The Pete Quiñones Show - How the Soviet Union Started World War 2 - Complete - w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

3 hours and 13 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.This is the complete audio to the series exploring the research of Viktor Suvorov (Vladimir Rezun) and Joachim Hoffmann.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' 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.

Every click, every connection, every moment your business is online, a threat is evolving. With Nostra as your trusted technology partner, you're not just reacting. You're ready, turning concern into confidence. From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work. Nostra delivers secure, innovative and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.i to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow.

At Tesco, we're delighted to announce our brand new Belmain Express store is now open, where the quality you've come to expect from us is now just down the road. Pick up some great value essentials, along with some high-quality meats and fresh fruit and veg, plus some tasty treats from our in-house bakery, serving you up freshly baked goodness. Tesco, every little helps. Every click, every connection, every moment your business is online, a threat is evolving. With Nostra as your trusted technology partner, you're not just reacting. You're ready, turning concern into confidence.

From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work. Nostra delivers secure, innovative and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit nostra.i.e to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. Thomas is back, and we're still taking a break from the Continental Philosophy series. We'll be getting back into that soon. But I asked Thomas to cover a topic that I've been wanting to cover for a while.

And, yeah, I told them he can take as many episodes as he was. wants to cover this because I think this is real important for from the revisionist perspective when World War, according to World War II. And it's also from podcasts I've heard in the past talking about it, it's quite controversial. And maybe I'll ask you some questions about that at the end, Thomas, even controversial amongst our guys. And I have a reason why I think it is. But why don't you tell us what we're going to talk about today? Well, In broad causal terms, we're going to talk about the role of the Soviet Union and the Second World War. That's an issue that's mischaracterized.

The main minority viewpoint is presented by Victor Suvorov's icebreaker. Suvarov is a pseudonym for the Soviet defector, who, was deeply insinuated into GRU, which was the military's or the Red Army's counterpart to KGB. KGB was technically a branch of the Soviet military, but GRU was literally Army intelligence. As it may, Suvorov insisted, well, most people, People in addressing Suvorov, they've got a discreet and narrow focus.

Essentially, where they begin their analysis is on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, and they get bogged down in the minutia of what were Soviet deployments. How were they arrayed? Were they offensively arrayed? What were the comparative force levels and capabilities? abilities of the Vermecht and the Red Army. Now, these things are relevant, and I'll address those things. But that's not an adequate analysis, and Suvorov didn't begin his analysis there either.

Suvorov's claim is that the Soviet Union literally started World War II, and I accept that. And it's not a strictly military analysis. Everything about the Second World War was in dialogue with Soviet power and the Soviet Union. The entire 20th century was in dialogue with the Soviet Union and its existence. And the ideology that animated its structure, activity, decision-making, and you know every imperative related to power political activity they're in so other people there's a subset of people just don't really understand the issues presented and they essentially accept what um court historians claim but then they diverge or they think that the question is should they're You know, should there be a deeper analysis at this key juncture in the summer of 1941? They're looking at it the wrong way, you know, either out of ignorance or because they're cowed by what they view as a political consensus among academe, and they don't want to be availed to a kind of punitive scrutiny.

and i'll get into what i mean by that um you know i if you if you accept the if you accept the if you accept suvarov's perspective which was also shared by yacquem hoffman yagam hoffman was um a military historian he was when he was alive um he died in middle age in the 1990s early 2000s But he wrote this exhaustive book called Stalin's War of Extermination. And he was essentially a Bundesweir archivist. At Tesco, we're delighted to announce our brand new Belmain Express store is now open. Where the quality you've come to expect from us is now just down the road. Pick up some great value essentials.

along with some high-quality meats and fresh fruit and veg, plus some tasty treats from our in-house bakery, serving you up freshly baked goodness. Tesco, every little helps. Every click, every connection, every moment your business is online, a threat is evolving. With Nostra as your trusted technology partner, you're not just reacting.

You're ready, turning concern into confidence. From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work, Nostra delivers secure, innovative and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.i.e to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. And he wrote this exhaustive book about the origins of the Second World War. and you know about half of it is dedicated to the political conditions that gave rise to the conflict and about half of it deals with kind of hard and fast military subject matter but i think that's the best book written on the topic and he agreed very much with with suvorov's analysis but also So myself, especially being somebody who favors direct evidence and the testimony of parties to the events in question, you know, if you look at what Stalin said, and if you examine the sort of ontological aspects,

the political ontology of Marxist Leninism, there should be something of a no-brainer. You know, there's this idea that the Soviet Union didn't have ambitions of an imperialistic nature that it had no interest in exporting its ideology to the rest of the developed world,

that it It wasn't possessed of an expansionist sensibility that's laughable. I mean, it's laughable because the only thing that sustains a revolutionary political culture such as that that was characteristic of the Soviet Union is this kind of dynamic revolutionary viable. that's got to be exported once the revolution is consolidated within, but also, you know, the Soviet Union, between 1922 and 1939, it conquered a landmass of, that was equivalent to the size of the German Reich in 1919, something like 400,000, square kilometers. This was a massively aggressive expansionist burgeoning superpower, you know, that's indisputable. And this idea that the world, where you're talking about the United Kingdom, which had conquered 23% of this planet and lorded over 500 million people, you got the Soviet Union, which constitutes one, sixth of this planet and um it's animated by this revolutionary imperative that calls for the the bolshevization of the entire developed world you have the united states which

is in control as a as a 939 of fully half of this planet's remaining resources the idea that the world was terrified of this comparatively tiny country in germany that's a laugh at You know, I mean, that's ridiculous. I don't know how else to characterize it. And the fact that, you know, people suggest that is, you know, is insane. I'd say it's comical, but there's nothing funny about it because this kind of garbage informs decision-making, and it you know it's it constitutes a kind of mass delusion of in the public mind but um you know first and

foremost it often makes this point really at the beginning of his study you know the the imperialistic i don't mean imperialist in the sense lenin has talked about it i mean the Soviet Union was an empire in the ideological sense, make no mistake. And this sort of violent, imperialistic power political sensibility, it was this kind of revolutionary praxis, it was baked into every aspect of the Soviet political system, even the heraldic standard of the Soviet Union, which endured until the final days in 1991. It was literally the globe with overlaid on the planet Earth

is this giant hammer and sickle. You know, that was the Soviet coat of arms. The symbolism is obvious. You know, communism will encircle the whole world. You know, and the motto of the Soviet, Union similarly until the end translates to proletarians of all countries unite yet it can't really be more on the nose than that you know but again intrinsic to intrinsic to the Marxist lens ethos as a globalist perspective that that's one of the

the 20th century belongs so much to the communists because it was uniquely it was a ideology that was uniquely suited to the then present and it was fundamentally forward-looking that can't be denied you know um it's it's obsolescence oh do you know the fact that it became a state the form of of organization and it was it was it it became a became an obsolescent psychological artifact but at zenith it was very much astride the zeitgeist and they can't be denied and even it it was animated by uniquely expansionist sensibility but even had it not been everybody was was everybody who was everybody who was you know of participating in Veltpolitik at scale, had a global perspective. I mean, that was the reality. The 20th century decided what configuration globalism would take.

Okay, so this idea of a kind of insular communism that was narrowly statist and Edward-looking. I mean, that's ridiculous. And beyond that, Stalin, Stalin himself came to characterize the ideological culture of Marxist Leninism for an entire generation. It's not accidental that, you know, he reigned for over 30 years. And I believe he was the single most powerful man on earth. And that is incredible for all kinds of reasons. but, you know, he very much set the tenor of, you know, the revolutionary culture characteristic of the socialist community of nations, as it was called.

And he was a confidante of Lenin, and Lenin said repeatedly and often, But most notably, Lenin's famous December 6th, 1920 speech, which was dedicated to communist praxis and the vision of Veldtpolitik, a Soviet Veltpolitik, he said that to incite the capitalist states against each other is the main stratagem. of Communism. In his words, he said, quote, of using the knives of scoundrels like the capitalist thieves against each other on grounds that when, quote, when two thieves fall out and fight, the honest man laughs. As soon as we are strong enough to overthrow capitalism completely, we will grab them by the throat. Victory of the communist revolution in all countries is inevitable. and that encapsulates Marxist-Lernus Veltz-Polite and that defined it until the very end. This was still the ambition when even amiss the strategic nuclear stalemate, you know, in the late 80s, they were still challenging in Latin America to try and rectify. the strategic imbalance owing the, you know, the advantage conferred the United States and their, uh, and its allies, you know, uh, by the intergovernment border.

At Tesco, we're delighted to announce our brand new Belmain Express store is now open, where the quality you've come to expect from us is now just down the road. pick up some great value essentials along with some high quality meats and fresh fruit and veg plus some tasty treats from our in-house bakery serving you up freshly baked goodness Tesco every little helps Every click every connection every moment your business is online a threat is evolving With Nostra as your trusted technology partner you're not just reacting you're ready turning concerns into confidence.

From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work. Nostra delivers secure, innovative, and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.i.e to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. You know, again, this shouldn't be mysterious

or controversial, rather. Now, what I think of as literally the Stalin Doctrine, this was presented and articulated during a speech Stalin made to the Central Committee of the All-Communist Party in July 1925. and for the Soviets denied that this speech happened for decades and it

was authenticated that the speech was made and I'll get into how this came about as we continue but we're not there yet but what Stalin declared

at this speech was, quote, should the war begin, we will not stand by inactively. We will enter the war, but we will enter as the last belligerent. We will throw a weight on the scales that should be decisive. The historian named Alexander Neckrich. He characterized this as the Stalin doctrine. you know and he insisted that this was never abandoned and that's true and subsequent events and Stalin's decision making in a command role as well as as as you know in war in peace terms as well as

in his role as general secretary bear that out um you know Stalin's last power political act was you know, giving a Mao and Kimmel Sung a green light to assault on the Korean peninsula. Okay. And this

led to a crisis on order of the Cuba crisis, you know, less than a decade later. It's a tangent, but I, about every day, decade subsequent, 1950, 1962,

1973, 1983, there was a general crisis wrought by the traversing of a conflict dyad in what was a peripheral theater, but that nonetheless had the potential for escalation to it's a general nuclear war. But my point being that it's not as if, you know, Stalin literally at the end of his life was still making decisions pursuant to this sort of doctrine

air, you know, program. And this became a fixation of Stalin's as the situation in Europe became characterized by punctuated crises, you know, for the next decade and a half subsequent, culminating, obviously, in 1939. And throughout the 1930s, Stalin undertook a massive armaments program that was unprecedented. And based on his rhetoric, not just to, you know, the assembled nomenclature of the All-Communist Party, but also these public. speeches that he made for the consumption, not just the Soviet people, but, you know, as a way of signaling to the rest of the world, it was clear that he was convinced that a general crisis had arrived, you know, and global capitalism was on its way out, you know. it was in 1939, early

1939, the British ambassador to the Soviet Union through Stafford Cripps and the American ambassador Lawrence F. Steinhart they both were adamant that Stalin intended to bring about a war

not only in Europe but in East Asia and that this was a grave threat facing the British Empire and the United States of America. And this is important, especially the fact of Stalin's attention to the developing situation in the Far East. I'd argue that this was an essential aspect of what became his strategic vision. And we'll get into what I mean by that in a moment.

When around between about 1991 and 1995, a lot of documents briefly became available from the Soviet archives. That's how David Irving got Goebbels, the microfilm of Gerbil's Diaries. That wouldn't be possible anymore, obviously, today. And now, if you, even if the Russian government viewed you as basically, friendly your view to as a dissident from the united states they're not going to give you access to anything the fsb has and i mean even something of exclusively historical interest you know from the warriors they're not going to let anybody see that you know from without but there was this brief period of openness in the 1990s and during that period a bunch of

documents that have been corralled by the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, you know, that in the form of internal memorandum, as well as literally directives from, you know, the desk of Stalin, you know, obviously it's not. indicated as such but reading between the lines you know these are obviously these are obviously statements from the general secretary um most notably the people's commissariat delegation to japan the telegram from moscow um that suggests that the Soviet diplomatic mission in Japan should agree to any treaty that tends to bring about hostility between Japan and the United States.

You know, it's very undisguised all of these communications are, you know, throughout the 1930s, that anything that brings about a Japanese-American war should be cultivated. And that this is imperative to Soviet ambitions. You know, the way

it was described by one of the archivists who was involved in this NGO, which I think still exists. There was this NGO that was corralled, or incorporated rather, in January, 1989, you know, just months before the injured border fell, like, well, less in a year, that was dedicated to documenting human rights abuses, as they called it, and

other things during the Stalin era. And there's interesting data relating to the power political situation, you know, in the years prior to 1939, that they corralled as well. And of particular significance, there was this transcribed memo from years subsequent by a man who served in the Chinese or Japanese diplomatic mission,

Soviet diplomatic mission, in the 1930s. And he said, quote, the Soviet Union for its part was interested in distracting British and American attention from European problems. And in Japanese neutrality during the period of the destruction of Germany and the liberation of Europe from capitalism. And then, of course, it became clear that Japan was not going to remain neutral or America was not going to allow it to strike a position in neutrality. it became imperative to do everything possible to bring in the United States and Japan into collision, which once it became clear what the new dealer's ambitions were, that that sort of resolve itself from the Soviet perspective.

But nevertheless, Japan was at the top of Stalin's mind, and we'll get into what I mean by that in a minute. now this is really what's critical to suvorov's hypothesis and mine own as well as what suvorov posited And again, I echo this sentiment. The Soviet Union started World War II in August 1939 when they launched a massive surprise attack at Cal King Goal and knocked out the Japanese Imperial Army. And that changed everything. And that also was literally the start of World War II.

If you look at hostilities between 1939 and 1945 as a singular conflict, which I think in broad conceptual terms is useful, you know, especially because that's court history claims that war to begin, you know, in September of 1939. And bizarrely, they claim that, you know, Polish abhorters, were somehow inviolable and any any any traversing of them was an act of global war but um if we examine the ambitions and strategic orientations and objectives of why the soviet union assaulted japan it becomes clear that this was the start of the second world war and what this

the reasons why they did that what this set in motion it was truly an aspect of a global campaign of revolutionary conquest, but in the days before that, and this is important, too, because like the 1925 speech, the Soviet Union later claimed this never happened. And it's interesting how the allies dealt with it in subsequent years. But on August 19, 1939, Stalin called a surprise secret meeting of the Central Committee of the Politburo. During the meeting, Stalin announced that the time. had now come to quote apply the torch of war to the european powder keg now of course this was also as the non-aggression pact was uh being you know negotiated with the german rike what stalin said to the assembled central committee quote if we accept the german proposal

for the conclusion of a non-aggression pact with them they would naturally attack Poland and the intervention of France and England in this war would be inevitable the resulting unrest and disorder will lead to the

destabilization of Western Europe without us, us being the Soviet Union, being initially drawn into the conflict. And again, know, since 1925, this had been what the Soviet Union was waiting for, according to the

Stalin doctrine, as a catalyst for, you know, exporting the revolution to Western Europe. At Lidl, we'd like to wish all our customers in Dublin a very happy Christmas. So, what's in store at your local Liddle this Saturday? Well, how about a sweet Christmas treat? that's more to value with festive favourites from our favourina range treat yourself to our chocolate santa's get into the festive spirit with our moorish mince pies build your own gingerbread house or melt at the taste of our delicious butter biscuits just pop in to your nearest store to shop today and start saving this Christmas

Liddle more to value every click every connection every moment your business is online a threat is evolving with Nostra as your trusted technology partner you're not just reacting. You're ready, turning concern into confidence. From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work, Nostra delivers secure, innovative, and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.com. to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. You know, and Stalin continued saying, quote, we can hope for an advantageous entry into the war. In typical Stalin euphemistic language, he said, quote, a broad field of activity, a broad field of activity was now opening for the development of the world revolution.

In other words, for the accomplishments, which had never. you know, been abandoned for the Sovietization of Europe and communist domination. He concluded this speech by saying, comrades, in the interest of the Soviet Union, the homeland of the workers, get busy and work so warmly break out between the Reich and the capitalistic Anglo-French bloc. now this was the first stage of the plan for bolshevik domination and you know it's uh then the non-aggression pact of course was um finalized four days subsequent And it becomes clear, you know, I don't want to take us down another tangent, but it was really Gearing, who pushed really hard for a firm alliance with the Japanese.

I mean, Hitler was already sort of disposed that way anyway. Garing respected the Japanese a lot, and Garing was something of a terrible snob, and he thought that Japan, It was like a high culture, which is true, but beyond the aesthetical attraction, you know, the understanding was that Japan was a great power in its own right, and they'd smashed the Imperial Russian Navy in 1905, and, you know, Japan was just, you know, the ideal hedge to have. against the Soviet Union in the East. So when the Red Army launched this blitz of assault to the Japanese army in the Far East and utterly annihilated them, this terrified people. And it also, it really meant that, you know,

the Reich had no choice but to sue for temporary peace with the Soviet Union, because then they had no hedge. You know, and it was clear that any move westward, you know and Hitler was confident that the war a war with France wouldn't be a quagmire but just the same you know he knew there weren't the forces in being

to fight off a Soviet assault through Poland as the Reich was you know fighting in France so This was a, this was very much a conspiratorial masterstroke of Stalin. I mean, no I'm going to be wrong.

Stalin wanted to conquer the Far East anyway, but that timing was ideal, you know, and there's the forces in being arrayed such that it was a sort of a perfect opportunity, not just to humiliate the Japanese Imperial Army, but to, telegraph a message of the world about Soviet military might, you know, and it was highly effective in that regard. Now, the speech that Stalin made re-outlined his plan for the conquest of Europe in the midst of, you know, a Western European civil war. The French national news agency Havas

they obtained a copy of this by way of Geneva presumably from you know their own spies or from a friendly intelligence service and it was published in early

1939 throughout France and Moscow claimed it was fake, and it was a forgery. And right up to the present day, incredibly, you'll find these dummy court historians and their apologies. At Lidl, we'd like to wish all our customers in Dublin a very happy Christmas. So, what's in store at your local Lidl this Saturday? A luxury Christmas treat. That's more to value, with seasonal favorites from our deluxe range. Imagine

salmon in puff pastry with buttery roast potatoes. Prophidyls and a rich chocolate sauce or our seasonal Irish cheeseboard and luxury Irish chocolates. Just pop in to your nearest store to shop today and start saving this Christmas. Lidl, more to value. Every click, every connection, every moment your business is online, a threat is evolving. With Nostra as your trusted technology partner, you're not just reacting. You're ready turning concern into confidence. From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale

you grow and AI that transforms how you work. Nostra delivers secure, innovative and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.i.e to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. Claiming that this was somehow a forgery by the French Havas agency and French intelligence by anti-communists. I mean, it's ridiculous. In the official party paper, Pravda, on November 30, 1939, Stalin himself finally came out and officially denied that the speech was made

and reiterated this preposterous claim. that it was some forgery by ant bite by fascists you know um this was demonstrated uh it was confirmed to have been a real speech by Stalin's uh official biographer who died only around 1995 even in 1993 he gave an interview where he confirmed for all time that this speech happened, the language of it was, in fact, transcribed perfectly in the, you know, a document that was rendered by French Havas, and that should have settled it for all time. But like I said, regime historians will simply argue by assertion and repeat lies over and over and over and over again. And they'll simply deny the evidence in rebuttal. But this is important because this became a major, there was a major stumbling block for the new dealers, obviously, as well as the war party in the UK.

you know it it was beyond an embarrassment it stood to represent a real crisis with regards to their mandate but uh it goes to show you what kind of bully pulpit had been devised and erected in uh you know the u.S. UK. I mean, part of it was because it was a French news release, but even so, it, the ability to lock out and discredit conflicting information and facts that had a tendency to impeach official narratives is pretty remarkable in the case of the, in the case of the focus in the UK and the New Deal in America. Um, you know, uh, and Suvorov, to his credit, took up the issue of the August 19th speech, but, um, it was, uh, Volkoganov, Volkogunov was the, um, biographer in question, who attested at the end of his life to the, veracity of the speech but um you know the uh it was on january 16th 1993 and again this this was that period of approximately summer fall 1991 until probably very early early

in 1996, where there was open access to Stalin era archives and data in the Soviet Union. Can we address something right there? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, a lot of people will say that, like, the Goebbels' diaries or forgeries, so, you know, why is in all of this forgeries as well? because it's not an argument it's like saying what who forged the gerbil's diary so what the soviets did was they went to berlin they they forged a bunch of documents they put it in a berlin bank vault they pretended to discover it they took it back to the soviet union um the nkvd later the kgb

they continued to pretend that gerbils had written reams of diary material for 50 years they lied about this for no reason then david irving also lied about this that he could capture clout like what there's there's this kind of stock and trade of simpletons and idiots to just go around saying things are fake you know hitler's second book is fake um General Patton's personal diaries are fake. Gerbil's diaries are fake. Everything is fake. Okay. I mean, I... It's like me saying Donald Trump is actually of Jewish parentage.

I can't prove that. There's no evidence to that. There's no reason to believe that. But I'm just going to keep saying that over and over again. See, Donald Trump is Jewish. Oh, you don't think so? Yeah, well, you don't know. anything he's jewish i say so i mean i i can do that too okay you know the onus is on the

declarant um you know and again i what so is the soviets from the business of just pretending that gerbils wrote these diaries i you know i don't accept that um because it's stupid but Le Cogunov, he was Stalin's official biographer. He confirmed in Izvestia, which was an organ of that constellation of NGOs, as I indicated a moment ago, dedicated to, you know, kind of truth and reconciliation about the Stalin era

he went public in Russian and European media and he was adamant that the minutes of the August 1939 speech that had been published in France

were legitimate. That speech happened. And again, I'm sure I'm sure these same defectors are going to claim, well, that's fake. Okay, fine, everything is fake. I'm an adult and I'm a white person. I'm not a white inward or like developmentally disabled,

so I don't entertain that kind of stuff. But, you know, the, and there's a historian. This lady historian, Russian historian, T.S. Buesueva, she undertook this broad scholarly evaluation of Suvorov's books, not just icebreaker, but kind of his entire body of work. and her account of his work product was mixed she was somewhat critical in a punitive way she praised other stuff but she was adamant that the August 19th 939 speech was legitimate and she claimed that copies of the speech were known to exist in the special archives of the Central Committee and the USSR and she made excerpts of it available to the public in December 1994

and there was this big deal the publication was a big deal and it was a big deal and it was unveiled at this conference of the quote memorial society that's the name that's the umbrella name of that constellation of NGOs i was talking about and uh this is on august 16th 1995 that uh was this kind of grand unveiling you know but they they they and this this might seem silly to make such a big deal about the release of historical documents but if you know about the soviet system i mean that it's it was this is a special case you know It wasn't an ordinary political system, and this document changed everything. At Lidl, we'd like to wish all our customers in Dublin a very happy Christmas.

So, what's in store at your local Liddle this Saturday? Well, how about a sweet Christmas treat? That's more to value. With festive favourites from our favorina range. Treat yourself to our chocolate Santa's. Get into the festive spirit with our Moorish Mint Pies. Build your own gingerbread house or melt at the taste of our delicious butter. Biscuits. Just pop in to your nearest store to shop today and start saving this Christmas.

Lidl, more to value. Every click, every connection, every moment your business is online, a threat is evolving. With Nostra as your trusted technology partner, you're not just reacting. You're ready, turning concern into confidence. From cybersecurity that protects what matters most to cloud solutions that scale as you grow and AI that transforms how you work, Nostra delivers secure, Innovative and reliable IT for Ireland's leading businesses. Visit Nostra.i.e to find out more. Nostra, securing today, shaping tomorrow. Or it should have in the public mind, you know, because it's essentially a standing

rebuttal to the entire court narrative of the war and its origins um you know so there's that too so i mean again i where where's where's the evidence that all this is being fate like i guarantee you the russian government wasn't happy about this you know i mean i that they still aren't anybody who is fluent in a russian i they're welcome to proffer evidence that this is all lectured maine and it's fake um but obviously that won't be forthcoming um you know and thus getting to the kind of meat of the onset of hostilities you know again um superov's the core of his theory you know again it's It's not just a matter of a discreet revisionist analysis of Operation Barbarossa and which party combatant or combatants were, you know, the aggressor.

It's far more of a broad spectrum analysis than that. I agree with this perspective, and I agree with it too. Not only was Stalin the progenitor of World War II, but World War II began on August 19th, 1939, because that's the date when Stalin ordered the assault on Kalking goal. Japanese 6th Army was deployed there. Stalin ordered a massive assault. The Japanese were soundly defeated and eroded.

Marshall Zukov stated on August 23rd, 1939, you know, in reference to the Kalkingol assault, as well as the non-aggression pact with the Reich, which had just been, you know, signed. Zyukov said, quote, Stalin was convinced that the non-aggression pact would enable him to wrap Hitler around his little finger. quote, we have tricked Hitler for the moment, end quote, with Stalin's opinion, according to Nikita Khrushchev. Suvorov's take, which should be obvious to those familiar with the historical record,

the non-aggression pact on the heels of Japan being crushed on land in the far east, Hitler believed then that he had to attack Poland to protect the frontier of the German Reich. He would not have acted without a guarantee of non-aggression because Germany wasn't in a position to go to war with the Soviet Union at that moment. people were terrified of the Soviet Union after it had just crushed the mighty Japanese army so again I mean this is laughable this idea that Stalin who had just crushed

the Japanese army who was sitting on the throne of a burgeoning superpower that constituted one-six of this planet the idea that Stalin was terrified of Hitler and comparatively tiny germany that's preposterous you know um molotov uh you know obviously was you know chief diplomat uh his official title was chairman of the council of people's commissars Molotov spoke for the Supreme Soviet on October 31st, 1939, he said, quote, a single blow against Poland, first by the Germans and then by the Red Army, and nothing will remain of this misbegotten little child of the Versailles Treaty, which owed its existence to the repression of non-Polish nationalities.

You know, so again, too, the Soviet nomenclature and especially Stalin, they wanted to, they wanted to crush Poland. You know, among other things, the Polish junta was ethically cleansing Russians. You know, the Russians hated the Poles. You know, interestingly, you know, again, this supposedly sacrosanic Polish democracy, it didn't bother the UK when the Soviets assaulted. um that's interesting isn't it but so and then of course too within months the soviet union assaulted finland you know so uh the uh if stalin was this uh isolationist um oh and of course Meanwhile, too, you know, the Soviet Union was funding, equipping, arming, and facilitating the communist revolution in Spain, which obviously had profound geo-strategic significance. You know, in the same period, the Soviets had assaulted and conquered Poland.

You know, they'd assaulted Finland and conquered Archangel, you know, and through the waging of these aggressive wars against Poland and Finland. And then essentially the extortionate annexation of the Baltic, you know, and threatening to assault, Romania, all of which gained territorial concessions out of shopping fired, because again, every, the Soviet Union's neighbors were incapable of standing up to its might. You know, so by this time, by the Eve of Barbarossa, the Soviet Union had expanded its territory by 426,000 square kilometers that was equivalent to the service of the entire German Reich in 1919. And in so doing, as Yaga Hoffman points out, Stalin had ripped away in all buffer states on Germany's frontier. So I mean, Europe was defenseless,

in the east you know and uh obviously the the time was nigh for a for an assault on europe and where germany was as of 1940 despite germany's initial military successes you know there wasn't anything Germany had done that Moscow considered particularly impressive or critical, you know, that would have changed or altered Stalin's ambitions, quite the contrary. There was no longer a chance of decisive victory against the UK because, you know, sea lion was a strategic ruse. The purpose of which was to deceive Stalin, by the way, not Churchill, which, I mean, that's interesting in its own right but the uh you know and as Stalin who was already by that time had hundreds of spies in the Roseville administration he knew exactly what America was thinking

and he knew that the United States was going to stand behind the UK German forces were scattered piecemeal all over Europe um the German army was uh still dependent on you know on horse-drawn transportation um germany wasn't even close to being able to realize a full mobilization on the order of you know 1914 1915 even if there'd been the political will to do so you know the minute germany was cut off from romania they their army would have stopped in its tracks because that was, you know, their only source of vital petroleum. I mean, even a layman looking at all relevant criteria and variables as of, you know, 1940, 1941 sees Germany in a position of catastrophic vulnerability.

So, I mean, the idea that, you know, again, the idea that, you know, again, the idea that, Stalin was afraid of Germany and afraid of its armed forces. I mean, that's preposterous beyond belief. You know, and just for, just for comparative purposes. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future.

We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.i.e. The GoMile, supported by AIB, has been helping families around the world for over 40 years. This year, we are asking you to step up together with your community to continue one of Ireland's favourite Christmas traditions. Search AIB Go Mile to see where you, your family and your friends can find your local Go Mile event. AIB for the life you're after. Between November 1940 in the day of Barbarossa, June 22nd, 1940.

There's been a massive arms buildup underway since 1925, but this year and a half, or this half a year, I mean, between, you know, the winter of 1940 and summer 41, this was an unprecedented military buildup in terms of scale, scope, and rapidity. on June 22nd, 9041, the Soviet army possessed 24,000 tanks, almost 2,000 of which were T-34s, which were technically classed as a medium tank, but they were probably the best overall tank of the entire war. The Air Force of the Red Army since 1938 had acquired 23,000, 245 military aircraft, including 3,700 that were of the most recent design. The Red Army had 148,000 artillery pieces and mortars. the inventory of the Royal Navy in addition to its surface fleet it had 291 submarines which were an exclusively offensive platform this meant that the Soviet Union had more submarines than any other country on this planet they had more than four times the number of submarines that the Royal Navy did which was the world's leading maritime state. I mean, this is utterly insane.

You know, and it's unprecedented. Like, that nothing approaching this sort of scope, scale, and character of mobilization had ever been. been contemplated, let alone implemented. So, you know, again, Germany, which is overcommitted, overstretched, outnumbered, engaged in a quagmire, not mobilized for war, like the idea that the Soviet Union, which, again, had just succeeded in stripping away

Germany's buffer states in the east and that successfully conquered Poland and you know the territory had coveted in the Arctic after, you know,

an unprovoked assault on Finland. This idea that the Soviet Union was afraid of Hitler. I mean, like, it's so stupid. it almost doesn't warrant rebuttal because it you know it's an exclusively bad faith argument but um what the kind of time we got yeah i'm gonna wrap up there because i was about to get into the some of the testimony of some the commissars about the ideological culture the Red Army itself.

But yeah, I hope this was instructive to people. Sure, yeah. Can't wait for part two. One thing that I would say is I think one of the reasons that the narrative on Spain had to be controlled after the war is because if the Republicans would have won, Spain belonged to the Soviet Union. And, you know, you could make the argument. Germany should have never left after victory.

But the Soviet Union, in no way, shape, or form would have left. That would have been a Soviet satellite state, and they would have had Gibraltar. Oh, yeah. Well, it's just like when the ideological descendants of these, of the traitors who fought for the communists in Spain, it's like when they support Islamic, it's like when they support al-Qaeda and Syria, they're like, oh, that's not al-Qaeda. That's these other guys who don't actually exist, or Democratic. it's like this level of it's like this infantile level of delusion i don't even think they actually

believe that there's insulting the intelligence of everybody else like you know the oh those weren't the communists there was these imaginary other guys in spain who like what are you talking about there was this there was this unusual coalition of syndicalist fascist phalanus carliss uh you know reactionary monarchist types kind of secular nationalists you know that was who are you know referred to what's the nationalist side

I mean in accurate as that may be this is kind of the umbrella term that's favored and there was the common turn and the Soviet Union and their proxies like there wasn't this other element there that were like gay feminist

liberals or like Ernest Hemingway's buddies who just love freedom or whatever delusion Normies have. You know, it was a bunch of communists like Eric Milke, who were busy shooting priests and nuns in the face and torturing fascists to death and, you know, preparing to categorically exterminate anybody who wasn't educable, just like they'd done in the Soviet Union. And just like Bella Coons, a brief tyranny did in Hungary. And just like the communist did everywhere that, you know, they were victorious in theater. All right.

I'll do your plugs for you. Go to Thomas's substack. That's real Thomas 777.com. Dot substack.com. Go to his website. That's Thomas 777.com, but the T is a seven, right? The first T is a seven. And, yeah, you can find them sometimes on X under his government name.

Yeah, you can link all that stuff from my, you can read. All those links are on my website. So, yeah. And I'll have the links in the show notes as well. So thank you until part two. I really appreciate you doing this. I think this is important. Yeah, likewise.

Thanks for hosting me. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Peking Yonzo show. This is going to be part two of Thomas talking about Victor Suvoroff and Hukin Hoffman's work. So Thomas, I hand it over to you. Yeah, thanks for hosting me. 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 Barbarossa's commencement, June 22nd, 1941, it's important to understand the strategic situateness of Stalin 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, you know, 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 the Suvorov, without saying it, abides that perspective. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which Stalin confided to the Politburo as well as the Crucchief, 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 to the United Kingdom and Europe would be the communist for the taking.

You know, this was, in Stalin's words, to Khrushchev, Hitler was now wrapped around our little finger. And one of the reasons for this confidence, or overconfidence, you know, as I think I mentioned before, as of Barbarossa, Stalin had increased, expanded the territory of the Soviet Union by 426,000 square kilometers. That was equivalent to the service area of the German Reich as 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 waiting 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, you know, 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 theaters which was compromising

Germany's position in the Mediterranean which Hitler had counted on as a hedge 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 C lion was a strategic ruse And even were it not, it would have been a bloodbath. You know, So in November 12th and 13th, Stalin directed Molotov in Berlin To transmit to Hitler

Through Ribbentrop A demand For the expansion of the Soviet sphere 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 on the many days of christmas the guinistorehouse brings to thee a visit filled with festivity. Experience a story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with brett taken views of Dublin City from the home of Guinness.

Live entertainment, great memories and the gravity bar. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at ginnestorehouse.com. Get the facts, be drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.com. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future. We're upgrading the electricity grid so

every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid. absolutely no possibility of the Vermeck assaulting the Soviet Union, even on 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 Stoffley gets into that. Howler's report on the eve of Barbarossa, and Halder had actually written, he'd written an assessment in 1937 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, 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 Barbaros. 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 man, as Hoffman raises in his book, the Soviets not only had 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 due strategic terms as of Barberost as well as an ideological one 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 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 is structured was essentially obsolescent. And this is one of the reasons why there have 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

Stalin invoked to sort of give a branding to you know the kind of punctuated disturbances of this mass and megacidal restructuring of Russian society and the Soviet state which was becoming a superpower

as well as to, you know, assuage the Western powers, which were very much doing as 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 turns 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 um also and I realize I probably got a bias for testimonial evidence especially

they're not exclusively in discerning the motives of men in command roles but there's not 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 General Volkovanov, he, word for word, by the 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 will 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've raised before in discussion 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

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 at zenith

I'd argue Stalin had abide that role or he would have been replaced by a man who would have you know um it was a convergence of ideological imperatives into strategic realities in a way that is very rare but was sort of inextricably and splendidly bound up at this jump And 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 Go Mile, supported by AIB, has been helping families around the world for over 40 years. This year we are asking you to step up together with your community to continue one of Ireland's favourite Christmas traditions. Search AIB Go Mile to see where you, your family and your friends can find your local Go Mile event. AIB for the life you're after. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come and a long-term out of the forecast. And a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future.

We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.i.e. The secret meeting with the Politburo, and this is when the common-term delegation was also present, on august 19th 1939 um you know in the uh it concomitant with the assault on on the japanese imperial army at calcun goal this meeting that stalin called to the poet borough um and the russian section of the common turn Stalin declared that the time had come to quote apply the torch of war to European powder keg.

This is when Stalin declared, if we accept the German proposal for the non-aggression pact, you know, Hitler will naturally attack Poland, 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 advantageous 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 the speech

were smuggled out and were obtained by the French news agency Havas by way of Geneva you know and it went it was published and then the moscow immediately wanted to damage control and stalin apologists and propagandists particularly

in london but also the united states you know they they they started immediately claiming that this is fascist propaganda 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 you 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'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

the American War in Iraq from 2003-11 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 um this this is 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 suvorovs and Hoffman's um points we've got to ask why barbarossa was so tactically successful for the vermont and what that means because this is sort of the key in my opinion um the soviets were planning an assault on romania in the autumn of 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 romanium and of course germany was totally dependent on romanian petroleum that's one of the reason is Hitler cultivated the friendship of Antonescu 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 access 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 ledgered 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 wracked with anxiety that the Soviets were in with Salt Romania, because they, were. So these forces down there are at 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 that they, you know, 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. But what this lead do was there was massive Soviet deployments in the Baltic and in Ukraine through the Romanian frontier. So when the Vermacht assaulted, the road to Moscow 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. You know, 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. And as the deployment schema in Ukraine, the Army Group South was exponentially outnumbered. but 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 dependent upon. 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 larded with firepower and totally front loaded okay so when army group 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 mainline 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 masked armored columns... The GoMile, supported by AIB,

has been helping families around the world for over 40 years. This year, we are asking you to step up. together with your community to continue one of Ireland's favourite Christmas traditions. Search AIB Go Mile to see where you, your family and your friends can find your local Goal Mile event.

AIB for the life you're after. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future. We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit.

We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.i.e. When you're deployed offensively with your front-loaded shock army as the Scherpunct, 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 so 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 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 while Army Group South surrounded this massive element plus the reserves that the Kremlin had ordered like rush 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 amount of 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

by the time the furor ordered the attack to be pushed on Moscow, it was too late. Okay, that's what happened. People misunderstand it 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 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 were 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 um 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 think it's misguided when people suggest otherwise and a 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 Russian capabilities and things.

And incidentally, Eric von Manstein's book, it's called Lost Victories, It's for, 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 heggseth says but in the last months of the department of war they debriefed manchstein on basically on you know his experience over four years of fighting the soviet union and general officer's role and the war department is 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 armor side it was substantially based around what von manstein had it 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 managing his debriefing with some

added stuff you know so and that that was one of his core premises is that fighting the Russians and Russian territory they're they're unbelievably and savagely tough

you know and that's a force multiplier and it also makes up for some of their shortcomings and the russians also they 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 brisinavera so 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 uncertainty wherever and

whenever and however possible. So they didn't tolerate deviation from, the battle plan, um, as emergent from, you know, superior orders. But, uh, nevertheless, the Russians, 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, 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, and the French were bad at it. The Go Mile, supported by AIB, has been helping families around the world for over 40 years. This year, we are asking you to step up together with your community to continue one of Ireland's favourite Christmas traditions. Search AIB Gold Mile to see where you, your family and your friends can find your local Goll Mile event. AIB for the

life you're after. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of Lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future. We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.i.e. Um, 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 a manors of military affairs. But that's key because it's not as internet guys and, and, and, armchair goofballs who claim well suvorov was an idiot or was a liar like looking out bad the Soviets got mulled that's the whole point like that makes his point not the opposite so that's that's key you know I'm not

I'm not just dwelling on minutia to placate the the you know the the military hounds among us or something but you know it's also you know it was um 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 quagmire's because then you're planning to lose a war so you know what Within, ideally in about 10 weeks, 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 not in terms of its quality of men or firepower, but the geostrategic situation and what he viewed as its over-extended 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 the Soviet ideological culture. You've got to take Stalin's own statements. You've got to look at the statements. So his underlings, including Khrushchev, you've got to look at the pattern of deployment. You've got to take, if you know what to look for, but even, I mean, it's even more persuasive or more obvious rather, but, you know, taking, um, in totality, I mean, it's clear that Suverall was telling the truth. You know, but also, I mean, it's not, it's not clear what the alternative was. I mean, this unprecedented military buildup coupled with the transformative, globally transformative aspects of the bullshit revolution, the

heart and lungs of which proverbially were in the Soviet Union. I mean, what's the alternative? Stalin was he ordered this buildup for purely defensive purposes to, which would inevitably at some

point provoke the West into attacking him. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And generally, when you're talking about conditions of a approximate parity with conventional combined arms at scale over 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 um I mean this this 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 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 elderly, you know.

and I think most people know of him because he wrote this really great exhaustive biography of Francis Yaqui but he wrote a book on Stalin called Stalin the Enduring Legacy and people who haven't read the book they they pan it as some sort of

oh he's some Eurasianist that's not what he's saying at all he's saying 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, you know, 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, of near eastern people you know uh it spanned one fifth or one six of this planets like the soviet union was the ultimate international superpower you know and uh 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 um historical ones and the sideline a human decision makers and missed conditions of strategic nuclear parity in things.

But the reason why Andropov, 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-Crucif, there was a shadow trifecta of Andropos, 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, you know, like a man who was like a great steward of the Russian people and the nationalities. But, you know, Andropov, I mean, Brezhnev was very much a Stalinist, you know, and as was Andropov. But it dropped 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, war-scarer of 83 in the ablarsher 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 the presidium he said we're going to lose the cold war if we don't take drastic measures to countermeasures against rima you know the revolution military affairs he was speaking specifically of computing power and command and control aspects, which was true. There's something, there's something insane, there's only like 5,000 computers in the entire Soviet Union in 1982. It was something, like, 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 sideline and human decision makers that the risk of war is probably greater than it's ever been since 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 are technologies of parity or unless we find a way out of the cold war. You know, and that was Gorbachev's whole notion.

He goes, Gorbachev was an Andropov protege. He wasn't some big liberal. Shevich Narsay, I think, was subverting things. But point being, um... And now, a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast.

is for a sustainable energy future we're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit we're powering up Ireland learn more at airgrid.i this Christmas on sky you can turn a silent night into stoppage time delights

an old mince pie into a stunning try and stupendous love Landstone and a winter chill into an alley-pally thrill. Luke the new glit. With over 50 Premier League games, exclusive Champions Cup and URC rugby, and all the darts,

turn your Christmas into a sportsmus to remember. With Sky Sports and Sports Extra, Merry Sportsmas. You know, Gorbachev was very much the anti-Yolson, quite literally, and Yeltsin was the neocons guy. You know, um, Gorbachev's notion was, you know, to reform the command economy with certain qualifications, you know, and basically do it 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 cards. And one of the reasons why Gorbachev was had 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

and their shoehorning of Yeltsin was, you know, 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, like, client regimes, you know, like the former Soviet Far East, and in those days, especially too, because the Pentagon was still looking at China as essentially friendly and obviously like you know

cedes some of that territory to the to Peking 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 hinterland for the United States and adjacent finance capital and stuff and you know

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 that was a tangential

discussion should give me that but Baker was a great man and I've got a lot of respect for him and Bush 41 it was not a particularly 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 um i realized this country i realized something really really really bad was underway when when when when when when when clinton was elected i mean it would have been one thing if it was like a 20-20 steel but the body politics 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

i knew guys who got indicted and with the prison under clinton reno for when they hadn't done anything you know um 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 the um to bring it back a bit you know there there's a brief moment really from about 92 to 96 and that's when that's when these these historians first another 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 um but then I mean very quickly things became even more opaque than uh 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 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 Suverov is it's just this fire hose of just this date, 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 mountain of circumstantial evidence he is able to provide for his for his thesis, which he took, he took a, like a lot of Russians, 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 comedy 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's not a fun life like the defector actually sucks um Um, what's your take on defectors? 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. Carl Marks got right. It's one of the things I asked him. I said, tell me what Carl Marks got right. 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, that's not to say, okay, some guy, 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 were taking a huge risk you know

and secondly for regular people man like it peaked cold war you know life wasn't that different than the Soviet 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 suvorov defected because they they had ethical reasons for it and they developed a moral contempt for the system i really like the book the hunt for at october it's just like an awesome book and i reread it lately because i've I forgot how good it was, but, you know, 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 Soviet naval officer, you know, he's this guy from the, he's this Lithuanian guy. He doesn't really relate to the Russian culture. His wife needed an operation. And 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 Politburo big shots. They're like, you know, you can't stop demanding, like, vengeance to get. 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 i am i'm supposed to i'm supposed to kill 50 million people in event of war like on behalf of it like no i'm not doing that i mean there's a deeper moral quagmary too because they're in october it's at the 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 bring America to terms through the threat of nuclear assault. And like, I mean, he used 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 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, I don't know, man. Like, it's no, being a, being the captain of a, of a typhoon class sub, that there was a countervalue, like, mega death machine. You know, it's, it's, its role was to assault countervalue targets and, 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 a first strike platform that can kill millions of people. you know so i obviously that's like 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 i think we're pretty disturbed guys but they were true believers that's totally different than these days like some i think snowdon is a 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 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 and now a look at the forecast we're seeing lots of wind plenty of sunshine to come and a long-term outlook that's bright for ireland at air grid our forecast is for a sustainable energy future

the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.i.e. This Christmas on Sky, you can turn a silent night into stoppage time delights. An old mince pie into a stunning try. It's stupendous from Lancaster. And a winter chill into an alley-pally thrill.

thrilled. Luke the new glitla. With over 50 Premier League games, exclusive Champions Cup and URC and all the darts, turn your Christmas into a sportsmus to remember. With Sky Sports and Sports Extra, Merry Sportsmas.

All right, well, we'll pick this up on episode three when you when you get back from the travels of Thomas on the road and everything. Yeah, yeah. Remind everybody. We can write about 36 hours ago.

Yeah, yeah. Remind everybody. ready where they can find your work. Yeah, you should check out my substack. It's Real Thomas 777.substack.com. Alternatively, go to the website. It's number 7-H-M-A-S-777.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, uh, I, 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 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, um, it's, uh, the mind phaser pod, uh, it's going to be another 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 um uploads when i get back from the road all right um until episode three thank you thomas yeah thank you man want to welcome everyone back to the peek and yeno show we had a little bit of a hiatus because you know did a little traveling and everything but uh Thomas is back, and we're going to finish up the series on who started World War II,

who's responsible. And yeah, so take it away, Thomas. Yeah, thanks for hosting me again. There's two issues here. And if memory serves in the first episode of this little series, we addressed the issue of when exactly the Second World War started, which seems pedantic, but it's not. This is a real matter of contention for anybody who's seriously engaged with the subject matter.

There's a reason why court historians claim the opposite of hostilities with September 3rd, 1939, because that represents a discreetly, ideologically coded perspective. And obviously, the intention is to present the global strategic and geopolitical situation as being one of relative peace until the German Reich violated that peace through naked aggression against the Polish state. okay that's a problematic perspective for all kinds of reasons you know some of which are political some of which

are purely historical in nature and factual but what I think is irrebuttable even if one accepts you know the

mainstream view of the onset of hostility between the German Reich and Poland and the subsequent war declaration on the German Reich by France and the United Kingdom the fact of the matter is that

weeks prior the Soviet Union assaulted the Japanese Imperial Army at Calcan Gold that this was a massive engagement this was a massive clash of forces um you know and uh obviously it represented um the onset of a state of general hostilities between two great powers the soviet union and the empire of japan so i i don't really see how anybody who looks like to be taken seriously it can claim that this was some sort of insignificant an event or somehow not related to the broader nexus of causation that, you know, also

precipitated the advent of hostilities in Europe. You know, either the Soviet Union going to war with Japan in a scaled capacity represented the onset of general hostilities at planetary scale or it didn't okay so there's that related to that but more discreetly political in terms of the significance of the subject matter vis-a-vis court history narratives and the way that official authorities in the United States and the United Kingdom and

the Bundes Republic continue to present you know and characterize the Second World War is the issue of Soviet intent tensions. And what exactly the state of power political relations was between Moscow and Berlin as of June 22nd, 1941. And it's pretty clear to me, you know, I draw in substantial measure. on the late Yakkim Hoffman's exhaustive study of Barbarossa,

it's pretty clear to me that the Soviet Union was imminently going to assault Europe. And the German Reich, not just the Fuhrer, but OKW, as well as various command elements within the party apparatus, the military, and the secular state apparatus recognize this reality, as did myriad heads of state who found themselves allied with the German Reich for various reasons. You know, this included Croatia, Slovakia, Italy, France, you know, again, there was no Vichy France, there was the government of France, and it was absolutely on the side of the Axis powers. You know, there were volunteers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, throughout the Central Asian Islamic countries, you know, Romania, Romania contributed a quarter million men, which is a massive contribution for a country the size of Romania.

You know, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, you know, Belgium, Luxembourg. You know, the list goes on and on and on, you know, and obviously the Spaniards at Leningrad fought incredibly valiantly. but uh you know there's this this wasn't as a matter of zeitgeist or some sort of mass hysteria or some sort of desire to sacrifice one's life for some sort of ephemeral glory the Soviet union uh had assigned the fact that it was animated by uh a revolution ideology that was truly global in character it uh the Soviet Union had built the military juggernaut the likes of which the world had never seen it was almost unfathomable and it was only growing larger and more powerful you know

and the like I said to me this is obvious. Hoffman and Victor Suvorov and a few other military historians. Arta Stofley is another one.

They brought unique insight to the table and Hoffman in particular his data points were and are exhaustive. And Hoffman too he not that I mean obviously I don't have any prejudice against independent scholars, I am one, but such that people are prone to dismissing

historians who don't have what they view as adequate credentialed affiliation with reputable institutions. Well, Hoffman, when he was alive, he was the employee of a... And now, a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future. We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit.

We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.e. This Christmas on Sky, you can turn us. silent nights into stoppage time to lice an old mince pie into a stunning try and a winter chill into an alley-pally thrill

Luke the new Glick with over 50 Premier League games exclusive Champions Cup and URC and all the darts turn your Christmas into a sportsmust to remember with Sky Sports and Sports Extra Merry Sportsmas the official historical records division of the bundesvail you know and he was considered to be

probably the seminal german historian on barbarossa in terms of the military aspects okay you can't say that he was a crank or that he was some aggrieved guy who was outside of the establishment of the Bundes Republic he was very much insinuated into it okay um not that that should make a difference but such that it does you know I I don't see how people can impeach his credibility you know and one of the issues that Hoffman takes up because again Hoffman uh was very focused on the quantitative military aspects of Barbarossa. One of the things that he addressed was a lot of lay people

as well as historians and military analysts who know better, but for cynical reasons, bandwagon on this argument, They claim that, well, if the Soviet Union was so deeply mobilized and had a raid such a massively scaled war machine, why did they absorb catastrophic casualties? Well, that's exactly why they did, because they were deployed offensively. And when you're talking about combined arms, even to this day, I mean, drones in localized autonomous firepower are definitely changing things, both strategically and tactically, and nowhere is that more on display than in the, than in various aspects of tactical deployment and depth. But even to this day, this remains constant if we're talking about combined arms, modern warfare. You can't just call it a proverbial audible in the midst of hostilities if your forces are arrayed to assault and switch to a defensive paradigm. so coming under assault when not prepared to defend in depth

can lead to catastrophe particularly when one's opponent is the Vermat and we're going to get into how exactly that plays out but not only again does the attrition rate and specifically the skewed nature of that attrition rate not only does that not tend to rebut

the claim before us it actually tends to substantiate it now I'll get into some of these data points so that you know to clarify what we're talking about here I can't remember if I got into this or not in the first episode and please tell me if I'm repeating myself in order to date to correct me.

I'm not going to be offended, quite the contrary. I'll be quite gracious. Between November 1940 and literally the eve of Barbarossa in June of 1941, the Soviets undertook. a massive arms build-up. Now, don't get me wrong. By the autumn of 1940, the Soviets enjoyed numeric and arguably technological superiority pretty much across the entire spectrum of combined arms.

But this point, punctuated buildup of November 1940 to June 1941 can really only be interpreted as a mobilization and anticipation of offensive operations. on the outbreak of hostilities, June 22nd, 1941, the Soviet Union had deployed no less than 24,000 tanks, close to 2,000 of which were T-34s, which, you know, in those days, there weren't main battle tanks, there was light, medium, and heavy tanks, then arguably super heavy tanks.

But the T-34 was, I think of it as kind of like the zero of armored forces. You know, it was probably the most effective armored platform of the entire war in all-around terms, okay? Yeah, obviously, you know, the Tiger was a superior, machine that's not what we're talking about you know and the the uh the ability of t thirty four is to be rolled off the assembly line rapidly you know almost like model t fords or something odin that that itself was a force multiplier um you know it uh it uh Between 1938 and June 22nd, 1941, the Red Air Force had acquired over 23,000 military aircraft, around 3,700 of which could be considered cutting edge.

Probably about half of those had night fighting capability. The Red Army had close to 150,000 field artillery pieces and heavy mortars. The Red Navy had over 200 submarines, which I can't remember if I mentioned or not. But obviously, submarines are expressly offensive. There aren't defensive submarines. You know, and to be clear, this alone. I mean, the Soviet Union wasn't known as any kind of maritime power. I mean, if anything, you know, the Tsar's Navy had been sank by the Japanese in 1905,

and that had further compromised the prestige actual potential of, you know, the Russian Navy is a real force. but by June 22nd, 1941, the Soviet Union by far had the largest submarine fleet in the world. More than four times that of the Royal Navy, you know, in the UK was viewed as the foremost naval power on this planet. You know, I mean, these data points speak for themselves, you know. And on the political side, I know I've gotten into this in previous series that we've done. I put a lot of emphasis on direct testimony, owing, I'm sure in part to the fact that my background in part is, at least, is that of a lawyer. you know but also if we're talking about intent particularly of wartime executives there's a tendency to be able to rely upon the statements of a wartime executive or an executive who is preparing for war

there's a there's incentivization to telling the truth when the chief executive so situated is talking to his cabinet or as a general staff officers okay because what incentive would there be to lie number one and there's there's active disincentives to lie because that compromises the ability of subordinate command elements to effectively execute orders and wage war towards victory conditions you know and so I put a lot of stock in what Stalin said and

a lot of this testimony from Stalin himself you know that which isn't independently documented by you know the minutes of his speeches or or by audio recording you know a lot of Stalin's intimates were the sources of these statements including uh colonel vulcogunov who was a Stalin's official biographer you know and Stalin gave a series of speeches in this in the year preceding

Barbarossa but particularly the six to eight months immediately preceding onset of hostilities which approximately reflects the final phase of mobilization that we talked about just now from November 1940 to June 1941 and

Volkogunov makes the point that Stalin was very taciturn but he became quite candid and quite open within the cloisters of you know

these command element corridors in his discussion of you know what was to be military doctrine in the next war which he increasingly discussed as if it was an imminent possibility

in Volkoganov's own words in describing the speech Stalin made on May 5th, 1941 he says quote, the leader made it unmistakably unmistakably clear, war is inevitable in the future. One must be ready for the quote unconditional destruction of German fascism. The war will be fought on enemy

territory and victory will be achieved with few casualties. And again, this wasn't something that Stalin merely devised as a polemical device to emboldened forces under his command or to overcome any potential or actual crises of confidence is

among a general staff by appeal to a revolutionary fervor. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At air grid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future.

We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. and more at airgrid.I.E. On the many days of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee, a visit filled with festivity. Experience the story of Ireland's most iconic beer in a stunning Christmas

setting at the Guinness Storehouse. Enjoy seven floors of interactive exhibitions and finish your visit with brett taken views of Dublin City from the home of Guinness. Live entertainment, great memories and the Gravity Bar. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse.

Nestorhouse.com. Get the facts. Be Drinkaware. Visit drinkaware.com. Lenin made clear in identifying the core doctrinal elements of the Red Army, you know, back in 1920, 1921, 1922, that the Red Army was an instrumentality of revolutionary imperatives. It wasn't a defensive element, you know, and it was to be deployed offensively at all times, you know, because the only rationale for its existence within the paradigm of Marxist's historiography and Leninist revolutionary doctrine was to facilitate the advance of history and the victory and the victory of the proletariat against the class enemy so there's really no there's really no way to interpret Soviet battle doctrine as anything other than discreetly ideologically coded

and axiomatically offensive you know and this is going on or This is relying upon the strictures of Marxist-Leninist ontology and the distinct Marxist view of military power and its utility and its ethical functions. and the Marxist Leninism was in fact a a total philosophical and political system impoverished as it may have been

intellectually in various capacities and to be fair it was sophisticated in others what's irrebuttable or indisputable is that it was a total theory of political and social and thus historical

ontology. So, the idea that the party state which, to be clear, by 1941, had categorically

annihilated millions of people within the Soviet Union owing to what was identified as their ineducability you know the idea that Stalin

or the Presidium or the Politburo standing committee or these surviving command elements in the Red Army the idea that they would somehow hesitate to see through these duct

trinal imperatives is somewhat laughable, you know, and we're not in a court of law, so it shouldn't be a problem to invoke subsequent, as well as prior precedent, to demonstrate persuasively what the doctor's trinal character was of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary military elements. I invoke the case of Cambodia a lot, you know, from 1975 to 1979. And I know over a fact, because I get a hate mail with this effect and things. people suspect I only do that for the sake of a

polemical expediency but that's not why Paul Pot was not some simple-minded brute he was actually a very sophisticated political soldier he had a very deep understanding of Mars

Leninism far more than Mao and democratic Kempucia as Paul Pot and his cadre branded the country during their brief tenure was a very pure Marxist-Leninist state in some ways and there was nothing there was nothing heterodox in ideological terms about the way they implemented class warfare

adjusting for the discrete conditions on the ground in Southeast Asia as in 1975 So what I'm getting at, and I'll move on here in a moment. I don't quite understand are the same people who acknowledge that the Soviet Union was this outlier country. And that was unusual in every conceivable sense, you know, in terms of praxis and policy and theoretical foundations and everything else. yet they insist that this didn't somehow impact military decision making or that revolutionary ontology somehow stopped at the point of executive decisionism when it came to the decision to, you know, spread the revolutionary cause to Europe and specifically to annihilate. the dialectical enemy in the German Reich.

But, you know, the, Stalin had spoken again and again as well to the Central Committee, most notably on January 8th 1941 and there was two high Air Force officers in attendance and Stalin apparently spoke directly of the ratio and algorithm that was necessary to defeat the German Reich according to the general staff as well as his own calculations as had been explicated to him by authorities that he trusted he spoke on this particular day to quote twofold superiority he said that as it had been explain to him two-fold superiority is a law of military science, meaning a two-to-one ratio contra the enemy in offensive operations. You know, whether you're talking about

raw numbers or, you know, force multipliers and variables tending to act as force multipliers that magnify the effectiveness of offensive elements. You know, and Stalin stated openly that, quote, this is not a game. The time is approaching for military operations. Twofold superiority is essential, but greater superiority is even better. and he said that he spoke specifically of the difficulty of traversing the Carpathians and the need to designate at least 5,000 attack aircraft in order to neutralize defensive positions

that infantry and armor aren't going to be able to readily traverse or into the terrain. Now, this is hugely important for reasons I'm going to get into in a moment. Okay, but from January of 41, specifically January 8th, until May, you know, only weeks before Barbarossa. Stalin talks again and again about waging military operations in the Balkans, specifically across the Romanian frontier and discreet exigencies that are presented by waging war in that theater. Okay. In a lecture, given uh in the spring i believe march of 41 but somehow neglected to assign the exact date he uh addressed uh the soviet plenopitenti representative in belgrade which uh at that time

was under the rule briefly of a Chetnik junta which in turn led to the German intervention and ultimately the bifurcation of the kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. but in addressing the plenopetentiary representative in belgrade and select members of the Politburo he said quote the USSR will only react at the proper time the powers are scattering their forces more and more the USSR is therefore waiting to act unexpectedly against Germany in doing so the USSR will cross the Carpathias, which will act as a signal for the revolution in Hungary. Soviet troops will penetrate Yugoslavia from Hungary, advance the Adriatic Sea, and cut Germany off from the Balkans in the Middle East.

And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come, and a long-term outlook that's bright for Ireland. At Airgrid, our forecast is for a sustainable energy future. We're upgrading the electricity grid so every home, business and community can benefit. We're powering up Ireland. Learn more at airgrid.e. Okay, so what does this mean in both immediate tactical terms and how this impacted the battlefield situation? in Operation Barbarossa

as well as in broader strategic terms well I'll take up the latter question first for the latter aspect first the Soviet Union planned to assault Europe through Romania

by capturing Romania it could deprive Germany of essential access to petroleum reserves and also that's commensurate with Soviet deep battle doctrine which presuming forces in being ratios that Stalin described as being a you know at least a twofold advantage and preferably double or triple that Stalin basically was planning a deep battle like pincer flanking maneuver across the entirety of the continent

in the north through Sweden and then down to assault Germany from the north and in the south the main Schwerpunct would be through Romania and I'll get into an a moment. This is why the Army Group Center, Army Group South faced savage resistance on Barbarossa. Army Group Center was moving so fast. It was basically like faced with no more than token opposition on the road to Moscow, which doesn't make any sense unless you understand the deployment schema of the Red Army, which was totally offensive and concentrated in the South in a way that wouldn't be rational in a defensive in a defensive oriented schema. most significant I realize I'm jumping around a bit but um so please stop me if I'm not being clear

most significant to Suvorov's hypothesis in terms of Stalin's declared intentions was probably what's going to be known as the secret meeting with the Politburo and the Soviet representatives of the common turn, who had been called back, presumably to be availed, for the specific purpose of being availed to this speech on August 19, 1939, which obviously coincided with the assault on the Japanese of Kelkin Gold. but um this was a surprise secret meeting um and it was unprecedented for the russian delegation of the common turn to be called back among other things stalin didn't have a lot of respect for the common turn i mean in part because he his uh rigid command doctrine he didn't he didn't I mean, he wasn't carnival with an ideologically coded cadre structure whereby, independent of Moscow, just doing the fact of distance and, you know, remoteness, you know, he didn't want some cadre making decisions even superficially on behalf of the soviet union without his direct oversight okay but nonetheless you know the common term still had tremendous clout in 1939 and especially coming off of the defeat in spain there was a real danger of a fracturing of, you know, the broad international front, red front.

So this is highly significant. You know, I guess what I'm getting at is that Stalin wouldn't have called the Russian delegation back just for, you know, for the sake of putting on airs or to stand on ceremony or something. And this is when, I think I, excuse me, I think I briefly addressed this last episode. episode. It was in this, it was in this secret meeting or secret speech that, uh, Stalin declared that, uh, you know, getting, uh, the Germans to a, getting the, the right foreign ministry to agree to a, a non-aggression pact. You know, that would embolden them to act against Poland, you know, because there to four the, the, uh, the, Berlin and specifically Hitler felt that his hands were tied in resolving the Polish issue because an assault on Poland, even in the wake of a gross provocation or violation of Germany's territorial integrity on the frontier, you know, would lead to a Soviet counterstrike that would be devastating. So, Stalin's reasoning was, you know, we will lull Germany with this non-aggression pact, which, you know, absolutely guarantees that they'll assault Poland, which will then, you know, lead to a war declaration by the UK and France.

Germany will probably be victorious on the Western Front, but only at puric cost. You know, and then, you know, and this, thus, this is the icebreaker that will soften what would be Europe's defensive cordon and allow the Red Army to, you know, just bowl over and annihilate resistance in the West. and, you know, thus reverse the defeat handed to them in Iberia and, you know, conquer the continent in a rapid and devastating operation. And, I mean, Stalin, this is remarkably consistent, as far back as 1925, you know, when he was less than three years into his formal ascendancy as general secretary he spoke openly about the need to act militarily against europe as soon as possible but not until the political climate and the you know, the myriad

and ever sort of changing alliance structure in the West was such that what Stalin called a quote broad field of activity would be realizable

in order to you know pursue the imperative of world revolution And to be clear, you know, not only was Europe, along with America and Japan, you know, the kind of productive core of this planet, but, you know, the understanding was that Europe was still the, in conceptual terms, you know, the political center of human. affairs, you know, conceptually, you know, every, every, every ideological schema, you know, came from Europe and even, even things like the anti-colonial movement were fully locked into dialectical engagement, you know, with European thought.

So Stalin's notion was that, you know, first, last and always, Europe needs to be overrun and annihilated, and the revolution has to be implemented there. You know, it's a waste of time and it's self-defeating to pursue such imperatives on the periphery. But I make no mistake, you know, wherever revolutionary activity jumped off that had historical. momentum and forces in being Stalin absolutely was in favor of supporting that and seeing that through but the but the core mission orientation

of the Soviet Union had to be you know the the you know the implementing the world revolution in Europe you know first and foremost and that's also why the Spanish war was so important

you know it wasn't just I I've read some court historians claim that Stalin was somehow like reluctantly forced into the Spanish war just for the sake of appeasing the common turn. I mean, that's that's laughable for all kinds of reasons. But it also, you know, Stalin wasn't as heterodox of a, of a Marxist Leninist as he's often portrayed. I mean, Stalin was complicated. You know, like I said, I, it's a lean volume, but it's a great book. book, Kerry Bolton's book, Stalin, The Enduring Legacy.

You know, Stalin was a complicated figure. And there were heterodox aspects to his worldview and his own Veltpolitik. But it wasn't a radical divergence or something, you know, and that's important, especially because these days, even some fairly heterodox. political theorists and even some of revisionists seem to abide that fiction um but yeah the you can't in other words this you can't you can't extricate the ambition of the Sovietization of Europe from the

existence of the Soviet Union itself. You know, these ambitions were synonymous. And that's also why the Cold War developed the way that it did in raw geo-strategic terms.

But you know, and I think, I can't remember if I mentioned or not, this speech in question, you know, the August 1939 speech, it was obtained by the French news agency Havas. And the French were kind of notorious for getting a hold of these kinds of documents and records. you know um and when uh when the havas agency um by way of uh genevae when they went public with it it was published uh in uh some international journal and then in many of the major french language newspapers but moscow's propagandists immediately went into overdrive you know

and claiming you know this is a this is a forgery you know this is this is confabulated by the the enemies of russia and the Soviet Union you know it's fascist propaganda and uh it did not make as nearly as big of an impact as one might think you know um which is really interesting because it goes to show you too how you know and a lot of that too had to do with uh this kind of deafening silence um from american news agencies you know and other than all all the major papers in america i mean other than those brands held by McCormick were basically mouthpieces for the New Deal regime you know but it's still I mean obviously too I mean this there's a kind of nascent low-tech globalism emerging at least

between America and Europe by way of you know the UK but even you know I mean it's It's so I mean's remarkable that there is basically no impact in terms of global opinion. And I've looked, too, to see if this pops up in the America First literature. And I haven't found anything just positive on that question. But that again goes to show you, too, the degree to which. the psychological environment was being actively manipulated you know long before the onset of formal hostilities which might seem like an obvious point to you or myself but people are inundated in this country with this idea that you know somehow the new dealer had no interest in these goings on and the European war and the entries from the Soviet Union and the German Reich, you know, until Pearl Harbor, when America was attacked, then that changed everything. I mean, that could not be more false. From the first months of the New Deal regime, which, again, coincided almost precisely with, uh,

the National Socialist Revolution, which was a totally legal revolution, again. You know, and Roosevelt from the first days of his administration was pursuing an an absolutely radical anti-fascist imperative as the core mandate of an ambition of his administration you know and that can't that can't be denied you know and the I don't want to spin this off too

tangentially and I know that a lot of people criticize me for my sources well yet they have yet to directly rebut any of these data points that I've derived from these sources, namely Robert Conquest and

Ernst Nolte and as well as the Black Book of Communism, which is a great resource, I may to add. But it's indisputable if the Soviet Union exterminated millions of people

between 1917 and 1941 and there was a massive series of death camps, actual death camps, that were employed

towards this incredibly gruesome task. And the degree to which there was an information blackout about this reality can't be overstated you know and people who raised this issue you know not just not just America firsters but um Joseph Schumpeter's wife interestingly she spoke Japanese and and she was a big advocate for Japanese people She was kind of a human rights type, but of a genuine sort, not like the 21st century sort. And she raised the issue of Soviet annihilation therapy, as an old he called it. And she was, she instrumented over her hassled by the FBI, both for, you know, sympathies for the Axis vis-a-vis her, you know, dealings with Japanese people and stuff.

and particularly Japanese people who were being persecuted by the new dealers, but also, you know, propagandizing against the Soviet Union in their view was this big subversive act, you know, which seems kind of incredible, I'd imagine the people today, but they don't, I mean, but it only seems incredibly, if one doesn't accept the true nature of that regime. But that aside, it's remarkable that degree to which these things could, in fact, be hidden. you know um but it also raised i mean there's also obliquely and conversely it also begs the question you know if if there was this uh mass murder conspiracy

hatched in the German Reich at Vancey in 1942 like why wasn't anybody you know publicizing that I mean that one would think that would be a gods to the new dealers and a perfect way

to portray the Germans as these horrific villains and especially became imperative you know by 1994 as the U.S. Army was quite literally near mutiny, you know, which we've talked about. That was the real catalyst for the execution of Port Etislovak. You know, it's people, so, you know, the Walter Winchell and the Office of War Information

and all these myriad Anglophone news agencies they just decided not for a port on the fact that the German Reich only existed to exterminate Jewish people just because they didn't think it was important.

They didn't think it was a useful way to code propaganda. I mean, I realize that's like a bit tangential, but moving on real quick because I realize we're running out of time. I mentioned a moment ago something that's often raised is, okay, so why was Barbarossa so tactically successful?

And why was the attrition rate so algorithmically skewed against the Soviet Union? if in fact the Soviet Union was mobilized for war and planning to attack but that's exactly why these things did develop that way the Soviets were planning to assault Romania

by autumn of 41 and that's exactly why like I said Army Group South encountered comparatively savage resistance. And that's also why there was powerful reserve elements in Ukraine because essentially they were there to rapidly reinforce the shock element that was going to assault the Balkans. is this awkwardly unbalanced deployment schema of Soviet field armies, where Soviet forces blocking

the corridor to the Moscow-Leningrad deployment space, they were exponentially weaker than those deployed to Ukraine, which doesn't make any sense unless you account for the fact that they were deployed in an offensive posture, the spherpunct of which was you know in the south to assault romania do the carpathians um now don't get me wrong the soviets were sensitive to the fact that moscow was being left relatively undefended but uh you know it doesn't um like it doesn't track any other way other than to accept what i just acknowledge and it's also you know again this idea that's endlessly bandied to this day that that Stalin was afraid of Hitler or that the soviet union was afraid of the vermouth it's like well i mean okay

that's preposterous anyway but so Stalin was so afraid of the vermouth that he he he he their base was a token deployment um on the uh path to moscow you know i mean how is that work um any uh i mean any interpretation It can only result in a conclusion that the Soviets were poised for exclusively offensive operations. I mean, unless he can, it's a tortured kind of logic. I mean, I guess he could claim that the Soviets wanted to draw the Germans in and funnel the main line of the funneled to the main line of resistance

at the gates of Moscow and stop them in their tracks. I mean, Moscow practically felt. You know, that doesn't make any sense. I've read people who try to make some variation of that argument, but it's so preposterous. I don't really think it warrants to kind of blow-by-blown rebuttal.

But that's really um you know an example of extant conditions speaking of herself and the resistance that every group center did encounter to be clear they weren't defensively deployed either there wasn't any depth to their deployment schema and they in fact were forward deployed with a heavily armed shock element in the lead you know which is one reason why army group center such that they didn't counter resistance they got hit with a lot of firepower that was immediately exhausted and then when counterattacking the Vermacht immediately broke Soviet lines because there will again there wasn't any there wasn't any depth to the deployment you know if you know anything I'm not any I'm not at all like a military type person but I do know something about

the internal logic of modern warfare, you know, in an abstract deployment sense, I mean. And if you know anything about this, it's just not even really deep diving into the numerical data points and stuff, but it's literally looking at the map of the deployment schema, this should jump right out at you. It's almost like, you know, it's like illusion pictures. They used see them a lot like beer companies it's like you look at some picture and it looks like uh it's like a bunch of little pictures of spudge mackenzie or something but then you see it and it's like a sexy girl or something and then once you see that like you can't unsee it looks like that okay i mean you look at you look at a deployment map of uh the moscow leningrad gorky um battle space on

June 22nd, 1941, and you realize, like, what it is. And then you can't unsee it. You know,

so the fact, anybody who makes an argument to the contrary, I got to assume they're being dishonest or they're just profoundly ignorant to the subject matter.

Yeah, looks like we've gone a little over an hour. I hope that wasn't too scattershot, man. Let me, let me hit you up one question.

question before we go, and this is a little bit off topic, but it's a question I wanted to ask since we were talking about Stalin so much. Yeah. Did Stalin take half of Europe at the end of the war, or was he given half of Europe at the end of the war? I mean, both. That's what was decided at Yalta. If Stalin's going to be precluded from taking Germany, that meant that Eisenhower and Montgomery would have had to assault Berlin and had they done that what would have happened was even accounting for the punitive and purely a lot purely ideologically motivated an additional surrender demand Vermacht and Vophanes S elements would have basically welcomed them in because that

would have prevented the literal rape and destruction of the German Reich and once it was clear that Anglo-American forces intended to take Berlin, Stalin would have immediately shifted to a footing of hostility, cops for the United States and the UK. Even before that happened, it's conceivable that these elements that were driving for Berlin on the Soviet side, like First Ukrainian Shock Army, which I think was under Rakhosk... I think First Ukrainian Shock Army was under Timoshenko, but whoever, whatever Formation Konev and Rokosovsky, respectively were commanding, it's very conceivable that they would have ordered down the company level commanders to treat the U.S. and the U.K. as enemies who were literally trying to race to Berlin to act as a blocking element in the Soviet view, you know, for the Germans. um so america found itself at war with the soviet union

you know um that's the only alternative but i mean that's what that like i said the thing was decided at yalta it's i mean i don't you can uh on the one hand um Yeah, it was the new dealers who kept the Soviet Union in the war.

But like Von Manstein, I highly recommend von Manstein's, it's marketed as his memoirs. It's called Lost Victories. But in reality, it was his debriefing by the war department, which obviously was very interested in learning as much as they could about fighting the Soviet Union with conventional combined arms, with an emphasis on armored columns, obviously.

Von Manstein, who really was like a kind of Prussian Martinet and a very prejudiced guy, he stipulated that the Soviet army was unbelievably tough. They could absorb catastrophic attrition and not fall apart.

And much as in the Western world is we might view their doctrinal orientation on the battlefield as exhibiting a kind of callous disregard for human life it was and is highly effective and those things are all true you can't really take away from the gameness and just the raw toughness of the red army you know so I'm not going to sit here and say that Oh, Stalin was just

handed a gift by you know, the new dealers and General Eisenhower, you know, because the Soviet Union fought for every single inch of ground that

they won back and the attrition they endured is almost unfathomable. Yet by the time they reached Berlin, their morale was great. They were acting like they were at a party. I'm not being flippant. They were doing utterly horrible,

horrible things. But my point being, the army that arrived in Berlin wasn't some broken rag tag for us. It was a very game, very aggressive, very high morale element, which is one reason why they were so dangerous. Like, it's realistic

and through Untergang, where Troutel Young you know uh she's trying to pass through soviet lines and then like the kid runs up and grabs her hand you know so it's a really poignant scene but uh there's these soviet infantry men and they're like guzzlin vodka and like dancing like you're at a party you know these guys have just been in action for you know these guys probably were the last they're probably like the last element drafted they're probably guys who turned 18 you know know in uh in uh in the in the in January in 1945 you know and then took you know like 80% casualties you know and they're they're like the surviving element and they're acting like

around a party you know they uh most most people would have fallen apart you know even when they had that kind of momentum um in in broad strategic terms just because it was so it was so brutal and so catastrophic. So, yeah, I'm not going to take anything away from the Ivans in terms of their toughness and gameness. But, you know, I, a race to Berlin between Montgomery and Eisenhower and the Soviets would have meant war. So that's the best answer I can give.

Awesome. All right. Well, I will encourage people to go over to Thomas's substack. That's real time. Thomas 777.substack.com and you can connect to him from from there to anywhere that he's at and check him out on Twitter and make sure to subscribe to a substack so you can get the episodes and hear them. So yeah, that's it, Thomas. This was a this was a great series. I thought this was a series that needed to get out there, especially after reading after reading Suvoroff and

getting a little of the way through Hoffman and having to finish Hoffman, it's just vital information that people are, you're not going to hear, even if you exit court history, this is stuff that's hidden. And there's a reason why both of those books, if you want original copies of both of those books, you're paying $200, $300. Yeah, yeah, no, I agree on all accounts. And yeah, thanks for including me, man.

or rather for inviting me to participate in lieu of somebody else. That's just great. Absolutely. Thank you, Thomas. Take care now.