revolution. Yes. Because he just, every time, especially when 1905 collapses, he really thinks like, this is, that was our big chance. I fucked it. Yeah. And then, so the big thing we need to get to is the war breaks out. I mean, between 1905 and the war breaking out, you know, there's a lot of... They're going around cafes, they're building ideas Trotsky is publishing for the newspaper Pravda which becomes kind of the main it's a beer now isn't it yeah well Praha but basically everything changes kind of when World War I breaks out which comes as a big shock to Lenin yeah all of Lenin's writings are incredibly anti-war and he's the most consistently anti-war maybe of anyone in Russia yeah it splits a lot of the socialists because there's a million different factions.

46:52A lot of the socialists have very different ideas about the war. Some people are viewing it as like being patriotic and still supporting Russia. Some people want to have another crack at the Germans. But Lenin basically sees World War I as an imperialist war. So he doesn't even, he's so extreme, he doesn't really care if Russia wins or doesn't. He just wants it over and for the Bolsheviks to be in power. He starts talking about a defeatist peace. Yes. Which is where it would be good. This is a very Russian thing. ultimately be good for Russia to get fucking annihilated because out of the ruins.

47:24I don't even think they want to rebuild anything. They just love being ruined. They just want suffering. Can you imagine how fucked we're going to be? Can you imagine being fucked up the arse that hard by the Germans? I'd love that. But his war stance is kind of one of the key things how the Bolsheviks managed to be perfectly placed for power. Totally, yeah. And his manoeuvring to end the war is some of his It's crazy. biggest gambles. Yes, yeah. Because also what's impressive about Lenin as a historical figure is he will go into a meeting with 12 other socialists, 11 disagree with him, and he will spend 15 hours until everyone agrees with him.

47:59And he will whip a room around. And he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. Yeah, because after 15 hours, if Gary Stevenson still hasn't changed their mind, you go, do you know what? Fuck this, I'm going. I don't care. Shut up, Gary. You're not going to change your mind. So this is pointless. I'm leaving. So Lenin, the leader of the Bolsheviks, is exiled, and he's just writing and reading. And when he has to, he does some A &L without lube. But he's annoyed about that. Trotsky is a sort of journalist. Is he in New York in 1916? Yeah, in 1916 he's in New York. And he's not as tied down by the party politics as Lenin.

48:35Lenin is the head of the Bolshevik party, but Trotsky's kind of like a maverick. I'm out on my own. He's respected, but he's not tied down. He's free form. And Stalin is an obscure party operative in Siberian exile with limited influence outside the Bolshevik apparatus. In the shadows. But everything is coming together. The war is going badly for Russia. Terribly. Rasputin, that stinky old goat guy with the big hog. The goat hog. The goat hog is, and by that, I don't mean greatest of all time, I mean the smell. Yeah, smelliest of all time. The soat. The soat, the goat soat. The smelliest hog of all time, the shoat.

49:13He is plowing the Tsarina. he's been killed Russia is a tinderbox and events are about to move incredibly quickly in St. Petersburg quicker maybe than they've moved anywhere we've spent three hours edging you all and we're now getting into the fucking gristle the eve of revolution revolution's in the air what will happen? those episodes are on the Patreon already the entire series is on the Patreon if you want to join to get access early and a bonus episode every week but if not thank you very much for stopping by and we will see you for 1917 next time