The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together' w/ Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson - Part 105

Episode Date: January 24, 2026

44 MinutesPG-13Dr. Matthew Raphael Johnson is a researcher, writer, and former professor of history and political science, specializing in Russian history and political ideology.Pete and Dr. Johnson continue a project in which Pete reads Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together," and Dr' Johnson provides commentary.Borhy Splacheni Krovyu: The Foundations and Causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022-2025Communist Misrule in Soviet Kazakhstan: The Ideological and Ethnic Nature of the Goloshchyokin Genocide (1930-1933)‘Crushing the Resistance’ – Joseph Stalin’s Ukrainian Genocide RevisitedStalin the Eternal Philosemite: Soviet-American Joint Support for Zionism in the 1940sDr Johnson's PatreonDr Johnson's CashApp - $Raphael71RusJournal.orgTHE ORTHODOX NATIONALISTDr. Johnson's Radio Albion PageDr. Johnson's Books on AmazonDr. Johnson's Pogroms ArticleThe Unmentionable Genocide: New Khazaria, the Russian Revolutions and Soviet Legality in the 1920s by Dr. Matthew Raphael JohnsonWith Friends Like These. . . Patriarch St. Tikhon, General Anton Denikin and the Defeat of the White Armies, 1917-1922 by Dr. Matthew Raphael JohnsonThe Orthodox Nationalist: Karl Marx “On the Jewish Question” (1844)Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me about this, even though I think on the last ad I stated it pretty clearly. If you want an RSS feed, you're going to have to subscribe through substack or through Patreon. You can also subscribe on my website, which is right there. Gumroad, and what's the other one? Subscribe Star. And if you do that, you will get access to the audio file.

So head on over to the Pekignonez Show.com. You'll see all the ways that you can support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. It's because of you that I can put out the amount of material that I do. I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together and everything else. the things that Thomas and I are doing together on continental philosophy. It's all because of you. And, yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough.

So thank you. The Pekignana Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenison. This is episode number 105. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? I'm doing okay. I have to warn my listeners.

the cats have been particularly I have seven of them and they're they sometimes play way too hard and it turns into a fight and I have to stop it so nothing worse happens you know

that's really Stanley's job but sometimes he's sleep through it believe it or not and you know still it's mostly the kittens that do that so just in just, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a warning ahead of time.

Has anyone ever called you like a crazy cat dad, like they call women crazy cat ladies? They, they should if they haven't. Because when I was single, I had, I think I had five at one point, including Stanley and Marcel. Yeah, they really should, should say that, but they don't, they don't. you got a t-shirt around here somewhere that says that yeah i have uh i have three myself so it's uh and i've always had like one or at least one or two so yeah yep anyway here we go let's finish this chapter out because um this chapter has uh caused me uh caused me agita at parts

Yes, people from New York use that word. People out here don't know what that word means. I didn't realize that. My mother used that word. Everyone in my neighborhood used that word. It doesn't really have a firm definition. But out here, certainly in the Midwest, no one has any idea what you're talking about. I think it's supposed to mean like heartburn or something, but really it's just to stand in for I'm thoroughly sickened by what I'm doing.

Yeah, it's just, it's a combination of, you know, stress. I can't take it anymore. Yeah, I'm sick of it. I'm starting to feel it in my, in my heart. It's a generalized, you know, non-scientific term used only in one place. One place. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. Yeah, I grew up with it.

And I did know. I used it all the time. The only odds are you causing me? with a what? I didn't realize I didn't know. All right, here we go. The different Jewish sources variously estimate the total losses among Soviet Jews during the Second World War within the post-war borders. How many Soviet Jews survived the war? Ask S. Schwartz and offers this concalculation. 1.8 million to 1.9 million, excluding former refugees from the Western Poland and Romania now repatriated.

The calculations imply that the number of Jews by the end of the war was markedly lower than the 2 million and much lower than the almost universally accepted number of 3 million. So the total number of losses according to Schwartz was 2.8 to 2.9 million. In 1990, I. Ared provided his estimate, quote, during the liberation of German-occupied territories, the Soviet army met almost no Jews. Out of the 2.7 and 2.9 million Jews who remained under the Nazi rule in the occupied Soviet territory, almost all died. To this figure, Arad suggests adding about 120,000 Jews, Soviet Army soldiers who died on the front and about 80,000 shot in the POW camps, and tens of thousands of Jews

who died during the siege of Leningrad, Odessa, and other cities, and in the deep rear because of harsh living conditions in the evacuation. Demographer M. Kupovetsky published several studies in the 1990s where he used newly archival materials, made some corrections to older data, and employed an improved technique for ethno-demographic analysis. His result was at the general losses of Jewish population within the post-war USSR borders in 1941 and 1945 amounted to 2.7 million, 1.1 million Eastern and 1.6 million Western, or 55% of 4.965 million. million. The total number of Jews in the USSR in June 1941. The military apart from the victims of Nazi extermination, including the losses among the military and the guerrillas among civilians near the

front line during evacuation's deportation, as well as the victims of Stalin's camps during the war. However, the author notes that quantitative evaluation of each of these categories within the overall casualty figure is yet to be done. Apparently, the short Jewish Encyclopedia agrees with this assessment as it provides the same number. Short Jewish Encyclopedia picked the highest number. I'm completely shocked. Yeah. Yeah, just keep going.

The currently accepted figure for the total losses of the Soviet population during the great patriotic war is 27 million. If the method of demographic balance is used, it is 26.6 million. And this may still be underestimated. We must not overlook that the war was for the Russians. the war rescued not only their country, not only Soviet Jewry, but also the entire social system of the Western world from Hitler. Had that work out. Yeah.

Thank God we saved the West from Hitler. Thank God we saved the West from Hitler. Everybody with a transgender kid is just so happy about the way the war went. This war exacted such sacrifice from the Russian people that its strength and health have never since fully recovered. war overstrained the Russian people. It was yet another disaster on top of the Civil War and decualization and from which the Russian people have almost run dry. Well, as far as, you know, the casualty numbers and everything, as far as the overall, you know, that's probably true. I want to point out that a lot of the casualties were

inflicted by the commissars, by the rear guard formations that shot anyone who, who be treated, and that the invasion didn't happen for no reason. It didn't do this for fun. It was to prevent an invasion of at least Central Europe, taking Germany's oil supply, which is mostly Romania. And that's the only reason the invasion was able to keep going. by the time the Germans came to the outskirts of Moscow, it stopped because they didn't have anything. The German tanks, you know, had to be refitted all the time.

They had to be repaired. They weren't prepared for this kind of thing. The Soviets, however, were. But so Hitler had, you know, I don't think he's, I don't think he's. thought he was going to win. Maybe he was going to gain concessions, but I don't think that he believed at all that he was going to win. And there was very good reason for that. The ruthless and unrelenting catastrophe, which was gradually devouring Soviet Jewry and a multitude of exterminating events all over the occupied lands, was part of a greater catastrophe

designed to eradicate the entire European Jewry. As we exist, only the events in Russia, the catastrophe as a whole is not covered in this book. Yet the countless miseries having befallen on both our peoples, the Jewish and the Russian in the 20th century and the unbearable weight of the lessons of history and gnawing anxiety about the future make it impossible not to share, if only briefly, some reflections about how it, reflections of mine and others, and impossible not to examine how the high Jewish minds look at the catastrophe from the historical perspective and how they attempt to encompass and comprehend it. It is for a reason that the catastrophe is always written with a capital letter.

It was an epic event for such an ancient and historical people. It could not fail to arouse the strongest feelings and a wide variety of reflections and conclusions among the Jews. In many Jews, long ago assimilated and distance from their own people, the catastrophe reignited a more distinct and intense sense of their Jewishness. yet for many the catastrophe became a proof that God is dead. If he had existed, he certainly would never have allowed Auschwitz. Then there is an opposite reflection.

Recently, a former Auschwitz inmate said, in the camps, we were given a new Torah, though we have not been able to read it yet. An Israeli author states with conviction, quote, The catastrophe happened because we did not follow the covenant and did not return to our land. We had to return to our land to rebuild the temple. still such an understanding is achieved only by a very few, although it does permeate the entire Old Testament. You know, you do have Jews, and I've known some of them,

the more strictly Orthodox who really blame themselves, that their presence, their foreign presence, or this is obviously a Zionist here. You know, the whole point of Zionism was that they were foreigners, in a Christian land. You know, when you read the founding documents of Zionism, you see this all the time. There's a good reason for anti-Semitism. It doesn't come from nothing.

We're just, we're like oil and water. And because nothing was done, the catastrophe occurred. You have many different reactions to this, you know, mass casualty event. but like this is the only group of people who made it actually a part of their religion when he says it's a new Torah he's not kidding this is almost in a literal sense

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electricity unit rates and 29% off gas unit rates. See boroughashenergy.e for Fulties and C's. Some have developed and still harbor a bitter feeling. Oh my God. You think? All right, let me read that again. Some have developed and still harbor a bitter feeling. Quote, once humanity turned away from us, we weren't a part of the West at the time of

the catastrophe. The West rejected us. cast us away. We are as upset by the nearly absolute indifference of the world and even of non-European jury to the plight of the Jews and the fascist countries as by the catastrophe in Europe itself. What a great guilt lies on the democracies of the world in general and especially on the Jews and the democratic countries. The pogrom in Kishnev was an insignificant crime compared to the German atrocities to the methodically implemented plan of extermination of millions of Jewish lives. and yet Kishenev pogrom triggered a bigger protest.

Even the Bayliss trial in Kiev attracted more worldwide attention. Yeah, just keep reading. But this is unfair. After the world realized the essence and scale of the destruction, the Jews experienced consistent and energetic support and passionate compassion from many nations. Some contemporary Israelis recognize this and even warn their compatriots against any such excesses.

Quote, gradually the memory of the catastrophe ceased to be just a memory. It has become the ideology of the Jewish state. The memory of the catastrophe turned into a religious devotion, into the state of Israel is assumed the role of an apostle of the cult of the catastrophe, the role of a priest who collects routine tithes from other nations, and woe to those who refuse to pay that tithe. And in conclusion, the worst legacy of Nazism for Jews is the Jews' role of a super victim. You've seen this. This is a Turric-Cartis position. It's very important to note this. I know that there are people who claim that the main focus of the Israeli settlement in Palestine was the Old Testament, or what they think the Old Testament is. It's not. This ideology comes first.

When I get a chance, I'm going to look up that footnote. It sounds so much like Israel Shah Hoc, but I don't think it is. Or, I mean, that could be Finklstein. Here's a similar excerpt from you. I'm sorry, go ahead. Finkleseen was the first name that occurred to me when I saw that. Shah Hoc didn't. I kind of forgot for a second, but I think you're right.

It's someone like that. Here's a similar excerpt from yet another author. the cult of the catastrophe has filled a void in the souls of secular Jews. From being a reaction to an event of the past, the trauma of the catastrophe has evolved into a new national symbol, replacing all other symbols. And this mentality of the catastrophe is growing with each passing year. If we do not recover from the trauma of Auschwitz, we will never become a normal nation. You know, they won't because this is the focus of their identity.

Yeah, there's far more secular Jews and there are religious ones, and I think that division is over-exaggerated anyway. But this is almost a spirituality in itself. It justifies their very existence. The sheer amount of money that went from Germany to the Israeli state. the U.S., you know, Germany especially because they're paying reparations. And now when I was at the Barns Review, I came across the concept of the grandchildren of survivors as having, you know, I forget the exact term for it, but of feeling the same effects.

and they too deserve reparations. So this is never going to end. No, they're not going to become a normal nation. They can't. It's beyond them. And but that's a part of their identity anyway. Here is a similar excerpt from yet another author. The cult of the catastrophe.

Okay, I read that already. Sorry. Among the Jews, the sometimes painful work of reexamining the catastrophe never ceases. Here is the opinion of an Israeli historian, a former inmate of a Soviet camp. Quote, I do not belong to the Jews who are inclined to blame the evil goyam for our national misfortunes while casting ourselves as poor lambs or toys in the hands of others. Anyway, not in the 20th century. On the contrary, I fully agree with Hannah Arendt that the Jews of our century were equal participants of the historical games of the nations and the monstrous

catastrophe that befell them was a result of not only evil plots of the enemies of mankind, but also of the huge fatal miscalculations on the part of the Jewish people themselves, their leaders, their activists. Well, as far as that goes, you had massive Jewish banker support for the USSR, both before its founding and at this point too, and then later on. None of this would have happened, I think is kind of his point, without that support. I've read Hannah Arendt in great detail.

I don't know specifically what he's referring to. But they're not blaming themselves either, except in the sense that the Soviet Union was an ethnic concept, was financed by that specific ethnicity, and there would have been no... so-called fascism in Europe had the USSR not existed. Indeed, Hannah Arendt was searching for the causes of the catastrophe in jury itself. Her main argument is that modern anti-Semitism was one of the consequences of the particular attitudes of the Jews towards a state and society in Europe, end quote.

The Jews, quote, turned out to be unable to evaluate power shifts at a nation state and growing social contradictions. In the late 1970s, we read in Dan Levin's book, quote, on this issue, I agree with Professor Branova, who believes that the catastrophe was largely a punishment for our sins, including the sin of leading the communist movement. There is something in it. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Okay. All right. You do have a feeling. All right. That is sane. I can't believe it, but that is sane. I'm looking up the footnote on that is in Russian. I'm translating it right now.

Dan Levin, it's called On the Edge of Temptation. It's from an interview. If anybody wants to look that up, who's listening. Okay. Yet no noticeable movement can be observed among world jury. To a great many contemporary Jews, such conclusions appear insulting and blasphemous. To the contrary, quote, the very fact that the catastrophe served as a moral justification for Jewish chauvinism.

Lessons of the Second World War have been learned exactly contrary-wise. The ideology of Jewish nationalism has grown and strengthened on the soil. This is terribly sad. A feeling of guilt and compassion toward the nation victims has become an indulgence, absolving the sin unforgivable for all others. It is hence comes the moral permissibility of the public appeals, to mix one's own ancient blood with the alien blood. Yeah, we all see the pictures of the wall around the Israeli border, how humongous it is.

It's the most extreme version of nationalism for you, and the nationalism for us, but internationalism for you. And we all know where that comes from and why it exists. you know, when I was much younger, my worry, my concern was that they refer to it as the catastrophe, the capital, you know, the, that particular article, not a, you know, one among others, that this one has far more significance than anybody else. The mass, this is, you know, most of these combatants lost huge. numbers, especially of men, but in places like Japan and Germany, they lost a huge number of women and children, too, from allied bombing, which is not only considered acceptable,

considered heroic today. You can't talk about any Jewish involvement with Gulam, even though it obviously exists. There's only one. It's the. and that bothers me I think it bothers a lot of people and there's certain Jews clearly who it bothers too. A new year brings new challenges. Convert those challenges into sales

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Do you know what real power is? It's knowing you're on the same rate for energy all day, every day with a smart all day plan from Board Gash Energy. Save up to 880 euro on dual fuel, plus get a €235 welcome bonus. Switch today at BordGashenergy.I.E. Board Gash Energy know your power. Estimated annual bill of 2629 euro, new customers only, 30% discount off smart, all day electricity unit rates and 29% off gas unit rates see boroughgashenergy.a for full teas and seas well i looked up the footnote on that quote right there it's it's called to the resounding call of blood or with self-awareness as a weapon by d kermilnitsky in the late 18 in the late 1980s a jewish publicist from germany wrote quote today the moral capital of auschwitz is already spent

end quote. One year later, she stated, quote, solid moral capital gained by the Jews because of Auschwitz seems to be depleted. The Jews can no longer proceed along the old way by raising pretensions to the world. Today, the world already has the right to converse with the Jews as it does with all others. The struggle for the rights of Jews is no more progressive than a struggle for the rights of all other nations. It is high time to break the mirror and look around. We are not alone in this world? Every ethnic group has the right to self-determination. I have no problem with that.

I do have a problem with control over the foreign policy of powerful nations to keep yourself there, the total destruction of an ancient people to get yourself there and what they did, what the Zionists did to, you know, using poison gas and everything else they could to destroy the, break the Arab resistance. That's a different story. Of course, they have a right to self-determination like anyone else does. You know, we can't be like that. We can't make exceptions.

But the religion of Auschwitz, as he's trying to say, gives the impression that that's okay. We're allowed to be ethno-nationalists. You're not allowed to be. It would have been equally great for Russian minds to elevate themselves to similarly decent and benevolent self-criticism, especially in making judgments, about Russian history of the 20th century, the brutality of the revolutionary period, the cowed indifference of the Soviet times, and the abominable plundering of the post-Soviet age, and to do it despite the unbearable burden of realization that it was we Russians who ruined our history

through our useless rulers, but also through our own worthlessness, and despite the gnawing anxiety that this may be irredeemable, to perceive the Russian experience as possibly a punishment from the Supreme Power? He's being vague there. He's being vague there. He's being vague on purpose there. I'm not entirely sure what he means. I don't know what he means by we. The Soviet system was imposed on the USSR,

on the Russian nation. But there was the penetration of freemationary into the nobility. They struggle to control the court. I just did I just did a lecture for Radio Albian the entire church with one or two exceptions

Russian Orthodox Church either actively supported or was neutral concerning the February Revolution they even call it the God-protected provisional government the Senate said this openly

it took a while for me you know, a lot of nationalists, but Russian Orthodox, nationalists, whether converts or otherwise, have trouble. They, that makes them very uncomfortable. Many of them, of course,

like Anthony Kravivitsky, they, repented of that later on. And again, they couldn't have known what was going to happen, what they were setting up. But we Russians

had to ruin our history. Well, you know, the peasants the peasants are not responsible for any of this yes could the church have done more against the against even the provisional state yes but

how could they when there was this full support for they didn't say anything when their most traditional bishops were removed by Lavov who was the first revolutionary head of the synod yeah in the provisional government they wouldn't put up and swan and shot like they were under the Bolsheviks. So there was actually some discussion allowed.

But it wasn't, you know, the provisional government was never about freedom. They were socialist revolutionaries. And this is extremely important. It's a bit of a coincidence that we're talking about the exact same thing now. I just did this lengthy paper on the church's support of the war. actually I had to do it twice actually let me read you the the

the full let me find it here it was March 9th 1917 the full statement of the the Senate of the Russian Orthodox Church yeah had been purged but had been purged many times before

here's what it said the will of God has been accomplished. Russia has entered in the paths of new state life. May God bless our great homeland with happiness and glory on this new path. For the sake of the many sacrifices offered to win civil freedom, for the sake of the salvation of your own family, for the sake of the happiness of the homeland abandoned at this great historical moment all quarrels and disagreements. Unite and brotherly love for the good of Russia. Trust the provisional

government. Altogether, everyone individually. Apply all your efforts to descend by your labors, exploits and prayer, obedience, you may help it, and it's great work of introducing the new principles of state life. Yeah, you may have had quiet rejection of that. You may have had a lot of rejection of it, but it was quiet. Traditionalist bishops, like Kravivitsky himself, were, you know, they weren't quite sure what to do. There were a lot of problems with this. You know, You have the abdication. They had no idea that the abdication document was a fraud.

We know it now. We could do analysis of it now. But in that paper, you know, and I'm not excusing anybody. But, you know, the media in Russia, just prior to the revolution was absolutely yellow journalism at its worst. They used Rasputin to discredit the old state. They made up stories about them that even the provisional government, once it took power, realized we're not true. They thought this was a real abdication.

Remember, the abdication note said to support this new government, even though it was a Masonic state. How many people knew that the leadership was a member of the lodge? I don't know. It was supposed to be an elected assembly, electing a new monarch in the future. So they felt, okay, we can support this government. They're going to elect a new monarch. Many of them thought that this was only temporary. Many of them didn't really know that much about left-sidiology to begin with.

They thought that Rasputt really was a bad guy when he was not. They were getting conflicting information or none at all. The left as always were lying about their intentions. And keep in mind something else. I'm the only one who talks about this. 1917, the extreme PTSD of that population, millions had been killed at this point. Every family was suffering.

They're not going to be as rational as they would have in normal times. And that's extremely important to note. And then, of course, they worried about fear of retribution, which, as far as the provisional government was concerned, was not nearly as bad as the Bolsheviks. But there was a concern. There was, I think, only one bishop that was retired just for rejecting the provisional government. that was seraphim.

They negotiated with others. In fact, in my paper, which is 50, you know, I can send you, I will send you. And there's been a flurry of new information over the last five years, especially in Russian, recently. I go through many of the major bishops as to what their thought process was. they didn't have the information that we do now. And remember, this was brand new to them. Absolutely brand new to them. So they never lived under without a czar before.

And there was a whole view in the Russian diaspora that not only the murder of Nicholas and his family, but the rise of the Bolsheviks were at least in part because of stuff like this, that there was a decay in morals throughout Russian society. I have a paper that was put out, I think, by E. Michael Jones on the sexual revolution amongst nobility in Petersburg. Peter the Great, of course, with a total disaster, he started all of this. You know, almost, you know, Catherine II, almost sexualized nobility. I have a paper out on Peter the Great's old drunken, madcap Sobor, it, which was a demonic mockery of Christianity, which a lot of people don't know about.

This is one of the reasons the old believers thought that he really was either Antichrist or a very anti-Christ adjacent. But to say that we Russians ruined our history, well, there are specific people who are responsible here. It's not just we Russians. Sultan Easton was in an artillery division in this red army because, you know, he had to be. He didn't have much of a choice. He would have been killed otherwise.

You know, that was a case for most of the infantry. But the anti-royalist propaganda by 1917 had done its work. And because of the phony abdication letter, which gave support either to Mikhail, who refused, and then the provisional government. You know, Alonicus could say, okay, he commanded it, so it'll be fine. Maybe he'll come back or someone else will be there,

Nikolai Nikolaevich or someone like that. You know, and so they were able to rationalize it to themselves. But I also want to say that there was a massive resurgence of Russian Orthodox asceticism, or roughly around the turn of the, from like the American Civil War to the outbreak of the First World War, a huge one. But there's a reason that the old believers took over the peasantry. Old believers, I have a book out on the topic, of course, that I wrote many years ago, a lot of translations and stuff like that. I can't read all of the old orthography. That's really, the old Russian alphabet had, what, 131 letters? I don't understand any of that.

But, you know, there was a good reason for that. But at least in this case, as far as the earlier revolution, the first revolution was concerned. I mean, they should have learned their lesson from 1905. We talked about this already. We know what these people are. but people like what was Gianco Levov there was more than one by the way

Levovov had people everywhere that family you know they didn't have the power to enforce the really the ideology to start slaughtering people they couldn't so they negotiated instead

Lenin when they took over a few months later very different story there's no way they could have known that they were setting up for the Bolshevik coup later on and reduced the Russian Orthodox Church to almost nothing by the time Salaan took over. And I've said it a hundred times. There were constant uprisings,

not just the white forces, but even after their defeat, there were constant peasant uprisings, The Americans knew about them. They refused to support them. The first few years of Bolshevism could have easily been destroyed. Trotsky talks about it at great length. He knew that it wasn't going to happen.

In fact, it was a provisional government that made sure that Trotsky was released from a Canadian prison to come to Russia. So there's specific people we could talk about here. People like, you know, Schiff and all of that. So there's no way they could have known what would have come from this, the provisional government. They really believed, naively, that, okay, Nicholas II has resigned and said, look, look to, and refute was a bad guy, and look to, and look to, this. this new government for, support them. And then what they're going to do is called an assembly and will elect in all Russian government.

Well, that ridiculous assembly only permitted leftist parties to run for office. Turnout was like 27%. And it meant nothing. It was crushed anyway. The minute the Bolsheviks took over. It meant absolutely nothing. And we talked about the Duma and everything else. So it's not like, you know, we Russians have this, you know, Russian sins in the nobility in the urban areas.

You read Dostaski, you read even Gogo earlier. They talk about these sins constantly. They permitted a means for the revolutionaries to move in. Yeah, Alexander III, he had a full hold over his court, which is hard to do. Nicholas II struggled a little bit. Rasputin was a good man. He didn't want to be there. He was there to help the young boy.

I mean, that was the only reason he was there. He would rather go back to his village in Siberia. They kept calling him back. He did not have control over things. It's absolute nonsense. If he did, Russia would never have been a part of World War I. You had high-ranking people at the court of Nicholas II. wanted Russia to intervene in the Balkan wars, starting in 1912.

You know, this could have gotten much, much worse. But had they actually listened to him, there would have been no Russian intervention in World War I would not have existed. But Rasputin was the term, the term, Rasputinite was often used as a synonym for monarchists, roughly around this time. So, you know, what he means here is vague. He's deliberately being vague. I understand, I think, what he means by our own worthlessness. Well, he certainly wasn't worthless.

Everyone's imperfect. So, yes, but, you know, it certainly doesn't, I don't think it calls for the Gulag state. That's just the nature of modern ideology. and frankly, Jewish domination. It was a Jewish state starting in late 1917. And it was well known, even abroad. The Churchill talks about it. The British ambassador talks about it.

So it's not like this is something that only a handful of nuts spoke of. So, yes, there are Russian sins. that may have caused this. It's embarrassing that so many Russian hierarchs didn't do much about the provisionals. They had all kinds of, you know, the swirl of information was so chaotic. Plus, it was with war's been going on. But even though the economy was growing,

and when Nicholas took over, the army did much, much better. They did much worse when he left. So, you know, I think, yeah, yeah, The sins of the Russian nation as individuals did cause some of this, you know, but that is not the so-called, the soul called. And there's many schools of thought in the Russian diaspora about why this happened. But to a great extent, you really can't talk about it because talking about the Gullah camps and everything else without talking about the Jews and the Western support of, of Marxism is forbidden. You can't do that in academia.

You can't write a book about that in an academic publisher. You can't even really talk about the Icebreaker thesis too much, a little bit. I think it's growing in popularity, but for a while you couldn't. So I don't know who's worthless in his mind here. I mean you are a lot more Russian than Lenin ever was. London and Trotsky hated everything Russian. Stanley here is more Russian than they were. But definitely, I don't know, he didn't mention it explicitly.

But yes, it's just weird that I just finished this paper on the Senate's support for the provisional government, although a conditional support, just as we came across this, especially this last paragraph, he's looking for it. and where does this come about, such that then you would have this internationalist ideology that wants to spread throughout the world through violent revolution. And of course, in Stalin's time, invasion, and this is part of the reason why people like Hitler and Muslim came into power in the first place.

All right. We'll start the next chapter from the end of the war to the death of Stalin. Next episode, I encourage everyone to go. over to the show notes and the description in the videos and donate to Dr. Johnson's work. This, this especially, this last chapter has been very trying on him. So go ahead and go, go show your support. It's been trying on both of us. But that's right. Dr. Johnson, I'll see you in a couple days. Thank you very much. All right, my friend. See you then.