Civilization #59: The Man of Steel

Good morning. So today we do Justice Stalin and I want to make you the argument that Justice Stalin is probably the greatest man who ever lived, okay, for three reasons. The first reason is that Justice Stalin, he is a poor high school dropout from Georgia, which is on the fringes of the Russian Empire, and he leads an extreme fringe and despised political party called the Bolsheviks into absolute power in Russia, okay. That's the first reason. Second reason is that among the Bolsheviks, Stalin is the least impressive. Everyone else is intellectual with many books, many speeches, many achievements to his resume, but Stalin defeats them all and becomes the ultimate ruler of Soviet Russia. That's like a second reason. And the third reason is that during World War II, Soviet Union was up against Germany. So Stalin took a poor, divided, isolated nation and defeated Germany and turned it into a global hegemon, alright. So these

are the three main reasons why I consider Stalin to be certainly the greatest man of the 20th century and quite possibly you can make the argument that he was the greatest man who ever lived, okay. So I'm going to put these three things together. The first, the Bolsheviks should not have triumphed. If you just looked at what's going on in the early 20th century in Russia, you would not have predicted that the Soviets would have won. Stalin should not become Soviet leader, and the Soviets should not have won World War II. Alright? All these three things happen because Stalin willed this reality into being. He is what Friedrich Nietzsche would call the Obermanns. The Obermanns is someone who steps out of history and warps it to his will. That is Joseph Stalin. That is the argument I will make to you today. All right, so some basic history about Russia. As we discussed previously about Russia, Russia is very much a nation of a split personality.

It is both Asian as well as European, both Christian and pagan, both enlightened as well as reactionary. And because of these contradictions, it leads to many rebellions and revolutions throughout Russian history. One was famous being 1825, a group of military officers, called the Desembrists, tried to overthrow the Tsar and install a military dictatorship. Ever since this event, revolutionary... the revolutionary discussion becomes sort of like a national pastime in Russia. Dostoevsky, both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were sympathetic to revolutions. 1853 to 1856 is a pivotal moment in Europe, in Russian history, because that's when Russia loses the Crimean War to the Ottoman Empire backed by the French and the British. And this marks a limit to the expansion of Russia. So one way that Russia resolves its internal contradictions and its internal conflict is by expanding eastwards and allowing the nobles to accumulate more land, more slaves, and that mollifies a lot of these nobles.

But in 1853 and 1856, after Russia loses the Crimean War, Russia understands that It is backward and agricultural compared with Europe. So Alexander II, who is Tsar of Russia at this time, he embarks on a series of radical liberal reforms, the most major being in 1861, he emancipates the serfs. The serfs are slaves who are tied down to the land. And by liberating them, he hopes to further industrialize Russia as well as create a more vibrant market economy, which is what you need to be a modern nation state. But as you can imagine, this creates a lot of pushback from the nobles who lose a lot of wealth and property because of these reforms. A fun fact about Alexander II was he was very good friends with Abraham Lincoln. In fact, Alexander II was a huge admirer of the American Republic, so much so that when

in 1861, when the American Civil War started, Tsar Alexander II was worried that the French and the British would intervene on behalf of the Confederacy. The reason why is that, first of all, the American Confederacy provides a lot of cotton to the British and the French for their textile industry. As well, the French and the British see America as a growing threat. So by supporting the Confederacy, they believe that they can divide and weaken America. So in response, Alexander II publicly stated that if the French and the British ever declare an alliance with the Confederacy, then Russia would intervene on behalf of the Union. And to show that he was serious, he sent warships to New York and San Francisco to show that Russia would defend America. So this is forgotten, but this is a really fun fact about Russian history, that Alexander II, who was a huge admirer of Abraham Lincoln, they wrote letters

to each other and he did much to save the American Union in a time of crisis. Now, in 1881, his liberal reform stopped when he was assassinated. This was the day, he was assassinated on the day that he returned from a meeting where basically he was gonna promote constitutional monarchy in Russia. And then he was assassinated by a terrorist group called, the people's will. Now, there's a very good reason why the people's will assassinated Alexander the Second. At this time in Russian history, there were a lot of revolutionaries who believed that to liberate Russia, you need to liberate the mindset of the peasants. The problem is the mindset loved the Tsar, and so the intellectuals felt that the idea of the Tsar enslaved the peasants from seeking enlightenment and freedom, and therefore sent a signal to liberate the peasantry. You needed to kill the Tsar in an act of violence, and that's what happened in 1881.

So this is the people's will, and what you will see is that they're a very small group of people. There's at most 2,000, and they were founded right before they assassinated Alexander the Second, 1879. And after the assassination, they were—all the major members were quickly arrested by the secret police and executed, and they confess to their crimes. That's why we know so much about them. But this creates a problem. The problem is this. If the secret police were so effective in capturing all their assassins right after the assassination, why weren't they effective in stopping the assassination? That's a curious question. In fact, if you think about some more, you have some other problems. For example, the people who's been sentiments in Russia were done through un causes. And a few of the residents People's Will, it is a terrorist organization, but where do they get the funding? This is always a problem when you are an underground organization.

Where do you get your financing from? Another problem is if these are religious fanatics, they really believe that their mission is to liberate the peasantry, they're probably very opinionated and it's probably very hard to organize them into a hierarchy. So these are two major problems that the People's Will and other terrorist organizations throughout Russian history will face, including the Bolsheviks. Now to answer both questions, let's do a thought experiment. Let's just say you're a secret police and you're tasked with monitoring and capturing these terrorists. Now is it to your benefit to capture them or is it to your benefit to assist them? Now this sounds like a good question. It sounds like a silly question, but let's think about it deeply. So why don't you want to support political extremists? Well there's some very good reasons. It's risky, it's violent, it's unethical, it doesn't really help anyone. So we should not help political extremists.

But if you're a secret police and you ask yourself what are the benefits of helping them, it turns out there's quite a lot. Let's go over them. Number one. By helping extremists. By helping extremists, you defame the entire political opposition. You make all the people who oppose the Tsar look bad because, look, these are fanatical, they're violent. That's one really good reason why you want to support extremists. Second is you want to foment internal dissent among political opponents. So the classic example is the Marxist group at this time in history are the Mensheviks. And they are intellectuals and they believe heavily in Marx. The Bolsheviks are led by Marx. The Bolsheviks are led by Lenin and they are an extreme group. The main conflict is the Mensheviks believe that for the revolution to happen you have to follow Marx's prescription, which is you go from an autocracy to a bourgeoisie democracy because that is what's going to help Russia industrialize.

Once industrialization happens, capitalism will automatically make the proletariat class conscious. And when they're class conscious, they become industrialized. They will unite and overthrow the bourgeoisie democracy to create the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is the classical Marx theory of evolution towards a communist society. Lenin believes, no, we don't need this because the Menshevik worldview is we have to be patient. We have to wait for Russia to industrialize. Right now the industrial workers in Russia is about 3 % of the population. The peasantry is 80%. And Lenin's argument is that the peasantry is 80%. And the Menshevik's argument is we don't have to wait for the proletariat to become 80 % of the population. What we can do is create a vanguard party and lead the peasants into communist paradise. And the Mensheviks say when you do that, all you're doing is creating a peasant revolution which will lead to a dictatorship of the peasantry.

You'll be no different from the Tsar. So eventually Lenin and the Bolsheviks will split apart from the Mensheviks. And it would be to the benefit of the secret police to support the Bolsheviks. We'll see evidence for this later on. By supporting political extremism, you also induce political violence to justify more state control. You collect intelligence by implanting spies within these extremist groups. You can also arrest extremists to score political points within the bureaucracy because the secret police is getting paid a lot of money. How do they justify their salaries? They arrest extremists that they support. Also you can use these extremists to assassinate political enemies. So you make the argument that within the secret police, there's a faction of nobles who were outraged at the reforms of Alexander II, especially the thought of creating a constitutional monarchy which would limit the powers of the aristocracy. And therefore, they have the people's will.

Kill Alexander II. You also have false flag operations where you have extremists on behalf of your enemy create terrorist events within the country which will justify a war against an enemy. And also, the best reason, of course, is because it's fun and exciting. The people in the secret police, they're all psychopaths. And they enjoy this process. In fact, you can make the argument that one of the main functions of the secret police is to create problems for society so that they can justify their power. So again, this sounds pretty extreme to you, but let's look at some evidence that this was the case in Russia in the late 19th century. This is Vladimir Lenin, and he was a revolutionary who had to escape to Europe in order to not be captured by the secret police. And again, he was a fanatic. So let's read from Wikipedia about his time in London.

Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters. So this guy was an asshole. He was a fanatic. He was extreme. He was violent. No one liked this guy. And normally, what would happen is he becomes ostracized. He becomes alienated. He is thrown aside, and he is left to write his own books, which would happen in a normal course of events. But at this time in history, the secret police intervene. The Okhrna, which is the Russian imperial secret police. It's a secret police. Exploited his factional attitude by sending a spy, Roman Malanskovsky, to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malanskovsky to Lenin, although it's unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity. It's possible that he used Malanskovsky to feed false information to the Okhrna. Do you understand? The secret police was an active supporter of Vladimir Lenin.

Now the Wikipedia tells us that, okay, well. The Okhrna sent a spy to support Lenin. We can also guess that the secret police were also sending money to Lenin, which is very important, right? Because now Lenin can support his faction within the larger socialist movement. In fact, they probably have more money than the other groups, okay? So the secret police is incubating the Bolsheviks. All right. Let's use another example. Have you ever asked yourself where Islamic extremism comes from? Well, the answer is no. So when we did the Islamic Golden Age, what I said, and I still believe today, is the Islamic Golden Age was a period of openness and tolerance. So what changed? Well, after World War II, the Americans and the British started to sponsor Islamic extremism. Okay? This is pretty well known historically. Why? There are three main reasons why. The first reason is, at this time in history, the Soviet Union and America was fighting a Cold War.

Okay? So there were no Islamic minorities within America, but guess what? There are lots and lots of Islamic minorities within the Soviet Union. Okay? In fact, it was maybe like a third of the population. That's a lot. And they hated the communists because the communists were atheists, and they wanted to celebrate their religion. Okay? So by sponsoring Islamic extremism, you are destabilizing the Soviet Union. Okay? That's the first really good reason. Second reason is, at this time, the Middle East is growing in importance because of its oil resource. Well, at this time in history, the 50s, 60s, 70s, nationalism, panarism, and socialism are the major ideologies of these nations at this time. And these are all threats to American -British commercial interests within the Middle East. Right? Because all these ideologies are saying, like, we shouldn't give our oil for free to America and Britain. We should protect our resource.

So by supporting Islamic extremism, you're undermining the Soviet Union. You're undermining these ideologies, which is exactly what happened in Iran. And the last reason is the Americans and the British heavily support the Saudi regime, which is extremely unpopular. So a long time ago, the Saudis made a pact with Wahhabism, which is a fanatical ideology within Islam. And so by supporting Islamic extremism, you support Wahhabism, which supports the Saudi regime. Okay? So I want you guys to remember this. The secret police throughout history, they've been supporting bloodshed. They've been supporting political extremism in order to achieve short -term political objectives. Okay? All right. Let's continue. So after the death of Alexander II, his son, Alexander III, comes into power. And he is a reactionary. But he dies fairly young, which leaves his son, Nicholas II, to take the throne. And Nicholas II, he's very young, and he's very inexperienced. He's a nice guy. He loves his family.

But he's not real. He's not really equipped to lead Russia in a time of tremendous political and social tumult. In 1904, the Russians lose a war against the Japanese. And at this time, not only did they lose the war, but there's famine going on throughout Russia. So this is a time of tremendous discontent and revolution in Russia, which leads to something called the Bloody Sunday in 1905, where worker protesters were killed. They were killed by soldiers, all right? Also at this time, what's happening is that the royal family, they start to ally themselves with a priest named Gregory Rasputin, all right? If he looks scary, it's because this is a very scary man. He styles himself as a mystic. And the royal family, they have exactly one heir to the throne, and his name is Alexei, the young son. Okay? So the problem with Alexei is he has something called hemophilia, which means that if he bleeds, he could die.

And Rasputin was very good at calming down Alexei. So Rasputin became a member of the royal family, essentially. But people, the Russian people, hated Rasputin because there's rumors that he was a sex maniac. He was organizing all these satanic rituals. Also, there was a very popular rumor. There was a rumor that Rasputin was sleeping with Alexandra, okay, the Tsarina. And eventually, the nobles will organize and assassinate Rasputin. But not before this entire affair does tremendous damage to the reputation and prestige of the royal family. World War I breaks out, and even though Rasputin pleaded with the Tsar not to intervene, the Tsar did declare war. They declared war against Germany. And now Russia is up against Germany, the Austrian -Hungarian Empire, as well as the Ottoman Empire. And this war is devastating for Russia. And in 1917, there's a huge spontaneous protest against the Tsar. And at this point, his generals tell him he should abdicate, which is what he does.

And so now, the parliament, called the Duma, becomes the provisional government. And they clear a republic, all right? But they're still at war with Germany. So what Germany does is it organizes Lenin to be smuggled back into Russia so that he can foment discontent and rebellion and revolution, okay? So Lenin was not just a useful idiot to the Russian secret police, but he was also a useful idiot to the Germans who wanted to knock Russia out of the war. When Lenin returned to Russia, he tried to organize a rebellion against the provisional government because the provisional government still wanted to stay in the war, and Lenin wanted to take Russia out of the war. Lenin called for three things, okay? Land, peace, and bread. And this was very popular among the people. Eventually, the provisional government tried to arrest Lenin. He escaped.

But then what happened was the military tried to overthrow the government, and now the provisional government under Kerensky now requires Lenin to help out and defend the republic against the military. And Lenin is not in any way a politician. He's a theoretician, okay? And he's fanatical. So let's read a passage from his book, State of Revolution, which he wrote about. the summer 1917 to understand his thinking he says the petty bourgeoisie democrats he's talking about uh the professional government those sham socialists the mensheviks who replace the class struggle by dreams of class harmony even picture the socialist transformation in a dreamy fashion not as the overflow of the rule of exploiting class but as the peaceful submission of the minority tonight the majority which has become aware of its aim okay so lenin has absolutely contempt for all of his enemies a violent ritual contempt all right so in 1917 october lenin uh orders

a coup d 'etat against provisional government and this will eventually lead to something called the russian civil war and at this time in history the bolsheviks are controlling only some small cities primarily petrograd but their enemies called the whites okay the whites are uh former remnants of the russian empire uh the aristocrats the military they control most of russia and it seems like they're making a huge advance against the bolsheviks okay but there are three things that will conspire to ensure the bolsheviks win the first thing is the whites don't actually have a policy for reform they don't have they want things to stay they are the way they are and peasants are hungry they're landless they want peace okay so they lose the support of the peasants that's the first problem second thing is the um the bolsheviks will enact a reign of terror okay they have the secret police called the czech which

goes around and kills all enemies of the revolution all right so so they are fanatically instilling fear and terror among the russian people the last reason the most important reason is leon trotsky leon trotsky or leon leon trotsky or leon leon trotsky organizes the red army and leon trotsky is an incredible orator as well as organizer he is absolutely ruthless he organizes something called blocking divisions so the idea is when you go into battle um you're supposed to run ahead if you if you change your mind you run back someone some of the backhoe a blocker will shoot you to death okay so it is brutal but it works very effectively also when you go into battle you run back someone some of the backhoe a blocker will shoot you to death okay so it is brutal but it works very effectively also when you go into battle you run back someone some of the

backhoe a blocker will shoot you to death okay so it is brutal but it works very effectively okay so he turns the red army into a very effective uh fighting force and this was what allows the bolsheviks to eventually triumph okay so um in many ways the french revolution and the russian revolution are very similar all right so let's go over the similarities in both you have a poet okay richard rousseau said freedom is general will mark said freedom is class instances then you have a prophet who leads everyone into the promised land through his peer faith as well as financialism okay so in the french revolution you had rose pier who said reason will set us free within the russian revolution you have lenin who said violence will set us free the last thing which we'll focus on in this class is then you have a messiah figure who comes and he conquers the

world to ensure the revolution succeeds uh in the french revolution napoleon right who said i'm expanding empire okay so his theory to ensure the revolution will survive is to expand outwards and conquer europe is which is what he did but they have stalin who is i'm the continuous revolution so the way that he maintains the the stability and the vitality of the revolution is like he's constantly purging his enemies okay very much along the lines of the revolution in china all right so let's look at the similarity between lenin and rose pier okay both are from the lower nobility they're both poets in many ways and their families face downward mobility so lenin's father was an educator and member of the low nobility but but len's father died when he was young okay so lenin and then lenin's brother who let him really admired he was arrested while he was at university for plotting against

the empire he was he was executed okay um but both are idealists they sought to create justice in a world of injustice now the similarities between napoleon and stalin also really interesting they're both for marginalized minorities napoleon was corsican stalin was georgian and they felt persecution inadequacy okay and so they became obsessed about obtaining power to escape their insecurities all right so the similarities between these characters are very very enlightening for us all right so now we focus on stalin all right um the background of stalin is this his father a small shoe factory when Stalin was born, but then the father lost the factory and became an abusive alcoholic. Stalin was born poor, and he did well in school, he had a very loving Christian mother, he did well in school, but in high school he came in contact with Marxism and then he dropped out. So the fact that Stalin was a young

man who suffered racial discrimination, down mobility, and an alcoholic father, made him the perfect recruit for three types of organizations. Criminal networks, revolutionaries, and the secret police. And guess what guys? He was part of all three networks, and he was a nexus of these three networks within Georgia. Okay? All right, so this is Stalin, and he came from a very poor family, and eventually he will rise. He will rise to the very top. All right, so some Wikipedia background about Stalin, okay? So we won't read all of it, but I want to point out some certain sentences. Let's look at this sentence. He goes to Batuma, and there his militant rhetoric proved divisive among the city's Marxists, some of whom suspected he was an agent provocateur. He was a spy. His mission was to promote violence and organization within localities. So the secret police can swoop in and arrest everyone. And this makes a lot more sense than a poor man discovers Marxism, and then is totally committed to the cause.

It makes more sense that he was recruited as a spy by the secret police in order to sow discontent and violence among the Marxists. Okay? Let's continue. Stalin began working at the Rostov refinery storehouse, where he co -organized two workers' strikes. After the strike, leaders were arrested. Okay? Really important. The moment he organized the strikes, all these leaders were arrested. He co -organized a mass demonstration, which led to the storming of the prison. Okay? Stalin was arrested in April 1902 and sentenced to three years exile in Siberia, arriving in November 1903. After one failed attempt, Stalin escaped from his exile in January 1904. All right? So throughout this time, he is getting arrested by the secret police, but for a reason. He escapes only after like a month. All right? And the benefit of being arrested by the secret police is what?

He has credentials now. All right? You can only be a revolutionary if you've been sent to Siberia by the secret police. All right? So this is all very suspicious. Okay, let's continue. In 1905, government troops massacred protests. Stalin was in Baku in February when ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azeris, and he formed Bolshevik battle squads, which he used to keep the cities warring ethnic factions apart. Okay? This is the Bolsheviks. Okay? Because at this point in history, Lenin, Trotsky, they're basically writing books. Stalin's the one who's out there organizing people, committing violence, creating organizations. In fact, he's the one funding the Bolsheviks. Okay? Why? Because he assembles his gang, criminal network, which attack black, hundreds, and raise money for racketeering, counterfeiting, robberies, and kidnapping children of wealthy figures for ransom. He's the main financier of the Bolshevik party. Without him, there'd be no Bolsheviks. And I will make the argument to you that he's doing this on behalf of the secret police.

Right? Because, why would you do this? If you're stealing money, why not keep it for yourself and spread it to your friends and bribe the police? Why are you taking all this money and giving it to Lenin? Right? All right. So ultimately, Stalin will triumph. Why? Because Lenin and Trotsky, his two main competitors, were egomaniacs who wanted to be proved right. They're intellectuals. They're theorists. Stalin just wants power for himself. Okay. So Vladimir Lenin, he is the one pushing for the revolution. He's the theorist, right? And as the Soviets develop power, by the 1920s, he's starting to have strokes. He's always been in bad health, but now he's really in bad health. And so now, he has to figure out who will succeed him. Okay? And ultimately, he decides the best person to succeed him is Leon Trotsky. Because Leon Trotsky, he's a hero of the revolution.

He, like Lenin, both believe in an international movement of communism. They both believe that if communism is to survive in the Soviet Union, they have to spread it to Europe. And they both believe very strongly that. One push. Because of World War I, all of Europe will fall to communism. Okay? Now, Stalin disagrees with them, though. Stalin believes in maintaining communism within the boundaries of the Soviet Union. Okay? And being a nationalist. And ultimately, it is Stalin who will triumph over Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin and create his code of personality in the Soviet Union. Most people assume that Stalin and Lenin were best friends. Because really, without Stalin, there'd be no Lenin. All right? But you also make the argument about Lenin to be no Stalin. Okay? So they were codependent on each other. So it was always assumed that they were best friends. But before his death, okay, Lenin wrote a secret memo to the party leaders, and he said this.

Comrade Stalin, who's now general secretary, so he's head of the organization department of the Communist Party, which is a very important position, having become secretary general, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands. Okay? And he's not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution. Stalin is too coarse in this defect. What Lenin is saying is this. If you let Stalin continue to amass power, he will become a dictator. Lenin is head of the Bolsheviks, but he's not a dictator. There's a committee rule, okay? So at this point in history, you would think that, okay, Lenin is now leader, and he's going to make it his mission to ensure Stalin is removed from the general secretary position. And Stalin is removed as a possible contender for power over the Soviet Union. But then something happens, which is Lenin has a stroke, convulsions, and he dies, okay?

We will never know what really happened, but if you talk to medical practitioners who've looked at this case, they say, look, these convulsions are more indicative of poisoning than they are of a stroke, okay? So there's certain people, and this is not a mainstream view. There's certain people who believe that Stalin poisoned Lenin because Lenin was about to remove Stalin from his position of power. Now you're like, okay, that makes no sense. But at this time in history, there were three individuals that are in the way of Stalin amassing complete power, okay? So Lenin we talked about, but then there's a man named Zakhov Suorov, okay? And he was Lenin's right -hand man. In fact, he was his general secretary. He was the secretary of the Bolsheviks before Stalin. He was extremely competent. And then at a very young age, okay, only in his 30s, he dies of an illness.

That's really convenient for Stalin because now Stalin can become head of the organized department of the Bolshevik party and install all his cronies into positions of power. That's really convenient for Stalin. But guess what? 1926. Head of the Cheka, Felix Zavinsky, okay, head of the secret police, he dies as well under mysterious circumstances. He has a heart attack. And he's also really young. And remember, the secret police is where the center of power in government is. And after he dies, Stalin is now able to implant his cronies, his loyal subordinates, into the secret police, okay? So all this is like really convenient for Stalin. Even though we have no evidence. There's no evidence that he, in fact, poisoned all three. It's just really convenient for him, all right? This is really weird how this really worked out for him. We'll never know why, okay? But you have to be suspicious, okay?

Either he's the luckiest man ever in the world, or he basically just killed everyone in order to amass power. And in fact, he continues this. From 1936 to 1938, there's something called the Great Purge, which is a continuous revolution. At this point in history. What Stalin will do is kill at least one million party members. He destroys the old guard. And he does so by having the secret police purge the army and the bureaucracy, and then secret units within the secret police purge those guys, and then new units purge those secret units, okay? And so on. All right? There are the show trials where the Bolshevik leaders, the old guard, they confess to being traitors. Traitors to the regime, okay? They confess to being secret capitalists, all right? So let's look at the Purge of the Red Army. This is from Wikipedia. The Purge of the Red Army and military -military fleet removed three or five marshals, 13 or 15 army commanders, eight or nine admirals, okay?

50 or 57 army corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders. So what he did was he completely wiped out the entire leadership of the Bolshevik army. The Bolshevik army was completely wiped out by the Soviet military, and actually, this piece of fact is what sort of convinced the Germans to invade in 1941, because they're like, well, you know, Stalin killed off all the experienced officers, and so let's attack them because they won't know what to do, okay? But in fact, you could make the argument, and I think a lot of people have made the argument, that this was ultimately beneficial to the war effort in World War II. Why? Because you've removed all the dead weight. You've removed the conservative generals who are not experienced with innovative warfare, all right? So by doing this, what Stalin did was make the Soviet military more innovative and more open and more flexible, okay?

And so I know this is a hard idea to understand, but let's just do a thought experiment to understand this idea. Let's say there's 100 of you students, and you're shipped off to a desert island, and you're forced to survive by yourself. Well, I mean, maybe in the beginning, you would struggle. Right? You fight. But eventually, I think over a couple of weeks, you would learn to get along, and you would learn to survive on this desert island, okay? That's what I think would happen. I don't know, but I hope that's what happens. Now, let's imagine 20 teachers go with you guys. I'm pretty sure you're worse off, okay, because those 20 teachers would be more intent on maintaining a hierarchy of things than to actually solving a problem. And so you can make the argument that by purging the army. In the late 30s, Stalin made the Red Army more innovative and better prepared the German invasion in 1941, all right?

Now the show trials, basically all the leading Bolsheviks, anyone who could have possibly challenged Stalin were arrested, and they confessed to being criminals, to being traitors, to being spies, all right? And all of them were, of course, innocent. These were loyal Bolsheviks who sacrificed their entire lives. They sacrificed their families in order to ensure the revolution would succeed. So why did they confess? Well, this is Arthur Kessler, and he wrote a book called Darkness at Noon, which is really one of the best books ever written, okay? Just brilliant. And in it, he profiles an old Bolshevik leader, and he tries to go into the mind of this person as he is about to be executed. And he's remembering his life where, for the revolution, he killed everyone, basically. He sacrificed everyone. He betrayed everyone. He is guilty as sin. But the moment that he's about to be executed, he confesses to everything, okay?

And the argument here is, if you spend your entire life doing bad things, you're not going to admit this is all for nothing, right? He's going to do everything possible to save the revolution. If that meant killing himself in order to save the revolution, he would do so. So think of the original sin, right? The original sin of the revolution is all this violence. This violence committed against civilians. Well, now, this Bolshevik, he is like Jesus. For his sacrifice, he will cleanse the people of their sins and allow for the revolution to continue, all right? So what's brilliant about this is Stalin put these people on trial, and he knew that ultimately they would confess. And this would cement his power, all right? So let's summarize what we've discussed, and think about how Stalin won it all, okay?

So there are five reasons. Okay? The first reason is, from an early age, he wanted to trust powerful patrons, criminal mafia bosses, secret police heads, revolutionaries, right? And then he was absolutely loyal to them until it was no longer expedient. What's amazing about Stalin is, he made everyone believe that he was loyal to them personally, and absolutely, okay? That was his absolute power. Second is, he always was able to identify people. Okay? Capable of subordinates, and he promoted them selflessly, okay? So that's really important. Third reason is, he understands Stalin can be more powerful than great speech -making. Do not become too wedded to ideas and positions and let others despise you. So Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky were tremendous orators, okay? They were brilliant. The problem, though, is that by making these speeches, it increases their hubris, it increases their ego, and it makes them more wedded to ideas. Stalin refused to give speeches. So he could never understand, he could never know where, how Stalin thought about things, okay?

And that was his secret weapon. Also, no one took him seriously, right? At this point in history, everyone thought Stalin was an intellectual lightweight. Because at this point, the Bolsheviks thought that whoever had the best theories were the most righteous leaders. And Stalin didn't have any ideas of his own, okay? Social retreats are most effective in times of internal conflict. So disappearing, hiding. Offends no one and offers no risk. So another way of saying this is the secret police always arrested Stalin at a time of tremendous conflict within the socialist movement, okay? So the split between Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. Stalin wasn't there. He was arrested, okay? So that's really convenient for Stalin. And then last is let your enemies destroy themselves. Accept who they are and help them become their worst selves, okay? So Trotsky lost out because Trotsky was a tremendous egomaniac.

He pissed everyone off. And Stalin encouraged that, okay? So just let your enemies destroy themselves. And this is what he would do with Hitler as well. And that's how he won World War II, okay? All right. So let's take a short break and we'll come back and do World War II. So there's no way we can understand how Stalin was able to defeat the Bolshevik leadership. And so very simple formulation. Lenin, Trotsky, or Stalin. They were all priests, okay? But Stalin was a spy. And so let's look at the differences. Priests have faith and conviction, all right? You're trying to bring God to the world. Whereas a spy has multiple personalities. So Stalin could be a different person to different people. In fact, no one really thought Stalin was a serious threat. And no one really took Stalin seriously, right? Second is the priests have something called analytical intelligence. And what is analytical intelligence?

That's why they're able to write books. That's why they're able to give great speeches. A spy has emotional intelligence. A spy is able to make you trust him, all right? The last is priests are concerned with the pursuit of truth in God. Spies only want power, all right? So if you think about it this way, if you look at this formulation, then the Bolsheviks didn't even have a chance against Stalin, all right? So all right. So now let's go on to World War II. And there's tremendous debate as to what happened in World War II. It was a cataclysmic struggle between the Soviet Union and the Germans, okay? Tens of millions of people died in this war. It was a tragedy. So there's always going to be debate as to what happened. Why did the Germans lose? All right. So let me give you my interpretation. Basically what happened was this. The Germans had a certain doctrine of war, a certain belief system going into the war.

And they executed this belief system, this plan, perfectly in a blitzkrieg, okay? But when the doctrine of war failed, they couldn't adapt, okay? So the German doctrine of war is called blitzkrieg. And the idea of blitzkrieg is you very quickly cut off the head and the body collapses. You basically go in and you destroy the command and control. You destroy the command and control center of the military. That's what happened throughout Europe in the late 30s, right? That's what happened to France. In only about a few weeks, Germany was able to cut off the command center of the French military and it caused the French military to collapse. But the problem with the Soviet Union is that it's huge. And there's really no command and control center. So what was happening was even the Germans were destroying the Soviets, they were running around Russia, Poland.

Pointlessly for many, many months, okay? They really didn't have a plan because the plan was always to destroy the head of a snake. But if you can't find the head, you're going to run around aimlessly. The Soviets are really good at fighting a war of attrition, right? Something called a scorched earth policy, which is how they defeated Charles II of Sweden as well as Napoleon of France before. And that's how they also defeated the Germans. The Germans are known for their organizational supremacy, okay? But they're not known for their political supremacy. They're known for their battlefield flexibility. The Soviets, even though they were losing many battles in the beginning of the war, they eventually adapted themselves to German warfare and eventually they were able to overwhelm the Germans. And I think a lot of this flexibility had to do with the fact that they lost a lot of their major leadership in the purges.

So now we're saying this is the difference between the Germans and the Russians is Hitler did not purge his military. Stalin did purge his military. And that's why the Soviets were much more innovative than the Germans in the war. Also, the Germans were fighting for something called Lebensraum. Lebensraum means living space in German. It's basically like if we are to survive as a German people, as a German nation, we need more resources. We need more land. And so we need Ukraine, okay? Especially for the oil. But the Soviets were fighting for their motherland, mother Russia. So they were much more motivated to fight than the Germans. Now it wasn't. So. So looking at this map, you'll see two things, okay? The first thing is the Germans were really spread out throughout the front. That allows for encirclement, okay? That allows for the Soviets to attack them from different angles and encirclement. That's the first thing.

Second thing is you will also notice that the Germans didn't get that far in this war. They at most got to the outskirts of Moscow, but not beyond. And the Soviet Union. If you just look at the map, it is huge, okay? All right. So this was one of the, this was the deadest war in human history. The Germans sent in almost four million personnel and they overwhelmed the Soviets in the beginning, but it was not enough, okay? Four million men was not enough to conquer the Soviet Union. You needed 40 million and the Germans didn't have that. All right. So what's the big deal? So the Soviets had unlimited resources. They defeated the Germans. This is a big deal because let's go back to the year 1935. In the year 1935, if we were to have this class and we were to discuss what would happen 10 years from now, we could probably guess that the Soviet Union would collapse.

Why? Because Stalin was purging all the major leadership of the Soviet Union, creating a lot of discontent, a lot of civil conflict. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed. As well, if you look at a map of the world in 1935, most of the world was capitalist. Japan, which controlled the East, was capitalist. Then you had the Germans, the Nazis rising. You have the English. Then you have the Americans. And all four of these nations were under threat from communism. They were communist subversive in all these countries and they were considered a major threat. In fact, in the 1930s, there's a real threat that in America, there'd be a communist rebellion. In Germany, there's a failed communist revolution. In France, in England, the communists were everywhere. So these four nations, Japan, the Americans, the English, the Germans, they all see communism as a major threat to them. So

we could imagine that they would unite against Soviet Union at some point to destroy communism once and for all. That's the first thing. The second thing is that at this point in history, race science is very popular, eugenics is very popular. And guess what? The Americans, the British, and the Germans, all of them saw themselves as one people, the Nordic people, the Aryan race. In fact, Hitler was a tremendous admirer of the English people. He saw the English as brave, as brilliant, as the master race. So you could make the argument that the Nordic people would eventually unite together to destroy the Slavs, which was a major threat to them in the 19th century. The third major reason is that at this time, as Germany is industrializing, the Americans are helping Hitler industrialize. This is from ChatGPT. American industrialists invested heavily in Nazi Germany, particularly before and during World War II. This is important. Major

companies like General Motors, IT &T, Eastman Kodak, Standard Oil, and others had substantial assets and investments in German subsidiaries. So these Americans are helping Hitler industrialize. The major American companies of the time was helping Hitler to industrialize its war machine. So given all this, you could imagine that America would eventually come to support Germany in a conflict with the Soviet Union. So at this point in history, it was unlikely the Soviet Union would survive. But then in 1941, Hitler launches Operation Barbarossa. This is one of the most important events in the history of the Soviet Union. This is one of the greatest mysteries among historians. The mystery is this. Hitler had to organize 4 million soldiers, a multinational force, to invade the Soviet Union. Spies, the Americans, the British, told Stalin, listen, Hitler is going to invade you. Stalin refused to believe them. Stalin said, listen, first of all, I have a non -aggression pact with Hitler.

We're friends. He's not going to invade me. Number one. Number two is Hitler is being blockaded by the British. We, the Soviet Union, are providing all these resources, oil, food, to the Germans. Why would they invade us? It's suicidal. Third of all, Germany doesn't have the resources to invade us. So Stalin refused to believe that the Germans would invade. He believed it was a British and a first British plot. to undermine the friendship between Germany and the Soviet Union. Also, there were some German soldiers who were sympathizers to communism. They would run away and go to the Soviets and tell them, Listen, I have all the secret plans of this invasion called Operation Barbarossa. The Germans are coming. Be ready. And what did the Soviets do? They shot them to death for being spies. So the Germans invade and the Soviets aren't prepared. Not only that, but Stalin seems to be purposefully sabotaging the Soviet war effort.

As the Germans are advancing, the Soviets should push back. But Stalin orders the army to stay where they are. So they get encircled by the Germans. And at this point, the Germans have more prisoners of war than they could possibly have. Can you imagine? Millions and millions of Soviets captured in the first months of the war. It is a complete disaster for the Soviet Union. And so everyone is like, Stalin has gone out of his mind. First of all, why wasn't he ready for Hitler's invasion? He refused to believe that Hitler would invade. Second of all, why didn't he give his generals authority to run the war in a way that should have been run? Why did Stalin interfere and destroy the Soviet army in the first few months? These are the two major mysteries. Of Operation Barossa. Okay, I know this is going to be controversial, okay?

But I'm going to make you this argument. Stalin purposefully did both things. Stalin purposely let Hitler invade. And Stalin purposely let millions of soldiers be captured by the Nazis. And you're like, that's insane! Well, guess what happens? At this point, because the Nazis are destroying the Soviet Union, the Americans come in on behalf of the Soviet Union. Remember, at this point in history, the Americans think they're going to go to war against the Soviet Union. Okay? The Americans want to ally with Germany. But because the Germans are about to destroy the Soviet Union, the Americans can't let this happen. If Germany destroys the Soviet Union, the German science, technology, and organization would have access to Soviet manpower. Oil and food. Germany would be invincible. So the Americans step in. But look. Let's look at what the American contribution to the war is. In total, U.S. deliveries to U.S. and our food and land lease amount to

$11 billion, equivalent to $150 billion, over 400,000 jeeps and trucks, 12,000 armored vehicles, 7,000 tanks, 14,000 aircraft, 1.75 million tons of food. The Americans basically industrialized the Soviet Union, giving the Soviet Union unlimited resources, unlimited technology. Why? Because they were afraid of a German conquest. Alright. From Wikipedia. Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR. Okay? So the Americans gave about 17.5 million tons of equipment to the Russians. But guess what? When the Americans entered the war, they used a total of 22 million tons. That's incredible. The American army used the same amount of supplies that they gave to the Soviets. That's incredible to think about. Yeah, there are millions of soldiers captured by the Germans. Okay? And it's a travesty what happens to them because most of them will starve to death. They starve

to death not because the Nazis are barbarians, but because the Nazis had a doctrine of war. They would go in and after three months the Soviet Union would collapse. Didn't happen. Now they're stuck with these millions of soldiers. Now they're in trouble because they can't actually deal with all this, all these soldiers, and they don't have enough food and supplies to continue the war. Okay? So these prisoners of war are a huge problem for the Nazi war machine. And because a lot of these soldiers are dying in prisoner camps, guess what? It motivates the Russians to fight to the bitter end. Right? World War II deaths. The Soviet Union lost anywhere between 26 to 27 million people. Okay? It is the greatest tragedy to befall a nation in human history. One of the greatest tragedies. Okay? And, but, okay, that is true, but let's look at something called game theory kind of factual. Okay? What I'm going to do is I'm going to show you different possibilities.

Different outcomes. Okay? So let's just say, so everyone knows the Soviet Union and Germany is going to go to war at some point. Okay? It's entirely obvious to everyone. And there are four possibilities. The first possibility is the Soviet Union invades Germany and threatens Berlin. Okay? What happens here? Well, I guarantee you the Americans come in on behalf of Germany. The Americans send their military to defend Germany because they cannot afford for Europe to turn communist. Okay? So in this situation, guess what? Stalin loses the war. The Soviet Union is destroyed. This is scenario one. Scenario two. The Soviet Union invades Germany and is stopped at the border by the German war machine. Guess what? The Americans still come in because they cannot afford for Germany to lose this war against the Soviet Union. Okay? The Americans still come in. Stalin loses. Scenario two.

Scenario three. Germany invades the Soviet Union and is stopped at the border. And this is a scenario the Americans are laughing their heads off. Right? Because fine. Fight it out. We don't care. Okay? And the Americans are probably going to sell supplies to both the Germans and the Soviet Union. All right? They destroy both. And eventually they'll come in and destroy both Germany and the Soviet Union. So in all three situations, the Soviet Union loses. There's only one situation in which the Soviet Union wins. Germany invades the Soviet Union and threatens Moscow. Okay? This is the only situation. There are 10,000 different scenarios. There's only one scenario in which Stalin wins the war and he found it and he implemented it. Okay? But it requires the sacrifice of 27 million Soviet people. Soldiers and civilians. Only in this situation does Soviet Union win World War II. Only in this situation. And every other

situation, every other thing that Stalin does, he loses the war because the Americans will come in on behalf of Germany. And of course this war is fundamental and it changes the course of history. Because without this war, without Stalin winning, there'll be no Mao Zedong. There'll be no communist China. There'll be no new China. There'll be no today's China. Okay? You have to understand this. Communism was not inevitable. It did not have to happen. In fact, you can make the argument that in the 1940s, it was going to get destroyed by the capitalists. It was only because of the Stalin War and World War II that China was able to turn communist. So Stalin changed the course of human history. None of these things should have happened. Stalin made them happen. And of course, we today have Vladimir Putin. And Vladimir Putin, I will argue to you, was also going to change the course of human history.

And this is something I will argue to you next class. So Stalin was the Ubermuntz of the 20th century. I will argue to you next class that Putin is really the Ubermuntz of the 21st century. He sees where history is going, and he controls history to his benefit. He's going to warp reality to the benefit of Russia. Okay? All right. So we have four great questions about today's lecture. The first question is, how do the Americans feel about communism and fascism? Second question is, the Americans and the British were very close allies. And we know this through Lend -Lease, right? Where the Americans are shipping billions of supplies to Britain for the war effort. So why did the British hate the Germans so much? And the third question is, what was the Stalin's strategy via via the Americans? And the last question is, in the first few months, the Soviets were getting destroyed.

So what was Stalin's response? And what did he promise the people to get them to fight to the bitter end? Okay, great questions. Okay, so let's go over them one by one. Americans at this time in history, 1930s, the elite, they were heavy Nazi sympathizers. There was an American named Charles Lindbergh, and he founded something called the America First Party. And he was very popular, and there's a very good chance that he would have won the elections in America. So American isolation is the major dominant political trend. And it was only when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor that the Americans entered World War II. If the Japanese didn't attack Pearl Harbor, it would have been almost impossible to convince the American people to enter in the war. Okay, so the Americans were either on top of the elite. Okay, they were either neutral, like, we don't care where isolation is or pro -Nazi. Okay, so that was just the general attitude of Americans in 1930s.

Communism was a real threat to America. So communism, anarchism were real threats to the American political system in 1930s, especially the Great Depression. Okay, so does that answer your question? Great. Okay, question number two. So why were the British so intent on destroying the Germans? In fact, you guys don't know this, but Hitler made numerous peace overtures to the British, especially Winston Churchill. And again, the Germans had tremendous respect for the British. I mean, like, it's basically the same people, right? So why was so... Why was Churchill so intent on destroying Germany? So there are different historical arguments. One argument is Churchill just hated Hitler. Like, personally, he had a visual dislike of Hitler. Okay, that's number one. Number two is the Germans embarrassed the British in the war, right? Because the British sent this expeditionary force against the Germans, and the Germans wiped them out.

The British were forced to retreat at Dunkirk. I think, for me, the best reason is it's geopolitical. All right, so let me explain what I mean by this. So there's something called the Mackender thesis, okay? This was developed after World War I. The idea is this. Britain is a naval power. And as long as it's able to dominate the seas, it controls the world, okay? Because at this time in history, most people are trading fruit. They're trading fruit through sea. So Britain, as long as Britain is able to control the waterways, it controls the world, all right? But there's a problem here. The problem is, let's just say that a power arises within the heartland, okay? And it could be Germany, and it could be Russia, okay? But it's going to be one of these two. And if they're able to unite or conquer each other, then they unite the entire European Asian continent, in which case all they do is build railways.

And then Britain ceases to exist as an empire, okay? So the great threat is a great power emerging within Europe, Asia, to unite the entire heartland. And the British believe this, but also the Americans believe this as well, right? Because the Americans will eventually inherit the British Empire. And so at this point in history, Germany was conquering all of Europe and was about to conquer Russia. So Britain's geopolitical interest was to ensure that Germany would be hindered, okay? So I know in the history books that you're taught that World War II was a great conflict between Britain and Germany for democracy and human freedom. That's nonsense, okay? World War II was fought primarily between Germany and Russia. Three -fourths of German forces were directed at Russia. Most casualties were happening between Germany and Russia. What Britain was doing that was vital was blockading Germany. And as

Germany was running out of food and fuel, it had no choice but to invade the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, in order to access the resources of Russia. Okay? So this idea that the British and the Germans always had to fight, it's something that became mythology after World War II. During World War II, Hitler wanted peace, Britain wanted to ensure Germany could not expand to the east and create the heartland, okay? So that's what was driving British interest at this time. Does that make sense? All right? Does that make sense to you guys? All right. Let's go to the third question. Stalin's strategy for the Americans. Okay. So what Stalin was able to do that's different from everyone else is, you know, if you're Churchill, you're thinking in terms of Europe. If you are Hitler, you're thinking in terms of, like, Europe, right? They're all Eurocentric. What Stalin was able to do that made him different was he was able to see the world as it is, okay?

He was able to see the Americans. He knew the Americans would eventually come into the war. He was able to see Japan, okay? And the reason why is, at this time, communism is an international movement. So he had spies everywhere. So he was able... He basically had the best intelligence in the world. So he was able to figure out exactly how these pieces were going to move about. So for him, it was like, okay, I go conquer Germany, but then the Americans come in, and the Americans destroy us, okay? So the main problem were the Americans, because the Americans at this point, remember, had the greatest industrial capacity in the world. Whichever side the Americans support would win the war. All right? So Stalin had to figure out a way to neutralize the Americans. And the best way to neutralize the Americans is, let's be friends, right?

Because America's a democracy. If Roosevelt is saying, Uncle Joe is our friend, right? And he has all these photos in the press of Stalin and Roosevelt shaking hands, having these conferences, then the Americans cannot go around and backstab the Soviet Union. And guess what? After World War II ended, after the Germans were defeated handily by the Allies, there were many Americans, especially General Patton, who was one of the main generals in World War II. He recognized that, oops, we made a mistake. The real enemy are not the Germans. The real enemy are the Russians. And this would eventually give us the Cold War. So it was after World War II the Americans realized we were duped. All right? We should not have come into this war on behalf of the Soviet Union. We should have stayed neutral or we should have supported Germany to maintain balance of power. All right? So Stalin just tricked everyone.

That's why I say he's the overmatch. It should not have happened this way. If you just think about logically what each party, what each player in the game should have done, then the Soviet Union should have collapsed. So Stalin was able to trick Hitler. He convinced Hitler to invade him. He tricked Roosevelt. Roosevelt became his supporter. He even tricked Churchill. So, I mean, I know this is not what you're taught in history class usually, but just look at it just analytically, using game theory analysis. Then you have to conclude that Stalin was the only one who saw the world globally. He was able to manipulate people to his benefit. By the way, this is what's happening today with Putin. Putin is the only one who's able to think globally. He's the only one able to think strategically. Everyone else, like Trump, he's only responding to domestic issues. Does that make sense?

All right. Let's move on to the last question. Stalin. What did he promise the Soviet people? He didn't promise anything. He was God. Okay? Do you understand this? He could do what he did because he was God. Any other leader who pulled this crap would have been arrested and executed for incompetence. Only Stalin, who, because of the Great Purge, consolidated power only in his hands. His authority was unquestionable. Right? He had spies spying on spies, and he had other spies spying on these spies. Okay? So he created this, like, divide -and -conquer system within the Soviet Union, which made his power absolutely absolute. In fact, you can make an argument that he was the most powerful person ever in human history because no one could question his authority. So he could afford to do this. He could afford to make mistakes and look like a buffoon because no one could challenge him. Okay?

Does that make sense? All right. And ultimately, the Soviet people rallied around him because they didn't want to be conquered by the Germans. Okay? They wanted to save their nation. And Stalin knew this. Okay? There's this very famous quotation attributed to Stalin. It's not true. He actually didn't say this. But he could have said this. He said, um, one million people died in the gulags. That's a statistic. Okay? No one cares. One man gets run over by a tractor. That's a national tragedy. So he understands intimately how people think. He understands the psychology of both individuals and of nations. And that says he's able to manipulate people, control people, to his will. All right?

I think we can add one thing to that. There wasn't really a space. And during the... And so what that meant was that if you stole from the churches, you'd kind of get rid of the traditional culture and all that kind of stuff. And during the war, the churches opened up again. And it was able to create this sort of model of the medium of the population that was otherwise kind of divided by an idolatry.

Okay. So, that's a great point. Thank you. Okay. So, his major contribution to theory, communist theory, is the idea of nationalism. All right? Because what made him different from Trotsky and Lenin was he was only concerned about the Soviet Union. He wanted to maintain the integrity of the Soviet Union, whereas Trotsky and Lenin were concerned about international communism. They saw the Soviet Union as the little brother in the movement. Germany would be the big brother because Germany had the most proletariat. It was the most urbanized. And maybe the French, as well. But the Soviet Union would be the little brother to the Germans when the Germans eventually rebelled and established the communism. Okay? So, Lenin and Trotsky were fundamentally internationalists. Whereas, Stalin understood people don't want that crap. Okay? People want to feel part of a community. People want to feel part of a place. And so, he heavily promoted nationalism, which galvanized the people, as Doug says, into making tremendous sacrifices for the people during World War II.

So, people die not for ideas. People die for each other. And that's what Stalin understood fundamentally. So, yeah, Mother Russia was his promise to the people. Okay? Does that make sense? Any more questions? Okay. Great. So, next class, alright, Thursday, the grand finale to the course. We've done the entire human history, okay, from the Ice Age when we were just living in caves. On Thursday, we'll finish the course with the grand finale, which is the American Empire. Trump and the American Empire. Okay? So, hopefully, that will be the best class of this year. Let's end with the best class.