Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Stalin: Man of Steel, Episode 9

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Joseph Stalin, feared by all, now clings to life, isolated and powerless. As his power-hungry rivals fight for control of the Soviet Union, Stalin’s henchmen begin to face the consequences of their actions. But even as Russia attempts to break free from Stalin’s legacy, history threatens to repeat itself. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson Writers/researchers: Mandy Reid, Amy Watkin, Kari Anton, Sharon McMahon, Melanie Buck Parks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a crime in Chinatown. Streaming November 19th only on Disney+. Here's Where It Gets Interesting is now available ad-free. Head to sharonmcmahon.com slash ad-free to subscribe today. As was their nightly ritual, Stalin, the men in his political inner circle, and his guards stayed up until the early dawn hours, eating, drinking, smoking, and watching cowboy movies. Finally, Stalin stood up and said,

I'm going to sleep. You can take a nap too. I won't be calling you. Before turning his back on his guests and heading for his room. The guards looked at each other, amazed. He had never before given them the night off, which is why they recalled his specific words. As the morning turned into afternoon, and finally into night again, without a word from Stalin, And finally into night again, without a word from Stalin, his people grew concerned. But they were too scared to intrude into his quarters without invitation. Inside those quarters, lying on his bedroom floor in a puddle of his own urine, Stalin willed his limbs to move.

He tried calling out, but could only manage a garbled zzzz. He couldn't get his hands and knees underneath him to push up to a standing position, nor could he reach his pocket watch that had tumbled out of his hands and stopped when he fell. He had waited and waited for help to arrive. It took hours, so many, that he lost all track of time. One of his guards, Deputy Commandant Peter Laskachev, who had finally been ordered by his equally terrified superior officer to go check on Stalin, grabbed the day's mail and stomped loudly to warn of his approach. He cautiously opened the door, peeked inside, and gasped when he saw his boss on the ground. He rushed over and asked, What's wrong, Comrade Stalin? Stalin tried to reach for his rescuer, but his left arm could only make a weird, jerking movement. His right side couldn't move at all.

I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. The guards called to Stalin's deputies for help, but none of them wanted any part of it. They didn't want Stalin to later remember their faces and think they were trying to seize power from him. It sounds shocking looking back that the first call wasn't immediately to a doctor. But Stalin was in the throes of the doctor's plot that he orchestrated. Many physicians, including Stalin's, had been arrested and interrogated about plotting to kill him and those around him. Medical practitioners who hadn't been swooped up were petrified and some went into hiding. If Stalin pulled through and learned that

someone had called a doctor for him, they might be punished. For his top men who wanted Stalin dead so they could seize control, the doctor's plot offered them an excuse to wait and see how Stalin fared. The guards kept pestering them to call for help, which members of his inner circle finally did well after a 12-hour delay. When help, physicians, and bizarrely a dentist arrived, they were literally trembling with fear as they attended to Stalin. The dentist removed Stalin's dentures and immediately dropped them on the floor. Another doctor was so nervous he couldn't remove Stalin's shirt to take his blood pressure or his pulse. he needed help in cutting the shirt off his patient. Stalin's blood pressure was extraordinarily high, so they did something the medical community had done for hundreds of years. They applied leeches behind his ears. In case the little bloodsuckers

didn't do the trick, they also administered a cool compress on his forehead, along with a dose of camphor used to treat pain and inflammation. Stalin never recovered, despite being fed sweet tea and given magnesium sulfate enemas. Surgery was dismissed as an option because, at the time, the odds of him surviving were the same as those of him dying. 48 hours after the first physicians arrived, Radio Moscow announced that Stalin had a stroke but was under the, quote, watchful eyes of party leadership, a statement meant to reassure the public that no rogue Jewish physicians would be able to kill him. Svetlana and Vasily, two of his children, visited. Vasily, an alcoholic, was drunk and screamed at the doctors to save his

father. Stalin's closest confidants, meanwhile, waited with bated breath for him to slip away into death so they could make a case for their right to lead. The head of the secret police vacillated between loudly bad-mouthing Stalin and kissing and weeping over his hand. The guards observed the unfolding drama from the background where they hoped to stay out of sight. Everyone knew there was no hope, so they waited and waited. Death did not come quickly for Stalin. He lay on the sofa, mostly unconscious, as the people close to him sat restlessly. The inner circle took turns going home to tell their wives and families, and then returned to take 24 hour shifts in pairs next to the dying man. As Stalin's condition progressively worsened,

with labored breathing, blood pressure of 200 over 120, and blue lips, and blue lips. They lined up to squeeze his hand goodbye. Stalin vomited blood. He suffered limb spasms. The gasps between his breaths widened. When the doctors made it clear that death was inevitable and imminent, Beria, the head of the secret police, went up to the office to destroy Stalin's secret files, especially those concerning him and the other members of Stalin's inner circle. Captivated and unable to look away, all the observers watched Stalin fade. Beria demanded that the doctors give Stalin a shot of adrenaline, which made Stalin shiver, but shut down his breathing. Svetlana, Stalin's daughter, later wrote, He literally choked to death as we watched. The death agony was terrible. At the last minute, he opened his eyes.

It was a terrible look, either mad or angry and full of the fear of death. Stalin gulped for air to no avail. After a three-day ordeal, Stalin was dead. Nearly everyone was crying. Those sitting vigil with Stalin had complicated thoughts. The tears came, perhaps remembering the man he used to be, or maybe it was just relief that his reign was finally over. But behind their outward grief was an unbridled ambition, and with little time wasted, they returned to the Kremlin to divvy up positions of power. The news in London announced Stalin's death on March 5th, 1953.

Wakes were held all across Russia, and Stalin's body, autopsied and embalmed, lay in state in Moscow for three days and three nights in the ballroom of the House of Unions. Hundreds of thousands came to view him one last time. Perhaps motivated by mourning, perhaps by wanting to see if he was really dead, crowds poured into the streets, creating a six-mile-long line to see his body. The closer they got to the ballroom, the more people started cramming themselves into any bit of open space. The crowd became panicked, realizing there was no way out, pushing each other for room. Many began to trip and fall to the ground, only to be trampled to death.

It's estimated between 100 and 500 people died trying to see Stalin's corpse. died trying to see Stalin's corpse. His state funeral, four days after his death, was a massive affair, with his casket being transported by a gun carriage and taken to the Red Mausoleum, where Lenin's body now lay, having been hidden outside the capital during World War II. Stalin's comrades made speeches, and at noon Moscow was overcome with the sounds of planes, sirens, guns, and whistles shrieking a noisy farewell. Stalin died without a successor. He had created a power vacuum with his tight-fisted control of power and refusal to delegate authority. No one knew who was in charge when Stalin was no longer telling them what to do. Georgy Malenkov was Stalin's personal secretary from 1925 to 1930, after which he moved up in the

party ranks and into Stalin's inner circle. Long loyal to Stalin, he thought he was his natural successor. He became the official head of government, the premier, after Stalin's death. But Nikita Khrushchev was already plotting his way to the top. Initially, Stalin's former inner circle worked together to divide up the different roles each could play. Beria was put in charge of the secret police. Molotov wasn't quite as ambitious as some of the others, not after the ordeal with his wife, Polina. He served as foreign minister until 1956. until 1956. Malenkov and Khrushchev were both jockeying for Stalin's job. But Beria's role would be short-lived. By June 1953, he was out of the picture, and his exit was not pretty. Beria was brought in front of the Politburo for a special session in which his friends stunned him by having him arrested for treason. His crime? The hundreds of thousands, if not more,

murders he was responsible for while working with Stalin. Victims ranged from kulaks, the peasant farmers we learned about in an earlier episode, to political rivals, to doctors and members of the intellectual class, and anyone who might impede Stalin's plans, including thousands of people imprisoned and sent to labor camps. Oh, and soldiers in the Red Army. Basically, Beria was the guy making sure the many purges during Stalin's reign were actually carried out. making sure the many purges during Stalin's reign were actually carried out. In a special trial, Beria was not offered representation, and much like the show trials of the past, the outcome was clearly predetermined. In December, his fate was sealed. He was stripped to his underwear, handcuffed, and hung on the wall by a chain with a towel stuffed in his mouth to silence his pleas.

Before he was shot point-blank in the forehead. As you give, so shall you receive. Stalin didn't get the kind of death he served, but Beria got one that was similar in humiliation and violence. With Beria out of the way, Khrushchev set his sights on Malenkov. His ousting would take longer than Beria's. Malenkov retained his position as premier for two years until 1955, when he was booted for failing to solve pressing agricultural and industrialization concerns. He had also called for a reduction in military spending, which didn't sit well with many military

men. So when Khrushchev was looking for backup in consolidating support to Aus Malenkov, he had it. With his rivals gone, Nikita Khrushchev became premier, just in time for the Cold War to heat up. Like Stalin, Khrushchev came from humble beginnings. A large man, often described as tempestuous or flamboyant, Khrushchev was a vocal leader who initiated what became known as the Khrushchev Thaw, a relaxing of restrictive rules under Stalin's leadership, ranging from entertainment to education. Think of it as loosening your grip on a leash so there's a bit more room to roam, but not total freedom. The Thaw marked a shift in how the government treated its people, but also brought up a major question. How much of the truth about Stalin's leadership should be revealed to the public?

To what extent should a new Soviet government denounce the actions of Stalin? Khrushchev's secret speech given on February 25th, 1956 to the 20th meeting of the Party Congress, which was a group of about 1,500 communist leaders from dozens of countries around the world. Khrushchev wanted to expose Stalin for the leader that he was to show that Stalin had broken foundational Marxist-Leninist rules by creating and maintaining a cult of personality. His primary goal in the speech was to get listeners to understand that Stalin made many mistakes, but that the Communist Party, with his planned agenda for the future of the Soviet Union, was prepared to correct the wrongs of the past. For four hours straight and through multiple bouts of weeping, Khrushchev, who once called Stalin a man of many faces,

destroyed Stalin's reputation and condemned his actions, from the Great Terror to the general lack of preparation for the Nazi invasion during World War II. general lack of preparation for the Nazi invasion during World War II, Khrushchev spoke about Stalin's cult of personality that enabled him to get away with atrocities simply because no one could or would stand up to him. Khrushchev suggested that every one of them was guilty of glorifying Stalin as a kind of infallible superman akin to a god. We all did it, he insisted, and we all share in the blame for his actions. He pressed onward. Stalin was intolerant. Stalin was brutal. Stalin abused his power and chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against

individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party and the Soviet government. It was a risky move, which could have backfired, given how tightly Stalin had gripped the Communist Party and the nation. Khrushchev was careful to distinguish between Stalin's actions and the Communist Party. Ruling by terror was Stalin's practice, not that of the party itself. By placing the blame solely on Stalin, who was of course dead and unable to defend himself, Khrushchev said that people no longer had to live in fear. This also took care of the pesky problem of listeners questioning how involved in these acts current leaders were. The audience sat silent and stunned as Khrushchev destroyed the myth of Stalin's military genius. After he finished,

one audience member choked out a question. Why didn't you kill him? Khrushchev gave the answer they all already knew. What could we do? There was a reign of terror. You just had to look at him wrongly, and the next day, you lost your head. Despite Khrushchev's pleas to keep the information he revealed secret, the speech quickly became famous and was published in the New York Times. Soon after Khrushchev's speech, de-Stalinization ramped up. Khrushchev argued that Lenin would never have wanted Stalin to become godlike and that one person could never hold that much power over the Soviet Union again. One way to reinforce that idea was to get rid of references to Stalin that people saw every day. All over the Soviet Union, thousands of images, statues, and markers of Stalin began disappearing.

Even the city of Stalingrad was renamed to Volgograd. Khrushchev continued making these changes, including limiting the power of the secret police, ordering the construction of new housing, launching the satellite Sputnik into space, and making an attempt, relatively speaking of course, to be friendly with the West. Part of that plan to make nice with the West involved a visit from Vice President Richard Nixon to the Soviet Union in 1959 at the height of the Cold War. The 11-day trip included a visit with Khrushchev. The two men toured a fake kitchen display at the American National Exhibition in Moscow with the latest gadgets like toasters and juicers.

It was supposed to be a goodwill visit, but quickly became a game of one-upsmanship. Khrushchev bragged that all Soviets had these things in their apartments, and Nixon responded by saying, the U.S. government doesn't tell people what to put in their homes and force them all to be the same. The two went on to remind each other that they had rockets and that the Cold War could escalate if they weren't used appropriately. The argument became known in the media as the kitchen debates and ended with Nixon apologizing for being a poor host. So two months later, when President Eisenhower got word that Khrushchev was interested in coming to the United States, he decided to extend an invitation in hopes of thawing tensions. Khrushchev made it clear that he did not want a short visit to the White House. He wanted a coast-to-coast trip

that included Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Disneyland. He brought along his wife, Angeles, Hollywood, and Disneyland. He brought along his wife, his three children, and a son-in-law. Khrushchev was the first Soviet premier invited to travel to the United States. At first, the trip went smoothly, at least from the outside, though comments from the people with whom he interacted suggested that Khrushchev was a complainer about everything except hot dogs, which he greatly enjoyed. Then Khrushchev and his family reached Los Angeles, where they toured the movie set of Can-Can, met the actors who performed a scene for him, and were treated to lunch by Frank Sinatra. Khrushchev was on cloud nine, but all he could think about was his upcoming visit to Disneyland. It was his dream to visit the theme park, which had opened in 1955.

But his day quickly took a turn when the then head of Fox Studios brought up a previous comment Khrushchev made regarding the space race. Quick to anger, Khrushchev felt he was being heckled and challenged. Not one to hold his tongue, Khrushchev snapped back that obviously the plan was to needle him and rub America's strength in his face and make him a little shaky in the knees. Then Khrushchev declared, if you want to go on with the arms race very well, Then Khrushchev declared, if you want to go on with the arms race very well, we accept that challenge. As for the output of rockets, well, they are on the assembly line.

This is a most serious question. It is one of life or death, ladies and gentlemen. One of war and peace. Shortly after the verbal altercation, Khrushchev was told his trip to Disneyland had been canceled due to security concerns. He was infuriated and demanded to know why he would be denied, shaking his fists. He ranted, do you have rocket launching pads there? What is it? Is there an epidemic of cholera or plague there? Or have gangsters taken hold of that place that can destroy me? He was obviously very upset about being denied entry to Disneyland. As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans,

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I am the first head of either Russia or the Soviet Union to visit the United States, he said. I can go, but I don't know when, if ever, another Soviet premier will visit your country. But he didn't leave. He stayed and met Elizabeth Taylor and Eleanor Roosevelt. He visited Iowa farms and spent time at Camp David. His itinerary was packed, however, and his visit with Mrs. Roosevelt was rushed. She remembered it later by saying, He enjoyed nothing. A man behind him all the time kept whispering, Seven minutes, seven minutes.

Khrushchev was even featured on the cover of the October 5th, 1959 edition of Time magazine, holding an ear of corn and grinning. Despite his missing out on seeing Mickey Mouse, Khrushchev's experiences in the United States influenced his ideas about reform, from artistic expression to housing to treatment of agricultural workers. Since that first trip to the United States by Khrushchev, there have been many more visits by Soviet and Russian leaders over the years. But the last one was in 2015, when Vladimir Putin met with President Obama at the UN General Assembly. It seems fitting to end the story of Stalin with the rule of Putin, because there's perhaps no other leader in Russian history whose life and behavior more closely

aligns with Joseph Stalin's. From his childhood, to his mistresses and children he refuses to acknowledge, to his need for murderous revenge. Putin and Stalin are cut from the same cloth. Vladimir Putin was born just months before Stalin's death, and his parents lived through some of the worst years of his reign. While most kids would have grown up fearing the man, Putin idolized Stalin, which sounds strange once you hear what Stalin's rule cost his family. Like Stalin, Putin was his parents' third and only surviving son. Their first child died in infancy, and their second at age one from diphtheria during the siege of Leningrad. Putin said his mother, too, was placed in a row of corpses, except she wasn't dead, and only her weak moaning kept her from a mass grave. He claimed his father,

who served in the war and was hospitalized after an injury, came home from the hospital just in time to see his wife being carried out on a stretcher by paramedics who were removing corpses from the apartment building. Putin said his father lashed out at them with his crutches and made them lift her back into their apartment, where he nursed her back to health. Growing up in communal housing, young Putin was a small scrappy kid, always eager to fight, very much like Young So-So, Stalin's early childhood nickname. And while Stalin had his mother fighting for him, Putin had his grandfather, Mikhail. A laborer and a decent wrestler, Mikhail served in the Red Army from 1920 to 1922, and when he was released, he worked in a factory and garnered the attention of party

leaders. Like Koba, Mikhail spread the word of Lenin and worked as an agitator. He became so valued by the Bolshevik party that he was awarded the honor of Lenin, the highest acknowledgement in the country. And he used those connections to help his grandson Vladimir, whose academic achievements were mediocre at best, to get into college. Putin was admitted to a university for the offspring of the well-connected, where he muddled through. But his grandfather's reputation got him into law school and eventually the KGB or the secret police. Mikhail wrote him a letter of recommendation for that one. Without the work his grandfather did for the Communist Party, Putin would never have gotten where he is today. Though he was described as mediocre by a superior

in the KGB, Putin took what he learned as an intelligence officer and put it into practice when he became Russia's leader. Like Stalin, good timing and luck helped him to the top. First, in 1998, Boris Yeltsin, who was then president of Russia, fired his prime minister because Yeltsin suspected him of wanting his job. In his place, he appointed Putin, who was recommended by Yeltsin's inner circle, in part because Putin was so good at impressing the right people. Just months later, in failing health, Yeltsin resigned and appointed Putin as acting president. Putin later won election and re-election, and eventually changed the law on term limits. By all accounts, Putin is now president of Russia for life.

Also like Stalin, Putin learned early on that the way to consolidate and hold on to power was to rule through fear. through fear. His early days as a KGB officer taught him lessons he would not soon forget, like how to get rid of people and make it look like an accident. There's story after story of people who have dared challenge Putin, winding up dead. People mysteriously falling out of windows or dying in plane crashes. But perhaps Putin's favorite way to take out his opponents is through poisoning. One longtime colleague of Putin's, Alexander Litvinenko, loved his country and was happy to answer the call after the KGB counterintelligence division recruited him as a young man. He rose through the ranks quickly and became one of their youngest lieutenant colonels. He rose through the ranks quickly and became one of their youngest lieutenant colonels.

He was a relatively honest man, so when he discovered corruption through the course of his work, he turned into a whistleblower. That was in 1998, when Putin still worked for the KGB. Litvinenko alerted Putin to the corruption in the secret police, thinking Putin would be grateful for the information and could help address it. During their meeting, Litvinenko revealed his evidence showing the secret police had a role in kidnappings, beatings, murders, and bribery. Putin left after 10 minutes, clearly not interested in what the would-be whistleblower had to say. Litvinenko went home and told his wife, I think he hates me. Litvinenko could have ended it right there, just kept his mouth shut and pretended he didn't know what was really happening. But he didn't. The truth was more important to him than his own safety, apparently. So he and three other whistleblowers held a press conference and publicly shared their

findings. That didn't go over well with Putin, who held his own press conference impugning Litvinenko's character. He then had Litvinenko arrested multiple times. When a judge finally released him, Litvinenko realized that he, his wife, and their six-year-old son had to get out of there. They had to flee Russia. But even after they were granted asylum and moved to England, he didn't stop talking. At this point, Litvinenko was 44 and ran five miles a day, the picture of health, until he suddenly fell ill in October of 2006 his insides burned from mouth to his stomach he was unable to eat or drink an uncontrollable vomiting left him in agony at the hospital he told doctors he knew exactly what had happened he He had been poisoned, but they didn't believe him.

His wife Marina recalled, I stroked his head, I had a rubber glove on, and his hair stayed on my glove. I started screaming. Trace amounts of thallium, an outlawed heavy metal used in rat poison, were ultimately detected in his urine a week later, which gave everyone hope that he could pull through with the right treatment. But Litvinenko continued to worsen, and a prominent toxicologist said the diagnosis was incorrect. As he lay dying, he helped police solve his own murder. Although speaking was exhausting and excruciating, Litvinenko dictated and signed a statement to be released after his death. It read in part,

To the man responsible for my current condition, You may be able to force me to stay quiet, but you have now proved that you are exactly the ruthless barbarian your harshest critics made you out to be. You may be able to shut one man up, but the noise of protest all over the world will reverberate in your ears, Mr. Putin, to the end of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me, but to my beloved Russia and her people. Litvinenko lapsed into a coma and died shortly thereafter. Hours before his death, doctors determined that he had been poisoned by polonium-210, a highly radioactive substance manufactured solely in Russia. It is strictly controlled and it leaves radioactive traces everywhere it travels. Someone had put it in his cup of tea. Obtaining the specific dose

needed to kill Litvinenko from the production line necessitated top-level intervention in an early stage of the manufacturing process. The authorization could only have come from Putin. Using it sent a message, I did this. Don't mess with me. Even though, of course, he's never admitted it. More than a decade after his death, the European Court of Human Rights found the Kremlin responsible for Litvinenko's murder. Being called out publicly for these murders has done nothing to stop Putin. Just like Stalin, Putin is extremely secretive. He doesn't like talking about his relationships or his children, but there are many of them. Putin met his first wife in the early 1980s when

she was working as a flight attendant. They got married and moved to Germany together as Putin began his career as a KGB spy. Thirty years into their marriage, Putin announced their divorce, saying they barely saw each other and both had decided it was best to split. saw each other and both had decided it was best to split. A biographer described Putin's wife as someone who loved, but was not loved. Putin and his wife have two daughters together, Maria and Katerina, who are now in their 30s. He rarely talks about them. And according to reports, Putin has multiple children with his girlfriend of more than a decade. Rumors started circulating in 2008, five years before he announced his divorce, that Putin was engaged to a former Olympic rhythmic dancer 30 years younger than him. He denied the rumors at the time, saying,

I always disliked people who go around with their erotic fantasies, sticking their snot-ridden noses into another person's life. He has never once confirmed their relationship, but he is said to have four children with her. And she allegedly lives in a Swiss chalet, but also has access to multiple properties that Putin has acquired or built over the years. She has vacationed on at least one of his multiple yachts, which are worth tens of millions of dollars each. On paper, Putin's salary is around $150,000 a year, but he has amassed a fortune in the

billions, from funneling and then investing government funds and taking bribes. Often his rich friends put properties, boats, and cars in their names to cover for him. Putin's greed is perhaps one of his only major differences from Stalin. Stalin would wince at the amount of luxury Putin surrounds himself with. But with sanctions put on him, his friends, and his family over the war in Ukraine, it has become much more difficult for Putin to access that cash. The fall of the Soviet Union led to Ukraine becoming an independent country in 1991. Putin has never accepted that and to this day believes Ukraine is his to rule. believes Ukraine is his to rule. Like Stalin, growing Russia geographically has always been top of mind for Putin, and he will seemingly stop at nothing to do it. The losses from the war in

Ukraine are astronomical. Ukrainians trapped in a building that is set on fire by Russian soldiers, Russian tanks driving over civilians in cars on the streets, bombing homes and schools and children's hospitals. This is not a war confined to two armies on a battlefield. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said more than 11,000 people have died and nearly 24,000 have been wounded. But these numbers are likely much higher and true totals may never be known. If they are, it will take years to know the truth. After all, Stalin's atrocities are still being uncovered decades later. In 1991, a KGB agent was sent out into the woods with a team of people

to investigate rumors of a mass grave of people liquidated while imprisoned. The informant, who had worked for the police and was one of the men who shot the victims, was nearing death and wanted the world to know what had happened. We were given a list every day, he said, signed by the regional head of the secret police. a list every day, he said, signed by the regional head of the secret police. In 1997, an investigative team found a human bone above ground. And over many months, they discovered about 50 burial sites with the bones of up to 2,500 people executed in the short span of 1937 to 1938. The team estimates that at least 8,000 bodies, but maybe as many as 30,000, are hidden beneath the forest floor. And you remember in the first episode, after the Romanov family was murdered, their bodies too were dumped in the forest.

The deaths of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra, and their five children ended the 300-year rule by Tsars in Russia. When we last talked about them, their bodies had been stripped of their jewels and identifying property. They were covered in chemicals and placed into two different unmarked graves. In 1976, two men set off to find the Romanovs. And three years later, they did. Nine bodies in an unmarked grave deep in the woods. But it was still illegal to even speak of the Romanovs in the Soviet Union. So the men who discovered their corpses recovered their remains and swore to each other that they wouldn't say a word until circumstances in our country changed. It took over a decade and

the fall of the Soviet Union. The skeletal remains that were found showed evidence of what one investigator described as so badly damaged, so violated. I was ill. For five years, the remains sat in a morgue in Ekaterinburg. They were visited by various teams of forensic scientists from around the world who were granted varying levels of permission to study the bones in an effort to determine which bones belonged to which member of the imperial family. In 2000, a few years after Putin was named president of Russia, the imperial family was canonized as saint passion bearers by the Russian Orthodox Church because members of the faith wanted to honor their ancestors.

Tsar Nicholas wasn't the greatest, but his wife was quite devout, as were their daughters. wasn't the greatest, but his wife was quite devout, as were their daughters. Saint passion bearers was a compromise. They aren't full-out saints, but instead are people who died for the faith and were killed by other members of the faith. In order to rebury the remains, the Russian Orthodox patriarchs wanted to be 100% sure that these remains were the Romanovs. But that was a complicated request because the Bolsheviks did a very good job murdering most of the extended family in 1918, leaving very few direct relatives alive. By the early 2000s, there were even fewer direct descendants who were alive or willing to be DNA tested. were direct descendants who were alive or willing to be DNA tested. Prince Philip of England,

husband of Queen Elizabeth, but born Prince Philip of Greece in Denmark, agreed to give researchers his DNA, perhaps because his great-aunt had been Alexandra Romanov. He was a match, but the church wanted more verification given how old the remains were. A couple of years later, scientists were able to make a second match to another European royal descendant. Using this secondary verification to strengthen the DNA evidence proved that the horrifically damaged remains pulled from the pit outside of Ekaterinburg were, in fact, those of the last rulers of Imperial Russia. They were reburied in Peter and Paul Cathedral in what is now St. Petersburg. It took several more years for the last two bodies, the youngsters Alexei and Marie, to be conclusively identified, though they have not yet joined the rest of their family. Buried is not the same as gone. Past is not the same as over.

The story of the Romanovs, of Stalin, of all of Russia, is not a straight line, but a chain of loops and coils and echoes and redefinition. The fragile Tsar Nicholas, the mama's boy Soso, the sole surviving child Putin. The teenage Tsar told his power came from God. The young radical out to impress his mentor, the mediocre student who grew to be a master of spycraft. These three men who believed that Russia was theirs to rule, that tyranny was a justifiable means to that end that they alone were the embodiment of the country's future three men who continued to believe that as others paid the price their countrymen their parents their children the result is a circle where that future looks much like the past. This legacy of violence, of putting self before country, is threaded through modern Russian

history. Stalin is dead, and Putin has built more than 110 monuments in his honor. So far. Thanks for joining me, friends. I hope you enjoyed this series. And I'll see you again soon. Thank you for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck-Parks. The show is written and

researched by Mandy Reed, Amy Watkin, Kari Anton, Sharon McMahon, and Melanie Buck-Parks. Our audio producer is Craig Thompson. And if you enjoyed this episode, sharing, rating, and subscribing helps podcasters out so much. Thanks again for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting, and I'll see you again soon.