The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1290: How the Soviet Union Started World War 2 - Part 2 - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: November 9, 2025

62 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas joins Pete to continue a series examing the work of Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezin) and Joachim Hoffmann who sought to prove in their books, "Icebreaker," and "Stalin's War of Extermination," that Stalin orchestrated the beginning of World War 2.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Buy Me a CoffeeThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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This is going to be part two of Thomas talking about Victor Suvoroff and Hukin-Hoffman's work. so um thomas i hand it over to you yeah thanks we're hosting me i i think i remember where we left off but forgive me if this is redundant it's something that's fundamentally important as of the date of barbara rosa's commencement june 22nd nineteen forty one it's important to understand the strategic situatedness of shalin and the soviet union Key was the waging of aggressive war against Poland and Finland. Obviously

Stalin's plan, and this was confirmed by Khrushchev, was in the immediate aftermath of the assault on the Japanese at Kalkin goal, which in the opinion of Hoffman, and I agree with this, that's what started

World War II. And Suvorov, without saying it, abides that perspective. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which Stalin confided to the Politburo as well as the Khrushchev was that that would embolden Hitler to sue for war with Poland, which he wouldn't have done had there been the risk of a two-front war. Yet Germany's position was precarious, over-extended, Stalin didn't think that, you know, Germany could truly stand up to the UK and France.

He grossly underestimated the Vermont's offensive power, but even in the event of a German victory, his reasoning was that you know the french army would have its back broken germany would be on this footing a permanent hostility caught for the united kingdom and europe would be the communist for the taking you know that this was in stalin's words to cruzschev Hitler was now wrapped around our little finger um and one of the reasons for this confidence or overconfidence you know um as i think i mentioned before um as of barbarosa stone had increased uh expanded the territory of the soviet union by 426 000 square kilometers that's equivalent to the service area of the german right because it stood in 1919 and especially a particular significance the

aggressive war the Soviets waged against Poland and Finland and what amounted to the extortionate annexation of the Baltics, Latvia, with wading Estonia, pressuring Romania into further territorial concessions. You know, the Soviet Union really, on September 3rd, 1939, it was in the strongest position out of all major powers and the Soviet Union became a combatant on September 17th

when the Soviets also assaulted Poland and of course there was a deafening silence emanating from London in the wake of that deployment which is telling it of itself but you know this myth that Stalin was somehow afraid of Hitler is preposterous

for the reason it's just enumerated and it's essential to understand I mean demonstrative of this is the posture of the Soviet Union diplomatically and militarily towards the German Reich and secondly the pattern of military deployment and I'll get into that in a moment but in terms of the former November 12th and 13th 1940 you know

the view from Moscow was that the war was going very badly for Germany Italy was not performing well in in the relevant battle feeders, which was compromising Germany's position in the Mediterranean, which Hitler accounted on as a hedge, you know, against the British Empire. There was no indication of a resolution of the war with the United Kingdom.

You know, Germany's fear of influence was totally static. you know operation sea lion was a strategic ruse and even were it not it would have been a bloodbath you know um so on november 12 and 13th um Stalin directed Molotov in Berlin to transmit to Hitler through Ribbentrop a demand for the expansion of the Soviet fear of influence. Basically, Stalin said that he demanded freedom to deploy in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, in Greece, as well as Finland. And he also said that, you know, the Soviet Union had a right to deploy on the Swedish frontier.

This is incredibly belligerent. essentially all of southeastern europe plus finland and a piece of scandinavia proper stalin just declared that this is now my sphere of influence and if you meet this challenge with the hostile deployment it's war i mean does that sound like a man who's afraid of edolf hitler and the german rike you know um in stalin's mind there was absolutely no possibility of the Vermacht assaulting the Soviet Union, even in terms of parity, let alone from a position of strategic superiority, which is somewhat fascinating because this idea that, oh, the Germans underestimated the Soviet Union, they didn't at all, and Stofley gets into that.

Halder's report on the eve of Barbarossa, and Halder had actually written, he'd written an assessment in 1997 of Soviet forces and being and capabilities it was remarkably accurate

and Von Manstein and Guderian their assessments quite literally in the month before Barbarossa

they the Soviet forces in being were exactly what they estimated them to be in reality it was

Stalin who was looking west and saying that you know Germany has no meaningful offensive capability, and the mighty Soviet Union has nothing to fear. And this is the key to why the Soviets took such horrific attrition during Barbarossa. Further relevant to context here, I can't remember if I got into this or not. There was a discreet mobilization phase throughout the Soviet Union.

Between November 1940, when this demand that I just enumerated was issued to Ribbentrop to deliver to Hitler by way of Molotov on order of Stalin, between November 9040 and the day of Barbarossa, a massive and unprecedented arms buildup took place in the Soviet. Union. This included as of the onset of hostilities the rhetoric possessed no less than 24,000 tanks, including close to 2000 T-34s, which were technically a medium

tank, but they were the all-around best tank of the Second World War. I don't think that's arguable. You know, the Air Forces of the Red Army had over 23,000 aircraft, over 3,700 of which were considered to be cutting-edge fighters. The Red Army had close to 150,000 artillery pieces. the Red Navy

including a substantial fleet of surface ships of varying types they had close to 300 submarines and submarines are expressly offensive. There are no defensive submarines. And this

amount as Hoffman raises in his book the Soviets not only at a larger fleet of submarines than any other country in the world, but they outnumbered the Royal Navy more than fourfold in terms of their number of subs. I mean, this is the most powerful offensive military element the world has ever seen. You know, so Stalin was essentially fearless and viewed himself as the eminent master of this planet. In June, strategic terms as of barbarous as well as an ideological ones and we're going to get into that too

is something essential to understand about the soviet culture Stalin was keenly aware of what had befallen the jacobin revolution he was also keenly aware of the changing dynamics of ideological cultures within great powers. You know, he realized that, for example, Japan was on the ascendancy. He realized that the German Reich had intense energies that it was drawing from, even though he viewed them as geostrategically weak and compromised. He understood that the United Kingdom was undergoing a terrible existential crisis and that their empire restructured was essentially obsolesive. And this is one of the reasons why there'd been

a series of revolts, you know, nascent as well as well developed and realized, you know, in the years before the Great War and then in the inner war years up to the then present, you know, and socialism in one country that there was something of a, that was something of a propaganda cliche. own invoked to sort of give a branding to, you know, the kind of punctuated disturbances of this mass and megacital restructuring of Russian society and the Soviet state, which was becoming a superpower, as well as to, you know, assuage the Western powers, which we're very much doing his bidding at that moment.

Stalin was very much engaged with the common term. That had not changed. And in the planning for what was to be the assault on Europe in the aftermath of the icebreaker conflict, Stalin, he called back the Russian delegation to the common turn, and he called the common turn, representatives to Moscow, to advise them of what was imminently going to happen. You know, the Soviet Union needed to realize the world revolution to survive, as well as to consolidate its superpower status, which was not just bargaining, but was being actively realized.

also and I realize I've probably got a bias for testimonial evidence especially they're not exclusively in discerning the motives of men in command roles There's not direct testimony is more reliable than circumstantial evidence unless it contradicts the manifest weight of extrinsic material facts outside the parameters of those declarations. And what Stalin said, his biographer, Colonel General Lokhanov, he, word for word, by all accounts, reproduced the speech that Stalin issued 4th on May 5th, 1941. and according to volkoganov the leader made it quote the leader made it unmistakably clear war is inevitable in the future we must be ready for the unconditional destruction of german fascism the world the world be fought on enemy territory and victory will be achieved with few casualties and as we got into last week and as i think we raised before in discusses of World War II, it was a matter of formal doctrine that the Red Army was an offensive purposed element. Its primary mission orientation was as the standard bearer of the revolution. And it never struck a defensive posture as a matter of doctrine by choice.

you know um and i've made the point before i believe Stalin is probably a single most powerful man who ever lived and the momentum that the communist international had at this moment was uh at zenith i'd argue Stalin had to abide that role or he would have been replaced by a man who would have you know it was a convergence of ideological imperatives and geostrategic realities in a way that

is very rare but was sort of inextricably and splendidly bound up at this juncture and um i think we talked before about the secret i realize i'm jumping around a bit but i'm trying to corral the evidence in categorical capacities the secret meeting with the Politburo, and this is when the Comintern delegation was also present on August 19th, 1939.

You know, in the concomitant with the assault on the Japanese Imperial Army at Calcan Gull. This meeting that Stalin called to the Politburo and the Russian section of the common turn

Stalin declared Stalin declared that the time had come to, quote, apply the torch of war to the European powder keg. This is when Stalin declared, if we accept the German proposal for the non-aggression pact, Hitler will naturally attack Poland and the intervention of France and England will be inevitable. The resulting, in Stalin's words, serious and arrest and disorder, would lead to a punctuated destabilization of Western Europe. yet without the Soviet Union being drawn into the conflict until they permissively opted due and Stalin referred to what he declared in 1925

with respect to the international strategy you know the moment is nigh that we can pursue the bolivization of Europe by what even advent of intangious entry into the war through a broad spectrum field of activity, which had now, the potential of which had now opened up for their realization of the world revolution. And of course, when minutes from this meeting and this speech were smuggled out and were obtained by the French news agency, Havas, by way of Geneva,

you know and it went it was it was published and then the moscow immediately wanted to damage control and stalin apologists and propagandists particularly in london but also the other states you know they they they started immediately claiming that this is fascist propaganda and this this isn't this isn't true you know um so i mean this is important also like when you read books by guys Chris Bellamy comes to mind but their legion these historians who claim oh Stouvarov is a liar

or there's no evidence for these things they're redacting a huge amount of evidence or they're just not including it and when questioned they say oh that that's just propaganda they're just not addressing it and that's incredible

you know I mean it'd be like like imagine somewhat more approximately like let's say I was writing a history of of the American war in Iraq from 2003 2011 it'd be like if I was categorically redacting things that President Bush and Rumsfeld said in conversations they had and just declaring that well it's not important or that that's just something liberals say or allege I mean people would laugh at me or they'd say that's ridiculous but in the case of you know, Barbarossa and, you know, the icebreaker hypothesis, that's exactly what they do, you know, and you're just supposed to accept it. This is very abnormal, even accounting for the fact that research standards and things are often compromised for ideological and political reasons.

But this seems tangential, but it's essential to understanding. Suvrovs and Hoffman's points, we've got to ask why Barbarossa was so tragically successful for the Vermont, and what that means, because this is sort of the key, in my opinion. the Soviets were planning an assault on Romania in the autumn in 1941 and if you know how to interpret military deployments this should be clear but also if you're going to assault Germany from then extant frontiers you're going to do so from the Baltic and you're going to do so through Romania.

And, of course, Germany was totally dependent on Romanian petroleum. That's one of the reasons Hitler cultivated the friendship of Antinisco so closely. Antiniscu held the Knights Cross. There was very good offices between him and Germany anyway, for cultural reasons, for ideological reasons, other things. but he and Hitler, despite the linguistic barrier, they were very close friends, too. And Antonescu was Hitler's strongest ally, I believe. You know, and close to a quarter million Romanians fought, you know, for the Axis cause in the East,

which for a country the size of Romania, that's remarkable. But Army Group South deployed from Romania. and uh this this was a very delicate issue because Soviet intelligence which was actually very good this uh the deployment to Romania the way Hitler the ruse Hitler was able to pull off was that the unstable situation in Yugoslavia

was what was drawing German forces at scale to be deployed there but also obviously through Ledger Main and other things OKW was effectively able to hide the scale at which forces were being amassed there. But, you know, not only was at a staging ground for Barbarossa, but Hitler was racked with anxiety that the Soviets were in with Salt Romania because they were. So these forces down there had a dual role. They were purposed for an offensive mission, but they were also there as a bulwark against

a rare army assault, you know, at least to that they, you know, that there'd be enough time to reinforce and not just, you know, endure a collapse of a critical front, which on top of the geostrategic menace that also would have deprived Germany, really, of its only source of petroleum and requisite quantities to fuel the war machine. what this lead do was there was massive soviet deployments um in the baltic and in ukraine um through the romanian frontier so when the vermouth assaulted the road to mosca was basically undefended okay that's one of the reasons why Halder and Manstein they were beside themselves because they were telling Hitler,

we need to move on Moscow now. We can't wait. We can't wait for the weather to turn and we can't wait for the Soviets to reconstitute and affect a deployment in depth on the path to Moscow. you know and as the deployment schema in ukraine the army group south was exponentially outnumbered but the so the red army elements there they were deployed in an offensive pattern and if you know anything about the way the soviet union fought and the way the armed forces of the russian

federation fights and they're very much scaled down way today obviously and with very different localized combined arms platforms deep battle is it's dependent upon a fixed deployment schema for it to work okay and the way the red army deployed offensively and this is what they did when the tide turned and after kursk this is how they assaulted berlin the offensive deployment schema is by heavy use of shock armies a Soviet shock army they were allarded with firepower and totally front loaded okay so when army grew south engaged the red army through the Kiev corridor they were engaging this forward element that was loaded down with firepower that was supposed to break through the main line of resistance but that had a limited operational capacity

often of only a few days, then they were to be rapidly reinforced by fresh elements who would continually assault in waves. And then when that shock element was re-equipped and refitted, they would smash through again. But obviously, if the Vermacht assaults with massed armored columns, when you're deployed offensively, with your front-loaded shock army as the sharp-hunk they're going to smash that shock army

and then they're going to cut through your reinforcement elements like butter you know and um as they break through wave after wave um that front-loaded element is going to be fighting on reversed fronts and they're going to get cut to pieces which is exactly what happened okay the Soviets were taking catastrophic casualties in the north and in the south. Meanwhile, army group's center was racing to Moscow, quite literally. And Hitler didn't know quite what to make of this. Because there were sort of two Hitler's, and Stoffley makes this point. When Hitler felt confident politically,

and when he had a what he believed was a firm conceptual grasp of the battle space Hitler was hyper aggressive. When fog of war questions or political uncertainty clouded that

perspective, Hitler developed a siege mentality. And that's exactly what happened. And Hitler viewed Stalin as incredibly dangerous. as he should have so hitler essentially halted army group center well army group south surrounded this

massive element plus the reserves that the kremlin had ordered like rushed to the front immediately and hitler was afraid to push the attack for a decisive victory at moscow until this element was neutralized, and it was neutralized. The army casualties the Soviets endured is utterly catastrophic and unprecedented. And the Germans took something like three-quarters of a million prisoners alone, okay? But by the time the furor order the attack to be pushed on Moscow was too late. Okay, that's what happened. people misunderstand

and it says you know oh the Germans were plotting to attack all along because the Soviets were weak in some ways but then Stalin got it together and you know because the Germans underestimated

Soviet capabilities you know Hitler lost the war that's not true at all that doesn't make any sense and you know if Stalin was like look at it like this okay the Germans were halted at Moscow but they reached the gates of Moscow they reached

Leningrad and laid it to siege they reached Stalingrad the German the Vermach reached all of its objectives in months how long did it take the Red Army to march on Berlin it took them almost four years so why was there this plotting grinding bloodbath if the Soviets were this grossly underestimated force, you know, and the Germans didn't know what they were doing. Like, the Germans killed the Red Army, you know. Obviously, the Russians still had enough to hold Moscow, and they did, and that was incredibly valiant, and Russians are incredibly tough. And there's a simplicity to the way the Ivan's fight, but it's a simplicity that works.

you know i i think it's guided when people suggest otherwise and especially today because people are you know they've adopted prejudices and stuff

in this regard there's really really stupid things that come out of the Pentagon in terms of their assessment of um Russian capabilities and things and incidentally

Eric von Manstein's the book, it's called Lost Victories. I think it's fascinating, but it's kind of for military hounds only. It's, you know, not like light Sunday reading. But what that book was, the U.S. War Department, back when there was a war department, there's not anymore, no matter what, like, special needs, Higseth says. But in the last months of the Department of War, They debriefed Manstein on, basically on, you know, his experience over four years of fighting the Soviet Union and a general officer's role.

And the War Department, soon to be the Defense Department, they took this very seriously. And early NATO force structure wasn't a substantial on the infantry side, ground, on the infantry armour side. It was substantially based around what von Manchstein had said. Okay, so this book was sometime in the 50s, the first edition. It was edited and make it more readable. And it's literally Manchin's debriefing with some added stuff. You know, so, and that was one of his core premises is that fighting the Russians and Russian territory, they're unbelievably and savagely tough, you know, and that's a force multiplier.

It also makes up for some of their shortcomings. And the Russians also, they know what, they know the limits of their capabilities. You know, and on the one hand, and Suvro of his book inside the Red Army, which is very much worth reading, too, especially if you got into some late Cold War stuff, because it's very much a breakdown of you know the the Brezhnavera Soviet Army

you know he makes the point and Harold Coyle made this point too that doctrine in the Soviet Army was almost like regulation there was there were no mission oriented tactics and the whole ethos of

the Soviet Army's general staff was to eliminate on certainty wherever and whenever and however possible so they didn't tolerate deviation from the battle plan as emerging from you know superior orders but uh nevertheless the russian the soviets and the russians do very well with what they're good at you know and deep battle is what they were good at um heavy reliance on on combined arms in a shock element capacity, went on the offensive, that tended towards

a kind of inflexibility, which I think they later remedied somewhat during the Cold War, but the ability to rapidly shift from an offensive posture to defending, the Vermont was very, very good at that, and the British are pretty good at that, too. The Soviets were catastrophically bad at it. of French were bad at it. But part of it too, though, is that Stalin had every reason

to believe that the Vermacht wasn't capable of what it was capable of as of June 1941. I mean, that was a blind spot, but at the same time, you know, the Germans tend to surprise people on the manners

of military affairs. But that's key, because it's not as internet guys and armchair goofballs who claim, well, Suverro was an idiot or was a liar. Like, look it out bad, the Soviets got mulled. That's the whole point.

Like, that makes his point. Not the opposite. So that's key. You know, I am not I'm not just dwelling on minutia to placake the the, you know, the

military hounds among us or something. But, you know, it's also, you know, it was, you know, the point, too, that I think a lot of lay people don't understand these days, you know, modern war resolves rapidly. You know, you don't, you don't plan for quagmires because then you're planning to lose a war. so you know within uh ideally in about 10 weeks um in the outer temporal limits six months you know moscow had to fall to the vermont and stalin was overconfident absolutely but it stands to reason his kind of poor view of the Vermeck, not in terms of its quality of men or firepower, but the geostrategic situation

and what he viewed as its overextended commitments and things. You know, he reasoned that, you know, even in the very unlikely event of an assault, you know, we can hold him at bay long enough to reinforce and by then, you know, victory conditions will no longer be realizable. You know, this all kind of falls into place, is the totality of circumstances. You've got to look at this Soviet ideological culture. You've got to take Stalin's own statements.

You've got to look at the statements of his underlings, including Khrushchev. You've got to look at the pattern of deployment. You've got to take in, if you know what to look for, but even, I mean, it's even more persuasive or more obvious, rather, but, you know, taken in totality, I mean, it's clear that Suverall was telling the truth. You know, but also, I mean, it's not clear what the alternative was. I mean, this unprecedented military buildup coupled with the transformative, globally. transformative aspects of the Bolshek revolution, the heart and lungs of which proverbially were in the Soviet Union. I mean, what's the alternative? Stalin was he

ordered this build-up for purely defensive purposes to, which would inevitably at some point provoke the West into attacking him. I mean, that doesn't, that doesn't make any sense. And generally when you're talking about conditions of approximate parity with conventional combined arms at scale

or when you're talking about near peer strategic planning you don't wait to be attacked you always push the assault you know then that's

I mean, this is very basic stuff. Well, it also, also it doesn't make sense to say Stalin was this interested in this social, national version of socialism that would emerge out of the Bolsheviks when you send troops and you send advisors and you send tanks to Spain. Yeah. You don't care about Spain. You don't care what's happening in Spain if this is supposed to be for Russia only. Well, it's also the Soviet Union, like, don't get me wrong. You know, one of the one of the living, few living people who I really find common ground with in terms of political theory and an historical subject matter is Kerry Bolton. like he's just great i don't know the guy unfortunately he doesn't leave new zealand much these

days because he's he's elderly you know and uh i think most people know of them because he wrote this really great exhaustive biography of francis yaki but he wrote a book on stalin called stalin the enduring legacy and people who haven't read the book they they they paned at some sort of oh he's some eurasianist it's like that's not what he's saying at all he's think Stalin's legacy was complicated. He basically abides the same viewpoint that Paul Gottfried does,

although for some of different reasons, about a substantial aspect of the Cold War deriving from the Stalin versus Trotsky paradigm. But that doesn't mean that Stalin was somehow not an internationalist. And even

the Soviet Union can name dozens of ethnicities. You know, a huge Muslim population, you know, a huge Asiatic population, you know, a huge number of near-eastern people, you know, it spanned one-fifth or one-six of this planet. Like the Soviet Union was the ultimate international superpower, you know, and the only way the Soviet Union survives, And one of the reasons why the later Cold War was so dangerous as human, you know, for technological reasons and historical ones, and the sideline of human decision makers and missed conditions of strategic nuclear parity and things. But the reason why I had drop off, who was a fascinating guy, and I mean, like I've said, I believe I'm not a Sovietologist and I'm not a Russia expert at all.

but I do know something and it's clear to me that post-Chrushchef there was a shadow trifecta of Andropov of Usenov and Grameko with a real Soviet executive Brezhnev was a frontman Which made sense because before he became kind of elderly and compromised people liked Brezhnev and he resonated with the people even today like he's fondly remembered you know like as as you know a man who was like a

like a great steward of the Russian people and the nationalities but you know and drop off I mean Brezhnev was very much a Stalinist you know and as was in drop off but at drop off seminal speech

right in 82 right after he became a general secretary. You know, he, this is when Project Rion, which a lot of people attribute as contributing substantially to the worst scare of 83 in the Able Archer era, I think people still misunderstand that aspect of it. But be as it may, the reason why the subject of the speech

to the Presidium, he said, We're going to lose the Cold War if we don't take drastic measures to countermeasures against Rima, the Revolution of Military Affairs. He was speaking specifically of computing power and command and control aspects, which was true. There's something insane. There's only like 5,000 computers in the entire Soviet Union in 1982. It was something, it was some insanely primitive state of affairs with regards high tech. You know, and, you know, his whole point was basically the risk of war based on the strategic paradigm as it's evolving as well as these command and control aspects and the sidelining human decision makers, that the risk of war is probably greater than it's ever been since, you know, the 40s. but also we're going to lose that war if we don't find a way to develop meaningful countermeasures that

you know our technologies of parity or unless we find a way out of the Cold War you know and that was Gorbachev's whole notion because Gorbachev was an Andropov's drop-off protege he wasn't some big liberal Shevard Narzay, I think, was subverting things. But point being, you know, Gorbachev was very much the anti-Yeltsin, quite literally. And Yeltsin was the neo-Kanz guy. You know, Gorbachev's notion was, you know, to reform the command economy with certain qualifications. you know, and basically do away with God's plan in favor of something else that could abide innovation in the high-tech sector and to bring about peace with the United States.

But surrendering to the United States or dismaling the Soviet Union, that was not at all within the cars. And one of the reasons why Gorbachev was having... rapport with bush and baker bush and baker assured him we're not going to try and dismantle the soviet union and they weren't for a very specific reason bush said where you know

until there's full nuclear disarmament we're not even going to talk about you know a post-soviet future you know and obviously the neocon perspective and their shoehorning of Yeltsin was

break the Soviet Union to pieces now. Their notion was, and one of the reasons for the why this crusade against Moscow is proceeding from Ukraine, their notion was to break the Soviet Union into essentially three discrete client regimes.

You know, like the former Soviet Far East, and in those days especially too, because the Pentagon was still looking at China. It's essentially friendly. And obviously like, you know, cedes some of that territory to the to pick king

but you know based they'll be like a Ukraine like commissariat they'll be like you know the Moscow kind of central

commissariat and then there'll be this like former like Russian Far East that can you know just that's just kind of like

this sort of like hyper exploited you know a hinterland for the United States and an adjacent finance capital and stuff and um you know uh bush and baker realized like no we're not we're not going to grind these people's faces

into the concrete and we're not going to destabilize the whole region and you know we're certainly not going to do anything until there's full nuclear disarmament you know uh that that was a tangential discussion should give me that but uh baker was a great man and i've got a lot of respect for him And Bush 41, it was not a really likable guy. He would be a dad. But he had a very serious and sophisticated view of geopolitics and political affairs. So that administration looks better and better, in my opinion. And I mean, I felt that way at the time as a teenager.

I realized this country, I realized something really, really, really bad was underway when, when Clinton was elected I mean it would have been one thing if it was like a 2020 steel but the body politic was excited about this pig

and that was insane you know and it's not just because he was crushing our people I mean I knew guys who got indicted and with the prison

under Clinton Reno for when they hadn't done anything you know I'm not just speaking I mean, as a matter of law, as well as a matter of fact or ethics or whatever. But as it may, to bring it back a bit, you know, there's a brief moment really from about 92 to 96. And that's when these historians, first among the David Irving, you know, he got access to the FSB archives.

And there was all this incredible stuff that came to like that, you know, the old. Soviet system had suppressed and kept from prying eyes but then I mean very quickly things became even more opaque than in some ways they had during the Soviet era because the regime will never tell the truth about what's going on with Russia I mean or with Europe but this is an issue of peculiar sensitivity for reasons that I don't think need to be elaborately explicated but I realize I talk more about um

Hoffman as well as the nuances of Barbara Rose than I did specifically Subaru if you want to do part three I'll remedy that and I'll speak specifically to Suvorov and I'll include some aspects of inside the Red Army I've got a paperback

of that I'm going to take it on the road with me no that sounds good to me getting into the thing about reading Suveroff is it's just this fire hose of just this date that what was dismantled on this date what was put in this place on this date and it's just like just running down this whole list of things just chapter after chapter where it's it's mind boggling the the mountain of circumstantial evidence he is able to

provide for his for his thesis which he took he took a like a lot of rush particularly guys who were in intelligence roles or military roles he was a prolific documentary and he wrote down a huge amount of things but also you know obviously english wasn't his first language and um it's written kind of like a debriefing but with like added extrinsic commentary i mean which makes sense i mean he was a defector and he he he spent literally years being debriefed by american and nato um military people you know i mean i i get it that's not that it's not a fun right like the defector actually sucks um what's your take on defectors i i interviewed one once and he was a defector from

the soviet union like in early 1989 and i mean i just caught him not exactly lying just I caught him in not being willing to have certain conversations that would just seem like, you know, it's like, oh, you know, well, tell me what Karl Marx got right. It's one of the things I asked him, I said, tell me what Carl Marks got right. And he's like, nothing. Absolutely nothing. And I'm like, I see these defectors come out of like North Korea and like immediately they get debrief by the State Department and then they get boob jobs and they're driving brand new cars and they're in frigging condos. And I'm like, I think defectors were a lot different back then than they are. Well, you know, that's not to say, okay, some guy, some, some DDR guy or some Soviet Union, like GRU officer who defected in, like, May 1989, totally different than a guy who defected in 1979 or 19969, night and day.

because the former is just like some dickhead like looking to get paid and like looking for a way out of his life and a failing system guys like suvorov first of all they're taking a huge risk you know um and secondly for regular people man like it at peak cold war you know uh life wasn't that different than the Union or in America. It really wasn't. So, I mean, it's not like you're some GRU big shot. It's not like you're going to get great stuff in America. You can't back

home. I mean, yeah, you can, you might be able to get, like, blue jeans for your mistress and, like, good scotch. But there's not some, like, there wasn't some, like, huge difference in quality of life or something. Guys like Subaru have defected because they they had

ethical reasons for it. And they developed a a moral contempt for the system. I really like the book The Hunt for Red October. It's just like an awesome book and I reread it lately because I forgot how good it was but

you know the the captain of the Red October the whole deal I mean it's in part it's a character I mean it's a brilliant meditation on on

late Cold War strategic nuclear platforms and the deep parodies they're in but it's also a character study like the the soviet naval officer you know he's uh he's this guy from the he's this lithuanian guy who doesn't really relate to the russian culture his wife uh needed an operation and uh the doctor who operated on her was drunk when he poured the surgery so he botched it and she died but the doctor was the son and some poloed bureau big shots they're like you know you can't stop demanding like vengeance against this man so the so they this naval officer he's just like what the hell am i doing you know like i and also too and he's like deeply

religious he's like so there's like this atheist uh chauvinistic russian government that killed my wife and i am i'm supposed to i'm supposed to kill 50 million people and event of war like on behalf of it like no i'm not doing that i mean there's a a deeper moral quagmary too because the red october it's a typhoon class sub but it's got what's called a caterpillar drive so it's invisible to sosis and passive sonar so basically it's a splendid first strike weapon so he realizes like the soviet union can alter the strategic balance and basically uh bring america to terms through the threat of through the threat of nuclear assault And, like, I mean, he views that as morally fucked also.

You know, like, if we're going to win, like, let's win the Cold War clean. You know, not do it basically by, like, holding America hostage with a nuclear trigger. I mean, that's kind of moralistic. But at the same time, I mean, I don't know, man. Like, it's no being a – being the captain of a – of a typhoon-class sub. That was a countervalue, like, mega-death machine. you know it's its role was to assault

counter value targets and kill millions of people if you don't believe in the system you serve that's a pretty horrible role to be in you know you've got to be a true believer to do that job it's not like any other job

in the military and it's not like any other role in any other era you know commanding commanding a first strike platform that can kill millions of people. Obviously, that's a fictional example, but what Clancy was drawing upon was the real ethos of defectors in the Cold War. And on the other side, you had guys like the Cambridge Five, right?

I think we're pretty disturbed guys, but they were true believers. That's totally different than these days. He's like some, I think Snowden is a sincere guy, whatever problems you might have. You know, he's basically, I mean, he could never leave Russia now. Like, it's not a happy life. You know, I think, you can argue, I mean, Snowden, I don't want to get into a deep meditation on the ethics of what Snowden did. But I, my point is, like, whatever his motives, I don't think anybody can say he did that for clout. but you know these people who come the other way like some of these chinese or north koreans

they're they're just looking to get paid it's obvious or they think they're not being respected like they should be in you know whatever role they're in you know but the cold war was a cold war is a different world i mean literally you know yeah all right well um we'll pick this up on episode three when you uh when you get back from the travels of thomas on the road and everything Yeah, yeah. Remind everybody with... Maybe write about 36 hours ago. Yeah, remind everybody where they can find your work.

Yeah. You should check out my substack. It's Real Thomas 777.7.substack.com. Alternatively, go to the website. It's number 7-H-M-A-S-77.com. Put that stuff on the show notes so people can find it easy. But my website is a good one-stop. and my substack

is where the podcast and other good stuff is at and I've I just got off the road from D.C. Then we had the Halloween All Saints State Cemetery walk. I'm trying to make progress. I've got to make substantial progress

on this manuscript by December. Things have been very hectic, so in good ways. And then I injured myself like a fucking idiot. But it's the Mind Phaser Pod it's going to be another

a couple weeks before a fresh episode drop, so forgive me for that. But Jay Byrd and I will continue to drop fresh stuff on his platforms and on Radio Free Chicago. So just bear with me, I promise we'll be back to regular

uploads when I get back from the road. All right. Until episode three. Thank you, Thomas. Yeah, thank you, man. You know, I don't know I'm going to I'm going to

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