Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekanona Show.
Speaker 1: Thomas is back and we're still taking a break from
Speaker 1: the Continental Philosophy series. We'll be getting back into that soon.
Speaker 1: But I asked Thomas to cover a topic that I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to cover for a while, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: told them he can take as many episodes as he
Speaker 1: wants to cover this because I think this is real
Speaker 1: important for from the revisionist perspective when World War according
Speaker 1: to World War Two, and it's also from podcasts I've
Speaker 1: heard in the past talking about it. It's quite controversial
Speaker 1: and maybe I'll ask you some questions about that at
Speaker 1: the end, Thomas even controversial amongst our guys, and I
Speaker 1: have a reason why I think it is. But why
Speaker 1: don't you tell us what we're going to talk about today?
Speaker 2: Well, in broad causal terms, we're going to talk about
Speaker 2: the role of the Soviet Union in the Second World War.
Speaker 2: That's an issue that's mischaracterized. The main minority viewpoint is
Speaker 2: presented by Victor Suvarov's Icebreaker. Suvarov is a pseudonym for
Speaker 2: the Soviet defector who was deeply insinuated in the gru
Speaker 2: which was the military's the Red Armies counterpart to KGB.
Speaker 2: KGB was technically a branch of the Soviet military, but
Speaker 2: gru was literally army intelligence because it may insisted well
Speaker 2: most people in addressing Suverov, they've got to discrete narrow focus. Essentially,
Speaker 2: when they begin their analysis is on the eve of
Speaker 2: Operation Barbarossa, and they get bogged down in the minutia
Speaker 2: of what were Soviet deployments, how are they arrayed? Were
Speaker 2: they offensively arrayed? What were the comparative force levels and
Speaker 2: capabilities of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army. Now these
Speaker 2: things are relevant, and I'll address those things, but that's
Speaker 2: not an adequate analysis, and Suvarov didn't begin as analysis
Speaker 2: there either. Suvarov's claim is that the Soviet Union literally
Speaker 2: started World War Two, and I accept that, and it's
Speaker 2: not strictly military analysis. Everything about the Second World War
Speaker 2: was a dialogue with Soviet power and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: The entire twentieth century was in dialogue with the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union and its existence and the ideology that animated its structure, activity,
Speaker 2: decision making, and you know, every imperative related to power,
Speaker 2: political activity, they're in so other people there's a subset
Speaker 2: of people just don't really understand the issues presented, and
Speaker 2: they essentially accept what court historians claim. But then they
Speaker 2: diverge or they think that the question is should there
Speaker 2: you know, should there be a deeper analysis at this
Speaker 2: key juncture in the summer of nineteen forty one, they're
Speaker 2: looking at it the wrong way, you know, either out
Speaker 2: of ignorance or because they're powed by what they do
Speaker 2: as a political consensus among academ and they don't want
Speaker 2: to be availed a kind of punitive scrutiny. And I'll
Speaker 2: get into what I mean by that, you know, I
Speaker 2: if you if you accept the if you accept Suvarov's perspective,
Speaker 2: which was also shared by Jakam Hoffman. Jackham Hoffman was
Speaker 2: a military historian. He was when he was alive. He
Speaker 2: died in middle age in the nineteen nineties early two thousands.
Speaker 2: But he wrote this exhaustive book called Stalin's War of Extermination,
Speaker 2: and he was essentially uh bundesevel archivist. And he wrote
Speaker 2: this exhaustive book about the origins of the Second World War.
Speaker 2: And you know, about half of it is dedicated to
Speaker 2: the political conditions that gave rise the conflict, and about
Speaker 2: half of it deals with kind of hard and fast
Speaker 2: military subject matter. But I think that's the best book
Speaker 2: written on the topic, and he agreed very much with
Speaker 2: with Suvras analysis, but also myself, especially being somebody who
Speaker 2: favors direct evidence and the testimony of parties to the
Speaker 2: events in question. You know, if you look at what
Speaker 2: Stalin said, and if you examine the sort of ontological
Speaker 2: aspects the pedigonology of Marxist Leninism, there should be something
Speaker 2: of a no brainer. You know, this idea that the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union didn't have ambitions of an imperialistic nature, that
Speaker 2: it had no interest in exporting its ideology to the
Speaker 2: rest of the developed world, that it wasn't possessed of
Speaker 2: an expansionist sensibility, that's laughable. I mean, it's laughable because
Speaker 2: the only thing that sustains the revolutionary political cultures such
Speaker 2: as that that was characteristic of the Soviet Union is
Speaker 2: this kind of dynamic revolutionary violence that's got to be
Speaker 2: exported once the revolution is consolidated within. But also, you know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union between nineteen twenty two in nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: it conquered a land mass of that was equivalent to
Speaker 2: the size of the German Reich in nineteen nineteen something
Speaker 2: like four hundred thousand square kilometers. This was a massively aggressive, expansionist,
Speaker 2: burgaining superpower. You know, that's indisputable. And this idea that
Speaker 2: the world where you're talking about the United Kingdom, which
Speaker 2: had conquered twenty three percent of the planet and lorded
Speaker 2: over five hundred million people. You got the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: which constitutes one sixth of this planet, and it's animated
Speaker 2: by this revolutionary imperative that it calls for the the
Speaker 2: bolshivization of the entire developed world. You have the United States,
Speaker 2: which is in control as a nineteen thirty nine of
Speaker 2: fully half of this planet remaining resources. The idea that
Speaker 2: the world was terrified of this comparatively tiny country in Germany,
Speaker 2: that's a laughful you know, I mean, that's that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I don't know how else to characterize it. And the
Speaker 2: fact that you know, people suggest that is you know,
Speaker 2: is is insane. I'd say it's comical, but there's nothing
Speaker 2: funny about it, because this kind of garbage inform's decision making,
Speaker 2: and it you know, it's constantly it was a kind
Speaker 2: of mass delusion of in the public mind. But you know,
Speaker 2: first and foremost it often makes his point really at
Speaker 2: the beginning of his study, you know, the the imperialistic
Speaker 2: I don't imperialist in the sense Latin has talked about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, the Soviet Union was an empire in the
Speaker 2: ideological sense make a mistake, and this sort of violent
Speaker 2: imperialistic power, political sensibility. It was. It was. It was
Speaker 2: this kind of relatory practice. It was baked into every
Speaker 2: aspect of the Soviet political system, even even the heraldic
Speaker 2: standard of the Soviet Union, which endured until the final
Speaker 2: days in nineteen ninety one. It was literally the globe
Speaker 2: with the overlaid on the planet Earth is this giant
Speaker 2: hammer and sickle, you know. That was That was the
Speaker 2: Soviet coat of arms. The symbolism is obvious, you know,
Speaker 2: Communism will encircle the whole world, you know, and the
Speaker 2: motto of the Soviet Union similarly until the end translates
Speaker 2: to proletarians of all countries unite. Yeah, it can't really
Speaker 2: be more on the nose than that, you know. But
Speaker 2: again intrinsic to in termsic to the Marxist Leninist ethos
Speaker 2: as a globalist perspective, that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: the twentieth century belong so much to the communists because
Speaker 2: it was uniquely it was an ideology that was uniquely
Speaker 2: suited to the then present, and it was fundamentally ford looking.
Speaker 2: They can't be denied, you know, it's it's obsolescence. Oh
Speaker 2: do you know the fact that it became a staid
Speaker 2: the form of of organization, and it was it was,
Speaker 2: it became an obsolescent psychological artifact. But at Zena that
Speaker 2: it was very much astride the Zeit guys, and they
Speaker 2: can't be denied. And even it was animated by a
Speaker 2: uniquely expansionist sensibility. But even hit it not then everybody was.
Speaker 2: It was everybody who was, you know, participating in velt
Speaker 2: politique at scale had a global perspective. I mean, that
Speaker 2: was the reality. The twentieth century was decided what configuration
Speaker 2: globalism would take. Okay, it's just this idea of a
Speaker 2: kind of insular communism that was narrowly status that in
Speaker 2: inward looking, I mean, that's that's ridiculous. And beyond that
Speaker 2: Stalin Stalin himself came to characterize the ideological culture of
Speaker 2: Marsis Leninism for an entire generation it's not accidentally. You know,
Speaker 2: he reigned for over thirty years, and I believe he
Speaker 2: was the single most powerful man on earth, and that
Speaker 2: is incredible for all kinds of reasons. But you know,
Speaker 2: he very much set the tenor of, you know, the
Speaker 2: revolutionary culture characteristic of the socialist community and nations as
Speaker 2: it was called. And he he was a confidant of Lenin,
Speaker 2: and Lenin said repeatedly and often, but most notably Lenin's
Speaker 2: famous December sixth, nineteen twenty speech, which was dedicated to
Speaker 2: communist practice and the vision for a velt Politique, a
Speaker 2: Soviet Velt's politique. He said that to incite the capitalist
Speaker 2: states against each other is the main stratagem of communism.
Speaker 2: In his words, he said, quote of using the knives
Speaker 2: of scoundrels like the capitalist thieves against each other, on
Speaker 2: grounds that when quote when two thieves fall out and fight,
Speaker 2: the honest man laughs. As soon as we are strong
Speaker 2: enough to overthrow capitalism completely, we will grab him by
Speaker 2: the throat. Victory of the communist revolution in all countries
Speaker 2: is inevitable, and that encapsulates Marxist learness of els polity,
Speaker 2: and that defined it until the very end. This was Uh,
Speaker 2: this was still the ambition when even amiss the strategic
Speaker 2: nuclear stalemate. You know, in the late eighties, they were
Speaker 2: still challenging in Latin America to try and rectify the
Speaker 2: strategic imbalance, owing the you know, the advantage conferred the
Speaker 2: United States and they're uh and its allies, you know,
Speaker 2: by the inner German border.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Again, the shouldn't be this shouldn't be mysterious or controversial. Rather,
Speaker 2: now what I think of is literally the Stalin doctrine.
Speaker 2: This was presented and articulated during a speech Stalin made
Speaker 2: to the Central Committee of the All Communist Party in
Speaker 2: July nineteen twenty five. And for the Soviets denied that
Speaker 2: this speech happened for decades and it was authenticated that
Speaker 2: the speech was made. And I'll get into how this
Speaker 2: came about as we continue, but we're not there yet.
Speaker 2: But what Stalin declared at this speech was quote, should
Speaker 2: the war begin, we will not stand by inactively. We
Speaker 2: will enter the war, but we will enter as the
Speaker 2: last belligerent. We will throw a weight on the scales
Speaker 2: that should be decisive. The historian named Alexander Neckridge, he's
Speaker 2: he he characterized this as the Stalin doctrine, you know,
Speaker 2: and he insisted that this was never abandoned. And that's true.
Speaker 2: And subsequent events and Stalin's decision making in the command
Speaker 2: role as well as his you know, in Warren peace terms,
Speaker 2: as well as in his role as General secretary, bear
Speaker 2: that out. You know, Stalin's last parapolitical act was you know,
Speaker 2: giving a MAO and Kimmel Sung a green light to
Speaker 2: assault on the Korean peninsula, okay, and this this led
Speaker 2: to a crisis on order of the Cuba crisis, you know,
Speaker 2: less than a decade later. It's a tangent, but I
Speaker 2: about every decade subsequent nineteen fifty, nineteen sixty two, nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy three, nineteen eighty three, there was a general crisis
Speaker 2: wrought by the traversing of a conflict diad in what
Speaker 2: was UH a peripheral theater, but that you know, nonetheless
Speaker 2: had the potential for escalation to it's a general nuclear war.
Speaker 2: And but my point being that it's it's not as if,
Speaker 2: you know, Stalin literally at the end of his life
Speaker 2: was still making decisions pursuant to this sort of doctrinaire
Speaker 2: you know program the UH. And it's that just became
Speaker 2: a fixation of Stalin's as the uh as a situation
Speaker 2: in Europe became characterized by punctually crises, you know, for
Speaker 2: the next decade and a half, subsequent climbating obviously, in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine and throughout the nineteen thirties, Stalin undertook
Speaker 2: a massive armaments program that was unprecedented, you know, and
Speaker 2: based on his rhetoric not just too you know, the
Speaker 2: poet Borrow and to the assembled nomenclature of the All
Speaker 2: Communist Party, but also these public speeches that he made
Speaker 2: for the consumption not just of the Soviet people, but
Speaker 2: you know, as a way of signaling to the rest
Speaker 2: of the world. It was clear that he was convinced
Speaker 2: that a general crisis of had had arrived, you know,
Speaker 2: in global capitalism, was was on its way out, you know,
Speaker 2: And it was in nineteen thirty nine, early one thirty
Speaker 2: nine the British ambassador to the Soviet Union, Stafford Cripps,
Speaker 2: and the American ambassador, Lawrence F. Steinhardt, they both were
Speaker 2: adamant that Stalin intended to bring about a war not
Speaker 2: only in Europe but in East Asia, and that this
Speaker 2: was a great threat facing the British Empire in the
Speaker 2: United States of America. And this is important, especially the
Speaker 2: fact of Stalin's attention to the developing situation in the
Speaker 2: Far East. I'd argue that this was an essential aspect
Speaker 2: of what became his strategic vision. And we'll get into
Speaker 2: what I mean by that in a moment. When around
Speaker 2: between about nineteen ninety one and nineteen ninety five, a
Speaker 2: lot of documents briefly became available from the Soviet archives.
Speaker 2: That's how David Irving got Gebels the microfilm the Gerbels diaries.
Speaker 2: That wouldn't be possible anymore obviously today and now if
Speaker 2: you even even if they're watching, government viewed you as
Speaker 2: basically friendly your view to as a dissident from the
Speaker 2: United States, they're not going to give you access to
Speaker 2: anything the FSB has, and I mean even something of
Speaker 2: exclusively historical interest, you know, from the warriors. They're they're
Speaker 2: not gonna let anybody see that, you know from without it.
Speaker 2: There's this brief period of openness in the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 2: and during that period a bunch of documents that have
Speaker 2: been corralled by the People's Commissariate for Foreign Affairs, you know,
Speaker 2: that in the form of internal memorandum as well as
Speaker 2: literally directives from you know, the desk of Stalin. You know,
Speaker 2: obviously it's it's not indicated as such, but reading between
Speaker 2: the lines, you know, these are obviously these are obviously
Speaker 2: statements from the General Secretary, most notably the People's Commissaria
Speaker 2: delegation to Japan, the telegram from Moscow that suggests that
Speaker 2: the Soviet diplomatic mission in Japan should agree to any
Speaker 2: treaty that tends to bring about hostility between Japan and
Speaker 2: the United States. You know, it's very undisguised, all of
Speaker 2: these communications are you know, throughout the nineteen thirties that
Speaker 2: anything that brings about a Japanese American war should be cultivated.
Speaker 2: And this is this is imperative to Soviet ambitions, you know,
Speaker 2: the way it was described by one of the archivists
Speaker 2: who was involved in this NNGO, which I think still exists.
Speaker 2: There's this NGO that was corralled or incorporated rather in
Speaker 2: January nineteen eighty nine, you know, this month before the
Speaker 2: enduring Border fell like low, less than a year that
Speaker 2: was dedicated to documenting human rights abuses as they called it,
Speaker 2: and other things. During the Stalin era, and there's interesting
Speaker 2: data relating to the power political situation, you know, in
Speaker 2: the years prior to nineteen thirty nine that they corralled
Speaker 2: as well, and of particular significance, there's this transcribed memo
Speaker 2: from years subsequent by a man who served in the
Speaker 2: the Chinese or Japanese diplomatic mis Soviet diplomatic mission in
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties, and he said, quote the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: for its part, was interested in distracting British and American
Speaker 2: attention from European problems and in Japanese neutrality during the
Speaker 2: period of the destruction of Germany and the liberation of
Speaker 2: Europe from capitalism. And then, of course it became clear
Speaker 2: that Japan was not going to remain neutral or America
Speaker 2: was not going to allow it to strike a position
Speaker 2: in neutrality. You know, it became imperative to do everything
Speaker 2: possible to bring the United States and Japan into collision,
Speaker 2: which once it became clear what the you know, the
Speaker 2: New Dealer's ambitions were, that sort of resolved itself from
Speaker 2: the Soviet perspective. But nevertheless, Japan was at the top
Speaker 2: of Stalin's mind, and we're gonna know what I mean
Speaker 2: by that in a minute. Now, this is really what's
Speaker 2: critical to sub hypothesis and mine own as well as
Speaker 2: what Suvarov posited. And again I echo this sentiment. I
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union started World War Two in August nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine when they launched a massive surprise attack at
Speaker 2: calcin Gole and knocked out the Japanese Imperial Army okay,
Speaker 2: and that changed everything, and that also was literally the
Speaker 2: start of World War two. If you look at hostilities
Speaker 2: with nineteen thirty nine in nineteen forty five is a
Speaker 2: singular conflict, which I think, in broad conceptual terms is
Speaker 2: is useful, you know, especially because that's court history claims
Speaker 2: that War two began, you know, in September of nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, and bizarrely they claim that, you know, Polish
Speaker 2: borders were somehow inviolable and any any any traversing of
Speaker 2: them was an act of global war. But if we
Speaker 2: examined the ambitions and strategic orientatings and objectives of why
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union assaulted Japan, it becomes clear that this
Speaker 2: was the start of the Second World War, and what
Speaker 2: this the reasons why they did that, what this set
Speaker 2: in motion it was truly and respect of a global
Speaker 2: campaign of revolutionary conquest. But in the days before that,
Speaker 2: and this is important too, because, like the nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: five speech, the Soviet Union later claimed this never happened,
Speaker 2: and it's interesting how the Allies dealt with it in
Speaker 2: subsequent years. But on August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, Stalin
Speaker 2: called a surprise secret meeting of the Central Committee of
Speaker 2: the Poet Buro. During the meeting, Stalin announced that the
Speaker 2: time had now come to quote apply the torch of
Speaker 2: war to European powder kid. Now, of course, this was
Speaker 2: also as the non Aggression Pact was being, you know,
Speaker 2: negotiated with the German Reich. What Stalin said to the
Speaker 2: assembled Central Committee, quote, if we accept the German proposal,
Speaker 2: if the conclusion of a non aggression pact with them,
Speaker 2: they would naturally attack Poland, and the intervention of France
Speaker 2: and England in this war would be inevitable. The resulting
Speaker 2: unrest and disorder will lead to a destabilization of Western
Speaker 2: Europe without US, us being the Soviet Union being initially
Speaker 2: drawn into the conflict. And again, you know, since nineteen
Speaker 2: twenty five, this had been what the Soviet Union was
Speaker 2: waiting for, according to the Stalin doctrine, as a catalyst
Speaker 2: for you know, exporting the revolution to Western Europe, you know,
Speaker 2: and Stalin continued saying, quote, we can hope for an
Speaker 2: advantageous entry into the war, and a typical Stalin euphimistic language,
Speaker 2: you said, quote a broad field of activity, A broad
Speaker 2: field of activity was now opening for the development of
Speaker 2: the World Revolution, in other words, for the accomplishments which
Speaker 2: had never you know, been abandoned, for the sovietization of
Speaker 2: Europe and Communist domination. He concluded this speech by saying, comrades,
Speaker 2: in the interest of the Soviet Union, the homeland of
Speaker 2: the worlds get busy and work so warm me break
Speaker 2: out between the Reich and the capitalistic Anglo French bloc.
Speaker 2: Now this was the first stage of the plan for
Speaker 2: Bolshevik domination, and you know it then the non aggression
Speaker 2: pack the chorus was finalized four days subsequent, and it
Speaker 2: becomes clear, you know, I don't want to take us
Speaker 2: down another tangent. But it was really Gearing who pushed
Speaker 2: really hard for a firm alliance with the Japanese. I mean,
Speaker 2: Hitler was already sort of disposed that way. Anyway, Garing
Speaker 2: respected the Japanese a lot, and Geary was something of
Speaker 2: a terrible snob, and he thought that Japan was like
Speaker 2: a high culture, I mean, which is true, but beyond
Speaker 2: the aesthetical attraction, you know, the understanding was that Japan
Speaker 2: was a great power in its own right, and they'd
Speaker 2: smashed the Imperial Russian Navy in nineteen oh five, and
Speaker 2: you know, Japan was just you know, the ideal hedge
Speaker 2: they have against the Soviet Union the East. So when
Speaker 2: the Red Army launched this blitz assault of the Japanese
Speaker 2: Army in the Far East and utterly annihilated them, this
Speaker 2: terrified people. And it also it really meant that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Reich had no choice but sue for temporary peace
Speaker 2: with the Soviet Union because then they had no hedge,
Speaker 2: you know. And it was clear that and he moved westward,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh Hitler was confident that the war,
Speaker 2: a war with France, wouldn't be a quagmire. But just
Speaker 2: the same, you know, he knew there weren't the forces
Speaker 2: in being to fight off as Soviet assault through Poland,
Speaker 2: as uh the Reich was you know, fighting Uh in France.
Speaker 2: So this was a. This was very much a conspiratorial
Speaker 2: master stroke of Stalin. I mean, I'm gonna be wrong.
Speaker 2: Stalin wanted to conquer the Far East anyway, but that
Speaker 2: timing was ideal, you know, and uh, there's the forces
Speaker 2: in being arrayed such that it was a sort of
Speaker 2: a perfect opportunity not just to humiliate the Japanese Imperial Army,
Speaker 2: but to telegraph a message of the world about Soviet
Speaker 2: military might, you know. And it was highly effective in
Speaker 2: that regard. Now, the speech that Stalin made where he
Speaker 2: outlined his plan for the conquest of Europe in the
Speaker 2: midst of you know, a Western European civil war. The
Speaker 2: French national news agency HAVAS, they obtained a copy of
Speaker 2: this by way of Geneva, presumably from you know, their
Speaker 2: own spies are from a friendly intelligence service, and it
Speaker 2: was published in early nineteen five thirty nine throughout France
Speaker 2: and uh Moscow claimed it was fake and it was
Speaker 2: a forgery, and right up to the present day, incredibly
Speaker 2: you'll find these dummy court historians and they're apologists claiming
Speaker 2: that this this this was somehow a forgery by the
Speaker 2: French Havas agency and French intelligence by by by anti communists.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's ridiculous. In the official party paper UH
Speaker 2: Pravda November thirty, ninety thirty nine, Stalin himself finally came
Speaker 2: out and officially denied UH that the speech was UH
Speaker 2: was made and and and reiterated this preposterous claim that
Speaker 2: it was some forgery by ant by by fascists. You know,
Speaker 2: this was demonstrated. It was confirmed to have been a
Speaker 2: real speech by Stalin's official biographer, who died only around
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety five. Even in nineteen ninety three he gave
Speaker 2: an interview where he confirmed for all time that this
Speaker 2: speech happened. The language of it was in fact transcribed
Speaker 2: perfectly in the you know, a document that was rendered
Speaker 2: by French of us, and that should have settled it
Speaker 2: for all time. But like I said, regime historians, UH
Speaker 2: will will simply argue by assertion and repeat lies over
Speaker 2: and over and over and over again, and they'll simply
Speaker 2: deny the evidence in rebuttal. But that's UH. This is
Speaker 2: important because it became a major This is there was
Speaker 2: a major stumbling block for the New Dealers obviously as
Speaker 2: well as UH the War Party in the UK. You know,
Speaker 2: it was beyond an embarrassment that it stood. The represent
Speaker 2: a real crisis with regards to their mandate. But it
Speaker 2: goes to show you what kind of bully pulpit had
Speaker 2: been devised and erected in uh, you know, the US
Speaker 2: and the UK. I mean, part of it was because
Speaker 2: it was the it was it was a French news release.
Speaker 2: But even so it the ability to lock out and
Speaker 2: discredit conflicting information and facts that had a tended to
Speaker 2: impeach official narratives is pretty remarkable. And in the case
Speaker 2: of the in the case of the focus in the
Speaker 2: UK and the new Deal in America. But you know, uh,
Speaker 2: and super Off, to his credit, took up the issue
Speaker 2: of the August nineteenth speech. But it was a Vokoganov.
Speaker 2: Vokoganov was the biographer in question who attested at the
Speaker 2: end of his life to the voracity of the speech.
Speaker 2: But you know, the it was on January sixteenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three. And again this this was that period of
Speaker 2: approximately summer fall nineteen ninety one until probably very early
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six where there was open access to Stalin
Speaker 2: era archives in data in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Can we address something right there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, Yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will say that, like the Goebbels
Speaker 1: draw diaries or forgeries. So you know, why isn't all
Speaker 1: of this forgeries as well?
Speaker 2: Because it's a non argument. It's like saying who forged
Speaker 2: the Gerbel diaries? What the Soviets did was they went
Speaker 2: to Berlin, they forged a bunch of documents. They put
Speaker 2: it in a Berlin bank vault, they pretended to discover it.
Speaker 2: They took it back to the Soviet Union, the NKVD,
Speaker 2: later the KGB. They continued to pretend that Gerbels had
Speaker 2: written reams of diary material for fifty years. They lied
Speaker 2: about this for no reason. Then David Irving also lied
Speaker 2: about this so that he could capture clouts. Like what,
Speaker 2: there's there's this kind of stock in trade of simpletons
Speaker 2: and idiots to just go around saying things are fake.
Speaker 2: You know, Hitler's second book is fake. General Patten's personal
Speaker 2: diaries are fake, Gerbel's diaries are fake. Everything is fake, Okay.
Speaker 2: I mean, I it's like me saying Donald Trump is
Speaker 2: actually of Jewish parentage. I can't prove that. There's no
Speaker 2: evidence to that, there's no reason to believe that, but
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna keep saying that over and over again.
Speaker 2: See Donald Donald Trump is Jewish. Oh you don't think so, Yeah,
Speaker 2: well you don't know anything he's Jewish, I say so.
Speaker 2: I mean I can do that too. Okay, you know,
Speaker 2: the onus is on the declarant you know. And again
Speaker 2: I so the Soviets are in the business of just
Speaker 2: pretending that Durbles wrote these diaries. I you know, I
Speaker 2: don't accept that because it's stupid. But look, Kalganov, he
Speaker 2: was Stalin's official biographer. He confirmed in is Vest, which
Speaker 2: was an organ of that constellation of NGOs as I
Speaker 2: indicated a moment ago dedicated to, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: truth and reconciliation about the Stalin era. He went public
Speaker 2: in Russian and European media, and he was adamant that
Speaker 2: the minutes of the August nineteen, nineteen thirty nine speech
Speaker 2: that have been published in France were legitimate, that speech happened,
Speaker 2: you know. And again, I'm sure, I'm sure these same
Speaker 2: defectors are gonna claim, well that's fake. Okay, fine, everything
Speaker 2: is fake. I'm an adult and I'm a white person.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm not I'm not I'm not a white
Speaker 2: in murder like developmently disabled. So I don't entertain that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But you know, the uh, And there's
Speaker 2: a historian, this lady historian, Russian historian ts Busueva. She
Speaker 2: undertook this broad scholarly evaluation of Suvarov's books, not just Icebreaker,
Speaker 2: kind of his entire body of work. And her account
Speaker 2: of his work product was mixed. She was somewhat critical
Speaker 2: in acutive way. She praised other stuff, but she was
Speaker 2: adamant that the August nineteenth, ninety thirty nine speech was legitimate,
Speaker 2: and she claimed that copies of the speech were known
Speaker 2: to exist in the special archives of the Central Committee
Speaker 2: and the USSR, and she made excerpts of it available
Speaker 2: to the public in December nineteen ninety four. And there
Speaker 2: was this big deal. The publication was a big deal,
Speaker 2: and it was unveiled at this conference of the Quote
Speaker 2: Memorial Society. That's the need, that's the umbrella name of
Speaker 2: that constellation of NGOs I was talking about. And this
Speaker 2: was on August sixteenth, nineteen ninety five. That was this
Speaker 2: kind of grand unveiling, you know. But they they and
Speaker 2: this might seem silly to make such a big deal
Speaker 2: about the release of historical documents. But if you know
Speaker 2: about the Soviet system, I mean that it's it was
Speaker 2: this is a special case, you know, it's it wasn't
Speaker 2: an ordinary political system. And this this document changed everything,
Speaker 2: or it should have in the public mind, you know,
Speaker 2: because it's essentially uh a standing rebuttal to the entire
Speaker 2: court narrative of the war and its origins, you know.
Speaker 2: So there's that too. So I mean again, I where
Speaker 2: where where's where's the evidence that all this is being faked?
Speaker 2: Like I guarantee you the Russian government wasn't happy about this,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean and that they still aren't any
Speaker 2: anybody who is fluent in Russian and I they're they're
Speaker 2: welcome to proper evidence that this is all lected me
Speaker 2: and and it's fake. But obviously that won't be forthcoming,
Speaker 2: you know. And though it's getting to the kind of
Speaker 2: meat of the honset of hostilities, you know, again, suber
Speaker 2: Os the core of his theory, you know. Again, it's
Speaker 2: it's not just a matter of a discreet revisionist analysis
Speaker 2: of Operation Barbarossa and which party combatant their combatants were,
Speaker 2: you know, the aggressor. It's far more of a broad
Speaker 2: spectrum analysis and that and yak and Hoffman agreed with
Speaker 2: this perspective, and I agree with it. Two, Not only
Speaker 2: was Stalin the progenitor of World War two, but World
Speaker 2: War two began on August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, because
Speaker 2: that's the date when Stalin ordered the assault on Chalcan Goal.
Speaker 2: Japanese sixth Army was deployed there. Stalin ordered a massive assault.
Speaker 2: The Japanese were soundly defeated and routed. Marshall Zukoff stated
Speaker 2: on August twenty third, nineteen thirty nine, you know, in
Speaker 2: a reference to the Chalcan Gol assault as well as
Speaker 2: the non aggression packed with the Reich which had just
Speaker 2: been you know, signed Zukov said. Quote Stalin was convinced
Speaker 2: that the non aggression pack would enable him to rap
Speaker 2: Hitler around his little finger. Quote we have tricked Hitler
Speaker 2: for the moment end quote with Stalin's opinion. According to
Speaker 2: Nikita Krushchev, Suvarov's take, which should be obvious to those
Speaker 2: familiar with the historical record, the non aggression packed on
Speaker 2: the heels of Japan being crushed on land in the
Speaker 2: Far East. Hitler believed then that he had to attack
Speaker 2: at Poland to protect the frontier of the German Reich.
Speaker 2: He would not have acted without a guarantee of non
Speaker 2: aggression because Germany wasn't in a position to go to
Speaker 2: war with the Soviet Union at that moment. People were
Speaker 2: terrified of the Soviet Union after it had just crushed
Speaker 2: the mighty Japanese Army. So again, I mean, this is laughable,
Speaker 2: this idea that this idea that Stalin, who had just
Speaker 2: crushed the Japanese Army, who was sitting on the throne
Speaker 2: of a burgening superpower that concuted one six of this planet.
Speaker 2: The idea that Stalin was terrified of Hitler in comparatively
Speaker 2: tiny Germany, that's preposterous. You know. Molotov, you know, obviously
Speaker 2: was you know, chief diplomat uh his official title was
Speaker 2: Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. Molotov spoke for
Speaker 2: the Supreme Soviet on October thirty first, nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 2: He said, quote a single blow against Poland, first by
Speaker 2: the Germans and then by the Red Army, and nothing
Speaker 2: will remain of this misbegotten little child of the Versailles Treaty,
Speaker 2: which owed its existence to the repression of non Polish nationalities.
Speaker 2: You know. So again to the Soviet nomencladur and especially Stalin,
Speaker 2: they wanted to they wanted to crush Poland. You know,
Speaker 2: among other things the polls were at the Polish Munta
Speaker 2: was ethically cleansing Russians, you know, the Russians hated the polls.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Interestingly, you know again, this this this supposedly sacro saanic
Speaker 2: Polish democracy, It didn't bother the UK when when when
Speaker 2: the Soviets assaulted That's interesting, isn't it. But so and
Speaker 2: then of course two within months, the Soviet Union assaulted Finland,
Speaker 2: you know, so uh the uh if if Stalin was
Speaker 2: this uh isolationist. Oh. And of course meanwhile too, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, they the Soviet Union was funding, equipping, arming,
Speaker 2: and facilitating the Communist revolution in Spain, which obviously had profound, you,
Speaker 2: strategic significance. You know, in the same period the Soviets
Speaker 2: had assaulted and conquered Poland, you know, Uh, They'd assaulted
Speaker 2: Finland and conquered uh Archangel you know, and through the UH,
Speaker 2: the the waging of these aggressive wars against Poland and Finland,
Speaker 2: and then essentially the extortionate annexation of the Baltic you know,
Speaker 2: and threatening to assault Romania, which all of which gained
Speaker 2: territorial concessions out of shopping fire. Because again, every the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union's neighbors were in capable of standing up to
Speaker 2: its might, you know. So by this time, by uh
Speaker 2: the eve of Barbarossa, the Soviet Union had expanded its
Speaker 2: territory by four hundred and twenty six thousand square kilometers.
Speaker 2: That was equivalent to the service of the entire German
Speaker 2: War in nineteen nineteen. And in so doing, as the
Speaker 2: Alcaholfen points out, Stalin had ripped away and you know,
Speaker 2: buffer states on Germany's frontier. So I mean Europe was defenseless,
Speaker 2: you know, in the east, you know, and obviously the
Speaker 2: time was nigh for a for an assault on Europe
Speaker 2: and where Germany was as of nineteen forty. Despite Germany's
Speaker 2: initial military successes, you know, there wasn't anything Germany had
Speaker 2: done that Moscow considered particularly impressive or critical, you know,
Speaker 2: that would have changed or altered Stalin's ambition. And it's
Speaker 2: quite the contrary. There was no longer a chance a
Speaker 2: decisive victory against the UK because you know, Sea Lion
Speaker 2: was a strategic ruse, the purpose of which was to
Speaker 2: deceive Stalin, by the way, not not that, not Churchill,
Speaker 2: which I mean, that's that's interesting in its own right,
Speaker 2: but the uh, you know, and as Stalin, who was
Speaker 2: already by that time had hundreds of spies in the
Speaker 2: rows of elements strations, and he knew exactly what America
Speaker 2: was thinking, and he knew that the United States was
Speaker 2: going to stand behind the UK. German forces were scattered
Speaker 2: piece meal all over Europe. The German army was uh
Speaker 2: still dependent on uh, you know, on horse drawn transportation.
Speaker 2: Germany wasn't even close to being able to realize a
Speaker 2: full mobilization on the order of you know, nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifteen, even if there'd been the political will to
Speaker 2: do so. You know, the minute Germany was cut off
Speaker 2: from Romania, they their army would stop in his tracks
Speaker 2: because that was, you know, their only source of vital petroleum.
Speaker 2: I mean, what would would even a layman, looking at
Speaker 2: all relevant criteria and variables as of you know, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty nineteen forty one, sees Germany and his position a
Speaker 2: catastrophic vulnerability. So I mean the idea that the idea
Speaker 2: that you know again, the idea that Stalin was afraid
Speaker 2: of Germany and afraid of its armed forces. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's preposterous, beyond belief, you know, and just for
Speaker 2: just for comparative purposes. Between November nineteen forty, in the
Speaker 2: day of Barbarossa June twenty second, nineteen forty one, there've
Speaker 2: been a massive arms build up underway since nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: but this year and a half or this half the year,
Speaker 2: I mean, between you know, the winner in nineteen forty
Speaker 2: and summer forty one, this was an unprecedented military build
Speaker 2: up in terms of scale, scope and rapidity. On June
Speaker 2: twenty second, nineteen forty one, the Soviet Army possessed twenty
Speaker 2: four thousand tanks, almost two thousand of which were T
Speaker 2: thirty four's, which were technically classed as a medium tank,
Speaker 2: but they were probably the best overall tank of the
Speaker 2: entire war. The Air force of the Red Army since
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty eight had acquired twenty three thousand, two hundred
Speaker 2: and forty five military aircraft, including three thousand, seven hundred
Speaker 2: that were of the most recent design. The Red Army
Speaker 2: had one hundred and forty eight thousand artillery pieces and
Speaker 2: mortars the inventory of the Royal Navy. In addition to
Speaker 2: its surface fleet, it had two hundred and ninety one submarines,
Speaker 2: which were an exclusively offensive platform. This meant that the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union had more submarines than any other country on
Speaker 2: this planet, had more than four times the number of
Speaker 2: submarines that the Royal Navy did, which was the world's
Speaker 2: leading maritime state. I mean, this is utterly insane, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's unprecedent on it like that, nothing approaching this
Speaker 2: sort of scope, scale and character of mobilization had ever
Speaker 2: been contemplated, let alone implemented. So, you know, again Germany,
Speaker 2: which is over committed, overstretched, outnumbered, engaged in a quagmire,
Speaker 2: not mobilized for war. Like the idea that the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: which again had just succeeded in stripping away Germany's buffer
Speaker 2: states in the East, and that successfully conquered Poland, and
Speaker 2: you know, the territory had covetated in the Arctic after
Speaker 2: you know, an unprovoked assault on Finland. This idea that
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union was afraid of Hitler, I mean, like it,
Speaker 2: it's so stupid it almost doesn't warn't rebuttal because it
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's it's an exclusively bad faith argument.
Speaker 2: But what a time we got. Yeah, I'm gonna wrap
Speaker 2: up there because I was about to get into the
Speaker 2: some of the testimony you send the commiss ours about
Speaker 2: the ideological culture of the Red Army. It's but yeah,
Speaker 2: I hope this was instructive to people.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, I can't wait for part two. Uh. One
Speaker 1: thing that I would say is I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that the narrative on Spain had to be
Speaker 1: controlled after the war is because if the Republicans would
Speaker 1: have won, Spain belonged to the Soviet Union, and you know,
Speaker 1: you could you can make the argument Germany should have
Speaker 1: never left after victory, but the Soviet Union, in no way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, would have left. That would have been
Speaker 1: a Soviet satellite state, and they would have had Gibraltzer.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, it's just like the It's just like
Speaker 2: when the ideological descendants of these of the traders who
Speaker 2: fought for the Communists in Spain, it's like when they
Speaker 2: support Islamic it's like when they support al Qaeda and Syria,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, that's not al Kaido. That's these other
Speaker 2: guys who don't actually exist or are democrats. It's like
Speaker 2: this level of it's like this infantile level of delusion.
Speaker 2: I don't even think they actually believe that there's insulting
Speaker 2: the intelligence of everybody else, like you know, the Oh
Speaker 2: those weren't the communists. There was these imaginary other guys
Speaker 2: in Spain who like, what are you talking about? There
Speaker 2: was this there was this unusual coalition of syndicolas, fascists, Filangis, Carloss, Uh,
Speaker 2: you know, reactionary monarchist types. I'm kind of secular nationalists,
Speaker 2: you know that wash who are you know, referred to
Speaker 2: with the nationalist side. I mean in anchor as that
Speaker 2: may be. This is kind of the umbrella term that's favored.
Speaker 2: And uh, there was the common Turn and and and
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union and and their proxies. Like there wasn't
Speaker 2: this other element there that were uh like gay feminist
Speaker 2: liberals or like Ernest Hemingway's buddies who just love freedom
Speaker 2: or whatever whatever delusion normis have. You know, it was
Speaker 2: a bunch of it was a bunch of communists like
Speaker 2: Eric Milke who were busy shooting priests and nuns in
Speaker 2: the face and torturing fascists to death, and you know,
Speaker 2: preparing to categorically exterminate anybody who wasn't editable, just like
Speaker 2: they'd done in the Soviet Union, and just like Bellacoon's
Speaker 2: brief tyranny did in Hungary, and and just like the
Speaker 2: Communists did everywhere that you know, they were victorious in theater.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll do your plugs for you. Go to
Speaker 1: Thomas's substack gets real Thomas seven seven seven dot com
Speaker 1: dot substack dot com. Go to his website. That's Thomas
Speaker 1: uh Thomas seven seven seven dot com. But the T
Speaker 1: is A seven, right, the first T is A and yeah,
Speaker 1: you can you can find him sometimes on x under
Speaker 1: under his government name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can link all that stuff from my you
Speaker 2: can read all those links are on my website.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I'll have the links in the in
Speaker 1: the show notes as well. So thank you. Until part two.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you doing this. This is I think
Speaker 1: this is important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, likewise, thanks for hosting me.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the
Speaker 1: Pekingana Show. This is gonna be part two of Thomas
Speaker 1: talking about Victor Suveroff and hiking Hoffman's work, So Thomas,
Speaker 1: I hand it over to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for hosting me. I think I remember where
Speaker 2: we left off. But forgive me if this is redundant.
Speaker 2: It's something that's fundamentally important as the data Barbarosa Commencement
Speaker 2: June twenty second, nineteen forty one. It's important to understand
Speaker 2: the strategic situated in as of Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: Key was the waging of aggressive war against Poland and Finland. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Stalin's plan and this was confirmed by Khrushcheff, was, you know,
Speaker 2: in the immediate aftermath of the assault and the Japanese
Speaker 2: at Chalcan goal, which, in the opinion of Hoffman and
Speaker 2: I agree with this, that's what started World War two,
Speaker 2: and the Suvarov without saying it abides that perspective. The
Speaker 2: Molotov Ribbentrop packed, which Stalin confided to the polit Burrow
Speaker 2: as well as the Kruz Jeff, was that that would
Speaker 2: embolden the Hitler to sue for war with pol which
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have done had there been the risk of
Speaker 2: a two front war. Yet Germany's position was precarious, overextended.
Speaker 2: Stalin didn't think that you know Germany could truly stand
Speaker 2: up to the UK and France. He grossly underestimated the
Speaker 2: Wehrmacht's offensive power. But even in the event of a
Speaker 2: German victory, his reasoning was that, you know, the French
Speaker 2: army would have its back broken. Germany would be on
Speaker 2: this footing a permanent hostility capture, the United Kingdom and
Speaker 2: Europe would be the Communists for the taking. You know,
Speaker 2: this was, in Stalin's words, to cruise Jeff Hitler was
Speaker 2: now wrapped around our little finger. And one of the
Speaker 2: reasons for this confidence or overconfidence, you know, and I
Speaker 2: think I mentioned before as a barbarossa Stone had increased
Speaker 2: expanded the territory of the Soviet Union by four hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty six thousand square kilometers. That's equivalent to the
Speaker 2: service area of the German right because it stood in
Speaker 2: nineteen nineteen, and especially a petular significance the aggressive war
Speaker 2: the Soviets waged against Poland and Finland and what amounted
Speaker 2: to the extortionate annexation of the Baltics, you know, with
Speaker 2: waiting Estonia pressuring Romania into further territorial concessions. You know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union really on September third, nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 2: it was in the strongest position out of all major powers,
Speaker 2: and the Soviet Union became a combatant, you know, on
Speaker 2: September seventeenth, when the Soviets also assaulted Poland, and of
Speaker 2: course there was a deafening silence eminent from emanating from
Speaker 2: London in the wake of that deployment, which is telling
Speaker 2: in and of itself. But you know, this myth that
Speaker 2: Stalin was somehow afraid of Hitler's preposterous. For the reasons
Speaker 2: just enumerated, and it's essential to understand, I mean, demonster
Speaker 2: of this is the posture of the Soviet Union diplomatically
Speaker 2: and militarily towards the German Reich. And secondly, the pattern
Speaker 2: of military deployment. And I'll get into that in a moment,
Speaker 2: But in terms of the former November twelfth and thirteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty, you know, the view from Moscow was that
Speaker 2: the war was going very badly for Germany. Italy was
Speaker 2: not performing well in the relevant battle theaters, which was
Speaker 2: compromising Germany's position in the Mediterranean, which Hitler had counted
Speaker 2: on as a hedge, you know, against the British Empire.
Speaker 2: There was no indication of a resolution of the war
Speaker 2: with the United Kingdom. You know, Germany's fear of influence
Speaker 2: was totally static. You know, Operation Sea Lion was a
Speaker 2: strategic ruse, and even were it not, it would have
Speaker 2: been a bloodbath. You know. So November twelfth and thirteenth,
Speaker 2: Stalin directed Molotov in Berlin to transmit to Hitler through
Speaker 2: ribentraup a demand for the expansion of the Soviets fear
Speaker 2: of influence. Basically, Stalin said that he demanded freedom to
Speaker 2: deploy in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece, as well
Speaker 2: as Finland. And he also said that, you know, the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union had a right to deploy on the Swedish frontier.
Speaker 2: This is incredibly belligerent. Essentially all of southeastern Europe plus
Speaker 2: Finland and a piece of scanning Avia proper. Stalin just
Speaker 2: declared that this is now my sphere of influence. And
Speaker 2: if you meet this challenge with the hostile deployment, its war.
Speaker 2: I mean, does that sound like a man who's afraid
Speaker 2: of Eatolf Hitler and the German Reich. You know, in
Speaker 2: Stalin's mind, there was absolutely no possibility of the Wehrmacht
Speaker 2: assaulting the Soviet Union even on terms of parody, let
Speaker 2: alone from a position of strategic superiority, which is somewhat
Speaker 2: fascinating because this idea that oh, the Germans underestimated the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, they didn't at all, and stowfully gets into
Speaker 2: that Holder's report on the eve of Barbarossa, and Holder
Speaker 2: had actually written he'd written an assessment in nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: seven of Soviet forces and being and capabilities. It was
Speaker 2: remarkably accurate, and von Mannstein and good Darien their assessments
Speaker 2: quite literally in the month before Barbarossa. The Soviet forces
Speaker 2: and being were exactly what they estimated them to be.
Speaker 2: In reality, it was Stalin who was looking west and
Speaker 2: saying that, you know, Germany has no meaningful offensive capability
Speaker 2: in the mighty Soviet Union, has nothing to fear, and
Speaker 2: this is the key to why the Soviets took such
Speaker 2: horrific attrition during barbaros Further relevant to context here, I
Speaker 2: can't remember if I got into this or not. There
Speaker 2: was a discreete mobilization phase throughout the Soviet Union Befe
Speaker 2: November nineteen forty when this demand that I just the
Speaker 2: numeraid was issued to Ribbon traup to deliver to Hitler
Speaker 2: by way of Malotov on order of Stalin. Between November
Speaker 2: ninety forty and the day of Barbaros, a massive and
Speaker 2: unprecedented arms build up took place in the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: This included, as of the onset of hostilities, the Rhetorican
Speaker 2: possess no less than twenty four thousand tanks, including close
Speaker 2: to two thousand T thirty fours, which were technically a
Speaker 2: medium tank, but they were the all around best tank
Speaker 2: in the Second World War. I don't think that's arguable,
Speaker 2: you know, the the air forces of the Red Army
Speaker 2: had over twenty three thousand aircraft, or thirty seven hundred
Speaker 2: of which were considered to be cutting edge fighters. The
Speaker 2: Red Army had close to one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: artillery pieces. The Red Navy, including a substantial fleet of
Speaker 2: surface ships of varying types. They had close to three
Speaker 2: hundred submarines, and submarines are expressly offensive. There are no
Speaker 2: defensive submarines and this man as Hoffman raises in his book,
Speaker 2: the Soviets not only a larger fleet of submarines than
Speaker 2: any other country in the world. But they outnumbered the
Speaker 2: Royal Navy more than fourfold in terms of their number
Speaker 2: of subs. I mean, this is the most powerful offensive
Speaker 2: military element the world has ever seen, you know. So
Speaker 2: Stalin was essentially fearless and viewed himself as the imminent
Speaker 2: master of this planet in geostrategic terms, as of barbaros
Speaker 2: as well as of ideological ones. And we're going to
Speaker 2: get into that too. Something essential to understand about the
Speaker 2: Soviet culture. Stalin was keenly aware of what had befallen
Speaker 2: the Jacobin Revolution. He was also keenly aware of the
Speaker 2: changing dynamics of of ideological cultures within great powers. You know.
Speaker 2: He realized that, for example, Japan was on the ascendency.
Speaker 2: He realized that the German Reich had intense energies that
Speaker 2: it was drawing from, even though he viewed them as
Speaker 2: geostrategically weak and compromised. He understood that the United Kingdom
Speaker 2: was undergoing a terrible existential crisis and that their empire
Speaker 2: is structured was essentially obsolescent. And this is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why there've been a series of revolts, you know,
Speaker 2: nascent as well as well developed and realized. You know,
Speaker 2: in the years before the Great War and then in
Speaker 2: the Inner War years up to the then president, you know,
Speaker 2: and socialism in one country that that was something of
Speaker 2: that was something of a propaganda cliche. Down invoked the
Speaker 2: sort of give a branding to you know, the kind
Speaker 2: of punctuated disturbances of this mass and megacytal restructuring of
Speaker 2: Russian society and the Soviet state which was becoming a superpower,
Speaker 2: as well as to you know, assuage the Western powers
Speaker 2: which were very much doing his bidding at that moment.
Speaker 2: Stalin was very much engaged with the common tern that
Speaker 2: had not changed and in the planning for what was
Speaker 2: to be the assault on Europe. In the aftermath of
Speaker 2: the Icebreaker conflict, Stalin he called back the Russian delegation
Speaker 2: to the Common Turn and he called the common Terns
Speaker 2: representatives to Moscow to advise them of what was imminently
Speaker 2: going to happen. You know, the Soviet Union needed to
Speaker 2: realize the World Revolution, to survive, as well as to
Speaker 2: consolidate its superpower status which was not just burgaining but
Speaker 2: was being actively realized also. And I realized I've probably
Speaker 2: got a bias for testimonial evidence, especially they're not exclusively
Speaker 2: in discerning the motives of men in command roles. But
Speaker 2: there's not, there's not. The direct testimony is more reliable
Speaker 2: than circumstantial evidence unless it contradicts the manifest weight of
Speaker 2: extrinsic material facts outside the parameters those declarations and what
Speaker 2: Stalin said his biographer, Colonel General Wolcagano of he word
Speaker 2: for word by Lakouv reproduced the speech that Stalin issued
Speaker 2: fourth on May fifth, nineteen forty one, And according to Volkoganov,
Speaker 2: the leader made it quote. The Leader made it unmistakably clear.
Speaker 2: War is inevitable in the future. We must be ready
Speaker 2: for the unconditional destruction of German fascism. The worl will
Speaker 2: be fought on enemy territory, and victory will be achieved
Speaker 2: with a few casualties. And as we got into last week,
Speaker 2: and as I think we've raised before in discussion of
Speaker 2: World War Two, it was a matter of formal doctrine
Speaker 2: that the Red Army was an offensive, perurpsed element. Its
Speaker 2: primary mission orientation was as the standard bearer of the revolution,
Speaker 2: and it never struck a defensive posture. As a matter
Speaker 2: of doctrine, by choice, you know, and I've made the
Speaker 2: point before. I believe Stalin is probably the single most
Speaker 2: powerful man who ever lived, and the momentum that the
Speaker 2: Communist International had at this moment was at zenith. I'd
Speaker 2: argue Stalin had to abide that role or he would
Speaker 2: have been replaced by a man who would have you know,
Speaker 2: it was a convergence of ideological, imperative and geostrategic realities
Speaker 2: in a way that is very rare, but was sort
Speaker 2: of inextricably and splendidly bound up at this juncture. And
Speaker 2: I think we talked before about the secret real I'm
Speaker 2: jumping around a bit, but I'm trying to corral the
Speaker 2: evidence in categorical capacities. The secret meeting with the polic Bureau,
Speaker 2: and this is when the common Tern delegation was also
Speaker 2: present in August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, you know, in
Speaker 2: the concominant with the assault on the Japanese Imperial Army
Speaker 2: at calcum Goal. This meeting that Shtalin called the Poet
Speaker 2: Borough and the Russian section of the common Tern, Stalin
Speaker 2: declared that the time had come to quote apply the
Speaker 2: torch of war to the European powder keg. This is
Speaker 2: when Stalin declared, if we accept the German proposal for
Speaker 2: the non aggression picked, you know, Hitler will naturally attack Poland.
Speaker 2: The intervention of France and England will be inevitable. The resulting,
Speaker 2: in Shalin's words, serious and arrest and disorder would lead
Speaker 2: to a punctuate a destabilization of Western Europe, yet without
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union being drawn into the conflict until they
Speaker 2: permissively opted do and Stalin referred to what he declared
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty five with respect to the international strategy.
Speaker 2: You know, the moment is nigh that we we we
Speaker 2: can pursue the bultimization of Europe by way of an
Speaker 2: advantageous entry into the war, through a broad spectrum field
Speaker 2: of activity which had now the potential of which had
Speaker 2: now opened up for their realization of the World Revolution.
Speaker 2: And of course, when uh minutes from this meeting and
Speaker 2: the speech were smuggled out and were obtained by the
Speaker 2: French news agency Havas by way of Geneva, you know,
Speaker 2: and it went, it was, it was, it was published,
Speaker 2: and then the Moscow immediately wanted to damage control and
Speaker 2: Stalin apologists and propagandas, particularly in London, but also in
Speaker 2: the United States, you know, they they started immediately claiming
Speaker 2: that this, this is fascist propaganda, and this, this isn't
Speaker 2: this isn't true, you know, So I mean this is important. Also,
Speaker 2: like when you read books by guys Chris Bellamy comes
Speaker 2: to mind. But they're legion these historians who claim, oh
Speaker 2: Stuvarov is a liar, there's no evidence for these things.
Speaker 2: They're redacting a huge amount of evidence, or they're just
Speaker 2: not including it and would question they say, oh that
Speaker 2: that's just propaganda. They're just not addressing it. And that's incredible,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it'd be like, like imagine somewhat
Speaker 2: more approximately, like let's say I was writing a history
Speaker 2: of the American War in Iraq from two thousand and
Speaker 2: three eleven, and it'd be like if I was categorically
Speaker 2: redacting things that President Bush and Rumsfeld said in conversations
Speaker 2: they had and just declaring that, well, it's not important,
Speaker 2: or that that's just something liberals say or allege. I mean,
Speaker 2: people would laugh at me, they'd say that's ridiculous. But
Speaker 2: in the case of you know, Barbarossa and you know,
Speaker 2: the Icebreaker hypothesis, that's exactly what they do you know,
Speaker 2: and you're just supposed to accept it. This is this
Speaker 2: is very abnormal, even accounting for the fact that research
Speaker 2: standards and things are often compromised for ideological and political reasons.
Speaker 2: But this seems tangential, but it's essential to understanding Suberov's
Speaker 2: and Hoffmann's points. We've got to ask why Barbarossa was
Speaker 2: so tactically successful for the Wehrmacht and what that means,
Speaker 2: because this is sort of the key, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: the Soviet It's we're planning an assault on Romania in
Speaker 2: the autumn nineteen forty one, and if you know how
Speaker 2: to interpret military deployments, this should be clear. But also,
Speaker 2: if you're going to assault Germany from then extant frontiers,
Speaker 2: you're gonna do so from the Baltic and you're gonna
Speaker 2: do so through Romania. And of course Germany was totally
Speaker 2: dependent on Romanian petroleum. That's one of the reasons Hitler
Speaker 2: cultivated the friendship of Antoniscu so closely. Antonescu held the
Speaker 2: Knights Cross. There was very good offices between him and
Speaker 2: Germany anyway, for cultural reasons, for ideological reasons, other things.
Speaker 2: But he and Hitler, despite the linguistic barrier. They were
Speaker 2: very close friends too, and Antonescu was Hitler's strongest alla,
Speaker 2: I believe, you know, and close to a quarter million
Speaker 2: Romanians fought, you know, for the Axis cause in the East,
Speaker 2: which for a country the size of Romania, that's remarkable.
Speaker 2: But army groups South deployed from Romania. And this, if
Speaker 2: this was a very delicate issue because Soviet intelligence, which
Speaker 2: was actually very good, this the deployment to Romania. The
Speaker 2: way Hitler, the ruse Hitler was able to pull off
Speaker 2: was that the unstable situation in Yugoslavia was what was
Speaker 2: drawing German forces at scale to be deployed there. But
Speaker 2: also obviously, through Ledgered Maine and other things, OKW was
Speaker 2: effectively able to hide the scale at which forces were
Speaker 2: being a mass there. But you know, not only was
Speaker 2: it a staging ground for Barbarosa, but Hitler was reacted
Speaker 2: with anxiety that the Soviets were in with salt Romania
Speaker 2: because they were so these forces down there at a
Speaker 2: dual role. They were purposed for an offensive mission, but
Speaker 2: they were also there to as a bulwark against amy assault,
Speaker 2: you know, at least so that they you know, there'd
Speaker 2: be enough time to reinforce and and not just you know,
Speaker 2: endure collapse of a critical front, which on top of
Speaker 2: the geostrategic menace that also to deprive Germany really of it,
Speaker 2: it's only a source of petroleum and represente quantities to
Speaker 2: feel the war machine. But what this led to was
Speaker 2: there was massive Soviet deployments in the Baltic and in
Speaker 2: Ukraine through the Romanian frontier. So when the Wehrmacht assaulted,
Speaker 2: the road to Moscow was basically undefended. Okay, that's one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why Holder and uh Manstein they were
Speaker 2: beside themselves because they were telling Hitler, we need to
Speaker 2: move on Moscow now. We can't wait, you know, we
Speaker 2: can't wait for the weather to turn, and we can't
Speaker 2: wait for the Soviets to reconstitute and affect a deployment
Speaker 2: in depth on the path to Moscow, you know. And
Speaker 2: as the deployment schema in Ukraine, the jur Oury Group
Speaker 2: South was exponentially outnumbered, but the so the Red Army
Speaker 2: elements there they were deployed in an offensive pattern. And
Speaker 2: if you know anything about the way the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: fought and the way the armforce in the Russian Federation
Speaker 2: fights and they very much scaled down way to they
Speaker 2: obviously and with very different localized combined arms platforms. Deep
Speaker 2: battle is its it's dependent upon a fixed deployment schema
Speaker 2: for it to work, okay. And the way the Red
Speaker 2: Army deployed offensively, and this is what they did when
Speaker 2: the tide turned and after Kursk, this is how they
Speaker 2: assaulted Berlin. The offensive deployment schema is by heavy use
Speaker 2: of shock armies, a Soviet shock army. They were larded
Speaker 2: with firepower and totally front loaded. Okay. So when Army
Speaker 2: Group South engaged the Red Army through the ky Of Corridor,
Speaker 2: they were engaging this forward element that was loaded down
Speaker 2: with firepower that was supposed to break through the mainline
Speaker 2: of resistance, but that had a limited operational capacity, often
Speaker 2: of only a few days. Then they were to be
Speaker 2: rapidly reinforced by fresh elements who would continually assault in waves,
Speaker 2: and then when that shock element was was re equipped
Speaker 2: and refitted, they would smash through again. But obviously, if
Speaker 2: the Wehrmacht assaults with mass armored columns, when you're deployed
Speaker 2: offensively with your front loaded shock army, as the sharp
Speaker 2: punk they're gonna smash that shock army, and then they're
Speaker 2: gonna cut through your reinforcement elements like butter, you know.
Speaker 2: And as they break through wave after wave, that frontload
Speaker 2: of element is going to be fighting on reversed fronts
Speaker 2: and they're going to get cut to pieces, which is
Speaker 2: exactly what happened. Okay, So the Soviets were taking catastrophic
Speaker 2: casualties in the North and in the South. Meanwhile, Army
Speaker 2: Group Center was racing to Moscow quite literally, and Hitler
Speaker 2: didn't know quite what to make of this because there
Speaker 2: were sort of two Hitlers. And Stofally makes this point.
Speaker 2: When Hitler felt confident politically and when he had a
Speaker 2: what he believed was a firm conceptual grasp of the battlespace,
Speaker 2: Hitler was hyper aggressive. When fog of war questions or
Speaker 2: political uncertainty clouded that perspective, Hitler developed a siege mentality,
Speaker 2: and that's exactly what happened. And Hitler viewed Stalin as
Speaker 2: incredibly dangerous as he should have. So Hitler essentially halted
Speaker 2: Army Groups Center well Army Group South, surrounded this massive
Speaker 2: element plus the reserves that the Kremlin had ordered, like
Speaker 2: rushed to the front immediately, and Hitler was afraid to
Speaker 2: push the attack for a decisive victory at Moscow until
Speaker 2: this element was neutralized. And it was neutralized. The only
Speaker 2: casualties the Soviets endured is utterly castrophic and unprecedented. And
Speaker 2: the Germans took something like three quarters of a million
Speaker 2: prisoners alone. Okay, but by the time, by the time
Speaker 2: the FU ordered the attack to be pushed on Moscow
Speaker 2: was too late. Okay, that's what happened. People misunderstand that.
Speaker 2: It says, you know, oh, the Germans were plotting to
Speaker 2: attack all along because the Soviets were weak in some ways.
Speaker 2: But then Stalin got it together, and you know, because
Speaker 2: the Germans underestimated Soviet capabilities. You know, Hitler lost the war.
Speaker 2: That's not true at all. That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: And you know, if Stalin was like, look at it
Speaker 2: like this. Okay, the Germans were halted at Moscow, but
Speaker 2: they reached the gates of Moscow, they reached Leningrad and
Speaker 2: lated it to siege, they reached Stalingrad. The German the
Speaker 2: very much reached all of its objectives in months. How
Speaker 2: long did it take the Red Army to march on Berlin.
Speaker 2: It took them almost four years. So while was there
Speaker 2: this plotting, grinding blood bath. If the Soviets were this
Speaker 2: grossly underestimated force, you know, and the Germans didn't know
Speaker 2: what they were doing like this, the Germans killed the
Speaker 2: Red Army, you know. Obviously the Russians still had enough
Speaker 2: to hold Moscow and they did, and that was incredibly valiant.
Speaker 2: And Russians are incredibly tough. And there's a simplicity to
Speaker 2: the way the Ivans fight, but it's a simplicity that works,
Speaker 2: you know. I think it's misguided when people suggest otherwise,
Speaker 2: and especially today because people are you know, they've adopted
Speaker 2: prejudices and stuff in this regard. There's really really stupid
Speaker 2: things that come out of the Pentagon in terms of
Speaker 2: their assessment of Russian capabilities and things. And incidentally, Eric VA.
Speaker 2: Einstein's the book it's called Loss of Victories. It's for
Speaker 2: I think it's fascinating, but it's kind of for military
Speaker 2: hounds only. It's you know, not like light Sunday reading.
Speaker 2: But what that book was the US War Department back
Speaker 2: when there was a war department. There's not anymore, no
Speaker 2: matter what, like special needs Hegseth says, but in the
Speaker 2: last months of the Department of War they debriefed Manstein
Speaker 2: on basically on you know, his experience over four years
Speaker 2: of fighting the Soviet Union in the general officer's role.
Speaker 2: And the War Department is soon to be the Defense Department.
Speaker 2: They took this very seriously, and early NATO force structure
Speaker 2: wasn't a substantial on the infantry side, ground on the
Speaker 2: imagery on our side. It was substantially based around what
Speaker 2: von Mannstein had. It's said, Okay, so this book was
Speaker 2: sometime in the fifties, the first edition, it was edited
Speaker 2: and make it more readable, and it's it's literally Managelin
Speaker 2: is debriefing with some added stuff, you know. So and
Speaker 2: that that was one of his core premises is that
Speaker 2: fighting the Russians on Russian territory, they're they're they're they're
Speaker 2: unbelievably and savagely tough, you know, and that that's a
Speaker 2: force multiplier, and it also makes up for some of their shortcomings.
Speaker 2: And the Russians also they they know what they know
Speaker 2: the limits of their capabilities, you know. And on the
Speaker 2: one hand, and super off of his book Inside the
Speaker 2: Red Army, which is very much worth reading too, especially
Speaker 2: if you got an interest in the late Cold War stuff,
Speaker 2: because it's very much a breakdown of you know, the
Speaker 2: the Brison of era the Soviet Army. You know, he
Speaker 2: makes the point, uh, And Harold Coyle made this point
Speaker 2: too that Doctoran in the Soviet Army was almost like regulation.
Speaker 2: There was there were no mission oriented tactics, and the
Speaker 2: whole ethos of the Soviet Army's general staff was to
Speaker 2: eliminate uncertainty wherever and whenever and however possible, so they
Speaker 2: didn't tolerate deviation from the battle plan as emerged from
Speaker 2: you know, superior orders. But nevertheless, the Russian, the Soviets
Speaker 2: and the Russians do very well with what they're good at,
Speaker 2: you know, and deep battle is what they were good at.
Speaker 2: Heavy reliance on on combined arms in a shock element
Speaker 2: capacity went on the offensive. That tended towards the kind
Speaker 2: of inflexibility which I think they later remedied somewhat during
Speaker 2: the Cold War. But the ability to rapidly shift from
Speaker 2: an offensive posture to defending the Behrmacht was very very
Speaker 2: good at that, and the British are pretty good at
Speaker 2: that too. The Soviets were catastrophically bad at it, and
Speaker 2: the French were bad at it. But part of it too, though,
Speaker 2: is that Stalin had every reason to believe that the
Speaker 2: Behmont wasn't capable of what it was capable of as
Speaker 2: of June nineteen forty one. I mean, that was a
Speaker 2: blind spot. But at the same time, you know, the
Speaker 2: Germans tend to surprise people on matters of military affairs.
Speaker 2: But that's key because it's not as internet guys and
Speaker 2: armchair goofballs who claimed, well, Suber was an idiot who's
Speaker 2: a liar like looking out bad the Soviets got mall.
Speaker 2: That's the whole, the whole point, Like that makes his
Speaker 2: point not the opposite. So that's that's key. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not just dwelling on minutia to play
Speaker 2: cake the the you know, the the military hounds among
Speaker 2: us or something. But you know it's also you know,
Speaker 2: it was you know the point too that I think
Speaker 2: a lot of lay people don't understand these days. You know,
Speaker 2: modern war resolves rapidly. You know, you don't you know,
Speaker 2: you don't plan for quagmires because then you're planning to
Speaker 2: lose a war. So you know, within ideally in about
Speaker 2: ten weeks in the outer temporal limits six months, you know,
Speaker 2: Moscow had to fall to the Hrmont and Stalin was
Speaker 2: over confident, absolutely, But it stands the reason his kind
Speaker 2: of poor view of the Wehrmacht, not in terms of
Speaker 2: its quality of men or firepower, but the geo strategic
Speaker 2: situation and what he viewed as it's over extended commitments
Speaker 2: and things. You know, he reasoned that, you know, even
Speaker 2: in the very unlikely event of an assault, you know,
Speaker 2: we can hold him at bay long enough to reinforce
Speaker 2: and by then, you know, victory conditions will no longer
Speaker 2: be realizable. You know, this all kind of falls into place,
Speaker 2: is the totality of circumstances. You've got to look at
Speaker 2: this the ssoudieological culture. You gotta take Stalin's own statements,
Speaker 2: you gotta look at the statements of his underlings, including Khrushchev.
Speaker 2: You've got to look at the pattern of deployment. You've
Speaker 2: got to take in if you know what to look for.
Speaker 2: But even I mean it's even more persuasive, or are
Speaker 2: more obvious or other, But you know, taking in totality,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's clear that Suvarov was telling the truth,
Speaker 2: you know, but also mean, well it's not it's not
Speaker 2: clear what what the alternative was. I mean it this
Speaker 2: unprecedented military build up coupled with the transformative, globally transformative
Speaker 2: aspects of the Bolshrirek Revolution, the heart and lungs of
Speaker 2: which paverbially were in the Soviet Union. I mean, what
Speaker 2: what's the alternative Stalin was? He ordered this build up
Speaker 2: for purely defensive purposes, to which would inevitably at some
Speaker 2: point provoke the West into attacking him. I mean, it
Speaker 2: doesn't that that doesn't make any sense. And generally, when
Speaker 2: you're talking about conditions of approximate parody with conventional combined
Speaker 2: arms at scale, or when you're talking about near peer
Speaker 2: strategic planning, you don't wait to be attacked. You always
Speaker 2: push the assault, you know. Then that's I mean, this,
Speaker 2: this this is very basic stuff.
Speaker 1: Well it also also it doesn't make sense to say
Speaker 1: Stalin was this interested in this social national version of
Speaker 1: socialism that that would emerge out of the Bolsheviks. When
Speaker 1: you send troops and you send advisors and you send
Speaker 1: tanks to Spain, Yeah, I mean you don't, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't care about Spain. You don't care what's happening in Spain.
Speaker 1: If if this is supposed to be for Russia only, well.
Speaker 2: It's also the Soviet Union. Like, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 2: You know, one of the one of the one of
Speaker 2: the living believing people who I I really find common
Speaker 2: ground with and in terms of political theory is in
Speaker 2: an historical subject matter is Krrie Bolton. Like he's just great.
Speaker 2: I don't know the guy. Unfortunately, he doesn't leave New
Speaker 2: Zealand much these days because he's elderly, you know. And uh,
Speaker 2: I think most people know of him because he wrote
Speaker 2: this really great exhaustive biography of Francis Yackey. But he
Speaker 2: wrote a book on Stalin called Stalin the Enduring Legacy,
Speaker 2: and people who haven't read the book, they they they
Speaker 2: panted as some sort of oh he's some Eurasianist. That's like,
Speaker 2: that's not what he's saying at all. He's saying Stalin's
Speaker 2: legacy was complicated. He basically abides the same viewpoint that
Speaker 2: Paul Godfrey does, although for some of different reasons about
Speaker 2: a substantial aspect of the Cold War deriving from the
Speaker 2: Stalin versus Trotsky paradigm. You know, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that Stalin was somehow not an internationalist. And even you know,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union can name dozens of ethnicities, you know,
Speaker 2: a huge Moslim population, you know, a huge Asiatic population,
Speaker 2: you know, a huge number of Near Eastern people. You know,
Speaker 2: it spanned one fifth or one six of this planets,
Speaker 2: like the Soviet Union was the ultimate international superpower, you know,
Speaker 2: and the only way the Soviet Union survives. And one
Speaker 2: of the reasons why the later Cold War was so
Speaker 2: dangerous as human you know, for technological reasons in historical
Speaker 2: ones and the sidelining of human decision makers and misconditions
Speaker 2: of strategic nucleator parody and things. But the reason why
Speaker 2: I drop of who was a fascinating guy. And I mean,
Speaker 2: like I've said, I believe I'm not a sovietologist and
Speaker 2: I'm not a Russia expert at all, but I do
Speaker 2: know something and it's clear to me that post Khrush
Speaker 2: chief there was a shadow trifecta of and drop of
Speaker 2: Ustanov and Gramigo with a real Soviet executive. Brezhnev was
Speaker 2: a frontman, which made sense because before he became kind
Speaker 2: of do we compromised people liked Breshnev, and he resonated
Speaker 2: with with the people even today, like he's fondly remembered,
Speaker 2: you know, like uh as as as you know, uh,
Speaker 2: it's like a man who was like a like a
Speaker 2: great steward of other Russian people and the nationalities. But
Speaker 2: you know, and drop of I mean Bridsenev was very
Speaker 2: much a Stalinist, you know, and as was in drop
Speaker 2: of but and drop off seminal speech right in eighty two,
Speaker 2: right after he became a general secretary. You know, he
Speaker 2: this is when uh project Rion, which a lot of
Speaker 2: people attribute as contributing substantially to the war Scare of
Speaker 2: eighty three in the able Archer era. I think people
Speaker 2: still misunderstand that aspect of it. But because it may
Speaker 2: there isn't one of the subject of the speech to
Speaker 2: the Presidium he said, we're going to lose the Cold
Speaker 2: War if we don't take drastic measures to countermeasures against Rima,
Speaker 2: you know, the revolution of military affairs. He was being
Speaker 2: specifically of computing power and command and control aspects, which
Speaker 2: was true. There's there's something, there's something insane. There's only
Speaker 2: like five thousand computers in the entire Soviet Union in
Speaker 2: ninety too. It was something that it was some insanely
Speaker 2: primitive state of affairs or regards high tech, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's oh point was basically the risk
Speaker 2: of war based on the strategic paradigm as it's evolving,
Speaker 2: is well as these command and control aspects and and
Speaker 2: the sideline of human decision makers, that the risk of
Speaker 2: war is probably greater than it's ever been since you know,
Speaker 2: the forties. But also so we're going to lose that
Speaker 2: war if we don't find a way to develop meaningful
Speaker 2: countermeasures that you know, are our technologies of parody, or
Speaker 2: unless we find a way out of the Cold War,
Speaker 2: you know. And that was Gorbachev's whole notion, because Gorbachev
Speaker 2: wasn'tna drop off protege. He wasn't some big liberal chevid
Speaker 2: narsee I think was subverting things. But point being, you know,
Speaker 2: Gorbachev was very much the anti Yeltsin quite literally, and
Speaker 2: Yelson was the neocons guy. You know. Gorbachev's notion was,
Speaker 2: you know, to reform the command economy with certain qualifications,
Speaker 2: you know, and and and basically do it with gods
Speaker 2: plan and favor of something else that could abide innovation
Speaker 2: in the high tech sector and to bring about peace
Speaker 2: with the United States. But surrendering to the United States
Speaker 2: or dismantling the Soviet Union that was not at all
Speaker 2: within the cars and one of the reasons why Gorbachev
Speaker 2: was head rapport with Bush and Baker. Bush and Baker
Speaker 2: assured him, we're not gonna try and dismantle the Soviet Union,
Speaker 2: and they weren't for a very specific reason. Bush said,
Speaker 2: where you know, until there's full nuclear disarmament, we're not
Speaker 2: even gonna talk about, you know, a post Soviet future,
Speaker 2: you know. And obviously the Neo count perspective and their
Speaker 2: shoehorning of Yeltsen was, you know, break the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: to piece is now their notion was, and one of
Speaker 2: the reasons for the why this crusading aast Moscow's proceeding
Speaker 2: from Ukraine. Their notion was to break the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: into essentially three discrete like client regimes, you know, like
Speaker 2: the former Soviet Far East. And in those days especially too,
Speaker 2: because the Pentagon was still looking at China as essentially
Speaker 2: friendly and obviously like you know, seed some of that
Speaker 2: territory to the to Pig King, but you know, base
Speaker 2: they'll be like a Ukraine like commissariat. They'll be like,
Speaker 2: you know, the Moscow kind of central Commissariat, and then
Speaker 2: they'll be this like former like Russian Far East that
Speaker 2: can you know, just that's just kind of like, uh,
Speaker 2: this sort of like hyper exploited you know, hinterland for
Speaker 2: the United States and and and the adjacent finance capital and stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know, uh, Bush and Baker realize like, no,
Speaker 2: we're not We're not gonna grind these people's faces into
Speaker 2: the concrete, and we're not going to destabilize the whole region.
Speaker 2: And you know, we're certainly not gonna do anything until
Speaker 2: there's full nuclear disarmament. You know that that was a
Speaker 2: tangential discussion. Should give me. But Baker was a great man,
Speaker 2: and I've got a lot of respect for him and
Speaker 2: Bush forty one, it was not a particularly likable guy,
Speaker 2: leaven It dead, but he had a very serious and
Speaker 2: sophisticated view of geopolitics and political affairs. So that administration
Speaker 2: looks better and better in my opinion. And I mean
Speaker 2: I felt that way at the time. As a teenager,
Speaker 2: I realized his country, I realized something really, really really
Speaker 2: bad was underway. When when when when Clinton was elected.
Speaker 2: I mean, it would have been one thing if it
Speaker 2: was like a twenty twenty steel but the body politically
Speaker 2: excited about this pig, and that was insane, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's not just because he was crushing our people.
Speaker 2: I mean I knew guys who got indicted and with
Speaker 2: the prison under Clinton reno for when they hadn't done anything.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not just speaking, I mean as a
Speaker 2: matter of law as well as a matter of fact
Speaker 2: or ethics or whatever. But as it may the to
Speaker 2: bring it back a bit, you know, there there's a
Speaker 2: brief moment really from about ninety two to ninety six,
Speaker 2: and that's when that's when these these historians, first another
Speaker 2: David Irving, you know, he got access to the FSB
Speaker 2: archives and there was all this incredible stuff that came
Speaker 2: to like that, you know, the old Soviet system had
Speaker 2: suppressed and kept from probably eyes. But then, I mean
Speaker 2: very quickly the things became even more opaque than in
Speaker 2: some much than they had during the Soviet e because
Speaker 2: the regime will never tell the truth about what's going
Speaker 2: on with Russia, I mean, or with Europe. But this
Speaker 2: is an issue with peculiar sensitivity for reasons that I
Speaker 2: don't think need to be elaborately explicated. But I realized
Speaker 2: I talk more about Hoffman as well as the knowledge
Speaker 2: of Barbara Rose, and I did specifically suber Of. If
Speaker 2: you going to a part three, I'll remedy that and
Speaker 2: i'll speak specifically to suber Off, and I'll include some
Speaker 2: aspects of inside the Red Army. I've got a paperback
Speaker 2: of that. I'm going to take it on the road
Speaker 2: with me.
Speaker 1: Now that sounds good to me, getting into the ye.
Speaker 1: The thing about reading subar Off is it's just this
Speaker 1: fire hose of just this date, that what was dismantled
Speaker 1: on this date, what was put in this place on
Speaker 1: this date, And it's just like just running down this
Speaker 1: whole list of things, just chapter after chat, where it's
Speaker 1: it's mind boggling. The the mountain of circumstantial evidence he
Speaker 1: is able to provide for his UH, for his thesis,
Speaker 1: which they took.
Speaker 2: He took a like a lot of Russians, the particularly
Speaker 2: guys who were in intelligence roles for military roles. He
Speaker 2: was a prolific documentary and he wrote down a huge
Speaker 2: amount of things. But also you know, obviously English wasn't
Speaker 2: his first language, and it's written kind of like a debriefing,
Speaker 2: but with like added extensit camery, I mean, which makes sense.
Speaker 2: I mean he was a defector and he he he
Speaker 2: spent literally years being debriefed by American and NATO military people.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, I get it. That's not that's
Speaker 2: not a fun right, Like the defector actually sucks.
Speaker 1: What's your take on defectors. I interviewed one once and
Speaker 1: and he was a defector from Soviet Union, like in
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighty nine, And I mean I just caught
Speaker 1: him not exactly lying, just I caught him in not
Speaker 1: being willing to have certain conversations that would just seem like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, oh, you know, well, tell me
Speaker 1: what Carl Marx got right. It's one of the things
Speaker 1: I asked him. I said, tell me what Carl Marks
Speaker 1: got right. He's like nothing, absolutely nothing. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I see these defectors come out of like North Korea,
Speaker 1: and like immediately they get debrief by the State Department,
Speaker 1: and then they get boob jobs and they're driving brand
Speaker 1: new cars and they're in frigging condos. And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I think defectors were a lot different back
Speaker 1: then than they are.
Speaker 2: To say, Okay, some guy, some DDR guy or some
Speaker 2: Soviet Union like GRU officer who defected in like May
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty nine, totally different than a guy who defected
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine or nineteen sixty nine, night and day,
Speaker 2: because the former is just like some dickhead like looking
Speaker 2: to get paid and like looking for a way out
Speaker 2: of his life in a failing system. Guys like super
Speaker 2: off first of all, they were taking a huge risk,
Speaker 2: you know. And secondly, for regular people man like it
Speaker 2: it pete cold War, you know. Uh, life wasn't that
Speaker 2: different than the Soviet Union or in America. It really wasn't. So.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like you're some GRU big shot.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're gonna get great stuff in America.
Speaker 2: You can't back home. I mean, yeah you can. You
Speaker 2: might be able to get like blue jeans for your
Speaker 2: mistress and like good scotch, but there's not some like
Speaker 2: there was some like huge difference in quality of life
Speaker 2: or something. Guys like Stuber defected because they they had
Speaker 2: ethical reasons for it, and they developed a moral contempt
Speaker 2: for the system. I really liked the book, The Hunt
Speaker 2: for at October. It's just like an awesome book, and
Speaker 2: I reread it lately because I I I've forgotten how
Speaker 2: good it was. But you know, the uh, the Captain
Speaker 2: of the Red October, the whole deal. I mean it's
Speaker 2: in parts of character. I mean it's not. It's a
Speaker 2: brilliant meditation on on late Cold War strategic nuclear platforms
Speaker 2: and the deep parodies they're in, but it's under a
Speaker 2: character study. Like the Soviet naval officer, you know, he's uh,
Speaker 2: he's this guy from the He's this Lithuanian guy. He
Speaker 2: doesn't really relate to the Russian culture. His wife needed
Speaker 2: an operation and uh, the doctor who operated on or
Speaker 2: was drunk when he poured in the surgery, so he
Speaker 2: boxed it and she died. But the doctor was the
Speaker 2: sun of some polit baro big shots. They're like, you know,
Speaker 2: you can't stop demanding like vengeance against this man. So
Speaker 2: so this navel off series just like what the hell
Speaker 2: am I doing? You know, like I and also too
Speaker 2: in it he's like deeply religious. He's like, so there's
Speaker 2: like this atheist, uh chauvinistic Russian government that killed my wife,
Speaker 2: and I am I'm supposed to I'm supposed to kill
Speaker 2: fifty million people and event a wharl like on behalf
Speaker 2: of it. Like, no, I'm not doing that. I mean
Speaker 2: there there's there's a deeper moral quag mari too, because
Speaker 2: the Red October it's a Typhoon class sub but it's
Speaker 2: got what's called a caterpillar drive, so it's invisible to
Speaker 2: SOSIS and passive sonar. So basically it's a splendid first
Speaker 2: strike weapon. So he realizes, like the Soviet Union can
Speaker 2: all this strategic balance and basically, uh bring America to
Speaker 2: terms through the threat of through the threat of nuclear assault,
Speaker 2: and like, I mean he've used that as morally fucked. Also,
Speaker 2: you know, like if we're gonna win, like let's win
Speaker 2: the Cold War clean, you know, not not do it
Speaker 2: basically by like holding America hostage with the nuclear trigger.
Speaker 2: I mean that's kind of moralistic. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: I mean, I I don't know, man, like if it's
Speaker 2: no being uh being the captain of a of a
Speaker 2: typhoon class sub that that there was a counter value
Speaker 2: like mega death machine, you know, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 2: role was to assault counter value targets and and kill
Speaker 2: millions of people if you don't believe in the system
Speaker 2: you serve. That's a pretty horrible role to be in.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got to be a true believer to
Speaker 2: do that job. It's not like any other job in
Speaker 2: the military, and it it's not like any other role
Speaker 2: in any era, you know, I commanding it can be
Speaker 2: commanding a first strike platform that that can that can
Speaker 2: kill millions of people, you know. So I obviously that's
Speaker 2: like a fictional example, but what clans he was drawing
Speaker 2: upon was the real ethos of defectors in the Cold War.
Speaker 2: And on the other side, Yeah, guys like the Cambridge five,
Speaker 2: but I think we're pretty disturbed guys. But they were
Speaker 2: true believers. That's totally different than these days. Like some
Speaker 2: I think Snowden is a is a sincere guy. Whatever
Speaker 2: problems he might have, you know, he's basically yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: he could never leave Russia now, Like it's not a
Speaker 2: happy life, you know. I I think, uh, you can argue,
Speaker 2: I mean, Snowden, I don't want to get into a
Speaker 2: deep meditation on the ethics of what Snouding did, but
Speaker 2: I my point is, like I whatever is motives, I
Speaker 2: don't think if we can say he did that for clout.
Speaker 2: But you know, these people who come the other way,
Speaker 2: like some of these Chinese or North Koreans, they're they're
Speaker 2: just not going to get paid, it's obvious, but they
Speaker 2: think they're not being respected like they should be in,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever role they're in. You know, but the
Speaker 2: Cold War was a Cold War is a different world,
Speaker 2: I mean literally, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well we'll pick this up on episode
Speaker 1: three when you uh, when you get back from the
Speaker 1: travels of Thomas on the Road and everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, everybody about thirty six hours ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, remind everybody where they can find your work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should check out my substick. It's real Thomas
Speaker 2: seven seven seven substack dot com. Alternatively, go to the website.
Speaker 2: It's number seven h on me s seven seven seven
Speaker 2: dot com. But that stuff on the show notes so
Speaker 2: people can find it easy. But uh, my website is
Speaker 2: a good one stop and my substick is where the
Speaker 2: podcast and other good stuff is at. And I've I
Speaker 2: just got off the road from DC. Then we had
Speaker 2: the Halloween All Saints Say Cemetery walk. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: make progress. I gotta make substantial progress on this manuscript.
Speaker 2: By December, things have been very hectic, so in good ways,
Speaker 2: and then I injured myself like a fucking idiot. But
Speaker 2: it's uh, the mind Phaser pod. Uh, it's gonna be
Speaker 2: another couple of weeks before a fresh episode drops, so
Speaker 2: forgive me for day. But Jake burd and I will
Speaker 2: continue to drop fresh stuff on his platforms and on
Speaker 2: radio for Chicago. So just bear with me. I promise
Speaker 2: we'll be back to regular uploads when I get back
Speaker 2: from the road.
Speaker 1: All right until episode three. Thank you, Thomas, Yeah, thank you, man.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the show. We
Speaker 1: had a little bit of a hiatus because you know,
Speaker 1: we did a little traveling and everything. But Thomas is
Speaker 1: back and we're going to finish up the series on
Speaker 1: who started World War Two? Who's responsible? And yeah, so
Speaker 1: take it away, Thomas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for hosting me again. There's there's two issues here,
Speaker 2: and if memory serves, in the first episode of this
Speaker 2: little series, we addressed the issue of one exactly the
Speaker 2: Second World War started, which seems pedantic, but it's not.
Speaker 2: It's this is a real matter of contention for anybody
Speaker 2: who's seriously engaged with the subject matter. There's a reason
Speaker 2: why court historians claim the opposite of hostilities was September third,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine, because that represents a discreetly ideologically coded perspective.
Speaker 2: And obviously the intention is to present the global strategic
Speaker 2: and geopolitical situation as being one of relative peace until
Speaker 2: the German Reich violated that peace through make it aggression
Speaker 2: against the Polish state. Okay, that's a problematic perspective for
Speaker 2: all kinds of reasons, you know, some of which are political,
Speaker 2: some of which are purely historical in nature and factual.
Speaker 2: But what I think is irrebuttable. Even if one accepts,
Speaker 2: you know, the mainstream view of a the onset of
Speaker 2: hostility between the German Reich and Poland and the subsequent
Speaker 2: war declaration on the German Reich by France and the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom, the fact of the matter is that weeks prior,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union assaulted the Japanese Imperial Army at Chalkan Goal.
Speaker 2: This was a massive engagement. This is a massive clash
Speaker 2: of forces, you know, and obviously it represented the onset
Speaker 2: of a state of general hostility. Is between two great powers,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan. So I
Speaker 2: don't really see how anybody who looks like to be
Speaker 2: taken seriously it can claim that this was some sort
Speaker 2: of insignificant event or somehow not related to the broader
Speaker 2: nexus of causation that you know, also precipitated the agin
Speaker 2: hostilities in Europe. You know, either the Soviet Union going
Speaker 2: to war with Japan in a scale capacity represented the
Speaker 2: onset of general hostilities on a planetary scale, or it didn't. Okay,
Speaker 2: So there's that related to that, but more discreetly political
Speaker 2: in terms of the significance of the subject matter vis
Speaker 2: a vis court history, narratives, and the way that official
Speaker 2: authorities in the United States and the United Kingdom and
Speaker 2: the Buddhist Republic continue to present, you know, and characterize
Speaker 2: the Second World War is the issue of Soviet intentions
Speaker 2: and what exactly the state of power political relations was
Speaker 2: between Moscow and Berlin as of you know, June twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty one. And it's pretty clear to me, you know,
Speaker 2: and I I draw a lot in substantial measure on
Speaker 2: the laate Yakam Hoffman's exhaustive study of Barbarossa. It's pretty
Speaker 2: clear to me that the Soviet Union was eminently going
Speaker 2: to assault Europe and the German Reich, not just the
Speaker 2: FURE but OKW as well as you know, various command
Speaker 2: elements within the party apparatus, the military and the secular
Speaker 2: state of apparatus recognized this reality, as did myriad heads
Speaker 2: of state who found themselves allied with the German Reich
Speaker 2: for various reasons. You know, this included Croatia, Slovakia, Italy
Speaker 2: and you know France. You know, again there was no
Speaker 2: VSI France. There was the Government of France and it
Speaker 2: it was absolutely on the side of the Axis Powers.
Speaker 2: You know, there were volunteers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland
Speaker 2: throughout uh this Central Asian Islamic countries. You know, Romania.
Speaker 2: Romania contributed a quarter million men, which is a massive
Speaker 2: contribution for a country the size of Romania. You know, Hungary, Bulgaria,
Speaker 2: the Netherlands, you know, Belgium, Luxembourg. You know, the list
Speaker 2: goes on and on and on. You know, and obviously
Speaker 2: the Spaniards that Leningrad fought incredibly valiantly. But you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's this This wasn't just a matter of zeitgeist,
Speaker 2: some sort of mass hysteria or some sort of desire
Speaker 2: to sacrifice one's life, or some sort of epemeral glory.
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union, UH had a time of the fact
Speaker 2: that it was animated by a revolutionary ideology that was
Speaker 2: truly global in character. It The Soviet Union had built
Speaker 2: a military juggernaut the likes of which the world had
Speaker 2: never seen. It was almost unfathomable, and it was only
Speaker 2: growing larger and more powerful, you know, and the like
Speaker 2: I said to me, this is obvious. Hoffman and Victor
Speaker 2: Suvarov and a few other military historians, all right, Astofe
Speaker 2: is another one. They brought unique insight to the table.
Speaker 2: And Hoffman in particular, his data points were and are exhaustive.
Speaker 2: And Hoffman too he not that I mean, obviously, I
Speaker 2: don't have any prejudice against independent scholars. I am one,
Speaker 2: but such that people are prone to dismissing historians who
Speaker 2: don't have what they view as adequate credential affiliation with
Speaker 2: reputable institutions. Well, Hoffman, when he was alive, he was
Speaker 2: in the employee of the official Historical Records division of
Speaker 2: the Bundespan, you know, and he was considered to be
Speaker 2: probably the seminal German historian on Barbarossa in terms of
Speaker 2: the military aspects. Okay, you can't say that he was
Speaker 2: a crank or that he was some Greek the guy
Speaker 2: who was outside of the establishment of the bundes Republic.
Speaker 2: He was very much insinuated into it. Okay, not that
Speaker 2: that have to make a difference, but such that it does.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't see how people can impeach his credibility,
Speaker 2: you know. And one of the issues that Hoffman takes up,
Speaker 2: because again Hoffman was very focused on the quantitative military
Speaker 2: aspects of Barbarossa. One of the things that he addressed
Speaker 2: was a lot of lay people as well as historians
Speaker 2: and military analysts who know better. But for cynical reasons,
Speaker 2: vand Wagon on this argument, they claim that, well, if
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union was so deeply mobilized and had to
Speaker 2: raise such a massively scaled war machine, why did they
Speaker 2: absorb catastrophic casualties. Well, that's exactly why they did, because
Speaker 2: they were deployed offensively. And when you're talking about combined arms,
Speaker 2: even to this day, I mean, drones and localized autonomous
Speaker 2: firepower are definitely changing things most strategically and tactically and
Speaker 2: nowhere is that more on display than in than in
Speaker 2: various aspects of tactical deployment and depth. But even to
Speaker 2: this day, this remains constant. If we're talking about combined
Speaker 2: arms modern warfare, we're not. You can't just call it
Speaker 2: a proverbial audible in the midst of hostilities, if your
Speaker 2: forces are a rayed to assault and switch to a
Speaker 2: defensive paradigm, so coming under assault when not prepared to
Speaker 2: defend in depth, it can lead to catastrophe, particularly when
Speaker 2: one's opponent is the Wehrmacht. And we're gonna get into
Speaker 2: how exactly that plays out. But not only again, does
Speaker 2: the attrition rate and specifically the skewed nature of that
Speaker 2: attrition rate. Not only does that not tend to rebut
Speaker 2: the claim before us, it actually tends to substantiate it.
Speaker 2: Now I'll get into some of these data points, said,
Speaker 2: you know, to clarify what we're talking about here. I
Speaker 2: can't remember if I got into this or not in
Speaker 2: the first episode. And please tell me if I'm repeating
Speaker 2: myself and know what has need to correct me. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna be offended. Quite the contrary, You'll be quite gracious.
Speaker 2: Between November nineteen forty and literally the eve of Barbarossa
Speaker 2: in June nineteen forty one, the Soviets undertook a massive
Speaker 2: arms build up. It Now, don't get me wrong, By
Speaker 2: the autumn of nineteen forty the Soviets enjoyed numeric and
Speaker 2: arguably technological superiority pretty much across the entire spectrum of
Speaker 2: combined arms. But this punctuated build up of November nineteen
Speaker 2: forty to June nineteen forty one can really only be
Speaker 2: interpreted as mobilization and anticipation of offensive operations. On the
Speaker 2: outbreak of hostilities in June twenty second, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union had deployed no less than twenty four
Speaker 2: thousand tanks, close to two thousand of which were T
Speaker 2: thirty fours, which you know, in those days there weren't
Speaker 2: main battle tanks. There was light, medium, and heavy tanks
Speaker 2: then arguably super heavy tanks. But the T thirty four
Speaker 2: was I think of it as kind of like the
Speaker 2: the zero of of of armored forces. You know, it
Speaker 2: was probably the most effective armored platform of the entire war.
Speaker 2: And and all are out in terms Okay, yeah, obviously,
Speaker 2: you know, the Tiger was a superior machine. That's not
Speaker 2: what we're talking about, you know, in the the the
Speaker 2: ability of T thirty four is to be rolled off
Speaker 2: the assembly line rapidly, you know, almost like model T
Speaker 2: Fords or something odin that that itself as a force multiplier,
Speaker 2: you know it. Between ninety and thirty eight and June
Speaker 2: twenty second, nineteen forty one, the Red Air Force had
Speaker 2: acquired over twenty three thousand military aircraft, around thirty seven
Speaker 2: one hundred of which could be considered cutting edge. Probably
Speaker 2: about half of those had night fighting capability. The Red
Speaker 2: Army had close to one hundred and fifty thousand field
Speaker 2: artillery pieces and heavy mortars. The Red Navy had over
Speaker 2: two hundred submarines, which I can't remember if I mentioned
Speaker 2: or not, but obviously the submarines are prest league offensive.
Speaker 2: There aren't defensive submarines, you know. And to be clear,
Speaker 2: this alone, I mean, the Soviet Union wasn't known as
Speaker 2: any kind of maritime power. I mean, if anything, you know,
Speaker 2: the the Tsars Navy had been sank by the Japanese
Speaker 2: in nineteen oh five, and that it further compromised the
Speaker 2: prestige actual potential of you know, the Russian Navy is
Speaker 2: a real force. But by June twenty second, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union by far had the largest submarine fleet
Speaker 2: in the world, more than four times that of the
Speaker 2: Royal Navy, you know, in the UK was viewed as
Speaker 2: the foremost naval power on this planet, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: these data points speak for themselves, you know. And on
Speaker 2: the political side, I know I've gotten into this in
Speaker 2: previous series that we've done. I put a lot of
Speaker 2: emphasis on direct testimony owing I'm sure in part to
Speaker 2: the fact that my background in part is at least
Speaker 2: is that of a lawyer, you know. But also if
Speaker 2: we're talking about intent, particularly of wartime executives, there's a
Speaker 2: tendency to be able to rely upon the statements of
Speaker 2: a wartime executive or an executive who is preparing for war,
Speaker 2: there's a there's insteadive is at telling the truth when
Speaker 2: the chief executives so situated, is talking to his cabinet
Speaker 2: or as a general staff officers, Okay, because what incentive
Speaker 2: or there be to lie number one, and there's there's
Speaker 2: there's active disincentives to lie because that compromises the ability
Speaker 2: of subordinate command elements to effectively execute orders and wage
Speaker 2: war towards victory conditions, you know. And so I put
Speaker 2: a lot of stock in what Stalin said, and a
Speaker 2: lot of this testimony from Stalin himself, you know, that
Speaker 2: which isn't independently documented by you know, the minutes of
Speaker 2: his speeches or by audio recording. You know, A lot
Speaker 2: of Stalin's intimates were the sources of these statements, including
Speaker 2: Colonel Volkaganov, who was Stalin's official biographer, you know. And
Speaker 2: Stalin gave a series of speeches in this in the
Speaker 2: year preceding Barbarossa, but particularly the six to eight months
Speaker 2: immediately proceeding onset of hostilities, which approximately reflects the final
Speaker 2: phase of mobilization that we talked about just now, from
Speaker 2: November nineteen forty to June nineteen forty one. And Volkoganov
Speaker 2: makes the point that that Stalin was very taciturn, but
Speaker 2: he became quite candid and quite open within the cloisters
Speaker 2: of you know, these command element corridors in his discussion
Speaker 2: of you know, what was to be military doctrine in
Speaker 2: the next war, which he increasingly discussed as if it
Speaker 2: was an imminent possibility. In Volkoganov's own words. In describing
Speaker 2: the speech Stalin made on May fifth, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: he says, quote, the Leader made it unmistakably, unmistakably clear.
Speaker 2: War is inevitable in the future. One must be ready
Speaker 2: for the quote unconditional destruction of German fascism. The world
Speaker 2: will be fought on enemy territory and victory will be
Speaker 2: achieved with few casualties. And again, this wasn't something that
Speaker 2: Stalin merely devised as a polemical device to embolden forces
Speaker 2: under his command or to overcome any potential or actual
Speaker 2: crises and confidences among the general staff by appeal to
Speaker 2: revolutionary fervor. Lenin made clear in identifying the core doctrinal
Speaker 2: elements of the Red Army, you know, back in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one, nineteen twenty two, that the Red Army
Speaker 2: was an instrumentality of revolutionary imperatives. It wasn't a defensive element,
Speaker 2: you know, and it was to be deployed offensively at
Speaker 2: all times, you know, because the only rational for its
Speaker 2: existence within the paradigm of Mercist historiography and Leninist revolutionary
Speaker 2: doctrine was to facilitate the advance of history and the
Speaker 2: victory of the proletariat against the class enemy. So there's
Speaker 2: really no there's really no way to interpret Soviet battle
Speaker 2: doctrine as anything other than discreetly ideologically coded and axiomatically offensive,
Speaker 2: you know, And this is this is going on, or
Speaker 2: this is relying upon the strictures of Marxist Leninist ontology
Speaker 2: and the distinct Marxist view of military power and its
Speaker 2: utility and its ethical functions. And the Marxist Leninism was
Speaker 2: in fact a total philosophical and political system, impoverished as
Speaker 2: it may have been intellectually in various capacities, and to
Speaker 2: be fair at what's sophisticated in others, what's irrebuttable or indisputable,
Speaker 2: is that it was a total theory of political and
Speaker 2: social and thus historical antology. So the idea that the
Speaker 2: party state, which to be clear, by nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: had categorically annihilated millions of people within the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: owing to what was identified as their ineducability, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea that Stalin or the Presidium or the Politburo
Speaker 2: Standing Committee or these surviving command elements in the Red army.
Speaker 2: The idea that they would somehow hesitate to see through
Speaker 2: these doctrinal imperatives is somewhat laughable, you know. And we're
Speaker 2: not in the court of law, so it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: a problem to invoke subsequent as well as prior precedent
Speaker 2: to demonstrate persuasively what the doctrinal character was of Marxist
Speaker 2: Leninist revolutionary military elements. I invoked the case of Cambodia
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, from nineteen seventy five to ninety
Speaker 2: seventy nine. And I know for a fact, because I
Speaker 2: got to hate me all it's affecting things. People suspect
Speaker 2: I only do that for the sake of polemical uh expediency,
Speaker 2: But that's not why. Paul Pott was not some simple
Speaker 2: minded brute. He was actually a very sophisticated political soldier.
Speaker 2: He had a very deep understanding of Marcis Leninism, far
Speaker 2: more than Mao and Democratic Tempuccia. As Paul Pott and
Speaker 2: his cadre branded the country during their brief tenure, was
Speaker 2: a very pure Marcis Leninist stayed in some ways, and
Speaker 2: there was nothing there. There was nothing heterodox an idiot
Speaker 2: logical terms about the way they implemented class warfare adjusting
Speaker 2: for the discrete conditions on the ground in Southeast Asia
Speaker 2: as in nineteen seventy five. So what I'm getting at,
Speaker 2: and I'll move on here in a moment I don't
Speaker 2: quite understand. Are the same people who acknowledge that the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union was this outlier country and that that was
Speaker 2: unusual in every conceivable sense, you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: practice and policy and theoretical foundations and everything else. Yet
Speaker 2: they insist that this this didn't somehow impact military decision
Speaker 2: making or that revolutionary ontology somehow, somehow stopped at the
Speaker 2: at the point of executive decisionism when it came to
Speaker 2: the decision to you know, spread the revolutionary cause to
Speaker 2: Europe and specifically to annihilate the dialectical enemy in the
Speaker 2: German Reich. But you know, the Stalin had spoken again
Speaker 2: and again as well to the Central Committee, most notably
Speaker 2: on January eighth, nineteen forty one, and there was two
Speaker 2: high ranking Air Force officers in attendance, and Stalin apparently
Speaker 2: spoke directly of the ratio and algorithm that was necessary
Speaker 2: to defeat the German Reich. According to the General Staff,
Speaker 2: as well as his own calculations as had been explicated
Speaker 2: to him by authorities that he trusted. He spoke on
Speaker 2: this particular day to quote twofold superiority. He said that,
Speaker 2: as had been explained to him, twofold superiority is a
Speaker 2: law of military science, meaning the two to one ratio
Speaker 2: contra the enemy and offensive operations. You know, whether you're
Speaker 2: talking about raw numbers or you know, force multipliers and
Speaker 2: variables tending to act as force multipliers that magnify the
Speaker 2: effectiveness of offensive elements, you know. And Stalin stated openly
Speaker 2: that quote, this is not a game. The time is
Speaker 2: approaching for military operations, twofold superiority is essential, but greater
Speaker 2: supurity is even better. And he said that he spoke
Speaker 2: specifically of the difficulty of traversing the Carpathians and the
Speaker 2: need to designate at least five thousand attack aircraft in
Speaker 2: order to neutralize defensive positions that infantry and armor aren't
Speaker 2: going to be able to reddle traverse going to the terrain. Now,
Speaker 2: this is hugely important for reasons I'm gonna get into
Speaker 2: in a moment, Okay, But from January of forty one,
Speaker 2: specifically January eighth, until May, you know, only weeks before Barbarossa.
Speaker 2: Stalin talks again and again about waging military operations in
Speaker 2: the Balkans, specifically across the Romanian frontier, and discrete exigencies
Speaker 2: that are presented by waging war in that theater. Okay.
Speaker 2: In a lecture given in the spring, I believe in
Speaker 2: March of forty one, but somehow neglected to sign an
Speaker 2: exec date, he addressed the Soviet Planopotentiary representative in Belgrade,
Speaker 2: which at that time was under the rule briefly of
Speaker 2: a Chetnik junta, which in turn led to the German
Speaker 2: intervention and ultimately the you know, bifurcation of the Kingdom
Speaker 2: of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. But in addressing the Planopotentiary
Speaker 2: Representative in Belgrade and select members of the Pullet Buro,
Speaker 2: he said, quote, the USSOR will only react at the
Speaker 2: proper time. The powers are scattering their forces more and more.
Speaker 2: The USSR is therefore waiting to act unexpectedly against Germany,
Speaker 2: and doing so, the USSR will cross the Carpathias, which
Speaker 2: will lead to the signal for the revolution in Hungary.
Speaker 2: Soviet troops will penetrate Yugoslavia from Hungary, advance the Adriatic Sea,
Speaker 2: and cut Germany off from the Balkans in the Middle East. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what does this mean in both immedia tactical terms
Speaker 2: and how this impacted the battlefield situation in Operation Barbarossa
Speaker 2: as well as in broader strategic terms. Well, I'll take
Speaker 2: it away better question first, the latter aspect. First, the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union plan to assault Europe through Romania. By capturing Romania,
Speaker 2: it could deprive Germany of essential access to petroleum reserves.
Speaker 2: And also that's commensurate with Soviet deep battle doctrine, which
Speaker 2: presuming forces and being ratios that Stalin described as being
Speaker 2: you know, at least a twofold advantage and preferably double
Speaker 2: or triple that Stalin basically was planning a deep battle
Speaker 2: like pincer flanking maneuver across the entirety of the continent
Speaker 2: in the north through Sweden and then down to assault
Speaker 2: Germany from the north and in the south. The main
Speaker 2: stap punks would be through Romania. And I'll get into
Speaker 2: in a moment. This is why the Army Group Center,
Speaker 2: Army Group South faced savage resistance and Barbarossa Army Group
Speaker 2: Center was moving so fast it was basically like face
Speaker 2: with no more than token opposition on the road to Moscow,
Speaker 2: which doesn't make any sense unless you understand the deployment
Speaker 2: schema of the Red Army, which was totally offensive and
Speaker 2: concentrated in the south in a way that wouldn't be
Speaker 2: rationally in a in a defensive oriented schema. It's uh
Speaker 2: most uh, most significant everyone, I'm jumping around a bit,
Speaker 2: but so please stop me if I'm not being clear.
Speaker 2: Most significant the suber of hypothesis in terms of Stalin's
Speaker 2: declared intentions was probably what's going to be known as
Speaker 2: the secret meeting with the polit Burrow and the Soviet
Speaker 2: representatives of the Common Tern who had been called back
Speaker 2: presumably to be availed for the specific person being availed
Speaker 2: to this speech on August nineteenth, nineteen thirty nine, which
Speaker 2: obviously coincided with the assault on the Japanese a Kalkin goal.
Speaker 2: But this was a surprise secret meeting, and it was
Speaker 2: unprecedented for the Russian delegation of the Common Turn to
Speaker 2: be called back. Among other things, Stalin didn't have a
Speaker 2: lot of he didn't have a lot of respect for
Speaker 2: the Common turn. I mean in part because the his
Speaker 2: UH rigid command doctrine. He didn't I mean, he wasn't
Speaker 2: comfortable with UH an ideologically coded cadre structure, whereby independent
Speaker 2: of Moscow, just going to the fact of distance and
Speaker 2: you know, remoteness. You know, he didn't want some cadre
Speaker 2: making decisions even superficially on behalf of the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: without his direct oversight. Okay, but nonetheless, you know, the
Speaker 2: common tern still had tremendous clout in ninety thirty nine,
Speaker 2: and especially coming off of the defeat in Spain, there
Speaker 2: was a real danger of a fracturing of a you know,
Speaker 2: the broad international front red front. So this is highly significant.
Speaker 2: You know, I guess what I'm getting at is that
Speaker 2: Stalin wouldn't have called the Russian delegation backed for you know,
Speaker 2: for the sake of putting on airs or to stand
Speaker 2: on ceremony or something. And this is when I think,
Speaker 2: I excuse me, I think I briefly addressed this last episode.
Speaker 2: It was in this it was in this secret meeting
Speaker 2: or secret speech that Stalin declared that uh, you know,
Speaker 2: getting the Germans, to getting the right foreign ministry to
Speaker 2: agree to a non aggression pact, you know, that would
Speaker 2: embolden them to act against Poland, you know, because there
Speaker 2: too for the Berlin and specifically Hitler felt that his
Speaker 2: hands were tied in resolving the Polish issue because an
Speaker 2: assault on Poland, even in the wake of a gross
Speaker 2: provocation or violation at Germany's territorial integrity on the frontier,
Speaker 2: you know, what, would lead to a Soviet counter strike
Speaker 2: that would be devastating. So Stalin's reasoning was, you know,
Speaker 2: we will, uh will lull Germany with this non aggression pact,
Speaker 2: which you know absolutely guarantees that they will assault Poland,
Speaker 2: which will then you know, lead to a war declaration
Speaker 2: by the UK and France. Germany, you'll uh will probably
Speaker 2: be victorious on the Western front, but only at pure
Speaker 2: it cost, you know, and then uh you know and
Speaker 2: that this thus this is the icebreaker that uh will
Speaker 2: uh soften uh what would be Europe's defensive cordon and
Speaker 2: allow the Red Army to you know, just bowl over
Speaker 2: and annihilate resistance in the West and you know, thus
Speaker 2: reverse the reverse the defeat handed to them and Iberia
Speaker 2: and you know, conquer the continent in a rapid and
Speaker 2: devastating operation. And I mean Stalin this is remarkably consistent
Speaker 2: as far back as nineteen twenty five, you know, when
Speaker 2: he was less than three years into his formal ascendancy
Speaker 2: as General Secretary, he spoke openly about the need to
Speaker 2: act militarily against Europe as soon as possible, but not
Speaker 2: until the political climate and the you know, the myriad
Speaker 2: it ever sort of changing alliance structure in the West
Speaker 2: was such that what Don called the quote broad field
Speaker 2: of activity would be realizable in order to you know,
Speaker 2: pursue the imperative of world revolution. And to be clear,
Speaker 2: you know, not only was a Europe along with America
Speaker 2: and Japan, you know, the kind of productive core of
Speaker 2: this planet, but you know, the understanding was that Europe
Speaker 2: was still the inconceptual terms, you know, the political center
Speaker 2: of human affairs. You know, conceptually, you know, every every
Speaker 2: every ideological schema you know, came from Europe, and even
Speaker 2: even things like the anti colonial movement were fully locked
Speaker 2: into dialectical uh engagement you know, with with with European thought.
Speaker 2: So Stalin's notion was that, you know, first last and
Speaker 2: always your Europe needs to be overrun and annihilated, and
Speaker 2: the revolution has to has to be implemented there. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a waste of time and it's self defeating them pursue. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's such imperatives on the periphery. But make no mistake,
Speaker 2: you know where ever revolutionary activity jumped off that had
Speaker 2: historical momentum and forced it in being Stalin absolutely was
Speaker 2: in favor of supporting that and seeing that through. But
Speaker 2: the uh, but but the but the core orientation of
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union had to be you know, the the
Speaker 2: you know, the implementing the World Revolution in Europe, you know,
Speaker 2: first and foremost. And and that's also why the Spanish
Speaker 2: War was so important. You know, it wasn't just uh.
Speaker 2: I've read some court historians claim that Shalin was somehow
Speaker 2: like reluctantly forced into the Spanish War just for the
Speaker 2: sake of appeasing the common term. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 2: that's laughable for all kinds of reasons. But it also
Speaker 2: you know, Shalin wasn't as heterodox of a of a
Speaker 2: Marxist Leninist as he's often portrayed. I mean, Stalin was complicated,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I said, I it's a lean value,
Speaker 2: but it's a great book. Carry Bolton's book stalin the
Speaker 2: enduring legacy. You know, Shalin was a complicated figure, and
Speaker 2: there were heterodox aspects to his worldview and his his
Speaker 2: own Velt politique. But it wasn't a radical divergence or something,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's important, especially because these days even
Speaker 2: even some fairly heterodox political fearis and even some revisionists
Speaker 2: seem to abide that fiction. But yeah, the you can't
Speaker 2: and in other words, this you can't you can't extricate
Speaker 2: the ambition of the Sovietization of Europe from the existence
Speaker 2: of the Soviet Union itself. You know, these these these
Speaker 2: ambitions were synonymous, and that's that's also why the Cold
Speaker 2: War developed the way they did in in raw geo
Speaker 2: strategic terms. But you know, and I think I can't
Speaker 2: remember I mentioned or not this speech and question. You know,
Speaker 2: the August nineteen, nineteen thirty nine speech. It was obtained
Speaker 2: by the French news agency have us and uh, the
Speaker 2: French were kind of notorious for getting a hold of
Speaker 2: these kinds of documents and records, you know, And when
Speaker 2: when the Havas agency by way of Geneva, when when?
Speaker 2: When when they went public with it? It was published
Speaker 2: in ah, some international journal and then in many of
Speaker 2: the major French language newspapers. But Moscow's propagandas immediately went
Speaker 2: into overdrive, you know, and claiming, you know, this is
Speaker 2: a this is a forgery. You know, this, this is
Speaker 2: confabulated by the the enemies of Russia and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: You know, it's fascist propaganda. And uh it did not
Speaker 2: make as nearly as big of an impact as one
Speaker 2: might think, you know, which is really interesting because it
Speaker 2: goes to show you too, how you know, And a
Speaker 2: lot of that too had to do with, uh, this
Speaker 2: kind of deafening silence from American news agencies, you know,
Speaker 2: and other than all the major papers in America, I mean,
Speaker 2: other than those brands held by McCormick were basically uh,
Speaker 2: mouthpieces for the New Deal regime, you know. But it's
Speaker 2: still I mean obviously too, I mean this there's a
Speaker 2: kind of nascent, low tech globalism emerging at least between
Speaker 2: America and Europe by way of you know, the UK,
Speaker 2: but even you know, I mean, it's it's, it's it's
Speaker 2: stormans remarkable that there is basically no impact in terms
Speaker 2: of global opinion. And uh I've looked too to see
Speaker 2: if this pops up in any America first literature, and
Speaker 2: I haven't found anything this positive on that question. But
Speaker 2: that again goes to show you to the degree to
Speaker 2: which the psychological environment was being actively manipulated, you know,
Speaker 2: long before the onset of formal hostilities, which might seem
Speaker 2: like an obvious point to you or myself, but people
Speaker 2: are inundated in this country with this idea that you know,
Speaker 2: somehow the New Dealers had no interest in these goings
Speaker 2: on and the European War and the intries from the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union, the German Reich, you know, until Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 2: when America was attacked. Then that changed everything. I mean
Speaker 2: that that could not be more false, from the first
Speaker 2: h to the New Deal regime, which again coincided almost
Speaker 2: precisely with the National Socialist Revolution, which was a totally
Speaker 2: legal revolution again, you know, and Roosevelt from the first
Speaker 2: days of his administration was pursuing an an absolutely radical
Speaker 2: anti fascist imperative as the core mandate of an ambition
Speaker 2: of his administration, you know, And that can't they can't
Speaker 2: be denied, you know, in the I don't want to
Speaker 2: spin this off to tangentially, and I know that a
Speaker 2: lot of people criticize me for my sources, well, yet
Speaker 2: they have yet to directly rebut any of these data
Speaker 2: points that have derived from these sources, namely Robert Conquests
Speaker 2: and Ernst Nolty, and as well as the Black Book
Speaker 2: of Communism, which is a great resource. I'm gonna add,
Speaker 2: but it's indisputable if the Soviet Union exterminated millions of
Speaker 2: people between nineteen seventeen and nineteen forty one, and there
Speaker 2: was a massive series of death camps, actual death camps
Speaker 2: that were employed towards this incredibly gruesome task, and the
Speaker 2: degree to which there was an information blackout about this
Speaker 2: reality can't be overstated, you know. And people who raised
Speaker 2: this issue, you know, not just not just America Firsters,
Speaker 2: but Joseph Schumpeter's wife. Interestingly, she spoke Japanese and and
Speaker 2: she was a big advocate for Japanese people. She was
Speaker 2: kind of a human rights type, but of a genuine sort,
Speaker 2: not like the twenty first century sort. And uh, she
Speaker 2: raised the issue of Soviet annihilation therapy as an ULTI
Speaker 2: called it, and she was she and Schumper were her
Speaker 2: hassled by the FBI. Both were you know, sympathies for
Speaker 2: the Axis vis a vis her, you know, dealings with
Speaker 2: with these people and stuff, and particularly Japanese people are
Speaker 2: being persecuted by the New Dealers, but also you know,
Speaker 2: propagandizing against the Soviet Union, in their view, was this
Speaker 2: big subversive act, you know, which seems kind of an
Speaker 2: incredible I'd imagine that people today, but they don't. I mean,
Speaker 2: but I mean, it only seems incredible if one doesn't
Speaker 2: accept the true nature of a of that regime. But
Speaker 2: that aside, it's remarkable that agree to which these things
Speaker 2: could in fact be could in fact be hidden, you know,
Speaker 2: But that also raised I mean, there's also and obliquely
Speaker 2: and conversely it it also begs the question, you know,
Speaker 2: if there was this mass murder conspiracy hatched in the
Speaker 2: German Reich at Vance in ninety forty two, like why
Speaker 2: wasn't anybody you know, publicizing that? I mean that one
Speaker 2: would think that would be a godsend to the New
Speaker 2: Dealers and a perfect way to portray the Germans as
Speaker 2: these horrific villains, and especially became imperative you know by
Speaker 2: ninety forty four, as the UIs Army was quite literally
Speaker 2: near mutiny, you know, which we've talked about that was
Speaker 2: the real catalyst for the execution of Poort Eddie Slavic.
Speaker 2: You know, it's people so uh, you know, the Walter
Speaker 2: Winschel and uh, the Office of War Information and all
Speaker 2: these myriad anglophone news agencies. They just decided not to
Speaker 2: report on the fact that the German Reich only existed
Speaker 2: to exterminate Jewish people just because they didn't think it
Speaker 2: was important, you know, they did, they didn't think it
Speaker 2: was a useful way to code propaganda. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: like a bit tangential. But moving on real quick, so
Speaker 2: I realize we're running out of time. I mentioned a
Speaker 2: moment ago. Something that's often raised is okay, So why
Speaker 2: why was Barbarossa so tactically so tactically successful? And why
Speaker 2: was the Attrition eight so algorithmically skewed against the Soviet
Speaker 2: Union if in fact the Soviet Union was mobilized for
Speaker 2: war and planning to attack. But that that's exactly why
Speaker 2: these things did develop that way. The Soviets were planning
Speaker 2: to assault Romania by autumn of forty one, and that's
Speaker 2: exactly why, like I said, army groups South encountered comparatively
Speaker 2: savage resistance and that's also why that's also why there
Speaker 2: was a there was powerful reserve elements in Ukraine because
Speaker 2: essentially they were there to rapidly reinforce the shock element
Speaker 2: that was going to assault the Balkans. So there was
Speaker 2: this awkwardly unbalanced deployment scheme of Soviet field armies where
Speaker 2: Soviet forces blocking the corridor to the Moscow Leningrad deployment
Speaker 2: space they were exponentially weaker than those deployed to Ukraine,
Speaker 2: which doesn't make any sense unless you account for the
Speaker 2: fact that they were deployed in offensive posture, the fair
Speaker 2: punk of which was you know, in the south to
Speaker 2: assault Romania through the Carpathians. Now, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: the Soviets were sensitive to the fact that Moscow was
Speaker 2: being left relatively undefended. But uh, you know, it doesn't like,
Speaker 2: it doesn't track any other way other than accept what
Speaker 2: I just acknowledged. And it's also you know, again this
Speaker 2: idea that's endlessly banned to this day, that that Stalin
Speaker 2: was afraid of Hitler, or that the Soviet Union was
Speaker 2: afraid of the Vermach. That it's like, well, I mean, okay,
Speaker 2: that's preposterous anyway, But so Stalin was so afraid of
Speaker 2: the Vermach that he he there They're basically was a
Speaker 2: token deployment on the UH path to Moscow. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, how how is amply does that work? Any uh?
Speaker 2: I mean, any interpretation is uh he can only result
Speaker 2: in a conclusion that the Soviets were poised for exclusively
Speaker 2: offensive operations. I mean, unless you can it's a tortured
Speaker 2: kind of logic. I mean, I guess you could claim
Speaker 2: that the Soviets wanted to draw the Germans in and
Speaker 2: funnel the main line of the funnel under the to
Speaker 2: the main line of resistance at the gates of Moscow
Speaker 2: and stop them their tracks, but that Moscow practically felt
Speaker 2: you know, that doesn't make any sense. I've read people
Speaker 2: who try to make some variation of that argument, but
Speaker 2: it's it's so preposterous. I don't really think it warrants
Speaker 2: to kind of blow by blow rebuttal but that's really,
Speaker 2: you know, an example of extent conditions. Speaking of herself
Speaker 2: and the resistance that IRA Group Center did encounter. To
Speaker 2: be clear, they weren't defensively deployed either. There wasn't any
Speaker 2: depth to their deployment schema and they in fact were
Speaker 2: forward deployed with a heavily armed shock element in the lead,
Speaker 2: you know, which is one reason why our group center
Speaker 2: such as they didn't counter resistance. They got hit with
Speaker 2: a lot of firepower that was immediately exhausted, and then
Speaker 2: when counterattacking the Vermont immediately broke Soviet lines because there
Speaker 2: was again, there wasn't any there wasn't any depth to
Speaker 2: the deployment. You know, if you know anything, I'm not
Speaker 2: any I'm not at all like a military type person,
Speaker 2: but I do know something about the internal logic of
Speaker 2: modern warfare, you know, in an abstract deployment. Since I mean,
Speaker 2: and if you know anything about this just not even
Speaker 2: really deep diving into the numerical data points and stuff,
Speaker 2: but it's literally looking at the map of the deployment
Speaker 2: scheme of this should jump right out at you. It's
Speaker 2: it's almost like you know those a you know, it's
Speaker 2: like illusion pictures. They used to see them a lot,
Speaker 2: like beer companies, and it's like you look at some
Speaker 2: picture and it looks like it's like a bunch of
Speaker 2: old pictures, a Spudge Mackenzie or something. But then you
Speaker 2: see it and it's like a sexy girl or something.
Speaker 2: And then once you see that, like, you can't unsee it.
Speaker 2: What's like that? Okay? I mean you look at you
Speaker 2: look at a deployment map of the Moscow, Leningrad Gorky
Speaker 2: battlespace on June twenty second, ninety forty one, and you
Speaker 2: realize like what it is, and then and then you
Speaker 2: can't undersee it, you know. So the fact anybody who
Speaker 2: makes an argument of the contrary, I got to assume
Speaker 2: they're being dishonest or they're just profoundly ignorant of the
Speaker 2: subject matter. Yeah, it looks like we've gone over an hour.
Speaker 2: I hope that wasn't to skater shot man.
Speaker 1: Let me let me hit you up with one question
Speaker 1: before we go, and this is this is a little
Speaker 1: bit off topic, but it's a question I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask since we were talking about Stalin so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did Stalin take half of Europe at the end of
Speaker 1: the war or was he given half of Europe at
Speaker 1: the end of the war?
Speaker 2: I mean both, That's what was decided at Yalta. If
Speaker 2: if if Stalin was gonna be precluded from taking Germany,
Speaker 2: that meant that Eisenhower and Montgomery would have had to
Speaker 2: assault Berlin. And had they done that, what would have
Speaker 2: happened was even accounting for the punitive and purely a
Speaker 2: lot purely ideologically motivated and additional surrender demand, vermacht Off
Speaker 2: and SS elements would have basically welcomed them in because
Speaker 2: that would have prevented the literal rape of and destruction
Speaker 2: of the German Reich. And once it was clear that
Speaker 2: Anglo American forces intended to take Berlin, Stalin would have
Speaker 2: immediately shifted to a footing of hostility cat for the
Speaker 2: United States and the UK. And even before that happened,
Speaker 2: it's conceivable that these elements that were driving for Berlin
Speaker 2: on the Soviet side, like first Ukrainian Shock Army, which
Speaker 2: I think was under Rock. I think that I think
Speaker 2: first Ukrainian Shock Army was enter Timoshenko. But whoever whatever
Speaker 2: formation cone Of and Rakasovsky respectively were commanding, it's very
Speaker 2: conceivable that they would have ordered down the company level
Speaker 2: commanders to treat the US and the UK as enemies
Speaker 2: who were literally trying to race to Berlin, as to
Speaker 2: act as a blocking element, and the Soviet view, you know,
Speaker 2: for the Germans so America to found itself at war
Speaker 2: with the Soviet Union. You know, that's the only alternative.
Speaker 2: But I mean, that's what that you like, I said,
Speaker 2: the thing was decided at Yelta. It's I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't you can uh. On the one hand, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was the new It was the New Dealers who kept
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union in the war. But like von Manstein,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend von Manstein's it's marketed as his memoirs,
Speaker 2: it's called Lost Victories, but in reality it was just
Speaker 2: debriefing by the War Department, which obviously was very interested
Speaker 2: in learning as much as they could about fighting the
Speaker 2: Soviet Union with combined conventional combined arms, with an emphasis
Speaker 2: on armored columns. Obviously. But Mannstein, who really was like
Speaker 2: a kind of Prussian martinet and a very prejudiced guy.
Speaker 2: He stipulated that the Soviet army was unbelievably tough. They
Speaker 2: could absorb catastrophic attrition and not fall apart, and much
Speaker 2: as in the Western world, as we might view their
Speaker 2: doctrinal orientation on the battlefield as exhibiting a kind of
Speaker 2: callous disregard for human life, it was and is highly effective.
Speaker 2: And those things are all true. You can't really take
Speaker 2: away from the gameness and just the raw toughness of
Speaker 2: the Red Army. You know. So I'm not gonna sit
Speaker 2: here and say that, oh, Shtalin was just handed a
Speaker 2: gift by you know, the New Dealers and in general Eisenhower.
Speaker 2: You know, because uh, the Soviet Union fought for every
Speaker 2: single inch of ground that uh they won back, and uh,
Speaker 2: the the attrition THEA endured is almost unfathomable. Yet by
Speaker 2: the time they reached Berlin, their morale was great. They
Speaker 2: were acting like they were at a party. I'm not
Speaker 2: being flippant. They were doing utterly horrible, horrible things. By
Speaker 2: my point being, the enronament that arrived in Berlin wasn't
Speaker 2: some broken ragtag for us. It was a very game,
Speaker 2: very aggressive, very high morale element, which is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why they were so dangerous. Like it's realistic.
Speaker 2: And their Utergang where Troutle young, you know, Uh, she's
Speaker 2: trying to pass through Soviet lines and then like the
Speaker 2: kid runs up and grabs her hand.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's so it's a really poignant scene. But uh there's
Speaker 2: the Soviet infantry men and they're like guzlin vodka and
Speaker 2: like dancing like you're at a party. You know, these
Speaker 2: guys have just been in action for the you know,
Speaker 2: these guys probably were the last they were probably like
Speaker 2: the last element drafted. They were probably the guys who
Speaker 2: turned eighteen, you know in uh in a in the
Speaker 2: in January of nineteen forty five, you know, and then
Speaker 2: took you know, like eighty percent casualties. You know, they're
Speaker 2: and they're they're like the surviving element, and they're they're
Speaker 2: acting like you're at a party. You know, they most
Speaker 2: most people would have fallen apart, you know, even when
Speaker 2: they had the kind of that kind of momentum in
Speaker 2: broad strategic terms, just because it was so it was
Speaker 2: so brutal and so catastrophic. So yeah, I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna take anything away from the Ivans in terms
Speaker 2: of their toughness and gameness. But it you know, I
Speaker 2: a race to Berlin between Montgomery and Eisenhower and and
Speaker 2: uh the Soviets would have meant war. So that's the
Speaker 2: best answer I can give.
Speaker 1: Awesome, All right, Well, I will encourage people to go
Speaker 1: over to Thomas's substack that's real Thomas seven seven seven
Speaker 1: dot substack dot com, and you can connect to him
Speaker 1: from from there to anywhere that he's at, and uh
Speaker 1: check him out on Twitter and make sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: to a substack so you can get the episodes and
Speaker 1: hear them. So yeah, that's at Thomas. This was a
Speaker 1: This was a great series. I thought this was a
Speaker 1: series that needed to get out there, especially after reading
Speaker 1: after reading sub Off and getting a little of the
Speaker 1: way through Hoffman and having to finish Hoffman. It's just
Speaker 1: vital information that people are you're not going to hear
Speaker 1: even if you exit court history. This is stuff that's
Speaker 1: hidden and there's a reason why both of those books.
Speaker 1: If you want original copies of both of those books,
Speaker 1: you're paying two three hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree on all accounts. And yeah,
Speaker 2: thanks thanks for including me man or rather for inviting
Speaker 2: me to participate in lieu of somebody else. That's just great.
Speaker 1: Really, thank you, Thomas. Take care now.