Why is Russia so F*cked in the Head? | The Russian Revolution of 1917 (Part 1/5)

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1:27welcome back to fin versus history as ever i'm joined by horatio gould it's only game why you have to be made today is the start of our biggest series yet it's your most annoying colleagues favorite thing yeah it's the russian revolution is my favorite thing yeah yeah yeah no i just generally but yeah it's your favorite thing this is the long road to gary stevenson it's it's that annoying guy from uni Gary Stevenson who's got the worst drip of all time maybe yeah maybe one of the worst dressed bloke on TV potentially for a very rich man famously rich he dresses worse than I was the smartest guy in the world when I was born that's what he says yeah I was number one trader in the entire world really with clothes like that really also what I find funny about him he's always like my mates can't feed their kids it's like you need to get some more friends, I think.

2:23I think if you're this rich, your friends still can't feed their kids. Hey, Gary, elevate your circle, you know? Yeah. That's one of the big things about success. You've got to elevate your circle. Yeah, why are you still hanging out with the povos that can't feed their kids? You're the best trader in the world in your own... Look at how he sits as well, that Stephen Barlet interview. He's like a sort of snotty little school kid. Yeah. Sorry, I've finished already. Well, he has finished already because he's the best trader in the world. Exactly, he's completed it. Done. He's completed capitalism.

2:52and now he wants to go and shout at christian gary murphy about how his mates can't feed his kids feed his kids yes well they shouldn't be feeding your kids anyway gary gary stevenson starts here this is the uh start of a massive series about gary stevenson this is the russian revolution it's probably the it's probably the central event you could argue it in in 20th century history i'd say so probably probably i guess because what it leads to the cold war a third of people live under communism because you say like the the beginning domino of all of the shit that happens in the 20th century is world war one right well possibly but then you think about is it so many people came to power the who deleted the final 20th century because they were skip people were scared of the russian revolution people were scared of gary stevenson taking over so they elected so they let hitler have power because they were like well i'd rather hang out i'd rather have a beer with this come they literally found like nick griffin upside down in a barrel of beer and said let's Get him in power to stop this guy.

3:50This guy's insufferable. He won't stop going on about his kids and his people who can't feed their kids. I'd rather have Hitler, who at least seems like a laugh. By far the biggest topic we've done. And it's also an absolute... Way too big. Way too big. It's above our pay grade for sure. And that's the first time we've said that. Honestly, we do not get imposter syndrome easy. No. The private school system really... Doesn't work. ...bashes imposter syndrome. Look at Nick Griffin's face. People would rather elect this guy in this country than Jeremy Corbyn, generally. That's how terrified people are.

4:21You know, if Jeremy Corbyn is a virus, Corbyn supporters are a virus, you know, this is patient zero. Lenin and the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks. Fuck me, Nick Griffin. I mean, as an advocate for white supremacy. He's in an argument against it, right? It's like David Blunkett fucked a toad. It's absolutely insane. What's he doing now, Nick Griffin? Yeah, exactly. Do you know what? Nick Griffin of British racism is sort of like the Skype of British racism in the way that he was an early adopter of the current form of it, right? Yes. He had a long build-up to it. And now while it's popular, he's nowhere to be seen.

4:58Skype had like 15 years on Zoom. Lockdown came in. Didn't capitalise at all. Zoom came through. Zoom is for us. Yeah, Zoom is for us. And Nick Griffin is Skype. In 2017, Nick Griffin expressed a desire to emigrate to Hungary, but was banned from the country shortly after. That's so weird. I guess it's because the racists are over there right but is Nick Griffin so racist that the racists won't take him but he's a British nationalist so oh he's declared bankrupt I guess he probably thinks that Britain's Pakistan now yes of course maybe he's making those AI videos where the London's filled with shit but this is not about Nick Griffin no this is about the Russian revolution and Russian history in general but at all times we should be just holding the idea that Nick Griffin despite his ills is better than all these guys.

5:48That's what this country thinks. Sure, sure. But Russian history is probably my favourite history. Yeah, what? I love the Russian. It's so... I guess they're so fucked up in such a thrilling way. Yeah. I've always had a... Like, I've had a Russian ex-girlfriend. I was seeing briefly another Russian girl. I was quite disappointed with the Russian ex-girlfriend I had. You used to mail all the brides. Yes, exactly. No, no, because annoyingly, my Russian ex went to like NYU, was quite Americanized, was like a New York liberal, basically. And I was more like, I'm not here for this experience. It's like going to Italy and eating ramen.

6:31Do you know what I mean? Yes. I'm here for pasta. She was very pro-gay rights. She thought that gender roles were kind of like, you know, should not be so rigid. Sorry, Charlie's got up the biggest Russian baby. this is nadia yeah so that that's um that's nearly eight kilos is that bigger than super antonio the mexican baby that you discovered last series i don't know can you find out please charlie um sorry your russian liberal ex-girlfriend yeah so but i didn't get the the experience i wanted from dating a russian yeah because i think she was what you want is those kind of regressive conservative beliefs that kind of men should be men yeah uh you know uh she then i met another russian girl who you know thinks that homosexuality shouldn't be taught at schools she thinks that stalin was a great leader you know that's what you want that's what you want you want the experience yeah you do want the holiday you want the experience yeah you want to eat the local food um uh my yeah i i don't think i would like to marry a russian or a soviet woman yeah i would like a soviet you want a soviet masseuse what right you want someone to beat the fuck in a banya to beat the shit out of you yeah you don't want to like yeah you know you wouldn't want to actually introduce them to people well my dad is about to marry a russian actually well this makes sense this all makes sense exactly all makes complete sense um nadia was three and a half pounds heavier than super antonio thank you charlie um so in the well let's put the top gear leaderboard massive massive babies russia is currently in charge of mexico my god that's a big baby and i guess she only ate potatoes noodles and tomatoes during the pregnancy yeah right there you go that's what if we have any pregnant listeners which must be infinitesimal it's a minority within a minority is it's pregnant women um well isn't that a thing about playing mozart to the in the womb does that not make the baby smarter if you just play the red flag or play this podcast you play this podcast they'll come out looking like nick griffin they will come out with down syndrome if you play this podcast to your child in the womb they will come out a bit fruity and I guess this episode before because we got so much revolution stuff to get through and there's so much history it's important to give as much context as we can really yeah why is Russia so fucked why is Russia so fucked if you're a therapist if you're you know Gabor Mate and you're delving into the trauma I'd love him to whisper me to sleep yeah what would Gabor Mate say about you I don't know I think he'd say you know what you're fine because he finds the trauma in everyone he's a little fucking he's a truffle pig a trauma full pig I would break Gabor Mate he's a trauma pig you want to fuck your mum yeah so we're going to try and do that to Russia or you think Gabor Mate would just say yeah nothing next he'd say so you ate 24 minutes of pies I went yes and he went how do you feel about that I went I feel fine I'll do it again yeah right okay yeah I'd love him to soothe me to sleep he's got a very soothing yeah I'd love him to read me lullabies yeah very he just got that kind of leathery intellectual face where you trust him lovely kind eyebrows yeah anyway this is not about gabble mate this is about why why so what would gabble mate just find out about russia well i guess a lot of when i'm talking about the prehistory of russia or the beginning of the russian state the main source i am using is putin right now again we should stress it's not a completely objective we have a shill a putin shill in the room I think, yeah, I went to, I needed to find a lot of different sources.

10:00The only one I really trust is Putin speaking to Tucker Carlson. Okay. So his view of Russian history. But basically going back, it's actually a Viking state, Russia, which is a lot of good start. Before you go all the way back, let's just place this for the dum-dums. Right. Because we keep forgetting to do this and they do get annoyed. Well, let's start with where Putin considers Russia's start in 1826. I'd like to place the Russian... I think we should place the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution, which is what we're dealing with, ultimately, 1917. Now, this is... 1917 is after the Somme, just the Battle of the Somme.

10:37All right. And it is before... Compare the Myrkert.com. Yes. Because, ultimately, that wouldn't make any sense because there's no market. Yes. They have insurance, but they would not... But it's state. It's state. It's one insurance policy. Right. So, you know, price comparison sites aren't a thing in Soviet Russia. No, they didn't really boom. It's comparethedictat.com. Go compare. Go compare what? Yeah, go compare is a very pointless site in Soviet Russia. Yeah, there's no car insurance comparison sites. There's none. So that fun little sort of meerkat. Yeah, that's... Go on, Charlie. They pulled those from the TV when the Russian-Ukraine war kicked off.

11:14Because of the accent? Yeah, due to sort of sensitivity about... Why didn't they put a different accent in the meerkat? Hello, compare the meerkat. Compare it, America.com. yeah they should have made a raster should make a raster a raster mouse raster meerkat um there's so many different accents you could have done yeah compared to macket.com yeah why haven't they got us in but anyway that's so the russian revolution is 1917 but putin uh what does he see as the birth of his his country he says basically a viking prince called rurik set up in 1826 the kivan rus right which is where kiev is and it was basically lots of vikings trying to make money would sail down from scandinavia to constantinople to join the varangian guard do you know what that is of course i don't know what the varangian guard is no i don't read science fiction i pay my mortgage on time i have two children the highlight of my weekend genuinely was getting a new hoover this whole thing is the whole i'm such a capitalist that the idea of any of this makes no sense to me my highlight the highlight of my weekend right buying a new hoover what was the new hoover it fucking slaps what is it corded i've gone back to corded i've gone back to corded corded is where it's at you can't go wrong with recording this shirt is from cordings yeah uh corded hoovers they have more power they do and and i more reliable more reliable and i don't mind having to deal with a cord if it actually deals with dust yeah my house is completely it's it's a it's a feral right i've got basically living with vermin essentially two two children and my wife you know it's um she's shedding she's heat it's uh there's matted clumps of hair everywhere uh anyway that was the highlight of my weekend buying a new hoover enjoying the fruits of capitalism the entire when you're saying that putin starts with with kiev being is that why is that is that the reason is the genesis of the russian identity yeah comes that he says they're inexplicably linked to kiev and the ukraine is an idea formed by even stalin lennon actually right or like during the soviet union and that they're the same peoples basically and that's his that's his words that's his shtick yeah yeah his words are my words so okay so so we are amplifying we're i guess we're pro-putin currently is that what we are we did this whole series is a justification for putin's actions in ukraine he's just one of my main sources for this okay fine good to know we need we need to start putting our sources so we're a proper history podcast we should footnote yeah with um so if i put in any interview he's given over the last 15 years that's my main i mean i guess what is interesting about Putin is it's more like uh when being into history becomes a real red flag yes a lot of justification of being into history or ignoring your family reading a history book right or like not speaking to women because you're reading history is it's important to know your history yeah right and that it's seen as in generally a good thing i guess people like Putin it makes history quite a bad thing to be into because a lot of the literally the reason why a lot of the problems are happening in Russia Ukraine is because he loves history so much it's applied history though isn't it yeah yeah i mean russia is is it's kind of for the for the western trying to understand the russian mind this is a country that's borders europe and asia it's sort of both and behind it is this terrifying endless forest yeah filled with kind of like wolves and and kind of forest tribes right and basically these vikings the where the early settlement set up was on the fur and slave trade because there's a huge slave trade yeah the word slave comes from slav of course so as a lot of the slavs were being traded there's a lot of white on white slavery at this time disgusting awful oh it's an abomination yeah then prince vladimir in 1988 who putin has made 1988 19 yeah it's quite recent wow it's quite recent just before the fall of the berlin wall that's where russia yeah who putin has made a massive statue for this guy he basically made this kivan rus uh christian orthodox and made this new identity of a slavic orthodox people right we should we should i think another thing to bring up here is that russian orthodoxy is a huge part in the russian character yes in the i was trying to read into this last night because there's i can't really think of many things that i think about less than the russian orthodox church okay but it's just the bottom of my list at all times it's quite near the top for me is it right well of course is your dad having a russian orthodox wedding uh no i don't i don't actually know what it what it would be called right i don't know if he's i don't know if they're the most religious people.

15:41Maylord of Brides? Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just a high five with the priest. But if you're a sub, if you're like a kind of little, if you like getting told what to do and smacked about, I think having a Russian spouse would be really exactly what you want. Well, this is my point. You want a Russian masseuse to sort of, you want a happy ending in Russia. It's a sort of sad ending where they just peg you, I think. This is a misunderstanding of the Russian woman, right? They are firm and stubborn, but they want you to be a man. So they're slapping you about to be more, to slap them about.

16:09The Russian woman is saying, if you don't start hitting me, I'll hit you. Yeah, incredible. You better start smacking me about or else I'm going to, you know, they wouldn't even deal with the cuck. You have to be a man's man, right? Incredible. What would you do if a girlfriend said, if you don't start hitting me, I'm going to hit you? It depends how scary they are. Yeah. But if you want to be hit, if you want to be hit, what do you do? You let her punch you about. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, this is... So it's this Viking slaving... But sorry, I want to talk about the Russian... So what I was saying is the Russian Orthodoxy, I think they have a very different relationship to suffering than Protestants and Catholics, right?

16:44So Catholics, obviously, they spill some milk. Oh, my God! They're hysterical. They're absolutely hysterical. They can't be controlled. They can't hold down a job because they're crying all the time. We've got Finn back onto stereotypes and he's happy. It's like he's got like a dumb in his mouth. They won't stop crying, shrieking, calling for that. Mama! You know, they can't work. because they're crying all the time. Protestants, they understand that suffering will happen and there's a stoicism to it and they will write, yes, life is going to be hard sometimes, but you get through it and that's, you know.

17:17Russians, the Russian orthodoxy teaches that actively embracing suffering is where revelation is. So it's not just about coping, it's about throwing yourself into it. It's the spice of life. Yeah, suffering is the spice of life. That's literally the Russian mentality. and it's also it's not about as individual stoicism it's about collectively throwing yourself into a mass grave yeah for the good of they think that's how they'll be redeemed this is brilliant yeah yeah i mean it is it's built for the kind of climate they're in as well that's it and and and they're constantly being invaded which i guess is kind of weirdly they have quite like a modern self-help mentality like all of the tiktoks that are about you know masculinity and take control they're quite like um goganzy in some ways in some ways yeah and that's why the great northern war which we'll do another episode on at some point which where peter the great comes in that is a kind of rare war that's just the super protestant lutheran swedes versus the russian orthodox and it's quite interesting seeing both of their views of suffering smashing into each other um but we'll get there uh so it's a viking slaving people already quite fucked up yeah right very backwards it's kind of on the fringes of europe uh at this point not much is going on it's just probably a terrifying lawless place right it's very much in the same way you have the wild west so it's the wild east yeah right and then to make it even more fucked up the mongols oh dear invade colonize it right take it over and then it splits off into the golden horde which is one of the four parts of the mongol empire when it all starts falling down and basically they're allowed to keep their their identity they just have to give tribute up right and so they get a lot of mongol kind of uh culture starts coming in to their some more asiatic sort of stuff right and eventually basically one of them stands up in 1480 to the mongols and this is seen as kind of the beginning of like russia standing up for itself right and then out of this comes ivan the terrible in 1530 who's kind of the beginning of like the idea of a tsar of a united russia does he call himself the terrible no right it's not like it's not like a rap name no ivan de terribal but it's quite a weird moniker because there's other terribles aren't there yeah i yeah i feel some people i think he also could be called ivan the great by some people so it's kind of like he's sort of like a thatcher figure it's great yeah that's the terrible that's for the great yeah why don't we do that why don't we do it's much better because what was the last the great i guess you could say churchill could have the great blair the great no but the problem we need to have more the great the problem is that since blair right and obviously blair is incredibly divisive since blair every politician is just kind of like so it'd be like storm of the boring storm of them yeah yeah trust the thick sunak the short yeah um brown the blind i mean we should call our prime ministers yeah it'd be more fun much more fun much more than just the terrible and the great for people i've spoken they've elected brown brown the blind milliband the fat-tongued they've elected them to office that's loads of fun yeah push your limits train with precision see the results at equinox that's high performance loving everything you need to lock in and unlock your potential at equinox start today at equinox.com So you're not worried about hosting the whole family for the holidays?

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21:43So Ivan the Terrible, what does he do? So he's kind of, he calls himself Tsar, which is a play on Caesar, right? Oh, is it? Because he says that Moscow is going to be the third Rome. Because recently, only like 40 years ago, Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. Yes. So the first Rome has fallen to Catholicism, right? Constantinople's fallen to Islam. And so he's now pitching them as the center of true Christianity. So let's just go through the Romes. First Rome. Rome. second rome constant noble third rome moscow he's saying moscow fourth rome is what hitler's berlin yeah i guess so fifth rome is um where's the current rome where's current rome i mean when whole city of culture that when was that i was like when's it whole is it like the city of culture which you like get it every year even if you're a shit hole yeah so city of culture is they give it to the shitter's place so that is like a it's a participation medal right it's like we'll pay you money to be less shit.

22:39Yeah, it's getting most improved in the under 14 Ds. It's literally that. So when people are boasting about, oh, we're City of Culture it's like, yeah, that means you're fucked. Hold up, very interesting breaking news. Sorry, Charlie's just got a whole woman. This is whole, is this during City of Culture? Yeah. A whole woman's been banned from defecating in public places. Wait, is that because the new rules brought in by the City of Culture? Or is it that they had to clean the house before they got awarded City of Culture? And her name is Brace Hull. Brace Hull? Brace? Brace, Brace! she squeezes up but her surname's Hull and she lives in Hull right so she must love it up there yeah I mean you can read defecate in public as two things it's either things have gone terribly wrong or it's a celebratory mood yeah it's sort of like an England fan with a fair up their eyes it's like I fucking love it here it's a date night in Hull lay me down and shit on my chest so Ivan the Terrible cleanses himself the Tsar Hall Russia yeah the kind of beginning of this kind of the SARS being this kind of controlling thing of a true Russian entity.

23:39And he does a lot of great things at early doors, right? He starts the Eastward expansion, because at this point it's quite a small state, right? In Eastern Europe. He starts that kind of endless Eastern expansion that every ruler - Towards Asia, you mean? Yeah, because even looking at a map, you don't really - I've always wondered how the fuck do they get that much land? It's not really talked about. Well, I guess it's not prime real estate, is it? There's just nothing there. There's nothing there. what happened is that they just keep going they'd be like yeah I guess we'll just keep going yeah and just nothing blocked them at all there was no one there to stop and they just kept going and kept going and the people changed that's what's funny what well then you get to like Asians yeah so they keep walking going yep it's still Russia and you go is it well it's like a DJ mixing yeah yeah fading two songs into each other yeah you have white of the white yeah and then you end up with Koreans so you have Dolly Parton fading into gay K-pop yeah yeah working nine to five i don't know i don't know any k-pop i don't know any songs you can tell oh no hang on it'd be like working nine to five what a gangnam style that is yeah that's russia that's the journey of traveling through siberia yeah except it's not working nine to five it's working uh nine till midnight and then sleeping for two hours and then having some boiled cabbage and getting back to it and killing your kids it's killing your kids it's fucking brutal and then How he got Ivan the Terrible is he was obviously very bad to his people near the end.

25:03He lost his head a little. Ivan the Terrible? Yeah, he was pretty naughty. He loved impaling people with spikes. He loved live flaying and he'd do it himself. He did rat torture where rats were forced to burrow into victims' bodies. Right. So he'd starve rats to the point that the only way they could get out is burrowing through them. I imagine that's, I mean, Charlie does that as his sex club, don't you imagine? I mean, he had a lot of very Berlin sex club vibes. Like he'd love tying people up in like a house. and then just chucking bombs at it. He absolutely loved that. Anyway, so this guy, even though I think he's quite a good guy, he ends up killing his own son in a rage.

25:37He had anger problems, I feel. Like Marvin Gaye. Yeah.

25:44Yeah, they're both artists in many ways. So he kills his own son in a rage, which causes the succession crisis, which ends up with the Romanovs. This is the start of the Romanov Disney, which is in what, the 17th century? No, no. It will be late 1500s. But then I remember when we get up to Tsar Nicholas II, they celebrate the 300-year dynasty, isn't it, the Romanov? 1613. 1613. Oh, I guess so. Wow. So this is the Russian Revolution, when we get to it, this is the end of a 300-year dynasty that starts. Which starts here. And it starts because Ivan the Terrible killed his own son. And the way that Romanov's come in, basically it's like no one knows he's going to be king.

26:22So they end up choosing the grandson of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, for Anastasia Romanov. Yeah. He ends up being there, basically. Right. Because he just, he has the best claim to the throne and he's pissed the least people off. Right. And that's how this 300-year dynasty kicks off. We'll skip through a lot of stuff, but basically Peter the Great in 1672 is born and he begins Russia as an imperial empire, basically. The Russian Empire is born with him. He travels Europe and tries to modernize this very backwards country, right? Yeah, because he sees Europe and then he sees Russia and he realizes that they're all thick.

26:58He travels to Europe, notably Amsterdam and London and the technology, he's amazed by all the technology. He goes into skies and goes through all of Europe and learns a lot and basically says we need to modernize. Also, Russia, though it's massive, at this point is entirely landlocked. That's partly what's keeping it so backward, right? Much like my wife. Much like, yeah. Yeah. There's no roots in. Massive but landlocked. So in land, one in the Great Northern War against the Protestant Swedes, on the corner of the Baltic, builds a planned city, St. Petersburg, right? And this is an inhospitable bog on a frozen wasteland, really nasty piece of land, but it's like a port.

27:34And he decides to build this grand European city. No one wants to move there. It's like, you know, when Channel 4 moved to Leeds. Yes, no one's going to. He tries to move all of his intelligentsia there. He builds it with serfs at gunpoint, right? Right, and serfs are slaves. Yeah. Serfdom. Yes, there's certain like, it's like a peasant slave where you're kind of a slave to the land, right? In a way. The land owns you. The land, yeah, you're owned by the land. Okay. And the person who owns the land. Right, so yeah. So I mean, but if you were a serf and someone was like, no, you're not a slave, you're a serf, he'd be like, what's the...

28:13He'd be like, and you'd be like, exactly. That's why you're a serf. Yeah, so serfdom's all over Russia and stays in, like kind of the feudal system stays in Russia, maybe like 300, 400 years longer than anywhere else in Europe. And this is part of the thing we're coming to is that Russia is much more backward than anywhere in Europe for a lot longer than Europe. A lot longer. Even though they have lots of modernisers who come in, each Tsar undoes the thing that the last Tsar does. You have Peter the Great, you have Catherine the Great, but then you'll have someone else come in because huge parts of the Russian spirit and a lot of the kind of contrast is always, do we stick to our Slavic traditional roots which separate us from Europe?

28:53We're not those basically gay Europeans. It's kind of a lot of that. And you still see that in Putin's Russia today. A lot of it is like, we are standing up for the Orthodox Russian identity. You know when he was talking about how he, Putin did that whole thing about being cancelled, right? And that cancelled cultures come for him as well. And he wanted to actually be a stand against the wokeness of Europe. What, by invading Ukraine? Partly. Well, did he get cancelled for invading Ukraine? He got cancelled just because he stands up for traditional kind of values. Such a propuse in the podcast.

29:25But not by means. It's interesting that he's pitched himself as the anti-woke guy. Right. That Europe has collapsed because they let gay people live. Well, he's got less space to Malouba, doesn't he? Yeah. He can't really come out now as like a favourite gay writer. Obviously, he's got like a big grip on Russia. do you think if a video came out of him getting pegged by like a trans fat teenager you know what that that would really undermine the image because he's got such an amazing like there's nothing he can do brute brutality wise that will get him off the throne because it just adds to yeah his aura yeah right if it came out if it came out that he was just like he was beating the shit out of gay people in his cellar he'd be like well yeah yeah that's why i vote for him but if it came out that those gay people are pegging him if there's a video video that got shown of putin being pegged by a fat trans teenager and everyone comes in the next day and he's like right what are we doing and everyone's like oh and he's loving it in the video he's like he's loving it he's loving it i think him loving it is the real problem he's like oh yeah but but then again this is my the problem with the russian orthodox attitude of suffering is that people would be like this this is a great man pegging is quite russian orthodox i guess is it i guess in some way the suffering yeah kind of pleasure from being from from the suffering yeah it's it's self-flagellation it's g-spot up the arse it's yeah eating you can only find true pleasure in the meaning of suffering is being pegged yeah i don't know how to answer that really uh it's a bit of a hypothesis i guess it's a counterfactual history yeah what if one of the great counterfactuals what if uh what if instead of peter the great it was peter the pegger and he'd been um pegged to shit and that was the right founding myth ofst peggersburgst peggersburgst peggers bum this brilliant city on the lake st peggers bum um so basicallyst petersburg is the most important city in this story yes you can't really have the russian revolution the same way without the the kind of it all happens it all happens yeah and quite the unique nature of saint petersburg as a city it's built on this frozen wasteland that no one wants to live on but it's an extraordinary city i've been to saint petersburg of course you have of course yeah uh and it's this amazing beautiful city that kind of looks like paris but it's also got this kind of new york grid system so it's got these huge roads but incredible uh houses but then it also has those kind of asiatic domes on it as well amazing city but it's built at gunpoint by serfs a hundred thousand people die building it hundred thousands yeah it's literally built on the bones of peasants so it's this beautiful city that's emerged out of the frozen wasteland literally built on russian bones right up the bombs up the bums yep and for like the first kind of like 40 or so years wolves still roam the streets such a wild part of the world yeah but somehow emerges looking for a good time a beautiful city it's kind of the center of european russia it's quite a european it's a westward facing city exactly and that's also part of the tension between Moscow and St.

32:29Petersburg. Moscow sees itself as the real Russia, St. Petersburg. They say there's a lot of gay guys in there, you know, doing fruity stuff. Not in St. Pegasbum. There's a lot of fruity guys in St. Pegasbum. No. But then whenever a European visits St. Petersburg, they're like, these are the most wild, feral people. I'm getting pegged to shit. This is better than Berlin, man. You think Berlin's hot, you want to go to St. Pegasbum. So look, let's get, look we've been we've been chatting for a while you've been you've been rolling around in your communist picture let's get to the the meat of this story which i i reckon we should start just after the crimean war which kind of shows up this revolt you want to do that i don't care what that is okay let's start with there's going to be so many revolts yes let's start with uh the aftermath of the crimean war where russia this great game between britain and russia it exposes is russia's weakness on the international stage yeah and so there is a a reformist czar comes in called alexander ii who is nicholas ii's grandfather i believe yeah alexander ii emancipates the serfs right he ends slavery emancipation you're now on your land the serfs are running around russia um so uh serfs are no longer slaves surf and turf surf and turf A romance that's painted from the turf.

33:51The surf on turf. So, but, and this is one of the great things about researching this topic is that I got to listen to Anthony Beaver waddle on for a while. I do love him. Big up the Beavs. Big up the Beavs. I'm a big fan of Beaver. I've always said that. Anthony Beaver. Anthony Beaver. You know the rules. You know the rules. Imagine if it turned out Beaver was related to Anthony Beaver. What a disowned son. Yeah. Anthony Beaver's grandson is Bevo on TikTok.

34:27Anyway, Bevo Stalingrad is a very different book. Bevo grad. I think we should make cities named after Bevo. Bevo would just try and swallow Stalingrad by Anthony Beaver in one go. Listen, right. So what Anthony Beaver says is that one of the large problems with the serfs being emancipated by Alexander II second is that they're not it's not freedom in that you're forced to buy the land you're working on which means you're immediately in debt so this huge class of people that have been freed from slavery have now just been put into another form of slavery where they owe the government money brilliant i'm free oh i'm a fucking i've got to work this to pay off the debt right yeah so you don't pay them anything because they're slaves you free them from being slaves and now you're saying what can you afford to buy this land no i'm no money well then you have to work for it yeah exactly you're basically enslaved so you can afford it yeah are you gonna pay me enough to afford it no of course not so it's slavery under another name i mean this is in the 1800s as well so this is uh if we're talking as well about the russian mentality right so this is when dostoevsky's writing a lot of this time right yeah so i mean what i've been watching on tiktok right what's happened recently is that uh the dostoevsky and uh very russian idea of morality has been made into sort of motivational TikToks.

35:42Yeah, this gets you going. This gets me fired up. So this is your, like, my equivalent is watching like a Nuremberg rally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is a good way of understanding where the Russian mind is at. This is in the mid 1800s, a period of early industrialization, the emancipation of the serfs, but there's still what Dosky F.C. is writing about. Tolstoy, for example, is writing about social realism. He's trying to empathize with the serfs, try and bring their stories to light. Dostoevsky is basically saying, Russia's getting too gay. European hedonism is decaying the great Russian spirit.

36:19Yes. And then you can see why. And as a creature of suffering, and suffering is his greatest desire. Oh, he will curse it, spit upon it, cry out to the heavens that he wishes for peace, for salvation. But the moment you strip him of his torment, What does he become? A fattened beast, lying idle in the field, rotting in the sun. No, he will return to suffering, to chaos, because in pain there is motion, and in motion, life. Without suffering, without struggle, without the gnawing hunger of despair, he's left. A man who is nothing, a man who never was. I mean, that sums Russia up perfectly, doesn't it?

37:05That perfectly sums it up, right. Without suffering, there is nothing. so yeah i mean my girlfriend has very all of her tiktoks are basically saying nothing's ever your fault they're very like yeah that's what all female it's like just take a day off yeah what you've worked too hard you deserve it you deserve it and all of my tiktoks i'm lying in bed saying only in 10 is there truth all my all my tiktoks um get taken down do they for hate speech what do you come back to them i come back yeah all of your safe folder on tiktok is just just gone Just go on, ban, ban, removed, removed. This is Nazism.

37:38But anyway, with the emancipation of the serfs and the kind of growing revolutionary movements, you know, Marx is writing in industrialized London. And with industrialization comes a lot of these kind of new revolutionary theories for a changing world, right? And there's kind of early forms of revolution come from the Narodinic movement, which is this kind of, which I guess kind of feels sort of relevant today. it's like this intelligentsia uni movement right yeah of people talking about how the future rushes the peasants right they believe that the true rush is the peasants need to uh really like uh do a revolt that frees the peasants and then a lot of these kind of posh uni kids go and live and work with the peasants to get like and the the peasants like get the police to kill a lot of them as well yeah it's sort of like um you know white kids going to rwanda and building a school there's all these people saying no the true russian is the peasant the peasants like who the fuck are these freaks fucking gay boys fromst bummer's bug some bummer's grad what's it called some peggers bum don't come here tell me how to live from some peggers bum but this this is this so this is the great moment right in that um so i talking about dostoeskin tolstoy i've not really read i tried to read tolstoy once interrailing and i ended up just um i used to who are you interrailing so no i was i was going through i was i'm interrailing women um i'm completely straight i don't like this fruity communist history um i was interrailing through europe and uh i i ended up the main thing i remember about tolstoy's war in peace is that i i killed a wasp with it right right it's a big book big book one hit is these great epic narratives but he does get bogged down in talking in detail about land reforms and really dry stuff.

39:29But what I was going to say is that the amazing thing about this history is that it is like a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy novel in that we're not even close to the reign of Nicholas II, which is where you'd maybe start this topic. And there are narrative flags in the sand that come back later. So Alexander - It feels like every Russian is imbued with a sense of narrative. Yeah, impenetrable narrative. do you know what i mean like they're just built with these complicated moral everyone the choices they make are so like dramatic and operatic so alexander ii is assassinated just after um in 1881 and his carriage is blown up right because even though alexander ii is the great reformer yeah it's a lot of these reforms which are not fast enough well because they're making life easy for people and the russians don't want that they want to be pegged so they die so they go fuck this guy this guy's getting rid of suffering what is a man without suffering he is nothing so they've got an armored carriage someone chucks a bomb at it yeah right blows him to shit well no he crawls out yeah he's got no legs i think he's got no legs when he crawls out he crawls out his legs have to be taken off and then he gets put into like the palace and his grandson little nicky little soft sweet sensitive nicky who ends up being the second he's just been out fucking rollerblading because he's gay right he's he's a fruity soul he's a fruity soul he's been rollerblading like yeah yeah crop top like yeah then this finally his dad's like listen mate your granddad's dying take those fucking rollerblades off take that dick out your mouth and come and say goodbye to your granddad yeah right he slings his rollerblades over his uh and then he walks in and alexander the second grandpa is lying there with no legs bleeding out like oh and the russians like i wish i was fucking you oh god fucking you don't know you're born mate bleeding out with no legs you've never been more alive he's literally died i'm jealous i'm so jealous at least your life has meaning now you've got no legs right starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks and lists can easily begin to overrun your life so finding the right tool that not only helps you out but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer.

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