The Pete Quiñones Show - Reading Solzhenitsyn's '200 Years Together' w/ Dr Matthew Raphael Johnson - Part 98

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

57 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 2022-2025Dr 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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Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to our reading of 200 years together by Alexander Solzhenyson. This is episode 98. Dr. Johnson, how are you doing today? Physically, I'm getting better, slowly but surely. Nowhere near, you know, hospital level, but it's been a rough couple of months. But on the positive side,

my lighting has changed, as you may have noticed, although it is pretty much dark here in western Pennsylvania. and it is very cloudy, but for all the breed of cats, we own, my wife bought me a t-shirt with the breed on it. So this one's the orange cat, of course, in reference to Stanley, who is, as always, is next to me, well, sleeping. But I have a six-month-old, as you know, main coon that takes up two chairs now at the kitchen table no one's going to rob my house I can give away everything else I possess

no one's going to rob that house not with this monster her grandfather was a monster and I think she's going to be just like him and she has no clue she's only six months old and and and she is just enormous that's incredible Yeah, purebred Mancoons are just forces of nature, 100%. All right, we're going to start getting into some Stalin here.

During his political career, Stalin often allied with Jewish leaders of the Communist Party and relied on many Jewish backbenchers. By the mid-1930s, he saw in the example of Hitler all the disadvantages of being self-declared enemy of the Jews. Yet he likely harbored hostility toward them. His daughter's memoirs support this, though even his closest circle was probably unaware of it. However, struggling against the Trotskyites, he, of course, realized this aspect as well, his need to further get rid of the Jewish influence in the party. And sensing the war, he perhaps was also grasping that proletarian internationalism alone

would not be sufficient and that the notion of the homeland and even the capital h homeland would be much needed yeah this that first paragraph first of all now we're on to Stalin um and there's so much to unpack here i'm not going to be able to do it in a show like this by backbenchers they're referring to minor figures usually backbencher it meant fairly new members of parliament in the British parliament or even from minor constituencies here it's kind of just low levels of the bureaucracy

and the next sentence there's a lot of disadvantages of being a self-declared enemy of the Jews yeah he held he harbored hostility towards them everyone who isn't brainwashed which at the time was everybody

you don't like them no one really likes them you do business with them you know but at that point you know that's simply you know his hostility however was not a violent one his daughter of course was very Jewish herself in her main he married one and and if his closest circle was unaware of it it couldn't be that matter that that that might that intensive of a matter so but then it gets into the the biggest problem with the left the left's refusal utter refusal to talk about the ethnic facts the ethnic elements of life ethnic racial whatever what's gonna hold society together you have to have something you know the religious the religious

element is extremely important that's where a society comes from I see the culture comes from the cult, as Russell Kirk used to say. And you can't just say this is a worker's paradise, everyone who wasn't, and say that's sufficient to deal with the Germany that now has, that rose up from almost sure destruction, stressing the nature of German culture, including German religion, whether it be Catholic or Lutheran. And, of course, from the Orthodox point of view, the Russian Orthodox Church abroad had a huge presence there. They supported Hitler at this point.

I did a paper on that. After the war, they were a little worried. But Hitler rebuilt the cathedral in Berlin out of his own money, out of his own personal funds. He never disliked Russians or thought that Russians were inferior. Never thought that. That comes from nonsense like the table talks and all that. No, no. They were Europeans like anyone else, but he despised what was ruling them at the time.

Volitarian internationalism, by definition, can't motivate anybody. Homeland and capital H homeland, well, now that means we're talking about ethnicity. and I think maybe in the back of his mind, maybe. Sultanistan is also talking about the Jewish. Jews, of all people, know that this is true. That their ethnic culture is, that's what holds them together. They couldn't do anything. We talk about them all the time.

They couldn't do any of that without that ethnic culture at all. it's admirable as you know Sven longshanks always has said and it is um the capital h is a uh a heavier conception you know race religious whatever um and although it was very weak in Stalin's case we cannot exaggerate it um it was only you know in the war you know the Stalin was playing the Western powers very well. I don't want anyone to believe that, you know, Hitler was unprepared for any battle. I got in 1940, German bombers were bombing Berlin. He didn't have a heavy tank. He didn't have a long-range bomber. German bombers were bombing Berlin? That's what you said.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, British bombers after the Battle of Britain. I apologize for that. Yeah, correct me, please. British bombers were bombing Berlin in 1940. You know, the advance on Poland eventually stopped because they ran out of fuel. You know, this was the rebuilding of Germany was not based on the military element. And what was, was often done in the Soviet Union. Stalin loved the idea of the Western powers going to war. somehow using Germany in that mix, and then moving in and taking over the entire continent.

The icebreaker thesis, which is at this point, undoubtable. I don't know how anyone could argue against it anymore. But more importantly, in our case, totalitarian internationalism is not something. No one's going to die for that. No one's going to die for a trial by jury. No one's going to die for an abstraction like that. They need to die for family, hearths, and home, and that's only found in true nationalism. S. Schwartz lamented about anti-revolutionary transformation of the party as the unprecedented purge of the ruling party,

the virtual destruction of the old party, and the establishment of a new communist party under the same name in its place, new in social composition and ideology. From 1937, he also noted a gradual displacement of Jews from the positions of power in all spheres of public life. Among the old Bolsheviks who were involved in the activity before the party came to power, and especially among those with the pre-revolutionary involvement, the percentage of Jews was noticeably higher than in the party on average, in younger generations. The Jewish representation became even smaller. As a result of the purge, almost all important Jewish communists left the scene. Lazare Kaganovich was the exception. Still in 1939, after all the massacres, the faithful communist

Zemyalka was made the deputy head of Soviet of people's commissars, and S. Dridzovsky was assigned the position of deputy to the narcom of foreign affairs, and yet in the wider picture, Schwartz's observations are reasonable, as was demonstrated above. Well, I do challenge. I challenge Schwartz all the time, although, you know, he does have the advantage of actually being there. He was at the revolution, but he is an absolute fanatical Jewish nationalist and anything that suited Jewish interests he supported. But the ideology did not change. The only time ideology may have changed slightly is when, you know, in 1948, 44, where Stalin realized he needed to use some old Russian nationalism to motivate the population.

That does not make him a nationalist. He certainly was not. He turned on all of them the minute the war was over, creating his own church in 43, 44. That does not mean he was Orthodox. He turned on them the minute the war was over. And they were in a pathetic position. So it's reasonable to one extent. But Sultan Eaton also said that he relied on backbenchers.

In other words, people who were less well-known, Jews, who were less well-known in the far reaches of the now, you know, well-established apparatus, not just the party apparatus, but the state apparatus. S. Schwartz adds that in the second half of the 1930s, Jews were going. gradually barred from entering institutions of higher learning, which were preparing specialists for foreign relations and foreign trade, and were banned from military educational institutions. The famous defector from the USSR, I.S. Guzenko shared rumors about a secret percentage quota on Jewish admissions to the institutions of higher learning, which was enforced from 1939. In the 1990s, they even wrote that Molotov, taking over the people's commissariat of foreign affairs in the spring of 1939, publicly announced during the meeting with the personnel that he will deal with the synagogue here

and that he began firing Jews on the very same day. Still, Litvinov was quite useful during the war in his role as Soviet ambassador to the U.S. They say that upon his departure from the U.S. in 1943, he even dared to pass a personal letter to Roosevelt, suggesting that Stalin had unleashed an anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR. Yeah, there's quite a bit of secret quotas. Well, no, if he was the way that Solomon Schwartz says he is, it wouldn't be secret. Stalin's rule was in no danger at the time, especially since he was building up a military, which I think at this point, where are we, 36, I guess, 37.

had reached well over four million. There were no formal restrictions here. Solomon Swartz was what S. Swartz. We've dealt with him before. Solomon Swartz, of course, is known for exaggeration even more than normal for his people. And yes, there were plenty of Jews in the military educational institutions, but it was not their big thing.

why would there be a quota in higher education we know why there was in the czarist era but why would that matter unless and you know that wouldn't make any difference to Stalin so and in fact it was secret and it was only a rumor okay well if that's as good as you can do then then this is just a matter of speculation by the mid 1930s the sympathy of European Jewry toward the USSR had further increased trotsky explained what but he's what he knows what he knows what he's doing when he's writing these words you know he does he knows okay go ahead trotsky explained it in 1937 on his way to Mexico the Jewish intelligentsia turns to the comment

turn, not because they are interested in Marxism or communism, but in search of support against aggressive German anti-Semitism. It was this same common turn that approved the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the pact that dealt a mortal blow to East European Jewry. Yeah. Again, Jews are known for their penchant for exaggeration. you got to remember and what Trotsky is getting at is partially true is that given the rise of Adolf Hitler, Stalin didn't have to do could be, he didn't have to do much

to be the favorite of Jews throughout the world. And of course he was, not the U.S. it was the USSR Jewish parties in Europe did not see Stalin as anti as anti-Judeic

or purging Jews as a race as a specific group of people but and Trotsky will then bring up the issue now for the rest of his life which he, you know, he wouldn't have, if he, you know, if he didn't, if he didn't get expelled.

So, Jewish intelligentsia, yeah, well, you know, some of them are. I mean, many of them are interested in Marxism or communism. I don't think, I don't think Trotsky was interested in Marxism or communism. I have a lot of proof of that. But it served Jewish interests, especially in this period of time, where Hitler was not just rising, but he was being elected. He was making all other parties irrelevant. He was the only one that was going to, that was spitting at the Treaty of Versailles.

You know, he was the only one who was saying what was happening. And the Western world, of course, was extremely angry at him. He was not financed by Western corporations as a myth. they were the ones at this point screaming for war against them um so um and it was it was difficult though for for jews and other and throughout europe and you know north america to to go along with with Stalin on certain things um well we'll get to that in a little bit But he did anything but unleashed an anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR. I'm getting ahead of myself here.

In September 1939, hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews fled from the advancing German armies, fleeing further and further east and trying to head for the territory occupied by the Red Army. For the first two months, they succeeded because of the favorable attitude of Soviet authorities. The Germans quite often encouraged this flight, but at the end of, of November, the Soviet government closed the border. The Red Army. You know how long it takes for even a history grad student, a professor to realize that Red Army is even involved in this period of time?

You know, the Red Army invaded Poland just a week, I think, maybe 10 days after the Germans, never gets mentioned, never gets talked about. Stalin invaded, neutral countries like the Baltics, doesn't get mentioned. and, you know, and this is, I think, Jewish power has a lot to do with this. What he means by close the border, I'm not sure, but it was certainly in his interest to have plenty of anti-German Jews on his side, and he did.

And as Hitler rose into power, his enemies, again, they didn't run to the U.S. where there was a substantial community there, they ran to the USSR, as if to prove Hitler right. In different areas of the front, things took shape differently. In some areas, the Soviets would not admit Jewish refugees at all.

In other places, they were welcome, but later sometimes sent back to the Germans. Overall, it is believed that around 300,000 Jews managed to migrate from the Western to the Eastern Poland in the first months of the war. and later the Soviets evacuated them deeper into the USSR. They demanded that Polish Jews register as Soviet citizens, but many of them did not rush to accept Soviet citizenship.

After all, they thought the war would soon be over, and they would return home or go to America or to Palestine. Yet in the eyes of the Soviet regime, they thereby immediately fell into the category of suspected of espionage, especially if they tried to correspond with relatives in Poland. Still, we read in the Chicago Sentinel that the Soviet Union gave refuge to 90% of all European Jewish refugees fleeing from Hitler. So Trotsky, again, was full of it. They didn't close the border. And that's what I was going to get to when I stopped myself. I was getting ahead of myself.

It just, he didn't close the border. It wasn't his interest to allow these people in in large numbers. Now, suspected of espionage. Now, this is something. something of personal interest or Sultan Eaton, because anyone who was captured and spent any time in a POW camp was by definition suspected of espionage when they came back. They weren't subject to their brainwashing consistently. Therefore, they were a threat. Even though these were these people were completely innocent, even military men. He was an art officer brought under a sent to the Gulag because he had been a B-O-W. The Germans captured, what, three and a half million Soviet soldiers in a couple of months

in Operation Barbarossa, which, of course, wouldn't make any sense unless they, you know, this was the invasion force. so but now i don't know the chicago sentinel may not be the best authority but yeah it would make sense for anyone running the ussr at the time to give reshutes to uh european jews because they were you know they hated hitler and they could be used against them for that reason according to the january 1939 census three million 20 000 jews lived in the ussr Now, after occupation of the Baltics, annexation of a part of Poland and taking in Jewish refugees, approximately 2 million more Jews were added, giving a total of around 5 million.

Before 1939, the Jews were the 7th largest people in the USSR number-wise. Now, after annexation of all Western areas, they became the fourth largest people of the USSR, after the three Slavic peoples, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. the mutual non-aggression pact of August 23rd, 1939, between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union evoked serious fear about the future of Soviet Jewry, though the policy of the Soviet Union toward its Jewish citizens was not changed. And although there were some reverse deportations, overall, the legal status of Jewish population remained unchanged during the 20 months of the Soviet-German collaboration. And there was a big split in the left, the Communist Party between those following Moscow and those following Trotsky, and this was a big issue.

You know, you're a Jewish member of the party. Saldon has a non-aggression pact with Hitler. You have to go along with it? You know, it's a problem. And so, and then, of course, they would go to the Trotskyites instead. And then over a long period of time, they're in. intellectual leaders became what we call the neocons today. But no one had any idea.

They knew the war was coming. Stalin absolutely knew the war was coming. The only entity that was ready for was the Soviet Union. Germany was not, contrary to all the mythology. And that was quite by design. you know, the splitting of Poland, but it was only Poland that caused the Western allies to declare war on Germany, despite the fact that Stalin also invaded a third of the country. And then, at the end of the war, had no problem giving it to Stalin anyway.

you know it's just um and and you know jews made out either way um and the non-aggression pact didn't last long but germany took advantage of it that's where a lot of their newer tanks were were tested out um but by now versailles was a dead letter hitler had it was clear it was a dead letter now Germany was no way ready for a war. There's only a couple lines left in this chapter, but the next chapter is only eight pages long. I think we should start the next chapter. How does that sound?

Oh, oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. Going through their footnotes. Okay. I've read a lot of this stuff. Oh, Solomon Swartz. Yeah, we should, we should talk about him. he was a piece of work here we go oh boy

I forgot are you seeing the title you see in the title yeah I'm seeing the title yeah yeah okay all right let's finish this chapter up here well I thought you wanted just to go to the chapter 20 oh well we have we have a couple lines left and this

this next paragraph is a really good is a really good one Okay. With the start of war in Poland, Jewish sympathies finally crystallized in Polish Jews and the Jewish youth in particular, met the advancing Red Army with exulting enthusiasm. Thus, according to many testimonies, including Emigerski's one, Polish Jews, like their co-ethnics in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Lithuania, became the main pillar of the Soviet regime, supporting it tooth and nail. yet how much did these East European Jews know about what was going on in the USSR? They unerringly sensed that a catastrophe was rolling at them from Germany, though still not fully or clearly recognized, but undoubtedly a catastrophe. And so the Soviet welcome appeared to them to embody certain salvation.

You know, and when Orthodox peasants welcomed the German army, with all their horses and everything else they had they're condemned but we see the exact same thing happening with young Jews but I do love the line all the disadvantages about being a public enemy

or a self-declared enemy of the Jews I remember William Pierce not that I'm big you know I like them not a big fan of a lot of things but but you know he just says you know people will do business with them we have people don't really like them though you know um of course that was many years ago you know i've had i've had jewish friends who have no idea uh what what i do in the dark um but um they're they're generally unlikable uh unless they're totally a similar So, you know, in which case, their Jewish nature, well, they could always plug into their system at any time.

They just don't need it right now. And I do think they knew what was going on in the USSR. The Jews did an excellent job of communicating back in before. And, you know, it was Marxism. It was Stalinism. It was Leninism. That was the target of Adolf Hitler, not Judaism. isn't as such.

All right. Chapter 20 in the camps of the gul of the gulag. If I haven't been there, it wouldn't be possible for me to compose this chapter. Before the camps, I thought that no one should notice nationalities, that there are no nationalities. There is only one humankind. But when you are sent into the camp, you find it out. If you are a lucky nationality, then you are a fortunate man.

You are provided for. You have survived. But if you are a common nationality, well, then, no offense. Because nationality is perhaps the most important trait that gives a prisoner a chance to be picked into the life-saving core of idiots. You want me to read the translator's note here? Yes, please. Yeah.

Translators note. This is from the Russian word translated to idiots, fool or idiot. This is an inmate slang term to denote other inmates who didn't do common labor but managed to obtain positions with easy duties, usually pretending to be incapable of doing hard work because of poor health. Yeah, we know where this is going. Oh, I know exactly where this is going. I remember the beginning of this book. Every experienced camp inmate can confirm that ethnic proportions among idiots were very. very different from those in the general camp population. Indeed, there were virtually no

pribalts among idiots, regardless of their actual number in the camp, and there were many of them. There were also Russians, of course, but in incomparably smaller proportion than in the camp on average, and those were often selected from Orthodox members of the party. On the other hand, some others were noticeably concentrated. Jews, Georgians, Armenians, and Azeris, also ended there in higher proportions, and to some extent, Caucasian mountaineers also. Certainly none of them can be blamed for that. Every nation in the Gulag did its best crawling to survival, and the smaller and nimbler it was, the easier it was to accomplish. And again, Georgians were the very last nation in their own Russian camps, like they were in German, I can't pronounce that.

Yeah, I know. You know, the concept of an idiot in the way that Aristotle defined it was somebody who didn't need the rest of society, like Bigfoot, something like that, something that could survive without everybody else, didn't necessarily mean that they were a moron. Maybe on the contrary. But here, you know, you clearly had privileges. It's like, you know, in the German camps, Jews were normally the, those who, you know, guarded the inmates. We get to that some other time, and inmates have said this themselves. But, and so in American prisons, their race comes out. you know a white Hispanic and black and if you have a long prison stretch you know you go to you

don't separate from your race it's this one place for whatever for whatever reason the intense stress brings out the most fundamental element which seems to be racial and that's how they survive people condemn members of the Aryan brotherhood I said well what What do you expect them to do? Just be raped by everyone else? They have to form their own groups. This kind of organization based on language and appearance, right? This is how they function and survived.

Hence, it is a normal and natural way to function. That German word, Kriegs-Kefan-Loggers, means a prisoner of war. Prisoner of war camp. All right. Yet it is not us who have blamed them, but it is they, Armenians, Georgians, highlanders, who would have been in their right to ask us, why did you establish these camps? Why do you force us to live in your state? Do not hold us, and we will not land here and occupy these such attractive, idiotic positions. But while we are your prisoners, Al-A-Ger-combe de Al-A-Ger. he is referring to the gulag here

not gulags and POWs are two different two different things you know Armenians and Georgians always you know there were two ethnicities in the Russian in the Soviet Empire that

that I mean relatively speaking did fairly well I mean they always met their quota sometimes exceeded it there are very few Georgians outside of Georgia This is probably the first time, you know, the draft brought them outside of their own borders. And, you know, you don't see a lot of Georgian Orthodox churches out there because they don't have much of a diaspora.

So, I don't know, you know, certainly, Solzhenitsyn, it speaks from personal experience here. and not just personal experience, but emotional experience. That French term means, in war, anything goes. Yeah. But what about Jews? For fate interwove Russian and Jews, perhaps forever, which is why this book is being written. Before that, before this very line, there will be readers who have been in the camps and who haven't been, who will be quick to contest the truth in what I say here. They will claim that many Jews were forced to take.

part in common labor activities. They will deny that there were camps where Jews were the majority among idiots. They will indignantly reject that nations in the camps were helping each other selectively and, therefore, at the expense of others. Some others will not consider themselves as distinct Jews at all, perceiving themselves as Russians and everything. Besides, even if there was overrepresentation of Jews on key camp positions, it was absolutely unpremeditated, wasn't it? The selection was exclusively based on merit and personal talents and abilities to do business.

Well, who is to blame if Russians lack business talents? Yeah, and that's been, that's come up many times in this book. Well, who's to blame? And so that means that Russians did all the work. Russians were just the one, they were the one ethnic group that really wasn't allowed to organize in the Soviet Union. Everyone else had their own media and everything else, not Russia. And Russia was the threat, Russian nationalism was the threat to the Soviet leadership. I know I've mentioned that many times, but it is a key factor of understanding all of it.

of it. There will also be those who will passionately assert directly opposite, that it was Jews who suffered worse than the camps. This is exactly how it is understood in the West. In Soviet camps, nobody suffered as badly as Jews. Among the letters from readers of Yvonne Denisovich, there was one from an anonymous Jew, quote, you have met innocent Jews who languished in camps with you, and you obviously not at once witnessed their suffering and persecution. They endured double oppression, imprisonment and enmity from the rest of inmates. Tell us about these people. You know, I mean, I have a book out on the Orthodox tradition in Russian literature.

And this short novel, Ivan de Nizovic, I think it may be the first chapter. I was so long ago. And if I were to, for our listeners, to start with Solzhenitsyni, and as a literary figure, that would be the first book, that in the House of the Dead. Maybe the House of the Dead first, and then Ivan Deneasovic. But as far as the Kamstra concerned, that was his first offering in this regard. But Jews, you know, wherever they went, even if it was a small number, immediately organized and immediately took advantage of it.

This is why ethnic organized, you know, this is how human beings function. You know, we're not turtles. You know, we don't, you know, lay eggs and leave and all the babies just run to the sea. No, we've formed communities. And these communities have to be based on something. And it's language, religion, and ethnicity, all mushing together to create the ethnos. Jews know that better than anyone in the world. The problem they have is that when other people start noticing that,

And if I wish to generalize and state that the life of Jews in camps was especially difficult, then I would be allowed to do so and wouldn't be peppered with admonitions for unjust ethnic generalizations. But in the camps where I was imprisoned, it was the other way around. The life of Jews, to the extent of possible generalization, was easier. Semin Badash, my campmate from Ekabasus, recounts in his memoirs how he had managed to settle later in a camp at Norilsk in the medical unit. Max Minz asked the radiologist Lazlo Newsbaum to solicit for Badash before a free head of the unit. He was accepted, but Badash at least finished three years of medical school before imprisonment. compare that with other nurses, Gankin, Goralik, Gurevich, like one of my pals, El Kopolev, from Unslag,

who never before in their lives had anything to do with medicine. Keep in mind that the camps weren't just, there was a strong element where it was just forced labor in the snow. Yeah, that's true. But other camps in Solton Easton's own writing, and in truth, other camps were scientific institutes right actually within the gulag and this is where you know jews can be sent if they had the requisite skills to do you know to produce things it's shocking people don't realize that you they have these these institutes and research institutes right within the gulag system yeah it's true it's also ancient writes about it at a great length

But maybe even if they didn't have that ability, they still could be brought there because they're a Jew. Some people absolutely seriously write like this. A. Belenkov was thrown into the most despicable category of idiots, and I am tempted to inappropriately add and languishers here, though the languishers were the social antipods of idiots, and Belenkov never was among the language. To be thrown into the group of idiots. What an expression. To be diminished by being accepted into the ranks of gentlemen. And here goes to justification. To dig soil. But at the age of 23, he not only never did it, he never saw a shovel in his life. While then he had no other choice but to become an idiot. That paragraph could summarize what we've done in this book so far.

In a certain way, people would misunderstand the word, the Greek idiotis, you know, someone's separate. But, you know, I've mentioned before, Jews always functioned as a mafia organization, even in the USSR. And I think what he's getting at here is something along the lines of a no work job. but the mafia, at least on the East Coast, specialized in. Any project that they had their hands in, they could give their friends a job with health insurance and everything else, and they didn't either have to show, or if they did show, they didn't have to work. And I think that's what languishers mean here. Or read what Levinson and Krasnoff wrote about one Pinsky, a literature expert, that he was a nurse in the camp,

which means that he, on the camp's scale, has adhered well. However, Levitton presents us as an example of the greatest humiliation possible for a professor of the humanities. Or take prisoner who survived Lev Roskin, a journalist and not a medic at all, who was heavily published afterwards. But from his story in Agonik, 1988, we find that he used to be a medic in the camp's medical unit, and moreover, an unescorted medic from other his stories we can from other of his stories we can figure out that he also worked as a senior controller at a horrible timber logging station but there is not a single story from which we can conclude that he ever participated in common labor yeah this is a little bit like stolen valor here uh where these guys um once the you know and once 1990 came 91

to um they um they made claims of of of of camp suffering that of course they never they never had anything to do with um despite the fact that even while reading it um i i i don't think i've read raskan myself although i i i um unescorted medic meaning that he is so he's trusted by the authorities. What the hell's he doing in the gulag then? I think he'd pretty much do as he pleases. But later on, they'll write these stories of their own suffering and pain. And that's why, you know, Sultanese was so important and why you had the Jewish avalanche against him starting in the 1980s. Or a story of Frank Decler, a Jew from far away Brazil. He was imprisoned and couldn't speak Russian, course, and guess what? He had pull in the camp, and he had become a chief of the medical

unit's kitchen, a truly magnificent treasure. Or Alexander Voranel, who was a political youngster when he landed in the camps, says that immediately after getting in the camp, he was readily assisted by other Jewish inmates who had not a slightest idea about my political views. A Jewish inmate responsible for running the bathhouse, a very important idiot as well, has spotted him instantly and ordered him to come if he needs any help. A Jew from prisoner of security, also an idiot, told another Jew, a brigadier, there are two Jewish guys, Hakim, don't allow them to get in trouble. And the brigadier gave them strong protection.

Other thieves, especially elders, approved him. You are so right, Hakim, you support your own kin. Yet we Russians are like wolves to each other. oh yeah that that if that doesn't resonate with our listeners um you know uh the the jewish ability to organize and assist one another despite i know they they could be very fractures and all that um but under these conditions yet the russians still there was no conception of that and this is the reason why they did all the work this is why salton he said even after he got cancer Can you imagine being in the gulag and having cancer?

You know, he moved to Kazakhstan when that was discovered, but, you know, talk about suffering here. But you notice, you know, guards, actual infantrymen or policemen, we would call CEOs, they didn't really exist unless there was a big problem, unless it was a riot or something like that. Now, this was all organized at the camp level. And so that means that the most, the best organized group, whoever that might be, is going to be the best off. Well, we all know who that is. But it's not just Jews. It is also Armenians and Georgians. Again, fairly small, although elite, in my opinion, ethnic groups.

and I like the Brazilian one is funny because he didn't speak the language but he's still well he's one of us so he he's brought in and is and it doesn't have to do the work or he could just cook or something like that but but it's clear that this is the one place where Jewish organization and ethnic fanaticism saved them yeah there were plenty of Jews in in the camps for a whole bunch of different reasons zionists especially um but um and it was still being in a gulag wherever you were was you know their gulags were all over the empire they all had different purposes i think by by let's say the by solomon's death in 1953 they comprised maybe 10 or 12% of the Soviet economy.

Because you did have, as I mentioned, you did have fairly sophisticated production in certain places. It wasn't just banging rocks with a pick. But to the extent that there was this banging rocks with a pick, we know who's going to be doing it. It's going to be Russians doing it, with a Jew sitting there and not having to worry about it. And let's not forget that even

during camp imprisonment, by virtue of a common stereotype regarding all Jews as businessmen. Many of them were getting commercial offers, sometimes even when they didn't actively look for such enterprises. Take for instance, M. Hafez. He emphatically notes, quote, what a pity that I can't describe to you those camp situations. There are so many rich, beautiful stories. However, the ethical code of the reliable Jews seals my mouth. You know, even the smallest commercial secrets should be kept forever. That's the law of the tribe, end quote. I love when they do that. I love when they say that stuff out loud. You know, yeah, honesty. A. Let Ann Bernstein, one of my witnesses from archipelago, thinks that he managed to

survive in the camps only because in times of hardship, he asked the Jews for help and that the Jews, judging by his last name and nimble manners mistook him for their tribesmen and always provided assistance. He says that in all his camps, Jews always constituted the upper crust and that the most important free employees were also Jews. Shulman, head of special department, Greenberg, head of camp station, Kegels, the chief mechanic of the factory, and according to his recollections, they also preferred to select Jewish inmates to staff their units. Oh, I've been mistaken. I mean, many years ago, not anymore, when my New Jersey accent was much heavier.

I was mistaken for a Jew many times. And because I know enough of the lingo to get by. And it's been, yeah, I mean, I grew up in an Italian Jewish area. And it's, I know exactly what's, what he's talking about here. So even in the gulag system, the Jewish organization is what saves. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, you know, I'm the story so far here. The only thing that could ever bring about justice or, or peace is ethnic organization. When I say ethnic, I'm also referring to language and religion. It's really

tough to not have the religion as a central element. And that creates culture. And that's the key. That's the only way. That's how human beings are designed. And if it takes this extreme experience to bring that out, or what they do in American prisons, where everything is based racially, at least in state prisons, in federal prisons. And sometimes, you don't even really have to be Jewish. If you're perceived as such, you could still get the benefits. I couldn't keep it up. I couldn't keep doing that for long.

I'd always mess up somehow. now. But if my accent was heavier like my late sister's was, I'd be able to do it all the time. I think that's a stopping point. We can pick up from there and finish that chapter on the next go-round. Yeah, you notice that there's a huge change in language and how he's talking about. But all of a sudden, this isn't nearly, this is less academic and more. personal more personal it is more emotional he's still going to get in trouble for it you got to remember when this came out and this electrified Russia and this came out around the time Putin started you know throwing the Jewish oligarchs in prison that's when

the letter of the 3,000 came on all that stuff and you know Jews are at point 6% of the Jews right now in the Russian Federation. But this is, this shook Russia. This brought out, you know, when Putin came out and said, yeah, the Bolshek revolution was Jewish. He said that many times. You know, it was, you know, either coming from from this or from something like this. it's um it's um so by 2002 three four uh putin's policy started and of course you know putin became immensely popular you know by being by by throwing these people in in in prison that

they should they should be in prison made them in exile instead his popularity has never gone down since then uh for that very reason and then the economy was able to able to take off as a result now of course I know this is a totally different story but but this this book this but what it did to Russia and how long did it takes to show up in English I remember talking about it years for even a couple of sentences to show up I was the only one I had a couple of my papers I had three or four like paragraphs that I had translated myself. But in terms of the entire book, it took a very long time. And we all know the reason for it. And I, you know what, to be honest with you? Maybe I have to, because of what I

do full time, I'm going to have to see what the official translation is going to be. But there's no getting out of this. There's no, unless they just completely mutilate the language, you know, the moral of the story is ethnic organization, there's no concept of supremacy necessarily, bringing out the best traits of whatever group you're in, every ethnic group has different traits. And protecting that culture, that's the nature of justice. you know, in a very broad sense, you know, and that's the, that's the moral of the story so far. That's, that's why, you know, yeah, they had to do time, but their time wasn't nearly as awful as it would have been otherwise. And the Russians, because they were fighting each other all

the time, they're the ones who did all the hard work and they suffered by far more than anybody else all right we'll pick it up and finish this chapter on the next go round i encourage everyone to go to the show notes and go to the descriptions in the videos there i have linked the articles and i also have linked how you can support dr johnson's work um go ahead and do that and also i have a link to his new books to go by that that's another way of supporting him so um yeah that's it dr johnson glad you're feeling better and um you know rest up and see on the next go wrong. Yes, my friend. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.